There needs to be a distinction between Freud the clinician, whose theories have all but been entirely surpassed in the treatment of mental illness, and Freud the philosopher, who is still a major reference point in discussions of philosophy and cultural theory. Marx is still an active force in those conversations too. These discourse discuss methods of interpreting literature, art, history and culture.

The great structural thinkers of the last century, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Darwin, Nietzsche were the last philosophers that attempted schemas to describe all of history and culture as a single synthesized whole governed by definable mechanisms . Their flawed tools (the world spirit, the economy, the unconscious, biological evolution, and the will to power) are all somewhat rusty but there have been no real contenders to replace them.