Course Description
Introduction to Formal Metapsychology is the first-level course offered by the Scuola di Psicanalisi Freudiana for the 2026/2027 academic year. Its aim is to establish the conceptual prerequisites needed to read and critically discuss the formalisation of metapsychology developed in Franco Baldini’s forthcoming volume, Foundations of Formal Metapsychology, which will be the subject of the second-level Seminars.
The course is grounded in a conviction that runs throughout the entire work on which it is based: for Freud, psychoanalysis is first and foremost a procedure of investigation modelled on the physicist’s experiment, and its conceptual apparatus can and must be examined for its logical coherence. Where natural language conceals ambiguities, mathematical form makes them visible; formalisation is therefore not an academic exercise, but a tool for restoring a univocal meaning to metapsychological concepts. Each lesson therefore combines Baldini’s formal framework with a close examination of the Freudian texts in which these concepts originate, with the aim of clarifying them without ambiguity.
The course is organised into an introductory lecture, including an epistemological premise, followed by two parts: the scalar model and the vector model with its implications, reflecting the structure of the volume. The treatment remains at a conceptual level: the mathematical apparatus is not the subject of the first level and is introduced only to the extent necessary to understand what is at stake.
Course schedule
The course consists of 15 sessions, held on Monday evenings via videoconference (Zoom). Sessions take place every two weeks during the first part of the academic year (October–February) and monthly during the second part (March–June). The reduced frequency in the spring is intended to facilitate the connection with the conference: the final sessions prepare students for the key themes addressed in the sessions of Maria Vittoria Ceschi’s seminar series.
Expected Learning Outcome
- Understand the problem of the consistency of the metapsychological apparatus and the epistemological reasons for its formalisation.
- Master the univocal meaning of the principal metapsychological concepts (drive, cathexis, representation, repression, transference, identification) on the basis of the relevant Freudian texts.
- Recognise the guiding idea of psychic systems as symmetry breakings, and the distinction between psychic reality and external reality.
- Understand the status of the intraclinical method of control and the problem of suggestion as a question of objectivity.
- Situate psychoanalysis within the contemporary epistemological debate and follow the conference “Psychoanalysis and Economics in Dialogue” with the appropriate conceptual tools.
Connection with the Conference “Epistemology of Frontier Sciences: Psychoanalysis and Economics in Dialogue”
The second half of the course serves as preparation for the seminar series Epistemology of Frontier Sciences: Psychoanalysis and Economics in Dialogue, curated by Maria Vittoria Ceschi and scheduled for 2027. Three bridge lectures in economics, delivered by Ceschi (22 February, 8 March, and 5 April 2027), provide the economic foundations necessary to follow the conference. These are complemented by three sessions explicitly connected to the conference programme: one on Beyond the Pleasure Principle, one on Questions of Method between Freud and Keynes, and one on The Role of Formalism. The guiding thread is the concept of naturalisation — the construction of rigorous transitions between different forms of objectivity — as an alternative to “bad reduction.”
Calendar
| Date | Title and brief description | Freudian readings |
|---|---|---|
| 12 Oct 2026 | Introductory Lecture and Premise: The Epistemic Problem and the Reversal of Eros/ThanatosPresentation of the course, its objectives and expected learning outcomes; the relationship between the first level (Foundations), the second-level Seminars and the conference Psychoanalysis and Economics in Dialogue. The underlying epistemic problem: psychoanalysis as a procedure of investigation (Verfahren zur Untersuchung) modelled on the physicist’s experiment, the methodological legacy lost after 1939, and the reasons requiring a formalisation of metapsychology. The drive as a limit-concept (Grenzbegriff); the need for a “physics of the subject”; the reversal of the commonplace: Freud’s unresolved enigma was not Thanatos, but Eros. | Baldini, Preface and Chapters 1–2. Freud, An Outline of Psychoanalysis (1938), Preface; “Psycho-Analysis” (1923); Instincts and Their Vicissitudes (1915); Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920). |
| PART ONE — THE SCALAR MODEL | ||
| 26 Oct 2026 | The Drive as a Vector ForceThe four Freudian terms of the drive — source (Quelle), pressure (Drang), object (Objekt), and aim (Ziel) — and their precise correspondence with the four elements of a vector. The drive as force (Kraft) in the sense of physics and its formalisation. | Baldini, Chapter 3. Freud, Instincts and Their Vicissitudes (1915). |
| 9 Nov 2026 | The Scalar Model: Kinematics and DynamicsPsychic tension and the pleasure principle; the first model (kinematics) and the second (dynamics); convergence with experimental data; anxiety as non-derivability; the limits of the scalar model that necessitate the transition to the vector model. | Baldini, Chapter 4. Freud, Project for a Scientific Psychology (1895); Instincts and Their Vicissitudes (1915). |
| PART TWO — FROM THE VECTOR MODEL TO THE THEMES OF THE CONFERENCE | ||
| 23 Nov 2026 | Freudian Constraints and the Space of RepresentationsThe stratification and rewriting (Umschrift) of memory traces; the metric based on cathexis; the distinction between trace and representation. The constraints that any formalisation of psychic space must satisfy. | Baldini, Chapter 5. Freud, Letter 112 to Fliess (6 December 1896); The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), Chapter VII. |
