George Walford: Eidodynamic Conflicts

One conclusion toward which s.i. points is that the Political individualism associated with the eidodynamic has the result that the eidodynamic professions, (psycho-analysis for example), tend to be, unlike the eidostatic ones (physical science for example), areas of continuing intellectual conflict. Consider these remarks on the psycho-analytic theory of Jacques Lacan (a leading French analyst) by Galen Strawson, in a TLS review (1 Feb 1980):

Clearly, there are many tensions and contradictions not only between Lacan’s theory and practice and their more orthodox counterparts, but also between his theory and practice at different times, as well as between his theory and his practice at a given time not to mention between his theory and itself at a given time. It might be held that there is some sort of defence available even for this last phenomenon. For the theory is a theory that predicts and studies its own conflict… even the general policy of tolerating conflict conflicts with another part of the theory. And in the end, there seems to be no place free from contradiction…

from Ideological Commentary 6, March 1980.