The Foundations of Psychoanalysis

The Foundations of Psychoanalysis: A Philosophical Critique

Cover of the first edition
Author Adolf Grünbaum
Country United States
Language English
Series Pittsburgh Series in Philosophy and History of Science
Subject Psychoanalysis
Published 1984 (University of California Press)
Media type Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages 310
ISBN 978-0520050174

The Foundations of Psychoanalysis: A Philosophical Critique is a 1984 book by Adolf Grünbaum, in which Grünbaum criticizes Sigmund Freud and the scientific credentials of Freudian psychoanalytic theory. Grünbaum argues that there are methodological and epistemological reasons to conclude that some central Freudian theories are not well supported by empirical evidence.[1] Grünbaum's book was influential and has been considered the most important philosophical critique of Freud.

Summary

Grünbaum offers a critique of the scientific credentials of Freudian psychoanalytic theory, arguing that there are methodological and epistemological reasons to think that some central Freudian doctrines are not well supported by empirical evidence.[1] (For example, Grünbaum is critical of Freud's theory of dreams,[2] which he considers the cornerstone of psychoanalysis).[3]

Despite taking this position, Grünbaum approves of Freud's interpretation of religion[4] and argues against the idea that psychoanalysis is a pseudo-science. He criticizes Karl Popper's view that psychoanalytic propositions cannot be disconfirmed and that psychoanalysis is therefore pseudo-scientific.[5][6][7] Grünbaum considers Popper, like many other philosophers who have written about Freud, to be both a poor reader of Freud and a poor logician. Grünbaum observes, for example, that Freud's theory that paranoia results from repressed homosexuality invites the obviously falsifiable prediction that a decline in the repression of homosexuality should result in a corresponding decline of paranoia, thereby disproving Popper's claim that psychoanalytic propositions are unfalsifiable.[8]

Grünbaum criticizes the hermeneutic interpretation of psychoanalysis propounded by Jürgen Habermas in Knowledge and Human Interests (1968). He argues that Habermas misunderstands psychoanalysis, falsely maintaining that it abandons the scientific norm in its aspirations. Grünbaum, drawing on his knowledge of modern physics, contends that Habermas is ignorant of science.[9]

Paul Ricœur's hermeneutic interpretation of Freud in his Freud and Philosophy (1965) is similarly criticized by Grünbaum. Ricœur seeks to limit the proper subject of psychoanalysis to the verbal communications of the patient in analysis, something Grünbaum denounces as "ideological surgery" and "mutilation" of psychoanalysis. Grünbaum shows that Freud could not have accepted such a limited conception of the proper domain of psychoanalysis, since he often considered the nonverbal behavior of patients, speculated about the psychological meaning of artifacts such as statues and paintings, and most importantly believed that his discoveries held true for people who had never been analyzed and therefore never had to produce a narrative account of their symptoms.[10]

In Grünbaum's view, the causal claims of psychoanalysis must be assessed through methodological procedures deriving from the work of Francis Bacon and John Stuart Mill.[11]

Scholarly reception

The Foundations of Psychoanalysis was influential.[1] The work was seen as a landmark in the debate over the merits of psychoanalysis when it was published, and a number of critics of Freud hailed it as a masterpiece.[7] Psychologist Hans Eysenck, in his Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire, (1985) deemed The Foundations of Psychoanalysis the definitive work on the subject, praising Grünbaum's "logical rigour and argumentative precision" and "extensive scholarship of both the psychoanalytic literature."[12] Professor of German Ritchie Robertson writes that The Foundations of Psychoanalysis is the leading scientific critique of Freud's work.[13]

The Foundations of Psychoanalysis has also been considered the most important philosophical critique of Freud,[14] though the amount of space Grünbaum devotes to criticizing hermeneutic interpretations of Freud (which amounts to a third of his book) has become notorious.[11][15] M. A. Notturno and psychiatrist Paul R. McHugh wrote in Metaphilosophy that Grünbaum cogently argues that the clinical evidence held by Freud to provide the empirical basis for psychoanalysis is weak and that the validation of Freud's cardinal hypotheses must come mainly from extra-clinical studies.[16] Psychoanalysts have given Grünbaum greater attention than other recent critics of psychoanalysis.[15] Psychoanalyst Marshall Edelson wrote a book, Hypothesis and Evidence in Psychoanalysis (1984), responding to Grünbaum's arguments.[17] Psychoanalyst Joel Kovel credits Grünbaum with providing the best discussion of the problems surrounding the validation of Freud's theories.[4] In his Freud: A Life for Our Time (1988) historian Peter Gay credits Grünbaum with discrediting Popper's argument that psychoanalysis is a pseudo-science,[5] while philosopher Michael Ruse, writing in Homosexuality: A Philosophical Inquiry (1988), finds his discussion of Popper to be definitive.[18] However, philosopher James Hopkins argues that Grünbaum's criticism of Freud's theory of dreams is based on a misunderstanding of Freud.[2] He also argues that Mill's methodology is inapplicable to motive and therefore inappropriate to assessing psychoanalysis, a psychology of motive.[19]

