This book is about some very important heuristic consequences of (Freud's) psychoanalytic theory. How psychoanalytic thinking can be justified? Is it possible (or is even it necessary) to justify psychoanalytic theory within the framework of the natural sciences? Or do we need some other (interpretative, hermeneutic) framework?

The subject matter of this book is more fundamental than either psychoanalysis itself or any particular branch of philosophy. Its concern is with the common ground of all psychoanalytic approaches, and the focus is on the divergent principles which different philosophers (Adolph Grunbaum, Thomas Nagel and Jurgen Habermas) have used to justify or to reject psychoanalytic thinking. The aim is to work towards an understanding of psychoanalysis thought its central concepts, the unconscious, which recognizes and makes some of the entrenched disagreement about what its foundational principles are.

This book could be seen as an introduction to the philosophy of psychoanalysis, for those with an interest or engagement  in philosophy, psychotherapy, or both, as well as anyone wanting to explore the profound and overlapping field. Although this is a complex subject, no prior knowledge or experience of either philosophy or psychoanalysis is required.

Part I is built around a recent controversy on the nature and legitimization of psychoanalysis. It is designed to be free-standing introduction to its subject, without the need to refer to critiques which it is discusses. However, versions of these critiques are reprinted in Part II, so that those who wish can engage directly with them and come to their own conclusions. The introductory chapter is divided into three sections. The first sets the context for the esquire as a whole. The second provides theoretical background with a brief outline of psychoanalytic theory. The third highlights the theme of the inquiry and gives an idea of its general direction and outcome.

For philosophers, psychoanalysis represents a particular challenge. Its focal concept, the unconscious, constitutes a radical critique to traditional perspectives on the mind while eluding any definite classification. Psychoanalysis stands at the crossroads between the different philosophical programs to which it has been annexed, allowing their basic principles to be examined together rather than in isolation from each other. The dispute ground of psychoanalysis allows an unusual insight into the junctions and intersections of the divergent philosophical approaches on which psychoanalysis divides, as well as into the grounds of philosophy itself.

This book is logically organized and well documented. It could be of great value for all of those who are seriously concerned with methodological and theoretical presuppositions and implications of the psychoanalytic doctrine. The main importance of this book, I believe, lays in its author's courage to see (and to expose) things from rather different perspectives. It is not necessary to agree with him in all of his ideas and to accept all of her theses. On the contrary, priority is on plurality questions and on plurality of perspectives, not just on answers. 

As I already have said, Lavinia Gomez has organized her discourse around the works of Adolph Grunbaum, Thomas Nagel and Jurgen Habermass. Of course it is not impossible to imagine some other (more or less different) selection of the referent authors. Some different perspectives. I could just mention some of them: Jacques Lacan, Paul Ricoeur, and David Livingstone Smith.

© 2007 Petar Jevremovic

Petar Jevremovic: Clinical psychologist and practicing psychotherapist, author of two books (Psychoanalysis and Ontology, Lacan and Psychoanalysis), translator of Aristotle and Maximus the Confessor, editor of the Serbian editions of selected works of Heintz Kohut, Jacques Lacan and Melanie Klein, author of various texts that are concerned with psychoanalysis, philosophy, literature and theology. He lives in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

Categories: Psychoanalysis, Philosophical