Psychoanalytic causality in the scientific worldAbstract
The epistemological problem of the relationship between psychoanalysis and science has an ontological counterpart that has been little discussed: the place of causal processes described by psychoanalysis within the broader framework of the sciences. In this article, we address this question through analytic philosophy, which examines the scientific image of a “layered world” based on the idea that specific levels of causal processes are defined by mechanisms that determine causally relevant properties. We propose that one direction for situating psychoanalysis within the field of sciences is to define the ontological level proper to its causal relations. This perspective challenges the philosophical misconception that “more basic” levels inherently imply greater or lesser scientificity, and suggests ways to enrich both the debates and collaborations between psychoanalysis and other sciences.
Keywords
Ontology; psychoanalysis; science; causality; epistemology
Resumo
O problema epistemológico da relação entre psicanálise e ciência tem um correlato ontológico, pouco discutido na literatura: a questão do lugar dos processos causais descritos pela psicanálise no quadro amplo das disciplinas científicas. Neste artigo, investigamos tal questão recorrendo à filosofia analítica, que analisa a imagem científica de um “mundo em camadas” a partir da ideia de que níveis específicos de processos causais são definidos por mecanismos que determinam propriedades causalmente relevantes. Propomos que uma direção para situar a psicanálise no campo das ciências é definir o nível ontológico próprio a suas relações causais. Essa perspectiva permite desfazer o engano filosófico que supõe que níveis mais “básicos” implicam por si maior ou menor cientificidade, e sugere estratégias para enriquecer as disputas e cooperações da psicanálise com outras ciências.
Palavras-chave
Ontologia; psicanálise; ciência; causalidade; epistemologia
Abstract
Le problème épistémologique de la relation entre la psychanalyse et la science présente un corrélat ontologique peu exploré jusqu’à présent: la place des processus causaux décrits par la psychanalyse dans le panorama plus large des sciences. Dans cet article, nous examinons cette question à travers la philosophie analytique, qui analyse l’image scientifique d’un “monde en couches” selon l’idée que des niveaux spécifiques de processus causaux sont définis par des mécanismes déterminant des propriétés causalement pertinentes. Nous proposons qu’une direction pour situer la psychanalyse dans le champ des sciences est de définir le niveau ontologique propre à ses relations causales. Cette perspective remet en cause l’idée philosophique selon laquelle des niveaux plus “fondamentaux” impliqueraient intrinsèquement une plus grande ou moindre scientificité, et ouvre des pistes pour enrichir tant les débats que la coopération entre la psychanalyse et les autres sciences.
Mots-clés
Ontologie; psychanalyse; science; causalité; épistémologie
Resumen
El problema epistemológico de la relación entre el psicoanálisis y la ciencia tiene un correlato ontológico poco discutido en la literatura académica: el lugar de los procesos causales descritos por el psicoanálisis dentro del marco amplio de las ciencias. En este artículo abordamos la cuestión mediante la filosofía analítica, que examina la imagen científica de un “mundo en capas” a partir de la idea de que niveles específicos de los procesos causales son definidos por mecanismos que determinan propiedades causalmente relevantes. Proponemos que una dirección para situar el psicoanálisis en el campo de las ciencias es definir el nivel ontológico propio de sus relaciones causales. Esta perspectiva cuestiona el error filosófico según el qual niveles más “básicos” implican mayor o menor cientificidad y sugiere estrategias para enriquecer debates y colaboraciones entre el psicoanálisis y otras ciencias.
Palabras clave
Ontología; psicoanálisis; ciencia; causalidad; epistemología
By describing the regularity of subjective transformations, psychoanalysis implies the existence of certain causal processes — as does any discipline that claims to be scientific. Within the context of the defense of psychoanalytic scientificity, this represents an often-forgotten challenge: the development of an ontological framework capable of mediating psychoanalytic causal processes and the general field of sciences. In this paper, we propose that one way to deal with this problem is to assume that psychoanalysis implicitly defines a level of causal processes that is distinct from, but not independent of, causal processes described by neighboring fields such as neurobiology, cognitive science or sociology.
