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Does the Tally Argument Make Freud a Sophisticated Methodologist?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

A. A. Derksen
A. A. Derksen*
Affiliation:
University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands
*
‡Send reprint requests to the author, Weezenhof 26-10, 6536 JA Nijmegen, THE NETHERLANDS.
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Abstract

In his The Foundations of Psychoanalysis (1984) Grünbaum compliments Freud on the development of the Tally Argument as an answer to a number of serious methodological criticisms, “The epistemological considerations that prompted Freud to enunciate (this argument) make him a sophisticated methodologist” (p. 128). In contrast to this position I argue that the Tally Argument and the considerations for it are hardly sophisticated: They would equally well go to demonstrate the methodological sophistication of modern-day evangelists. Furthermore, I argue that the Tally Argument does not play the crucial role that Grünbaum assigns to it. It is one of many arguments Freud used to counter criticism, but not one to which Freud gave pride of place.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 59 , Issue 1 , March 1992 , pp. 75 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1992

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Footnotes

†

I would like to thank two anonymous referees for helpful comments and criticism on earlier drafts of this paper.

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