A Reconstruction of the Freudian Unconscious :: Argumentative Psychology Psychological Papers

A Reconstruction of the Freudian UnconsciousABSTRACT This newsprint sketches a reconstruction of the Freudian unconscious, as well as an financial statement for its existence. The strategy followed sidesteps the extended debates about the validity of Freuds methods and conclusions. People are argued to have, as ideal types, two fundamental vogues of fulfilling their desires engagement with existence and wishful thinking. The first gear mode acknowledges the constraints reality imposes on the satisfaction of desires, while the second mode ignores or denies these constraints, inasmuch as they threaten to make such satisfaction unattainable or unfeasible. The more aware one is that wishful thinking is further that, the less effective it becomes. Wishful thinking thus requires an unconscious it is inimical to a clear, complete and unambiguous acknowledgment of its own status. The unconscious is later reconceptualized in non-Cartesian terms it is largely constituted by semantic p henomena forms of mold which would conceal their meaning up to now if the full light of attention, Cartesian consciousness or introspection were cast upon them.If wishful thinking is an integral part of mental life, philosophers and others want to educate humanity will have to proceed very other than from what would have been appropriate had rational thought and action been the only gettable option for satisfying desires.Mankind cannot bear too much reality sketch for a reconstruction of the Freudian unconscious.Freud and his legacy remain controversial. though often pronounced dead, they refuse to die. This paper is not meant as a wholesale defence of Freud. Its aim is limited to show that any suitable theory of mind will have to posit something approximately comparable Freuds notion of the unconscious. It can also be read as a schematic statement of what I think must minimally be salvaged from Freuds notion of the unconscious. (1) Though Freud may need revision radical revi sion, even a wholesale rejection of his thought would cripple our ability to understand ourselves and separately other. If philosophy would needs educate humanity, it should first let itself be educated, among others, by Freud and his legacy.The wish is father to the thought. It is commonly acknowledged that when people cannot satisfy their desires by controlling reality, they engage in wishful thinking.In this paper I try to systematise the distinction between the two modes of dealing with desires the pragmatic mode and (for lack of a better term) wishful thinking. They form the two ends of a continuum, not a dichotomy