ABSTRACT
Dr. Hartmann’s comprehensive paper makes amply clear that psychoanalytic theory is intended to be a theory of human behavior in the same sense of “theory” that, for example, the molecular theory of gases is a set of assumptions which systematizes, explains, and predicts certain observable phenomena of gases. Accordingly, he is in effect inviting us to evaluate the merits of Freudian theory by standards of intellectual cogency similar to those we employ in judging theories in other areas of positive science. It would of course be absurdly pedantic to apply to Freudian theory the yardstick of rigor and precision current in mathematical and experimental physics. Proper allowance must certainly be made for the notorious difficulties encountered in all inquiries into distinctively human behavior, and for what is perhaps an inevitable fuzziness of all generalizations about human conduct. Nevertheless, unless I have misconstrued the burden of Dr. Hartmann’s paper, no apology is required for raising substantially the same kinds of issues of fact and logic concerning Freudian theory that are pertinent to a general examination of the cognitive worth and standing of a theory in the natural or social sciences.
