This book claims that the nature of science lies in the eternal human quest for the origins of things. It is not just the application of neutral human rationality; there is a deep-rooted motivation to journey to the beginnings of everything. The book argues, too, that in trying to understand the motivation for that quest we need psychoanalysis: we need to know the unconscious roots of our restless searching. In a word, we have to view the vibrant and heady achievements of science in conjunction with the infantile phantasies of the primal scene. A quest in search of anything is, at root, the quest for the origins of life-and that means mother's body.Figlio further claims that such a penetration is fraught with all sorts of emotionally signi cant, sensitive and terrifying associations. Not least is the phallic quality of penetration. He describes phallicism as the violating penetration of an object that has had all its moral and emotional signi cance stripped from it. Phallic masculinity is, however, but a defence-a denial of the importance of father as procreator with mother; and a squaring up to father's power. The distorting, defensive and maladaptive nature of phallicism, as found in the primitive unconscious, creeps into the attitudes of scientists, and the public's expectations of them. Science then becomes embroiled in problematic attitudes, which in turn provoke a reaction. Hence, Figlio concludes, this is 'why such an obviously reassuring and bene cial activity [science] in ames such passionate rebuke' (p. 211). Science has the image of a penetrative, corrupting violation of nature; and psychoanalysis can say where that image comes from.The moment of discovery in the primal scene is a confrontation for the infant. His own narcissism is assaulted. His assumption that he exclusively occupies the maternal body is banished by the new presence of father. It is the end of narcissism. As Freud described in the Wolf Man case, the infant attempts to avoid this end and will insert himself into the couple, forming in his own mind identi cations with either member of the couple. In the Wolf Man's case the infant became stuck in a neurotic identi cation with mother's female passivity; but in many other cases, the identi cation is with the penetrating male. It is this latter identi cation that appears to have been picked up in the modern period by scienti c enquiry and enquirers.Because of the rageful reactions of the infant at the exclusion from the parental intercourse, the penetration that occurs in the infant's mind is also rageful and violating. If such emotions carry over unconsciously into the seemingly emotionally neutral enquiry of mature science, then the persistent claims of science to be neutral and innocent sound hollow. However, as Figlio shows, science is not in fact neutral or innocent. It is a moral and emotional activity that is both troubled by, and also impelled by, guilt.The emotional responses to the enquiries of science have at their unconscious roots the penetration of mother, of other women and ...
Both inside and outside psychoanalysis, the word, 'seminal', is used to praise a creative contribution to science and culture. Rarely, however, does it refer to male procreativity, to the structures and functions that subserve it or to the anxiety related to a threat to it. This situation becomes evident in the concept of castration anxiety, which typically refers, with Freud, to cutting off the penis and not to extirpating the testicles. This phallic theory has been debated, repudiated and ignored. While there is an alternative literature on non-phallic masculinity, it is scattered and rarely refers to seminal function. Freud's theory meets his requirement for a well-articulated representation of absolute loss as an experience, but this clear structure--and its repudiation--obscure the observation and theory of the internal world of the male. I propose the concepts of 'seminal masculinity' and 'seminal castration', which I ground in Melanie Klein's concept of depressive anxiety. I contrast them with phallic masculinity and phallic castration anxiety, which I ground in her concept of paranoid-schizoid anxiety. I argue that they meet Freud's requirement that castration be a potential experience and that understanding masculinity demands such a basis.
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