Is Psychoanalysis Refutable?
Perron, Roger
Is Psychoanalysis Refutable? - 2008.
34
The non-scientific status of psychoanalysis is frequently asserted with recourse to Karl Popper’s « criterion of demarcation ”, that is to say: in order to be scientific, a theory must be “ refutable », that is to say, formulated in such a way that it can be refuted by experience. There is, in other words, an asymmetry between truth and falsehood. In so far as a theory can never be proved, it will simply survive as long as it has not been refuted.It should, first of all, be specified that Popper himself very rarely evoked psychoanalysis, about which he knew very little, which indeed led him to make a number of naïve remarks that are hardly worth our attention. His scientific logic, on the other hand, does deserve attention. The latter was for the most part formulated in the 1930s, during the epistemological storm raised by both the quantum and relativist revolutions. Popper states his « principle of demarcation » in the context of an ideal physics, and on the basis of his firm opposition to inductivism, which led him to vigorously oppose the principle of determinism, in so far as the latter was, according to him, logically inapplicable to science. The evolution of physics did not, in fact, corroborate these theories of Popper, as the discussions of the last twenty years regarding cord theory have shown.Brandishing the criterion of refutability in order to show that « psychoanalysis is not scientific » thus ultimately means affirming that psychoanalysis is not a science in the sense of Popper’s ideal science, as defined three quarters of a century ago. Evidently...
Is Psychoanalysis Refutable? - 2008.
34
The non-scientific status of psychoanalysis is frequently asserted with recourse to Karl Popper’s « criterion of demarcation ”, that is to say: in order to be scientific, a theory must be “ refutable », that is to say, formulated in such a way that it can be refuted by experience. There is, in other words, an asymmetry between truth and falsehood. In so far as a theory can never be proved, it will simply survive as long as it has not been refuted.It should, first of all, be specified that Popper himself very rarely evoked psychoanalysis, about which he knew very little, which indeed led him to make a number of naïve remarks that are hardly worth our attention. His scientific logic, on the other hand, does deserve attention. The latter was for the most part formulated in the 1930s, during the epistemological storm raised by both the quantum and relativist revolutions. Popper states his « principle of demarcation » in the context of an ideal physics, and on the basis of his firm opposition to inductivism, which led him to vigorously oppose the principle of determinism, in so far as the latter was, according to him, logically inapplicable to science. The evolution of physics did not, in fact, corroborate these theories of Popper, as the discussions of the last twenty years regarding cord theory have shown.Brandishing the criterion of refutability in order to show that « psychoanalysis is not scientific » thus ultimately means affirming that psychoanalysis is not a science in the sense of Popper’s ideal science, as defined three quarters of a century ago. Evidently...
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