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Nobody’s saying that Freud wasn’t influential, but claiming he was influential because his ideas encouraged people to demonstrate how wrong he was is like saying that idiots encourage rational debate because they encourage smart people to demolish their ridiculous arguments.
Except, as discussed above, what Freud did wasn’t science.
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Come again?
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Come again again?
Einstein’s two big theories, special and general relativity, have been proved out emperically in countless ways. The initial confirmation of general relativity came in 1919 when a predicition made by GR about starlight being bent while passing near the sun was proven during a solar eclipse.
Part of the problem here seems to be that you don’t understand the role of hypothesis and theory in the scientific method. This is one of the major beefs about Freud and, I’m afraid, a failing that seems to be shared by many psychologists. There are a number of threads on the SDMB that explore this topic, a few of which I’ve participated in. You might want to look them up.
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Classic. If you agree with the therapist, the therapist is correct. If you disagree with the therapist, the therapist is still correct and your failure to agree is evidence of blocking. This is one of the basic problems with Freud as science. A theory that purports to explain everything is a bad scientific theory. A good theory must be falsifiable in that it makes predictions that can be proven true or false. If all possible outcomes are predicted/explained by a theory, it might be good philosophy, but it’s lousy science.
I believe that I haven’t been clear enough. To me, it seems like you seem to be caught up on the wording of my sentence. I shouldn’t have said “it spurred a frenzy of tests and research to try to disprove him”, but rather " it spurred a frenzy of tests and research to try to see if his claims had any validity". Many years ago, people just like you claimed that Freud was a quack because he didn’t practice “sound science”. However, just because someone isn’t a scientist doesn’t mean that their theories are quackery. Your analogy to Freud being an idiot making ridiculous arguments is only a matter of your opinion. Just because people react violently to another’s ideas doesn’t make them ridiculous. But I’m willing to concede that SOME of Freud’s theories were pretty outrageous and quite wrong.
True enough, he did not empirically test any of his theories, and many of his theories would seem difficult, if not impossible to test empiracally. Freud wasn’t a scientist - he was a clinician who developped theories and techniques that served his purpose. Psychology’s response to Freud was a reinforcement that empirically testable ideas were of utmost importance. This helped along the development of a much more rigorous scientific approach to the study of probably THE most difficult subject matter imaginable: the human mind, the brain, and human behaviour.
In regards to Einstein, most of Einstein’s theories are useful scientific models that fit what we observe in nature. When I said that Einstein’s theories haven’t been validated, I was referring to the very nature of a theory - that is to say that any theory is never truly “proven”, but rather that it has failed to be proven wrong. It is a working model that has yet to fail, or be replaced with a more succinct and effective theory. That is how science works - it is a constant process of refinement and/or revision. I will leave that there, because taking it any further only gets into a fundamental debate concerning the philosophy of science and the subjectivity of “truth”. Believe me, I’d love to get into a debate about how the western world’s narrow-mided devotion to empiricism is only ONE way of understanding the “truth” about the reality of the universe.
Einstein was a bad example. I was going on Einstein’s belief that all of time was an illusion - something that I think you or any scientist would have a hard time “proving” or even demonstrating. The point: If Freud should be criticized for the untestability of his theories, so should many other famous minds.
If you still believe that psychology is a muddled science based on theories that cannot be empirically tested, I suggest you pick up a copy (ANY copy) of a modern reputable psychological scientific journal. I can point you to some if you’d like, and even explain how the experiments and methodology are sound science that are able to effectively test the theories proposed therein.
The reason that I say that the study of the mind is such a difficult one is because of the great diversity between people, and because of the intangibility of the subject matter. Psychological theories should not be understood in the same way that, say, the laws of physics are understood. Psychological theories attempt to explain and possibly predict the behaviour of human beings. That theory will always only describe people “in general”, and could never explain the actions, intentions, thoughts, or behaviour of every single individual. If you think that a psychological theory is meant to apply to every single indivual in every single situation, you are taking the theory too far - you yourself said that “A theory that purports to explain everything is a bad scientific theory”. Psychological theories don’t try to explain everything, nor do the theories of Freud that are still accepted today.
The argument that Freud made claims that cannot be validated is true, but consider the subject matter that he was studying. How would you, pray tell, scientifically study a person’s hidden thoughts? Freud claimed that there was an unconscious self - a failure to measure it doesn’t necessarily mean that it doesn’t exist, or that Freud was wrong - only that the unconscious is exceedingly difficult to measure empirically. Besides, as I said before, Freud wasn’t interested in proving his own theories empirically - they worked just fine for what he did in his practice. He left the empirical work up to future generations of scientists.
Most therapists nowadays do NOT claim to be correct in every situation or in every interpretation. A properly trained psychodynamically oriented clinician can only interpret a client’s thoughts, behaviours and actions. If the client disagrees, this MAY be a sign of denial, suppression, etc., but not in all cases. In some cases, it may be that the therapist is quite wrong - they are only human, after all. But, that doesn’t mean that we should flat out discount the possibility that a client may be “blocking”.
