Sigmund Freud, the Great Philosophical Adventure
Sigmund Freud has been of profound influence on Western consciousness and culture, moving far beyond the field of psychology. I would like to suggest that his ideas have a major contribution to philosophy.
I believe that his idea of the Oedipus complex has gained so much popular attention, which has led to a lot of his whole body of work being pushed aside.
The particular idea of importance include his understanding of the unconscious processes, drive psychology, as well as the constructs known as I'd, ego and superego. These concepts are a model for psychology but do also depict a whole framework for viewing human nature.
What I would argue is that Freud' s view of human nature has contributed to understanding the basic conflict at the core of the conflicts of living. In looking at drives the tension between life in death is capture, which he called as the opposition between Eros and Thanatos.
In addition, his writings offered a critique of religion and raised a lot of questions about the nature of civilisation.
I wish to argue that apart from his significant role in the twentieth century he was a major contributor to the overall picture of philosophy. His views had weakened but I believe the strengths outweigh the weaknesses. What do you think?
I believe that his idea of the Oedipus complex has gained so much popular attention, which has led to a lot of his whole body of work being pushed aside.
The particular idea of importance include his understanding of the unconscious processes, drive psychology, as well as the constructs known as I'd, ego and superego. These concepts are a model for psychology but do also depict a whole framework for viewing human nature.
What I would argue is that Freud' s view of human nature has contributed to understanding the basic conflict at the core of the conflicts of living. In looking at drives the tension between life in death is capture, which he called as the opposition between Eros and Thanatos.
In addition, his writings offered a critique of religion and raised a lot of questions about the nature of civilisation.
I wish to argue that apart from his significant role in the twentieth century he was a major contributor to the overall picture of philosophy. His views had weakened but I believe the strengths outweigh the weaknesses. What do you think?
Comments (92)
However, he was not completely wrong about everything and I think his relationship with Jung was important to both men's contributions to our thoughts on psychology.
Jung's ideas less offensive and are more interesting to me, and from him is Joseph Campbell who gives us an interesting notion of consciousness.
Exactly what do you think Freud had to say that is worth our consideration today?
Freud's popularized emphasis on the subconscious arising from demonstrations of hypnosis is lastingly significant.
I chose Freud as a pioneer because I think that he engaged with so many debates at the heart of philosophy, including religion and sexuality.
I suspect this Western interest in a subconscious followed contact with the East.
It's all good. You are dealing with my female resentment of Freud's sexism and my pagan resentment of Christianity. Sometimes I am impressed by how strongly our feelings can influence our thinking. My feelings make me think we are dealing with very important ideas. I believe the East has played an important role in advancing our consciousness so I stress awareness of the Eastern philosophy.
I do take on board your expression of Freud's sexism and the ideas of Eastern philosophy and I would welcome this kind of viewpoint as this was part of the debate I was hoping to spark. I am a fan of Freud but not to the point where I would override your concerns. This a key point of the issue of whether Freud can stand or fall.
Well, I am iconoclastic and drawn to less obscure thoughts. I hope I am not offensive but useful in keeping the discussion alive.
And I am noticing another prejudice of mine. Following the popular guy. It does not seem right to me that we pay more attention to someone because s/he was in a position to be popular. Excluding someone like Joseph Campbell and others who effectively question Christian notions, trouble's me a lot.
If anything it is about survival. We live in a world of dog eat dog and a I have my own share of bullying and trying to resuscitate myself.
I would certainly not advocate a philosophy which elevates the popular. I do wish to advocate for many diverse and rejected philosophers. I believe that those most rejected can become the cornerstone as a Bob Marley track suggested and I would hate to think if Bob Marley was seen as below the level of the thinking of the philosophers, as in the most fundamental way he advocated the rights of all, beyond race, gender and all categories of exclusion.
One final remark, I am aware that Jung was attribute with racism against Jews and he had a certain amount of sexism too. This can be seen as a criticism of his work but is it to the point where his views should be rejected entirely?
The point I would make here is that I found meaningful in the writings of Ouspensky and passed a book onto him to a friend. I was dumbfounded when I discovered that my friend, who is gay, had latched onto a remark about homosexuality which I had barely noticed, and been thrown into an abyss of despair.
So, what I am saying is that the ideas of Freud, Jung and others have to be thrown into the cauldron of fire, juxtaposed with the relics of the Christian past as a way for a synthesis. This is a difficult endeavor with no easy answers and so returning to my thread discussion I would say simply that the ideas are a stepping stone for philosophical debate.
Whoo, we are focused on dog eat dog reality, but really? Humanity has survived because we worked together to achieve what has been achieved?
In part, I think our dop eat dog mentality is the result of how we have told history. Until recently history has always been his story. Increasingly, today, his story is our story. Archeologists are giving us the story of the men and women who built the pyramids.
As for Freud's id, ego, and super ego, many years ago I bought a book for my children that refered to the child, parent, adult of transactional psychology.
According to "Simply Psychology"
Does that compare well with the child, parent, adult of transactional analyss? It does not carry the fascination with our sexuality of Freud. It is better in tune with the modern science mental development. If a child is aggressive or not, might have more to do with how the child is raised than masterbation? Did Frued even know of hormones?
I believe I experienced post trauma syndrome because I was pre-verbal when I as put in a body cast. I strongly believe past experiences are retained in our subconscious and that they have impact on our lives. What is in our subconscious can have of benefacial or destructive impact on our lives. But when it comes to Freud, he was full of prejudices and apparently pretty hung up on sex. Obviously he had an important effect on our culture but this could have been more damaging then helpful?
