Since i’m not uber-educated on freud (well, I am but not like a freud historian) I will say that some of his claims may have not been science, but plenty of his claims were and have been scientifically falsifiable.
Any specific mention of human nature in context to our behavior, and espec ially freud’s outrageous claims, are usually falisfiable.
Once again some of his claims are indeed falsifiable, many of them fly in the face of current falsifiable but true claims. When I talk about freud i mean they have been falsified, and when the about the other claims, potentially so as all science or ‘most’ is. (some forms of physics aren’t falsifiable yet, but thats often-times due to our limited technology, b ut i might concede it was useful pre-science or ‘reason’.
Anyway, for example the existence of incest avoidance mechanisms falsifies some of freuds work and has enough evidence to be considered close to fact or very suggestive, males apparently have facial-resembelence detection modules as an anti-cuckholdery tactic (Males dealt with a selection pressure to identify their own children as apparently cheating that spawns children happens somthing like (10% of the time, as in, 1 in 10 a man is raising an other man’s child.). MRI techniques between males/females looking at morphed (pictures of themselves morphed with babies) show the different neurological responses, men picking children to adopt or give money to will show a huge bias towards children’s faces that have been ‘morphed’ with their own, (they were unconscious of picking and needed to look at the pictures again, and even then had a lot of hard problem identifying the child that most resembled them).
So yeah, theres a lot of stuff that flies in the face of freudian theory.
Thanks, Cyrene. That was interesting.
And as a small second note, the when you ask the question “Do people have face recognition mechanisms” you can test for that and falisify it through rigerous experiments.
So some people who ha ve expanded on freuds work have falsified his work, and this work itself is open to falsification. (Like all good science is). It just won’t happen, or i’d be surprised.
Hmmm… I’m not sure I would call it ‘courage’. It’s the old adage - sex sells. If he wanted to stand out from the crowd and thus create a reputation and status for himself in his field, then what better way than introducing a bit of sex into the psychoanalytic equation?
He was brutally attacked at the time. It did indeed take courage to write about subjects that were not considered “polite” in contemporaty society.
Don’t project from modern ideas to the past. At the time Freud wrote, Doctors would not even examine woman in the nude, it was considered unethical and “dirty.” 
There were no Paris Hiltons and Brittany Spears in Freuds society…
Dave
He may have been attacked but his status didn’t suffer even to this day - and to the detriment of our understanding of dreams. His reference to sex wasn’t original - so the water had already been tested. I imagine he probably knew there was some element of risk because he knew such ideas were controversial, but it was a CALCULATED risk. He was an astute man and knew what would make him a reputation. Freud’s own dreams actually indicate this - that he wanted to invent something really ‘big’.
Ever had a look in art galleries and the paintings of the ‘old’ masters such as Reubens and Titian, depicting those luscious, fleshy nudes with hands placed ‘strategically’ over their nether regions? Modesty? I don’t think so!
So don’t tell me that sex didn’t sell. Pull the other one, it’s got bells on!
His first book sold 600 copies… 
His status wasn’t raised. That he wanted to be reknowned, well, so what? A lot of people want fame.
Everr had a look at the way woman dressed at that time? No, sorrry, going to a museum is not the same as watching someone in a mini-skirt - Nor would it even OCCUR to a modern physician to examine someone who they couldn’t even see.
Dave
Wow. Well I guess you have no problem with fame at any cost then?
There’s a little ethical matter about fame that bothers me and should bother anybody. It concerns TRUTH. When people want fame, the first casualty is TRUTH. So if Fraud - oops, sorry, Freudian slip there! - if Freud was concerned about truth then fame wouldn’t have mattered to him. What would have mattered was that he communicated the TRUTH about dreams. In fact, as I said already, his own dreams, which he couldn’t in fact interpret, point out that he was ‘injecting’ them with meaning. In other words his theory about dream interpretation (wish fulfillment) was wrong. Now, if he’d had his eye on the correct ball - on truth instead of on fame - things might have been very different. Freud might have got it right, in other words and dream interpetation might not have stayed stuck in the past the way it has. And don’t forget, we’re talking about people’s mental health here. This isn’t a game. The TRUTH matters. The consequences of Freud’s skewed priorities are extremely serious to people’s mental health. It’s not a matter of fame at any cost - it’s a matter of TRUTH.
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I’m not sure if we’re talking about the same thing here. What I’m saying is that sex sells, and always had sold. Prostitution is known as the ‘oldest’ profession after all. People have used it to sell themselves or their work for millenia. It is not an invention of the 20th century.
His ideas on the interpretation of dreams may have been incorrect, as many other of his ideas may have been, but I can’t see anything wrong with the causes of melancholia, mourning, and neurosis that he explained.
