Dear colleagues,
It is good to receive your comments and to engage in this thought-provoking discussion. Responding in writing pushes one to formulate one's thoughts more clearly – always a good exercise!
Reading the exchange between Dr Bernardi and Dr Luepnitz I found myself wondering if the polarisation, which appears to offer itself up, between 'atoms' and 'stories', i.e. science and humanities, hard evidence and interpretation, is as useful as it looks at first glance. Particularly in our field there is not much that we can assuredly count as 'atoms'; but saying that does not of course mean that there isn't a material and historical reality which impacts us greatly – or, to put this even stronger, of which to a degree we are made. But it is only through 'stories' (some of which are called 'theories') that we can hope to gain any purchase on that which underlies – and therefore escapes – language. Still, we have no better option than to put our faith in the possibility that it is the better (truer) stories/theories which, over time, gain more traction on 'reality' and therefore equip us better to deal with this world, this life.
I was interested to read about the distinction between the three types of argument Dr Bernardi draws our attention to: the appeal to authority; the appeal to the views of the audience; and a critical approach aiming to examine arguments on their own merit, which I guess means both in terms of their internal consistency, their persuasive power and their ability to account for our experience. Whilst Dr Bernardi clearly favours the latter (and one can see why!) and hopes perhaps to insulate it from the former two, my suspicion is that these three levels come always mixed up with one another. It is not that I do not share Dr Bernardi's view that it would be desirable to enter into this entirely rational and open-minded critical inquiry – it is just that I do not believe this is how things (we) work. I read Dr Bernardi a bit how I view Habermas's project: I think it is both the honourable and the right thing to uphold the values of Enlightenment (to aim that high, if you will), even as I know we will not be able to live up to these standards. I think Freud himself upheld these aims whilst showing us (and demonstrating to us 'by example', as it were) why we couldn't meet them. As I hoped to show in my earlier contribution the far-from-wholly-conscious investments we have in our ego/identifications and our material interests (the drives, anyone?) make an un-biased perspective on our 'data' – constitutionally, one might say – a rather elusive ideal. Elusive, but not unworthy.
In this view, what can we hope for from controversies? I don't think they can settle our differences – at least not the big ones, those between schools which tend to be more like Weltanschauungen. But does this mean we may as well stop talking to each other, not only in order to set out – side by side, as it were, as so often happens when it happens – our conflicting views, but in order to challenge each other and to hold each other to account? Au contraire. Analysts change their views and their positions, as most of us have experienced and/or observed; and the field of analysis changes too – whether one views this as a development understood as progress is another matter. But how these changes come about, I would guess, is rather difficult to determine, let alone to predict. Clinical experience, exposure to different ideas, meeting analysts from different persuasions, shifts in the 'market place' (shudder!) all make their contributions. Hopefully new experience, analysis and critical engagement with difference can loosen up the hold our pet ideas and images have over us.
To enable this process and to keep it going we need to continue learning from experience, clinical and otherwise, as well as from research, reading, discussions etc. I guess for each one of us something will assert itself over time which we will take to be the best available account of our experience. In the absence of a better alternative we will probably make do with this as something that, at least for now, will stand in lieu of truth. What else can we do? Until, that is, 'atoms' come along and blow our 'stories' asunder – in which case we have to change them, re-construct them, if we still can.