Psychoanalysis and/as Philosophy? The Anthropological Significance of Pathology in Freud’s Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality and in the Psychoanalytic Tradition

Abstract

This article wants to determine the specificity of psychoanalytic anthropology in general, Freudian anthropology in particular. It shows that this specificity consists in the use of the socalled crystal-principle: human existence has to be understood from the point of view of its psychopathological variations. It is further argued that this approach allows for the articulation of the project ofa clinical anthropology that is broader then psychoanalysis as such. Key-words: psychoanalysis; clinical anthropology; sexuality; crystalprinciple.