A Poetic for Sociology: Toward a Logic of Discovery for the Human Sciences by Richard H. Brown (review)

Books 163 not control the material brain, scientistswould have to show that every physicalevent in the brain was caused by another physical event. That would obviously be impossible. On the other hand, many of the philosophers thought that sciencecould make some mind-brain theoretical views less plausible than others. For example,if a computer could beprogrammed to produce humanlike language, like HAL in Kubrick’s ‘2001’, that would mean that a mysterious, immaterial mind was not necessary to explain human language. Not surprisingly, the scientists were generally optimistic that sciencewould eventually explain the relationship between mind and brain. Roger Sperry, for example, thought that consciousness ‘emerged’ from the particular complex organization of the human brain. His own experiments on patients who have had their two cerebral hemispheres disconnected from each other (to relieve epilepsy) have shown that consciousness itself can be ‘split’ by the operation. After the operation each hemisphere sees one-half of visual space and has control of one hand, and neither hemisphere has any direct awareness of what the other is seeing or doing. Another neuroscientist, Karl Pribram, argued that the mind will never actually be ‘found’ by digging into the brain, any more than gravity can be found by digging into a mass of earth. Rather, he suggested that, as the interactions between neural states and the environment are understood, the problem of the mind will gradually dissolve away. On the other hand, dualists will be heartened to learn that at least one scientist, John Eccles, took the position that humans have an immaterial soul, that controls their most complex behavior. Eccles theorized that the critical points of interaction are certain groups of neurons in the left cerebral cortex. Anyone who has wondered about ‘the relationship of his own brain processes to his mental states’ will find Consciousnessand the Brain a source of interesting ideas. The arguments among the philosophers and scientistsare lively,informative and sometimes even amusing. A negative aspect is that some of the arguments may prove difficult to follow for someone who does not have some familiarity with the issues; the contributors to this book were obviously talking to each other and not to a general audience. While the editors state in the Preface that the more difficult philosophical and scientific parts of the book may encourage the general reader to learn more about the issues, few basic references are given that would help someone who was so interested. Freud and the Dilemmas of Psychology. Marie Jahoda. The Hogarth Press, London, 1977.186pp. Paper, f2.50. Reviewedby Patricia L. Musick* I find that Jahoda has made a very valuable contribution to the field of psychologyin this explication of the relationship between psychoanalysis and psychology. She asks’ Is psychoanalysis a science, one of inferred thought and meaning, or is it the idiosyncratic imposition of a neurotic individual? With clarity she presents an unbiased view of the weaknessesand strengths in Freud’s efforts through consideration of the major issuesshared by psychoanalysis and academic psychology: impact of method on subject matter, appropriate level of theory construction, validity of research, and the status of both as a science. One of the most valuable contributions of the book is her attempt to place Freud’s lifework in the context of his heritage and his legacy. She carefully develops the historical antecedents to Freud’s controversial hypothesis of the unconscious. She documents the statement that virtually every single idea of Freud’s has been conceived by someone else before him. Although Freud acknowledged his historical precedents, he suggested that his unique contributions were the concept of repression and the psychoanalytic method. Jahoda believes that Freud’s explicit contribution was his notion of the unfying nature of human life-the synthesisof mind and body, conscious and unconscious, pleasure and reality, mechanism and meaning. She emphasizes that Freud unites known psychological phenomena in his complex, controversial work. To accomplish such a *School of Behavioral Sciences, University of Houston, Clear Lake City, 2700 Bay Area Blvd., Houston, TX 77058, U.S.A. Herculean task necessitatedthe development of a comprehensive psychologicallanguage that conceptualized the study of man, his second legacy. Another legacy was his questioning the use of the restrictive methods of the...