Author John Kerr writes that The Foundations of Psychoanalysis "has come to define contemporary debate over the evidentiary status of Freud's claims."[20] Author Richard Webster writes in Why Freud Was Wrong (1995) that Grünbaum's work has been criticized by Frank Cioffi, who rejects his portrayal of Freud as a philosophically astute investigator of human psychology. Webster argues that while The Foundations of Psychoanalysis contains many insights and much pertinent criticism of Freud's approach, it has been overrated. Webster believes that Grünbaum's work has been overvalued by critics of psychoanalysis because of its style of argument, which he considers to be overly theoretical and abstract, and to have had the undesirable effect of distracting attention away from issues such as Freud's character.[21]

Literary critic Frederick Crews commends Grünbaum's critique of Freud, but criticizes him for focusing on Freud's clinical theory while neglecting Freud's metapsychology, and for accepting "Freud's after-the-fact professions of methodological sophistication."[22] Grünbaum has been criticized by philosopher David Sachs in "In Fairness to Freud".[13] Sachs argues that Grünbaum focuses too much on passages from Freud's writings taken in isolation, without considering what Freud writes about the same subjects elsewhere in his work. Literary critic Alexander Welsh believes that since it is not clear which parts of Freud's clinical data were reported and which were invented, Grünbaum's critique of Freud's claims to empiricism is seriously compromised. In his view, defenses of psychoanalysis against Grünbaum, including that of Edelson, suffer from the same problem.[15]

Philosopher Jonathan Lear writes that Grünbaum effectively criticizes Ricœur and Habermas, but adds that despite what is often assumed Grünbaum's arguments "do not undermine the more general possibility of a causal hermeneutic account of human motivation."[23] Philosopher Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen and psychologist Sonu Shamdasani write that while Grünbaum maintains that Freud was a "sophisticated scientific methodologist", who was aware of the possible effects of suggestion on his patients and attempted to deal with this issue through the "tally argument", the "tally argument" "presupposes the non-suggestibility rather than proving it." They thus consider his position unjustified. They reject his view that Freud abandoned his seduction theory because of adverse evidence, claiming, following Cioffi, that Freud could not have had any such evidence.[24]

See also

References

Footnotes

  1. 1 2 3 Quinn 2005. p. 355.
  2. 1 2 Hopkins 1991. p. 122.
  3. ↑ Hobson 1993. p. 489.
  4. 1 2 Kovel 1991. p. 250.
  5. 1 2 Gay 1995. p. 745.
  6. ↑ Ruse 1988. pp. 31, 280.
  7. 1 2 Webster 2005. p. 24.
  8. ↑ Robinson 1993. pp. 182-183.
  9. ↑ Robinson 1993. pp. 188-189.
  10. ↑ Robinson 1993. pp. 195-196, 198.
  11. 1 2 Hopkins 1991. pp. 127-128.
  12. ↑ Eysenck 1986. p. 212.
  13. 1 2 Robertson 1999. p. x.
  14. ↑ Robinson 1993. p. 180.
  15. 1 2 3 Welsh 1994. pp. 124-125.
  16. ↑ Notturno 1987.
  17. ↑ Robinson 1993. p. 181.
  18. ↑ Ruse 1988. p. 31.
  19. ↑ Hopkins 1991. p. 128.
  20. ↑ Kerr 2012. p. 574.
  21. ↑ Webster 2005. pp. 24, 560.
  22. ↑ Crews 1997. pp. vii-ix.
  23. ↑ Lear 1992. p. 49.
  24. ↑ Borch-Jacobsen 2012. pp. 137-8, 331.

Bibliography

Books
  • Borch-Jacobsen, Mikkel; Shamdasani, Sonu (2012). The Freud Files: An Inquiry into the History of Psychoanalysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-72978-9. 
  • Crews, Frederick; Macmillan, Malcolm (1997). Freud Evaluated: The Completed Arc. Cambridge: The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-63171-7. 
  • Eysenck, Hans (1986). Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-022562-5. 
  • Gay, Peter (1995). Freud: A Life for Our Time. Harmondsworth: Papermac. ISBN 0-333-48638-2. 
  • Hobson, J. Allan (1993). Earman, John; et al., eds. Philosophical Problems of the Internal and External Worlds. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 0-8229-3738-7. 
  • Hopkins, James (1991). Neu, Jerome, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Freud. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-37779-X. 
  • Kerr, John (2012). A Dangerous Method. London: Atlantic Books. ISBN 9780857891785. 
  • Kovel, Joel (1991). History and Spirit: An Inquiry into the Philosophy of Liberation. Boston: Beacon Press. ISBN 0-8070-2916-5. 
  • Lear, Jonathan (1992). Love and its Place in Nature: A Philosophical Interpretation of Freudian Psychoanalysis. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-16641-5. 
  • Quinn, Philip L. (2005). Honderich, Ted, ed. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-926479-1. 
  • Robertson, Ritchie; Freud, Sigmund (1999). The Interpretation of Dreams. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-210049-1. 
  • Robinson, Paul (1993). Freud and His Critics. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-08029-7. 
  • Ruse, Michael (1988). Homosexuality: A Philosophical Inquiry. New York: Basil Blackwell. ISBN 0 631 15275 X. 
  • Webster, Richard (2005). Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis. Oxford: The Orwell Press. ISBN 0-9515922-5-4. 
  • Welsh, Alexander (1994). Freud's Wishful Dream Book. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-03718-3. 
Online articles
  • Notturno, M. A.; McHugh, Paul R. "Is Freudian psychoanalytic theory really falsifiable?". JSTOR 24436813. 
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