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On Freud's notion of “reality”

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A first glimpse of reality

The notion of reality seems to be uncomplicated enough for Freud, who refers to it in the most

worldly manner. In one text he explicitly states as his goal there to investigate "the development of

the relation of the neurotic and of mankind in general to reality, and of so bringing the

psychological significance of the real outer world into the structure of our theory." (Freud,

“Formulations”, 1.) Somewhere else, when discussing the difference between instincts 1 and stimuli,

he defines the latter as something "applied from the outer world" and sets forth to differentiate

impulses from stimuli by claiming that impulses come from the inside (Freud, “Instincts”, 72;

emphasis in the original). He also explains how reality, which seems to be something external to the

subject and entirely unproblematic, might come into conflict with the id (Freud, “Loss of reality”,

205). Finally, in Civilization and its discontents, when discussing the "oceanic feeling" he very

clearly asserts a differentiation between what is internal to the subject and the external world

(Freud, Civilization, 27).

Some characteristics of reality can be drawn from these simple examples. The basis for this notion

would seem to be an opposition: that between an inside and an outside. “Inside” means “inside the

individual”, within him, in his mind, whereas “outside” means “in the external, objective world”. It

would be, therefore, an individual/environment opposition: whichever interpenetration there may be

among the two terms, they nevertheless retain their mutual irreducibility. We would be, therefore, in

a pure, simple dualistic model. A few derived features are that reality is that which is perceived

consciously, and that things exist regardless of the individual's attachment to them (or, to put it in

terms that will be useful later, that the object in a “philosophical” sense (as opposed to the subject)

is distinct from the subject's object of desire). All these features are mutually reinforcing: they all

1 As it is well known, Strachey's translation of Trieb into instinct is source of polemic, with many psychoanalysts
claiming that the proper translation should be drive. For the sake of simplicity in terminology, and because it won't
play any relevant role in my argument, I will use instinct anyway.
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contribute to the common-sense notion of an objective reality.

This simplicity might, however, be misleading. At other times reality seems to be a fairly

complicated concept in Freud's writings. The relation to the objects of the outer world might be

abandoned while at the same time an erotic interest in them is maintained (Freud, “Narcissism”,

42); one mourns the loss of a loved one by decathecting all the memory-traces of that person to be

found in real life through the operation of reality-testing (Freud, “Mourning”, 163); the ego, being

the “great reservoir of libido” from which libido is sent towards objects, might take himself as a

love-object (Freud, “Libido”, 181). There are more examples; however, in order to explain how they

may challenge the more simplistic notion of reality, these examples need to be further developed in

their own context – that is, in the text itself.

This is precisely what I intend to do in what follows. I think this will be best first approached by

looking at Freud's thought as it develops historically. This “historical-developmental” approach to

Freud's writings is explicitly recommended by Lacan (Lacan 404), so I will just let his suggestion

guide my reading. On the one hand, this will show that some of the problems I'm dealing with are

present in his writings for a quite long period of time, and that he is actually striving to solve those

problems and looking for solutions to them. On the other hand, it might help us gain a clearer

insight into the problem. By doing so, I expect to answer the following questions: What is Freud's

concept of “reality”? Does he have one at all? My aim here is only to try to make sense of Freud's

texts in their own terms; references to other authors will be minimal. I will bot be discussing with

any of the numerous Freud's heirs, but rather an attempt at making sense of Freud in the most

coherent way possible.

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Two text and one complex notion

"Formulations regarding the two principles of mental functioning" (from now on, "Formulations")

is a particularly good place to begin this inquiry, since in it Freud's explicit goal is to explore the

relation of mankind to reality. And it is here where he introduces the notion of the reality-principle.

All of it seems, at first sight, quite unproblematic. The mental apparatus is originally ruled by the

pleasure-principle (as it will be until Beyond the pleasure-principle), the striving towards pleasure

and away from pain ("pleasure" and "pain" being the diminution and the increase of tension in the

mind, respectively). Originally as well, this pleasure is sought after in the form of hallucination: the

psyche dreams what he wants and, thus, gets a certain degree of satisfaction. However, it soon find

this satisfaction to be insufficient and is therefore faced with disappointment. It is as a consequence

of this disappointment that the reality-principle is developed: turned away from himself, the subject

is forced to face "the real circumstances in the outer world" and needs to develop the tools that will

allow him to "exert himself to alter them" (Freud, "Formulations", 2).

