Freud and the Question of Pseudoscience

Frank Cioffi

For three decades Frank Cioffi has been at the center of the debate over Freud's legacy and the legitimacy of psychoanalysis. Cioffi has given startling demonstrations that, in one area after another, Freud's accounts of the development of his theories are untruthful. But Cioffi's even more impressive achievement has been to scrupulously distinguish the many different, often equivocal, assertions made by psychoanalysis, thus laying bare the mechanism of its rhetorical conjuring tricks.

"Cioffi's clear-sighted analysis of Freud's critics and apologists makes this book an essential contribution to the contentious debate over one of the most influential figures of this century. Frank Cioffi stands preeminent among the philosophers and historians who in the early 1970s began teaching us to scrutinize Freud without employing the rosy lens of hero worship. From then until now, exercising logical clarity and occasionally mischievous wit, Cioffi has retained his place as the most trenchant and provocative critic of psychoanalysis. Does the Freudian tradition deserve to survive? Some readers who are inclined to answer yes may change their minds after pondering this important book."
—Frederick Crews