The Pluralist Winter, 1963, No. 2, pp.4-13.
Scientific_stat.doc
THE SCIENTIFIC STATUS
OF PSYCHOANALYSIS
By J. J. Furedy
Most systems nowadays claim to be scientific, for it is currently fashionable to be so. Thus we are told of scientific ways of removing hair and scientific ways of growing it, scientific ways of losing weight, and scientific ways of gaining it, and so on.
Psychoanalysis is no exception in this regard. From the time of its inception, its claim to a scientific status has been upheld by its originator, who called it a "mental science", while Fliess1, to take a more recent exponent's view, describes it as the "new science". For the purposes of this paper however, and contrary to the current fashions, I want to insist that status and scientific status are not identical and that therefore the problem of the scientific status of psychoanalysis is to be seen as one of demarcation rather than one of evaluation. The question, then, with which I will deal, is not whether psychoanalysis is "any good", but rather the one of whether psychoanalysis is scientific or not.
As a preliminary, I should make clear that the only psychoanalytic system which I will concern myself with is the strictly Freudian sort. I have made this restriction both because of my ignorance of the many other systems of the various "deviationists" and because I suspect that, on account of the enormous variety of features of these other systems, it would be extremely difficulty to make any sort of generalisation about them. Even in terms of this restriction, it is still not easy to give invariant characterisations of the Freudian system, for Freud, like most other system builders, often changed his mind without actually realising this sufficiently to eliminate the ensuing inconsistency. I shall therefore take my comments to apply to something which we could call the "spirit" of the Freudian system, rather than claiming that my characterisations are true of whatever Freud said at any stage of his career.
Within this framework then, I want to suggest two criteria of the scientific and see to what extent they can be predicated of the Freudian system. In addition, I also want to put forward some further attendant features of, or attitudes connected with, scientific enquiry, and again consider how psychoanalysis "measures up" to these. In this regard I do not pretend that there is universal agreement about these criteria and attitudes among philosophers of science. Nor do I claim to give detailed arguments for their soundness (although I shall try to indicate in an unsystematic and merely suggestive way, why I think they are correct), since this undertaking would be far beyond the scope of this paper. It will then be apparent that answers to the question of the scientific status of psychoanalysis which differ from mine are also possible: answers which can only be rejected by the acceptance of a description of the scientific which, while it seems to me to be sound,
1 Fliess, R. (ed.): The Psychoanalytic Reader. London, 1950, p. ix.
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is not the only sort of characterisation which has been put forward by theorists.
Before considering psychoanalysis in the light of these proposed standards however, I want to deal briefly with, and to dismiss, some obviously unsound arguments which have been raised against the claim of psychoanalysis to be a science. Such a brief dismissal is possible in the case of these views simply because all of them obviously lack any cogence when one considers them at all carefully. I mention them only because these views (which, more often than not, are only implicit rather than being openly stated in detail) are too frequently the ones on which a theorist bases his dismissal of a particular system as not being scientific.
In this connection, one finds that some writers would dismiss psychoanalysis as a science on the grounds of implausibility. An example here is Eysenck's attack on psychoanalysis on the grounds that its theories are "far-fetched"2. Now it is apparent on consideration, that it is fallacious to take plausibility to be relevant to scientific status, there being innumerable examples of scientific (and true) theories which were quite implausible at the time they were put forward. To take just one of these, Galileo's denial of the geocentric theory certainly had the epithet of "far-fetched" attached to it by many contemporary thinkers, yet one would hardly deny it scientific status now.
A related sort of view is manifested by writers like Jastrow, who wants to dismiss psychoanalysis because it is "unnatural"3. Again, Lynch seems to use the notion of morality as a criterion of the scientific when first, in a somewhat flowery passage, he states that when he read through Freud's works, the latter "seemed to be as much haunted by the eternal sense of Sex; but through it all I was unable to find anything but the most fugitive glimpse of science" and later complains of Freud's "prurient imagination"4. Once more, the irrelevance of these sorts of considerations to the question of scientific status is quite apparent.
Finally, there are certain attacks on psychoanalysis which are based on mere metaphysical prejudices. Thus one finds the rejection of psychoanalytic concepts on purely materialist grounds, e.g. that they are unscientific because they are intangible. However, as we might expect, any apparent cogency of this sort of view is destroyed once we consider such concepts as electrons which, though clearly intangible, are concepts with an undisputable scientific status.
Returning now to what I regard as more adequate standards by which to decide the scientific status of a system, I want to suggest the requirement of falsifiability5as one of my two criteria of the scientific. A falsifiable theory is one which predicts certain events and forbids others, so that if these other events occur, the theory is falsified. Thus a falsifiable theory is genuinely predictive and it is the forbidding of certain events which distinguishes such a predictive theory from a post-dictive one. For a predictive theory will foretell certain events
2Eysenck, H.: Sense and Nonsense in Psychology. G.B., 1957, p. 238.
