Sigmund Freud (German pronunciation: [zikm nt ft]; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May

6 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist who became known as the foundin
g father of psychoanalysis.
Freud qualified as a doctor of medicine at the University of Vienna in 1881,[2]
and then carried out research into cerebral palsy, aphasia and microscopic neuro
anatomy at the Vienna General Hospital.[3] He was appointed a university lecture
r in neuropathology in 1885 and became a professor in 1902.
In creating psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology throu
gh dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst,[4] Freud developed therapeuti
c techniques such as the use of free association (in which patients report their
thoughts without reservation and in whichever order they spontaneously occur) a
nd discovered transference (the process in which patients displace onto their an
alysts feelings derived from their childhood attachments), establishing its cent
ral role in the analytic process. Freuds redefinition of sexuality to include its
infantile forms led him to formulate the Oedipus complex as the central tenet o
f psychoanalytical theory. His analysis of his own and his patients dreams as w
ish-fulfillments provided him with models for the clinical analysis of symptom f
ormation and the mechanisms of repression as well as for elaboration of his theo
ry of the unconscious as an agency disruptive of conscious states of mind.[5] Fr
eud postulated the existence of libido, an energy with which mental processes an
d structures are invested and which generates erotic attachments, and a death dr
ive, the source of repetition, hate, aggression and neurotic guilt.[6] In his la
ter work Freud drew on psychoanalytic theory to develop a wide-ranging interpret
ation and critique of religion and culture.
Psychoanalysis remains influential within psychotherapy, within some areas of ps
ychiatry, and across the humanities. As such it continues to generate extensive
and highly contested debate with regard to its therapeutic efficacy, its scienti
fic status and as to whether it advances or is detrimental to the feminist cause
.[7] Freud s work has, nonetheless, suffused contemporary thought and popular cu
lture to the extent that in 1939 W. H. Auden wrote, in a poem dedicated to him:
"to us he is no more a person / now but a whole climate of opinion / under whom
we conduct our different lives".[8]
--

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (/nit/[42] or /niti/;[43] German: [fid vlhlm nit

ugust 1900) was a German philologist, philosopher, cultural critic, poet and com
poser. He wrote several critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary cultu
re, philosophy and science, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony and aphori
sm.
Nietzsche s key ideas include the Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy, perspectivism,
the Will to Power, the "death of God", the bermensch and eternal recurrence. One
of the key tenets of his philosophy is the concept of "life-affirmation," which
embraces the realities of the world we live now in over the idea of a world bey
ond. It further champions the creative powers of the individual to strive beyond
social, cultural, and moral contexts.[44] His radical questioning of the value
and objectivity of truth has been the focus of extensive commentary, and his inf
luence remains substantial, particularly in the continental philosophical school
s of existentialism, postmodernism, and post-structuralism. His ideas of individ
ual overcoming and transcendence beyond structure and context have had a profoun
d impact on late-twentieth and early-twenty-first century thinkers, who have use
d these concepts as points of departure in the development of their philosophies
, as seen in the social and political thought of Roberto Mangabeira Unger.[45][4
6][47]
Nietzsche began his career as a classical philologist a scholar of Greek and Rom

an textual criticism before turning to philosophy. In 1869, at age twenty-four,

he was appointed to the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel,
the youngest individual to have held this position. He resigned in the summer o
f 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life.[48] In 1889, at
age forty-four, he suffered a collapse and a complete loss of his mental facult
ies. The breakdown was later ascribed to atypical general paresis due to tertiar
y syphilis, but this diagnosis has come into question.[49] Re-examination of Nie
tzsche s medical evaluation papers show that he almost certainly died of brain c
ancer.[50] Nietzsche lived his remaining years in the care of his mother until h
er death in 1897, after which he fell under the care of his sister Elisabeth Frst
er-Nietzsche until his death in 1900.
As his caretaker, his sister assumed the roles of curator and editor of Nietzsch
e s manuscripts. Frster-Nietzsche was married to a prominent German nationalist a
nd antisemite, Bernhard Frster, and reworked Nietzsche s unpublished writings to
fit her own ideology, often in ways contrary to Nietzsche s stated opinions, whi
ch were strongly and explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism (see Nie
tzsche s criticism of antisemitism and nationalism). Through Frster-Nietzsche s e
ditions, Nietzsche s name became associated with German militarism and Nazism, a
lthough later twentieth-century scholars have counteracted this conception of hi
s ideas.