R. D. Laing, The Voice of Experience

Daniel Burston (Duquesne University); Gavin Miller (University of Glasgow)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Nicole Kennedy (University of Newcastle), Gina Lyle (University of York), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Andrew Radford (University of Glasgow), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University), Sean Seeger (University of Essex)

Domains

Psychoanalysis

Dates

First circulation or publication 1982

Places

Scotland (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Treatise

Resources

The Voice of Experience is a partial return to the lucidity and rigour of Laing's earlier work, and a welcome contrast to the reckless speculation and disorganisation of The Facts of Life. Laing issues a strong philosophical warning against the dominance of an objectivising, scientific gaze, and returns – cautiously, this time – to the possibility that there may be some validity to experiences that seem patterned on pre-natal “experiences”.

The first part, set out with Laing's former vigour and style, resembles the critique of scientism, or the unwarranted imposition of scientific methodology on non-scientific domains, mounted by philosophers such as Mary Midgely and John Searle. Like Searle, Laing believes that contemporary scientific (or “scientistic”) “knowledge” downgrades, and even tries to eliminate, the validity and reality of subjective experience. Echoing Edmund Husserl in The...

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1130 words

Citation: Burston, Daniel, Gavin Miller. "The Voice of Experience". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 August 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16857, accessed 13 December 2025.]