Sudhakar Venukapalli

In 1900 the publication of the book, Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud raised very seminal and fascinating questions in the disciplines of psychology and psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud’s intellectual contributions and the discovery of unconscious had given a big jolt to all the classical approaches, shook the disciplinary foundations of psychology and placed ‘psychoanalysis’ as an alternative model for understanding mental world. Psychologists across the world showed keen interest in uncovering the mysteries of dreams and dreaming. But the institutional dominance of Behaviorism and its standards of research didn’t allow them to cross the boundaries of conventional psychology. Behavioristic psychologists raised important questions on the methodology adopted by Sigmund Freud and leveled criticism against his unverifiable explanations. Behaviorism branded his theories as absolute subjectivist and unscientific. Hence, most of the psychologists were silent and systematically marginalized dream research and banished the discourses on dreams in the institutions of higher learning and research. The nineteenth century saw the emergence of the first dream studies, which were primarily concerned with dream phenomenology. Nevertheless, the pace of methodical dream research was held considerably by the emergence of distinct psychological movements at the start of the 20th century: behaviorism, classical psychoanalysis, and gestalt psychology, placed greater stress on the significance and meaning of dreams, as well as what they symbolized in the lives of individuals. Also a few of them questioned the reality of dreams and other similar mental experiences. Consequently, every movement undermined the greater sample sizes and more methodical research on dreams in its own unique manner. While presenting the views of Sigmund Freud, John Watson, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, and Fritz Perls this paper makes an attempt to show how classical schools of psychology slowed down the flow of systematic dream studies with large samples.

Historically, the problem of discovery or the problem of the genesis of scientific ideas has been taken seriously by the historians, psychologists, sociologists and philosophers who analyzed the creative thinking and formation of ideas and attempted to provide a meaningful account of them. In fact, the philosophical concern with scientific discovery is as old as science and philosophy of science themselves. However, almost throughout the first half of 20th century, philosophical reflection on the phenomenon of scientific discovery remained in a state of suspended animation. This is because the dominant trend in philosophy of science in this period outlawed it. The dominant view in philosophy of science maintained that the phenomenon of scientific discovery is philosophically irrelevant, and an adequate philosophical understanding of science should confine itself to the way in which scientific theories are justified; it was assumed that the process of justification is a neat, spick-and-span phenomenon eminently suited to be described in terms which are, logically speaking, cut and dry. The process of justification or evaluation according to this orthodox view constitutes the essence of science. Obviously, justification was demarcated from discovery. Justification, because of its supposed epistemic transparency, became the exclusive focus of philosophical attention to the detriment of discovery. The invidious distinction between discovery of scientific ideas and justification of finished ideas of science remained the catchword for a long time. This paper is an attempt to critically examine the nihilistic attitude of the dominant philosophies of science and to arrive at a philosophical theory of scientific discovery.