2008-05-23 Heavily Abridged...

While I see little point in reviewing the book itself, it being undoubtably one of the pillars of both 20th century thought and culture, a seismic shock which decimated the academic psychology of its time and sent ripples through every sector of society, touching each and every one of us whether we requested it or not; modern advertising, essentially being initiated by Freud's nephew, being a case in point here.

However the reason I write this review is simply to warn the buyer that this edition is HIGHLY abridged; Wordsworth have cut the book down from over 700 pages - spanning two volumes in the vintage edition - to a mere 450. In addition to this it doesn't have any index which, personally, I found extremely irritating.

Lastly, although its certainly a matter of opinion, the introduction (written by one Stephen Wilson contrary to what Amazon state above) is a little suspect. Presumably its written so as to present Freud to a general readership, but in it the author claims that Freud is out of touch vis-a-vis modern science, that he is logically contradictory, that his system doesn't hold up. I think that this is somewhat offensive for a number of reasons:

(a) Wilson measures Freud up against contemporary neuroscience and cognitivism. Barring the odd dubious reference to the neurological knowledge of his day (which are spurious in this work) Freud's theories are as far removed from the scientically positivistic viewpoint of today as they were in from that of his own. It's apples and oranges...

(b) The Freudian revolution essentially opened the way for fresh criticism of scientific positivism. All of the so-called postmodernist theories rarely move beyond either Freud or criticism of Freud based on Freud. Thus whether one agrees with it or not, Freud lies at the foundations of a great deal of contemporary continental philosophy.

(c) The logical contradictions of Freud still dog contemporary psychology, especially that which applies itself therapeutically, either explicitly or implicitly. Simply put: in the realm of the human sciences (and increasingly in the realm of the hard sciences) you can always find contradictions if you look hard enough.

Freud is as controversial today as he ever was and I think that its unfair to slap an introduction onto his masterpiece which purports to give the reader a glimpse "beyond Freud" when it really seems to prefer to point down a path completely foreign to him...