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Allen defends Wittgenstein's claim that psychoanalytic motivational theories are based on a conceptual confusion between reasons and causes and are therefore incoherent. According to this view, people's reasons for actions do not cause people to perform the actions but rather redescribe the actions. Allen nonetheless claims that the notion of “unconscious motive” can be reconstructed within this noncausalperspective, so there can be “psychoanalysis after Wittgenstein.”We argue that common sense and psychoanalysis are correct in holding that the reasons why people act are causes of their actions. Relying on Donald Davidson's influential arguments, we show that, although descriptions of reasons may contain redescriptions of actions, reasons are nevertheless separate entities that can cause actions. Allen's view is in effect a form of “logical behaviorism,” the doctrine that talk of unobservable mental states is simply an indirect way of referring to dispositions to observable behavior.
Dr. Wakefield is Professor, Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research, and School of Social Work at Rutgers—The State University of New Jersey.
Dr. Eagle is Professor of Psychology, Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies, Adelphi University.
Logical behaviorism has generally been rejected in philosophy, for good reasons: (1) It is based on a confusion between epistemoogy (how we know) and ontology (what exists); (2) it is inconsistent with the reality and causal potency of first-person experiences; and (3) because of the complex interactions between mental states, there is no logical connection of the kind postulated by Allen between mental states and specific behavioral dispositions. We show that Allen's attempt to reconcile psychoanalysis with Wittgensteins views by constructing a noncausal notion of unconscious motivation fails for much the same reasons as logical behaviorism does. We conclude that, whatever psychoanalysis problems, they do not lie in a conceptual confusion between reasons and causes. Psychoanalysis after Wittgenstein can and should remain an attempt to reveal the motives that cause us to act and feel the ways we do.