Freud and Science: An Epistemological Appraisal

Abstract

This article explores the relationships between Freud and the science of his era. Freud was profoundly committed to the 19th century view of science. The epistemological examination of his work has been contaminated by the psychological analysis of Freud himself. It aims to show that the work cannot be relegated to the field of pseudoscience due to Freud’s supposed personal shortcomings. Psychoanalysis is fully consistent with the scientific conception of the world to which Freud belonged. the article further argues that, for precisely this reason, psychoanalysis will be essential for the critical analysis of contemporaneous times.