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Sigmund [[Freud ]] defined [[psychoanalysis ]] as the "[[science ]] of the [[unconscious]]" (<i>[[Wissenschaft ]] des Unbewussten</i>). The use of the [[German ]] term <i>Wissenschaft</i> suggests a [[particular ]] mode of [[understanding]]: <i>Wissenschaft</i> is constituted as a [[system ]] of [[knowledge ]] organized into a coherent and ordered arrangement of fundamental [[concepts ]] ([[doctrine]]), capable of accounting for empirically observed phenomena (the [[objects ]] of possible experiments) by means of a method that ensures their intelligibility and verification through controlled reproduction of the experiment. This view of science, which was dominant in the nineteenth century, characterizes a [[form ]] of [[rational ]] experimentalism that gradually reduced the [[meaning ]] of the [[word ]] "science" to a narrowly defined "phenomeno-[[technique]]" (in the coinage of Gaston Bachelard).Freud's [[project ]] to scientifically account for [[psychic ]] [[processes ]] appears clearly in 1895 in the introduction to the <i>Project for a [[Scientific ]] [[Psychology]]</i>: "In this 'Project' the [[intention ]] is to furnish a psychology that shall be a [[natural ]] science: that is, to [[represent ]] [[psychical ]] processes as quantitatively determinate states of specifiable [[material ]] particles, thus making those processes perspicuous and free from [[contradiction]]" (1950c [1895]). At this [[time ]] he situated his discovery within the field of positivist [[materialism]], where psychic processes are represented by means of the concepts of neurophysiology and the empirical data of [[clinical ]] research; described, ordered, and reconstructed according to the method of the natural [[sciences ]] (<i>Naturwissenschaften</i>). The [[construction ]] of a [[metapsychology]], a set of concepts specific to psychoanalysis, would lead Freud to abandon the neurophysiological representations found in the "Project" without renouncing his [[ideal ]] of science.Freud's [[belief ]] in a "scientific conception of the [[world]]," his fidelity to the positivist ideals of his masters (especially Ernst Brücke) led him, in 1911, to cosign, along with Albert [[Einstein]], David Hilbert, and Ernst Mach, an appeal (<i>Aufruf</i>) in favor of the creation of a [[society ]] to [[help ]] develop the [[awareness ]] of positivist [[philosophy]]. This belief in the ideals of science can be found throughout his [[work]], up to and including the <i>[[Outline ]] of Psychoanalysis</i> (1940a [1938]), in which he writes: "Whereas the psychology of [[consciousness ]] never went beyond the broken sequences which were obviously dependent on something else, the [[other ]] view, which held that the psychical is unconscious in itself, enabled psychology to take its [[place ]] as a [[natural science ]] like any other. The processes with which it is concerned are in themselves just as unknowable as those dealt with by other sciences, by [[chemistry ]] or [[physics]], for example; but it is possible to establish laws which they obey and to follow their mutual relations and interdependences unbroken over long stretches—in short, to arrive at what is described as an 'understanding' of the field of natural phenomena in question."Freud's adherence to the ideals of science is tempered by an [[epistemological ]] relativism remote from a "scientific catechism." He writes: "It is a mistake to believe that a science consists in [[nothing ]] but conclusively proved propositions, and it is unjust to [[demand ]] that it should. It is a demand only made by those who feel a craving for [[authority ]] in some form and a [[need ]] to replace the [[religious ]] catechism by something else, even if it be a scientific one. Science in its catechism has but few apodictic precepts; it consists mainly of statements which it has developed to varying degrees of probability. The capacity to be [[content ]] with these approximations to [[certainty ]] and the ability to carry on

constructive work despite the [[lack ]] of final confirmation are actually a mark of the scientific habit of [[mind]]" (1916-17a). In other [[words]], science [[demands ]] that we [[renounce ]] beliefs like [[magic]], globalizing visions of the world, and [[absolute knowledge ]] of [[metaphysics ]] and [[religion]]. The work of the [[scientist ]] entails the [[sublimation ]] of epistemophilic [[sexual ]] [[drives]], which are [[present ]] in the [[primal ]] paradigm of the theories and techniques of [[infantile ]] sexual investigation. Freud raised science to the level of a perfect [[model ]] of the [[renunciation ]] of the [[pleasure ]] [[principle]].Freud's need to preserve psychoanalysis from the grip of religion and philosophy did not result in his abandoning it to physicians and scientists. As early as <i>The [[Interpretation ]] of [[Dreams]]</i> (1900a) and the <i>[[Psycho]]-[[pathology ]] of Everyday [[Life]]</i> (1901b), he took the side of antiquity and popular knowledge against the exclusivity of [[official ]] science. Throughout his work he manifested this oscillation between art and science, which he discovered that he shared with [[Leonardo ]] [[da Vinci]]. On several occasions he pays homage to the poets and novelists, the [[true ]] precursors of his own discoveries: "The authors of works of the [[imagination ]] are valuable colleagues and their knowledge should be held in high esteem, for they have the [[gift ]] of understanding many things that occur between heaven and earth and of which we have no [[idea]]. As for knowledge of the [[human ]] heart, they exceed us considerably, we humble mortals, for they appeal to sources that are not yet accessible to science" (1908e [1907]).Freud recognized the [[role ]] of the imagination in scientific work. This element of [[fiction ]] within any [[theory ]] leads him to [[speak ]] of a "mythology of drives" and the metapsychological "sorcerer." He [[identifies ]] a [[dream ]] element at work in science itself and shows, especially in <i>[[Delusions ]] and Dreams in Jensen</i>'<i>s "Gradiva"</i> (1907a [1906]), the [[overdetermination ]] inherent in scientific [[discourse]]: science, as a [[whole]], can be used for [[fantasy]]. Science, with its origins in dream and fantasy, can withdraw only temporarily behind respect for its methodological protocols and critical [[rationalism]]. Psychoanalysis can only maintain its scientificity through the implementation of a method within a given form of [[practice]]. This epistemological option appears constant over the [[development ]] of [[Freudian ]] [[thought]]: "What characterizes psychoanalysis, as a science, is less the material on which it works, than the technique of which it makes use" (1916-1917a).The ideal of Freudian [[epistemology ]] has gradually given way to the ideal of [[analysis]], which has sometimes been referred to as an [[ethic]]. The scientific [[ideology ]] to which Freud clung has shown itself to be dated, and has been rejected by modern epistemology. Freud's initial belief in the positivist demands of science has been beneficial: It has situated the specificity of psychoanalysis within a method capable of elevating [[resistance ]] and [[transference]], along with their analysis, to the rank of operators of knowledge of the unconscious. Freud refused to [[construct ]] and describe a particular [[structure ]] in which concepts, as well as objects, would remain inseparable from a method. But his positivist and realist prejudices sometimes prevented him from recognizing that the [[psychoanalytic ]] system created its objects as it discovered [[them]].With Freud, psychoanalysis, by recognizing its debt to poets and scholars, continued to [[enjoy ]] the prerogatives of one and the privileges of the other, and vice versa, inscribing its praxeological specificity within the interstices of the traditional loci of knowledge. Having done so, and notwithstanding the classical and modern [[culture ]] of its founder, it participates indirectly in the decompartmentalization of discourse characteristic of [[postmodernity]].

# [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1908e [1907]). Creative writers and daydreaming. SE, 9: 141-153.