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The hermeneutic versus the scientific conception of psychoanalysis

an unsuccessful effort to chart a via media for the human sciences

Adolf Grünbaum

pp. 219-239

According to the so-called "hermeneutic" reconstruction of classical psychoanalytic theory, the received scientific conception of the Freudian enterprise gave much too little explanatory weight to so-called "meaning" connections between unconscious motives, on the one hand, and overt symptoms on the other. Thus in a paper on schizophrenia, the German philosopher and professional psychiatrist Karl Jaspers [8, p. 91] wrote: "In Freud's work we are dealing in fact with [a] psychology of meaning, not causal explanation as Freud himself thinks." The father of psychoanalysis, we are told, fell into a "confusion of meaning connections with causal connections."

Publication details

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-011-4704-0_12

Full citation:

Grünbaum, A. (1999)., The hermeneutic versus the scientific conception of psychoanalysis: an unsuccessful effort to chart a via media for the human sciences, in D. Aerts, J. Broekaert & E. Mathijs (eds.), Einstein meets Magritte: an interdisciplinary reflection, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 219-239.

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