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This volume is impressive in its size, its range, the exactness and exacting standard of its argumentation, the breadth of material integrated in it and the intellectual stamina and honesty of its author. The most powerful impression Rubinstein's papers leave is one of his patient, indefatigable search for clarity about the most basic questions of psychoanalytic theory. He was unwilling to leave any basic, philosophical and methodological question, however intractable, unexamined. Above anything else these papers are the legacy of a mind trained in a wide variety of disciplines and a remarkable ability to apply this knowledge in the endeavour of understanding the conceptual foundations of psychoanalysis.
The volume covers a host of interrelated issues. One of its major themes concerns the structure of psychoanalytic theory and the logical forms of possible confirmation (Chapters 2, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13). A second theme concerns the relation between various levels of description of human being, particularly the physiological, the sub-personal level of mental mechanisms and events, and the fully personal level (2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15). A third theme to which Rubinstein returned throughout his life is the mind-body problem (Chapters 1, 9, 14). Finally there are some papers that analyse literary motifs and semantic issues in psychoanalytic theory and clinical work (Chapters 3, 8, 17), one detailed model linking cognitive psychology and psychoanalytic theory (Chapter 5) as well as two more historically oriented papers (Chapter 15, and the extremely interesting appendix on the psychoanalytic concept of sexuality).
The length of this review does not allow me to treat any of these topics in any depth and the reader is advised to use Morris Eagle's lucid introductory essay on Rubinstein's contribution to the structure of psychoanalytic theory as a guide through Rubinstein's work. I will highlight two topics that seem to me to be particularly relevant to recent develo