It is ontology’s task to consider what kinds of entities or things exist, how they can be classified and how they relate to each other. If we want to support psychoanalysis’ scientificity, it is not enough to make the epistemological claim that psychoanalytic reflections are legitimate and rigorous according to certain criteria, nor is it enough to make the clinical claim that psychoanalytic therapy can be effective as a treatment. It is necessary to make ontological affirmations: yes, the world is such that people can develop observable symptoms as a consequence of their interpersonal relationships; yes, the world is such that words, symbols and poetic effects are decisive in the organization of subjects’ psychic lives; yes, the world is such that a therapeutic relationship in which one intervenes on all these aspects is capable of producing notable and regular transformative effects. Causal processes like these are part of the structure of the world — and this understanding enables specific ways of acting upon reality.
Moreover, the world which comprises physical, biological, psychoanalytic, discursive, historical processes (etc.) is one and the same: our universe. When bringing psychoanalysis into a broader academic debate, it is legitimate to ask how it fits in with the construction of a more or less coherent picture of the universe as described by science. This picture should accept the kind of causal dynamics described by psychoanalysis and portray the ways in which these intertwine with causalities from other sciences. Our hypothesis promotes one approach to constructing this picture; namely, that psychoanalysis describes a specific level of mechanisms (Glennan, 2010), in a framework inspired by the Anglo-American analytical philosophy tradition, with which psychoanalysis has dialogued very little to date.1
To argue that psychoanalysis is “scientific” is to argue that the world has a certain structure. Understanding this structure requires situating psychoanalytic causality in the scientific conception of the world of sciences — describing and justifying psychoanalysis’ own level of causality — a program which we introduce here as draft, gamble and incitement; and which may offer fresh perspectives for the future of psychoanalytic scientificity.
A layer of mechanisms among others
Freud, a trained neurologist, never rejected the possibility of a neuropsychological description of the psychic apparatus. Accordingly, in his writings one often finds reflections on the relation between the processes described by psychoanalysis and a wider ontological framework.2 From the 1895 draft (Freud, 1996) up to 1920 with “Beyond the pleasure principle” (Freud, 1920/1955) Freud declares adherence to two theses: (1) mental processes are constituted by organic processes, and (2) psychological concepts could be redescribed in these terms.
The deficiencies in our description would probably vanish if we were already in a position to replace the psychological terms by physiological or chemical ones (...) We may expect it to give us the most surprising information and we cannot guess what answers it will return in a few dozen years to the questions we have put to it. They may be of a kind which will blow the whole of our artificial structure of hypotheses. (p. 60)
In the 19th century, the first descriptions of the cerebral basis of certain body functions emerged. In 1811, César Legallois pointed to the spinal bulb as the region responsible for regulating breathing in vertebrates (Legallois, 1812). In 1848, the case of Phineas Gage’s cortical lesion was described, and in 1861 Paul Broca performed an autopsy on a case of motor aphasia. These discoveries opened the path for the neuropsychological description of important psychological functions, such as planning and language (Harlow, 1868; Mesulam, 2000; Paula, 2019), and seemed to clearly indicate that principles of human psychological functioning could be described in terms of certain neurological functions.
Looking at a wider picture in the sciences, it is possible to pinpoint similar movements during the same period. In chemistry, the idea that different compounds could be explained as organized arrangements of a limited number of elements began to emerge around 1800 with John Dalton’s research, and solidified with Mendeleev’s periodic table, around 1870 (Baia, 2011). In biology, the first ideas about the existence of cells date back to 1665 (when microscopes were first invented), but the theory that living beings are essentially composed of cells was developed between 1839 and 1855 (Mazzarello, 1999). Successes like these began to motivate the building of a consensus around a certain scientific image of the world, characterized by compositional explanations. They culminate in the idea of a “layered world”: compositions piled upon compositions, multiple levels of organization ever-increasing in complexity — atoms into molecules, molecules into cells, cells into organisms, and so on.
