SOME USES OF DEDUCTIVE AND INDUCTIVE LOGIC IN THE STUDY OF NEUROTIC AND PSYCHOTIC DISORDERS LEO APOSTEL 235, Ave. Frere Orbanlaan, 8-000 Ghent , Belgium 1, INTRODUCTION: OUR PROGRAM The aim of this paper is to make a contribution to the general thesis held by many psychiatric workers, according to which the neurotic or psychotic person (if this distinction can be upheld), is talking and thinking in a coherent fashion but according to a different logic. Therapy can mainly help by understanding this different logic; a cure ought not necessarily eliminate it but should simply give the deviant speaker a) the awareness of the fact that he uses a deviant logic; b) that it is possible to use other ones and c) that he has, in order to communicate, to find new forms of translation of his own speech into that of his surroundings. How such a transformation can be achieved (therapy) and how the use of the deviant language came about (etiology) cannot be commented upon by us. We have no competence in therapy or etiology. The only reason why the author of this paper should be entitled to write on this topic is that he has been closely connected with the Geneva group, whose work on the growth of logical system in the thinking of the child is well known, As Fried and Agassi, in their interesting book Ruanot argument we are encouraged to see if the knowledge we have of the Geneva : a Study in Diagnosis use Piaget in a central part of their work can be brought to bear not only on the logic of the child, but also on the logic of the deviant. If this can be done for Fried-Agassi's Faranoia, we can also borrow a few other examples from a well-known text by Otto Fenichel Psychoanalytic Theory of Veurosis and show that several of the other types of neurosis identified by psychoanalysis (we consistently accept the Freudian point of view) can also be described by logical deviations, connected with some Piagetian formalisms. We finish then the third and 34 APOSTEL last part of our paper by making some critical remarks on the valuable contributions of von Domarus and Matte Blanco, concerning the use of logic in the analysis of neurotic or psychotic thought. Having announced our program, we should warn the reader that the term "logic" should be taken in its complete extensions. 1, Logic as an object language: classical logic (functional calculus of first order with identity and abstraction); extensions (higher order systems, and set theory); non-classical logics (temporal logic, modal logic, intuitionism, action logic). 2. Logic as meta language a) general syntax of formal and non-formal languages b) general semantics of the same c) general pragmatics of the same. We are not certain that earlier writers on the connection between psychoanalysis and logic have taken seriously the wide diversity of systems that is at our disposal. 2, PSYCHOANALYSIS CAN BE APPLIED TO LOGIC We want, before executing our program, to point out that the application of psychoanalysis to the mental make-up of the logician would be of the highest interest. In fact, Imre Herman, the Hungarian psycho- analyst, has carried out such an undertaking rather speculatively but in a way that deserves more attention than it received. His publications on the topic are mainly Hungarian however, and we know only of their existence by the references made to them by the late Dr. Cressot's article of 1956 in the Revue Frangaise de Psychoanalyse. some of his ideas have appeared recently in French in Psychoanalyse et Logique (Dendel 1978). Let us, only to stimulate interest in this work, make one remark similar to hts The formalist trend of meta mathematics, abandons Russell-Whitehead desire to unify logic and mathematics in a “unifying system" and tries only to derive the non-contradiction of the formal language of mathematics. Why this obsession with non-contradiction? The analyst will ask us to follow the genesis, back to childhood of the concepts of “assertion” and "negation". In ssertion", he will discover as its genetical basis, an incorporation of an attitude or a belief in the ego system; in" negation" he will see as its basis the rejection by the ego system of one attitude that is either attacked or fled. The attempt to prove that a system is non-contradictory is then, in its genetical sourceAPOSTEL, 5 (let the reader be attentive, and not commit the genetical fallacy according to which meaning is identical to origin; if so our remark itself would be meaningless) the attempt to show that our belief and attitude system does not contain ambivalences. And purely psychologically, the continuous attempt to show to oneself that no ambivalence is present, will (psychoanalytically) only occur when they are indeed present. Some- thing that would be a genetical anticipation of a reinforcement of a theory of Gédel would be present here (the proof that no ambivalence is present will never be achieved). We are not - let the logician not reject this remark, as we fear that he will do - doing logic here. We are looking for the genetic sources of the overwhelming urge to avoid the assertion and negation of the same proposition. We are the first to say however, that, however attractive this idea may be, the necessary experimental evidence for it is lacking. It could be shown, in some "psychology of science", that persons most involved with the discovery of non-contradiction proofs are or have been plagued by stronger ambivalences than others, Herman (according to Cressot) does also make the tantalising remark that the Russell-Whitehead attempt to complete reduction of mathematics to empty logical tautologies is a complete refusal of contact with reality while the construction of mathematics from its internal constructive action (intuitionism) is the indication of a strong introversion, The reader should observe,however, that these remarks, in their speculative form, are only made here, at the beginning of this paper to point out that the possibility of applying psychoanalytic concepts to metalogical schools, should be an argument in favour of executing the inverse operation, namely applying logic to psychoanalysis. The argument is weak; only a possibility of building bridges is shown. 3, A LOGICAL REFORMULATION OF FRIED-AGASSI'S PARADOX OF PARANOTA On page 4 of their book, Fried and Agassi present their "paradox" in four statements: 1, The paranoie (who has paranoia vera, a rare state, not to be confused with paranoid symptoms of other mental deviations) is logical. Indeed he is strikingly meticulously logical. 2. The paranoic perceives yell and correctly. 3. At times his fundamental assumptions are no worse than that of the alternative ones accepted by his society. 