Plurality and Perspective in Psychoanalysis

Adam Rosen-Carole

Psychoanalysis is a historical discourse of suffering and healing under conditions of modernity rather than a metaphysical discourse of universal truth, and must be so due to the ontological indeterminacy of psychic life. Demonstrating this proceeds through the substantiation of two primary theses. First, pluralism in psychoanalysis, thus the perspectival character of psychoanalytic knowing, is irreducible. Second, psychic life is partially pliable to interpretive constitution rather than a self-subsistent object domain fully available to third-personal, objective description. Together, these theses provide the framework for a radical rethinking of the authority of psychoanalytic knowledge and practice and of the nature of psychoanalytic claims to objectivity. Psychoanalytic interpretations are best understood as existentially interrogative – they test who and how one might be – and if successful, to some extent identity formative. The validity conditions of psychoanalytic knowledge thus concern the creation/discovery of satisfactory forms of practice-orienting self-narration rather than those regularly operative in the natural sciences. However, an adequate assessment of psychoanalytic claims requires that the claims of science are given due consideration and the impediments to practice-orienting self-narration under conditions of late modernity are acknowledged.

Lexington Books

Pages: 586 • Trim: 6½ x 9⅜

978-0-7391-6951-3 • Hardback • February 2013 • $122.00 • (£94.00)

978-0-7391-6952-0 • eBook • February 2013 • $115.50 • (£89.00)

Subjects: Philosophy / Mind & Body, Philosophy / Epistemology, Psychology / Education & Training, Psychology / Movements / Psychoanalysis, Psychology / Psychotherapy / General, Philosophy / Continental Philosophy

Plurality and Perspective in Psychoanalysis

Hardback

eBook

Summary

Psychoanalysis is a historical discourse of suffering and healing under conditions of modernity rather than a metaphysical discourse of universal truth, and must be so due to the ontological indeterminacy of psychic life. Demonstrating this proceeds through the substantiation of two primary theses. First, pluralism in psychoanalysis, thus the perspectival character of psychoanalytic knowing, is irreducible. Second, psychic life is partially pliable to interpretive constitution rather than a self-subsistent object domain fully available to third-personal, objective description. Together, these theses provide the framework for a radical rethinking of the authority of psychoanalytic knowledge and practice and of the nature of psychoanalytic claims to objectivity. Psychoanalytic interpretations are best understood as existentially interrogative – they test who and how one might be – and if successful, to some extent identity formative. The validity conditions of psychoanalytic knowledge thus concern the creation/discovery of satisfactory forms of practice-orienting self-narration rather than those regularly operative in the natural sciences. However, an adequate assessment of psychoanalytic claims requires that the claims of science are given due consideration and the impediments to practice-orienting self-narration under conditions of late modernity are acknowledged.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 586 • Trim: 6½ x 9⅜

978-0-7391-6951-3 • Hardback • February 2013 • $122.00 • (£94.00)

978-0-7391-6952-0 • eBook • February 2013 • $115.50 • (£89.00)

Subjects: Philosophy / Mind & Body, Philosophy / Epistemology, Psychology / Education & Training, Psychology / Movements / Psychoanalysis, Psychology / Psychotherapy / General, Philosophy / Continental Philosophy

Author

Adam Rosen-Carole is a visiting assistant professor of social sciences and cultural studies at Pratt Institute. His research interests include modern European philosophy, psychoanalytic theory, and feminist philosophy. He is the author of Lacan and Klein, Creation and Discovery (Lexington 2011), as well as a number of articles on political philosophy, psychoanalysis, and feminist philosophy in journals including The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, The European Journal of Psychoanalysis, Alternatives, Pli, The New Centennial Review, Ethical Perspectives, and Glossator.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Questions of Commitment
Chapter 2: Plurality in Psychoanalysis
Chapter 3: Conflict and Controversy
Chapter 4: Insecurity in Analysis
Chapter 5: Subjectivity: A Dialectic of Creation and Discovery
Chapter 6: Objectivity: A Dialectic of Universalization and Particularization
Chapter 7: Science and Satisfaction

Reviews

With this book, Adam Rosen-Carole establishes himself as one of our most important scholars of psychoanalysis. The breadth and depth of his knowledge of the field is extraordinary, and the philosophical arguments he brings to bear on its most difficult issues essential.
— Alan Bass, The New School for Social Research

This work is remarkable for the amplitude of its knowledge concerning Freudian theory and its development in Europe and the United States as well as for its epistemological study. Added to this is the originality of Rosen-Carole's thought which is striking for both its rigor and its audacity.
— Julia Kristeva, The University of Paris

Plurality and Perspective in Psychoanalysis

Adam Rosen-Carole

Plurality and Perspective in Psychoanalysis

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