For nearly two decades, Adölf Grünbaum's critique has dominated the debate over the philosophical standing of psychoanalysis. Although the critique has provoked much disagreement, his basic reading of Freud upon which it is based has been increasingly conceded as accurate in the literature. There is no sustained questioning of his organizing extrapolations from Freud of the purportedly fundamental premise of the “repression etiology of the psychoneuroses,” nor of the implicit mode of validation he dubbed the “tally argument.” This paper presents a contrasting survey of Freud's thinking that casts doubt on Grünbaum's claim to be representing it fairly. Freud was clear that repression—actually its failure—was one among several conjoint causes of pathology, and that the qualitative differences introduced by ideation mandated that validation proceed by a sifting of inferences.