Standards to live by

pp. 491-501

in: Joseph Agassi, Science and society, Berlin, Springer, 1981

Abstract

To begin with, let me present a preliminary problem, of the kind that practicing psychiatrists or psychotherapists are trained to handle. It is the problem of how to overcome defensiveness in order to reach the level of anxiety so as to get rid of the anxiety in order to handle the problem at hand. Except that whereas the problems psychiatrists are trained to handle are specific and concrete, and relate to symbolic and emotional disturbances, and the problem I wish to handle is general and abstract, and relates to intellectual difficulties.