The founder of the psychoanalytic approach to psychodynamic therapy, Sigmund Freud was probably the greatest contributor to our understanding of the experience of being human, in the twentieth century.
He also deserves the title of philosopher because his scientific attention to the fine granular details of psychic experience lofted his contribution far above the sterility of linguistically and logically centred philosophy of his time.
His thought stands starkly contrasted to all that was centred on nominal constructions and divorced from the central human facts of biological existence.
In contrast to Martin Heidegger, his only possible rival as a contributor to ontology, Freud, a man of practical wisdom and experience, was willing to reveal his own personal experience of being human and to use it as a rubric for the blueprint of ordinary experience.
He was not seduced by the political trends of his era, after the failure of his patriotism in World War I.
His Viennese cynicism about the dark side of humanity is well balanced by his striving to deliver to all humanity a sense of the limitations and grandeur of the human at its best.
This set of definitions contains many references to Freud because of the centrality of his thought in the last century. How could it be otherwise?