The emergence of the reality-principle sets forth the development of such tools. It kick-starts a

psychogenetic process through which the mental apparatus is greatly developed. First and foremost,

conscience itself appears, linked to the development of the sense organs directed towards the outer

world; after conscience, a host of linked functions follow: attention, memory, the capacity for

passing of judgment, action and thought. All these are functions oriented towards the newly

discovered outer world.

The reality-principle is itself not a annihilation, not even a displacement of the pleasure-principle; it

is rather a modification of it: "the substitution of the reality-principle for the pleasure-principle

denotes no dethronement of the pleasure-principle, but only a safeguarding of it. A momentary

pleasure, uncertain in its results, is given up, but only in order to gain in the new way an assured

pleasure coming later." (Freud, "Formulations", 6.). The psyche still strives to attain pleasure and
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avoid pain, but it does so by more circumvent paths and, thus, preserves itself from destruction.

The question of reality appears so far simple enough: there is an external world which has to be

reckoned with, and the subject does so by passing judgment on it. A model seems to emerge, its

characteristics mimicking those of the one that arose from the simple examples from the beginning,

its most fundamental trait being a relation (which in that case was oppositional) between an interior

and an exterior. However, things turn out to be more complicated in this text.

As I mentioned, the capacity for passing judgment is one of the developments that accompanies the

emergence of the reality-principle. Its task is to decide "whether a particular idea was true or false,

that is, was in agreement with reality or not."(Freud, “Formulations”, 4). Freud calls this task reality

testing. How does this test work, exactly? The conscious mind is to pass judgment on ideas; this

decision is "determined by comparison with the memory-traces of reality." These memory-traces are

located in the unconscious. Now, this is problematic: the unconscious is a realm of the mind which

is entirely under the unrestricted sway of the pleasure-principle, unmodified by the reality-principle

(Freud, “Formulations”, 5). Whatever takes place in it responds exclusively to the logic of the

primary processes, according to which thought reality is actual reality and wishes are fulfillment.

Therefore, the memory-traces that come from the unconscious, with which ideas are compared in

order to determine the latter's reality, are entirely produced by phantasy.

Reality-testing is, therefore, more complicated than it may seem at first. It could be expected to be

the way the subject faces an objective, external reality with unhindered perception. However, it

turns out that his perception of it is somehow mediated by his own phantasies – that is, by the

interior. What one does when testing reality is compare whatever is perceived with objects that

belong entirely to oneself. What could be expected to be a process of discovery ends up being a

process of recollection in the most platonic sense: one re-discovers what one once knew but has

since forgotten. The object, understood in a plain, philosophical sense (as that which is not the
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subject) cannot be separated from that subject and his desires. One never perceives the object in

itself: one's own perception is, at the very least, clouded by one's own wishes.

I think this text reveals two things about the functioning of the inside/outside opposition. First, that

the subject's experience takes place in terms of that distinction, but the objective reality is

absolutely inaccessible to him. And second, that that impossibility on the part of the subject to

distinguish inside from outside seems to contaminate the distinction itself: it is quite unclear what

role the objective reality is to play in the theory, since its only possible role would seem to be to be

encountered by the subject but, as I just said, that is impossible. What is, then, that reality the

subject is faced with? Where does it fit in the overall explanation? No further answers can be taken

from this text, I'm afraid.

A more thorough (and more complex) articulation can be found in a text from 1915, "Instincts and

their vicissitudes". In it, the inside/outside opposition is omnipresent and plays a decisive role.

Freud's discussion begins with an argument about the mental apparatus and the pleasure-principle's

role in it. As I recently explained, according to this principle this apparatus' task, says Freud, is "to

master stimuli" (Freud, "Instincts", 74), since these stimuli cause un-pleasure (pain) by causing an

increase in tension. Freud then goes on to make a key opposition: instincts / stimuli. This opposition

mimics the inside/outside one: "instincts" are stimuli that come from the inside, from the own

subject. Thus, the opposition appears in its simplest, most intuitive version.

