Bion, W.R., Cogitations. Edited by Francesca Bion. London: Karnac Books (1992), pp. 154-6
The fate of the heliocentric theory
First I must draw attention to the uncertain fate of various ideas often well expressed and established in their time. Such a one is the heliocentric theory of the earth’s movements, which was put forward by Aristarchus of Samos and attested by Archimedes and Plutarch. It appears to have ‘disappeared’ – as far as any practical influence it had – until it was put forward again nearly two thousand years later by Copernicus. This fact merits attention by any scientist: here we have a hypothesis that we now suppose to be true because it is attested by the correlation of many findings. It could have been verified by observation, yet it was completely displaced by another hypothesis. It is true that the equipment did not then exist for any profound verification, but this does not explain the establishment of a geocentric theory unless we assume the importance of a phenomenon to which I shall draw attention later, but which I shall not anticipate now. (The observational equipment lacking telescopes meant that verification was carried out by techniques that favoured the geocentric view and did nothing to support the heliocentric view in a way that made public-ation possible, and so denied the heliocentric view the support of ‘common’ sense.)
Relationship between cosmology and phantasy
The lack of means for establishing the reality of the earth’s movement round the sun as a factual counterpart of the heliocentric theory meant that there was freedom to entertain views that appeared to be supported by the observations available to the ordinary individual, and at the same time enabled those observations to correspond with certain classes of internal phantasy, and for certain classes of internal phantasy to be externalized to the exclusion of others. Or I should say that certain phantasies could then be externalized by virtue of the geocentric cosmology, leaving others to be given some different outlet. This state of affairs is common to all cosmologies and not simply to those existing during the dominance of a particular school of thought. I wish to emphasize that while it is true that internal phantasies play a very big part in supporting a given scientific view, or even in precipitating its adumbration, the traffic is two-way, and the view that the community holds on what it quite reasonably regards as scientific grounds dictates what phantasies are to be externalized in the prevalent cosmology, and what phantasies are to achieve some other outlet. A little thought will show the seriousness of this situation.
Consequences
Let us suppose – and what follows is only intended to be a postulate – that the geocentric view makes it easier to externalize a phantasy of the superiority of the all-providing breast or mother. Then the phantasy of the dominance of the male would need to find a means of externalization in some activity – scientific, political, aesthetic or religious – that lent itself to such externalization.
My object is to indicate that in addition to the obvious importance of establishing correct methodology because only in that can we approximate to confidence in the kind of knowledge our methods win for us and so achieve a corresponding and proportional freedom from errors that might be disastrous – there is the fact that our methods are prey to forces derived from a class of phenomena of which little is known but which it is very much the business of psycho-analysts to study. I refer to the phenomena associated with the need to establish a particular scientific view for the greater ease in externalization of one particular class of phantasies, and the further associated phenomena that derive from existent cosmology – the phantasies to which it allows an outlet in externalization, and the phantasies which its existence compels to seek some other outlet of externalization. I suggest that there is a vested interest in the maintenance of an existent cosmology, or for that matter any existent scientific deductive system, which derives from manifold sources but with only two of which I wish to concern myself here. One is scientific and realistic – as for example that seen in the maintenance of Newtonian Laws even after the behaviour of Mercury’s perihelion had shown them to be inadequate, but there was no Einstein to propound a relativity theory to take their place – and the other is emotional and relates to group and individual phantasies. It is notorious that there is the strongest resistance to the upsetting of an established scientific deductive system, even though that system was itself feared, hated, and opposed at its inception.