I perfer Socrates and his concern for expanding our consciousness and Cicero's concern with right reason, to Frued and the cultural prejudices that played into his popularity. The Father in heaven and titlating interest in our sexuality distort his work.
We might play with Freud's instinctual drives and Nietzsche's anti-Christian, superman philosophy?
Freud was entirely dismissive of Christianity. His essays such as Totem and Taboo and The Future of an Illusion attempt to depict Christianity as a result of a kind of collective neurosis. He was throughout his life an outspoken and uncompromising atheist. Generally speaking Freud’s philosophy, such as it was, was tied to his overwhelming desire to establish himself as a scientist; his dismissive attitude of the idea of the spiritual was one of the main factors in Jung’s splitting from Freud.
Yes, Freud got penis envy wrong; it's a problem for us guys--we all have one, but envy others. We at least make comparisons whenever we get the chance. Even guys with enormous penises aren't always satisfied; as one well endowed guy confessed, "they attract too much attention".
Anyway, here's a song by somebody that doesn't have penis envy.
I like the song!
Yes, the split between Freud and Jung is interesting. Apparently, it began when the two of them were eating a meal. Freud choked on a fishbone and accused Jung of having a death wish towards him.
Freud's disagreement with Jung's approach to religion was also involved. Also, some writers have suggested that there was racial disagreement between them, pointing to Jung's underlying prejudice against Jews.
I can see Freud's weakness but enjoy reading his writings, so I dare'nt think how some may psychoanalyse me. Actually, I discovered a Primer in Freudian psychology in the library of my Roman Catholic school library, so his ideas were a liberating factor for me during adolescence.
I also did a course in art psychotherapy and this brought Freudian ideas to life. I think Freud's ideas are extremely important for psychotherapy as questions of religion and sexuality seem to figure strongly in mental illness, especially in psychotic breakdowns.
The ideas of Melanie Klein are interesting too from a psychoanalytic point of view. In particular, the ideas of splitting, projective identification, in addition to the concepts of the depressive and paranoid position.
While I was doing the art psychotherapy course I undertook personal therapy. My therapist was trained in Jungian psychotherapy. However, the therapy did incorporate some elements based on Freud's ideas. It included 50 minute sessions and four many of my sessions I lay on a couch. I found lying on the couch in therapy very wierd. I definitely think the therapy affected me permanently, mainly making me view life experiences differently and making me a bit more aware of my own blind spots.
I should really pay more attention to what you read before making an argument but :lol: I have no self control.. I understand sex is important to some people but it is not something I recognize as important to my life. Rather the male sexual agenda is a huge irritation! Before sex became an issue, life was pretty good. We all went into the field and built forts, and just had fun. Then out of nowhere, I became a sexual object. That is like being the prey of an eagle, and it ruined everything. I am so glad that is behind me and there is a chance of having an intelligent discussion with a man, without sex being the agenda I want to avoid.
Really, you don't think that was very bad for generations of women? Like what about his influence on our fight for political and economic rights, and the right to actualize ourselves? Male deomination was a terrible thing. And what did he contribute that outweighs the damage done? And speaking of his popularity, I have been pondering this, ever since mentioning comparing Freud with Neitzsche. No one gets popular without saying what people want to hear. What is it about Germany that made him, Nietzsche popular?
Quoting Wikipedia
I think we have done a terrible thing by replacing Greek philosophy with German philosophy!
No doubt self reflection is very important! Socrates, "know thy self." Another way to discover more about yourself is Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D., and her book "God's in Everyman". Each God and Goddess is an arche type and if you like Jung you will like her explanation of the archetypes. I think anyone wanting to study psychology should begin with the Greek archetypes.
We must forgive Europe because they were cut off from the anciet civilizations and they only had local paganism and Christianity with Christianity clearly dominating and controlling their consciousness, and the Bible is not the best book for understanding humans because the religion is based on myth that is not a study of nature. In contrast, Greek gods and goddess are based on nature. Freud and Neitzsche are coming out of Christian consciousness. That is problematic. Starting with the Hebrews and the story of Eden, the God of Abraham was male domination over women and foreigners. The only archetype Christianity provides for women is Mother Mary. I rather be Athena and carry a sword. :grin: My favorite professor said I am a casterating bitch. Does that explain my opionon of Freud?
Perfect, Freud and Nietzsche agree about Christianity being a form of neurosis. They also are sexist and have stood against the self-actualization of women. Both have had a strong political and economic impact on women for many generations. Women who have entered politics since women's liberation have been changing our reality through politics. I wonder where we would be if women had also had the power they have today?
While both men opposed Christianity, they still come out a culture dominated by Christianity and that matters when considering sexism! :rage: Oh no, I didn't mean be angry. :halo: There that is better. I now look like a proper woman. :wink:
One has to undertake psychoanalysis; it isn't a therapy that can be applied to a patient in the way medication can. Any talk therapy requires the cooperation and active participation of the patient, but psychoanalysis is a major project. Surely a belief or confidence in its efficacy is essential. Stupid, neurotic thinking just has to be sorted out, and it takes a committed patient, a very insightful therapist, and time.
On the other hand, drugs for a lot of major mental illness--like bi-polar, psychosis, schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorders, etc-can be given to the patient without a whole lot of belief involved. Thorazine suppresses psychosis whether the patient believes it will work or not. All the couch time in the world isn't going to help someone who is so depressed they are catatonic.
Still, there are millions of ordinary people who are screwed up by their upbringing, life experiences, or flaws in their mental apparatuses. Unraveling how one got screwed up (like feeling intensely guilty for one's rather pedestrian sexual desires, or the ways in which one defeats one's best efforts, or why one is such a domineering son of a bitch, etc.) isn't something that medication will help.
