Because of the central involvement of emotion regulation in psychological health and the role that implicit (largely unconscious) processes appear to play in emotion regulation, implicit emotion-regulatory processes should play a vital role in psychological health. We hypothesised that implicitly valuing emotion regulation translates into better psychological health in individuals who use adaptive emotion-regulation strategies. A community sample of 222 individuals (56% women) who had recently experienced a stressful life event completed an implicit measure of emotion regulation valuing (ER-IAT) and (...) reported on their habitual use of an important adaptive emotion-regulation strategy: cognitive reappraisal. We measured three domains of psychological health: well-being, depressive symptoms, and social adjustment. As hypothesised, individuals who implicitly valued emotion regulation exhibited greater levels of psychological health, but only when they were high in cognitive reappraisal use. These findings suggest that salutary effects of unconscious emotion-regulation processes depend on its interplay with conscious emotion-regulation processes. (shrink)

This volume is a state-of-the-art review of the evidence and theory supporting the existence and significance of automatic processes in our daily lives, with chapters by the leading researchers in this field today.

This article extends concepts from Vygotsky's sociohistorical psychology to explain unconsciousness. Freud's conception of the unconscious is criticized for minimizing the importance of social and cognitive aspects of unconsciousness. In contrast, sociohistorical psychology explains unconsciousness as emanating from social values. These social values organize the manner in which we perceive people, and therefore account for oversights and distortions in our perception of self and others. Implications for overcoming unconsciousness are also discussed according to sociohistorical psychological principles.

There is a 'philosophers' assumption that there is a problem with the very notion of an unconscious mental state.The paper begins by outlining how the problem is generated, and proceeds to argue that certain conditions need to be fulfilled if the unconscious is to qualify as mental. An explanation is required as to why we would ever expect these conditions to be fulfilled, and it is suggested that the Freudian concept of repression has an essential role to play in such (...) an explanation. Notoriously this concept brings with it a further puzzle: it looks as though repression serves a purpose, and so requires an agent to execute this purpose, a repressor. Paradox is avoided only if repression is viewed in biologicalfunctional terms.The result is that the notion of the unconscious is saved from the a priori objections often levelled at it by philosophers.This still leaves considerable theoretical work to be done by psychological science. (shrink)

In spite of extensive research on theory of mind, lay theories about the unconscious have scarcely been investigated. Three questionnaire studies totaling 689 participants, examined to what extent they thought that a range of psychological processes could be unconscious. It was found that people are less willing to countenance unconscious processes in themselves than in others, regardless of the time period considered – present, past or future. This is especially true when specific experience-like situations are envisioned, as opposed to considering (...) the question in abstract or generic terms. In addition, the notion of unconscious psychological processes is resisted for certain domains in particular: intending, sensing, believing, and thinking. We interpret this pattern by positing the existence of two conceptions about the unconscious that are differentially applied according to circumstances: one originating in prevalent social representations about the unconscious, the other based on self-model of the person as an intentional actor. (shrink)

Paul Katsafanas presents a clear, systematic study of Nietzsche's moral psychology. He analyzes Nietzsche's distinction between conscious and unconscious mental events, explains the nature of a type of motivational state that Nietzsche calls the 'drive', and examines the connection between drives, desires, affects, and values. He explores Nietzsche's account of willing unity of the self, freedom, and the relation of the self to its social and historical context. And he argues that Nietzsche's account enjoys a number of advantages over (...) the currently dominant models of moral psychology--especially those indebted to the work of Aristotle, Hume, and Kant--and considers the ways in which Nietzsche's arguments can reconfigure and improve upon debates in the contemporary literature on moral psychology and philosophy of action. (shrink)

Studies have shown that a person can consciously believe that they value racial equality and desire not to perpetuate racial stigmas, but unwittingly exhibit racist attitudes and beliefs. In order to explain this discrepancy between conscious beliefs and behavior, scholars have turned their attention to unconscious racial prejudice. One approach that is gaining wide acceptance is the Implicit Bias Model, which appeals to distinct implicit and explicit cognitive processes, coupled with an account of the ways in which people unconsciously internalize (...) widespread stereotypes and stigmas. This article claims that although the Implicit Bias Model is in many respects useful, it leaves out a central aspect of unconscious racial prejudice: the underlying motivations and incentives for harboring racist attitudes and beliefs, which generate psychological resistances to knowing about or changing prejudices. A more complete account of unconscious racial prejudice can be developed by turning to theories of active ignorance, which contribute to what this article calls the Resistance Model. (shrink)