3Jastrow, J.: The House that Freud Built. London, 1933, p. 157.
4Lynch, A.: Science: Leading and Misleading. London, 1927, p. 254 and p. 256.
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before they happen, while a post-dictive theory merely explains (or "post-diets") them once they happen and, once any sort of events do happen, the post-dictive theory can be used to explain any of these other events as well, since it forbids none of these. Such post-dictive theories are, of course, unfalsifiable.
Now on his own showing, Freud does, at least in one place, suggest that the psychoanalytic system is the latter, unfalsifiable, sort of theory. In his Collected Papers he writes that while "it is always possible by analysis (that is, post-diction) to recognise the causation with certainty, a prediction of it (that is, the causation) by synthesis is impossible"6. To see the import of this, take, for example, the statement, "X has an unresolved Oedipus complex," as the theory. Then, once we know either the fact that X is a homosexual or that X is not a homosexual, we can recognise the "causation'' (viz., Oedipus complex resulting in homosexuality, or, Oedipus complex resulting in non-homosexuality) with certainty. However we cannot predict whether the unresolved complex will lead to homosexuality or to non-homosexuality (via repression, sublimation etc.). If, then, we are to take Freud at his own word, his system seems to be unfalsifiable as it "predicts" (non-genuinely) all possible events, these being, in our example, homosexuality and non-homosexuality.
However, as I have remarked above, my intention is to describe the "spirit" of the Freudian system, rather than base my characterisation on a single quotation. Moreover, in support of this looser, "spirit" approach, it is commonplace that most system builders do at certain times offer wrong characterisations of their own systems. Thus, while the appeal to these characterisations is quite sound from a strictly legalistic point of view—from the point of view, that is, of trying to convict the accused at ail costs—this is not to say that the system is really like the picture drawn by an isolated characterisation of its proponent. It is very much to the point then, to look at the system itself, as well as the descriptions of it given by its author.
. Indeed, when we do this, we do find the rejection of certain psychoanalytic hypotheses even by Freud himself on the basis of falsifying evidence. A well-known example is his rejection of his original view that hysteria is always caused by an earlier actual (physical) seduction. For later he modified this view by proposing that the seduction was in some cases merely a symbolic one. Here, then, we have a psychoanalytic hypothesis (that of hysteria being invariably the result of physical seduction) tested and actually falsified by empirical evidence, by events, that is, which the hypothesis has forbidden.
Notice, however, that this physical seduction hypothesis is by no means central to the psychoanalytic system, in contrast to such hypotheses as the existence of the libido, of repression, of the unconscious, and so on. And it seems to me that the criterion of falsifiability is not
5 This criterion has lately been emphasised to English speaking readers by K. R. Popper. See especially his The Logic of Scientific Discovery, which, although it appeared in the original German as early as 1934, was only translated and published in English in 1959.
6 Freud, S.: Collected Papers. Vol. II, London, 1933, p. 227.
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satisfied by a system's merely changing some of its more peripheral hypotheses; the central ones also, I would suggest, should be open to falsification, if the whole system is to be accorded a scientific status in terms of the falsifiability criterion.
This is not so say, of course, that the requirement is that such central or basic hypotheses as the existence of the libido should be false; it is only that there should be some possible state of human behaviour which would, if it did occur, falsify the libido hypothesis. The question then arises: are there such conceivable events?
Now I do not for one moment think that this question has a simple answer. Nevertheless, I would suggest that if we look at psychoanalytic explanation as it is generally used to account for human behaviour, we find that the conception of such falsifying events is difficult, if not indeed^ impossible, to achieve. Before considering attempts to conceive such events, it is as well to point out that the charge of the absence of such falsifying events which I want to bring against the libido hypothesis has no connection with charges relating to the unobservability, intangibility or "merely hypothetical nature," of the libido. These sort of charges, as I have suggested above, are irrelevant to scientific status; electricity too, for example, is unobservable, intangible and so on. But the point about the existence-of-electricity hypothesis is that this hypothesis is clearly falsifiable, since one can conceive events, such as the going out of all electric lights throughout the world, which would falsify the electricity hypothesis.
