What type of science, in the end, is Psychoanalysis?

Abstract

Freud had never any doubts that his invention belonged in the field of natural science, and not in the area of the “sciences of the Spirit”, as human/social sciences were then called in Germany. For us, this sounds strange: what could be more human than human mind, the subject of Psychoanalysis? This paper argues that the way of separating both fields in which Freud’s claim makes sense has changed considerably since his day, so that we are justified in ranking Psychoanalysis on the same side as History, Anthropology and similar disciplines, as we usually do nowadays. It also explores some intriguing parallels between the notions of “natural selection” and “unconscious”, as well as some rhetorical strategies employed by both Darwin and Freud - in this case, probably unaware that he was copying his great predecessor - when they set to the task of persuading their readers that those ideas cannot be dispensed with in their respective fields. Keywords: Epistemology, Epistemology of Psychoanalysis, Natural sciences, Human sciences, Unconscious, Natural selection.