My best guess is that it isn't so much the particular theory on which psychotherapy is based, but the commitment of the therapist and patient to work together to produce insight and a path to changing one's thinking. In the end, therapy means change, and it can take a long time. Hence the requirement for commitment to the process.
Lots of pioneers in psychology have influenced the way we think about the world (philosophy). A simple example: early on psychologists learned that a variable rate of reinforcement is far more powerful than a steady rate of reinforcement. Gambling is attractive because we win (and lose) unpredictably. If we always (or never) won at poker it wouldn't have such attraction. Variable reinforcement explains some of our thinking and behavior. Habits (little apps of learned behavior) have something to do with our success or failure in life. So on and so forth. Psychology (and people like Freud) have dethroned the autonomous self-directed person. We are not masters of our own houses.
All that should have a significant effect on philosophy.
The main thing I would say is that I don't believe that any tutor or professor could get away with calling a female student 'a castrating bitch' although you say he was your favourite so perhaps it was humour. Nevertheless, I think if it was said to many women who I know they would put in a letter of complaint. The professor might get disciplined or even dismissed for misconduct.
That is not to say that prejudice in all its forms has gone away. If anything, in this time of political correctness, prejudices are often expressed less directly but people may still feel the subtle effects of prejudice which is less overt and Freud's understanding of unconscious is a useful for thinking about the unspoken elements of interaction.
I started this discussion, not really with an intent to focus on Freud's to focus on his discussion of sexuality but of course this aspect of his writing cannot be side-stepped.
Personally I want to be reserved about discussing my own sexuality on this site because it is a public forum openly showing on the internet. I was surprised to find recently that when I googled my name all my posts and my picture were showing. I don't want to take the paranoid position but I am applying for jobs so I want to be a bit cautious. I know that I could create a pen name but I do not plan to at this stage because I have disclosed some personal information but it would be hard to find unless someone really wanted to read and read to find it. But I know that I have the option of creating a pen name and have even joked on another thread that I would choose Dr Dream. But for the time being I would rather reserve Dr Dream for a character in fiction projects.
Anyway, perhaps Freud's ideas on sexuality will be the way forward for this thread discussion. So far only a couple of people apart from you have commented on this thread so far, so I am hoping it does not die before it has even reached puberty. And, it may be a good thing if there was more discussion of sex on this site as it such a central part of life.
Yes, I believe that psychotherapy is very useful in the process of self understanding. I do believe that it is essential for self development as well therapeutic work. Counselling training as well as psychotherapy requires it but mental health nurse training does not and neither does cognitive behavioral therapy training. Psychiatric doctors don't have to have therapy but most do at least have some psychotherapy training when they are at registrar level, meaning that by the time they become consultants they will have this knowledge base to aid them in working with patients. I am speaking of the English system, so other countries may have different requirements.
There is too much emphasis on medication alone. Thorazine has been withdrawn for the last couple of decades in this country, as have many of the older antipsychotics. But, the newer drugs still have many side-effects, especially Clozapine. Many people are maintaining on a cocktail of medication, including antipsychotics and mood stabilizers and often experience a lot of weight gain and develop physical health problems, including type 2 diabetes.
Talk therapy is often encouraged but so much is about the recovery approach and about clear goals. I am not in any way opposed to this but do think therapies which involve deeper work involving examination of aspects of the subconscious is frowned upon by most mental health professionals. Of course, I realise that most people who are in the midst of an acute psychotic episode could not at this stage be expected to undertake psychoanalysis.
However, I would advocate for psychotherapy as a way of deeper understanding generally. I think the area of psychoanalysis and philosophy is fascinating. I do have an interest in the anti psychiatry tradition. Also, I am interested in the ideas of Lacan on psychoanalysis, but have not read much. But perhaps I will look for some paper books on this before England goes into a second lockdown.
I forgot to say that I completely agree with you that it is more important to find the right therapist rather than the right school of thought. When I was on an art psychotherapy course the therapist had to have a psychodynamic background and work with transference. In thinking about finding the right therapist some are lucky and find one straight away while some keep looking and can't find the person they are looking for. It makes it sound almost like looking to find a romantic partner.
Never heard that story, I'd be interested if you have a citation for that. The account given by Jung in his Autobiography is that 'Freud made a request: ''Promise me never to abandon the sexual theory. . . . We must make a dogma of it, an unshakable bulwark.'' Against what?, asked Jung. ''Against the black tide of mud . . . of occultism" came reply. That was given by Jung as the cause of the split.
I have committed a philosophical sin because I don't have the reference. I did the research for writing a piece for a creative non fiction writing course I was doing several years ago.
I had to get rid of piles of books when I moved earlier this year, so I am afraid it is unlikely that I have the book. Also, I discarded the piece I wrote as well and made a statement which I am unable to back up unfortunately, so I am sorry about this. But if I can find any useful clues I will get back to you.
I am sure I never dreamt it up. I haven't had Freud and Jung in my dreams yet even though I do have some strange ones.
I will be wanting to find the evidence to check my own sanity, but it may be hard on the verge of a new lockdown because it was in a paper book.
It is my aim to encourage the success of your thread. The best I know to do, is to use a link to open up the conversation. Is there anything in the link that works for you.
Having to prove one's sanity by finding a lost reference to an obscure story sounds too Kafkaesque.
"Your Honor, the defendant can't produce the reference, so Counsel recommends that the Court proceed with the involuntary commitment."
I will bear in mind the possibility of links but I am not a big fan of them and rarely open them on other people's threads.
Really, my quest is about the territory of the imagination. I visited the Freud museum in Hampstead several years ago and that inspired me looking at Freud's desk and the statues he had of mythological figures. I think his journey was about mythical dimensions.