Despite two centuries of research, the human unconscious remains a vast, virtually uncharted territory in the field of psychology. Further understanding of the unconscious mind is crucial, since it is from this wellspring that the totality of human experience arises in all its complexity and power. Clinical psychology discovers the origins of behavioral disorders by examining historical and medical data, but the precise synthesis of these determinants is only now being discovered. In The Psychology of the Unconscious (...) William L. Kelly presents an overview of the lives and works of four major contributors to our present knowledge of the unconscious: Anton Mesmer, Pierre Janet, Sigmund Freud, and Carl Gustav Jung. Kelly examines the fascinating careers of these giants as well as the major themes of their research, including the use of hypnosis to treat hysteria and the relation of the symbolism of dreams to unconscious forces. Revealing the all-too-human elements at work behind the myths, Kelly recounts the difficulties early psychotherapy had in making itself a respectable branch of science and the infighting that led finally to a personal and professional break between Freud and Jung. After presenting the major themes in the work of the early experimentalists, Kelly moves on to a discussion of important recent findings in five major areas of research into the unconscious: mind-body (psychosomatic) illnesses; sleep disorders; dream therapy; hypnosis; and parapsychology. While the legitimacy of such allegedly paranormal phenomena as clairvoyance, psychokinesis, and precognition has long been contested and remains controversial still, their study continues to fascinate modern researchers. Unique in its introductory yet thorough discussion and analysis of the history and development of theories of the unconscious, this highly readable volume provides an accessible synthesis of the psychology of the unconscious and suggests future developments. As the human species enters the twenty-first century, along what divergent paths on the "royal road" to the unconscious will psychology take us? Various researchers may offer different answers, but on one thing they all agree, given the earlier lessons learned from Mesmer, Janet, Freud, and Jung: a heightened knowledge of the unconscious can only mean an improved understanding of human behavior. (shrink)

Since we explain behavior by ascribing intentional states to the agent, many philosophers have assumed that some guiding principle of folk psychology like [Intentional States and Actions] must be true. [Intentional States and Actions]: If A and B are different actions, then the agents performing them must differ in their intentional states at the time they are performed. Recent results in the physiology of vision present a prima facie problem for this principle. These results show that some visual information (...) that guides spatial manipulation and fine motor control is unavailable for verbal report. Plausibly, this information is not consciously available to the agent, and as such, not available to inform the content of intentional states. Thus, it is hard to see how every difference in action is subject to intentional explanation, as [Intentional States and Actions] requires. I articulate the prima facie problem and argue that the most plausible solution requires us to reject [Intentional States and Actions]. (shrink)

This paper reviews the history of psychological investigations of unconscious perception and summarizes the current status of experimental research in this area of investigation. The research findings described in the paper illustrate how it is possible to distinguish experimentally between conscious and unconscious perception. The most successful experimental strategy has been to show that a stimulus can have qualitatively different consequences on cognitive and affective reactions depending on whether it was consciously or unconsciously perceived. In addition, recent studies of patients (...) undergoing general anaesthesia have shown that the effects of stimuli perceived unconsciously during surgery can last for approximately 24 hours. Taken together, the results of these recent psychological investigations provide empirical support for the importance of unconsciously perceived information in determining cognitive and affective reactions. (shrink)

Ian Parker has been a leading light in the fields of critical and discursive psychology for over 25 years. The Psychology After Critique series brings together for the first time his most important papers. Each volume in the series has been prepared by Ian Parker and presents a newly written introduction and focused overview of a key topic area. Psychology After the Unconscious is the fifth volume in the series and addresses three central questions: - Why is (...) Freud's concept of the unconscious important today? - Does language itself play a role in the creation of the unconscious? - How does Lacan radicalize Freud's notion of the unconscious in relation to cultural research? The book provides a clear explanation of Freudian and Lacanian accounts of the unconscious. It also highlights their role in offering a new way of describing, understanding and working with the human subject in clinical settings and in cultural research. Part One shows how the unconscious is elaborated in Freud's early case studies in Studies on Hysteria, while Part Two focuses on Lacan's re-working of the unconscious and its relationship to language and culture in his influential public seminars. The book also provides access to key debates currently occurring in Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, exploring both the clinical dimension and the consequences for psychological and cultural research. Psychology After the Unconscious is essential reading for students and researchers in psychology, psychosocial studies, sociology, social anthropology and cultural studies, and to psychoanalysts of different traditions engaged in academic research. It will also introduce key ideas and debates within critical psychology to undergraduates and postgraduate students across the social sciences. (shrink)

