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BOOK REVIRWS Psyclwanalysis, Scientific Method and Philosophy. Edited by SIDNEY HooK. New York: New York University Press, 1959. Pp. xiv, 870, with index. $5.00. This symposium was held at the Institute of Philosophy at New York University in March 1958. Three topics were discussed: Psychoanalysis and Scientific Method, Psychoanalysis and Society, Psychoanalysis and Philosophy. On each of these topics three reports were presented. There are, furthermore, eighteen contributions by other participants, submitted after the close of the Institute, whose length varies from one to twenty-six pages. It is regrettable that there is no report on the discussion itself; it would have been interesting to know how the psychoanalysts and their friends replied to the several critical objections. Two papers on methodology were read by psychiatrists, H. Hartmann and L. S. Kubie; the third by E. Nagel; "Methodological Issues in Psychoanalytic Theory" examines critically the logical structure of Freud's doctrine and the nature of the empirical. evidence supposedly supporting this theory. Nagel finds fault with psychoanalysis in both respects; his remarks deserve serious consideration on the part of anyone desiring to arrive at an objective appraisal of the theory; they do not, however, deal with questions of a strictly philosophical nature 11-nd, therefore, cannot be summarized here. The same applies to the papers on psychoanalysis and society by A. Kardiner, E. van den Haag and A. Inkeles. M. Lazerowitz spoke on the " Relevance of Psychoanalysis to Philosophy ." The paper reproduces, in an abbreviated form, ideas which the author has developed in his Structure of Metaphysics (New York, 1955). " There is evidence . . . for supposing that the philosopher, despite all appearances, does not use language to express scientific propositions but instead uses it in such a way as to create the illusion of doing so, while in fact he gives expression only to his unconscious fantasies." (Italics L.'s.) One is not a little astonished to hear such a confession of unadulterated psychologism sixty years after the publication of Husserl's Prolegomena. Even if it could be demonstrated, per impossible, that the ideas of a philosopher originate from " unconscious fantasies," such a demonstration would have no bearing on the validity of the ideas themselves. Newton, too, may have been motivated by some such fantasies, but they do not enter into the structure of his physics and neither enhance nor diminish the significance of the law of gravitation. Having thus made a methodological principle out of the "genetic fallacy," Lazerowitz proceeds to analyse the philosophies of Bradley and Spinoza. 1.09 110 BOOK REVIEWS The latter's statements "that all things are in God" and "without Him could neither exist nor be conceived" justify, in the eyes of the speaker, the assumption that Spinoza's curiosity concerning the problem of birth had remained unsatisfied. And so on. It does not seem, so far as one may judge from the printed statements, that this performance, which is as naive as amazing, created a favorable impression on the audience. Although there is a rather halfhearted defense by J. Hospers (in one of the appended papers), one finds only severe criticism of Lazerowitz, especially in the two reports by D. C. Williams of Harvard and A. Flew of North Staffordshire, England. S. Hook and R. Demos, too, view the ideas of Lazerowitz as quite unacceptable. Williams points out that another philosophizing analyst or psychoanalyzing philosopher, L. Feuer, has proposed a different interpretation of Spinoza as a " cringing masochist." It is not, says Williams, our part to marvel that men can " read through Spinoza and come out with such scraps of junk, but only to comment on the farcialness of the logic to which philosophical psychoanalysis drives its devotees." A harsh judgment , but one which is perfectly justified by the vagaries of men like Lazerowitz. One has reason to be grateful to the participants of this symposium for having made clear the illegitimate use of psychological procedures-whether they be empirically well founded or not-in discussions on things philosophical . Philosophers, of course, will not be disturbed by such opinions; they can afford to brush them aside. But there is more to it. This mode of looking at intellectual achievements penetrates everywhere. The concluding...

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