Constructions finies et constructions infinies : de l'épistémologie psychanalytique dans ses rapports à la vérité

This paper proposes a reflection on the links between psychoanalysis, science and truth in order to identify some principles of psychoanalytic epistemology, the modes of production of its knowledge and the nature of its models. It is thus necessary to specify some elements relating to the conditions of analytical knowledge and the specific logic of its approach. From this point of view, a historical description of the major evolution of psychoanalytic epistemology is developed during three steps. The first one consists in a synthesis of Analysis terminable and Analysis interminable and Constructions in Analysis, following in depth the Freudian text. Some breach in Freudian epistemology leading to the ambivalence of his models are specified. A summary of the theories of Lacan (in a second step) and Bion (in a third step) are then proposed in order to highlight the subsequent evolution of the relationship between theory and truth in psychoanalysis. A synthesis proposes then to consider psychoanalysis as a science of subjectivity that tolerates an agnostic relation to the real. It appears more precisely as a hybrid science that avoids the pitfall of reductionism as well as an entirely relativistic hermeneutic. Psychoanalytic epistemology thus proceeds from a hermeneutical spiral whose emergence derives from the capacity to tolerate a dialectical tension between clinical realism and heuristic interpretation.