To return to our quest for conceivable falsifications of the libido hypothesis, consider three alternative ways of human behaviour which together seem to me to cover a fairly wide range of the possible ways of behaving. The first of these is where X (a man) commits rape. Obviously, this phenomenon would be taken by the psychoanalist as a fairly direct confirmation of the existence of the libido; at any rate, one could hardly expect such a conceivable event to provide a falsification of the libido hypothesis. The second possible way of behaving, which would seem to be at the other end of the scale, is where X becomes a monk, retires into a monastery and engages in no overt sexual activity whatsoever. Prima facie it might seem that this event, if it were to happen, would constitute a falsification of the libido hypothesis. However, as anyone familiar with psychoanalytic explanation would point out, this event, too, could be taken as a confirmation (albeit an indirect one) of the libido hypothesis by making use of such postulated mechanisms as the influence of repression: X has behaved in this manner as a result of his repressed libido. A third possible and more statistically normal mode of action, is for X to engage in vigorous physical and mental activity (for example, running round the block and trying to decide whether psychoanalysis is scientific). But this again would only confirm the libido hypothesis, the sort of libido being involved here being a sublimated one.
Now, I do not claim that these three conceivable events cover the whole gamut of possible human behaviour. Nevertheless, as I have
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suggested already, they do seem to offer a fairly representative sample of it, so that I suspect that there may be no conceivable way of acting by which one could disown the existence of one's libido. Note, by the way, that the difficulty is not that no matter what one actually does, one cannot stop the analysts saying that one has a libido. For, no matter what a person actually does (leap into the air as high as he can, for example), he cannot stop the physicists saying that he is under the influence of gravity (since he will always come down again). The difficulty, rather, about the libido, is that no matter what one conceivably does, no matter what logically possible modes of behaviour one can think of, one does not seem to be able to get rid of it, whereas, were one to hover gaily above the city without any mechanical assistance, one could falsify the gravity hypothesis of the physicist.
It might, however, be suggested that all this exaggerates the difficulties of falsifying the libido hypothesis. Thus, take X's becoming a monk and engaging in no overt sexual activity; it might be the case here that if this event were to occur and if it were also the case that no evidence of repression could be found, then this would falsify the libido hypothesis. But for this to constitute a falsification, one would have to be able, within the psychoanalytic framework, to identify the mechanism of repression independently of the particular observed instances of non-sexual behaviour which repression is supposed to cause. This independent identification of repression is necessary if we are to ensure that the defender of the libido hypothesis does not appeal to the presence of repression any and every time that he needs this mechanism to save the hypothesis in the face of evidence which, ostensibly, presents a piece of behaviour not sexually-based in origin.
In the parallel situation with the gravity hypothesis, the mechanical assistance which would enable one to hover above the city despite the action of gravity is analogous to "the supposed presence of repression which allows the behaviour to be non-sexual despite the libido. And, in the former case, it is clear that one can readily specify ways of detecting the presence or absence of mechanical assistance independently of the presence or absence of hovering. Is this the case also with the presence or absence of repression? I suggest that it is not. Certainly, one could argue that the trained analyst is able to detect repression in this independent way, but even if this were so, even if the trained analyst could in this way provide us with a conceivable falsification of the libido hypothesis, this is still not the same as the provision of objective criteria of repression-detection, criteria that is, which are intelligible to the intelligent non-analyst as well as the trained analyst.
It should be clear why one would want to demand such an objective set of criteria rather than criteria intelligible only to the Freudian; for it is precisely the Freudian who will be loth to give up the libido hypothesis. If then, he is the only possible person who is qualified to reject it, if, that is, a necessary condition of a conceivable falsification is the assent of a" Freudian, it would seem reasonable to conclude that, in practice at any rate, the libido hypothesis is not really
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a falsifiable one. It is not falsifiable because that which is essential for a possible falsification, namely the denial of the presence of repression, can come about only through the assent of precisely that group of people who do not believe the hypothesis to be false and who are therefore the least likely to make the assent which is required for its falsification.7
Now, insofar as such central hypotheses as that of the existence of the libido are unfalsifiable in the above sense, or, in other words, insofar as one can conceive of no possible behaviour which would falsify these hypotheses, psychoanalysis is not a genuinely falsifiable system. And this is so despite of the many possible and actual changes of its fringe hypotheses (such as the change in the original physical seduction hypothesis).
Related to this conclusion of the basically unfalsifiable nature of the psychoanalytic system is the questionable practice of those who first quote "experimental confirmations" for psychoanalytic concepts, but then also assert that experiments are too "trivial" to really test the "richness" of the concepts, these latter remarks being generally made when certain experiments appear to cast doubt on the concepts. Now this is to have your cake and eat it, too. It must be realised that if the experiments are "rich" enough to support psychoanalysis in a genuine sense, then they should also be "rich" enough to possibly falsify them; if, on the other hand, they are not "rich" enough in this sense, then it is completely beside the point and quite misleading to quote "experimental confirmations" for psychoanalysis. For there is, in this case, no meaningful relation between the psychoanalytic system and the quoted experimentation, since the latter does not really test the former.