Abstract

This thesis attempts to clarify and assess the linguistic turn in psychoanalysis, as reflected in Roy Schafer's program to establish a new language for psychoanalysis, leveled at supplanting Freud's metapsychology. ;Chapter 1 places Schafer's action language within the context of the external and internal critique of Freudian metapsychology, and isolates the critical problem issuing from this metapsychology, to which Schafer advances his 'new' language as a solution. ;Chapter 2 sets Schafer's 'new' language against what he takes as the 'old' language of psychoanalysis. Here, attention is drawn to the logical and semantic features of both Schafer's action language and Freud's metapsychological language. ;Chapter 3 exhibits the foundation on which Schafer makes his linguistic turn, elucidating the three-tiered strategy which underpins his crucial claim that his own action language comprises an adequate alternative to Freudian metapsychology. ;Chapters 4 and 5 offer an assessment of the three-tiered strategy, deployed by Schafer, in his assay at executing the linguistic turn in psychoanalysis