Psychoanalysis as “Conversation” and as “Fiction”: Commentary on Charles Spezzano's “A Relational Model of Inquiry and Truth” and Richard Geha's “Transferred Fictions”

Both these papers involve admirable attempts to bring philosophical ideas to bear upon fundamental questions about the status of knowledge and interpretation in psychoanalysis. They both, however, strike me as deeply flawed — interestingly enough, for a similar reason: whereas each author professes to adopt a position of ultimate epistemological openness, what we get in each case is a profoundly leveling or homogenizing perspective on knowing, one that would reduce different forms of inquiry to an ultimately trivializing common denominator — “conversation” in Spezzano's case, “fiction” in that of Geha. To adopt the epistemological position of either of these writers would, in my opinion, be to forego the very possibility of making certain crucial distinctions that are demanded by common sense as well as by the requirements of responsible cognitive inquiry (whether the latter is conceived in an empiricist or a more hermeneutical fashion).

Let me begin with Spezzano's paper. Before addressing myself to the specific criticisms he offers of the article written by Robert Woolfolk and me, I would first like to consider two other features of his contribution.

Spezzano begins his argument with a discussion and critique of what he calls the “monadic” view of inquiry, discovery, and truth, which he goes on to contrast with his preferred “relational” view. His discussion of the so-called monadic view seems, however, to be something of a red