The Books/Reading Thread

Overwatch said:
What is incorrect? And how is a comparison to Rand unjustified? They both created personal echo chambers to support their problematic theories and viciously attacked anyone who graced their circle who refused to toe the line entirely.
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"Viciously attacked"? Yeah, Rand maybe; but you're nuts if you think that applies to Freud.

As far as his personal echo chamber goes, that's just a poor misconception, honestly; coming from someone who has read multiple works by Freud that span his career, he's a highly self-critical and cautious theorist. Ego aside, he wasn't working in a vacuum.
 
Einherjar86 said:
"Viciously attacked"? Yeah, Rand maybe; but you're nuts if you think that applies to Freud.
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Someone is unfamiliar with Carl Jung and Alfred Adler...

Einherjar86 said:
As far as his personal echo chamber goes, that's just a poor misconception, honestly; coming from someone who has read multiple works by Freud that span his career, he's a highly self-critical and cautious theorist. Ego aside, he wasn't working in a vacuum.
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Self critical to insure he is hewing ever closer to his key tenet - sex.
 
No, I'm not unfamiliar with Jung; but Freud wasn't "vicious." They disagreed, and for good reasons. Furthermore, Freud's criticism of Jung was level-headed and logical.

I think you have a bit of a vendetta against Freud...
 
Einherjar86 said:
No, I'm not unfamiliar with Jung; but Freud wasn't "vicious." They disagreed, and for good reasons. Furthermore, Freud's criticism of Jung was level-headed and logical.

I think you have a bit of a vendetta against Freud...
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I'm referring to interpersonal and social dealings, not Freud's books. The two had some very personal correspondence, and article like this and others paint the fallout as more than just a professional parting. This would partially explain Freud's anger, and his response to disagreement is a different thing than the validity or lack thereof of theories. However....

The "complexities" of Freud's thought process are deceptively so - as they all lead back to the same place. His methodology was necessarily bad to protect his construct. However level-headed Freud's published criticism may have been in regards to his disagreements with Jung and Adler, research has consistently failed to vindicate Freud where he stands apart from others in the field.
 
You mean throwing science to the wind in favor of subjective analysis of case studies as the source of research?

I would agree that it appears that psychological treatment is in need of something other than pill-pushing and DSM regurgitation - but so would many leading psychologists. That doesn't mean the discipline needs to revert to subjective analysis of case studies and personal dreams as a reliable source of information.
 
:lol: You're ridiculous dude.

I see nothing wrong with "subjective analyses of case studies" provided they're carried out in a patient and critical manner.

And finally, Freud was the first to look for something in dreams other than mystical secrets of the universe.

You would just prefer to write him off entirely. Which doesn't make sense.
 
I don't write him off entirely. Just mostly. Which is the position of everyone except the wild eyed (but occasionally likable) adherents like my first psych professor.

I called him a broken clock - which is right twice a day, but not through any internal integrity. I also don't see anything wrong with patient and careful/critical analysis of case studies - when the analysis is applied in the limited arena from "whence it came", and when supplemented heavily by the wider body of scientific knowledge.

Freud was handicapped by his era, relative to the modern psychotherapist. Granting him this, doesn't mean we have to accept all his wild assertions about the Mind. I would think that a historicist and a deconstructionist would appreciate this rather than rushing to the defense of unjustified generalizations.
 
I didn't really get anything out of Freud that I haven't already gotten from my readings on evopsych. I think he had some serious issues, but as for the accuracy of his theories, I can't really blame him based on the information available to him (and having neurotic tendencies, as he has actually admitted).

I've been reading Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan. For a book from 1977, it still holds up pretty well. He does a great job of painting the picture of the evolution of intelligence from early fish to modern humans. I plan to use this book as sort of a general framework for a more detailed account model of evolutionary psychology that I'm working on.

I'm also going to read up on the brain afterwards to see if the information he gives on it is accurate according to the currently-available information. Still, this book is making me see the neurological aspect of evopsych as something awesome to investigate rather than a hassle. Anyone know any good books on the brain with a psychological focus? I'm not so much interested in how the lower brain keeps blood pumping as I am in things like emotion and cognition.
 
Currently biting into this bad boy:

introducing-translation-studies.jpg
 
Roughly halfway through this:

Germinal.jpeg


The French were definitely a revolutionary bunch! This was loaned to me last week by a friend who has endured too many of my "SLAY THE BOURGEOISIE" rants, possibly to pacify my socioeconomic-centered tirades.

It's been an entertaining read so far.
 
Taking a break from The Fountainhead to begin Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson. Loving it so far, despite its slow pace.
 
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