Commentary on Brown

I am pleased that Robin Brown has devoted time and space to my work, along with that of Charles Brenner and Dale Boesky, on the important topic of psychoanalysis and psychic determinism. But, as will surprise no one, there are several aspects of Brown's critique with which I cannot agree. There are four in particular I will address, starting with the one that is easiest to tackle.

1. As Brown himself recognizes (p. 424), Brenner was not a proponent of any manner of mind/body dualism. But Brown suggests that Brenner unconsciously uncouples mind and body, seemingly in order to demonstrate problems with mind/body dualism. This is not far from a straw man argument. Note the central sentence Brown quotes to illustrate Brenner's dualistic tendency: “in the mind, as in physical nature about us, nothing happens by chance, or in a random way” (Brenner 1973, p. 3). One might find this formulation ambiguous with regard to the mind's status, understanding “the mind” either as part of our physical nature or in some way separate from the physical realm. But we can disambiguate the quote quickly, and we should, since even Brown acknowledges that “we can assume Brenner did not intend to present a dualist picture” (p. 425). The fix requires merely adding a single word, so that the new statement reads “in the mind, as in [all] physical nature about us, nothing happens by chance, or in a random way.” While neither version of the sentence captures Brenner's unusual verbal concision and fluidity, the latter is a more accurate presentation of his view.

The trickier problem Brown embarks on following Brenner's putative mind/body dualism—that of causality of the mental—is a matter I will take up in section four.

2. Again as Brown admits, since Brenner and I consider psychic determinism and psychic continuity “a priori assumption[s] that psychoanalysis adopts, … [some might hold that] the whole argument of this