The psychic and the vital: psychology and metaphysics in Bergson and Freud

Abstract

The goal of this research is not exactly to examine the shared issues addressed almost simultaneously by Bergson and Freud (aphasia, the comic, dreams etc.), an approach often found in works on the relationship between the two authors. The purpose here is to explore the relationship between psychology and metaphysics based on the metaphysics of virtuality, proposed by Bergson, and the psychology of the depths, enabled by psychoanalysis. Therefore, the overall goal of this investigation is to determine to what extent Bergsonism can philosophically ground a psychology such as Freudian psychology. From this starting question, two lines of development unfold: a philosophical theory of the psychism, present in Bergson's work, which could be aligned with the Freudian understanding of the psychic apparatus, and a philosophical theory of life, also developed by the French thinker, which could be the foundation of the psychoanalytic theory. However, this research focuses only on the methodological or gnosiological aspects of how Bergson and Freud intersect. Thus, the aim is to apply the Bergsonian critique of the tacit metaphysics of empirical psychology to psychoanalysis as well, and propose its philosophical elaborations as the "precise" metaphysics of Freudism, despite several points of divergence. Incidentally, the two aforementioned lines of development will be the subject of further investigations. (AU)