This paper aims to analyze Pierre Janet’s interpretation of Maine de Biran’s notion of the “unconscious” through a comparative study between L’automatisme psychologique (1889) and some Biranian writings devoted to the problem of pure affections. The objective is to question whether Janet’s psychological reading of this very notion had been faithful to Biran’s intentions, and to understand what kind of Biranism Janet is referring to when dealing with the problem of the unconscious.

This paper addresses the unconscious dimension as articulated in Carl Jung's depth psychology and in Gilles Deleuze's philosophy. Jung's theory of the archetypes and Deleuze's pedagogy of the concept are two complementary resources that posit individuation as the goal of human development and self-education in practice. The paper asserts that educational theory should explore the role of the unconscious in learning, especially with regard to adult education in the process of learning from life-experiences. The integration of the unconscious into (...) consciousness becomes a constitutive part of subject-formation and self-knowledge, which in turn serves as a basis for experiential self-education. (shrink)

This important book examines how the growing field of cybernetic psychology - the study of the creative complexity of the mind - can be applied to a range of different realms, tapping into the unconscious potential within us all. Cybernetic psychology integrates theories from various schools of thought, bringing them together in one unified theory. First developed and described by Danish author and psychotherapist Ole Vedfelt. It can be used in therapeutic practice, in relation to learning and pedagogics, (...) and as a tool for better leadership. The 15 chapters within this volume apply the theory to these as well as other areas, including ecology, creativity, mindfulness and scientific enquiry itself. Insightful and wide-ranging, the book will appeal to psychotherapists and those working within mental health, as well as students and researchers across Education, Psychology and beyond. (shrink)

This book describes the relationship of unconscious processes to the leading models of psychological study and practice. The author provides a concise and scholarly critique of the psychoanalytic, cognitive, humanistic and dissociation models of human thought and behavior, focusing on the role of the unconscious.

This book offers a state-of-the-art review of the evidence and theory supporting the existence and the significance of automatic processes in our daily lives.

In his new book, Paul Katsafanas aims to offer “a comprehensive account” of Nietzsche’s “analysis of the human self” in order to “uncover Nietzsche’s moral psychology”. The goal is admirable, and The Nietzschean Self has considerable merit. On the whole, it is well organized and clearly written, and some of the interpretive theses Katsafanas advocates present an intriguing countercurrent to some of the most popular views in contemporary Nietzsche scholarship. For example, Katsafanas argues that “Nietzsche does not deny the (...) causal efficacy of the will,” and that “Nietzschean unity refers to a relation between drives and conscious thought: unity obtains when the agent’s attitude toward her own action is... (shrink)

This edition includes a substantial new preface by the author, in which he discusses repression, determinism, transference, and practical rationality, and offers a comparison of Aristotle and Lacan on the concept of desire. MacIntyre takes the opportunity to reflect both on the reviews and criticisms of the first edition and also on his own philosophical stance.

Unavailable for many years, this edition presents the original English translation of Jung's most famous and influential work. It is a key text for the study of the formation of Jung's ideas and for understanding his personal and psychological condition during this crucial time.

Unconscious knowing : psychoanalytic evidence in support of a radical epistemic view -- The limits of rationality : vagueness, a case study -- Agency "me"-ness in action -- The placebo effect : psychoanalytic theory can help explain the phenomenon -- Explanations and conclusions.

