La psicología de Friedrich Engels: de las teorías materialistas del trabajo manual y del reflejo a lacrítica del empirismo y de la ideologia

Abstract

The main psychological ideas of Friedrich Engels are summarized and shortly discussed. These ideas are gathered and examined separately in six categories: the formulations retaken by Marx’s psychology, the explanation of psychic activity on the basis of manual labour, the materialist theory of reflection, the theoretical-methodological critique of empiricist materialism in the elucidation the psyche, the analysis of the familiar-sexual reproductive base of society, and the denunciation of the psychological essence of ideology. Special attention is paid to the coincidences of the Engelsian psychology with the Freudian perspective. The paper concludes with a reflection on Engel’s critical attitude towards psychology.