Diderot Freud's precursor?

Abstract

Two centuries ago or so Diderot (1713-1784) wrote a lot of pages on sexuality which already heralded Freud and what psychoanalysis was to become. Brilliant intuitions on the OEdipus complex the unconscious, repression, sublimation, neurosis, hysteria, lesbianism, shot through the famous encyclopedist’s mind. Better still: long before Uneasiness in civilization (1929), he denounced the intolerable and absurd check that, in the name of morality and religion, civilized society puts on the sex urge, by advocating chastity, continence and faithfulness in married life, and, in so doing, induces a neurosis with the individuals, men and women, because they cannot bear the amount of renouncement it requires of them. It is this aspect of Diderot’s genius, at the same time so up-to-date and so often covered up, to which Freud paid tribute, that this article intends to bring out.