Expression and the Unconscious

This essay proposes a new reading of the relation between deconstruction and psychoanalysis. Rejecting the terms of the previous confrontations between the positions of Derrida and Lacan, the essay seeks to show how the scope of what Derrida proposed under the title of grammatology can be extended beyond the limits of the “Freudian impression” and provide a key to understanding the complex topological notions Lacan developed in his later years.

Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 2013

2018

Cristi Bodea's book entitled Hiatus. Problema fenomenologică a inconștientului (Hiatus. The Phenomenological Problem of the Unconscious), which stands as the edited version of the author's PhD dissertation, defended at the Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, under the supervision of Professor Virgil Ciomoș, focuses on the relationship between Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytical approach and Marc Richir's phenomenology, pursuing the articulations of the theme of the unconscious in both theories. In the phenomenological attempt of exhaustively conquering subjectivity as the ultimate source of meaning, the problem of the unconscious stands as a recent milestone, for it unveils an additional layer of subjectivity which seems to complete the scheme envisioned by an entire phenomenological tradition. Psychoanalysis, on the other hand, was the one to discover, and, thereafter, to bring into discussion the unconscious as the core structure of subjectivity. Consequently, the inquiries of both contemporary phenomenology and

Culture & Psychology, 2006

In the last three decades psychoanalysis (more generally depth psychology) has been influenced by the postmodern turn of contemporary thought. An increasing number of authors have contributed to moving the theory from the positivistic vision of the mind and the unconscious to a socioconstructive one that leads to an interactionist, dialectic, semiotic conception of subjectivity. J. C. Miller's volume, The transcendent function, represents an example of this trend. Transcendent function is a Jungian concept that indicates the process of interaction between consciousness and unconscious, capable of generating a new symbolic pattern that incorporates the interacting mental contents, transcending them in a new form. Miller suggests understanding the transcendent function as an interpersonal process; as the dynamic of relationship with the otherness that brings opposites to unity. Some critical issues of Miller's book highlight the constraints on current efforts to achieve a socioconstructivist conception of the unconscious, thus pointing the way to the opportunity for further development of the theory.

Self: an approach to a theoretical construct of a transpersonal psychology of self to other This paper, the first of three, offers a journey made by the psychological self as it travels from philosophical speculations found through the period of German Idealism to early proposals in classical and humanist psychology, then on to Attachment theories and developments of a neurobiology of emotional development, embraced within the framework of the family triad. The study overall, approaches a contemporary perspective on psychological theory and growth stages. The current paper covers a period of development running through Storm and Stress, German Idealism, and Weimar Aesthetic traditions. This preparatory period for the emergence of contemporary psychology runs from around 1800 and the concept of the unconscious, a focus of these times, became well known to the German speaking world then to a lesser degree to Anglophone regions. French and English rational thinking precluded studies of the subconscious and Naturphilosophie, the ontological ground explored here. As proponents of the subconscious and psychology per se, a scientific model also appears through this period. The subconscious, as a necessary agency, comes to support a creative interactive psyche, commonly found within psychological theory. With this in mind Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Carus, Hartmann, Fechner, Wundt, and Goethe, are explored as those presenting support for the appearance of Freud and Jung.

The aim of the present paper is to discuss the concept of the unconscious and how it is applied and understood by Freudian, Kleinian and Lacanian models. The paper will begin by exploring the idea of the unconscious followed by a comparison of how the concept is understood and applied to each of the models.

Pro Edu, 2019

The psychic is not homogeneous, uniforms, undifferentiated, linear, but it is present in various forms. It has a great functional and existential differentiation and uniformity. It manifests itself in the form of conscious psyche, subconscious and unconscious. The relationship between them, their harmony or conflict, determines the originality of human nature. The unconscious as a form of the psyche constitutes the most controversial level of organization of psychical life. It is stated that psychology stopped placing the notion of conscience in the center of its theoretical and practical preoccupations, making place for the unconscious. The unconscious is not only whatever became automatism, but also what I suppress. Freud explains suppression by a conflict between Superego (which represents the childhood interdictions which became interiorized) and Id, the natural pulsations which we were taught in childhood to blame. Freud urges us, through this, to regain the conscience of what is unconscious. The Superego is a necessary stage in the forming of moral conscience, but it should not be mistaken for the moral conscience itself. The genuine moral conscience does not reduce itself to the Superego. A psychological explanation of the origin of the Superego does not replace the foundation of the moral conscience. Psychoanalysis cannot account for values.

In this article we explore the relationship between consciousness and the unconscious as it has taken shape within contemporary cognitive science meaning by this term the mature cognitive science, which has fully incorporated the results of the neurosciences. In this framework we  rst compare the neurocognitive unconscious with the Freudian one, emphasizing the similarities and above all the differences between the two constructs. We then turn our attention to the implications of the centrality of unconscious processes in cognitive science for the classical conception of the self. Our analysis will bring to light a bit of claustrophobic dialectic between an eliminative variety of naturalism and an anti-naturalistic form of hermeneutics. Hence we conclude by recommending the pursuit of a mediation between such extreme stances.

in Wittgenstein and Davidson on Thought, Language and Action, ed Claudine Verheggen, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017

Wittgenstein writes: ‘The question can be raised: Is a state that I recognize on the basis of someone’s utterances really the same as the state he does not recognize this way?’ (Wittgenstein, Last Writings on Philosophy of Psychology, 8-9). Donald Davidson raises the same question: ‘If the mental states of others are known only through their behavioural and other outward manifestations, while this is not true of our own mental states, why should we think our own mental states are anything like those of others?’ (Davidson, ‘Three Varieties of Knowledge’, 207). And Davidson criticizes ‘Wittgensteinian’ accounts of our mental terms and concepts for failing to address the question. It is argued that Davidson’s own account of the asymmetry between first-person and third-person ascriptions of mental predicates itself fails to explain all that Davidson seems to suggest. And it is argued, contrary to many interpretations of Wittgenstein, that the question whether mental terms are univocal in their first-person and third-person uses is from a Wittgensteinian point of view legitimate and non-trivial. It is to be answered by achieving a reflective understanding of our practice of ascribing mental properties to ourselves and others – rather than by reference to supposedly more basic metaphysical facts about the sameness or difference of the properties our terms pick out. This approach is explained and defended.

The French psychoanalytic Jacques Marie Èmile Lacan (1901-81) reconceptualized Sigmund Freud using post-structuralism. For him human passion is structured by the desires and feelings of the relay of others as a social phenomenon. In this context psychoanalysis can be reduced to a theory of the human subject created by social interaction in - a combination of language, culture and the spaces between people. But Lacan also insists upon distinguishing between different kinds of desires in which he points to a fundamental incompatibility between desire and speech, because there is always a leftover which exceeds speech. This leftover is by Lacan considered the centre of the real and (like Freud) he is mainly concerned with the fundamental distinction between the conscious I (ego) and the unconscious subject, which often reveals itself in situations where the conscious ego is out of control.