U NITY OF S CIENCE –P ROSPECTS AND P ROBLEMS

1. U NITY OF S CIENCE –P ROSPECTS AND P ROBLEMS

Unity of Science within the Vienna Circle

The unity of science was a central aim within the Vienna Circle. Two basic 2 epistemological assumptions formed the background of this project :

1. All cognition stems from experience. (Basis Theorem)

2. There are only two classes of meaningful sentences: Analytical statements a priori and synthetical statements a posteriori. (Sense Theorem)

The consequence of this two theorems is a verdict on all kinds of metaphysics. Thus, it makes sense interpreting the project of the unity of science as an attempt to determine all sentences permitted by the sense and basis theorems. The aims of the project are the following: To provide, first, a clear distinction between science and pseudoscience, and, second, a proof of the inner compatibility of the different sciences. For us, it is important to realize that a dualism of science and humanities, of explaining and understanding has been rejected within the Vienna Circle. The central demand (following the two theorems) of this project is that all synthetical sciences be formulated in a language whose descriptive elements

are either related directly to observable objects; or belong to an unproblematic class of simple predicates; or are reducible to the simple basic vocabulary by explicit definitions.

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A language that seems to fulfill these conditions and, therefore, serves the aims of the unity of science is the physicalistic language (including qualitative as well as quantitative expressions, as long as the former are refering to observable relations and features), which seems to have two necessary features: intersub- jectivity, since its terminology can basically be understood by everybody and, second, universality, the ability to express each and every fact. But how should the necessary reduction proceed, especially in the case of psychology? The idea was to reduce the terminology of psychology to the terminology of biology which, in turn, should be translatable into the terminology of physics. According to Frenkel-Brunswik, Freud himself shared this methodological vision:

While in the beginning Freud was intensively dominated by neurophysiological thinking, decisive progress in psychoanalysis did not occur until after he freed himself from the search for such analogies and turned to more openly psychological models. However,

Freud always considered this step to be temporary and necessitated by the present imper- fect state of the biological sciences. 3

It is an interesting fact that protagonists of the Vienna Circle like Schlick, Neurath and others 4 have been very optimistic concerning the possible inte- gration of psychology – thinking mainly of a special kind of behavioristic psychology. Nevertheless, they were also interested in psychoanalysis and its development, thinking that it would be able to overcome those methodological difficulties it shared with other totally new disciplines, finally turning out to be a “real” science.

Very soon, behaviorists, gestalt psychologists, reflexologists, individual psychologists, psychoanalysists will couch their tenets in a physicalistic language able to successfully compare them. Thus, there will develop the exhilarating scientific atmosphere we already know from physics. And all this will be achieved without sacrificing anything of the

wealth that psychology offers so far. 5

Unity of Science Today

Today, the unity of science is a controversial subject. Generally, the interest in this project has decreased. For many scientists research on complex systems seems to be more interesting than thinking about the unification of research. Instead of searching for the unity of all scientific disciplines, the autonomy of the sciences is stressed: There is a widespread demand for pluralism instead of methodological monoculture. Furthermore, it is not clear how such an enterprise could be successful at all. For example, there are controversies about possible and sensible forms of unity: Unity of method? Of terminology? Of structure? As all sciences run through a development of further differentiation, it turned out that questions like this were much more complicated than they seemed to be at

the beginning of this project. According to Manfred Stöckler 6 in his inventory,

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the prospects for the unity of science are ambivalent: Success and failure of those reductions that already took place do not offer an homogeneous picture – stressing the successful operations implies the danger of a one-sided diet; stress- ing the failures does not prove the impossibility of the whole project. Stöckler himself votes for a compromise between radical reductionism and total pluralism

– he sees the project of the unity of science as a regulative idea, a standard for the seriousness of the different disciplines – a methodological corrective and

interdisciplinary vision. Not giving up the whole idea might be reasonable in light of the necessity of intersubjectivity and the testability of scientific hy-

potheses on the one hand as well as the necessity of interdisciplinary research and cooperation on the other – both require a common terminology and mutual

understanding among the various disciplines.

Conclusion

Although there are many scientists who postulate the death of the whole project, for the moment we will assume that the search for unity still is a sensible and interesting challenge to modern science. Even if integration into the unity of science might not be the main interest of psychoanalysists today, the prove for the status of psychoanalysis as a serious scientific enterprise has, fortunately, not been totally given up. Let us look, now, at what kind of definitions of scientific theories are offered within the philosophy of science.

2. P HILOSOPHY OF S CIENCE AND THE S TRUCTURE OF T HEORIES Within the Vienna Circle as well as within the philosophy of science in general

the description and definition of scientific theories turned out to be a difficult undertaking. What I want to show in this section is that, beyond the statement view as a first proposal, there have been promising developments within the philosophy of science in the analysis of the structure of theories. Two proposals in particular seem to offer new perspectives to psychoanalysis – Lakatos’ remarks on the non-statement-view and Einstein’s distinction between con- structive and principle theories.

