• search hit 43 of 638
Back to Result List

Are we to have a meeting of minds? A. Reply to the discussions of a meeting of minds

  • This presentation examines psychoanalysis from the standpoint of fictionalism. Fictionalism maintains that all aspects of human experience are creations of imagination, that mind-made realities constitute for human beings their sole realms of existence, and that it is only about these realms that anything at all can be known. No other knowable realities exist. Fictionalism is an aesthetic orientation that considers these imaginative constructs artistic renderings that are aesthetically formed and experienced, and that must be comprehended and evaluated aesthetically. Furthermore, it regards these artistic constructs as works of fictions – invented textual realities woven by the perpetual interplay of multitudinous signifiers into ever-changing psychical configurations. From a fictionalist's perspective, >truth< becomes, paradoxically, a manifestation of fiction. The term fiction intends not only to underscore the radical divergence of fictionalism's philosophical perspective from realism's but to emphasize its reinterpretation of the materialities realism posits as also inventions of imagination. Fictionalism does not, however, simply reverse the hierarchy and valuation of the real/fiction dichotomy but modifies the very understanding of this dichotomy's conceptualization and, by reinscribing realism as itself a form of fiction, even diminishes some of the antagonism inherent in this age-old rivalry. Rooted deep in psychoanalytic tradition, realism's role has been complex, inconsistent, contradictory, and often embarrassingly naive. Fictionalism contests the many postulates of realism that psychoanalysis has incorporated so fundamentally into its theory and technique. Focusing primarily on transference, I argue not only that this phenomenon has been misconstrued within a realist framework but that most of the other features of psychoanalysis have been as well because psychoanalysis is basically a fictional enterprise.

Export metadata

Additional Services

Share in Twitter Search Google Scholar
Metadaten
Author:Richard E. Geha
Parent Title (English):Psychoanalytic Dialogues Vol. 03 (1993), pp. 209-243.
Document Type:Articles
Language:English
Year of first Publication:1993
Release Date:2017/11/20
Format:xerox upon request / Fotokopie auf Anfrage
IdNo:Geha_R_E_1993
Erich Fromm's Library and Erich Fromm Archive:Articles / Artikel
Licence (German):
Einverstanden ✔
Diese Webseite verwendet technisch erforderliche Session-Cookies. Durch die weitere Nutzung der Webseite stimmen Sie diesem zu. Unsere Datenschutzerklärung finden Sie hier.