From its inception on, the clinical findings of psychoanalysis met critiques from philosophers, issuing from a unitary vision of scientific work that merits being called “standard science”. Lately, the debate became internal to our field straining the current dialogue with neuropsychoanalysis.

Philosophers of science -as well as the lay public- have taken closed systems as overall model fit for every scientific endeavour. Open systems -namely most biology and all psychic processes- do not suit the core tenet of “standard science”: reduction to “well-behaved” variables allowing strict prediction.

After detailing “standard science” assumptions, the paper addresses Freud's “science based on observation” investigating psychic processes -arguably the foremost open systems. Its knowledge build-up is here examined in terms of Whewell's, Darwin's and Peirce's guidelines for scientific work, putting the focus on induction and on Whewell's consilience as a core tool of provisional verification -this sets the distances with the constraints of “standard science” which have had Popper as its most influential exponent. It then approaches how the current dialogue with neuropsychoanalysis is hindered by the latter's epistemic tenets, and how under their impact analysts forsook Freud's empirical approach joining a “flight to hermeneutics”. The pitfalls of such choice are briefly expounded.