The Statement View

Essential parts of Rudolf Carnap’s philosophical work are dedicated to the analysis of the structure of empirical cognition. In his book “Der logische

Aufbau der Welt” 7

he made his first attempt to show how the concepts of empirical theories have to be interrelated to secure their empirical significance.

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(Carnap later developed different systematizations, never being satisfied with his own proposals.) Generally, a theory is defined as a class of statements of dif- ferent kinds, formulated in two different languages: the theoretical language T which contains theoretical terms (like “Energy E”, “Electron” etc.) and logical

symbols (needed to formulate the relations among objects) and the observational language O which contains observables (like colours, lengths etc.) and logical symbols (needed to formulate direct observations). Within the theoretical lan- guage T, the theory itself is formulated. To become an empirical theory, T has to

be empirically interpreted. This interpretation works with correspondence rules that guarantee the empirical significance of the theory, otherwise in danger of being mere metaphysical speculation. They connect certain statements of the theoretical language T with certain statements from the observational language O . Some theoretical terms will gain empirical content by this procedure. All other theoretical terms gain their empirical meaning by way of axioms and theo- rems of the theoretical and definitional chains that connect the uninterpreted terms with the interpreted ones. It follows that only those hypotheses that contain interpreted terms are directly testable, all others only indirectly. To ensure that the latter are not mere speculation, it is necessary to put up an empirical criterion for the uninterpreted theoretical terms within those hypotheses. Carnap demands that a hypothesis containing an interpreted theoretical term possess prognostical relevance to count as empirically meaningful. There has to be at least one state- ment of T containing this term that leads to forecasts not possible without it. The elimination of the theoretical term would render the forecast no longer possible. So any scientist will have to provide an interpretation by making forecasts on the basis of the uninterpreted theoretical terms.

Problems for Psychoanalysis

This analysis of Carnap forms the background for the optimistic evaluation of psychoanalysis as a scientific theory made by Frenkel-Brunswik. What items must a psychoanalytical theory fulfil with regard to the statement-view?

First, there must be a clear conceptual scheme, a clear distinction between theoretical and observational terms, where the theoretical ones must have

empirical significance. 8 In her paper, Frenkel-Brunswik argues for the legitimacy and the scientific status of psychoanalytical concepts. These concepts are either

theoretical ones like “the unconscious” or “instinct”, carefully introduced by postulates, or concepts that can be empirically defined by reductions. In fact, the

controversial concepts of psychoanalysis are necessary to intermediate between surface phenomena and the underlying deep-seated mental structures. In her view, Freud’s conceptual methodology is by all means compatible with methods found, for example, in modern physics. Freud obviously was aware of the neces- sity of providing a clear conceptual scheme, for he always stressed the hypo- thetical character and the explanatory function of his terminology. Nevertheless,

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Frenkel-Brunswik admits that a strict distinction between these two classes of terms is not possible within psychoanalysis. For example, the term “the uncon- scious” could be classified as an abstract theoretical term as well as an observa- tional one, since there are links to observable facts such as the behaviour of the

patient during the therapy, his dreams and associations. Although she argued passionately for her view, it has always been controversial. Today, this assess-

ment would no longer be supported, as diverse studies show that the real dif- ficulties are enormous: Freud did not always use his own terminology in a consistent way and in many cases it is not possible to provide the necessary empirical interpretation. 9

Second, the possibility of the systematization or axiomatization of the theory must be given. Even Frenkel-Brunswik concedes that this might be a problem: she agrees that improvements concerning its axiomatization would be useful, especially a more systematic differentiation between the basic assumptions and their derivations. The aim of this effort should be to uncover logical contradic- tions and empirical gaps as well as insufficient evidence. D. Rapaport repeated this assessment in 1970 with regard to Freud. 10

A third demand would be the testability and applicability of the theory. Just where this test actually should take place has always been a controversial question: within psychoanalysis or independently of its own methods within

other disciplines as, for example, empirical psychology. 11 Frenkel-Brunswik claimed that a lot of psychoanalytical hypotheses had been tested successfully within empirical psychology. Today, there are different opinions concerning the

success of empirical tests within psychology: Most of the various inventories done by different psychologists do not support Frenkel-Brunswik’s optimistic

assessment: As P. Kline 12 , H.-J. Eysenck and G. Wilson 13 , and R. Sears 14 showed, many psychoanalytical hypotheses failed empirical tests or proved to be totally untestable.

