The metapsychological speculations in Freud

Abstract

This article seeks to analyze the nature and function of metapsychological theory in Freudian psychoanalysis. It will show that Freudian psychoanalytic theory is composed of an empirical part — the psychology of clinical facts — and a speculative part — metapsychology. Freud considers this latter part as being a speculative superstructure of value that is only heuristic, capable of being substituted by other superstructures of the same type. This article sustains the idea that this metapsychology is the fruit of speculative method, whose foundations were elaborated by philosophers and epistemologists before Freud, including Immanuel Kant and Ernst Mach. The article concludes with considerations regarding the future of metapsychological theorization, presenting criticisms of Freudian metapsychology offered by both philosophers and psychoanalysts, and pointing to the open perspective of Donald W. Winnicott of a psychoanalysis without metapsychology. Keywords: Metapsychology, Speculation, Heuristic, Dynamic point of view, Instincts [Triebe].