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Dr. Denner raises an important point: Since postmoderns do not rely on authority to legitimize their practices, and neither (I might add) do they rely on science, a postmodern psychoanalysis “now seems to require an explicit defense.” Denner suggests this defense should be within the tradition of a conversational “ritual” of “intimate self-disclosure” and “truth telling.” His point, I assume, is that the ritual of psychoanalysis is of value without appeal to supplementary justifications from authority or from scientific studies.
With that I agree, and I suggest we turn to Lyotard's (1984) concept of “paralogy” to see how such a ritual of self-disclosure might legitimize psychoanalysis. Paralogy, Lyotard tells us, is the emergence of new meaning associations that naturally burst forth in a nonauthoritarian conversation. Old conceptual patterns are deconstructed and a lifespring of fresh, unanticipated conceptual patterns is established. This paralogical production of meaning is so valuable in a postmodern culture that it suffices to establish the legitimacy of postmodern disciplines. Such a paralogy can