PARTIAL FAILURE - THE ATTEMPT TO DEAL WITH UNCERTAINTY IN PSYCHOANALYTIC PSYCHOTHERAPY AND IN ANTHROPOLOGY

The paper identifies and tries to explain a style of argument that can be found in recent psychoanalytic writing and anthropological writing , In particular, it seeks to explain why similar styles of argument (w hich emphasize narration, interpretation uncertainty, and the professi onal's incomplete knowledge of the patient or fieldsubject) are presen ted in these different fields with such different affect. The paper su ggests that these differences might arise from the different moral goa ls of the disciplines and, specifically, from the differences between a clinical and a nonclinical enterprise.