Freud's work is important because of several related factors, but perhaps the fundamental importance of Freud is that it brings together two incompatible or perhaps antagonistic trains of German late 19th century early 20th century thought, and the two strains that it brings together are positivism, the kind of rigid scientific materialism characteristic of late 19th century German science, which was championed by people like Mach and Avenarius, and also the other theme or trend which...

Freud changes the problem by saying the problem isn't to know other minds, the problem is to know your own, but if you were to crack that code and find out how to know your own mind, that would also be the skeleton key to knowing other minds, so although he makes the Cartesian problem harder, if it is soluble for the self it is soluble for all people...

The answer derived from Brentano is that perhaps it's some sort of disease of the mind further evidence suggested that talking to these people was a very important thing, when you put these women under hypnosis, they would lose their psychosomatic paralysis, and all their symptoms would disappear...

He studied publishes that with Breuer and then the same year a little bit thereafter he works at his seduction theory of hysteria, right the idea is that these hysterical women are hysterical because earlier in their life, they had been somehow sexually traumatized by some figure in their family...

Freud makes use of many hydraulic metaphors in his work on energy. These metaphors are metaphors in other words, psychic energy right is not energy in the sense that light is energy or electricity is energy, right, it's a metaphorical sort of an energy.

The key thing about the unconscious is not that Freud offers us that idea, actually that's an old idea it's a borrowing, it's at least as old as Schopenhauer the idea that human beings have an unconscious the Freud didn't develop that, what's revolutionary and interesting about Freud is the fact that he offers us not just the unconscious but he says that there are law-like behavior of the unconscious which I can explain to you.

When the ego confronts the world, it wants to operate on the pleasure principle it wants to gratify its intrinsic natural desires, but it keeps on running up into barriers and impediments to that, you cannot have sex with everybody you want, I mean just do the math, it's just not going to work you can't have all the food in the world you cannot have all the drink in the world, even though you might want an infinite amount of pleasure it's not possible.

Freud argues that the monotheism of Judaism and Christianity is, in fact, a really an infantile neurosis it's an inflated desire for a permanent universal daddy god is the big sky daddy that supervises everything and runs everything he's omnipotent and omniscient, he's just a wonderful guy just the way you thought your daddy was when you were one.

The attempt to read Freudian psychoanalysis as a scientific activity is wrong. It's a metaphorical analysis, not a literal one.

Psychoanalysis is not a science that objectively describes the world. It's a subjective analysis of human consciousness.

Psychoanalysis is caught between the poles of subjective experience and objective science.

Freud tries to account for the creation of incest taboos in humans. He suggests that humans, among animals, create such taboos due to primal guilt after the primordial father was killed and the primordial mother was gang-raped. This theory, however, lacks empirical evidence and is considered implausible.

Freud's interpretation of human behavior lacks scientific rigor and is based on intuition. His theories cannot be verified or disproven, and are therefore not a scientific activity.

Freud's work represents a fusion of psychology and poetry, showcasing his poetic talent and ability to grasp human emotions. His work is a masterful literary achievement, offering insights into human nature.