What is not simple, however, is the interior that arises from this opposition. Instincts originate in the

subject's body, and see themselves expressed as energetic disturbance: as Freud puts it, "instinct" is

a borderline concept between the somatic and the mental (to the extreme that one of the dimensions

of every instinct is its source, that is, the part of the body from where the instinct's energy stems

from (Freud, "Instincts", 76)). They operate as stimuli insofar as they are something that arrives as

if from the outside to the mind, disturbing it. The subject (the interior) is, thus, split, a part of
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himself being inaccessible to him, and affecting him as if it belonged to the outside. The proper

place to work through this split structure would be, of course, the first topography and the theory of

the unconscious. That is, however, outside the scope and range of this paper. Nonetheless, I do not

think that working through that theory is strictly necessary for my argument here. This feature of the

subject, shown as I just did, will suffice and, as we will see, will become quite relevant further

down the road.

The concept of instinct informs us of one more thing about the inside/outside opposition. Freud will

go on to further distinguish stimuli from instincts on the basis of the possibility of resolving the

tension caused by each of them. In the case of external stimuli the solution involves "action towards

the outer world" (Freud, "Instincts", 72) – "flight." This solution, says Freud, is unavailable in the

case of instincts: since they come from the inside, there is no running from them. This distinction,

along with other differentiating traits, however, seems to me to underscore the fundamental likeness

of stimulus and instinct: as Freud says, the tension caused by an instinct is resolved by seeking

discharge towards a certain object. The model that arises, then, seems to put the subject in the role

of a mere vehicle that mediates between two "outsides," one properly "external" to him and the

other, "internal" – an "inner outside", so to speak.

The question of reality and the inside/outside opposition comes up again in the same text shortly

after this first discussion focused on instincts and stimuli, but this return takes place in quite

different terms. After distinguishing between two different instincts (ego- and sexual-instincts), and

deciding to focus on the latter, Freud claims that sexual instincts can undergo a number of

"vicissitudes", that is, of modifications both in their object and in their aim. One of those

vicissitudes is the "Reversal of the content," example of which can be found in love. It is during his

discussion of love that Freud addresses most directly the question of the inside/outside and the

subject/object relation.
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In order to examine love Freud asserts two different sets of three antithesis: the three antithesis of

love (love/indifference, love/hate, love/being loved) and the three antithesis that govern mental life

(ego/non-ego (also known as ego/external world, or subject/object), pleasure/pain, active/passive).

This two sets match each other: love/indifference corresponds to ego/non-ego, love/hate

corresponds to pleasure/pain, and love/being loved corresponds to active/passive (Freud,

“Instincts”, 89).

The subject/object relation appears here under the form of ego/non-ego, connected to the antithesis

“love/indifference”. "Love" is the name of the feeling the ego has towards something in which he

finds satisfaction. Originally, in the auto-erotic stage, all satisfaction comes from the subject

himself. In this stage he simply does not care at all about anything that is not himself. He is entirely

indifferent towards the outer world. The development of the idea of a non-ego (and also, as its

logical counterpart, an ego) is dependent on the impossibility of the subject to find all the

satisfaction he wants in auto-eroticism. It is insofar as the sexual instincts develop that the subject

discovers the outer world. However, the outer world also appears in an entirely different fashion,

linked not to the sexual but to the ego (or self-preservation) instincts: the external world appears as

the source of displeasure (pain). As we have seen, it is in reaction to this threat from the outer world

that the reality-principle is developed. Unlike the sexual instincts, the ego instincts are related to the

love/hate antithesis. So it turns out that the outer world is simultaneously marked by indifference

and hatred, which is how the ego names the feeling towards that which causes it pain.

The outer world comes to be, in the ego's eyes, as the source of everything that is bad. I originates

as the union of everything that is not the ego and of everything that causes the ego pain, that brings

displeasure, everything that the ego hates. Ego = all that is good; non-ego = all that is bad. This two

equations do not only affect the outer world: the ego also projects into the outside all that is his own

but causes him displeasure. Therefore, sexual instincts will be perceived by him as extraneous, as
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not being himself, insofar as they produce unwanted stimuli from which the ego cannot flee.

