Blumenberg and Psychoanalysis (Freud, Ferenczi, Klein)

The dissertation project examines the relationship between the philosophy of Hans Blumenberg and the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud, Sándor Ferenczi, and Melanie Klein. Aimed at providing a comprehensive and systematic account of this relationship, it examines the reception of psychoanalysis in both Blumenberg’s published work and his numerous, largely unpublished posthumous writings on psychoanalytic theory. The project then identifies the concepts of his thinking that require reinterpretation in light of this account. It accords particular attention to the significance of Freud for Blumenberg’s metatheoretical considerations as well as the relationship between his theory of concepts of reality and psychoanalytic notions of the real.

With reference to recent conceptualizations of ‘reparative’ hermeneutics, the dissertation traces the contours of an ‘ethical turn’ in Blumenberg’s work which, through the paradigm of the human need for consolation, deliberately contrasts with the theoretical style of psychoanalysis. The project thus aims not only to contribute to the interdisciplinary history of theory in the 20th century, but also to show that Blumenberg’s historicizing analyses of psychoanalytic theory formation are highly relevant to current discourses, like the postcritical interventions drawing on Kleinian thought.

Fig. above: Drawings unknown patients. ?Rolf (1925), part of the Melanie Klein collection, license: CC BY-NC 4.0, source: Wellcome Collection