It could be argued that mythology dramatizes aspects of our relationship with potent forces of which we have little understanding and over which we have little control. Moreover, many of these forces are less concrete than the forces of nature and arise from an apprehension of our existential predicaments, our interpersonal vulnerability and the intensity of our own psychological pain. This paper argues that in many contemporary discourses this territory is referred to more neutrally as ‘the unconscious'. Within this framework, (...) the Freudian interpretation of the unconscious is explored, as is the use of mythology to disguise deep, fear inducing aspects of the unconscious by expressing them in ways that are less threatening. In particular, the myth of Oedipus and its Freudian interpretation is examined together with the divergent opinions of Freud, Adler and Jung regarding the unconscious. The paper continues to examine the difficulty that modern ‘science' has had in reconciling contemporary and past views on the unconscious, viewing the unconscious as more of an information processing system. The paper proceeds to discuss different ways of how meaning is encoded into language and how it can affect people on an unconscious level. Jung's concept of the collective unconscious is briefly examined, particularly the notion that the collective unconscious is "a separate reality with its own autonomous existence". The use of psychedelic substances by various psychological professionals is briefly commented on, as well as their use in shamanism.Also discussed is how the unconscious serves as a mythic entity in contemporary psychology, with the ability to invoke feelings of fascination at the implication of "something powerful, mysterious and beyond our control". Within this context, Bynum's work on "the African unconscious" is examined through the lens of paleoanthropological data, healing rituals and Jung's experiences in Africa, and how these contribute to a uniquely African viewpoint on the subject of the unconscious. The paper concludes that although the unconscious has been conceptualised differently by many different scholars across time, it continues to point "to profound existential truths about the nature of human life". (shrink)

This paper offers both a phenomenologically psychological and phenomenologically transcendental account of the constitution of the unconscious. Its phenomenologically psychological portion is published here as Part I, while its phenomenologically transcendental portion will be published in the next volume of this journal as Part II. Part I first clarifies the issues involved in Husserl's differentiation of the respective contents and methodologies of psychological and transcendental phenomenology. On the basis of this clarification I show that, in marked contrast to the prevailing (...) approach to the unconscious in the phenomenological literature, an approach that focuses on the emotive and aesthetic factors in the descriptive account of the constitution of an unconscious, there are cognitive factors that have yet to be descriptively accounted for by phenomenological psychology. Part I concludes with a phenomenologically psychological account of the role these cognitive factors play in the constitution of an unconscious. Part II will show how Jung's claims regarding a dimension of unconscious contents that lacks genealogical links to consciousness proper, that is, the "collective unconscious, " can be phenomenologically accounted for if Jung's methodological differentiation of empirical and interpretative approaches to the unconscious is attended to and such attention is guided by the phenomenologically transcendental critique of the emotive and aesthetic limitations of both the Freudian and heretofore Husserlian accounts of the descriptive genesis of something like an unconscious. (shrink)

『철학대계』의 주관정신철학은 헤겔의 철학적 심리학이 개진되는 곳이며, 제1부인 ｢인간학｣에서 헤겔은 영혼이라는 주제 아래 마음이라는 대상을 그것의 선-반성적이고 비-의식적인 존재의 차원에서 다룬다. 헤겔은 또한 광기(Verrücktheit)를 영혼 발전의 핵심 단계로 주제화하면서 여러 정신병리적 현상들을 비의식적 자아와 의식적이고 이성적인 자아의 모순적 병존 및 비의식적 자아의 주관적 내면으로의 퇴행에서 기인하는 것으로 해명한다. 헤겔의 광기론은 이렇게 인간의 마음이라는 실체를 비의식적 요소와 의식적 요소 사이의 역동적 갈등 관점에서 다룬다는 점 그리고 또 퇴행의 측면에서 정신병리적 현상들을 다룬다는 점에서 프로이트 정신분석학의 통찰을 공유하는 것으로 평가할 수 있다. 그러나 (...) ｢인간학｣에서 헤겔이 시도하는 것은 정신병리적 현상에 대한 의학적 설명이 아니라 ‘철학적’ 해명이기 때문에 헤겔의 광기론을 프로이트의 정신분석학을 준거점으로 삼아 이해하는 것은 적절하지 않다. 본고는 이러한 문제의식하에 헤겔의 광기 분류를 당대 정신의학자인 피넬의 광기 분류와 비교 분석하면서 헤겔의 광기론 및 무의식론은 인륜성 이론을 중심으로 한 정치철학적이고 역사철학적인 지평 위에서 이해되어야 한다고 주장한다. (shrink)