I will probably see what happens on this thread in the next couple of days but want to exist a bit in the physical world before London's second lockdown begins. I don't want to only exist in a room using my phone and do feel a bit overwhelmed by the prospect of lockdown because it seems that life as we know it is becoming part of the mythical past.
I do feel that I am living part of an existential drama. I will try not to drown in the deep seas of the unconscious mind which I wish to explore.
Perhaps I can get locked up in the Tower of London for my losing my reference to back up the argument about Freud swallowing a fishbone and blaming Jung for having a death wish against him.
You can't drown in "the deep seas of the unconscious mind" because YOU are the deep sea. This isn't Freud. My theory is that "I" exist in the unconscious. Not Freud's SUBconscious sea of unutterable wishes, but my sea of enormous back-office operations where I exist outside the view of my front-office public relations staff, spies (observed sensory input), and all the public stuff. The front office (consciousness) isn't writing this. The public relations people are watching this as it goes up on the screen. The big Composition Group in the back office is putting the ideas together and sending it out to a transmission desk where fingers are instructed to hit the right keys.
I live in the unconscious, but I can't consciously observe my unconscious self because I am not exterior to it. I am in it, the interior. What goes on here can't be observed by the front office - conscious mind. The front office gets its marching orders from back here, not the other way around.
In my humble (maybe quite mistaken) opinion, we (front office consciousness) give ourselves too much credit. We tend to think we are in charge. We have a little control, but it's the back office that does the heavy lifting, major decision making, decides on priorities (like ending up at our favorite pub even though we said we would be home at 21:00. The back office decides how much risk to take, or not, often before the front office even knows it will soon be doing something it didn't plan on.
How can you tell whether what you are reading or hearing me say is coming from the unconscious or the conscious mind? You can't. The flow of instructions from the massive unconscious back office to the small conscious front office is seamless. What you see and hear is coming from the real me (the real person).
That's my theory, none of which should suggest that we can't drive ourselves crazy. There have been some pretty ugly conflicts in my back office which disrupted business for years on end. I just couldn't quite get my several idealist / realist / dreamy / pragmatist political parties to cooperate. So I was often working at cross purposes with myself.
Peace has reigned between my ears now for... maybe 8 years. Age and circumstances I wasn't in charge of brought me to retirement and living happily alone again. If I could take "where I am now" back to the time I was 30, say, "I could have been somebody -- I could have been a contender" (as Marlon Brando said in On the Waterfront 1954). Oh well...
So, ONE OF THE TASKS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY OR SELF-ANALYSIS is to learn how our minds actually are working--especially if they don't seem to be working all that well.
Happy, fully functioning, highly productive, sophisticated people can, I suppose, get along just fine without thinking about how their fucking splendid brains work. Most of us, though, find there are problems upstairs that have to be dealt with.
So question, @Jack Cummins: Why couldn't I figure all this out when I was 30?
An amazing, wonderful, possibly more accurate than you yourself suppose, theory! :up:
Quoting Bitter Crank
Congratulations! Ah...peace...the most wanted, rarest among rarest, "piece of art"...people are willing to pay a fortune for it...if only it were available.
Quoting Bitter Crank
This information is for the "front office", right?
Quoting Bitter Crank
Because the "front office" was overwhelmed in a manner of speaking.
I am glad to see that you have joined into the thread discussion.
I believe that the significant of Freud for philosophy as well as philosophy cannot be ignored.
He is mostly talked about for his views on sexuality. These could be seen as sexist and the whole idea of the Oedipus complex is open to question. I would argue that despite the limitations of his view his thinking at least sparked off a lot of debate in this area.
I would suggest that the role of a thinker is not necessarily to come up with a completely coherent answer but to sketch out a panorama for questioning. I think Freud did this in many areas and that his writings such as Totem and Taboo, Civilisation and its Discontents, as well as Origins of the Uncanny were extremely unique pieces of writing with contributions to make to psychology, the philosophy of religion and many diverse fields of thinking.
I developed the thread because I think Freud's ideas, especially ideas such as the conflict between Eros and Thanatos, as well as his whole picture of the mind and unconscious processes is worthy material for philosophical debate.
I was impressed by your piece of writing and The Mad Fool's comments on it.
I am pondering your question about why you could not have come to your present conclusion at age 30.I think it is possible that if you had entered therapy your self understanding may have been speedier but there is only a possibility.
When I spoke of drowning in the sea of unconsciousness I was free associating in the playfully in the spirit of Freudian analysis.
However, I think it is possible to drown in the sea of unconsciousness. This happens when people become psychotic. There again, Freud did suggest that dreams are a psychosis we all experiences and of course the realm of dreams is central to Freud's thinking.
You mention going down to the pub as a direction you took and we could say that getting drunk is the most common means of drowning in the sea of unconscious. I have literally got lost a few times by going out to the pub as a reading venue and having a few too many drinks and getting lost, getting on the wrong bus home.
It is interesting when you say about the risks we take and how we look after ourselves. I sometimes think that my subconscious and ego play meaningful tricks on me, but almost with an underlying purpose but in analysing this I would draw upon Jung's ideas.
I will leave Jung alone for now having generated possible fictions about details of their meal together...But actually I think I remember the account a bit wrong and Freud did not swallow a fishbone but ate a fish meal and fainted. I will say no more about this obscure, surreal tale.
If I must say something on Freud and the Oedipus complex it's that the whole idea makes sense, at whatever level it does, even if not to everybody. This is either a sign of Freud's genius or evidence that all is not well, if one isn't, even in the slightest sense, "adventurous".
