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This book has an ambitious title. The author, an Oxford philosopher, is enmeshed in the school of philosophy much influenced by logical positivism. He aims his book at 'the ordinary educated person' but hopes that professionals 'engaged in psychodynamic and psychological work' and philosophers interested in psychoanalysis will also learn something from it. He wishes to 'elucidate some of the rational considerations that determine the standing and value of psychoanalysis' and tries to 'handle the work of analysts, and their theorising, with sympathy and appreciation and yet also with ruthless Socratic detachment'. The author has obviously taken immense pains. There is an extensive bibliography in footnotes and the book appears to be well indexed.
Unfortunately, the book, in this reviewer's judgement, falls short both in its principal aim and the two subsidiary intentions. Far too much is assumed for the ordinary educated reader, the origins of psychoanalysis in experience and observation in the clinical setting are not sufficiently stressed in the introductory chapters which give a far too synoptic, almost caricatured, account of the history of the subject and the struggles towards theory construction. Some of the critical discussion is likely to be too hard for anyone to assess who has not prior detailed familiarity with, for example, Kleinian theory.
The professional is likely to feel that he is being talked down to by someone who, operating from outside his field, in unaware of its basis in experience. The author does not stick to his philosophical task in examining the important problem of the influence of theoretical orientation on judgement but lapses into a moralistic preaching style when he seems to be addressing analysts (?a particular analyst). Thus (p. 162) 'analysts would be well advised to remember the inconclusive nature of clinical evidence, and the great diversity of human sexual activity. This may save them from categorising, for example, the