This article presents the position for a Psychoanalytic Discursive Psychology. This position combines two elements: an action-theory of language, derived from Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, and a revised Freudian concept of repression. According to Wittgenstein and most contemporary discursive psychologists, language is to be understood as action, rather than being assumed to be an outward expression of inner, unobservable cognitive processes. However, a critical approach demands more than an interactional analysis of language acts: it requires an analysis of ideology. Because (...) what is left unsaid can be as ideologically important as what is said, there is a need to investigate socially reproduced unconsciousness. This means taking the notion of repression seriously. Whereas Freud imagined repression to be an inner psychic process, it can, by contrast, be seen as an activity that is constituted within everyday language. In this respect, language is fundamentally both expressive and repressive. The social and psychological significance of a Psychoanalytic Discursive Psychology are discussed. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article defends Charles Peirce's “doctrine of immediate perception.” This realistic view holds that conscious agents, due to the work of unconscious mind, directly perceive the world and often know objects, events, and persons as they truly are, independently of how we might prefer to think of them. The doctrine provides a promising alternative to more recent views insisting that all experience of the world and other persons is ineluctably mediated by language, along with the categories and biases language (...) inevitably imposes. Peirce's view is further explicated in terms of what neuroscientists now call the “new” unconscious and supported by recent work in both neuroscience and empirical psychology, especially experiments involving infants. The article supports the conclusion that, while much experience is mediated by language, direct access to a world that informs and often surprises us persists throughout conscious experience. (shrink)

• Examines the Oldawan, the Ancient Soul of Africa, and its correlation with what modern psychologists have defined as the collective unconscious • Draws on archaeology, DNA research, history, and depth psychology to reveal how the biological and spiritual roots of religion and science came out of Africa • Explores the reflections of our African unconscious in the present confrontation in the Americas, in the work of the Founding Fathers, and in modern psychospirituality The fossil record confirms that humanity (...) originated in Africa. Yet somehow we have overlooked that Africa is also at the root of all that makes us human--our spirituality, civilization, arts, sciences, philosophy, and our conscious and unconscious minds. In this African-revisioned look at the unfolding of human history and culture, Edward Bruce Bynum reveals how our collective unconscious is African. Drawing on archaeology, DNA research, history, depth psychology, and the biological and spiritual roots of religion and science, he demonstrates how all modern human beings, regardless of ethnic or racial categorizations, share a common deeper identity, both psychically and genetically, connected with a primordial African unconscious. Exploring the beginning of early religions, spirituality, and mysticism in Africa, along with philosophy, art, and science, the author looks at the Egyptian Nubian role in the rise of civilization and the emergence of Kemetic Egypt, revealing how and why ancient Egypt was separated from the rest of Africa in the Western mind--despite it being the most sophisticated expression of the Mother Continent. He examines the Oldawan, the Ancient Soul, and its correlation with what modern psychologists have defined as the collective unconscious. Revealing the spiritual and psychological ramifications of our shared African ancestry, the author examines its reflections in the present confrontation in the Americas, in the work of the Founding Fathers, and in modern Black spirituality, which arose from African diaspora religion and philosophy. By recognizing our shared African unconscious, the matrix that forms the deepest luminous core of human identity, we can learn to see and feel that the differences between one person and another are merely superficial and ultimately there is no real separation between the material and the spiritual. (shrink)

This book explores the causes behind Trump's victory in the 2016 US Presidential election and asks how a psychoanalytic understanding of the social unconscious can help us plot a new direction for the future in US politics and beyond. It first describes the social/psychological threads that are the now of American culture. Seeds of hope are discovered through an in-depth examination of the American idea of excess as represented by Trump, its archetypal figure. Essential psychoanalytic ideas such as, the fundamental (...) human condition of living with both individual and social unconscious, the psychic feminine principal, the notion of psychic valence and more are illustrated as psychic integrations necessary for America to move towards a redemptive positive social change. This book combines feminist exploration with playful illustrative imagery and mythic story-aiming to awaken minds across generations. America's Psychological Now is key reading for psychoanalysis, psychologists, political theorists, and anyone wishing to understand better how the social and political systems could be changed for the future. (shrink)