Quoting Jack Cummins
That, sir, seems to be the true end of everything and anything we've done, we do, and ever will do but, I fear, for the wrong reasons.
Quoting Jack Cummins
I'm too ignorant to question the premise therein but I wonder, in my own small way, whether or not, the human mind, the greatest mystery of all, can be reduced to, may I say, a dance between sex and death. I suppose, despite how superficial it appears, between the lovers' bed and the death bed, a deep, perhaps disturbing but nevertheless profound, truth is waiting to be discovered. I don't know.
Good morning. I wish I could undo all my comments and get in line with your intended purpose. I listened to a lecture about Freud last night and was shocked by the professor's absolute enthusiasm for him. To be fair he does have a problem with the ladies but I guess we should not take him out and hang him because his source of information is the same as the source for democracy. And In his favor, he did not see homosexuality as a mental illness and he tried to decriminalize. The Greeks accepted homosexuality and his information comes from them.
Do you know which mythological figures he had on his desk? They are evidence of his sources of information.
Quoting academic.mu.edu
Please explain your last comment about becoming part of the mythical past. I do believe the past is being resurrected and this is the process of entering a New Age, but would such a resurrection relate to what Freud said? Greeks and their democracy goes with a concept of reincarnation.
For women, back in the day, it was the size of our breast. The bigger the better, and this led to enlarging our breast with surgery if we were not well endowed. I think we can say in the whole animal world there is an instinctive reaction to the features that define if we are male or female. The male peacock
struts his feathers, humans focus on the penis and breast. It can be hard to not look at the features that define our sexuality.
A problem I have with Freud and Oedipus is there is not an equal story for females. It is normal for the mother and daughter to clash and for jealousy to become a problem that drives the daughter from the house. This is far more complex than two women competing for the favored position with the male head of household. While some women count on their daughters to be caregivers, typically they do not get along. In the East, typically the old mother goes to the son's home, not the daughters. Having to depend on a daughter or son can be extremely trying for all involved. The Biblical advice that the young go their own way seems well suited to our nature.
Psilocybin and other psychedelic drugs can give us an interesting view of our consciousness and subconscious. Some have argued natural psychedelics played a role in making humans different from other animals. This is outside of a discussion of Freud but I had to mention it when the subject became the "deep sea" and possibility of drowning.
Also when our ego splits the "office consciousness" is not possible because different aspects of a personality are arguing about who will be in control. Schizyophernia can distract the person in the office. As one woman said, it is hard to stay on task when the boss has an elephant's trunk.
As for Jung, from what I know of him the scope of his thinking was much broader, but his fascination with the paranormal, alchemy, and the veritable catch-all of the "collective unconscious" makes me leery of his conclusions.
I completely understand how you could feel that way just from a surface understanding.
When I combine it with the understanding of a 'bridge' between instinct, induction, abduction, deduction, the interplay that takes place in a species specific semiosphere, and how this epigenetically feeds back down to the organism, a collective unconscious makes perfect sense to me.
Edward T. Hall wrote of culture as group consciousness and subconsciousness. An example of our cultural subconscious is it is taboo to think about cannibalism. We might read of it being something "those people" do but there is a concern for the person who thinks of doing it in our culture.
If a person shared thoughts with us about participating in cannibalism, we might pull away. Thinking about cannibalism is not the only taboo. Thinking about being gay was also taboo, preventing some from realizing their homosexual feelings, and why they struggled to be "normal", leading them to enter marriages they didn't work for them. Our more open discussion of homosexuality today, resolves the problem created when homosexuality is taboo and something we must not think about.
I was/am under the impression that the Oedipus complex is perfectly mirrored in father-daughter relationship. Did Freud slip up or did he think it too obvious to mention or, it gets interesting, he couldn't, like all men, figure out what women were all about? With Freud having left us a long time ago, the question is probably going to remain forever unanswered unless, of course, there's a Sherlock Holmes or a Hercule Poirot in our midst we could press into our service to deduce the truth. Mind you, this is all pure speculation. I haven't read Freud save for the wikipedia entry and that too very superficially.
As for the east-west divide on this issue, I feel it all turns on where countries and their people are on the graph of so-called civilization, civilization defined by the west. As the east plays catch-up with the west, we see an erosion of "eastern values" and the spread of western culture. I suppose there's an equal but opposite flow of "material". Anyway, the point is we'll probably reach some kind of equilibrium with the best of both worlds. This is me going off on a tangent.
I think that the Oedipus complex makes sense in the grand scheme of mythology even if it does offend some people. I do believe that most myths and dreams can appear as ridiculous if taken out of the symbolic level.
The symbolism of myths and dreams do contain a level of relevance for understanding the battles which exist in our own life dramas, even though we often prefer to deny this. We like to believe that our own psychological issues are based on reason but the truth is probably very different.
I think that you are right to say that sex and death are two major themes of the inner life , but I do think that questions about religion too. The reason why I would say this beyond my own anxiety about religious questions is based on how religious materialism features so strongly in psychotic illness.
Regarding your comment about my suggestion that the philosopher's task is not to find ultimate answer to questions, I think that what I am saying is that I reject absolutist arguments in general. I am a bit suspicious of anyone who claims to know the full truth. I do see the various pictures or models of truth as relative in some ways. I think we are all entitled to our views and no one should claim that theirs is superior.
But extreme relativism is rather wishy washy and can end with absolute lack of commitment to any belief in particular. In that sense, I would argue more for pluralism in which the various models can be weighed up and slotted in to place, almost like the jigsaw puzzle metaphor which was created on another thread.
Bringing this back to where Freud fits in I would say that sometimes philosophers talk as if the world can be viewed in a straightforward logical matter. But I think that this is not true because reality contains symbolic truths arising from the unconscious.
