The Grammar of the Unconscious

Using Wittgensteinian "grammatical analysis", this text clarifies the distinctive features and conditions of the language of psychoanalysis - conceptual, logical and grammatical - and thereby shows both the validity and limits of its theory.

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The Grammar of the Unconscious is both an inquiry into certain long-standing conceptual problems and the exemplification of Wittgenstein's grammatical method. The problems are for the most part those that surround the question of the status of psychoanalysis as a theory of symbolism, psychosexual development, and culture. Using the method of grammatical analysis, Elder clarifies the distinctive features and conditions of the language of psychoanalysis—conceptual, logical, and grammatical—thus showing both the validity and the limits of its truth.