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Since I could not possibly do justice to all the interesting points raised by the colleagues whose papers I have at hand, I shall limit myself to trying to clarify the points I tried to make in my original paper that seem in need of clarification and to trying to answer the various objections that have been raised.
Dr. Goldberg was the most fulsome in his praise as well as the harshest in his criticisms. He characterizes my presentation as “painfully lacking in logical rigor,” subject to “egregious error,” waging “sly struggles over some sort of elitism,” engaged in an “old and fruitless battle about just what science is,” and espousing a “mistaken view of postmodernism.” He adds that, “What Dr. Brenner has to say is either downright wrong or quite debatable,” a mere “series of misconceptions,” and recommends that one should “put little credence in Dr. Brenner's musings.” He summarizes certain of my views by saying that I believe in the “validity” of incestuous and parricidal wishes in just the same way as seventeenth-century judges in Salem, Massachusetts, still believed in witchcraft, pious Christians believe themselves to be confronted with the presence of Jesus “in all arenas of life” and some mentally ill patients “see sadness everywhere.”
From what I have just cited, Dr. Goldberg's opinion is that, based on the paper under discussion, I must be either mentally ill or the modern-day equivalent of either a religious fanatic or a person who believes in witchcraft. As the reader must expect, I disagree with Dr. Goldberg, but I shall not take time to defend myself against such charges, which are ones that I'm sure my friend, Dr. Goldberg, does not intend to be taken literally.