Thanks for your reply. I am pleased to say that I think that this current post has at least survived as far as puberty as it forms 2 pages now. I am grateful for your contributions and those of others in the last few days. At least it shows that Freud has not been dismissed and I am glad that people are thinking about his views about sex and life in general.
You asked me about my thoughts on the world as we know it becoming part of the mythical past. I would say that I do wonder whether we are at endpoint of civilisation or a new beginning. I will say that I created a thread on whether we were on the verge of cultural collapse, which was last active 19 days ago. I don't know if you are aware of this thread and you might be able to contribute to this discussion.
I will also say that I managed to download the book Thinking Fast and Slow, so hopefully I will manage to read it at some point while I am in the limbo land of England's second lockdown.
Of course we are all humans, and so have certain characteristics and needs in common. That commonality has consequences as it means that that there are certain things we do similarly. It seems dubious, though, to infer from that a murky collective body of archetypes, symbols and instincts which supposedly are part of the inherent structure of our brains. It's rather like inferring, as some have, that the fact that pyramids were constructed in Egypt and by the Mayans and Aztecs shows that ancient Egyptians found their way to the Americas, or that refugees from Atlantis traveled to Africa and Central America, or better yet that aliens taught us to make them. It makes far more sense, I think, to recognize that when people at a certain level of civilization wanted to build tall structures without the benefit of metals like iron and steel, they would rapidly understand that in order to do so in a manner which would avoid the structure falling over the base of the structure should be broad, and should become successively less broad the taller it was built.
Similarly, rather than speculating that there is such a thing as a collective unconsciousness with its mystic and mythical overtones buried in our minds, it would seem to me more reasonable simply to recognize that we're living organisms having certain characteristics existing and trying to live in an environment of which we're a part. There are certain things we must do as a result. One of those things is thinking, at least when we encounter a problem or situation we wish to resolve. Interacting with the rest of the world, we have similar experiences. Those experiences create habits, customs, language, laws, etc. We're better off studying those empirically than conjuring up Wise Old Man, or Mother, or Father, or Trickster, etc. in an effort to attribute them to some inherited unconscious.
:up: An altogether different ballgame. By the way I have no idea why we're discussing dreams all of a sudden. I'll play along; maybe we might strike gold or something like that. Anyway, if dreams possess symbolic content, who the hell has the key that'll aid us in their decipherment? Without the key, as Wittgenstein once remarked, "no course of action could be determined by a rule, because every course of action can be made out to accord with the rule." or thereabouts.
Quoting Jack Cummins
What's "religious materialism"?
Quoting Jack Cummins
I'm probably mistaken but from where I stand there seems to be enough room in relativism for absolutism, given that these words are on the mark. The converse seems false.
Quoting Jack Cummins
The punishment for murdering one person is the same as the punishment for murdering a million - death. Just felt like saying that. It appears that I've committed what in your view is a cardinal sin - speaking in absolute terms. Kindly shed some light on the nuances that have escaped my notice.
Quoting Jack Cummins
I don't see how "symbolic truths" have to run contrary to logic and reason. If they do then, perforce, it's impossible to grasp them. We'll be like that dog I saw in a youtube video, cocking its head from side to side - seemingly perplexed - by what was on TV. It would be, simply put, beyond our ken so to speak.
I have wondered what humanity would be like if we separated the 'thinking' man from the 'feeling' man. Or even more so, exactly how much progress a thinking man could make without 'imagination'. Even the most brilliant logicians recognize the importance of imagination in our cognitive reasoning process. What would an individual man strive to be without looking up to a 'hero'? I don't think man can be separated from the myth, legends, storytelling, and symbols of his collective history, and I do think that aspect of primitive nature lives on in our cultures. It can be seen in our literature, movies, video games, sports, romance, traditions, and even our politics. I can't imagine a world without that richness, and I can't imagine people void of it in their approach to life. ... But that's just me. And the differences between each of us might just be how we fit in as characters in the ongoing story.
We may have myths, legends, stories and imagination without accepting the existence of a collective unconscious. Heroes, I think, incline us too much to hero-worship. But then, we tend to call most anyone a hero in these sad times.
With that statement, I couldn't agree more.
I am on a train wearing a mask so I will only write a short response at present because the mask makes my glasses steam up. I will read your full response again later.
But the main point I wish to make for now is that the reason why I was writing about dreams is that Freud's whole approach and methodology was about dreams.
And, in that same vein...
[quote=Zhuangzhi]Am I man dreaming that I'm a butterfly or am I butterfly dreaming that I am a man[/quote]
[quote=TheMadFool]Please enjoy the train ride...wherever it is that you're headed...don't bother replying to my posts...I'm convinced they are the incoherent speech of a raving lunatic[/quote]
I have managed to see your reply despite wearing a mask and the train jogging a lot.
But I really do want to read what you wrote properly and also I am a bit distracted by the whole thread on the ethics of masturbation this morning.
I definitely don't think your ideas are the rankings of a lunatic, but all of us can get carried away. I am sure I get lost in tangents and loops.
I want to write the clearly as possible and avoid too many typing errors and incomplete sentences which do not help philosophy
In the meantime, I would say that being expected to wear face coverings as a norm does feel like a surreal, severe restrictions on human life.
Please PM me the link to your other thread.
I wish everyone would become familiar with fast and slow thinking. There are YouTubes on the subject. The explanation of why we make bad decisions is discouraging. We can make better decisions but we have to stop and methodically think about them. That is no fun. We take great pleasure in deciding on things based on how we feel. We think we are choosing for our happiness but unless we do the methodical thinking, down the road we can realize our judgment was wrong. Freud was not wrong but his understanding of this was inadequate. He had none of the tools such as brain imaging that we have today. With today's tools, I think Freud would be in 7th heaven.
