Wish-fulfilment in Philosophy and Psychoanalysis

Wish-fulfilment as a singular means of satisfying ineluctable desire is a pivotal concept in classical psychoanalysis. Freud argued that it was the thread that united dreams, daydreams, phantasy, omnipotent thinking, neurotic and some psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions, art, myth, and religious illusions. The concept's theoretical exploration has been largely neglected within psychoanalysis since, but contemporary philosophers have recognised it as providing an explanatory model for much of the kind of irrational behaviour so problematic for psychiatry, social psychology and the philosophy of mind.

PART 1. THEORY.1. Wish and wish-fulfilment. Introduction: wish and wish-fulfilment. The singularity of Freudian wish-fulfilment. A very brief history of our subject with polemical remarks. Some basic concepts for the philosophy of psychoanalysis. Four aporia and the outline of an argument. The psychoanalysis of philosophy. Notes. 2. Freud¿s conception of wish-fulfilment. Freud¿s originality. Drive and wish. The basic model of Freudian wish-fulfilment. Engrossment and belief. An aside on belief. Belief and phantasy.Some grounds for intentionalism. Notes. 3. Problems with non-intentionalism. Reprise. Some general problems with non-intentionalism. More problems for non-intentionalism. Wish-fulfilment without belief. Wish-fulfilment and `belief-like¿ representations. Increasing complexity: enactment. The omnipotence of thought. Wish-fulfilment restricted. Wish-fulfilment declined. Notes. 4. Intention and deliberation in Freudian wish-fulfilment. Towards intentionalism. Unconscious intention. Unconscious deliberation. Unconscious deliberation and dissociation. Unconscious deliberation and symbolism. Dissociation again. Sartre¿s censor argument resolved. Notes. 5. The self in self-solicitude. Reprise. A very brief history of the divided self. Freud and the structure of mind. Indulging in metaphor, hypostatising phantasy? Fairbairn. Egos, selves and personations. Personation, self-solicitude and Freudian wish-fulfilment. Notes. PART 2. APPLICATIONS.6. Self-deception and delusion. Self-deception. Subintentionalism again. Self-deception and Freudian wish-fulfilment. Delusion. Delusion as Freudian wish-fulfilment. Notes. 7. Religion. Freud on religion. Distinctions. The religious and the religiose. Fundamentalism and the religiose. The religiose mind. Religion as Freudian wish-fulfilment. Notes. 8. Writing as redemption. Exhibits of loss. Some psychoanalytic approaches to loss in art. Illusion and the internal audience. Notes. 9. The insanity defence. Intention and excuse. Mental illness and excuse. A very brief history of intention in insanity. McNaughtan. Intention in madness. Notes. A word on psychiatry.