4, At times, the fundamental assumptions of the paranoic are integrative principles, which6 ‘APOSTEL make his image of the world an integrated one, better than the average (4-5). On their pages 69-74 the authors offer us an explanation for the paranoic illness. The paranoic has an indestructible fixation to one set of axioms that are his own private ones and that he cannot see as such but only identify with the public set of assumptions on the basis of which we all live. In his interesting book Sceptictam, Arne Naess defines the plurality of metaphysical systems as systems which, once adopted, define theory and proof, (inductive or deductive), together with fact (internal or external) and thus concludes that no metaphysical system can ever be refuted because it reinterprets the methods of refutation itself; in another interesting contribution (The Logic of Philosophy) Eric Weil makes the same remark for all important metaphysical systems. In fact, the paradigm hypothesis of Thomas Kuhn as pushed towards its extremes by Feyerabend tells us the same about all adult sciences. The paradigm that reigns over this science will not admit any contradicting facts. Fried and Agassido not mention Weil or Naess but it seems to us pretty certain that insight in the fact that the self-reinforcing character of paradig- mata to be found in Kuhn and Feyerabend has inspired Fried and Agassi to use a conception developed in the methodology of science as a tool to understand paranoia. If indeed, (and we find even more supporting evidence, with Naess and Weil in meta-philosophy), such systems function very well in everyday scientific life, why do they lead to suffering and anxiety in paranoia? The truly paradoxical nature of the state of affairs becomes very evident. Fried and Agassi use their concept of "£ixation" as the demarcation point between "paranoic" total systems and "normal" total systems, a concept of "fixation" that is equivalent or nearly equivalent to Piaget's "centration". The paranoic can no longer conceive total systems having other features than his own, He is the absolute opposite of anybody who, in a pluralistic fashion, utilises more than one system either simultaneously or in succession. This fixation is also called on page 82 "centrism" and explicitly compared with Piaget's concept. This use of "fixation" = "centration" or "centrism" gives us our hint to apply some logic. If we look into Piaget's works then the ‘concept of "centrism" is best understood by talking for a moment about classification systems. At certain ages, the child is already sufficiently developed to develop a classification, ordering a region completely. The classification hierarchy is complete and coherent. But - and this is a very important point if we look at Fried-Agassi's paranoia. the childAPOSTEL. 7 cannot yet conceive of a multiplicity of classifications; it remains centred on one, This has also some consequences for his logic (and this is really the reason why we insist upon the relation seen by Fried-Agassi between their own views and Piaget's ones). If the child cannot conceive a multiplicity of classifications of the same region, but is able to classify this region as such, certain operations are not possible. For instance: inclusion exists, complementation exists, union exists and even the transitivity of inclusion is established. But whenever we use intersection (the set of all elements both in one class and in another) and consider that the intersection between two classes is not empty, then it must be the case here that one of the two classes is completely included in the other. Indeed, in a correct classification, on each level the classes are disjoint. Only if we could have at least one more and different classification, could non-inclusive intersection be non zero (only then would part of a class be able to function as a class combining the different operations of unions and intersection with each other). Here having only one classification at our disposal we necessarily mst have. "If intersection K1 with K2 is not empty, then either Kl is included in K2, or K2 is included in Kl (if inclusion is transitive, this inclusion may be both indirect or direct). The distributivity principle changes also. Classically we have distributivity, if the intersection of a class Kl with the union of two classes K2 and K3, is equal to (intersect Kl, K2) union (intersect K2, K3). For the person who can only use one classification however the law is stronger and becomes "Kl intersect (K2 union K3) is either equal to (intersect K1, K2) or to (intersect Kl, K3). Piaget develops however his concept of partial Boolean algebra's (classifications without alternatives) only with reference to his stage of concrete operations. The paranoic, as explained by Agassi and Fried, has reached the stage of abstract formal reasoning. In fact he has at his disposal a complete deductive systen (if we understand our writers well). This means that he mst have the possibility in the concrete region to use multiple classifications (the set of his persecutors may be structured in many ways and he can easily go from one structure to the other if only the system as a whole remains preserved). Now we have the following problem: a) on the object language level, the paranoic has reached the last stage of development Piaget has thoroughly investigated8 APOSTEL. (in From the Logie of the Child to the Logie of the Adolescent) b) but on the meta level (where different formal systems should be available, comparable and eliminable) he only has one classification system at its disposal. This leads us to a suggestion that, as far as we are aware of, has not yet been made in the literature, Alfred Tarski has, in his Calculus of Systems developed a theory on the meta level, where deductive systems are treated as objects, and where unions, inclusions and intersection as well as complements of systems are considered. If we interpret Fried-Agassi well it is on the level of this calculus of systems that the paranoiac has no multiplicity of classifications at his disposal. As the reader can learn from Tarski's Logic, Semantics and Metanathematics (one of the chapters of which is dedicated to this calculus of systems), the algebra of systems is a Brouwerian lattice. Our proposal would be that the paranoiac on this meta level suffers from the impossibility to consider more than one subdivision of this Brouwerian set. Combining Tarski with Piaget and taking seriously the formal concepts of fixation and centrism, we thus offer the following hypothesis "the set of deductive systems of a paranoiac is Brouwerian pseudo-lattice for which the intersection is characterised by the two extra properties we just described for a systems that has only one possible classification of its domain at its disposal on the field of concrete objects." (But here the phenomenon occurs on the level of the system of systems.) It is interesting to see that degrees of fixation will correspond to approximations to pseudo-Brouwerian algebras. Let us for instance suppose that the person is able to form two different classifications instead of all possible classifications (yielding in Piaget's term "covariant