Synopses & Reviews
"A work of major interest to both scholars and general readers, splendidly conceived and splendidly executed."Judith Hughes, author of
Reshaping the Psychoanalytic Domain"With admirable clarity, Paul Robinson painstakingly reconstructs and then relentlessly dismantles the arguments of Freud's most tenacious and recent debunkers. The results stunningly vindicate the abiding power of psychoanalysis as a master discourse of our age."Martin Jay, Professor of History, UC Berkeley"A magnificent contribution to the ever-growing and discordant industry of Freud scholarship. Robinson incisively assesses the critiques of three of the most formidable Freud adversariesSulloway, who would recast Freud as a crypto-biologist, heir to Darwin and forerunner to modern sociobiology; Masson, who faults Freud as a failed social reformer and a presumed moral coward; and Greenbaum, who sees Freud as a positivistic natural scientist unequal to his chosen taskand persuasively demonstrates the differing ways in which they each thoroughly misread Freud, each (differently) building the most unsubstantial of revisionary arguments. Their greatest 'crime,' in Robinson's perspective, and this they share in common, is a fundamental trivialization of the towering genius who more than any other single individual has shaped the modern sensibility and has been the most important modern theorist of the individual."Robert S. Wallerstein, M.D., Past President, International Psychoanalytical Association
Review
"From the scientific to the philosophical, the ignorant to the resentful, critics have been launching attacks on Freud with extraordinary frequency and ferocity since the 1970's. Robinson's valiant defense of Freud carefully scrutinizes, analyzes, and demolishes three of the most reputable of these attacks: Frank Sulloway's argument that Freud's thought was little more than derivative biologism, Jeffrey Masson's accusation that Freud's abandonment of the seduction hypothesis was a cowardly evasion, and Adolf Griinbaum's contention that Freud's views lack empirical foundation. Revealing that each of these critics is blinded by his own prejudices, Robinson recuperates the imaginative vitality and originality of Freud's thoughts—the 'whole climate of opinion,' in Auden's words, that still shapes our intellectual world and that we ignore or dismiss at our peril." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
Synopsis
Wars against Freud have been waged along virtually every front during the past decade. Now Paul Robinson takes on three of Freud's most formidable critics, mounting a thoughtful, witty, and ultimately devastating critique of the historian of science Frank Sulloway, the psychoanalyst Jeffrey Masson, and the philosopher Adolf Grünbaum.
Frank Sulloway contends that Freud took most of his ideas from Darwin and other contemporary thinkersthat he was something of a closet biologist. Jeffrey Masson charges that Freud caved in to peer pressure when he abandoned his early seduction theory (which Masson believes was correct) in favor of the theory of infantile sexuality. Adolf Grünbaum impugns Freud's claim to have grounded his ideasespecially the idea of the unconsciouson solid empirical foundations.
Under Robinson's rigorous cross-examination, the evidence of these three accusers proves ambiguous and their arguments biased by underlying assumptions and ideological commitments. Robinson concludes that the anti-Freudian writings of Sulloway, Masson, and Grünbaum reveal more about their authors' prejudicesand about the Zeitgeist of the past decadethan they do about Freud.
Beautifully crafted and full of surprises, Robinson's work is a compelling defense of one of history's most original and powerful minds. Freud and His Critics will earn an enduring place in the raging Freudian debate.
About the Author
Paul Robinson is Professor of History at Stanford University and the author of The Freudian Left (1969), The Modernization of Sex (1979), and Opera and Ideas (1985).