The bottom line is that Freud’s theories weren’t completely wrong. Some were correct, and some were wrong. Like I said before, I work in a lab that EMPIRICALLY tests SOME OF Freud’s theories, and they prove to be very useful and sound theories. Freud did what others weren’t willing to do: he went out on a limb. Some of his theories were wrong, but some of them were revolutionary.
Of course no theory is ever “proven”. It’s not supposed to be. What you’re supposed to try to do with a theory is validate it. Neither the hypotheses of Freud nor of Einstein have been proven, because that is impossible. However, the hypotheses of Einstein have been validated, and very strongly (so strongly that Einstein’s hypotheses are now considered theories or even laws). Freud’s hypotheses, by contrast, have not been validated, nor can they ever be.
The problem, as stated before, is falsifiability. When I perform an experiment on General Relativity, I can say something like “If I do detect gravitational waves, that supports General Relativity, but if I don’t detect gravitational waves, that refutes General Relativity.”. The experiment therefore gives me some information, and is useful, and if I get that “support” result, it strengthens the General Theory of Relativity. By contrast, a Freudian experiment might be something like “If the boy says that he hates his father, that supports the notion of the Oedipus Complex, and therefore supports Freud. But if the boy doesn’t say that he hates his father, then that supports the notion of repression, and therefore supports Freud.”. Either way, the “experiment” supports Freud: There is nothing about which a Freudian can say “If such-and-such happens, that must mean that I’m wrong”.
To put it yet another way, any hypothesis which is not falsifiable cannot make predictions. In the previous examples, General Relativity predicts that, with the proper equipment, I ought to be able to detect gravitational waves. But Freud’s hypotheses cannot predict whether the boy will or will not say he hates his father, because either is consistent with Freudianism. Of what use is a hypothesis if it can’t make any predictions?
I’ll ignore the conceit of the last statement, but perhaps this argument hinges on the statements “Freud wasn’t a scientist” and that psychology is a “…rigourous scientific approach …” I agree with the statment someone made that Freud was a philospher, and yours that he was a clinician. However, a scientist thinking about Freud as a scientist is going to think Freud bears a distinct resemblance to a duck.
Well, this what the Great Debates area is all about.
Now Einstein, I understand. When did he ever say that time is an illusion? His Relativistic theories explain, among other things, how time is related to the three remaining, macroscopic dimensions. His theories do not explain how an illusion is related to them.
If physicists can construct falsifiable theories of the undetectable, surely psychologists can. Hell, I even accept that they do.
I would use “and” instead of “but”. I would also argue that all great minds have gone out on a limb. So have some mediocre minds. Of course, pretty much by definition, so have all quacks. (Is a duck that goes out on a limb, a quack?)
I just thought I’d bump this thread back up to the top, due to the fact that it was this very thread that inspired this week’s column about Sigmund Freud:
And how does that automatically mean that Freud solved them?
He invented a model that cannot be tested. It is, as has been stated before, more on the order of the Hellenic and Hellenistic speculations than science.
Everyone who is defending Freud is merely expressing internal conflict and revulsion over their Oedipal complex, performing a defense of the Father by proxy. Anyone who denies this is merely in denial.
I don’t get this. None of the guys gathered here to defend Freud claimed that he was a scientist. That’s not even the issue. He’s put forth a bunch of theories that are open for discussion and modification. He’s been wrong in some of his ideas , granted. But he was the first to actually look into these questions.
As long as you don’t count Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Averroës, Spencer, Lao Tzu, Buddha, Hume, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Marx, Hegel, Descartes, a perhaps just a few thousand others over the past few thousand years. Not to mention all the astrologers, phrenologists, and various other quacks, shamans and mystics down through the ages. :rolleyes:
TMehr does have a good point, though. Thoughout all the of comments in both threads on Freud, no one has yet come out and tried to defend Freud’s status as a scientist. Sure, thousands of others have come along since and tried to put Freud’s theories to more rigorous empirical scruntiny, but the fact of the matter is that Freud himself did not. Ergo, he’s not a “scientist” in the way in which we understand that term today.
Perhaps Cecil’s venom is slightly too bitter to the taste of Frud’s denfenders, but I’ve yet to hear any of them voice a credible defense of Freud’s status as a scientist.
THANK YOU, CECIL, FOR CONTINUING TO FIGHT IGNORANCE.
The all-too-common tyrrany of the Establishment and its thniking needs to be brought to bear. Keep teaching the Teeming, Keep up the wit and good work.
Well … Freud did do one thing differently than most of these earlier folks:
Instead of trying to elevate humans above the level of common beasts by insisting that we have the capacity to transcend our “base” instincts, Freud proposed that those base instincts are actually the driving force behind all human activity (even supposedly “refined” activity).
