The authority of logic and the logic of authority: The import of the grünbaum debate for psychoanalytically informed psychotherapy

Abstract

This paper assesses the implications of Grünbaum's critique of Freud's “science”; for a discussion of the relation between theory and practice in psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy. Guided by the work of the French sociologist, Bourdieu, it places Grünbaum's argument within a logic of intellectualism—a framework that tends to instrumentalize reason and romanticize practice, delineating the well‐known territories of objectivism and subjectivism. Grünbaum's arguments within this logic are taken to be rhetorical maneuvers—such as valorizing the tally argument and then debunking it—aimed at rejuvenating an objectivistic approach to theory and practice. Grünbaum is successful insofar as much of the debate generated by his views accepts the terms of his intellectualist bias. It is suggested, however, that these are terms that have long been suspect; that, indeed, it was Freud who helped bring them into question; and that there is a broader framework of discourse that relativizes intellectualism within a dialectical opposition to “participationism.”; A form of rationality founded in a nonconceptual knowledge of practice has begun to emerge within this more inclusive discourse under such rubrics as “social constructivist”; and “relational”; approaches to psychotherapy. It is argued that within the therapy situation a kind of “practical reason”; can mitigate the controlling, instrumental authority of intellectualism as well as the collusive, sentimental servility of participationism. [T]he theoretician's claim to an absolute viewpoint, the “perspec‐tiveless view of all perspectives”; as Leibnitz would have put it, contains the claim to a power, founded in reason, over particular individuals, who are condemned to error by the partisan partiality of their individual viewpoints [Bourdieu, 1990, pp. 28–29]1 lThe work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1977, 1990; Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992) focuses on a scientific study of human interaction that is cognizant of the pitfalls of the conflicting poles within intellectualism of “objectivism”; and “subjectivism"—both of which are rejected. and redefined relative to the recognition of a distinct “logic of practice.”; I hope that the perceived significance of this work to the understanding of psychoanalytic practice will justify my extensive use of quotations. An expanded version of this essay is to be found in the recently published book, Influence and Autonomy in Psychoanalysis (The Analytic Press, 1997).

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