Sobre o mundo interior: Wittgenstein e Freud

Abstract

This study investigates the concept of the inner world and its forms of manifestation, establishing a dialogue between the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein and the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud. It analyzes how Wittgenstein, in his Philosophical Investigations, employs the private language argument (sections 243–315) to dissolve the illusion of a purely subjective inner realm, demonstrating that psychological concepts depend on external criteria and shared social practices. In parallel, it examines the foundations of Freudian psychoanalysis, focusing on works from the first topographical model (1900–1919), such as The Interpretation of Dreams, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, and Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. The study demonstrates that the unconscious is not an entity hidden in a physical location, but rather a manifestation that emerges through language in dreams, jokes, and parapraxes (Freudian slips), operating through the mechanisms of condensation and displacement. The study concludes that both authors converge in their critique of an inaccessible inner realm: while Wittgenstein proposes a therapy of concepts to dispel linguistic confusions, Freud offers a talking cure, enabling the subject to re-signify their subjective experience within psychological language games. Thus, the research argues that the inner world and the unconscious are dimensions of subjectivity that acquire meaning through the public and expressive dimension of language, with the unconscious constituting one of the forms through which the inner world manifests itself.