A Playful Science

At a recent conference in Reykjavik, Iceland (Psychoanalysis on Ice) the participants enjoyed a brief debate between Danny Nobus and Otto Kernberg, from London and New York, respectively, on the character of psychoanalytic science. Nobus, a psychoanalyst much influenced by the work of Lacan, had just given a paper invoking Nietzsche's idea of a gai saber, la gaia scienza, or Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (1974) as the inspiration for psychoanalytic science. Kernberg was not convinced to say the least and argued instead for a scientific approach that would place psychoanalysis firmly in the ranks of the natural sciences and a good neighbor to neuroscience and biology. Indeed, he thought that Nobus' vision of a future for the psychoanalytic field that relied upon the art of poetry, as Nietzsche had envisioned for philosophy, would be nothing short of a disaster for our clinical discipline.

This instance of the old art vs. science debate regarding psychoanalysis had the virtue of invoking Nietzsche's formidable text and its principal claim that the way to approach the fundamental questions of living is by bridging the apparent contradictions of reason and passion. It is our view that psychoanalysis is properly located on this bridge. What Nietzsche was advocating in philosophy ultimately found its best expression in psychoanalysis.

Die fröliche Wissenschaft has been rendered a number of ways in English. “Joyous Wisdom” is one possibility, but “gay science”, closely following the Italian, is the more accepted form. Its original significance is the art and science of poetry and song: that skill and know-how that goes into the creation of a poem. That in contemporary usage “gay” has an additional significance only adds to the richness of the phrase. It is a science, a knowing, that is mirthful both in character and in object. It is a passionate science but also the science of passions; indeed, Nietzsche suggests that the Provençal poets of the gaia scienza in fact created the