Assignment on Comparing Freud and Sartre’s Approach to Freedom & Subjectivity

               It is vital to look at the ideas and theories developed by both researchers, before making any viable comparison between their ideas regarding freedom and subjectivity. Sigmund Freud is from Austria, who born in 1865 and died in 1939. He is considered to be the founding father of the concept named “psychoanalysis”. The psychoanalysis is a theory or method, which is used to treat mental illness, as well as, it is a theory, which discusses human behavior. He came up with so many ideas about life and human behavior. Freud came up with a concept that events, which happen during the childhood period, do have an influence and impact on life during adulthood. If any person had any traumatic and bad experience in his childhood, then it may stay in his/her consciousness and it can cause trouble for the person later during his/her adulthood when those traumatic events are recalled. Freud made another great contribution through his work when he came up with a model to define the human mind. An iceberg was used by him to describe three levels associated with a mind. He also developed a model to discuss moral structure associated with a human mind. Such concepts had been great to see his work, and later his ideas related to freedom and subjectivity will also be analyzed in brief (McLeod, 2018)

               The ideas about freedom and subjectivity are given with different meaning and perspective from different researchers, authors and scholars over the period of history. It is interesting to analyze the ideas developed by different theorists. When it comes to see the ideas of Freud about human subjectivity, it is evident from his work that he had came up with various theories related to human subjectivity. His work related to freedom is also substantial in a way that he tried to define freedom as something, which is equal to an illusion. It is quite interesting to know that Freud takes freedom as a concept, which does not have any existence. He further adds that free will or freedom are not present anywhere. On the other hand, whenever freedom as a concept is understood, it is always associated with freedom of choice, as well as, people determining their own free will. But Freud totally came with an opposite point of view. Freud saw freedom, as well as, freewill, both as factors, which were taken under the concept of determinism. He believes that choices made by people in their lives are not according to their own free will; rather they are being controlled by various outside elements, which force them to make any particular choices or decisions. He also said that there are unconscious forces, which drive people to make certain actions, and people do not know about these unconscious forces. He also came up with an idea that childhood experiences can also influence the actions and behaviors of people in their future life, so people do not have any freedom, rather they are controlled by multiple factors (Eecke, 1974)

               The comparison of Freud is made with Jean-Paul Sartre in this discussion. So, it is important to have a look at the life and theories of Jean-Paul Sartre. He is a French political writer, novelist, as well as philosopher, etc. His work in the field of philosophy is very much acknowledged and his contribution has been recognized. There have been philosophers, who looked at a human being with a universal perspective, but the focus of Sartre has been to look at people in individual terms. It means that he analyzed the existence of a person rather than looking at a person in relation to the world. He has characterized human beings with a major concept, which is freedom. He believed that every human being has unlimited freedom to manage and control his life. If things are looked in real-world terms, then it is hard to believe the notion developed by Sartre that a person can have unlimited freedom, because limitations can be there at some point of time, and these limitations can come in a variety of ways. The situations happening in the life of a human being can develop the need for him to make certain decisions, but what decision has to be made; it is solely the choice of the person. It also means that Sartre does not believe in the outside elements, which can make an impact on a person to make certain decisions. He believed that whatever the situation is, a person has the freedom to make personal choices, which he may feel to be right or wrong in various given situations. It may be hard for many to believe in this notion, but this is what Sartre thought about freedom in his work (Onof, n.d.)

               It is important to understand that Sartre’s view of freedom is also closely related to his idea of subjectivity as well. He said that the world is just an experience for a person, where he has to make his own choices, keeping his individual perspective in mind, rather thinking about the world. Once he said in his speech that “Man is indeed a project that has a subjective existence, rather unlike that of a patch of moss, a spreading fungus, or a cauliflower. Prior to that projection of the self, nothing exists, not even in divine intelligence, and man shall attain existence only when he is what he projects himself to be—not what he would like to be.” It is evident that Sartre is associating subjectivity with all the human beings, and he strongly believed that nothing exists in real, until a person is not ready to project himself in view of the world (Sartre, 2019). It is quite clear that the idea of freedom and subjectivity of Sartre is different from, what has been discussed earlier with regards to Freud. It also shows the variety of thought processes and human mental capabilities to look at one concept in so many different ways. It is the beauty of philosophy and research that history is full of so many viewpoints given by different people, and they all had their own points to prove.

               Looking at the concepts and theories adopted by both researchers, it is quite clear that they are divided into two different viewpoints. The viewpoint of Freud is talking about universal consciousness. On the other hand, Sartre is discussing things with a perspective of individual freedom. So, the idea of freedom in the eyes of Freud supported the perspective of objectivity, where things are understood by keeping the world in view, whereas Sartre supported freedom in a way that he landed in the category of subjectivity, where world cannot force people to make decisions, rather they are free to make their own choices. There is no argument to say that both men had great capable minds, which produced so much useful information for the future. It is true that they had different points of view when it comes to freedom & subjectivity, but when it comes to using if religion in the philosophical and scientific field, both men agreed that religion has no part to play in this regard. So, it can be concluded in the end that Freud and Sartre has quite a different approach in terms of freedom and subjectivity (DeVilbiss, 1998)

 References on Comparing Freud and Sartre’s Approach to Freedom & Subjectivity

DeVilbiss, L. (1998). The Battle of Cultural Voices: Freud for the Universal Consciousness versus Sartre for Individual Freedom. Retrieved December 12, 2019, from https://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/english/mwollaeger/LDeVilbiss3.html

Eecke, W. V. (1974). Freedom, Self-Reflection and Inter-Subjectivity or Psychoanalysis and the Limits of the Phenomenological Method. Analecta Husserliana , 252-270.

McLeod, S. (2018). What are the most interesting ideas of Sigmund Freud? Retrieved December 12, 2019, from https://www.simplypsychology.org/Sigmund-Freud.html

Onof, C. J. (n.d.). Jean Paul Sartre: Existentialism. Retrieved December 12, 2019, from https://www.iep.utm.edu/sartre-ex/#SH6a

Sartre, J.-P. (2019). Existentialism Is a Humanism. Retrieved December 12, 2019, from https://www.litcharts.com/lit/existentialism-is-a-humanism/terms/subjectivity