Citation

Novak D. Int. J. Law Psychiatry 2016; 48: 24-34.

Affiliation

J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair of Jewish Studies as Professor of Religion and Philosophy, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Electronic address: david.novak@utoronto.ca.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ijlp.2016.06.007

PMID

27389478

Abstract

This paper is a critical engagement with Freud's anthropological theory of the origins of law and religion, which Freud developed as his representation and development of the Oedipal myth. Freud's mythology, it is argued, is the theoretical result of the essentially narrative nature of psychoanalytical praxis. Freud's myth, especially its treatment of patricide as the original sin, is seen to be a displacement of the biblical myth of fratricide as the original sin. It is argued that the biblical myth is more coherent than Freud's myth, and that it corresponds to the reality of the human condition better than Freud's myth. The paper concludes with the suggestion that the acceptance of the biblical myth in place of Freud's does not necessarily entail a rejection of psychoanalysis as a praxis.

Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language: en