The Psychoanalytic Movement (Paladin Movements & Ideas S.) - Softcover

Gellner, Ernest

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006863000 ISBN 13: 9780006863007

Publisher: Fontana Press, 1993

Synopsis

Part of the "Paladin Movements and Ideas" series, this book is an exploration of the latter half of the 19th century, explaining where Sigmund Freud came from and why he happened when he did. The psychoanalytic movement went on to become one of the major movements in the 20th century.

About this title

Review:

The Psychoanalytic Movement was recognized as a classic upon its publication. José Brunner′s new introduction places the argument within the context of the Freud wars , making it clear that the book was as concerned to explain the fabulous success of psychoanalysis as to debunk its pretensions. This may be Gellner′s greatest book, containing as it does a general view of the history of philosophy and the character of modernity. John A. Hall, McGill University

Previous praise for The Psychoanalytic Movement:

A marvel This is a brilliantly written book, every page sparkling with intelligence, style and substance. Gellner provides a welcome and literate overview of the latest philosophic controversy about the logical status of psychoanalytic propositions. Its every page instructs and enlivens and represents a tribute to humane intelligence. New Statesman

In a stylish, witty and deceptively readable book, Gellner exposes the secular religious nature of the psychoanalytic enterprise. He admits that a compelling, charismatic belief must possess more than merely the promise of succour in a plague and links with the background convictions of the age. Nature

This is the first determined effort to account for a very odd historical and sociological phenomenon in realistic and meaningful terms and it makes very good sense. Gellner is incisive, agreeable to read and often witty. Institute of Psychiatry Journal

From the Back Cover:

In this bracing, ebullient study, Ernest Gellner explains why Freud's ideas spread so far, so fast; why his radical ideas about human nature found such ready acceptance and why, whether we like it or not, we are all Freudians now, bathing in the balm of his 'whole climate of opinion'.

"Certainly the most powerful attempt so far to situate Freud in the wide history of European ideas"
PERRY ANDERSON, 'New Left Review'.

"Gellner points out that a theory doesn't have to be true to be attractive, and suggests that psychoanalysis caught on in the post-Darwinian Wets because it proposed, in a highly seductive and secular idiom, a new and entirely naturalistic account of something we felt to be there but no longer had any plausible account of: the hidden, 'dark' side of our nature."
GALEN STRAWSON, 'Nature'.

In a stylish, witty and deceptively readable book, Gellner exposes the secular religious nature of psychoanalytic enterprise. He admits that a compelling, charismatic belief must possess more than merely the promise of succour in a plague and links with the background convictions of the age."
ANTHONY CLARE, 'Nature'.

"The puzzling survival of the Victorian relic, psychoanalysis, is what this brilliant, caustic and infuriating little essay sets out to explain in a biting critique of the movement's pretensions."
MICHAEL IGNATIEFF

"One of those iconoclastic masterpieces of sceptical good sense and fine intelligence that you might come across once in ten years if you're lucky."
NEW STATESMAN

"This is the first determined effort to account for a very odd historical and sociological phenomenon in realistic and meaningful terms... and it makes very good sense. Gellner is incisive, agreeable to read and often witty."
HANS EYSENCK, 'Institute of Psychiatry Journal'.

"In this brilliant book... Gellner describes powerfully, and in the most brightly coloured prose, the causality of Freudian dogma. In doing so he destroys its scientific claims, and devalues its morality."
ROGER SCRUTON, 'The Times'.

About this edition

• Publisher: Fontana Press
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0006863000
• ISBN 13: 9780006863007
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 256