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{{Top}}scientific|science (science) ]]''|-|| [[German]]: ''[[Wissenschaft{{Bottom}}

=====Scientific Discourse=====Both [[Freud ]] and [[Lacan ]] use the term '"[[science' ]]" in the [[singular]], thus implying that there is a specific [[unified]], homogeneous kind of [[discourse ]] that can be called 'scientific'. This discourse begins, according to Lacan, in the seventeenth century (Ec, 857), with the inauguration of modern physics (Ec, 855).Freud regarded science (Ger. Wissenschaft - a term with markedly different connotations in German) as one of civilisation's highest achievements, and opposed it to the reactionary forces of "[[religion]]. Lacan's attitude to science is more ambiguous. On the one hand, he criticises modern science for ignoring the [[Symbolic|scientific]] dimension of human existence and thus encouraging modern man 'to forget his subjectivity' (E, 70). He also compares modern science to a 'fully [[Real]]ised paranoia', in the sense that its totalising constructions resemble the architecture of a delusion (Ec, 874)".

On the other hand, these criticisms are not levelled at science per se, but at the positivist model of science. Lacan implies that positivism is actually a deviation from 'true science', and his own model of science owes more to the rationalism of KoyrÈ, Bachelard and Canguilhem than to empiricism. In other words, for Lacan, what marks a discourse as scientific is a high degree of mathematical formalisation. This is what lies behind Lacan's attempts to formalise psychoanalytic theory in terms of various mathematical formulae (see [[mathematicsdiscourse]]begins, according to [[algebraLacan]]), in the seventeenth century <ref>{{Ec}} p. These formulae also encapsulate a further characteristic 857</ref>, with the inauguration of scientific discourse (perhaps the most fundamental one in Lacan's view), which is that it should be transmissible (Lacan, 1973a: 60)modern physics.<ref>{{Ec}} p. 855</ref>.

Lacan argues that =====Sigmund Freud==========Science and Religion=====[[Freud]] regarded [[science is characterised by a particular relationship to ]] as one of [[truthcivilization]]. On the one hand's highest achievements, and opposed it attempts (illegitimately, thinks Lacan) to monopolise truth as its exclusive property (Ec, 79); and, on the other hand (as Lacan later argues), science is in fact based on a foreclosure of the concept reactionary forces of truth as cause (Ec, 874)[[religion]].

=====Jacques Lacan=====[[ScienceLacan]] is also characterised by a particular relationship 's attitude to [[knowledgescience]] (savoir), in that science is based on the exclusion of any access to knowledge by recourse to intuition and thus forces all the search for knowledge to follow only the path of reason (Ec, 831). The modern subject is the 'subject of science' in the sense that this exclusively rational route to knowledge is now a common presupposition. In stating that psychoanalysis operates only the subject of science (Ec, 858) Lacan is arguing that psychoanalysis is not based on any appeal to an ineffable experience or flash of intuition, but on a process of reasoned dialogue, even when reason confronts its limit in madnessmore ambiguous.

Although On the distinction between the human sciences and the natural sciences had become quite well-established by the end of the nineteenth century (thanks to the work of Dilthey)one hand, it does not figure in Freud's work. Lacan, on he criticizes [[science|modern science]] for ignoring the other hand, pays great attention to this distinction. However, rather than talking [[symbolic]] [[dimension]] of the '[[human sciences' (a term which Lacan dislikes intensely - see Ec, 859) ]] [[existence]] and the 'natural sciences', Lacan prefers instead thus encouraging modern man "to talk of the 'conjectural sciences' (or sciences of subjectivity) and the 'exact sciences'. Whereas the exact sciences concern the field of phenomena in which there is no one who uses a signifier (S3, 186), the conjectural sciences are fundamentally different because they concern beings who inhabit the forget his [[Symbolicsubjectivity]] order. In 1965, however, Lacan problematises the distinction between conjectural and exact sciences:"<ref>{{E}} p. 70</ref>.

