The first casualty: the war over psychoanalysis and the poverty of historiography

Many recent discussions of the early history of psychoanalysis have claimed that Freud's work was methodologically (and hence scientifically) flawed. It is suggested that such criticisms are often based on studies that are deficient in the way they approach historiography. The work of Adolf Grünbaum and Frederick Crews (as, respectively, specialist and populist) is used to illustrate both this and the consequent theses that dehistoricized approaches to Freud lead to anachronistic blunders and that anti-Freudian tendentiousness clothed in the illusion of historiographical expertise is no substitute for scholarly rigour. It is concluded that when criticizing Freud it is often a good idea to read him first, but no optimism is entertained about the prospects of raising the standard of debate about psychoanalysis and its origins.

'... the attempt to rebut this argument [in this way] is an abuse of the privilege of writing confidently about authors without reading them...' (J. S. MILL, A System of Logic, 1898, p. 241)

'The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice.' (MARK TWAIN, 'Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar', Following the Equator, 1897)