I think two main lessons can be drawn from this text. First, the discussion on love confirms that the

constitution of the ego and its relation to the non-ego is indeed as complex as “Formulations”

suggested, to the point of it being strictly impossible for the ego to clearly separate inside (what is

him) from outside (what is not him). It also shows that that distinction is, as “Formulations” also

suggested, heavily influenced by desire: non-ego is constituted by everything that is bad, by mixing

what is bad in the outer world with what is bad in the ego, projected onto the outside; conversely,

the inside is constituted by this purified ego (that has expelled everything about himself that is bad)

mixed with the introjection of everything that, being out there, is good and should belong to the ego.

The second lesson is perhaps even more relevant to out present discussion: both apparent versions

of the inside/outside opposition, the simple as well as the complex, are present in this text, and still

the interaction between them is not at all clear: whereas the role of the objective world in the

constitution of the ego is as unclear as it was in “Formulations,” the distinction between instincts

and stimuli, based as it is on the inside/outside opposition, seems to be clear enough for Freud, who

asserts it without any further ado. Should this be problematic? What relationship could there be

between these two ways of facing the opposition?

The psychological reading

We find ourselves in a complex situation. Freud's notion of reality seems to be rigged with a

fundamental contradiction. In any case, the notion is based on an opposition between an inside and

an outside. But whereas on one set of cases this distinction seems to be perfectly clear (meaning that

each element can be assigned unequivocally to the side where they belong), on the other the

distinction does not seem to hold, borders being constantly breached. I believe this should be taken

as a serious problem that needs to be explicitly addressed. How, then, is this contradiction to be
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solved?

One possible interpretation would say that Freud's use of the notion of reality is intrinsically flawed

and inconsistent. Given the relevance that the concept seems to have in his theory, this would imply

a rather massive critique. However, I believe that would be a rushed interpretation. At the very least,

the principle of charity requires us to make our best effort to prove the author right before we

declare him wrong. So that is precisely what I will try to do next, based on the texts I have used so

far and a few more: I will try to provide a coherent reading of this notion in Freud's texts. I will first

lay out and articulate one hypothetical reading (that I will call "psychological") that will try to make

sense of the texts and solve their contradictions. I will try to show that this reading is mistaken and

that its hypothesis fail to account for Freud's texts.

It might be possible to make sense of the contradictions by distinguishing between two levels,

which I will call "the analyst's discourse" and "the patient's experience." There are two key to this

distinction: the hierarchical relation between the two levels, and the status that the inside/outside

opposition has in each. The analyst's discourse is the true discourse, or the discourse of truth: it is a

metalanguage, beyond and above the other discourse. The true ontology is the one this level

suggests: the opposition between inside and outside (which is the same as individual/environment

or mind/body) is perfectly clear. The analyst's discourse takes sides with what it takes to be the

ontology of Freud's simple example and is perfectly dualistic. The problem, therefore, is not that the

inside/outside opposition does not hold but rather that only the analyst can distinguish both terms

clearly. On the contrary, the patient is incapable of telling one thing from the other. What is more:

he thinks that he can, while he is unaware that his perception of reality mixes, via projections and

introjections, that which is him with that which is other than him. He is incapable of discriminating

because his perception of the outside is (over) determined by another "outside" that he carries

within himself: his unconscious, something in the subject, part of the subject, that is the subject
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more than the subject himself. It is nothing less than his truth. It is not even necessary for the

subject to be unaware of this situation: he could very much acknowledge the existence of

unconscious thoughts, and still fall prey to them. There is nothing new to this: we saw it in our

discussion of "Instincts." This unconscious is the locus of those phantasies that blind the subject to

objective reality. But, by all means, there is a him and a non-him.

