The analogical method in Freud

Abstract

In this conference, I intend to show that the use of analogies and comparisons of the type "as if" corresponds to a heuristic instrument of research, configuring a methodological procedure of research put by Freud in the setting of the sciences of nature. The goal in his use is both to furnish a "rule of searching" and to give to some concepts, or processes, an empirical content, not easily apprehensible, or even impossible to be found. This conception about nature and the function of analogies and comparisons of the type "as if " in sciences is not a novelty introduced by Freud, but a common practice in empirical sciences, which Freud has learnt in his education as scientist. In this way, after explaining the conceptions of Immanuel Kant and Ernst Mach about the use of analogies and comparisons of the type "as if ", I try to recapture Freud’s opinions about this issue, showing that they reaffirm the conceptions of those authors.