Frued Theory Without Science

Theory Without Science

Sigmund Freud, the father of Psychoanalysis, began his new and far reaching psychological theory during the spring of 1896 which expanded to many different arenas not yet explored by other theorists of his time. Much of Freud's work revolved around the unconscious mind, sexual inhibitions, and an abstract theory on the interpretation of dreams. Some of his study was grounded when Europe erupted into war and his three sons were fighting for their lives at the front lines of the battle (xviii). During this time Freud gave a lecture in 1917 which he called the "Revision of the Theory of Dreams." During this lecture Freud primarily examines how to interpret dreams. Around the same time Freud gave a lecture called "The Question of a Weltanschauung." During this rhetorical and tyrannical discourse Freud argues that psychoanalysis is a science and complements the true hard sciences already accepted. Freud's arguments, however, are far from credible. They lie on faulty grounds and presumptions with no accepted scientific theory. He uses a dogmatic approach filled with arbitrary suggestions with no scientific evidence proving his theories and thus he plainly relies on persuasive rhetoric to get his points across. Freud's theories of dream interpretation are ultimately unconvincing due to the lack of scientific support.

Freud begins his theory of the interpretation of dreams with a faulty premise and arbitrary suggestions with little scientific support for his theory. He begins to present his argument on an assumption which he admits, "We haveÐ'--quite arbitrarily, it must be admittedÐ'--made the assumption, adopted as a postulate, that even this unintelligible dream must be a fully valid psychical act, with sense of worth, which we can use in analysis like any other communication" (11). This conjecture lies at the heart of Freud's theory on dream analysis and presents a very unstable foundation for his argument. Freud does not outline any scientific information backing this statement and blatantly declares that it truly is an assumption. Basing an entire theory around an assumption does not show any efforts to follow scientific protocol. From this controversial hypothesis he tries to show support for his statements but does not speculate on the scientific evidence which supports it as he claims, "Only the outcome of our experiment can show whether we are right" (11). He further argues that turning a dream into an "utterance of value" will give a "prospect of learning something new" (11). It very well may be something new, but there is no justification of an "utterance of value." There is no validation to say whether something is actually of value and no scientific data to support his statement. The value of what a person says is very biased and there is no evidence to specifically value one thing over another, value is different between every interpretation. With no scientific evidence supporting the foundation of his dream analysis theory, Freud does not give any reasonable evidence to maintain his arguments. With his persuasive rhetoric Freud tries to set up a theory with an unstable foundation and with no scientific defense to his argument. His theory on the interpretation of dreams is therefore unscientific and unacceptable.

Freud tries to illuminate scientific evidence to support his theory on the interpretation of dreams after introducing his held premise, but again gives no proof to sustain his arguments.