Given this scenario, it is not very surprising that Freud thought that psychoanalytic knowledge could be confirmed or transformed by discoveries made at a “lower” level, that is, at a “more fundamental” level on the scale of compositions (i.e., the level of physiological brain processes). The march of science at the time was heading in this direction. Even Freud’s own models operate in a similar way. In psycho-analysis, larger-scale psychological phenomena such as dreams and symptoms are explained (analyzed) in terms of smaller bits of which they are composed: memory traces, associations, affects, displacements, etc. Let us remember that psychoanalysis is one of the first organized forms of modern psychology, coming into being mere 25 years after the founding of the first psychological laboratories by Wundt and James.
Freud himself thought it was important to speak on the matter of the Weltanschauung — “world view”. He was unambiguous in his thesis that psychoanalysis was not to become an autonomous world view, that is, an “intellectual construction which solves all the problems of our existence uniformly on the basis of one overriding hypothesis” (Freud, 1933/1965, p. 158). On the contrary, psychoanalysis should be regarded as part of the expansive, if ever incomplete, motion of science:
Psychoanalysis... is incapable of creating a weltanschauung of its own. It does not need one; it is a part of science and can adhere to the scientific Weltanschauung... [which] is not all-comprehensive, it is too incomplete, and makes no claim to being self-contained and to the construction of systems.... A Weltanschauung erected upon science has, apart from its emphasis on the real external world, mainly negative traits, such as submission to the truth and rejection of illusions. (Freud, 1933/1965, pp. 181-182)
Throughout the 20th century, the space for disputes over the scientific Weltanschauung became wider, more diverse. And it was during the same period that new generations of psychoanalysts had to deal with the challenge of continuing the discipline after the death of its founder. Freud’s subtle duality between the sciences and the humanities did not find a successor to sustain it as such, and its different heirs favored different aspects of his epistemological project (Simanke, 2009).3 In some circles, it became commonplace to claim that Freud’s naturalism was just a youthful phase; or that it was a mistake from which we could purge psychoanalysis by distilling its essence (Politzer’s [2004] critique is paradigmatic in this sense). French psychoanalysis is a key exemplar of the approaches that aim to abandon the Freudian idea that psychoanalysis would one day be founded on lower-level sciences. Lacan would have this layout turned upside down: psychoanalytic epistemology should seek its foundation on the “higher” levels of culture, language, logic and mathematics.
In the current debate on the scientificity of psychoanalysis, this issue reappears as the question of what to make of “neuropsychoanalysis”. A discussion which reaches its lowest point when it opposes those who see neuroscience as the all-powerful only-hope means of salvation for psychoanalytic science, and others who see the same kind of salvation in the radical separation between psychoanalysis and all neuro- (or natural) science. Firstly, we should remember that the matter of the relation between psychoanalysis and other sciences is not exhausted in its debate with neuroscience; secondly, providing a rigorous account of the relationship between psychoanalysis and the social and political spheres is equally challenging, even if these connections are attempted more frequently among psychoanalysts. And, importantly, the question of “integration” or “separation” between sciences in different compositional levels resonates with important debates which have been unfolding for half a century outside of psychoanalysis.
In fact, the philosophical notion of a ‘layer’ or ‘level’ has been the subject of extensive debate, with multiple competing interpretations (Craver, 2014). A central difficulty lies in the variety of complex relations that can be envisioned: conflict or synergy, independence or overlap, composition or determination. We will approach the relation between levels and causes from a simple example, following contemporary philosophers who argue that the levels involved in scientific explanations fundamentally express functional relations of composition (Gillett, 2016) or chains of mechanisms (Glennan, 2010).
Stuart Glennan (2010) discusses the following causal process: the movement of turning a key causes a lock to open. In keeping with the metaphor of the world in layers, we would say that the key is an instantiation of a certain lower-level microstructure (an organized configuration of atoms, with properties such as chemical composition and structure of its own) and of a certain higher-level macrostructure (with properties such as shape and rigidity). We could also say that the properties of the microstructure determine the properties of the higher-level (but it would be incorrect to say that the former cause the latter). In the words of Gillett (2016):
We should note that “vertical” compositional relations are not a species of the productive [(“causal”)] determination that holds “horizontally” across time between entities. Productive determination is identical to the triggering and manifestation of powers, is temporally extended, occurs between wholly distinct entities (...) In contrast, the relations posited in our compositional explanations are (...) synchronous, occur between entities that are in some sense the same. (p. 72)
Now, we could ask ourselves which properties are relevant for this key to open the lock: its chemical composition? Its color? Its shape? This would be a question about what the author calls causally relevant properties — properties capable of explaining why a cause produces an effect (Glennan, 2010). One strategy for distinguishing causally relevant properties is counterfactual manipulations (Craver and Bechtel, 2007). A key that has a different shape or is not rigid will not open the lock. This kind of empirical experimentation can indicate which properties are relevant — in this case, shape and rigidity. On the other hand, a key made of another material, if it was rigid and had the same shape as the first, would open the lock — suggesting that the properties of the microstructure are not necessarily relevant from the point of view of this causal process. Therefore, by distinguishing the causally relevant properties, we are also able to identify the importance of a given level for the explanation of this process.