If these two levels can be distinguished, such feat is possible in virtue of the analyst's capacity to

separate what belongs to the outside and what belongs to the inside, what belongs to the individual

and what belongs to objective reality. He would be able to tell, for example, when the patient is

legitimately angry at the analyst, and when he is just projecting onto the analyst his anger at his

authoritarian father. By being able to make this distinction the analyst gains access to the patient's

unconscious. Therefore, all the validity of this reading depends on there being some form of

actually telling one thing from the other. A consequence of this reading would be a certain view of

interpretation: interpretation is valid insofar as the analyst manages to learn the patient's truth. What

matters is the (right) content, not the act of interpretation itself. If this fails to meet with therapeutic

success, as Freud himself admits (Freud, Beyond, 18), it is only because the veil of phantasy is so

thick that one cannot simply walk past it; all that is required are more circumvent paths to the truth.

To summarize: according to the psychological reading the inside/outside opposition is consistent

despite its apparent contradictions insofar as they belong to two different levels. As long as the two

levels are kept separate, there is no need to beware of contradictions. Reality is simple; what is

complicated is the patient's relation to it. Therefore, what needs to be inspected is whether this two

levels can indeed be kept apart from each other. Where could this be investigated?

I propose we start by looking into some exemplary texts where the need to rely on a distinction

between inside and outside is clear. We will see how it is quite difficult indeed to keep those two

“levels” apart from one another. I will show this through two examples: “Mourning and
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melancholia” and “Neurosis and psychosis.”

The bulk of the argument in “Mourning and melancholia” is devoted to the analysis of melancholia,

mainly of its economic dimensions, in virtue of its greater complexity over the work of mourning.

This greater complexity stems from that which simultaneously equates and distinguishes mourning

and melancholia: both revolve around the loss of an object, but whereas in the latter the lost object

is obscure and finding it requires some investigation, in the former it is quite clear: a real object has

been lost. To be more specific: a real love-object has died. The work of mourning, through which

the object is decathected via reality-testing, is set in motion when the actual object disappears from

the subject's life.

I think this simplicity might be, however, misleading and only apparent. For we already know that

one never falls in love with an actual object, but rather with one's own phantasies, that one happens

to re-discover in a new object. This argument is made quite clear in a text which was published a

few years before “Mourning and melancholia” and which could be taken to solve the problem of

inside/outside in simple terms. I am talking about “Introduction to narcissism,” where Freud

declares that there are two possible paths to “object-choice,” (that is, the object to which one's

libido is drawn to): narcissistic and anaclitic. In the narcissistic object-choice it is the ego itself

which is taken as the object of desire, and draws libido into itself. Under a simple, objectivist

inside/outside opposition, one could probably expect the anaclitis object-choice to mean that one

falls in love with exterior objects, as opposed to falling in love with oneself. However, this is very

clearly not the case: according to the anaclitic type object-choice a person may love either a) “the

woman who tends” or b) “the man who protects” (Freud, “Narcissism”, 58). This is perfectly

aligned with the thesis that one always falls in love with one's own phantasies.

Melancholia corresponds to the loss of he who made a narcissistic object-choice (Freud,

“Mourning”, 169). Given the structural difference, I believe it is safe to assume that mourning
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corresponds to the loss of he who made an anaclitic object-choice. This implies that the link

between the work of mourning and the death of the loved one is not an easy one, for, a we just saw,

one's attachment is not to the “real” object but rather to the object of one's phantasies. I believe

“Mourning and melancholia” is misleading insofar as it does not clearly distinguish between these

two objects, and also as it does not provide any clear conceptualization about what it is in the “real”

object that allows the subject to anchor his phantasies in it.

This very same absence of conceptualization of the external world can be seen in "Neurosis and

psychosis", where the latter disease is described in terms of a conflict between the ego and reality:

psychosis is the outcome of a "disturbance in the relation between the ego and its environment

(outer world)" (Freud, "Neurosis", 186). In the same text Freud locates the genesis of transference

neurosis in a conflict between ego and id, and the genesis of narcissistic neurosis a conflict between

ego and superego. So reality appears here as playing a role akin to one of the great mental agencies

(Laplanche 372) without anything even remotely resembling the theoretical development that those

agencies merited.

Therefore, when the two “levels,” as my psychological reading would have, need to be clearly

separated from one another, the real object, the one that exists beyond any subject, the one whose

existence the “analyst's discourse” affirms, seems to disappear, to vanish into nothing, to become a

primitive concept with no justification or clear role to play in the explanation of phenomena. This

does not, however, constitute definite proof. I think that may be found somewhere else.

