Repetition compulsion as primum movens of religion? On Christoph Türcke’s Philosophy of Dreams

Abstract

Summary The essay exposes, recognizes the astonishing originality, and showcases the shortcomings of Christoph Türcke’s Philosophy of Dreams, which offers a theory of the origin of religion inspired by both psychoanalysis and critical theory. Among the objections raised are the speculative nature of the enterprise, which is not sufficiently based on empirical data, the lack of knowledge concerning the transition from apes to humans, the impossibility for hallucinations to be the basic doxastic act, the exaggerated focus on dread, which is only one form of the numinous experience, and on the repetition compulsion, which could hardly prove as creative as the author assumes particularly concerning the origin of sacrifice, and the confusion of genesis and validity.