The ancestry of id

✍ Scribed by Philip L. Harriman

• Book ID: 101337589
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1952
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 160 KB
• Volume: 8
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-9762
• DOI: 10.1002/1097-4679(195210)8:4<416::aid-jclp2270080419>3.0.co;2-e

✦ Synopsis

Joan Riviere's translation into English of Freud's Thc Ego and the Id reflects the wide connotation of the term id. Nevertheless, there is a strong likelihood that an error is being perpetuated uith regard to tlic derivation of this concept. Customarily, the word id is said to haw been derived from the Latin demonstrative pronoun.

Writers who have the background of a classical education point out that the word is the nominative case, singular number, neuter gender of the familiar paradigm is, m, id. I n the writings of Cicero i d denotes "this, that, that thing, that which wis previously mentioned." By present-day convention in psychoanalytic writings, id is ronstriicd to mean the unorganized, inchoate, iindisciplined impulses 11. hich obey riotliirig but the laws of elemental cyreriaicism or crass hedonism. The neuter impliration is often taken to be appropriate for designating the lack of personal responsibility :rihcrent in the Id. This aspect of the connotation seems t o be a matter of general agreement among writers. If that were the only important signification of the term, id might be regarded as liaving been derived from the Latin demonstrative pronouii. KO question would be raised. There would be, indeed, an etymological icy between Id and Ego. Id, lion ever, coiinotes a static entity in classical crhapi Groddcck, who suggested the term to Freud, meant t o imply a dyitaniicx force. It is very likely that Freud readily accepted the term because i d has