I can’t say he was ever after fame. Philosophy at the time was in the grips of the “rational ‘I’ or ego” (phenomenology, positivism), the unconscious wasn’t popular in his time. Anyway, is there credible references you could guide me and others toward that proclaim he was only after fame?
The reason people like Freud get away with their mistakes or cons is because individuals don’t use their own judgement about such matters. Instead they rely on experts to assess the work of other experts in order to tell them if those ideas are or are not credible. So if I were to give you references I’d just be putting you in the hands of more experts whose credibility is unreliable. In fact, it is precisely to protect their reputation that experts positively discourage the rest of us from exercising our own judgement!
My suggestion to anyone reading this, therefore, is to depend less on experts for providing you with your opinions on such matters and use your own judgement instead.
The idea of fame appeals to me. So I wrote a book which I belive is original, and interesting. Too bad the publishers disagree…
But theres NOTHING in my book which is dishonest.
Now I happen to think that Freud was incorrect from A to Z. But come on - Really? You think he was some kind of crook, a liar, someone who would write anything? I know of nothing to justify this opinion - Zip, zero, nada, and I’m not a fan of his thought. If anything, if I wanted to condemn his thinking (which I do) I would agree with you - But fair is fair…
Dave
That is very interesting. Would you be willing to elaborate on how you arrived at that opinion?
This isn’t about fairness or unfairness. This is about appraising the work of Freud (or any other ‘ideas’ person) impartially, but using one’s OWN judgement and not relying on the opinion of (less than impartial) experts.
Some people make honest mistakes and some don’t. I have no problem with people who make honest mistakes - it’s part of the learning process. Then there are the quacks.
Ideas have to be more widely judged. It can’t be left up to the experts because time and time again we see them get it wrong and time and again they let the con men slip through the net - with extremely serious consequences i.e. people’s health suffers. Being able to separate the wheat from the chaff early on i.e. being able to detect the quacks from the genuine, means that we don’t spend decades wandering off down blind alleys. This holds up progress and, as I said, getting it wrong has serious consequences - people’s mental health suffers.
It is vital, therefore, that we stop depending on experts to assess the work of other experts such as Freud. We must start using our OWN judgement on such matters instead.
Well, one can assess his ideas on psychology itself without the need of ‘experts’, but one can’t speculate on whether he was after fame just by reading his texts. So I ask again, do you have any references from around Freud’s time that claim he was only interested in fame?
His science is not falsifiable, as I and others have stated in this thread.
So, after this lecture to me, exactly what is your point? Your entire point appears to be that Freud was some sort of scam artist, who was not only wrong, but wasn’t interested in science at all.
Karl Popper, is the man who devised the concept of falsibility as a test of science, and did this in the early sixties, if memory serves. At the time Freud wrote, sincere doctors were arguing over whether the cure for syphillus was immediate amputation of the penis, or whether cautersation would be sufficient…
Dave
Uhmm…that’s quite a sweeping statement - and presented as a fact. I have to ask you, how do you know that ‘fact’ to be true?
Remember, we’re talking psychoanalysis etc., etc., and the information the unconscious mind reveals. Read Jung if you want to find out more about what information people, usually unwittingly, reveal about themselves through their writing, their dreams, their art etc., etc…
So, if his science is not falsifiable, does that mean it is, by default, true and correct?
Many people on this forum seem to be looking to the ‘experts’ to tell them what is true and what is not. I am suggesting that instead of putting all your faith in the so-called experts, as if they were gods whose laws are written on tablets of stone, that we are, in fact, all perfectly capable of assessing the truth, or otherwise, of these matters for ourselves. And I am also saying that it is to our detriment that we ourselves never question the authority of those experts. What an easy ride they are getting - they can foist just about anything they like on us because they know we’ll just swallow it hook, line and sinker!
It means it’s NOT scieince. At the time that he lived there were many such “scieince.” Such as “Phrenology,” which were not falsifiable. Just as Astrology is not falsifiable.
And as we know, medicine IS a science, but the arguments at the time, over the correct treatment of syphilus, were not scientifically tested - But as I say, medicine IS a science, and we could test the above arguments. Freuds ideas, like astrology, cannot be put to the test - there’s always some sort of “explanation” of why the prediction didn’t work out.
Dave
He never in any of his texts speaks of being after fame. Nor have I read in any secondary sources that he was after fame. Can you refer me to sections of Freud’s work that admit, or at least hint, at the fact he was after fame?
I realise you’re not asking me this question, but if he didn’t want “fame,” then he was a member of a different species…
What after all is wrong with wanting fame? Or money for that matter? The only question here is the “Means” you are ready to use to achieve either.
So I cannot answer the specifics of your question, but the answer would be irrelevant.
I have no reason to doubt Frueds sincerety. Which doesn’t mean I buy any of his ideas.
Dave