Freud’s 『Phylogenetic Fantasy』 and Lamarckism:Evolution, Racial Science, and the Intellectual History of Psychoanalysis
10.18529/psychoanal.2026.37.2.33
- Author:
Hanson PARK
- Publication Type:Original Article
- From:
Psychoanalysis
2026;37(2):33-47
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:English
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Abstract:
This paper analyzes, from an intellectual-historical perspective, how Lamarckism and the concept of phylogenesis functioned within metapsychological neurosis theory, focusing on Freud’s unpublished manuscript A Phylogenetic Fantasy (circa 1915).Originally conceived as a metapsychological draft titled Overview of the Transference Neuroses, the manuscript compares thetransference neuroses in its first half, then introduces phylogenetic hypotheses in a limited way under the designation of “fantasy,” mediated by the problem of “disposition” in its second half. Focusing on this juncture, this paper reconstructs the context in which phylogenetic speculation emerged as a hypothetical layer for addressing explanatory difficulties arising from ontogenesis-centered frameworks, and examines how its variations shift into the narrative modes of Totem and Taboo and Moses and Monothe-ism. Furthermore, through comparison with contemporary evolutionary anthropology, gene-culture coevolution theory, and epi-genetics, this paper discusses the conditions under which the problem of “transmission” that Freud sought to capture in thelanguage of biology might be redescribed in alternative conceptual terms. In conclusion, rather than choosing between defendingor discarding Lamarckism, this paper presents, within the intellectual history of psychoanalysis, the significance of the very ten-sion through which phylogenetic thinking was both invoked and suspended.
