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Two Patterns Rationality
Book by Goldberg, Steven E.
232 pages, Hardcover
First published June 30, 1988
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October 24, 2013
This was the modified Ph.D dissertation of Goldberg, who was a fantastic teacher I had for only one semester in high school, but who primed an enjoyment of philosophy that continues today. This being the reason I came to "Two Patterns," I was unacquainted with Rieff (father of David!) or Lacan or any of Freud's work, really, outside of the caricature presented to be dismissed by modern psychology. I doubt this uninitiation enhanced the arguments of the book, but they got through well enough.
Because of my ignorance of Freud's intellecutal history, this book had to serve as a survey of psychoanalysis while interpreting it, which is appropriate given the presentation of psychoanalysis itself as the simultaneous fulfillment of two similar rational imperatives: the facticity and the meaning. To that end, it explained enough to keep me up with the arguments, and also synthesized a nice mix of outside commentary - Aristotle, Socrates, modern Freud scholars - to validate it as a survey.
But ultimately the book's intent is its argument, and it succeeds. Goldberg makes the case for a slight deconstruction of the Galilean model of science by emphasizing the necessarily personal and unseen frameworks required to allow objective analysis to even occur. Psychoanalysis is the ideal subject for examination then, because it is the site of a highly visible, and potentially problematic, dissonance between these two distinct "patterns of rationality": the clinical and the relational.
The question that stymied Freud is, doesn't the analyst's necessary involvement and interpretation diminish psychoanalysis as a "scientific" method? The ultimate answer we arrive at in this argument is a diminishment of the epistemological primacy of objectivity and testability adhered to by believers in the scientific method. Yes, Goldberg concedes, the analyst's role is simultaneously author and critic, architect and building inspector. But the nature of psychoanalysis's task requires this type of subjectivity from the role that in classical science is strictly objective. The analyst's agency, he argues, doesn't preculde interpretation when the subject is something that only "surfaces in the struggle to make sense." (p. 113)
Whereas something like natural science has external, inert data to input into a model, psychoanalysis must attempt to do the same with highly amorphous and vital material which requires effort on the part of the analysand and personal relation on the part of the analyst to even properly unearth. Goldberg takes pains to distinguish this epistomology of psychoanalysis from the aspersions the Galilean model casts on it, which is basically that personal involvement and interpretation to get to the point of having data exposes the whole model to the imaginations of the analyst. I can't quite tell if Goldberg succeeded in then uplifting the model back to the legitimacy of Galilean science. I think that instead, he submitted the "scientific method" to the larger heading of self-teaching, or education, which is a pursuit that has ample room for a model involving personal agency.
Makes sense to me: the goal of science is to examine data into "true" models, but the goal of the models is to understand truth. Well, not all truth is presented as externally as a star's gaseous makeup to an astronomer; some highly personal psychic truths may not even exist in such an inert observation.
This formulation has a pretty interesting implication in quantum science, which I'm not going to pretend to understand, but is certainly considered a science in the Galilean model. I've read about experiments where scientists observing a photon affect the particle's behavior. Does that invalidate the experiment? Or does it only prove a truth about the nature of the studied object that exists deeper than the imagined division between data and manipulation? Goldberg's argument is amenable to the latter.
A footnote I found interesting: psychoanalysis was the last time that medicine and holisticism were one. Now, we have the sharp division between psychology and neuroscience, but back then they were yet to divide. I don't think the two are incompatible, nor even is the complex ontology of psychic phenomena a refutation of materialism. I just found it interesting that a medical doctor should turn to emotions and dreams instead of prescriptions and neurons. I wonder if we'll ever return there.
Because of my ignorance of Freud's intellecutal history, this book had to serve as a survey of psychoanalysis while interpreting it, which is appropriate given the presentation of psychoanalysis itself as the simultaneous fulfillment of two similar rational imperatives: the facticity and the meaning. To that end, it explained enough to keep me up with the arguments, and also synthesized a nice mix of outside commentary - Aristotle, Socrates, modern Freud scholars - to validate it as a survey.
But ultimately the book's intent is its argument, and it succeeds. Goldberg makes the case for a slight deconstruction of the Galilean model of science by emphasizing the necessarily personal and unseen frameworks required to allow objective analysis to even occur. Psychoanalysis is the ideal subject for examination then, because it is the site of a highly visible, and potentially problematic, dissonance between these two distinct "patterns of rationality": the clinical and the relational.
The question that stymied Freud is, doesn't the analyst's necessary involvement and interpretation diminish psychoanalysis as a "scientific" method? The ultimate answer we arrive at in this argument is a diminishment of the epistemological primacy of objectivity and testability adhered to by believers in the scientific method. Yes, Goldberg concedes, the analyst's role is simultaneously author and critic, architect and building inspector. But the nature of psychoanalysis's task requires this type of subjectivity from the role that in classical science is strictly objective. The analyst's agency, he argues, doesn't preculde interpretation when the subject is something that only "surfaces in the struggle to make sense." (p. 113)
Whereas something like natural science has external, inert data to input into a model, psychoanalysis must attempt to do the same with highly amorphous and vital material which requires effort on the part of the analysand and personal relation on the part of the analyst to even properly unearth. Goldberg takes pains to distinguish this epistomology of psychoanalysis from the aspersions the Galilean model casts on it, which is basically that personal involvement and interpretation to get to the point of having data exposes the whole model to the imaginations of the analyst. I can't quite tell if Goldberg succeeded in then uplifting the model back to the legitimacy of Galilean science. I think that instead, he submitted the "scientific method" to the larger heading of self-teaching, or education, which is a pursuit that has ample room for a model involving personal agency.
Makes sense to me: the goal of science is to examine data into "true" models, but the goal of the models is to understand truth. Well, not all truth is presented as externally as a star's gaseous makeup to an astronomer; some highly personal psychic truths may not even exist in such an inert observation.
This formulation has a pretty interesting implication in quantum science, which I'm not going to pretend to understand, but is certainly considered a science in the Galilean model. I've read about experiments where scientists observing a photon affect the particle's behavior. Does that invalidate the experiment? Or does it only prove a truth about the nature of the studied object that exists deeper than the imagined division between data and manipulation? Goldberg's argument is amenable to the latter.
A footnote I found interesting: psychoanalysis was the last time that medicine and holisticism were one. Now, we have the sharp division between psychology and neuroscience, but back then they were yet to divide. I don't think the two are incompatible, nor even is the complex ontology of psychic phenomena a refutation of materialism. I just found it interesting that a medical doctor should turn to emotions and dreams instead of prescriptions and neurons. I wonder if we'll ever return there.
Displaying 1 of 1 review