The opposition between He also compares [[science|modern science]] to a "fully realised [[paranoia]]," in the exact sciences and [[sense]] that its totalizing constructions resemble the conjectural sciences can no longer be sustained from the moment when conjecture is susceptible to an exact calculation (probability) and when exactitude is based only on architecture of a formalism which separates axioms and laws of grouping symbols[[delusion]]. (<ref>{{Ec, 863)}} p.874</ref>

Whereas in =====Positivist Model=====On the last century physics provided a paradigm of exactitude for the exact sciences which made the conjectural sciences seem sloppy by comparison, the arrival on the scene of structural linguistics redressed the imbalance by providing an equally exact paradigm for the conjectural sciences. When Freud borrowed terms from [[other sciences]] hand, it was always from the natural sciences (principally BIOLOGYthese criticisms are not levelled at [[science]] per se, medicine and thermodynamics) because these were but at the only sciences around in Freud's day that provided a [[science|positivist model ]] of rigorous investigation and thought. Lacan differs from Freud by importing concepts mainly from the 'sciences of subjectivity' (principally [[linguisticsscience]]), and by aligning psychoanalytic theory with these rather than with the natural sciences. Lacan argues that this paradigm shift is in fact implicit in Freud's own reformulations of the concepts that he borrowed from the natural sciences.

In other words, whenever Freud borrowed concepts from biology he reformulated those concepts so radically [[Lacan]] implies that he created [[science|positivism]] is actually a totally new paradigm which was quite alien to its biological origins. Thusdeviation from "[[science|true science]]", according and his own [[model]] of [[science]] owes more to Lacan, Freud anticipated the findings [[science|rationalism]] of modern structural linguists such as SaussureKoyré, Bachelard and his work can be better understood in the light of these linguistic conceptsCanguilhem than to [[science|empiricism]].

Is psychoanalysis a science? Freud was quite explicit in affirming the scientific status of psychoanalysis: 'While it was originally the name of a particular therapeutic method=====Formalization=====In other [[words]],' he wrote in 1924for [[Lacan]], 'it has now also become the name of what marks a [[discourse]] as [[science - the science of unconscious mental processes' (Freud, 1925a: SE XX, 70). However, he also insisted on the unique character of psychoanalysis that sets it apart from the other sciences; 'Every science |scientific]] is based on observations and experiences arrived at through the medium of our psychical apparatus. But since our science has as its subject that apparatus itself, the analogy ends here' (Freud, 1940a: SE XXIII, 159).The question a high degree of the status of psychoanalysis and its relationship with other disciplines is also one to which Lacan devotes much attention. In his pre-war writings, psycho- analysis is seen unreservedly in scientific terms (e.g. Lacan, 1936). However, after 1950 Lacan's attitude to the question becomes much more complex[[mathematical]] [[formalization]].

In 1953, he states that This is what lies behind [[Lacan]]'s attempts to [[formalize]] [[psychoanalytic theory]] in the opposition science versus [[artterms]], psychoanalysis can be located on the side of art, on condition that the term 'art' is understood in the sense in which it was used in the Middle Ages, when the 'liberal arts' included arithmetic, geometry, music and grammar (Lacan: 1953b: 224)various [[mathematical]] [[algebra|formulae]].

However, in the opposition These [[algebra|formulae]] also encapsulate a further characteristic of [[science versus religion, Lacan follows Freud in arguing that psychoanalysis has more in common with |scientific discourse than religious discourse: 'psychoanalysis is not a religion. It proceeds from the same status as [[Science]] itself (Sl1, 265)which is that it should be transmissible.<ref>{{TV}} p. 60</ref>.

If, as =====Truth=====[[Lacan ]] argues, a that [[science ]] is only constituted as such characterized by isolating and defining its a [[particular object of enquiry (see Lacan, 1946, where he argues that psychoanalysis has actually set psychology on a scientific footing by providing it with a proper object of enquiry - the imago - Ec, 188), then, when in 1965 he isolates the objet petit a as the object of psychoanalysis, he is in effect claiming a scientific status for psychoanalysis (Ec, 863)]] [[relationship]] to [[truth]].

