Giron on Truth (1 of 2)
From “Psychoanalysis is a Science Fiction”:
Theresa Giron offers us an interesting way to understand the connection between Kant and Freud in the domain of epistemology. Though nothing is said about Kant nor Descartes, I will be using the history of epistemology from Descartes to Kant in order to understand Giron’s claims about psychoanalysis, because I otherwise find them unintelligible. In our narrative Descartes may be understood to achieve certainty and the grounding of science through knowledge or formalization (i.e. proofs). However Freud and Kant recognize two different modes of certainty, knowledge and truth (or understanding and reason), which overlap. Surely this introduces some confusion, but this post aims at making sense of this notion of ‘certainty through truth’ by framing it as the psychoanalytic counterpart to Kant’s notion of faith through reason rather than understanding.
Descartes’s proof of his existence reduces his being (i.e. existence) to something determinable, knowable - the cogito. With this provable anchor, “science is able to offer the possibility of certainty, as it traditionally does, in the domain of knowledge. For science is based on the possibility of formalization” (4). But in introducing the cogito and establishing the first ground of modern science, what Descartes excluded was any notion of his being as indeterminate, or unknowable. In this ‘anchoring’ way “science gives certainty by excluding anything that cannot be rendered knowable through formalization and thus, science secures certainty in the field of knowledge. The question then becomes: is there another way of being certain that is not the way of science? That is, is there another possible direction for theory’s search for certainty?” (4-5).
We know Kant took up this task to recover certainty of, or the obligation to believe in, the indeterminate, transcendental subject from skeptical idealist trappings, but Giron tells us that psychoanalysis deserves credit, for “psychoanalysis is not breaking with science, but taking up the very task of science in the one place from which science, in its moment of constitution, excluded itself” (6). Thus “For psychoanalysis, certainty can be located not in the domain of knowledge (as per science), but rather, in the domain of truth; it then bases its certainty in truth on the very ground of the exclusion originally made by science” (5). I hear, “For transcendental idealism, certainty can be located not in the domain of understanding (as per science), but rather, in the domain of reason; transcendental idealism then bases its certainty in reason on the very ground of faith which science cannot accommodate.” Now Kant took as his one object of study the very thing which would be excluded by experience, the conditions of experience or pure reason; Giron claims, “psychoanalysis then has as its object the one object, created by science, that science itself cannot take as an object of inquiry - that excluded object that marks the constitutive limit of science, the place in which there is nothing to know” (6). Where there is nothing to know, there may still be something to have faith in, reasonably.
Here is part 2 of Giron on Truth, and don't miss my coverage of Swales' analysis of Freud's Cäcilie M. case study.
Theresa Giron offers us an interesting way to understand the connection between Kant and Freud in the domain of epistemology. Though nothing is said about Kant nor Descartes, I will be using the history of epistemology from Descartes to Kant in order to understand Giron’s claims about psychoanalysis, because I otherwise find them unintelligible. In our narrative Descartes may be understood to achieve certainty and the grounding of science through knowledge or formalization (i.e. proofs). However Freud and Kant recognize two different modes of certainty, knowledge and truth (or understanding and reason), which overlap. Surely this introduces some confusion, but this post aims at making sense of this notion of ‘certainty through truth’ by framing it as the psychoanalytic counterpart to Kant’s notion of faith through reason rather than understanding.
Descartes’s proof of his existence reduces his being (i.e. existence) to something determinable, knowable - the cogito. With this provable anchor, “science is able to offer the possibility of certainty, as it traditionally does, in the domain of knowledge. For science is based on the possibility of formalization” (4). But in introducing the cogito and establishing the first ground of modern science, what Descartes excluded was any notion of his being as indeterminate, or unknowable. In this ‘anchoring’ way “science gives certainty by excluding anything that cannot be rendered knowable through formalization and thus, science secures certainty in the field of knowledge. The question then becomes: is there another way of being certain that is not the way of science? That is, is there another possible direction for theory’s search for certainty?” (4-5).
We know Kant took up this task to recover certainty of, or the obligation to believe in, the indeterminate, transcendental subject from skeptical idealist trappings, but Giron tells us that psychoanalysis deserves credit, for “psychoanalysis is not breaking with science, but taking up the very task of science in the one place from which science, in its moment of constitution, excluded itself” (6). Thus “For psychoanalysis, certainty can be located not in the domain of knowledge (as per science), but rather, in the domain of truth; it then bases its certainty in truth on the very ground of the exclusion originally made by science” (5). I hear, “For transcendental idealism, certainty can be located not in the domain of understanding (as per science), but rather, in the domain of reason; transcendental idealism then bases its certainty in reason on the very ground of faith which science cannot accommodate.” Now Kant took as his one object of study the very thing which would be excluded by experience, the conditions of experience or pure reason; Giron claims, “psychoanalysis then has as its object the one object, created by science, that science itself cannot take as an object of inquiry - that excluded object that marks the constitutive limit of science, the place in which there is nothing to know” (6). Where there is nothing to know, there may still be something to have faith in, reasonably.
Here is part 2 of Giron on Truth, and don't miss my coverage of Swales' analysis of Freud's Cäcilie M. case study.