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Question Have Freud's ideas about the subconscious been tested empirically? Is there a way to test for the existence of an Oedipal Complex? If so, have the results strengthened or weakened the Freudian/Marxist critique of society made by the Frankfurt School?

Accepted:
December 8, 2010

Comments

I think that there is both considerable clinical evidence--that is, evidence from psychoanalytic sessions--and evidence from everyday life in support of the postulation of unconscious mental states in order to explain certain behavior, including slips of the tongue, forgettings, etc. There are, however, certain philosophers--in particular, Adolf Grünbaum--who do not recognize what I have called 'clinical evidence' as evidence, and who have argued that there is no empirical basis for psychoanalysis. (There have been a number of rejoinders to Grünbaum, including a paper by David Sachs originally published in The Philosophical Review, and an essay by Thomas Nagel in The New York Review of Books. Partisans of Grünbaum's position, however, have found those rejoinders completely unconvincing. Janet Malcolm's Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession is a very interesting treatment of psychoanalysis in general, and also of how one might go about finding evidence for certain psychoanalytic claims, as well as an absolutely marvelous read.)

The question of whether there is evidence for an Oedipus Complex is a bit more vexed. One reason that I myself find it vexed, is because the postulation of an Oedipus Complex is part of what might be called 'metapsychology', as opposed to 'psychology' proper, and hence is, to my mind, more of a theoretical reflection on clinical evidence--that is, it arises from Freud's reflection on his own clinical experience, as documented in, among other things, certain of his case histories--and therefore doesn't have quite the same status as the postulation of unconscious mental states. Nevertheless, it is in the clinic, that is, in the course of psychoanalysis or even psychoanalytic psychotherapy, that the evidence for the Oedipal Complex will emerge, ad so it will stand or fall on that evidence.

It's not, however, clear to me, that the status of the Oedipal Complex bears significantly on the basis of the Frankfurt School approach to society, which--although I may be mistaken here, since it's been some time since I read Dialectic of Enlightenment does not seem to me to rest on an appeal to the Oedipal Complex.

Question Have Freud's ideas about the subconscious been tested empirically? Is there a way to test for the existence of an Oedipal Complex? If so, have the results strengthened or weakened the Freudian/Marxist critique of society made by the Frankfurt School? Accepted:December 8, 2010

Question Have Freud's ideas about the subconscious been tested empirically? Is there a way to test for the existence of an Oedipal Complex? If so, have the results strengthened or weakened the Freudian/Marxist critique of society made by the Frankfurt School?

Accepted:
December 8, 2010