Freud thinks that any analysis that deserves the name of "metapsychological" needs to account for

three dimensions of the mental: dynamic, topographic and economic (Freud, Beyond, 3). Studying

the economic dimension, which is key to understanding phenomena such as narcissism or

melancholia, involves following the vicissitudes of the libido, a concept intimately linked to the

theory of instincts. Now, as I said, instinct is a borderline concept between the mental and the
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somatic. The concept of instinct is one that would ground the subject's subjectivity in his own

objectivity – that is, his own body-biology. It is precisely through his theory of instincts that Freud

attempts to tie his theory of the mental-subjective to the somatic-objective. This is no isolated

remark: Freud's will to establish his psychological theory on biological grounds, and his hopes for

the future success of such will, is present through all his work.

Freud's theory of instincts develops over time and assumes three different versions. Originally, the

theory was based on the opposition between two groups of instincts: ego-instincts and sexual-

instincts, which corresponded to the biological (and common-sense) distinction between hunger and

love (respectively). Its first version consisted in extending the range of sexual instincts beyond the

confines of reproduction, and admitted that the same forces were at play in phenomena seemingly

quite apart from sexual reproduction. The second version of the theory, ushered in in "Introduction

to Narcissism", retained the two basic groups on instincts, but introduced, as a novelty, the

possibility of having the sexual-instincts taking, as their object-love, the ego itself. The third and

last version of the theory was introduced in Beyond the pleasure principle, and saw the two main

groups of instincts change: the opposition was now to be between Eros and the death drive. These

two instincts had their origin in the origin of life itself: they were there "from the beginning",

present since the birth of life, an event that remains a mystery.

Freud tries to ground this theory on a biology that he himself admits to be "speculative" (Freud,

Beyond, 26) and which is, admittedly, rather hard to take seriously. Not only does the biology sound

rather implausible (and far from the later development of that science), the very concept of death

drive sounds strange. And indeed, most Freudian psychologists have decided to disregard this text

entirely. Only Melanie Klein and Jacques Lacan have taken it seriously, and only the former took it

literally; Lacan declared it a central element of Freudian doctrine whilst changing it until it became

unrecognizable. (Laplanche 210). There are, indeed, good reasons for not taking this theory
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seriously. Not only is it based on shaky grounds, but also the necessity of the theoretical path from

the compulsion to repeat (whose observation as a clinical phenomenon is Freud's point of departure)

to the death drive (the theoretical grounding he gives to the compulsion to repeat) is quite unclear.

Finally, the idea of a death drive that is to be found beyond the pleasure principle brings clinical

complications. If the entire mental apparatus is under the sway of the pleasure principle, the analyst

(or whoever) can always assume that, regardless of appearances, the patient is obtaining some

pleasure from his seemingly self-destructive actions, that there is a reason for him to do what he

does. If there is such a thing as a death drive, the possibility of making this assumption if off the

table and the treatment of some maladies becomes near impossible.

So, what is one to do with the death drive? First possibility: Accept it as it is. This path seems hard

enough, considering how few analysts have decided to walk it. Second possibility: Get rid of it.

This path is certainly tempting, considering the difficulties. However, there are, I think, two

complications in the path of this resolution. First, without the death drive the compulsion to repeat,

which (according to Freud) is a clinical (empirical) phenomenon, would go unexplained, so any

theory that disregards the death drive would need to produce an alternative explanation for this

phenomenon. Secondly, Freud himself put quite a lot of weight on the death drive and seems to

think that the death drive is the logical line of development for his theory. This would not be a

problem if the place of the death drive (or the theory of instincts in its entirety) in the overall theory

was only marginal, but instead it is quite central. The death drive is part of a massive reformulation

of the theory of instincts which plays a key role in Freud's theory. Therefore, if one simply

disregards this theory and returns to the situation before Beyond the pleasure principle, one would

still have to deal with all the problems of the second theory of instincts; precisely those that Freud

seeks to solve with this last version. So any psychoanalysis that disregards the third theory of

instincts needs to come up with an alternative that both overcomes the problems of the second

theory of instincts and is able to account for the compulsion to repeat. He would be returning to the
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statu quo ante Beyond the pleasure principle, with the added problem of the compulsion to repeat.

