Intersubjectivity, Projective Identification and Otherness by Maurice Apprey and Howard F. Stein Pittsburgh, PA:  Duquesne University Press, 1993,  xvii + 286 pp., $39.95. Subject and Agency in Psychoanalysis: Which is to Be Master? by Frances M. Moran New York:  New York University Press, 1993,  xv + 198 pp., $35.00.

Psychology originally formed a branch of philosophy. This became fully clear to me when I found, years ago, that in the Dewey Decimal System philosophy included psychology. Since the time of William James—the last person to contribute at the highest level in both fields—the two disciplines have gone their separate ways, within and outside the university. In psychoanalysis, Freud's early ambivalence toward philosophy yielded to increasing distaste, so that people who thought philosophically came to be seen in psychoanalysis as defending themselves by “intellectualization.” (Moran, p. 23, quotes Freud: “We have nothing to expect from philosophy except that it will once again haughtily point out to us the intellectual inferiority of the object of our study.”)

This situation has not entirely changed. Nevertheless, clinicians are increasingly finding a need to improve and criticize the conceptual presuppositions that shape our work. We thus find ourselves asking philosophical questions and searching for better ways to think. We turn to philosophers of the past and present and even attempt to think philosophically ourselves. This trend may threaten the rigidity of boundaries between psychology—including psychoanalysis—and philosophy. We need not fear, however, that philosophy will be able to reinstate itself as “queen of the sciences,” reabsorbing psychology and psychoanalysis. Both disciplines can, instead, look forward to many interesting conversations.