Counter-factual manipulations are useful because they help us understand the mechanisms involved in the process (Glennan, 2010). In this case, the lock mechanism consists of a cylinder containing a series of pins. To open and close the lock, the cylinder needs to rotate, and its rotation is only possible when all the pins are correctly aligned. The shape of a given key includes teeth of different sizes, capable of correctly aligning the pins of a corresponding lock. In addition, the key needs to be rigid to be able to enter the slot without deforming and to rotate the cylinder once the pins are aligned. As Glennan (2010) reminds us: “we do not understand why shape [and rigidity] is relevant until we understand how the lock works. By understanding the parts and organization of the mechanism we are able to explain and predict why certain keys will work and others will not” (p. 378).
Even a simple mechanism like the lock and key may sufficiently demonstrate why explanations at more fundamental levels of organization do not replace the vocabulary and the theorizing at higher levels (Glennan, 2010). The issue of “reduction” has been the subject of much controversy in the past,4 but recent works such as Gillett (2016) argue that contemporary philosophy has reached a certain consensus around the idea that science deals with causal processes at different levels and described by its own models. Psychoanalytic theory describes multiple “locks and keys” of different “shapes and rigidities” — mechanisms and properties — which ought to be judged by their ability to pick out the meaningful features of specific causal processes and to explain counter-factual manipulations.
To claim that integration with another level (e.g. neuroscience) is an a priori necessity for psychoanalysis, or, likewise, that integration is an a priori impediment; is to fall into the same misconception: that one level inherently entails greater or lesser scientific legitimacy, overlooking the fact that grasping the relations between processes at different levels is also an empirical matter. It is part of the exercise of science to distinguish the mechanisms involved in each process and the appropriate levels for dealing with them. The better we succeed in this task, the more likely we are to foster enriching dialogues and to establish coherent delimitations between disciplines concerned with adjacent levels.
In relation to psychopathological phenomena, multiple disciplines advance explanatory models at different levels, each disputing alternative causal accounts of comparable processes. In this regard, an important issue for the scientificity of psychoanalysis is the examination of its causal and etiological models. Etiology is precisely the field responsible for describing the causal processes involved in the outbreak and development of pathologies, considering everything from contextual characteristics and risk factors to causal determinants (Damman, 2017). In psychoanalytic terms, we could say that it is the theorization of how symptoms, malaise and suffering originate (Dunker, 2015).
Critics of psychoanalysis may attack its etiological models directly, postulating that its hypotheses are incorrect, or indirectly, by denouncing the psychoanalytic project as a whole (e.g. arguing that it lacks methodological rigor and reproducibility) and arriving at the conclusion that it is necessary to dispense, as well, all of which psychoanalysis defends as causally relevant. A glaring example of how psychoanalytic etiology came to be practically disapproved was the gradual replacement, in US-dominated psychiatry, of psychodynamic etiological models by neurochemical etiological models (Dunker and Kyrillos Neto, 2011).
For instance, in a well-known account of depression, a main cause of the condition is a deficit in the availability of serotonin and other neurotransmitters. It is not just that a given model of psychodynamic causality is being criticized or surpassed, an explanation is being offered in which the relevant processes and mechanisms take place at a different ontological level. What this entails is a radical shift of focus, immediately disavowing, or at least seriously downplaying, the causality intrinsic to broad classes of processes, from affective experience to symbolic exchanges and relational dynamics. This point resonates with the common concern in critical literature that recent biological understandings of psychopathology have rushed to unwarranted etiological conclusions, often with little evidence, poor mechanistic understanding and dangerous clinical and political consequences (Dunker & Kyrillos Neto, 2011; Rose, 2018; Neves et al., 2021; Beer, 2023).