classes". In this case K1 int(K2 union K3) without K2 including K3 or K3 including K2 is possible, as long as K2 exists in the first classification and K3 exists in a second classification. If a fourth class is introduced however, we shall again have the inclusion-clause valid with reference to this fourth class. This feature seems to give an interesting measure for the degree of fixation, in agreement with the centration or fixation hypothesis. This suggestion leads us to a proposal that could have some future: once the level of formal operation is reached (as it certainly is in the paranoiac), one can still by reapplying the hierarchy of semi-groups and semi-lattices that leads to Piaget's formal end point, continue the genetical hierarchy on the meta level, using a number of times theAPOSTEL 9 operation used by Tarski to be able to reason about deductive systems as objects. When the pre-operational features can be found here that are also found in the paranoiac, we have - we repeat - by combining views of Piaget, Tarski, Agassi and Fried, the possibility of continuing the Piagetian hierarchy and somewhere on these higher partial levels the para~ noiac system could be found. The fact that egocentrism, megalomania and persecutionary delusions are other typical symptoms of paranoia vera can either be derived from the postulate of a pre-operational (in Piaget's sense) system of systems (in Tarski's sense) or in the opposite direction, the pre-operational features of the system of systems can be derived from persecution, megalomania egocentrism. We examine these alternatives in the following paragraph. We may consider that egocentrism is the attitude consisting in knowing everything only with reference to its relations to the own person. Persecution delusion is the belief that everybody (at the limit everything) has a negative intention (tendency to destroy) one's own person. Megalomania is the tendency to believe that one’s own person is to be preferred to everything in the universe. These three definitions are only given with the following intention: to show that simple relation calculus (with reference to negative relations), epistemic logic (knowing and believing), preference logic (negative preference), and quantifiers (all, some) are sufficient and necessary tools to define some of the basis properties of paranoia vera. It is certainly true that the persecution delusion entails egocentrism and megalomania (if I believe that everything tends to destroy me, I am the most important person in the universe and I see everything only with respect to the relation it has to myself). It is also true that the persecution delusion entails that I have one unique and fixed theory about the universe (with possible variations regarding the relationships between the persecutors). Megalomania entails also ego- centrism and centrism, but we must take notice of the fact that positive megalomania (everything exists in order to favour my own personality) is as probable as negative megalomania, I do not know enough about paranoia vera to see if delusions of grandeur exist as often as delusions of persecution but both can exist together (I am persecuted because I am the10 APOSTEL most important thing in the universe or I am the most important thing in the universe because I alone am universally persecuted). Clinical facts show, so I suppose, that the coexistence is frequent if not universal, that oscillations between the two may occur, but that the basic form is negative centration because of the following reasoning: a) reality is fundamentally independent of myself; b) this is basically a negative relation; c) this relation being constant, the fact that I cannot dominate reality, may be generalised to the belief that everything by its very independence is hostile and for that reason persecutes me. The problem remains to understand why a person who presents, on the metalogical level, the type of theoretical structure we have called a unique and fixed Brouvetian pseudo logic, should necessarily have this content of his theory, It is clear that a meta logical feature does not entail anything about the content of the type of theory held (here the megalomania persecution delusion). We think that two answers might be give: a) the content of the theory implies the fixation or centration of the theory (the theory is self strengthening if it has the following property: if anything favourable occurs then this even is caused by the fact that something unfavourable has or will occur. This is said in so many words by Fried and Agassi; b) moreover, the presence of the ego being the only constant feature in all our experience perhaps we might make the following deduction: if a fixed theory is the only one we entertain about the universe, then this fixed theory must be about the relations of the rest of the universe to the only fixed presence in every possible theory and this is the ego. We attribute to this apparent argument only a plausibility value and would certainly not consider it to be a real deduction. Both interpretations of the relation between the meta theoretical feature and the object language feature seem to me to be compatible with the Fried-Agassi hypothesis and with what is known to me about paranoia. A selection containing most theories about paranoia may be found in Swanson is The Paranoid. We are of the opinion that much could be, gained by comparing our Piaget-inspired, formal remarks deduced from Fried-Agassi with two papers that appeared on artifical paranoia in Artificial Intelligence, by K.M. Colby, S. Weber and F.D. Hilf: and same authors with H. Kraemer, Turing-like Indistinguishibility Test for the Validation of a Computer Simlation of Paranoid Processes, AI, 3, 199-221. ‘The comparison will be the more interesting, the more affinities Coly recognises with A. Abelson's work on Psycho-Logic.APOSTEL M Abelson is precisely positively evaluated by the Fried and Agassi book we are using and his positive and negative relations among the concepts of his belief-stimulating languages could certainly help to relate the interpretations of Fried and Agassi to Piaget's work. In summary, Colby's approach to paranoia is the construction of a question-answering program that detects in the utterances of the interlocutor the positive, negative or neutral attitudes, only detects those features and that, in consequence reacts with given levels of anger and fear. The basic paranoic feature of the program is that it is more sensitive to (detects easier, faster and more frequently) the features in the interlocutor's assertions that are negative than any of the two other types of features and that it reacts a) with an increase both of fear and anger b) but if fear and anger stand at the same level, fear will have a stronger impact of his own responses. The interesting feature of the relation between Colby and Abelson is that, applying Abelson's rules (£.4.1 APB and BnC entails