Interesting. It seems to me that the estabishment has decided that Freud was a quack and his ideas nonsense and at at best stem from a sick mind…
As for Dr. Cobweb: Actually Socrates, Plato and Aristotle are quacks! Afterall, nobody could prove their theories scientifically. But we choose to call them philosophers and great thinkers. But Freud, whose contribution to the way we think about the human mind is much bigger than theirs, we choose to call a quack. :smack:
And please tell me, what astrology has to do with psychology? Except that it is more commonly accepted as science by the ‘establishment’.
Mindputty may not be defending freuds status as a scientist but he certainly seems to attempting a defence of Freuds work as science. Yes they later stated that Feud was not a scientist, but the distinction has got to be pretty fine between one doing science and a scientist.
I really do need to ask a question of those who believe Freud was not a quack. Given that you believe that his conjecture is untested and untestable and given some of the outrageous claims and overextensions that you all seem to admit that Freud made based on that conjecture…
Why is Freud less of a quack than the local snake oil merchant? Neither have produced anything that can be tested, both made incredible claims about their product and yet we all agree that the snake oil merchant is a qauck while come of us argue that Freud is not. Why?
Interesting Freudian slip, subbing astrology for astronomy. (Yeah, I know it is more of a spoonerism, but I couldn’t help myself.)
It is also interesting that you mention philosophers in your defense of Freud. In a lecture series on tape that I listened to, Freud’s ideas were included as “one” of the 50 great ideas of philosophy. This guy also included Marx’s concept of class identity and warfare, but denigrated his place in science, but that’s another topic.
Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates were philosophers, not scientists. Rational analysis is not the same as science. Eventually natural philosophers were equated with scientists, but that was some 2000 years after their deaths. Freud, on the other hand, came a few hundred years after science was firmly established as the best way to learn about the natural world. Since Freud was attempting to explain natural phenomona, it is fair to call him a scientist.
It has been claimed that Freud was a clinician. That seems reasonable to me. Freud, at least initially, was attempting to heal people. That would mean he was a form of doctor, not a form of scientist. Scientist attempt to answer “why?” using the scientific method. Freud, in the course of attempting to heal people, came up with a possible answer to why his patients had problems. The explanation does not fall under the realm of science, since it is not testable. That would make him a natural philosopher living after the establishment of science who did not practice science and who espoused scientific sounding theories. I.e., a quack. I leave it to the psychologists to tell me if he actually healed anybody. If his success rate was no better than might be expected without his intervention over the course of time, then he was a medical quack, also.
However, he was not a snake oil salesman. It is hard to believe that Freud pulled a deliberate con job. I’d lump him with the astrologers who actually believe in what they do.l
** SlowMindThinking ** nice you bring up Freudian slips (- although nobody has written a thing about astronomy). This is really a nice concept. Has anyone proved it? Somehow empirically maybe. I don’t know. But I have heard it happen so often that I have to say: Freudian slips exist. Period. And I admit that the original lecture by Freud on it takes it rather far - but that doesn’t mean that the whole thing is not valid. Some of his ideas were brilliant others were crap. But he started a whole new field - and that’s his merit.
And I frankly don’t care if you call him a scientist (which I don’t) or a philosopher. But he wasn’t a quack.
Many moons ago, when I was a young psychology major, I came across a rather useful book…entitled Freud Rediscovered. The main point of the book was that while 70% of Freud’s work has been shown to be bunk (as one of my professors once said: Freud blamed psychological problems on sex…but he only thought that because he wasn’t getting any…yup, a funny psych professor, or at least he thought he was)…the other 30% of his work was and is brilliant, and still serves to teach us much about the human mind.
Aristotle defined and laid out rules of logic that (the syllogistic form, the law of non-contradiction) have been in use for over two thousand years.
Plato, in broadcasting the lessons and trials of his teacher Socrates, ensured that philosophy would become something more important than the idle ramblings of some unkempt weirdos hanging around the town center.
Freud said little boys want to kill their fathers so they can sleep with their mothers.
You know, I’ve got to say, that at least for myself, I think I’m more influenced by the Greeks.
Obviously, some people failed to connect my comment with the meanings of the words I used.
First, I wasn’t defending Freud; I was pointing out that he was not the “first” to look into questions of human psychology.
And second, I wasn’t claiming that any of the mentioned philosophers (nor astrologers, nor phrenologists) were scientists. (But they did, all, in one way or another, attempt to explain and sometimes even develop a model for, various human psychological behavior. The fact that their models and explanations were often just as dippy as the quackery of Freud is irrelevant; nobody here ever claimed that Freud was the only quack in history – or even the first.)
I don’t see how either of those conclusions could possibly have been reached by anyone reading my posts who is moderately fluent in the English language.
(Yeah, I know it is more of a spoonerism, but I couldn’t help myself.)