The underlying problem has been articulated in different ways within the philosophy of psychiatry. Some authors have questioned whether psychiatric categories track natural kinds at all (Cooper, 2005; Hacking, 2013), while others have examined the explanatory and clinical costs of privileging biological levels of description over psychological or social ones (Murphy, 2012; Kendler & Parnas, 2015). What unites these critiques is the recognition that the choice of explanatory level in psychiatry is not a trivial matter — it carries consequences for how pathologies are defined, patients are treated, and for which causal factors are rendered invisible.
It is quite different to state that “observable change occurs with neurotransmitters in depressive conditions” and to state that “the causally relevant properties for understanding the development of a depressive condition are at the level of neurotransmitters”. One thing is to relate descriptions of properties at differing levels of organization (rigidity and microstructure, depression and brain function); another is to assume that the “micro” level is causally relevant for a given phenomenon. Good explanations are not necessarily linked to basic compositional layers and should not be sought at a given ontological level simply because the entities at that level are closer to predominant scientific language. One ought to describe the causality of certain processes at the specific level of their mechanisms, particularly when it comes to intervening in them. Interestingly, after a decade in which the “neurotransmitter deficit” model of depression seemed almost consensual, recent research has seriously questioned its validity (Moncrieff et al., 2023).
The level proper to psychoanalytic causality
It is advantageous to understand part of the criticism towards the scientificity of psychoanalysis as a criticism of its etiological models, for this helps to understand what should be defended. More than defending a certain set of authors or texts, more even than defending basic concepts such as the unconscious or the Oedipus complex, psychoanalysts today face the task of defending the reality of a distinct causal level. In that case, a central contribution of psychoanalysis to the etiological and scientific debate would be its supposition that psychopathological phenomena are contingent on mechanisms and processes taking place at a specific level, which we approximate here, among other possible formulations, by language, desire and recognition.
Several words are used by psychoanalysts to describe the processes they study — for instance “relational”, “dynamic”, “subjective”, “affective” or “symbolic”. Our intuition is that these terms “refer”, approximately, to the same “thing”, to a certain level of mechanisms at which intersubjective phenomena take place. To give a sufficient definition of what this level consists in — a task that is both philosophical and empirical, and one for which no settled model of scientificity yet exists — would require a group effort and a sustained research direction; it is possible to offer here only some indications which may be expanded and improved in the future.
It is helpful to examine what kind of consideration is relevant in psychoanalytic clinical reasoning. In hysteria, the psychopathological condition from which psychoanalysis was born, the main clinical feature underscored by Freud are: that these patient’s symptoms are systematically connected to the history of their desires; that symptoms relate to failed recognitions which take place in an universe of social relationships and a shared language; that treatment works through the reengagement of language, desire and recognition where these had been previously impeded. It is no different when looking at paradigmatic processes such as the raising of a child in a family or the transferential relationship. In any case, what this viewpoint aims at is a complex network of processes in which sensation, affect, imagination, symbolic reasoning, communication and interaction are tightly woven, mutually determining, historically determined. Psychoanalysis highlights these aspects by listening to the memories, scenes, words, and feelings which condense their mutual determination. It appears that these are the properties analysis describes as causally relevant for psychopathological mechanisms.
This does not, however, exclude the possibility that other levels have important effects on psychoanalysis’ processes of interest. It is not difficult, for example, to envision a scenario in which genetic causality, say, of eye color, had significant effects on the constitution of a singular subject. Eye color, taken up as an element of the causal dynamics which take place at the level of desire and recognition, could play the role of a significant social marker which prescribes specific ways that subject could desire and be desired, recognize and be recognized. Narratives could go from a child being the only one with eyes different from the rest of the family to a racial conflict in communities defined by discrimination. Modest symbols can have great effects on the life and symptoms of a person depending on the causal series with which they are linked.