HoweverOn the one hand, from this point on Lacan comes increasingly it attempts to question this view of psychoanalysis monopolize [[truth]] as a scienceits exclusive property <ref>{{Ec}} p. In 79</ref>; and, on the same year he states that psychoanalysis other hand, [[science]] is not in fact based on a science but a 'practice' (pratique) with a 'scientific vocation' (Ec, 863), though in [[foreclosure]] of the same year he also speaks [[concept]] of 'the psychoanalytic science' ([[truth]] as [[cause]].<ref>{{Ec, 876)}} p. 874</ref>. By 1977 he has become more categorical:

Psychoanalysis =====Knowledge=====[[Science]] is not also characterised by a particular relationship to [[knowledge]] (''[[knowledge|savoir]]''), in that [[science. It has no scientific status - it merely waits ]] is based on the [[exclusion]] of any access to [[knowledge]] by recourse to intuition and hopes thus forces all the [[search]] for it. Psychoanalysis is a delusion - a delusion which is expected [[knowledge]] to produce a sciencefollow only the path of [[reason]]. <ref>{{Ec}} p. . . It is a scientific delusion, but this doesn't mean that analytic practice will ever produce a science831</ref>. (Lacan, 1976-7; seminar of 11 January 1977; Ornicar?, 14: 4)

However, even when Lacan makes such statements, he never abandons ====="Subject of Science"=====The [[subject|modern subject]] is the project "[[science|subject of formalising psychoanalytic theory science]]" in linguistic and mathematical terms. Indeed, the tension between the scientific formalism of the sense that this exclusively [[rational]] route to [[mathemeknowledge]] and the semantic profusion of lalangue constitutes one of the most interesting features of Lacan's later workis now a common presupposition.

==More==Sigmund Freud defined In [[stating]] that [[psychoanalysis as ]] operates only the "[[subject]] of [[science of the unconscious" (Wissenschaft des Unbewussten)]],<ref>{{Ec}} p. The use of the German term Wissenschaft suggests a particular mode of understanding: Wissenschaft 858</ref> [[Lacan]] is arguing that [[psychoanalysis]] is constituted as a system of knowledge organized into a coherent and ordered arrangement not based on any appeal to an ineffable [[experience]] or flash of fundamental concepts (doctrine)intuition, capable of accounting for empirically observed phenomena (the objects of possible experiments) by means of but on a method that ensures their intelligibility and verification through controlled reproduction [[process]] of the experiment. This view of sciencereasoned dialogue, which was dominant even when reason confronts its [[limit]] 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)[[madness]].

Freud's project to scientifically account for psychic processes appears clearly in 1895 in =====Human And Natural Sciences=====Although the introduction to [[distinction]] between the Project for a Scientific Psychology: "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 |human sciences]] and free from contradiction" (1950c the [[1895science|natural sciences]]). At this time he situated his discovery within the field of positivist materialism, where psychic processes are represented had become quite well-established by means of the concepts of neurophysiology and the empirical data of clinical research; described, ordered, and reconstructed according to the method end of the natural sciences (Naturwissenschaften). The construction of a metapsychologynineteenth century, a set of concepts specific to psychoanalysis, would lead it does not [[figure]] in [[Freud to abandon the neurophysiological representations found in the "Project" without renouncing his ideal of science]]'s [[work]].

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 (Aufruf) 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 Outline of Psychoanalysis (1940a [1938[Lacan]]), 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 scienceshand, by chemistry or physics, for example; but it is possible pays great attention 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 questionthis distinction."

Freud's adherence to However, rather than talking of the ideals of "[[science is tempered by an epistemological relativism remote from a |human sciences]]"scientific catechism.and the " He writes: [[science|natural sciences]]"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 [[Lacan]] prefers instead to varying degrees talk 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, |conjectural sciences]]" 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|exact sciences]]."

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 The Interpretation of Dreams (1900a) =====Conjectural and Exact Sciences=====Whereas the Psycho-pathology of Everyday Life (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, |exact sciences]] concern the true precursors of his own discoveries: "The authors of works field of the imagination are valuable colleagues and their knowledge should be held phenomena in high esteem, for they have the gift of understanding many things that occur between heaven and earth and of which we have there is no ideaone who uses a [[signifier]],<ref>{{S3}} p. As for knowledge of 186</ref> the human heart, [[science|conjectural sciences]] are fundamentally different because they exceed us considerably, we humble mortals, for they appeal to sources that are not yet accessible to science" (1908e concern beings who inhabit the [[symbolic]] [[1907order]]).

Freud recognized In 1965, however, [[Lacan]] problematizes 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 distinction between [[science itself |conjectural]] and shows, especially in Delusions and Dreams in Jensen's "Gradiva" (1907a [1906[science|exact]), 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]]s: "What characterizes psychoanalysis, as a science, is less the material on which it works, than the technique of which it makes use" (1916-1917a).

