ABSTRACT
How do we study phenomena located in the register of song-and-dance scientifically? Experimental sciences are able to create many precise replicas of the phenomena they study, by virtue of which they are able to create general theories that can substitute for experience. Psychoanalysis can do neither, and seems therefore to be disqualified from scientific status. If, however, we examine how “hard” scientists actually work in day-to-day practice, we find that they are constantly formulating informal, working hypotheses that are temporary, intuitive and disposable (like the scaffolding used in building construction) Psychoanalysis proceeds in much the same way. Much like theories in psychoanalysis. Practitioners of experimental science use intuition constantly. Psychoanalysis differs from the hard sciences in nor having a hierarchical system of theories—theories subsidiary to fundamental premises. It has only fundamental premises that give rise to an approach or method of studying the mind.