This paper offers both a phenomenologically psychological and a phenomenologically transcendental account of the constitution of the unconscious. Its phenomenologically psychological portion was published in the previous volume of this journal as Part I, while its phenomenologically transcendental portion is published here as Part II. Part I first clarified the issues involved in Husserl's differentiation of the respective contents and methodologies of psychological and transcendental phenomenology. On the basis of this clarification it showed that, in marked contrast to the prevailing (...) approach to the unconscious in the phenomenological literature, an approach that focuses on the emotive and aesthetic factors (rooted in Freud's theory of repression) in the descriptive account of the constitution of an unconscious, there are cognitive factors (rooted in Jung's theory of apperception) that have yet to be descriptively accounted for by phenomenological psychology. Part I concluded with a phenomenologically psychological account of the role these cognitive factors play in the constitution of an unconscious. Part II shows how Jung's claims regarding a dimension of unconscious contents that lacks genealogical links to consciousness proper, i. e., the so-called "collective unconscious," can be phenomenologically accounted for if: (1) Jung's methodological differentiation of empirical and interpretative (hermeneutically phenomenological) approaches to the unconscious is attended to and; (2) such attention is guided by the phenomenologically transcendental critique of the emotive and aesthetic limitations of both the Freudian and heretofore Husserlian accounts of the descriptive genesis of something like an unconscious. (shrink)

The Collective Unconscious in the Age of Neuroscience brings the connection between C.G. Jung's theory of a collective unconscious, neuroscience, and personal experiences of severe mental illness to life. Hallie B. Durchslag uses narrative analysis to examine four autobiographical accounts of mental illness, including her own, and illuminate the interplay between psychic material and human physiology that Jung intuited to exist. Durchslag's unique study considers the links between expressions of the collective unconscious, such as myth, fairy tales, folk tales, and (...) 'big dreams', and the experiences of those diagnosed with severe mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The author's personal narrative account of a psychotic episode is at its heart, bringing both an intimate foundation and exceptional insight to the book. With reference to neuroscientific and genetic research throughout, The Collective Unconscious in the Age of Neuroscience highlights the gap between depth psychological notions of etiology and treatment, highlights patterns of collective material in the qualitative experience of these genetic and biological disorders, and explores how the efficacy of pharmacological treatment sheds light on Jung's theoretical model. The Collective Unconscious in the Age of Neuroscience will be essential reading for academics and students of Jungian and post-Jungian studies, consciousness, neuroscience and mental health. It will also provide unique insight for analytical psychologists interested in severe mental illness and the collective unconscious. (shrink)

In a recent paper in Psychological Science, Kouider and Dupoux reported obtaining unconscious Stroop priming only when subjects had partial awareness of the masked distractor words . Kouider and Dupoux conjectured that semantic priming occurs only when such partial awareness is present. The present experiments tested this conjecture in an affective categorization priming task that differed from Kouider and Dupoux’s in using masked distractors that subjects had practiced earlier as visible words. Experiment 1 showed priming from practiced words when subjects (...) had no partial awareness of those words. Experiment 2 showed that, in the absence of partial awareness, practiced words yielded priming but not-practiced words did not. Experiment 3 corroborated Experiment 1 and 2s results using a different test of partial awareness. These results suggest that unconscious processing of subword elements drives masked semantic priming by practiced words. (shrink)

The concept of unconscious knowledge is fundamental for an understanding of human thought processes and mentation in general; however, the psychological community at large is not familiar with it. This paper offers a survey of the main psychological research currently being carried out into cognitive processes, and examines pathways that can be integrated into a discipline of unconscious knowledge. It shows that the field has already a defined history and discusses some of the features that all kinds of unconscious knowledge (...) seem to share at a deeper level. With the aim of promoting further research, we discuss the main challenges which the postulation of unconscious cognition faces within the psychological community. (shrink)