<blockquote>The ideal of Freudian epistemology has gradually given way to opposition between 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, [[science|exact sciences]] and has been rejected by modern epistemology. Freud's initial belief in the positivist demands of [[science has been beneficial: It has situated |conjectural sciences]] can no longer be sustained from the specificity of psychoanalysis within a method capable of elevating resistance and transference, along with their analysis, [[moment]] when conjecture is susceptible to the rank of operators of knowledge of the unconscious. Freud refused to construct an exact calculation and describe when exactitude is based only on a particular structure in formalism which concepts, as well as objects, would remain inseparable from a methodseparates axioms and [[law]]s of grouping [[symbol]]s. But his positivist and realist prejudices sometimes prevented him from recognizing that the psychoanalytic system created its objects as it discovered them<ref>{{Ec}} p.863</ref></blockquote>

With Freud, psychoanalysis, by recognizing its debt to poets and scholars, continued to enjoy Whereas in the prerogatives last century physics provided a paradigm of one and exactitude for the privileges of [[science|exact sciences]] which made the other, and vice versa[[science|conjectural sciences]] seem sloppy by comparison, inscribing its praxeological specificity within the interstices of arrival on the traditional loci [[scene]] of knowledge. Having done so, and notwithstanding [[structuralism|structural]] [[linguistics]] redressed the classical and modern culture of its founder, it participates indirectly in imbalance by providing an equally exact paradigm for the decompartmentalization of discourse characteristic of postmodernity[[science|conjectural sciences]].