| 14 Dec 2026 | Symmetries and Symmetry Breakings (Part I): the Id and RepressionThe symmetries of the Id and its fundamental group; psychic systems as residual symmetry groups (the Erlangen Programme applied to the psyche); libidinal viscosity, fixation and the structure of repression (primary and secondary repression, the return of the repressed, Verneinung). Conceptual treatment, without mathematical apparatus. | Baldini, Chapters 6 and 10. Freud, Repression (1915); The Unconscious (1915); Negation (1925). |
| 25 Jan 2027 | Symmetries and Symmetry Breakings (Part II): The Constitution of the Ego and IdentificationThe constitution of the Ego viewed from the perspective of symmetry breaking: primary narcissism, Real-Ich, pleasure-Ego and definitive Real-Ich as progressively residual symmetries; identification as the transfer of structure and as symmetry breaking (primary identification, regressive substitute, single trait). Conceptual treatment. | Baldini, Chapters 10 and 17. Freud, On Narcissism: An Introduction (1914); Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921); The Ego and the Id (1923). |
| 8 Feb 2027 | Internal and External, Psychic Reality and Clinical ConfigurationsThe difference in signature (Euclidean vs. Minkowskian) as a structural distinction; psychic reality and external reality as incompatible topologies; reality-testing; the five major clinical configurations — neurosis, psychosis, perversion, mourning and melancholia — as different modes of cathexis and decathexis. | Baldini, Chapters 11 and 14. Freud, Neurosis and Psychosis (1924); The Loss of Reality in Neurosis and Psychosis (1924); Mourning and Melancholia (1917). |
| BRIDGE LECTURES IN ECONOMICS (curated by M. V. Ceschi) — FOUNDATIONS FOR THE CONFERENCE | ||
| 22 Feb 2027 | Foundations of Economics (I): Method, Uncertainty and ExpectationsThe first of three bridge lectures providing the Foundations audience with the economic vocabulary necessary for the conference. The object of economics and the problem of the observer within the system; the Keynesian turn and the return of uncertainty, conventions and confidence against homo œconomicus; method as a question shared with Freud. (Title and readings to be defined with the lecturer.) | Keynes, The General Theory (1936), chapters on expectations. Ceschi (2024), Towards a Naturalisation of the Concept of Expectation in Economics. |
| 8 Mar 2027 | Foundations of Economics (II): Hedonism, Utility and Its LimitsThe hedonistic foundation of utility-value theory, from its Benthamite origins to the marginalist revolution, and its epistemological limits; the parallel with the breach opened by Freud in Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Direct preparation for Session 3.2 of the conference. (Title and readings to be defined with the lecturer.) | Georgescu-Roegen (1971). Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920). |
| CONNECTION WITH THE CONFERENCE · THEMATIC SESSIONS | ||
| 22 Mar 2027 | Connection with the Conference · Session 3.2 — Beyond the Pleasure Principle: One Libido, Two RegimesEros and Thanatos as two regimes of a single energy; the economic principles (Nirvana, pleasure, reality) as a hierarchy of derivation; the distinction between satisfaction (Befriedigung) and pleasure (Lust). The critique of hedonism as a point of convergence with the economic critique of the utility-maximising agent. | Baldini, Chapter 9 and revisit of Chapter 2. Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920); The Ego and the Id (1923). |
| 5 Apr 2027 | Foundations of Economics (III): Pluralism, Objectivity and NaturalisationThe pluralism of research programmes and the drive towards specialisation in economics; objectivity and competing ontologies in relation to psychoanalysis; naturalisation as the construction of rigorous transitions between different forms of objectivity, as opposed to “bad reduction”. Preparation for Sessions 3.4 and 3.6. (Title and readings to be defined with the lecturer.) | Cedrini & Fontana (2018); Ambrosino, Cedrini & Davis (2021). Baldini (2024). |
| 19 Apr 2027 | Connection with the Conference · Session 3.1 — Questions of Method: Intraclinical Control and TransferenceThe Standard Epistemic Module (SEM) and the architecture of intraclinical control; psychoanalysis as a natural science; the problem of suggestion and the irreducibility of the subject to a medical object; transference as displacement, and the control that distinguishes it from suggestion; transcendental falsificationism; interpretation as the continuation of analysis. | Baldini, Chapters 16 and 18. Freud, The Dynamics of Transference (1912); Constructions in Analysis (1937). |
| 10 May 2027 | Revisiting the Standard Epistemic ModuleA consolidation session devoted to revisiting and clarifying the Standard Epistemic Module introduced in the previous lecture: the logical structure of intraclinical control, the distinction between the effects of construction and the effects of suggestion, and the role of the SEM as a criterion of objectivity. The aim is to establish with precision a technically decisive element of the overall framework before the concluding lectures. | Baldini, Chapter 18 (revisited). Freud, Constructions in Analysis (1937). |
| 24 May 2027 | Connection with the Conference · Session 3.6 — The Role of Formalism and NaturalisationWhat kind of formalism is appropriate to a frontier science; the boundary between rigour and the fetishisation of formalism; naturalisation as the construction of rigorous transitions between different forms of objectivity, as opposed to “bad reduction”. Brief references to Sessions 3.3 (cosmologies), 3.4 (objectivity and pluralism) and 3.5 (decisions, trust and judgement), providing the vocabulary needed by the conference audience. | Baldini, Chapters 1 and 21. Freud, Constructions in Analysis (1937). Ceschi (2024), Towards a Naturalisation of the Concept of Expectation in Economics. |
| 7 Jun 2027 | Synthesis and Bridge to the SeminarsRecapitulation of the complete structure of the model; its theoretical gains (terminological clarifications, extensions, unifications, epistemological positioning); a look at the implications for the comparison between human and artificial minds, as the horizon of the second-level Seminars. | Baldini, Chapters 20–21 and a preview of Chapter 23. Synthesis materials distributed during the course. |
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