AnC: a positive to B and B negative to C entails a negative to C (the program may entail a certain fixed depth) analyse the assertions of the interlocutor, and that in this analysis the strength of the tendency to derive attitudes that entail InS (interlocutor negative to self) is highest. We are of the opinion that this computer simulation work does not give a very sophisticated theory about paranoia, but that it converges to a certain extent the features detected by Fried-Agassi: the meta rule "interprets as often and soon as possible an utterance of the other as expressing a negative attitude towards the self!" certainly implies, as does the fixation hypothesis of Fried-Agassi the existence of fixation on the meta level (and thus brings the Colby program also in contact with the pseudo-Brouwerian meta logic of the Piagetian paranoiac as we have seen ite 4. NON-CLASSICAL INDUCTIVE LOGIC AND PARANOIA We have stressed in our first pages that the relationship of psycho- analysis with formal logic should not commit the error of identifying logic with some specific part of it. We could show that non-classical logics are really involved in the precise elaboration of a theory of paranoid thinking. In fact we stated as much, But it would take up too much space to do so here. One example12 APOSTEL, may suffice: a) let us suppose that the paranoic person uses normal truth functional logic in his thinking b) let us moreover add, however, that the inductive logic of the person in question is not a normal inductive logic. If we use Carnap's brand of inductive logic (we do not agree with it, but we may use it here as an example) and if for us (as for him) in this context the probability of a sentence is measured by the sum of measures of the state-descriptions (possible worlds) in which it is true, then we can easily by "loading the dice", namely by giving different weights to different state descriptions manipulate the conclusions to which the person will come. Following either Fried~Agassi or Colby we can give higher measures a) to such state descriptions in which more negative relations and one negative argument predicate are attributed to the constant representing the self; b) or we can give higher measures to state descriptions in which the self is determined by attributes and relations while the other constants in the universe are only determined in so far as they relate to the self or we can do both. Applying even the rules of classical confirmation theory to a universe in which the measures have such features, we arrive by correct deductive reasoning and correct (in as far as we may speak about correct in the field of inductive logic) inductive logic to the conclusion of the paranoiac thinker. Even if such a procedure leads to a correct description of the deviant thought, it does not satisfy us as much as the characterisation of paranoic thinking by a pseudo-Brouwerian meta logic, or by the relations between the object-linguistic properties mentioned by Fried-Agassi and the meta linguistic characterisation we tried to elaborate. Insight is the possibility to describe in such a way that as few as possible of the properties and ad hoc. We feel that the combination of a classical deductive logic with a non-classical inductive logic explains some features of the diagnosis but that the internal unity of this proposal is not as high as the internal unity of the earlier one. 5. SOME LOGICAL COUNTERPARTS OF OTTO FENICHEL'S "PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF NEUROSES" This impressive treatise can, for obvious reasons, not be completely analysed in view of uncovering the logical structure that underlies it. But we shall take up a few selected topics that will perhaps encourage others to analyse, bearing logical structure in mind, the rest of it.APOSTEL 13 We are focusing then on 1) the structure of the mechanisms of defence 2) depression and mania 3) the structure of obsession and compulsion Even these three important topics cannot be exhaustively considered. We are only trying to show some structural properties. 5. A. THE STRUCTURE OF DEFENCE-MECHANISMS Let us distinguish in the personality three related but relatively independent parts, the ego, the id and the superego. Taken together they constitute the person. Formally we shall indicate them by I, E, SE and P. Each of these parts has attitudes towards external or internal objects. These attitudes we indicate with Abelson as positive (p), negative (n) or i (neutral). The total personality constituted by E, I and SE is P (the person). Logically we use the relation "to be a part" of (between the three structures and the personality). This relation, explicitly different from "being an element of" or "being included in" has been studied by Lesniewski and Goodman. The logical nature of SE, E and I, as well as of P is the status of individual objects. We insert the extra vocabulary we just defined in the functional calculus with abstraction and identity. Two tendencies are in conflict with each other (conflict indicated by c) if they belong to systems that have simultaneously positive and negative attitudes towards the same object. The entities mentioned can be conglomerated temporarily in larger wholes (for instance ego and superego can act as a whole and be the bearers of attitudes as a whole and the same is possible for ego and id or superego and ego). The ego, superego and id are not only characterised by attitudes but also by beliefs. To take an example BE (EnSE) would mean: the ego believes that it has a negative attitude towards the superego. The properties of the beliefs can be studied in any text about epistemic logic (e.g. Jaakko Hintikka's Knowledge and Belief). The properties of these attitudes, (they are from the logical point of view, relations) can be studied by means of the laws we are going to discover when expressing the mechanisms of defence. (We could have made our task easier if we had simply taken over the properties of n, 4 and p from the axion system of Abelson but we do not yet decide to do 80. We need also time because many processes have to be described. This14 APOSTEL concept of time can be studied in any temporal logic (e.g. Rescher and Orquart). Defences are actions of the ego. An example would be the following: the ego has a negative attitude towards the object (or process, or event, or property) x and the id has a positive one towards it. This situation produces after a certain time a) either that the ego does not know any longer that the positive attitude towards x exists in the id or b) that the ego takes a negative attitude towards the x c) or that the id abandons its positive attitude towards the x and takes up a posi- tive attitude towards y (that has certain properties in common with x, without being identical to it). The same laws are valid for the SE and I, All of them have the function to allow the personality P to have a consistent attitude towards