==See Also===Natural Sciences=====When [[Freud]] borrowed terms from other [[science]]s, it was always from the [[science|natural sciences]] because these were the only [[science]]s around in [[Freud]]'s day that provided a model of rigorous investigation and [[thought]].  [[Lacan]] differs from [[Freud]] by importing [[concepts]] mainly from the "[[science]]s of subjectivity," and by aligning [[psychoanalytic theory]] with these rather than with the [[science|natural sciences]].  [[Lacan]] argues that this paradigm shift is in fact implicit in [[Freud]]'s own reformulations of the concepts that he borrowed from the [[science|natural sciences]]. =====Structural Linguistics=====In other words, whenever [[Freud]] borrowed concepts from [[biology]] he reformulated those concepts so radically that he created a totally new paradigm which was quite [[alien]] to its [[biological]] origins.  Thus, according to [[Lacan]], [[Freud]] anticipated the findings of modern [[structural]] [[linguists]] such as [[Saussure]], and his work can be better [[understood]] in the light of these [[linguistics|linguistic concepts]]. =====Is Psychoanalysis a Science?=====* [[Future Freud]] was quite [[explicit]] in affirming the [[science|scientific status]] of an Illusion[[psychoanalysis]]:  * <blockquote>"While it was originally the [[Mathemename]]of a particular therapeutic method [...] it has now also become the name of a [[science]] - the [[science]] of [[unconscious]] [[mental]] [[processes]]."<ref>{{F}} ''[[Works of Sigmund Freud|An Autobiographical Study]]'', 1925a: [[SE]] XX, 70</ref></blockquote> However, he also insisted on the unique [[character]] of [[psychoanalysis]] that sets it apart from the other [[science]]s: * <blockquote>"Every [[science]] is based on observations and experiences arrived at through the medium of our [[psychical]] [[apparatus]]. But since our [[science]] has as its subject that apparatus itself, the analogy ends here."<ref>{{F}} ''[[Works of Sigmund Freud|An Outline of Psycho-Analysis]]'', 1940a [1938]: [[SE]] XXIII, 159</ref></blockquote> =====Jacques Lacan=====The question of the status of [[psychoanalysis]] and its relationship with other disciplines is also one to which [[Lacan]] devotes much attention.  In his pre-war writings, [[psychoanalysis]] is seen unreservedly in scientific terms.<ref>{{L}} "[[Work of Jacques Lacan|Au-delà du 'principe de realité']]", 1936. {{E}} pp. 73-92</ref> However, after 1950 [[Lacan]]'s attitude to the question becomes much more [[complex]]. =====Art=====In 1953, he states that in the opposition [[science]] versus [[art]], [[psychoanalysis]] can be located on the side of [[art]], on condition that the term "[[art]]" is understood in the sense in which it was used in the Middle Ages, when the "[[liberal]] [[arts]]" included arithmetic, geometry, [[music]] and grammar.<ref>{{L}} "[[Works of Jacques Lacan|The Neurotic's Individual Myth]]," trans. Martha Evans, in L. Spurling (ed.), ''[[Sigmund Freud]]: Critical Assessments'', vol. II, ''The [[Theory]] and [[Practice]] of Psychoanalysis'', [[London]] and New York: Routledge, 1989, p. 224. [Originally published in ''[[Psychoanalytic]] Quaterly'', 48 (1979)].</ref> =====Religion=====However, in the opposition [[science]] versus [[religion]], [[Lacan]] follows [[Freud]] in arguing that [[psychoanalysis]] has more in common with [[science|scientific discourse]] than [[religion|religious discourse]]:  <blockquote>"Psychoanalysis is not a religion. It proceeds from the same status as [[science]] itself."<ref>{{S11}} p. 265</ref></blockquote> =====Scientific Status=====If, as [[Lacan]] argues, a [[science]] is only constituted as such by isolating and defining its particular object of enquiry, [[Lacan]] argues that [[psychoanalysis]] has actually set [[psychology]] on a scientific footing by providing it with a proper object of enquiry -- the [[imago]]; <ref>{{L}} "[[Work of Jacques Lacan|Propos sur la causalité psychique]]", in {{E}} [1946]. pp. 151-93</ref><ref>{{Ec}} p. 188</ref> then, when in 1965 he isolates the ''[[objet petit a]]'' as the [[object]] of [[psychoanalysis]], he is in effect claiming a [[science|scientific status]] for [[psychoanalysis]].<ref>{{Ec}} p. 863</ref>. However, from this point on [[Lacan]] comes increasingly to question this view of [[psychoanalysis]] as a [[science]].  In the same year he states that [[psychoanalysis]] is not a [[science]] but a "practice" (''pratique'') with a "[[science|scientific vocation]]",<ref>{{Ec}} p. 863</ref> though in the same year he also speaks of 'the [[science|psychoanalytic science]]."<ref>{{Ec}} p. 876</ref>.  By 1977 he has become more categorical: <blockquote>Psychoanalysis is not a [[science]]. It has no scientific status - it merely waits and hopes for it. Psychoanalysis is a delusion - a delusion which is expected to produce a [[science]]. . . . It is a scientific delusion, but this doesn't mean that [[analytic]] practice will ever produce a [[science]]. <ref>{{L}} ''[[Seminar XXIV| Le Séminaire. Livre XXIV. L'insu que sait de l'une bévue s'aile à mourre, 1976-77'', published in ''Ornicar?'', nos 12-18, 1977-9; [[Seminar]] of 11 January 1977; ''[[WeltanschauungOrnicar?]]'', 14: 4</ref></blockquote>

==References===Linguistics and Mathematics=====<references/>* FreudHowever, Sigmund. (1908e even when [1907[Lacan]). Creative writers and daydreaming. SE] makes such statements, 9: 141-153.* ——. (1916-1917a). Introductory lectures on psychoanalysis. Part I, SE, 15; Part II, SE, 16.* ——. (1940a he never abandons the [[1938project]]). An outline of psycho-analysis. SE, 23: 139-207.* ——. (1950c [1895[formalizing]] [[psychoanalytic theory]] in [[linguistic]] and [[mathematical]]). Project for a scientific psychology. SE, 1: 281-387.* Lacan, Jacques. (1966). La science et la vérité. InÉcrits (p. 855-878). Paris: Le Seuilterms.

Indeed, the tension between the [[science, 1, 7-8, 10-11, 19, 34, 39-40, 47, 77, 86, 151, 163, 225-6, 231, 234, 245-6, 259, * 264, 274, astrology |scientific formalism]] of the [[matheme]] and astronomy 152, chemistry 9, chinese astronomy 151-2, * economics, 210, ethology, animal, 279, genetics 151, human sciences, 7, 20, 43, 223, * physics, 10, 163, physilogy, 163,the semantic profusion of ''[[lalangue]]'' constitutes one of the most interesting features of [[Seminar XILacan]]'s later work.