Joan Warmbold asks: >Has there ever been a non-psychologist scholar who >has challenged Freud's theories?
As is implied in Joan's question, there have been many eminent psychologists who have challenged psychoanalysis from its inception, e.g, Pierre Janet made perspicacious observations on Freud's methodology in public debates, and in the 1930s William McDougall published devastating critiques of major parts of Freudian theory. (Psychoanalysts largely ignored specific criticisms and blithely went on repeating their contentions as if they had never been rebutted. Freud's attitude was spelled out in his "History of the Psychoanalytic Movement" [1914}: "I knew very well how to account for the behaviour of my opponents... I made up my mind not to answer my opponents, and so far as my influence went, to restrain others from polemics.") To rescue the reputation of philosophers in regard to Freud ( :-) ): Sidney Hook, Ernest Nagel, Michael Scriven, Adolf Grünbaum, among others, presented penetrating critiques of different aspects of psychoanalysis at a conference organised by the New York University Institute of Philosophy for eminent philosophers and psychoanalysts, plus a few psychologists and psychiatrists. The contributions were published in *Psychoanalysis, Scientific Method, and Philosophy*, ed. S. Hook (1959). Another philosopher, Frank Cioffi, started publishing similarly penetrating critiques of Freud's writings in the 1970s (reprinted in *Freud and the Question of Pseudoscience*, 1998). The philosopher and social anthropologist Ernest Gellner published an analysis of psychoanalytic ideas in *The Psychoanalytic Movement: Or The Coming of Unreason* (1985), a book both devastating in its logic and wickedly amusing in its presentation. (Sample of chapter titles: "Transference (Greater Love Has No Man)", "Psycho-hydraulics", "A Cunning Bastard", "The Trickster", "Freud and the Art of Daemon Maintenance" and "La Therapie Imaginaire" – highly recommended!) Finally: Ludwig Wittgenstein, while ambiguous in his attitude towards Freud, made the illuminating comment: "I, too, was greatly impressed when I first read Freud. He's extraordinary – of course he is full of fishy thinking and his charm and the charm of his subject is so great that you may easily be fooled…" (But following more such comments, he added: "All this, of course, doesn't detract from Freud's extraordinary scientific achievement" – a view that few of the philosophers at the above-cited NYU seminar would have endorsed.) Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London allenester...@compuserve.com http://www.esterson.org --------------------------- From:Joan Warmbold <jwarm...@oakton.edu> Subject: Re: Freud and intellectuals Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2010 19:06:17 -0500 I've noted this phenomena also Allen and my hypothesis has been that it was the esoteric, complex and inaccessible nature of Freud's theories that appealed to intellectuals. Ironically, I suspect that intellectuals are more easily seduced by the style of his presentation--i.e., degree of eloquence and complexity that prevented them from perceiving the underlying use of "rhetorical strategies." I've also noted that, in general, east coast intellectual publications, as per the New Yorker, still appear to be enthralled with Freud's. Has there ever been a non-psychologist scholar who has challenged Freud's theories? Joan jwarm...@oakton.edu --------------------------- From: Christopher D. Green <chri...@yorku.ca> Subject: Re: Freud and intellectuals Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2010 20:48:41 -0400 Joan Warmbold wrote: Has there ever been a non-psychologist scholar who has challenged Freud's theories? Well, there's Allen. :-) Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=5644 or send a blank email to leave-5644-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