objects. We did not yet introduce degrees for our attitudes. We can do so, using ordinal or cardinal numbers or using a many valued logic. The basic postulate of the psychoanalytic dynamics would then be: all subsystems of P will react in such a way that P as a whole can have an attitude with the highest possible index (if the I, E and SE are in conflict we accept the postulate that the index of the personality attitude goes down.) We shall measure the charge of the personality by the number and intensity of conflicts occurring in and between the attitudes of E, I and SE. The second fundamental postulate (very closely related to the first) is: "P has a tendency to have minimal charges". The blocking of the discharge of an attitude is expressed by the following fact: I has a positive attitude towards x; E has a negative attitude towards x; and these two relations have as a consequence that P either has a neutral or negative attitude towards x, while still the posi- tive attitude of I continues to exist; this is, as Fenichel describes it on page 143 of his treatise, the basic situation that causes pathogenic defences. As an aside remark we want to stress that using the language we use at the present moment, we can describe without introducing energies or quantitative charges the situational conditions for conflicts. Now we have sufficient preparation to describe the defences: 1 venial: Enx produces Ep(-(Ey) (y=x)): the negative attitude of the ego towards an x, produces a positive attitude of the ego towards the proposition that there is no such thing as an x. Various alternatives for this denial are mentioned: either the splitting of the ego in twoAPOSTEL a parts one them believing that there is an x, another of them rejecting its existence; or the replacement of the x by a y towards which the E can take a positive attitude and whose existence it then accepts. 2, Projection: Enx produces nxE (or rather BE (Enx) produces BE (xnE) 3. Introjection: Enx produces EnE (or, in more detail: EB (x is part of E, and this conviction produces in its turn: EnE), 4, Repression: Enx produces that for x itself and for all y connected to x, P has no attitude at all, or believes such to be the case. The relation with denial cannot be negated, but in denial the object de- nied is present in consciousness while in repression, we ought really to add that x is not present in E, In order to express this in our semi-formalism we should have an operator "think" and add the statement - (E Tx), but the replacement of E by P is already an indication. 5. Reaction formation: in order to express this mechanism we must intro- duce the concept of opposite of an object, or event, or predicate. Let this opposite (or opposites if we want to have a plurality) be the objects, properties or events that will ennihilate the first if they were simultaneously present). If distances (psychological distances, to be sure) can be defined on the field of objects, the opposites are those objects that are situated at maximal distance. The defense takes here the following form: Enx and Tpx produces Ep (ox): if the ego has a negative attitude and the id has a positive attitude towards x, then the ego develops a positive attitude towards the opposite of x. Note: For mechanisms 1, 4 and 5 we always have to add in the ante~ cedent of the rule defining them, the fact that the 1d has an opposite attitude towards the ego. We hope the reader will be willing to supply this extra condition that we did not add earlier to be able to increase the simplicity of the defense structure. 6. Undoing: We have already some structure on the field of objects, some structure on the field of attitudes and some structure on the field of beliefs. In order to express the mechanism of defense called "undoing"; Enx and Ipx have as consequence that P performs an action that is the opposite of the action that would have been performed were Ipx being taken over by E. Action logic is also at our disposition, and within action logic we can indeed define an action opposite to another one. (For action logic see J.i. Von Wright "Norm and Action’16 a APOSTEL Isolation: Enx and Ipx produces BE (-(Ey) (y = x) and (Er) (y Rx)) the ego believes that the x it rejects and that the id wants to intro- ject is completely isolated from everything else (there would exist no relations, so the E believes, between this x and the other contents of consciousness) . Regression: If the id has a positive attitude towards an object x, and the ego a negative attitude, then this produces attitudes of the ego belonging to its earlier stages of development or towards the object in its earlier stages of development or both. Here we cannot avoid using temporal relations, as we could not avoid oppositions be- tween objects or beliefs. But temporal logic, a non classical logic stands at our disposal. The mechanism could be described as follows (Af we use von Wright's T, in the sense of "later"). Enx and Ipx produces E'px, or Ep'x, or Epx', (for all the marked signs the following condition holds: ETE’, pTp' and xTx'). Fenichel finishes his list of defenses by attracting attention to the fact that most of the earlier mechanisms can be applied not to the objects but to the attitudes themselves and to affects. (Without being very certain, because Fenichel does not give a definition of this crucial term, we define an affect as an actual dated reaction towards an object that is not a functional or rational reaction but a feeling of pain or lust,) This introduction complicates our whole system once more but the structure p, n, 4, T applied not to attitudes but to affects can multiply our operations by applying them to a new field. We have, by our transcription of the defense mechanisms as given by Fenichel, presented a problem both to the psychoanalyst and to the logician. There is an obvious analogy between undoing, denial and negation and there is an equally obvious analogy between introjection and projection and the converse of a relation. In Piaget's system of logic, the non reversibility of actions is a sign of pre-operational- ity, as are also the non-composability of relations. The question we ask 4 are the psychoanalytic. relations presented here reducible to a smaller set in such a way that the ones still present as basic are characterised by their deviation from their prototypes in the intel- lectual field (as to associativity, composability, reversibility)? We do not answer, but the reader will, having noticed our way of describing: the types of defenses, be able to see that some of theAPOSTEL v7 defenses exclude composability or associativity or reversibility. We have used the set of attitudes, the set of actions, the set of simple and composite actors (ES, I and E or P), and the set of objects. Can structures be defined on these sets, using eventually temporality, and belief in such a way that they are approximations to the groups considered by Piaget? We