The very idea of unconscious emotion has been thought puzzling. But in recent debate about emotions, comparatively little attention has been given explicitly to the question. I survey a number of recent attempts by philosophers to resolve the puzzle and provide some preliminary remarks about their viability. I identify and discuss three families of responses: unconscious emotions involve conscious feelings, unconscious emotions involve no feelings at all, and unconscious emotions involve unconscious feelings. The discussion is exploratory rather than decisive for (...) three reasons. First, the aim is to provide a framework for the debate, and identify a number of key issues for further research. Second, a number of the positions depend for their plausibility upon theoretical commitments that can be made clear, but cannot be evaluated in detail, in a survey article. Third, I believe no fully satisfactory, comprehensive solution has yet been developed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 12.1 (2005) 55-57 [Access article in PDF] Unconscious Reasons Eric Matthews Keywords reason-explanation, consciousness, purpose It is argued that Church's puzzlement over the idea that we can have reasons that we do not know about is itself puzzling. In daily life, we find no difficulty in understanding this idea. The problems arise only when we try to give a theoretically satisfactory account of the (...) notion of "the unconscious" in the context of a Cartesian picture of the "mind" as synonymous with "consciousness." We need to see the difference between the rational/non-rational distinction and that between the conscious and the unconscious. We (and other animals) act for reasons, not because we have something called "consciousness," but because we have purposes: we are animals, not machines.Jennifer Church finds "something deeply puzzling" about the idea that we can have reasons that we do not know about. I find this puzzlement very surprising, as, I think, would many others. Most of our reasons for doing what we do are not, and could not be, consciously entertained, and we did not need to wait for Freud before we were aware that some of our reasons for acting are so deeply hidden that we need help from others to uncover them. Freud himself is supposed to have said about the unconscious (I'm afraid I can't give the reference for this quotation, which was dredged up from memory), "Das haben die Dichter immer gekannt"—that was always known by the poets.Because human beings are not machines, whose movements can be given a complete causal explanation in terms of the laws of physics, a reason-explanation for most of the ways they behave is called for. That is, they have reasons for doing what they do. If they had to "consciously think through," in Church's words, all of their reasons for acting, they would never get down to doing anything: before they did anything, they would have to think through their reasons for doing it; and, because thinking through is also an action for which they have reasons, they would have to think through their reasons for thinking through, and so on ad infinitum. I owe this point to Gilbert Ryle, and may as well give one of his typical examples (slightly adapted) to illustrate it. The good tennis player acts intelligently: she has reasons for the movements she makes, but of necessity she does not think through these reasons, otherwise the game of tennis would never get started, let alone finished. Indeed, she may well be unable to explain in words, even afterward, why she moves her racket this way or that.As for the "Freudian" sorts of examples, we are all familiar, both from literature and from life, with the phenomena of self-deception, or of simple lack of self-knowledge. Someone, for instance, believes himself to be motivated by the highest moral principle when he gives money to the beggar in the shop doorway: but perhaps his real reason is a desire to cultivate a certain image of himself, or to be seen by others to be doing the right thing, or a fear that the beggar might embarrass [End Page 55] him in some way if he does not give him something substantial. I am not suggesting that people always deceive themselves in this way, only that the situation described is perfectly intelligible to everyone and so not at all puzzling. Nor is it in the slightest degree unintelligible that people should sometimes act without being able to say why: "I did it on impulse," they say, or "I acted instinctively"—which is just another way of saying "I just don't know why I acted as I did."Church herself accepts that our explanations of behavior are "now replete with appeals to unconscious beliefs and desires": but why only "now"—haven't they always been? And if we resort to such appeals so commonly, if indeed, as Searle says, their explanatory power is so great, then that seems to imply that we understand perfectly well what... (shrink)

A groundbreaking guide showing us how being "out of control" (and admitting it) is the first step to living a truly better, more meaningful life. Raise your hand if you've ever wanted to "self-improve" but, for some reason, you just can't follow through. Turns out, the issue isn't a lack of willpower. For centuries, we've been fed a common perspective: Explore your subconscious mind, heal your trauma, fit into your society, and happiness will follow, right? Wrong. Dr. Courtney Tracy, also (...) known as "The Truth Doctor," disrupts this outdated narrative through digestible scientific research, shockingly honest personal stories, and compassionate-yet-direct advice. Feeling out of control and helpless isn't a flaw but a universal truth of our existence. Instead of trying to change how we work as human beings (spoiler alert: you can't,) we need to embrace and make peace with our unconscious, making it work for and alongside us instead of against. Half psychology textbook written by your best friend (who's also a therapist), half comprehensive guide brimming with actionable insights for engaging with our unconscious positively and productively, Your Unconscious Is Showing is here to help us accept what we can't control, courageously change what we can, and wisely know the difference. (shrink)