On the Edge of the Abyss
The Jewish Unconscious before Freud
On the Edge of the Abyss
The Jewish Unconscious before Freud
When Sigmund Freud published his theory of the unconscious in 1899, he popularized an idea that had fascinated generations of Jewish philosophers before him. In this book, Clémence Boulouque charts the development of the pre-Freudian unconscious from subcultural inquiry to dominant discourse during the long nineteenth century. Although Freud’s scientific notion differed from Schelling’s mythical description of the abyss from which creation springs, its resonance with older ideas was celebrated as an opportunity to express specifically Jewish contributions to modernity. Indeed, Boulouque shows that the pre-Freudian unconscious emerged from conversations in Jewish mysticism about otherness and coexistence. In the hopeful years before World War I, Boulouque argues that such reflections offered the possibility of emancipation not only to Jews but to all.
296 pages | 6 x 9 | © 2025
History: History of Ideas
Philosophy: General Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Religion: Judaism
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I: Beyond Reason: The Unconscious as a Bond for Humanity
1. The Kabbalistic Genesis of the Unconscious: Schelling’s Legacy
2. Schelling’s Jewish Receptions: Kabbalah and/as the Unconscious
3. The Margins of Reason: The Wissenschaft des Judentums, Kabbalah Studies, and the Emerging Science of the Mind
4. Emerson’s Oversoul, “American Religion,” and Kabbalistic Motives
Part II: The Mind as Battleground: The Collective Psyche in Jewish Thought and the Many Claims to the Unconscious
5. Jewish Spirit, National Spirit, and Absolute Spirit: Building Blocks of the Collective Unconscious and the Defense of Judaism
6. Völkerpsychologie: A Psychology of Culture against a Race-Based Spirit
7. The Unconscious as Mystique? Hartmann’s Philosophy of the Unconscious and Its Jewish Critics
8. The “Retrospective Unconscious”: Reading the Jewish Tradition as Psychology
Coda
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index