Conclusion

The fact that there are weighty problems for psychoanalysis concerning the statement-view tells less about its scientific credibility than it would seem to. The

first reason for this surprising assessment is that the statement-view itself got into difficulties – it has been critizised a lot within philosophy of science. The

main critical point is the fact that a strict and clear distinction between theo- retical and observational concepts has never been successfully carried out in any

discipline and seems nearly impossible with regard to ‘real’ theories. Further- more, even the protagonists of Logical Empiricism did not think that the demands of the statement view should be all that count. There might be other reasons to hold on to psychoanalytical theories:

Obviously it would be difficult to prove that the theories of Freud or Jung could satisfy the criteria of acceptance advanced by Logical Positivism and shaped according to the

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model of mathematical physics. [...] Hence, the truth of Freudian or similar theories may not be understood otherwise than pragmatically. It may or may not be convenient to accept them. But the convenience of a theory like psychoanalysis depends on a great many factors, among which agreement with observations is only one. We have always to consider its agreement with the experience of everyday life, with the general philosophy of the period, its ability to support some ways of life, some political, moral, and religious creeds. [...] It depends upon whether one believes that a theory like that of psychoanalysis provides important practical help in life or not. 15

Getting away from the statement view obviously could have some advantages for psychoanalysis – and indeed, there is at least one alternative that picked up the

insight quoted above and therefore seems to be a promising new option: the non- statement view.

Advantages of the Non-statement-view

After a long period of discussing the central epistemological premises of Logical Empiricism (especially sense and basis theorem) it became clear that even em- pirical theories would have massive problems with respect to their secure foun- dation – indeed, security would in no way be available. All data and facts are themselves theory-laden, depending on the assumptions that have been made during their acquisition. This means that if there arises a clash between the prog- nosis made by a theory and an observation, then we do in fact have a collision between two inconsistent statements that must not compellingly be dissolved in favour of the observation. The non-statement view, developed by philosophers

such as J. Sneed 16 , W. Stegmüller 17 and U. Gähde 18 , describes the structure of theories in a totally different way than the statement view. According to Imre

Lakatos 19 , a theory consists of a hard core and a soft belt: The core includes the central thesis of the theory.

The soft belt includes the paradigmatic field of applications and further intended applications as well as various supplement hypotheses which help to perform these applications.

When under attack, a scientist will always try to protect the core of his theory and – if necessary – make modifications within the soft belt, where it is in prin- ciple possible to introduce supplementary hypotheses or make some alterations of less important assumptions. For us, the following thesis of Lakatos concerning the collisions of two statements is most interesting: Even if there are such abnormities, a (wrong) theory can function as a problem-solving tool as long as it is methodologically valuable. It is legitimate to keep a theory if the following conditions are fulfilled:

1 . There is no competitive theory which is confronted to a lesser extent with such abnormities.

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2. The theory is able to develop supplementary hypotheses that make fruitful new prognoses and insights possible can themselves be empirically tested in a successful way.

A theory that fulfills these demands is a “progressive” one, while its failing counterpart is referred to as “degenerative”. For psychoanalysis, this view ob- viously has interesting consequences: It implies a liberalization concerning the demands on scientific theories. For example, even if the thesis about the Oedipus Complex should not be true in a strict sense, it will be accepted as long as it

produces interesting explanations of behavioral patterns and forecasts of future behavior. With regard to legitimate methodologies, strategies and hypotheses, the non-statement-view implies heterogenity – as long as theories are fruitful, they will be welcomed. Finally, it seems to be a position that does not see the plurality of approaches within one discipline as being a defect: renewal and changes within a discipline are seen as principally progressive forces. This means that the aim of pinning psychoanalysis down to one kind of method, one object of research and one terminology will no longer be acceptable. Therefore,

it seems to be a view that is made for the defence of outsiders and minorities as long as they are open to criticism and renewal.

Perspectives & Problems

Even within this description of scientific theories, there are difficulties lying in wait for psychoanalysis. In fact, it has to fulfill new and, as it seems, equally difficult demands. First, it has to be structured in the way described – making clear the thesis within the hard core, as well as the assumptions and hypotheses within the soft belt. It is promising that this step indeed seems to be possible: As Wolfgang Balzer and Phillio Marcou showed, a reconstruction of Freud’s early theory of the unconscious will be possible within a structuralist framework. It

[...] lends itself to a completely precise logical treatment and has all the features of empirical theories in the social sciences in general. 20

Furthermore, in case of a collision, it has to develop hypotheses with progressive impact and demonstrate that the progressive ones really do have some fruitful and innovative impact. It has to overcome its tendency to react with immunisa- tion strategies, as happened frequently when parts of Freud’s work were under

attack. 21 Even for the statement-view, psychoanalysis has to take care for the testability and applicability of its hypotheses. As we have seen before, this is at

least a highly problematic, if not a lethal demand – even today. Neverthelesss, if Balzer and Marcou are right, then the advancements within philosophy of science turn out to be advancements for the scientific claims of psychoanalysis as well.