assert that this can be done. Let us only give a certain example: n | p is a fully positive attitude of the total actor concerned towards the totality of the object concerned p . n is a fully negative attitude exhibiting the same completeness p' is a partially positive attitude (either not the whole actor or not the whole object is positively affected), and n' is a partial- ly negative attitude. It is certain that p entail p' and not conversely; that n entails n' and not conversely. But - in opposition to Aristotles' square of opposition, p and n do not exclude each other but produce some of the defense mechanisms, the same is valid for p' and n' and the diagonal relations behave analogously. ‘This is a very weak structure. It has however its equivalent in the field of objects, or actions. Only when it will be determined in what fashion the simultaneous occurrence of complete or partial opposites produce defense mechanisms, will it be possible to assert positively that an algebraic structure, different from but comparable to the genetic algebraic structures is present. Let us stress however (earlier logical analysts of psycho analysis, Domarus, Arieti and Matte Blanco not having done it) - that we need epistemic logics, action logics and time logics in order not to lose some of the essential features of the psychoanalytic defense mechanisms. ‘The concepts we are going to analyse in the pages that follow, are not general neurosis-producing mechanisms, but actual neuroses. 5. B Depression and Mania Perhaps we could venture to propose the general thesis: every neurosis and every psychosis is connected with one or more practical18 APOSTEL paradoxes the ego tries to overcome but, by trying to overcome them, it intensifies them. We say this because a remarkable analogy exists in this respect (not in other respects; the situations are very dissimilar) between depression and paranoia. Let us suppose that a person is unable to have positive attitudes towards any external object (person or thing) (a) but also depends com pletely for the attitudes he has towards himself (his narcissistic satis- factions) upon the attitudes the external world (persons and things) has towards himself (b) Pio, PpP}» OpP is the formula of the paradox. The practical paradox is very clear: the person cannot feel any positive attitude towards the objects he completely depends upon as to his self-evaluation. If this person did not commit a practical fallacy he could not have any hope to gain his om esteem by the reactions of beings he himself does not accept. The situation is accompanied by the fact that the ego is reduced to such a dependent state by strong attacks from the superego (so that that a second fallacy appears, in function of the status one attributes to the superego: if one considers it to be the introjec~ tion of the authorities of our childhood then precisely the superego should be rejected by the ego as the representative of part of this exter- nal world he cannot feel positive towards (so that the guilt, symptom of the superego attack, should disappear), and if one considers the superego as that what the ego tends to become (the ego ideal), then it is precisely that whichthe ego wants to become that reduces it to complete dependence upon the outside world . The two practical paradoxes we just described have as a consequence that, in oscillation, the ego behaves towards the external world with either strong withdrawal (an attitude it cannot consistently pursue be- cause it loses contact with its only source of defense against the superego attack), or strong hostility towards the external world (because no in- stance in the external world can offer the ego the total dedication and love it would need to restore a positive self evaluation), or complete aubservience towards the external world (that again makes it impossible to regain self esteem, because the ego has abandoned its independence, condi- tions of its self-appreciations). We can translate very easily this desperate situation into psycho- logic: (Ext indicates the external environment). 1. SEnE (1) 2. EnE (2)APOSTEL 3. 4, I 19 SE n I (by definition of SE and 1) and inversely (def) (3) Ep (Ext p E) (4) neither SE nor I can provoke a positive attitude of E towards E; by elimination only the Ext can do it) (Az) Epz implies that z belongs to Ext (if we had chosen to add intensity indices to the attitudes, then the attack of the super- ego would have been shown to be so strong that the self evalua- tion decreases to such an extent, that with great strength the ego concentrates itself on the only source that could give its self-evaluation a positive character. This is expressed by the fact that the only objects towards which the ego has a positive attitude are the external objects and also that all objects in the external world are so evaluated). If a z belongs to the external world it has no properties that makes the relation to the ego essential for it (by definition of the external world): (Az) (z is an element of Ext) implies that - (EP) such that P (2) and P (2) entails that R (2, ego) is a presupposition for the existence of such a z that (-(R(z, ego) implies - (eu) (uez). As a consequence of 4, 5 and 6: (Az) (z in Ext) implies Enz. The reader notices immediately that 7 is in contradiction with 4 and 5. This practical contradiction that we have transformed into a logical contradiction by using a few extra-postulates that are compatible with and even deducible from psychoanalytical theory, yields as its consequence a continual oscillation between attitudes but also a continued change of fixation on objects. In a certain sense one could claim that depression is the oppo- site of paranoia: we have not a fixation on one typical system but a continued change from one system classification of a region to another. Using the language we have used when talking about paranoia: we do not have to pass to the meta level, but we can remain on the object level and only note that we always use systems of classification either together or in oscillation, which as a consequence entails that the principle of non contri diction can no longer be applied (if simultaneity is the case) or that successively different classifications are used without the possibility to coordinate them to each other. ‘The vicariant classes (as Piaget calls them) cannot be constructed (the union of Awith CA - the union of B with complement of B is a sentence20 APOSTEL that has no meaning in depressed thinking because the fact that when the world is divided into A and its complement, it cannot be simultaneously divided into B and its complement - and what is said here about the uni- verse of discourse is naturally true for every single class in it). But we can see even more consequences of the situation we described: one way to try to get out of the contradiction and the oscillation would be to introject the external object so that its relation to the ego be- comes an essential part of the extemal objects, and so that the positive attitude wished for can be guaranteed. But the hostility of the SE has as a consequence that this introjection is condemed as a sadistic attack. As the SE was originally also an introjected entity, the demands of the environment meet simultaneoulsy the demands of the SE . SE nE introject (8) and En (SE + introject) (9). The struggle against the guilt provoked by the introjection 1s provoked by formula 8. 