Regardless of whether Freud’s ideas were correct or not, what about his methods ? How did he come by his ideas ? Were his hypotheses even falsifiable, and if so, did he attempt to rigorously falsify them ?
If the answer is “no”, then, while I will grant you that Freud was possibly relatively more rational than his colleagues at the time, it would still be quite a stretch to call him a rationalist in the absolute terms.
The answer is “no”. However, compare with Darwin. His method was also “observing and creating models that fit observations”. (He also got some things wrong: AFAIK he assumed that all traits are continuously divisible; genes were discovered by Mendel later. But generally, his success ratio was much better. But also his field was much saner.)
Also, Freud did some kind of experiments. He was not merely a philosopher, he also cured people, and it seemed to him that his theories work. But he didn’t have a control group, etc.
I could be wrong, but didn’t Darwin actually formulate some hypotheses, and then go out there and count finches (and other things) to see if his predictions were true ? I think that’s why his success rate was so much better (though, admittedly, not perfect): he conducted experiments in the real world, using real math.
Also, Freud did some kind of experiments. He was not merely a philosopher, he also cured people, and it seemed to him that his theories work. But he didn’t have a control group, etc.
How did he know if his theories actually worked, then ? Was he even making his patients better in any way (as compared to other patients who saw other doctors, or perhaps no doctors at all) ?
He was convinced that “couch therapy” worked better than hypnosis, but I don’t know whether he kept records to prove it.
(Sorry, I have read all this decades ago, and then I was interested in his models of mind, not in technical details. Now I know that those details are critical, but I don’t remember whether I read about them or not.)
Regardless of whether Freud’s ideas were correct or not, what about his methods ? How did he come by his ideas ? Were his hypotheses even falsifiable, and if so, did he attempt to rigorously falsify them ?
If the answer is “no”, then, while I will grant you that Freud was possibly relatively more rational than his colleagues at the time, it would still be quite a stretch to call him a rationalist in the absolute terms.
The answer is “no”. However, compare with Darwin. His method was also “observing and creating models that fit observations”. (He also got some things wrong: AFAIK he assumed that all traits are continuously divisible; genes were discovered by Mendel later. But generally, his success ratio was much better. But also his field was much saner.)
Also, Freud did some kind of experiments. He was not merely a philosopher, he also cured people, and it seemed to him that his theories work. But he didn’t have a control group, etc.
I could be wrong, but didn’t Darwin actually formulate some hypotheses, and then go out there and count finches (and other things) to see if his predictions were true ? I think that’s why his success rate was so much better (though, admittedly, not perfect): he conducted experiments in the real world, using real math.
How did he know if his theories actually worked, then ? Was he even making his patients better in any way (as compared to other patients who saw other doctors, or perhaps no doctors at all) ?
He was convinced that “couch therapy” worked better than hypnosis, but I don’t know whether he kept records to prove it.
(Sorry, I have read all this decades ago, and then I was interested in his models of mind, not in technical details. Now I know that those details are critical, but I don’t remember whether I read about them or not.)
You italicize words with asterisks, like this:
*methods*
. There is a “Show help” button below the comment box, on the right.Sorry, it gets difficult to keep all the commenting systems straight after a while.