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Einstein’s Proposal

Finally, I will come to a second proposal made by Albert Einstein which corre- sponds to Frenkel-Brunswik’s assessment of psychoanalytical theories. Stressing the methodological advantages of psychoanalysis, Frenkel-Brunswik herself gives us an inspiring lead as to what kind of scientific theory psychoanalysis is:

Freud considers the assumption of the unconsciousness as necessary because the data of the consciousness are ‘exeedingly defective’. Conscious acts alone do not enable us to

account for the parapraxes and dreams of healthy persons and of the mental symptoms or obsessions of the sick. Our most intimate daily experience introduces us ‘to sudden ideas,

the source of which we are ignorant, and to results (of mentation) arrived at in ways uncertain’. Thus, Freud introduced the concept of the unconscious as an abstract, hypo-

thetical construct [...] 22 Thus, for Frenkel-Brunswik, psychoanalysis ...

... reduces complex phenomena to a relatively simple scheme: See, for exam- ple, the concept of the unconscious and how it helps to explain a wide variety of phenomena;

... construes its elements hypothetically: See, for example, Freud’s introduction of new concepts and their remoteness from the observable;

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... shows qualities such as a striking explanatory power, completeness and adaptability: See, for example its efficiency concerning the explanation of human behavior, which seems strange or senseless.

This assessment, surprisingly, corresponds to a distinction between different sorts of scientific theories we find within Einstein’s metatheoretical considera-

tions. 23 He distinguishes between Constructive and Principle Theories: Constructive Theories: Their strength is the ability to reduce complex phe-

nomena to a relatively simple scheme. They are capable of drawing connec- tions not seen before and of unifying complex facts by means of an intelli- gent explanation. For this purpose they use newly introduced abstract

concepts, which means that their central elements are construed, not discov- ered. As an example, Einstein refers to the kinetic theory of gases. Its specific advantages are completeness, adaptability and, finally, clearness.

Principle Theories: Their strength lies in the precise formulation of principles that complex natural processes will have to satisfy. Their elements are empirically discovered general characteristics of natural processes which have been brought into a precise mathematical form. As an example, Einstein refers to the Theory of Relativity. Their specific advantages are logical per- fection as well as security of foundation.

This differentiation within types of scientific theories is very elusive in the case of psychoanalysis. Two items are decisive: First, following Frenkel-Brunswik, it might be plausible to subsume Freud’s metapsychology under the heading “con- structive” theory – stressing that this is just a test to show my point, even if it will not be possible here to argue for this decision in detail. Freud himself spoke of his metapsychology as a speculative construction where each component

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could be changed if it did not prove to be sensible. Second, this differentiation looks – prima facie – like a relief for psychoanalysis. As a constructive theory, psychoanalysis would have to fulfil some special demands such as, for example, explanatory power. Criteria such as accuracy or the ability to produce predictions would not be relevant.

Gains and Losses for Psychoanalysis

Seeing parts of psychoanalysis as a constructive theory would bring some gains for psychoanalysis: The demand for a physicalistic terminology obviously would

be off the agenda. A plurality of methods would not only be possible but wel- comed and, finally, special criteria will be relevant for different theoretical elements of psychoanalysis. Nevertheless, the demands are numerous, too. Until now, psychoanalysis has not succeeded in profiting from these developments within philosophy of science, as it has been engaged in fighting its own massive structural problems. With regard to Lakatos and Einstein, explanatory power and testability are the most relevant demands – and, it seems, the most problematic

for psychoanalysis. As M. Perrez 24 , R. Lendle 25 , A. Grünbaum 26 and M. Sher- wood 27 showed, explanations are a difficult item within psychoanalysis. Within the work of Freud there is no clear distinction between explaining and describing elements. Often, the genesis of hypotheses and the test of hypotheses go hand in hand and cannot be separated. In many cases it is not clear on which general principle or law the explanation is based. Since there really are massive difficul- ties within the work of Freud, the necessary improvement of psychoanalytical explanations today has to occur in contemporary psychoanalytical studies and theories. Some critics even assume that psychoanalysis is going to create new and specific types of explanations. 28

Conclusion

With regard to the aim of Frenkel-Brunswik, the discussion about the scientific nature of psychoanalysis obviously will be benefitted by new developments within philosophy of science. Here, the debate went in a totally new and prom-

ising direction. Looking at the proposal of Einstein, it seems that it will be plau- sible to interpret parts of psychoanalysis as a constructive theory. Doing so presupposes the fundamental desire to establish psychoanalysis as a scientific

approach. But there are good reasons to doubt that this is a widespread desire among psychoanalysists today.

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