8 and 9 are consequences of the earlier statements because the introjection must be rejected (every external object being ambivalently felt as the only savoir and the hostile enemy). ‘The eventually occurring suicide may be of three types a) either it is an attack against the external world (killing oneself instead of destroying something or every thing in the external world b) or a last form of supplication to gain the favor of the extemal world (look what you have done to me: you must now love me) or c) an attack against the guilt provoking superego. It is interesting and important to notice that in other non-classical logics than the system of relations inspired by Abelson we are using here, some of the main features of depression can be expressed. Deontic logic is the system of logic in which obligations and permissions can be expressed. If we consider that @ person believes that he has contradictory obligations, then whatever he does he will be aware of the fact that he has acted against the rules. If these contradictory obligations are either universal or at least sufficiently central or sufficiently numer- ous and independent, then the consequence could follow that nothing is permitted or allowed anymore and, in subjective terms, that the person is and always has been and always will be guilty (the condemnation of the superego becomes then simply the statement that given the contradictory obligations every future action will be an action that will be not permitted).APOSTEL a In temporal logic we can express the difference between the past, the Present and the future. Let us now consider that the possibility to know that there is a future is lost, and that the thinking actor can only consi- der the past and the present. He cannot consider the present as prepara- tion of the future but simply as a nece ry failure and end point of the failures that were the pi t. Why failures? Because of the fact that in this past evolving trends originated that are cut of absurdly by the extemal and point that is the meaningless (while isolated) present. In modal logic the difference between necessary, possible and con- tingent states of affairs can be expressed. Let us suppose 8) that we have a partial modal logic in which the possible cannot be defined (and in consequence neither can the contingent be defined). b) ‘This entails that everything that is true is also necessarily true. Let us then suppose that knowing this to be the case, an agent knows that none of the state of affairs due to his actions are really due to these actions, but that they are necessarily true caused by the general principle of the system he is part of, This agent must believe himself to be simultaneously an agent and not an agent. We shall not claim that a complete picture of depression can be given only in deontic logic, or only in temporal logic or only in modal logic. How- ever the reader will be able to see that many features of the depressive state can be expressed by means of these three non classical logics. If we have understood what is depression, can we also understand what is mania? Certainly we can construct formal logics in which everything is allowed and nothing is forbidden, temporal logics in which only the future and the present exit and not the past, modal logics in which everything is possible and nothing is necessary. They will be neither more nor less contradictory than their earlier counterparts of a more negative brand: But shall this enable us to understand in some way the phenomenon of mania? Fenichel tells us (p. 408) that mania is much less understood than depression and indeed Freud's description of it as a state in which the ego dominates the superego (that even will have disappeared) is only the description in another language of the characteristics we mentioned in terms of permission, possibility or future. Why should manic-depressive psychoses or manic-depressive neuroses exist? Why should this oscillation occur? What should determine time and form of the different episodes? By the reduction of this oscillatory phenomenon to the general22 APOSTEL, rhythmical character of life, so that after a period of dominion of the superego necessarily a period of dominion of the ego must follow nothing is explained, because the specificity of these periodical oscillations is not reached. Not everybody is as a nonedeviant cyclothymic, and a deviant, cyclically manic depressive. We, who are not psychiatrists, must only come to the very limited conclusion that in the Fenichel treatise mania is not understood; that in our psychologic language we could de- scribe it as well as we described the depressive states; that it will be as contradictory and as multiple as the depressive states but that we do not yet understand why the negative attitude passes into the other one, and not see any psychological formula that would make this repeatedly occurring oscillation rationally intelligible. We do not yet understand mania. 5. _3 Obsession and Compulsion An example will be the best means to prepare our description of obsession. Let us consider the well known person who is obsessed by the idea of cleanliness and continually washes his hands. On one side this behavior manifests the continual fear of the id, and the command in the superego to avoid touching something that will soil these hands or can soil them. On the other side however the ritual is also the satisfaction of having done something that is invoked by the washing ritual. We could, to fix the mind, allude to the masturbation act. ‘The patient used to clean the hands before masturbating, and suc- cessively cleaned them again after masturbation. By the compulsion to repeat this ritual over and over again, as an ambiguous symbolic or metaphoric action, both the id and the superego find satisfaction in a sufficiently hidden way. Moreover, to take still further precautions to hide the real state of affairs, the type of desire that is under repression is itself taken as representing a type of repulsion towards more archaic desires. The geni- tal level is abandoned for the anal-sadistic level. A girl that did not use her bathtub because she was afraid that a spider could enter her anus, had developed this fear on the basis of the fear of a snake lying in her bed (a genital symbol had become an anal one). Logically the structure of the obsession and compulsion is a combi- nation of analogy and imperatives. ‘Typical for this remark are the