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In a message dated Sat, 11 May 1996 07:08:34 -0700 (PDT), fredc@violet.berkeley.edu (Frederick Crews) writes:

In any case, the effect is to remove the effectiveness of any *appeal* to science--and thus to free pseudoscientific "discourses" from the onus of methodological criticism.

Mr. Crews;

On the other hand, an hermeneutic approach (qua Foucault. if you please), may employ scientific methodology in its discourse without intending to draw a scientific conclusion. But this does not ipso facto render it "pseudoscientific," just as a scientist who is hermeneutically concerned about scientific conclusions is not ipso facto disqualified as a scientist.

Your premise about the device to "free pseudoscientific 'discourses' from the onus of methodological criticism" holds only if the predication "pseudoscientific" is used to qualify the nature of discourse. The problem here is not a question of science or pseudoscience but an ideologically bent piece of logic.

Apparently physicists do not share this precociousness that must contend methodology against interpretation (viz., *On Modern Physics* with Werner Heisenberg, Max Born, Erwin Schrodinger and Pierre Auger discussing the philosophical implications of Quantum Mechanics). Why is this such a problem with psychologists and psychology?

Bernard X. Bovasso
11th May, 1996

From: fredc@violet.berkeley.edu
Date sent: Sat, 11 May 1996 07:08:34 -0700 (PDT)
To: lee@kwantlen.bc.ca
Subject: Science

I've just now seen your query of May 9. Very briefly, the reference in my "Burying Freud" post was to the widespread notion, wrongly ascribed to Thomas Kuhn, that science is just another "discourse" and that its
findings are determined chiefly through ideological and sociological influence. Of course this is sheer Foucault, not Kuhn. In any case, the effect is to remove the effectiveness of any *appeal* to science--and
thus to free pseudoscientific "discourses" from the onus of methodological criticism. See the American journal *Social Text*  (especially the hilarious current issue!) for a thriving locus of this phenomenon.

Frederick Crews

human-nature.com © Ian Pitchford and Robert M. Young - Last updated: 28 May, 2005 02:29 PM

[ Burying Freud Homepage | Freud's Seduction Theory Homepage ]

In a message dated Sat, 11 May 1996 07:08:34 -0700 (PDT), fredc@violet.berkeley.edu (Frederick Crews) writes:

In any case, the effect is to remove the effectiveness of any *appeal* to science--and thus to free pseudoscientific "discourses" from the onus of methodological criticism.

Mr. Crews;

On the other hand, an hermeneutic approach (qua Foucault. if you please), may employ scientific methodology in its discourse without intending to draw a scientific conclusion. But this does not ipso facto render it "pseudoscientific," just as a scientist who is hermeneutically concerned about scientific conclusions is not ipso facto disqualified as a scientist.

Your premise about the device to "free pseudoscientific 'discourses' from the onus of methodological criticism" holds only if the predication "pseudoscientific" is used to qualify the nature of discourse. The problem here is not a question of science or pseudoscience but an ideologically bent piece of logic.

Apparently physicists do not share this precociousness that must contend methodology against interpretation (viz., *On Modern Physics* with Werner Heisenberg, Max Born, Erwin Schrodinger and Pierre Auger discussing the philosophical implications of Quantum Mechanics). Why is this such a problem with psychologists and psychology?

Bernard X. Bovasso
11th May, 1996

From: fredc@violet.berkeley.edu
Date sent: Sat, 11 May 1996 07:08:34 -0700 (PDT)
To: lee@kwantlen.bc.ca
Subject: Science

I've just now seen your query of May 9. Very briefly, the reference in my "Burying Freud" post was to the widespread notion, wrongly ascribed to Thomas Kuhn, that science is just another "discourse" and that its
findings are determined chiefly through ideological and sociological influence. Of course this is sheer Foucault, not Kuhn. In any case, the effect is to remove the effectiveness of any *appeal* to science--and
thus to free pseudoscientific "discourses" from the onus of methodological criticism. See the American journal *Social Text*  (especially the hilarious current issue!) for a thriving locus of this phenomenon.

Frederick Crews

human-nature.com © Ian Pitchford and Robert M. Young - Last updated: 28 May, 2005 02:29 PM