Philosophy is not opposed to science, it behaves like a science and works in part by the same methods; it departs from it, however, by clinging to the illusion of being able to present a picture of the universe which is without gaps and is coherent, though one which is bound to collapse with every fresh advance in our knowledge. It goes astray in its method by over-estimating the epistemological value of our logical operations and by accepting other sources of knowledge such as intuition. And it often seems that the poet’s derisive comment is not unjustified when he says of the philosopher:
Mit seinen Nachtmützen und Schlafrockfetzen Stopft er die Lücken des Weltenbaus
(Freud, 1933 [1932], pp. 160–161).8
Freud considers that the purpose of the philosophical system is to subject knowledge to logical operations in the same way that the purpose of secondary revision is to subject the representation of dreams to a consideration of intelligibility. To further examine this comparison between the writing of the philosopher and secondary revision, I will try to expose the specific role that secondary revision holds amongst the different aspects of the dream-work.