Freud: Political and Social Thought

By Paul Roazen

From the Preface: Since the themes within this book tend to move in several directions at the same time, a few prefatory remarks might help the reader keep the general argument in focus. The title of the book combines those intellectual traditions in which I have grown up. By "Freud" I am referring to his own writings and those of the psychiatric community which can be traced directly to his inspiration. I cannot claim to have examined comprehensively all the new developments in the psychiatry of our time. It is my conviction, however, that the ideas of Freud and his pupils, and what they have to contribute toour understanding of human nature, are important enough in intellectual history to justify treatment as a self-sufficient unit. "Political and Social Thought" in academic life has come to mean a grab bag of moral and legal ideas, in addition to more strictly social and political concepts; it also has a heritage, however, of the most re- spected kind, which begins with the philosophic activities of Plato and Aristotle, and which has over the centuries tried to relate human needs to social life.

Alfred A Knopf. New York. 1968. 342p.