
Freud On The Acropolis: Reflections On A Paradoxical Response To The Real
Reflections on a Paradoxical Response to the Real
Susan Sugarman(Author)
Basic Books (Publisher)
Published on 15. July 1999
Book
Paperback/Softback
126 pages
978-0-465-08330-5 (ISBN)
Description
This book analyzes a subtle but intriguing mental event,the paradoxical surprise that people sometimes feel when they come upon something that they have felt sure existed but are seeing for the first time. Noted first by Sigmund Freud, this common but odd experience proves remarkably resistant to trivial explanation.Upon seeing the Acropolis for the first time, Freud remarked, So all this really does exist, just as we learned in school!" Similarly, in everyday life we often feel compelled to verify firsthand the scene of a recent event, even though we never doubted its occurrence. Susan Sugarman probes this experience and its relation to other everyday sensibilities, such as the pleasure of reencountering the familiar and people's fascination with authenticity. Although the experience manifests itself in a seeming lapse in logic and remains obscure in a way that one might,and that Freud did,associate with pathological formations, it is neither illogical nor pathological. On the contrary, it observes a moment of mental health and personal integration.Similar to approaches in modern philosophy and linguistics, Sugarman's analysis is applied here accessibly and in ordinary terms to concrete behaviour and experience. As a result, thought and feeling, normally believed to elude systematic inquiry, yield to it, allowing for genuine progress in understanding the human mind.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (UK-trade)
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 8 mm
Weight
214 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-465-08330-5 (9780465083305)
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Schweitzer Classification