This paper proposes a reflection on the epistemological status of psychoanalysis created by Freud. It was developed through a critical confrontation of the insertion of his metapsychology within a framework some authors have called vitalism, which would have been the result of a deviation from his academic education when resuming and updating the 19th-century concept of vitalism with the notion of Trieb. In response, this article discusses some topics, such as Freud’s scientific training environment, the status of the notion of Trieb - which is considered conventional and entropic - and finally, resorting to Canguilhem, inserts Freud’s metapsychology in a framework of mechanistic materialism elevated to the ultimate consequences, which would have been the result of his true epistemological procedure, in addition to his most daring and refined scientific contribution at the time.
Key words:
Freud; metapsychology; Trieb; mechanicism; vitalism