I think Freud was distracted by "sex". I need to go on to whatThe Mad Fool said because I think much is more about power than sensual gratification. Making bad decisions comes with a sense of pleasure and a feeling of power. I am horrified by the risky behaviors of some in my family. A common problem is short term thinking or doing something for the fun of it while ignoring the possible consequences. You know, having the highest calorie drink on the menu because you know it will taste good, and ignoring the possible health problems of this choice. The pandemic is demonstrating what is wrong with that thinking, while people are carrying guns to protect their liberty to do as they please, and marching around their guns gives them a wonderful sense of power! It is not all about sex although carrying a gun and risky behavior can have sex appeal. The alpha male does get the females but I don't think he is choosing his behaviors with sexual gratification on his mind.
You missed the hundredth monkey theory. That being when enough monkeys know of something, that knowledge is in our universe and can be received by other monkeys even though there is no contact between the groups of monkeys. However, Jung and Joseph Campbell spoke of spontanious awareness of knowledge, which is like the voice of God speaking to Moses and hundreds of others who heard the voice of a god and I don't believe gods speak to people. However, we do have the concept of a tipping point. I think that is like a pandemic. When enough people have a virus or a thought, it spreads to just about everyone.
I was not aware that I was speaking of a mystical power when I mentioned cultures have a consciousness and subconsciousness. I don't think we can mediate about become aware of what is in the consciousness or subconsciousness unless it is our own thought, but rather is would unlikely to not be aware of cultural consciousness and we would not be aware of what our culture has made it taboo to think about.
I think nations require pschoanalysis just like indiividuals. We are the product of our history, but we may not know that history. Right now the US is in serious trouble because too few are aware of the history that made the US as it is. It was a terrible thing when our right to speak truth became confused with the freedom to say any damn thing we want to say, such as the pandemic should not concern us and should go on about our lives as though it did not exist and defending this right with guns and rebellion against majors. This problem is a failure of education. It is Satan on earth or a god punishing people for their sins.
Bottom line, I don't whink we have a disagreement but maybe a misunderstanding of culture and how history becomes culture, and the problem when a cultural value is known but not the history of the value. That makes a nature crazy just the same as something in a person's subconscious can make the person crazy.
Western culture is materialist and Eastern culture is not. Leading to the West developing technology, but India was a leader of math and gave us the zero, something essential to our own progress. Our cultures have a consciousness and an unconsciousness.
Well, I am at King's Cross station, having travelled from Bedford, my hometown, also the birthplace of John Bunyan, on my way to Tooting..
While sitting on the train I thought that part of the argument which I had been making about symbolic dimensions I am not sure if I can answer directly in terms of your reply at this stage, because it all comes down to the limitations of words.
This relates back to the art psychotherapy course which I was doing which looked at images because art therapy is about art making. This basis of art therapy is about the level of visual processing in the brain and how in some cases healing can exist at that level, beyond the limits of words.
Saying that, while I am extremely interested in art and love drawing, I think that my own mental processing is mainly verbal. At one point when I was in clinical supervision on the art psychotherapy course my supervisor said to me, 'You are full of words,' and I think that is true because I love words but I am not sure that is true for all. Recently a friend said to me, 'But you can find the words to articulate about things you go through whereas I can't ', and this made me think that for many, processessing of thought is not always primarily verbal.
So, what I am saying is that there are depths of experience reality which are not always about words, the tool of the philosophers. But of course I am interested in philosophy and the dialogue with psychoanalysis and how this all fits together, including where sensory perceptions and logic collide. I have downloaded a book by Lewis Carroll called Symbolic Logic. This might interested coming from the author of Alice in Wonderland.
I will get back to reading your thread again and I see that you have written one on the The Myth of Sisyphus, a fascinating book.
However, I must admit that sometimes while using this site I find it too easy to write responses too quickly without giving thorough care to reading comments as mindfully as I should. I wonder if this is just me, because I am getting so used to texting. Or, I wonder if it is about how easy it is becoming to just tap in answers unlike the pen and paper approach to writing. I wonder if this is just me or other people write too instantly on mobile devices?
I distinguish between legal rights and rights which are claimed, but not recognized in the law. "Rights" which aren't legal rights are what people think should be legal rights, but are not. For me, those are not rights, properly speaking.
The only legal right to free speech here in the U.S. arises from the fact the law prohibits government from restricting speech in most, but not all, cases. When people complain that their right to free speech is being restricted by anyone but the government, through laws or government agents, they refer to a right which isn't a legal right.
I would maintain, therefore, that there is no right to say anything we want. We may be, speak and act like idiots if we choose to do so, but there is no right to be an idiot. There is no law, however, which prohibits people from being, speaking and acting like idiots.
What the law does allow, though, is the use of the power of government to protect public health, safety and welfare, unless the law restricts the use of that power. So, the government can legally impose requirements (such as the wearing of masks) which would prevent people from exposing other people to harm if reasonably necessary, unless legal rights are violated which merit more consideration, have more weight. There is no such legal right; there is no legal right to refuse to wear masks, for example; nor is there a legal right not to be inconvenienced.
The concept of "rights" which exist but aren't recognized in the law seems to me to be a source not only of confusion and misunderstanding, but a source of exaggerated self-regard.
Quoting Athena
I'm not saying you were. I think the concept of a collective unconscious has characteristics of mysticism.
But I don't think we can usefully speak of cultures have a consciousness and subconsciousness unless we do so metaphorically, and frankly don't know what is meant by that.
