And it is only after seeing man as his unconscious, revealed by his dreams, presents him to us that we shall understand him fully. For as Freud said to Putnam: “We are what we are because we have been what we have been.
freudquotes
As a scientific rationalist, Freud distrusts the manifest content of dreams.
distrusts / dreams / freud / rationalist
Freud said to Putnam: “We are what we are because we have been what we have been.”
As these examples show, Freud’s theory is resourceful, perhaps dangerously so, in incorporating apparently recalcitrant counterexamples.
Freud gave these conceptions spatial form because he still thought, as in his “Project”, that it would eventually be possible to locate them within the brain as described by neurology.
brain / conceptions / freud / neurology / Project
This reliance on puns gives Freud an interpretative freedom which might often be considered licence.
But since Freud still conceives the mind as a closed system, desires are not expelled but only hidden away.