The Sceptic Dimension to Psychoanalysis: Toward an Ethic of Experience*

Psychoanalysis is both a collection of ideas and a method based on those ideas whose goal is the right way to live. Hence, psychoanalysis is an “ethic” in the sense that it concerns the manner by which individuals conduct themselves. Derived from the Greek ethike tekhne, meaning “the moral art,” ethike is in turn derived from the Greek ethos, meaning “character.” Both the character of a person who aspires to behave ethically and the customs of a people by which one's standards are measured derive from the concept. Morality, a subsidiary of ethics, pertains to distinctions between right and wrong and good and bad, whereas ethics, according to the Greeks, concerns the pursuit of happiness, the nature of which produces a state of equanimity by obtaining freedom from mental anguish.

If psychoanalysis is an ethic whose goal is liberation from psychic conflict, then the nature of that conflict must have something to do with the way one lives, thinks, and behaves. Although the character of an individual is no doubt decisive in the outcome of a patient's treatment, the psychoanalytic experience essentially revolves around a kind of work that is performed and accomplished, the outcome of which succeeds or fails. By analyzing the customs of a given patient—the manner by which that person lives—that patient is in a better position to change what needs to be changed and discover a better life. If psychoanalysis is an ethic, then what kind of ethic does it foster? What are the rules by which it is administered and what is the basis of its method?

While most people today associate ethics with little more than a set of rules that govern one's behavior, in ancient times ethical behavior was situated in philosophical debates concerning the right way to live. The