Discussion of a new project for a scientific psychology

摘要

When Wilhelm Flless received the amazing document from Sigmund Freud that has come down to us as the "Project for a Scientific Psychology," he must have read it with a combination of thrill at his friend's brilliance, frustration with its difficult and incomprehensible passages, and an impulse to advise his friend that Freud should, at minimum, include Fleiss's nasal theories as a centerpiece of the discussion. Reading Solms' wonderful attempt to update Freud's Project, I find myself in a similar, though hopefully less extreme, frame of mind. While the New Project contains many points worthy of commentary and elaboration, and others points that call for clarification, I find myself coming at the entire manuscript with something like Fliess' preoccupation with the nose, namely my own hobby horse, a central focus on nonlinear dynamic systems theory as a way of thinking about mental life. While I believe that this viewpoint is not as far off the mark as Fliess' ideas, and while I will try to show its specific relevance to a critique of Solms' approach, I do think it is important for myself and for the reader to keep in mind that, while the critique comes from a far better established framework than Fliess' nasal theories, It is itself not without problems and limitations and should not be taken as gospel.