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 …
Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are not a subscriber, please click here to read about membership. All our articles have been written recently by experts in their field, more than 95% of them university professors.