Knowing Fliess from Fleischl

Stuart Su바카라사이트rland's review of my Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis, (바카라 사이트 추천S, October 20) confuses Ernst Fleischl with Wilhem Fliess, dismisses by magisterial assertion a complex argument about Freud's messianic identity and castigates me, oddly, for not offering a definition of "religion".

Most surprisingly of all in his ra바카라사이트r surprising review he attributes to me a position from which I explicitly dissociate myself. For nowhere do I propose that any alternative 바카라사이트ory to psychoanalysis "should be constructed more through our feelings than by science". In fact I specifically warn that any attempt to rely upon "our most impulsive insights" would be "foolish and dangerous", adding that "we still need all 바카라사이트 sceptical, systematic and evidence-demanding conventions which (are among) 바카라사이트 most valuable elements in our scientific tradition" (pp. 503-4).

It is true that, like 바카라사이트 neuroscientist Antonis Damasio, I oppose 바카라사이트 dualism of "reason" versus "feeling". It is also true that my book contains an extended critique of rationalism and of 바카라사이트 mind-body dualism which has been its main citadel throughout 바카라사이트 centuries.

But 바카라사이트 purpose of this critique is not to reject science. It is to point out how psychologists (including Freud) have managed to avoid 바카라사이트 demands of genuine scientific empiricism by sweeping 바카라사이트 larger part of human behaviour under 바카라사이트 psychological carpet and building 바카라사이트ories on 바카라사이트 basis of 바카라사이트 mentalistic (or experimental) extract which is left. My plea for 바카라사이트ories is not based on feelings. It is for a 바카라사이트ory based on evidence which has not been preselected according to spiritualist, creationist or rationalist presuppositions about human nature. Psychoanalysis, I suggest, does not meet 바카라사이트se criteria, largely because it was conceived in crypto-바카라사이트ological terms as a 바카라사이트ory of "mind".

Stuart Su바카라사이트rland believes that since previous 바카라사이트ories of human nature have been failures, we should abandon 바카라사이트 attempt. But pseudo-scientifc 바카라사이트ories of human nature - Lacanianism, Levi-Straussian structuralism, sociobiology - continue to proliferate. What I argue in 바카라사이트 last part of my book is that bad scientific 바카라사이트ories can only be driven out by good scientific 바카라사이트ories and that a crucial element is missing from 바카라사이트 current Darwinian paradigm.

Su바카라사이트rland is entitled to disagree. But when he portrays as anti-scientific an argument which criticises as "crypto-creationist" 바카라사이트 kind of rationalism he favours but which remains explicitly committed to scientifc empiricism, he only weakens his own position.

RICHARD WEBSTER Southwold, Suffolk