Is there any option left if neither of these two paths seem convincing? We shall see.

Negation and a mythical way out

Let's recapitulate what has taken place so far. We started off with the realization that there seem to

be two contradictory notions of reality in Freud, the relation among which is quite unclear. The key

to the contradiction is the way they approach the fundamental opposition inside/outside: whereas

one seems to consider it as clear and unproblematic, the other sees it as far from perfect. I tried to

bring those two apparent notions together by suggesting a possible interpretation that I called

"psychological", which was based upon the separation between two discourses, one corresponding

to each apparent set of examples, one related to the other as a metalanguage capable of explaining

it. This, however, did not solve the problem: whichever the merits of that reading are, it cannot

account for what goes on in Freud's texts. Therefore, the question remain: what is it to be done with

this seemingly contradictory theory? The option of forsaking it entirely is, of course, still available.

What is more: I think that any reading that accepts the premises of the psychological reading (the

analyst's discourse as an objective metalanguage capable of explaining the patient's experience) or

one of its conclusions (the validation of interpretation being the analyst's access to the patient's

truth) amount, indeed, to nothing but precisely that very forsaking. If reading Freud in such a way

implies contradicting Freud's text, can such reading be considered Freudian at all?

Therefore, it seems to me that there are really only two options: either abandon Freud, or put forth a

reading that succeeds in resolving the contradiction by showing that, despite appearances, there is

only one notion of reality instead of two. I think that a model for such a view might be found in a

different text: "Negation." This is a rather short text where the question of reality is put forth in the

most direct, albeit obscure, terms. I believe “Negation” shows a good articulation of the problem
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and, thus, is helpful when it comes to showing how it works.

The presence of external, objective reality is persistent in this text, articulated in clear inside/outside

oppositional terms. For example:

“It is now no longer a question of whether something perceived (a thing) shall be taken into the ego

or not, but of whether something which is present in the ego as an image can also be re-discovered

in perception (that is, in reality). Once more, it will be seen, the question is one of external and

internal. What is not real, what is merely imagined or subjective, is only internal; while on the other

hand what is real is also present externally.” (Freud, “Negation”, 219)

However, not only is there no clear definition of what that external world is (the one in this quote,

“a thing,” is the clearest we get), the actual relevance of that external world quickly fades away as

soon as Freud sets to show the operation of negation. There are two ways in which it fades. The first

one we have already seen: the theory of recollection, which in this text gets a most radical version:

“we must recollect that all images originate from perceptions and are repetitions of them. So that

originally the mere existence of the image serves as a guarantee of the reality of what is imagined.”

(Freud, “Negation”, 220.) Not only the objects of desire but all images, everything the subject may

perceive, is recollected. This quite closely resembles Plato's theory of forms in a radical version.

What is new is the second challenge to external reality: the mythical nature of the inside/outside

opposition. Freud sees in the creation of the symbol of negation the origin of the function of

intellectual judgment (something we have already seen, when discussing the emergence of the

reality-principle in “Formulations”) (Freud, “Negation”, 218). He shows here that that function is

concerned with “two sorts of decisions” (Freud, “Negation”, 219): the “judgment of attribution” and

the “judgment of existence,” as Hyppolite calls them (Hyppolite 842). Whereas the former is

concerned with judging whether a certain characteristic (being good) can be found in an object, the

latter is concerned with judging whether an object that comes before perception is to be found
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beyond perception, that is, in objective reality, beyond perception.

The key to the matter lies in the relation between these two functions of judgment. The

psychological reading would require them to have no relation whatsoever: whether something is

good or not should be entirely irrelevant when it comes to deciding whether it exists or not. That is

precisely what it would mean for the object (in the philosophical sense) to be completely

independent from the object of desire (in a psychological sense) – or, to put it in the terms we have

been mostly using, that “inside” and “outside” are opposed. As it turns out, what one gets here is the

exact opposite. This text shows precisely that these two functions are deeply related to one another.

