Psychanalyse et épistémologie : comment s'extraire de l'impasse actuelle ?

If psychoanalysis still appears in the contemporary debates of epistemology and history of science, it is as a paradigmatic failure. Chances are slim that psychoanalysis can be saved within the epistemological framework of natural sciences, no matter what the proponents of neuropsychoanalysis may claim. This article argues for a complete reversal of the standard view. First, it argues that psychoanalytic treatment must be seen not as a psychobiological process, but first of all, as a therapeutic ritual, that is, it should be understood in sociological terms. Second, the correct understanding of this fact, formulated within psychoanalytic theory, reframes it in anthropological and not psychological terms. Finally, the tendency, since Freud, to give a naturalistic form to psychoanalytic theory must itself be explained in the light of a historical sociology of knowledge.