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Dear Book Reviews Editor
David Livingstone Smith concludes his appreciative review of Adolf Grünbaum's Validation in the Clinical Theory of Psychoanalysis.- A Study in the Philosophy of Psychoanalysis with the flourish: ‘Grunbaum offers a vigorous and wonderfully incisive diagnosis of the malaise from which our intellectually enfeebled profession suffers’ (British Journal of Psychotherapy 10 (3), ). Readers will know that Grünbaum's attitude towards psychoanalysis continues to be sharply focused and in a peculiar way severely reprimanding, which David Smith's review closely reflects. For example, both Grunbaum and Smith are dismissive, almost mocking, of the arduous, meticulous efforts of Habermas and Ricoeur in the human sciences, with which psychoanalysis and psychotherapy share common ground and concerns. This is a pity for Habermas and Ricoeur are two of the finest explorers and interpreters of our complex human struggles and imperfections. Not surprisingly, Ricoeur could name one of his books ‘Fallible Man’.
Interestingly the 12 May 1994 issue of the New York Review of Books carries a critical