threats "If you do not this (andAPOSTEL 23 then follows a nonfunctional act, e.g.: ordering certain aspects in a given way), then I (superego-id) shall cause the following catastrophe to occur (here the catastrophe in question and the id are both metaphorically represented). The description in psycho-logic can be of the following type. T neg x, SE, neg X, but also I px (and if indicators of strength are allowed, very strongly so). Then a formula of analogy of logical proportionality is allowed: xRy =yRz. 1. So first E p z but given the strength of the id content in its positive part: 2. time is introduced so that we get EpF (z) (E is positive to z in the future), accompanied or not by 3. E nu implies SE nu and I p v (where u ds another action symbolic of the avoiding of x, and v is an action that has great biological fear value — the destruction of the ego, or castration)- 4. zRt = zRl. And in con- clusion; Epl. This series of statement has only a conclusive value if analogy and identity of analogies is believed to be true by the various E and SE. If we consult once more Piaget's genetical schemata then we see that the use of logical proportionalities is again a characteristic of the last and formal stage. But ou the other side an extra rule of a much more primitive nature is introduced so that in fact a mixture of the formal stage and the preoperational stage is characteristic for the reasoning of the obsessional and compulsion neurosis. This is even more 80, because a) the central relation is also metaphorically represented by an action and b) because the anal-sadistic repression in which compulsion ends, is a metaphorical expression of the whole first sequence of meta~ phors. On p. 286 of Fenichel, the relation between classification (the stages of which are present in Piaget) and neurotic "typing" are noticed by Graber. The obsessional neurotic classifies objects very hastily with the aim of a) having very fast a classification system and b) avoiding certain possible classification criteria whose awareness is forbidden b) but given the haste of the whole procedure the obsessional neurotic 4s not certain of his own classifications and may easily mix more than one of them together. If we consider this type of classification, connected with compulsion neurosis we encounter, as in paranoia a centration and a fixation. Then, this time the centration has not as its object a complete classification system but a certain number of classifying criteria that are not allowed to be used. The class of classifications is more incomplete but it must24 APOSTEL, be negatively defined. The uncertainty of the classifications is ex- Pressed by the fact that either many different classifications (without the prohibited criteria) are used in succession or, to the contrary, in the same classification system different sets of criteria are used going from one item to another. In general these hybrids can be formally studied (though they have not yet been in the school of Geneva), but they are interesting new "creatures" offering themselves to the mind, and coming from a realm where we would not have expected to find them, Fenichel (195-200) dedicates 5 pages to the thought of the obsessional neurotic, He notes a) great generality and abstractness in their think- ing (avoiding the concrete object that its many features could contain some of the forbidden criteria of classification and compel one to take them into account) and b) the stress on the reality and power of words. An interesting example of obsessional thinking can be found in the follow- ing case (Fenichel, p. 297) to which we can add one encountered personally. A person had to think for a very long time every time he went through a door whether the central feature of the door is the empty space or the piece of wood filling it. Analysis shows that this means (by analogy), "Is the essential for man manhood or femininity (the active or the passive)?" This means finally, "Am I a man or a woman?" Another person, whenever confronted with any kind of intellectual work was paralyzed by his desire to gather as many important facts as possible, by reading or questioning, accompanied by the desire to get a clear picture of the problem situation and think it through deductively before consulting other experts or books. Analysis shows that his jesitation was linked to his being a transvestite, and thus wondering whether he was a man or a woman, We add these two examples in order to show how doubt compulsions can by very different means (the door situation or the wavering between empiricism and rationalism) express metaphorically the same situation. We think by now that we have given sufficient arguments in ravor or our theory, claiming that the logical analysis of neurotic as well as of Psychotic thinking may teach us much about their internal mechanisms. Moreover,we were able to enrich in a small way the pre-logics of Piaget with some pseudo-logics and we were also able to show that classical lo- gic is really not sufficient to do the type of work that is useful here. 6. Some critical remarks about the use of logical analysis by Domarus, Arieti and Matte-Blanco. Although we have ourselves in earlier publications used the work ofAPOSTEL 25 these authors, we are impressed at the present moment by the following facts. Arieti. following von Domarus uses exclusively cl. describe the mental state of his patients. The following rule (K1 included in K2 and K3 included in K2, entails KI = K3; vonDomarus-Arieti) was according to them typical for schizophrenic thinking and the fact that a direct relation was idential to its converse played the same central role for Matte-Blanco's approach to schizophrenia. Matte Blanco does indeed use relation logic but remains still within the classical field both in his articles and in his very conceptual book The Infinite and the Unconscious. For reasons explained before we think this ie not enough. Moreover, while it is possible, in a normal netalanguages to derive von Domarus' result from Matte Blenco's (in fact thie we did in the paper quoted) they destroy by means of these extremely strong rules 6 logic in order to nearly all the logical structure man is capable of using. ‘The question remains how to explain that schizophrenic patients, far away as their code may be from ours, are still, when extremely carefully studied, able to communicate. The acceptance in someone's thinking of the von Domarus- Arieti principles would, as far as we can see,not only destroy time and space, but also every form of communication. This made us abandon in 1970 the attempt to continue the logical study of neurotic and psychotic lan- guages. But now, having seen Fried and Agassi, 1 realise that after all much can be done by means of small modifications in well known structures. This I would consider the conclusion of this short paper, hoping that others, both psychiatrists and logicians, will continue the work.