To be more precise, psychoanalysis itself summons more than one level of things to participate in its etiological reflections. This is the case at the level of basic cognitive processes (such as association, memory, perception), and at the level of historical and social processes (such as discursive or economic transformations). Importantly, psychoanalytic explanations tend to mobilize processes at other levels insofar as they link them to processes at its own (psychoanalytic) level, the one we are referring to as that of language, desire and recognition. In the unfolding of intersubjective dynamics, entities across multiple ontological layers — ranging from genes and eye color to standards of beauty and geopolitics — become entangled in the symbolic interplay of comparisons and combinations which positions them within discursive fields. This grants them a secondary existence in which they become the constituents of affects, memories, and relationships (and which, occasionally, might not be easily dissected from their primary reality).
In this somewhat abstract, distanced viewpoint — necessary to capture what is essential to the psychoanalytic “level” of mechanisms — it is not particularly relevant whether the different schools adopt a single or multiple theoretical models, whether they agree on the details of specific processes and mechanisms. Both “the circulation of libido” and “the structure of language” can be candidate explanans for a causal explanandum which has approximately the same ontological status. Psychoanalytic approaches converge, or should converge, on key ideas and observations — the ideas and observations which characterize fundamental features of the domain of “things in the world” which psychoanalysis, as a discipline, strives to detect and examine. Foremost among these are the fundamentality of intra- and intersubjective conflicts and their dialectical entanglement, as well as the relevance of biographical history and of social dynamics to symptom formation.
Psychoanalysis, thus, has sought to introduce a particular level of causal processes to scientific consideration. We maintain that the study of psychopathological conditions attains greater adequacy when the level of the psychoanalytic object is taken into account. The complex affective, relational, subjective processes studied by psychoanalysis are meant to provide more detailed explanations of the development and treatment of clinical conditions, to help us systematize variants and cases, and to allow for more appropriate intervention strategies. Adopting, for a moment, a realistic point of view, one would say: by introducing the level of language, desire and recognition into considerations of the causality of psychopathologies, psychoanalysis captures an aspect of the reality of these processes that is not well described by strategies and methods dedicated to other levels.
Moreover, if the particularity of psychoanalytic proposals includes the level of processes it defines, we should be ready to admit that other disciplines and avenues of psychological thought are interested in exploring causal processes operating at similar or intersecting levels. Important neighbors with partially overlapping objects include non-psychoanalytic psychodynamic theories, narrative therapies (White & Epston, 1990), and certain recent versions of behaviorism (Abreu & Abreu, 2016) and cognitivism (Ward & Plagnol, 2019). In this sense, it is possible to ask: what are the methods and models available for dealing with processes such as those dealt with by psychoanalysis, which have been developed outside of the field? What are their comparative advantages and disadvantages? After all, to occupy a place in the scientific debate, one must be open to the possibility that given models are not as unique or irreplaceable as one might have thought.
But, given that other disciplines can and have contributed to the investigation of the mechanisms of desire and recognition, we are still likely to find some or the most sophisticated frameworks yet developed (ontological, epistemic and clinical) to carry this investigation within the branching tree of psychoanalytic approaches. After all, the field carries a long and rich history of thinking about causality at the level of desire and recognition. The sheer number of methods, authors and models that it has dedicated to this problem, as well as aspects of its institutional situation (particularly in Brazil), make psychoanalysis an indispensable participant of any ambition for something like a science of desire.
Though investigating psychoanalytic mechanisms is challenging both empirically and philosophically, one promising path follows the opening created by the Lacanian appropriation of Hegel. Hegel’s encompassing philosophy showed how desire and recognition dynamically give rise to autonomous orders of problems and “things”. This has inspired psychoanalytic understandings of a “negative ontology”, manifest primarily in the inconsistency of discourse, the logical incompleteness of intersubjectivity, and the subject’s irreducibility to either micro or macro determinations alone. These Lacanian ideas have been extensively developed in the work of philosophers such as Slavoj Zizek (2014) and Vladimir Safatle (2006), who show directly how such a philosophical framework may work as a foundation for psychoanalytic epistemology, ontology, and causality.
