My aim in this paper is to use historical analysis as a way of
reflecting on the deepest philosophical assumptions
of
psychoanalysis.
In preparing it, I have been very influenced by its venue, reflecting
what I hope is an interest in the study of life, human nature and
society. I have a certain sense of occasion about the growth of
interest in the history of the human sciences. In fact it is a quarter
of a century since I embarked on a doctoral dissertation in this area.
It was, I don't mind saying, lonely work, and I cannot sufficiently
convey my pleasure that there now appears to be a real interest in this
country in humanistic scholarship about the history of the disciplines
which seek to understand our humanity. I wish it well and I will do all
I can to help it on its way.
When I became a professional historian of psychology, it was
considered sufficiently noteworthy that the main entrepreneur in the
field, Robert I. Watson, dubbed me the 'first person ever to receive a
doctorate in the history of psychology in the Anglo-Saxon world'. (I
have never known if that was true or not, but it felt nice at the
time.) I have moved on more than once, but I have remained preoccupied
with human nature, the constraints on it, what can be hoped for and
perhaps achieved, in a variety of guises: researching, teaching,
supervising, editing, agitating a bit, making films about it, writing
and publishing.
I came to Britain to look into the issues lying conceptually
beneath and historically behind Freud's metapsychology, in particular
his first book On Aphasia (1891), and the philosophical assumptions
conceptual confusions underlying psychoanalytic metapsychology. The
doctoral dissertation I did was on the history of cerebral localization
from the first empirical work, that of Gall and phrenology, to the
first experimental work of Fritsch and Hitzig and of David Ferrier.
Note that I make no mention of Freud whatsoever. The reason is that I
was strongly advised by my doctoral supervisor not to go into
psychoanalysis at all and by my department head not to mention any
interest in the history of medical or psychiatric topics. The first
because psychoanalysis wasn't psychology, and the second because
medicine wasn't knowledge. Psychoanalysts were charlatans and medics
were plumbers, I was told.
Neither was
respectable, nor was taking up an appointment in the
history and philosophy of science, said my psychology supervisor,
Professor Oliver Zangwill. Better to return to medicine he said. No,
find something respectable in the history of science, said Gerd
Buchdahl, my department head in the history and philosophy of science.
So I was at an impasse. Then what about Darwin? This seemed eminently
respectable, especially in Cambridge. Hence a decade's research on
nineteenth-century debate on man's place in nature, the fruits of which
have appeared as Darwin's Metaphor: Nature's Place in Victorian
Culture.