Beneath both of them, prior to both of them (Hyppolite 842) there is the distinction between inside

and outside – which is mythical.

The judgment of attribution depends on the operation of expulsion: the ego expels from it

everything that brings pain, introjects everything that brings pleasure, and equates non-ego to

external and bad. What brings pleasure is and should be inside, what brings pain is and must be

outside. The judgment of existence depends on the re-discovery of something that once brought

pleasure and was lost since. Both judgments rely, then, on the same myth of inside/outside: the

judgment of existence tries to find once again what the judgment of attribution once deemed part of

itself. But why call it mythical? Because its occurrence is necessary, but it never happened.

The distinction has never been perfect; proof is that the subject keeps confusing inside and outside,

phantasies and reality, wish and fulfillment. Thus, it has never actually happened, at least not in the

perfect way in which the subject perceives it. But at the same time, the subject cannot avoid but to

perceive himself as distinct from the external world. The “oceanic feeling” is an anomaly into the

ever-present feeling of being oneself, distinct from the world. What is more, there was never a time

in which that distinction did not inform the subjects experience. There was no original time when he

was empirically turned into himself, indifferent to anything external. The external world was always
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present – and never. To summarize: it is a myth, but a necessary one.

This, at least, is Hyppolite's interpretation of “Negation.” If we take this reading to be a correct one,

other texts can be further illuminated. For example, the original state of love/indifference, where

there is no ego since there is no non-ego in “Instincts” should be taken to be equally mythical: it

does not happen empirically. But could not this reading be also a plausible interpretation of what is

going on in Freud's texts? He too believes in the existence of an object which is right beyond his

discourse, and yet he seems to fail to grasp it over and over again. Insofar as he affirms the

opposition inside/outside, does he not need to believe in that object despite his inability to get a

proper hold of it? It disappears, and yet Freud insists on its importance. It might be the case, then,

that the mythical reading is a proper interpretation of Freud's texts, that it manages to solve the

apparent contradictions in the different usages of the notion of “reality.”

I think the previous argument show that the mythical reading might be a plausible interpretation of

Freud, one in which he is consistent. It certainly seems to satisfy the minimum requirement for such

an interpretation, namely, to suggest a single criteria that accounts for all uses of the notion.

Therefore, the logic of the inside/outside oppositions must be the same in all cases. We already saw

that the psychological logic could not account for all cases. What about the mythical?

I think that such a coincidence (indeed, an identity) between a supposedly "analyst's" discourse and

a "patient's" experience is something to be expected considering Freud's subject: thought itself.

Insofar as Freud talks about thought itself, it cannot but be a reflection about itself. Thus, a

metalanguage is actually impossible: why would he be able to break with himself by using the very

same tools he is studying? It seems to me that what Freud is doing is, rather than propose a theory

that comes into being independently of its object, articulating the normal human experience in

intelligible terms. Hence his dislike of technical terms (though that might also be due to a rhetoric

strategy) and his willingness to find deep psychological truths in common language (as is the case
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in "The uncanny").

As a consequence of this proximity of Freud to that about which he talks about, I think it is to be

expected that he will fall on the same traps as his subject. The patient is convinced that he perceives

reality as it is, even though he does not. And more importantly: he cannot avoid that. There is no

amount of correct interpretation that will bring the subject face to face with the real object: his

access to it is forbade, his absence from it, structural. Insofar as Freud accepts the same opposition

between an inside and an outside it is to be expected that he too, at times, will need to believe in an

external reality. This is precisely what "myth" means in this context: it is not only a somehow

inaccurate belief, it is also a necessary belief. The subject and, as long as he bases his thought in the

same opposition, Freud himself, cannot but believe in the real existence of an external world,

forever beyond his reach.

To say that the “mythical” interpretation is a plausible interpretation is only to enunciate a problem:

it might make the texts internally coherent, but it is hardly a satisfactory solution. Offering such a

solution is, of course, beyond the scope of this paper. However, a possible line for such a solution

might involve getting rid precisely with that which causes the trouble: the inside/outside opposition.

And with it, the place where Freud sought to ground it: biology.
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