This anecdote is dominated by imagery from one of the most famous of New Testament stories:
that of the prodigal son.85 The anecdote reveals that by the time of the dream,
when Freud was in his 40s, he could look back and see the unbalanced quality of his own early
enthusiasm for materialism. There is even the strong hint that part of Freud’s oversensitivity
was precipitated by his opponent’s references to Scripture. It all brings to mind the comment
by Roazen (quoted in Chapter One) that whenever Freud’s remarks seem intolerant, something
in him was threatened, and that this was likely to have been the case with respect to religion.
The Influence of Franz BrentanoThere was one other major expression of Freud’s attraction to Christianity during this period, and that was Freud’s involvement with the prominent Austrian philosopher Franz Brentano.86 Franz Brentano (1838-1917; see Figure 2-4) was until recently an ignored figure in the history of philosophy, but is now accepted as a major thinker whose work did much to initiate phenomenology. (As noted below, he is also linked to the origin of Gestalt psychology—a kind of phenomenology of perception—and to Freud and psychoanalysis. Thus, for psychology, Brentano appears to be one of the most influential of modern philosophers.) He came from a distinguished literary family, and early in life decided to pursue a vocation in the Catholic priesthood. He was ordained in 1864, but after a personal religious crisis he left the Church in 1873—a crisis that might have been augmented by his disagreement with the church over the First Vatican Council’s declaration of papal infallibility.87 Not only did he retain his belief in God, but he remained a simple Christian believer“ and spoke of Catholicism with great respect,89 and his belief in the immortality of the soul was important to his theorizing.90 Brentano began teaching at the University of Vienna in 1874, the academic year that Freud started his studies.91 Brentano became a prominent and popular teacher, numbering among his pupils Edmund Husserl, philosopher; Thomas Masaryk, founder of the Czechoslovakian Republic; Franz Kafka, author; Christian von Ehrenfels, considered by many (e.g., Max Wertheimer) to be the father of Gestalt psychology; Carl Stumpf, Alexlius Meinong, Franz Hillebrand and Kazimir Twardowski, important psychologists; and also Sigmund Freud.92 Concerning the last-mentioned association, Jones remarks, “Freud had…attended Brentano’s lectures, as indeed had half of Vienna, since he was a very gifted lecturer….”93 Jones is implying that Freud was one of a large number of the curious who occasionally attended the philosopher’s lectures, and |