Recapitulation, Heredity, and Freud's View of Human Nature.

IF 0.7 1区 哲学 Q4 BIOLOGY
Journal of the History of Biology Pub Date : 2024-09-01 Epub Date: 2024-08-30 DOI:10.1007/s10739-024-09784-6
Jonah Branding
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Abstract

There's something strange about Freud's Civilization and its Discontents (1930). Biologically, Freud was a Neo-Lamarckian, who believed in both the modification of organisms through need and the inheritance of acquired characteristics. However, in Civilization, Freud argued that because human nature is immutable, society has dim odds of improving substantially. Lamarckians, of course, rejected that any species-nature is immutable, as species can always be transformed via the inheritance of acquired characteristics. In fact, many of Freud's Viennese contemporaries-such as Wilhelm Reich, Julius Tandler, and Paul Kammerer-took their Lamarckism to license precisely the sorts of radical social projects Freud deemed impossible. Thus the Freud of Civilization helped himself to a rigid view of human nature which, given his associated biological views, he seemingly ought to have rejected. In this paper, I explain this apparent inconsistency, and suggest Freud resolved it in the following way: Freud was not merely a Lamarckian, but also a strong and peculiar kind of recapitulationist, who believed stages of psychological development both recapitulate phylogeny, and "remain with us" throughout both individual lives and future species-history. I suggest Freud's recapitulationism supposed a certain inertia: what occurred in phylogenetic history cannot un-occur, and therefore there are aspects of our nature which we cannot un-acquire. In this way, Freud reached a rigid conception of human nature despite his Lamarckism.

Abstract Image

复述、遗传和弗洛伊德的人性观。
弗洛伊德的《文明及其不满》(1930 年)有些奇怪。从生物学角度看,弗洛伊德是新拉马克主义者,他既相信生物会因需要而改变,也相信后天特征的遗传。然而,在《文明》一书中,弗洛伊德认为,由于人性是不可改变的,因此社会大幅改善的可能性微乎其微。当然,拉马克主义者否认任何物种的本性是一成不变的,因为物种总是可以通过后天特征的遗传而改变。事实上,许多与弗洛伊德同时代的维也纳人,如威廉-赖希(Wilhelm Reich)、朱利叶斯-坦德勒(Julius Tandler)和保罗-卡默勒(Paul Kammerer),正是利用他们的拉马克主义来支持弗洛伊德认为不可能实现的激进社会项目。因此,"文明的弗洛伊德 "帮助自己形成了一种僵化的人性观,而根据他的相关生物学观点,他似乎本应摒弃这种人性观。在本文中,我将解释这种明显的不一致,并建议弗洛伊德通过以下方式解决这一问题:弗洛伊德不仅是拉马克主义者,还是一个强烈而独特的重现论者,他认为心理发展的各个阶段都重现了系统发育,并在个体生命和未来的物种历史中 "与我们同在"。我认为弗洛伊德的再现论假定了某种惯性:在系统发育历史中发生的事情不可能不发生,因此我们的本性中也有我们无法不获得的方面。这样,尽管弗洛伊德奉行拉马克主义,但他对人类本性的认识是僵化的。
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来源期刊
Journal of the History of Biology
Journal of the History of Biology 生物-科学史与科学哲学
CiteScore
1.40
自引率
12.50%
发文量
29
审稿时长
>12 weeks
期刊介绍: The Journal of the History of Biology is devoted to the history of the life sciences, with additional interest and concern in philosophical and social issues confronting biology in its varying historical contexts. While all historical epochs are welcome, particular attention has been paid in recent years to developments during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. JHB is a recognized forum for scholarship on Darwin, but pieces that connect Darwinism with broader social and intellectual issues in the life sciences are especially encouraged. The journal serves both the working biologist who needs a full understanding of the historical and philosophical bases of the field and the historian of biology interested in following developments and making historiographical connections with the history of science.
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