In the broader picture of philosophy of psychiatry, traditional (Foucault, 1961/2006), and contemporary (Hacking, 2013) authors draw directly or indirectly from Hegelian philosophy, underscoring the intermixing of values and history in the constitution and reconstitution of different forms of mental suffering, often criticizing naturalized views of psychopathology. But scientific “positive” causality and recognitive “negative” dynamics need not be mutually exclusive. There are significant precedents for this bridging in the work of Catherine Malabou (2005), who connects Hegelian negativity to neurological materiality; of Adrian Johnston (2008), who seeks a philosophically consistent post-Lacanian naturalism; of Ariane Bazan (2011) and John Dall’Aglio (2023), who develop neuropsychoanalytic perspectives on language and the unconscious; or even in Brandom’s (2019) scientifically respectable reading of Hegel’s account of language, desire, and recognition as central to human affairs. Together, these works point toward an ontology in which the mechanistic level addressed by psychoanalysis is granted genuine causal standing.
Perspectives for a science that risks addressing desire
While psychoanalytic debate about the field’s scientificity has focused on epistemology, the arguments developed here suggest that ontology is an equally fruitful avenue for understanding and justifying its scientific status. Psychoanalysis has proposed a substantial body of data and models which, though still improvable, reasonably establish that our world contains delicate, but regular mechanisms connecting affects, symbols and relations to all manner of subjective effects, including psychopathological formations. Furthermore, these mechanisms define an ontological layer of processes which, we argue, is not suitably studied by neighboring or competing fields, certainly not by neurobiology. We have approximated this level as that of language, desire and recognition; that of subjective and intersubjective dynamics; of the plane of intersection between the affective experience and symbolic exchange. This is, par excellence, the level of analytical observation and intervention.
In the absence of an adequate framework, mistakes are made which erode the debate, effacing important questions. For instance, anti-psychoanalytic criticism frequently operates not by challenging our methods or knowledge, but by endorsing the annihilation of our object — that is, by dissolving the level proper to psychoanalytic investigation. This occurs whenever a discipline, theory, or practice dealing with processes of fundamentally different ontological levels is presented as an alternative to psychoanalysis. The proposed alternative may be brain chemistry (as in the neuroscience of depression), logical reasoning (classical cognitive psychology), structural determination (in a sociological approach) and so on — the problem remains the same: these fields fail to account for the specific kinds of determination which are constitutive of subjects, their interaction, their transformation.
This criticism has, however, a mirror image within psychoanalysis itself. For similar reasons, psychoanalysis has at times overstated its own autonomy, leading some to the mistaken view that the objects of psychoanalysis are independent from other scientific disciplines, let alone from other causal processes in the world. Aprioristic assertions of the epistemic or even ontological independence of psychoanalysis in relation to other sciences are sometimes accompanied by the imputation of ideological commitments to its rivals, or the elevation of psychoanalysis to the role of arbiter of scientificity in general. All of this is difficult to sustain and contributes little to the public debate, further entrenching psychoanalysis within a posture of epistemological exceptionality, apparently exempting the ordinary demands of rational justification and threatening to undermine the public presence of its institutions. A philosophically informed look at these issues allows us to suggest that these paths are not only problematic but, ultimately, unnecessary.
Recognizing the ontological specificity of psychoanalytic processes neither isolates psychoanalysis from neighboring disciplines nor subordinates it to them; it simply locates it. Once this is done, psychoanalysis can engage more fully in the ordinary work of science. Explanatory models can compete on substantive grounds, or adjacent research programs can be approached constructively. Neither of these movements — genuine competition nor genuine integration — is possible when psychoanalysis does not clearly articulate the ontological standing of the processes it is interested in. The argument advanced here is, in this sense, an encouragement for the scientific progress of psychoanalysis rather than a statement of its completion.
The idea that it is in the nature of the psychoanalytic object to challenge certain preconceptions about science is not new, and there are good precedents for facing the challenge, starting with Freud’s own work. Meeting it requires, however, acknowledging that the autonomy of psychoanalytic theory and practice stems from the existence of processes which, while certainly subtle and complex, can be studied in their own terms. Situating those processes within a broader ontological framework is not a concession to rival disciplines — it is the condition for psychoanalysis to engage them as a science among sciences.
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