Description
In the book A Question of Time, Joel Pearl proposes a new interpretation of the basis of psychoanalytical thought that reveals the basic deficiency in psychoanalysis since its inception. Pearl returns to the moment of the birth of psychoanalysis and shows that Freud failed to answer one of the basic questions of his own method: the question of time. This book demonstrates that the fact that Freud never analysed the concept of time in a methodical and comprehensive manner is not coincidental and that the metaphysical premise of Freudian psychoanalysis is that time is linear. Pearl conducts a critical discussion of the Freudian concept of time and proposes a new and original interpretation of psychoanalytical concepts in light of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger`s theory of transience. Pearl discovers the meeting-point between Freud and Heidegger by examining a common source of influence on them both: the philosopher Franz Bertnano, who was a teacher both of Freud and of Edmond Husserl, who taught Heidegger. The book traces a possible path that Freudian thought failed to investigate – a path that leads from Brentano through Husserl to Heidegger`s concept of time, according to which the point of departure is the deep internal connection between past, present and future.