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Despite the promise of its title, this book is not a monograph on methodology. Rather, it consists of eleven independent essays, seemingly addressed to a wide array of readers. Some of the chapters appear to be aimed at the lay public; in these, Hanly is instructing those unfamiliar with the basic methods and findings of psychoanalysis. This is clearest for an interesting study of the emotional factors, largely unconscious, that swayed the decision of an Ontario jury in a murder trial; however, it also applies to Hanly's detailed exposition of certain psychoanalytic propositions about the ways in which psychological development determines the acquisition of personal values.
Charles Hanly is a clinical psychoanalyst and a professor of philosophy, but his intellectual interests extend beyond the boundaries of these domains. In addition to his study on jurisprudence, the book contains two chapters on literature (or three, if we read the essay on Plato's Republic as an inquiry into an author's motivations); and another chapter, on the Hellenic attainment of rationalism, might best be classified as an anthropological exercise. About half of the volume is focused on the intersection of Hanly's areas of expertise; understandably, the philosophical essays are the strongest in the book. As a student of literature, Hanly seems to be somewhat biased in favor of naturalistic readings. For instance, he disagrees with Freud's view of King Lear, according to which certain characters stand for abstractions; Hanly does not consider the disjunction between the personality of Cordelia (if she is to be seen as a real person) and the family situation from which she is supposed to have issued. In his study of the mentality of the ancient Greeks, Hanly restricts himself to the evidence provided by their literature; this chapter might have been more persuasive if comparative data had been included about contemporary groups whose thinking shows adherence to both animism and rationali