You seem to speak in favor of authority over the people? I can not read any further until I express my objection to your understanding of our rights and i must state my understanding of the importance of freedom of speech.
Now I have to use the word God but I am not speaking of the Christian God. I am speaking logos and universal law.
Our liberty depends our human rights if they are formalized by law of not. Our democracy is about our God/nature given rights, not authority above the people.
Our liberty and democracy depend on God/nature's truth and our freedom of speech is about speaking truth. It is our duty to speak truth to authority and to combat ignorance. And on this day, I must say Trump and his followers are a horror to truth because they are living in denial of truth and their behavior leaves all of us either forced into denial or with a dread of what the pandemic is doing to us because their actions spread the virus and keep it out of control. If Trump understood and defended our democracy, he would not be using his power to silence people who say things he doesn't want to hear. A strong government is not in line with liberty and democracy. Liberty and democracy depend on individual authority and power. We have a culture for that or we do not.
People might think they have power, but the ultimate powers is with God/nutare. What you said maybe technologically correct, but I worry about the wisdom.
Legal rights are significant because they protect our civil liberties by restricting government authority. We should support the adoption of legal rights for that reason. Until they're adopted, however, claimed rights are unenforceable. They're what we wish were legal rights, i.e. what we think should be legal rights.
I'm something of a Stoic--an aspiring Stoic--because I think Stoicism provides a guide to how to live well and virtuously without the need to accept the existence of a personal, busybody God issuing commands, listening to our petitions and sometimes granting them, disbursing punishment and rewards as appropriate. The ancient Stoics had a good deal to say about natural law, but I don't think they were proponents of natural rights. Natural law is a guide to how to act--according to nature, virtue and reason, without regard for things outside our control--things, power, riches, etc., which we should treat as indifferent. When we act according to nature we act virtuously and reasonably towards others, who like us (according to traditional Stoicism) share in the Divine Reason or Divinity which is immanent in the universe. We don't do that because others have a "right" to be treated like that, but because that is the way we should conduct ourselves. [This is a simple summary of Stoicism as I understand it]
So we don't need a belief in natural rights, or inherent rights, to act morally and virtuously. But it can't be expected that government will act "according to nature" or virtuously. The concept of legal rights is useful as a means by which to restrict and control the power of government.
Going off topic, I know, but I wanted to respond to what I think are your concerns.
I see that you have written lengthy essays and I have absolutely no issue with your ideas or even you contribute to my thread as I don't want it to die just yet.
However, right at the start you said that you are no fan of Freud and I don't have any problem with that or any of your discussion. I am just wondering if other threads would be helpful for you, especially as you have expressed an interest in Egyptian civilisation. I am interested in it too but not very knowledgeable but I would recommend a thread started by Gus Lamarch about the cradle of civilisation.
In the meantime I am quite happy if you continue writing in this thread if you wish to do so.
Thank you. Freud was a great man, but I think his focus was too narrow. Still, I think I prefer him to Jung, who it seems to me may not have had enough evidence to conclude that virtually the entire cultural history of our species was packed away somewhere in our brains, unknown to us but available to pop out when appropriate.
As for Freud, the guy was a quack. I honestly wonder how he had such an influence for so long when much of his work has been discredited along the way. Even his notion of the subconscious was later found to be incorrect.
Quoting Ciceronianus the White
You kind of do, otherwise morality becomes "whatever I say is moral", something the stoics never fully grasped.
If you are against Freud can you come up with a philosophical argument against hm to back it up because views need to be based on critical analysis rather than mere subjective attitudes and dislikes.
The man's entire body of work has no evidence to back it and some of the good stuff he came up with was actually practiced by others before and during his time. Not to mention the HEAVY bias evident in his world (it was a reflection of his time, not about human nature in general).
One doesn't need philosophy to see him for the quack he is.
I guess so. Language is not exactly the perfect mode of communication. Telepathy would, in my opinion, be the closest thing to being a perfect language unless it too depends on language. After all, telepathy is just reading minds, right?
Quoting Jack Cummins
:ok: I'm starting another thread on this topic. One of my wild ideas. Probably hogwash but I'll put it out there for feedback.
Quoting Jack Cummins
:ok: I think you're off the mark but only by a bit. While 9 out of 10 times philosophy is bound to linguistics in the sense that philosophical discourse takes place within the bounds of ordinary language, tweaked for precision of course, there's the 1 out of 10 times, it (philosophy) has made forays into the ineffable, the world beyond words. I don't know how successful an enterprise that was/is.
I have been confident individuals and cultures have a consciousness and a subconsciousness. What is the explanation of Freud being wrong about that?
Quoting Ciceronianus the White
That seems compatible with how Socrates saw things. Our true selves know everything, but when we come into this three-dimensional existence we forget what we know. He demonstrated this by talking an uneducated boy through a math problem. His objective in life was to ask questions to raise awareness of what he expected everyone to know but thought they had forgotten. This would imply a subconscious, right?
I have said before, I think the genius of Freud came from the Greeks. Joseph Campbell followed Jung and said a hero is someone who makes us aware of the past. We have a personal past and a cultural past and a planetary past. A New Age follows awareness of the past. Which if there is no linear time is the present. :smile:
They believe that but recent evidence shows there to be no such subconscious.
I am interested to know a bit more about the evidence you speak of to show that there is no subconscious.
I was fairly impressed in some ways by the little critique you wrote on Freud's lack of evidence on your previous post, although your claims were lacking in clear evidence. If you are that convinced of the supremacy of evidence based research you need to be able to cite it. Were you coming from a psychological angle. This was not clear and while philosophy can draw upon psychology and psychoanalysis the various lines of thought need to be spoken of with clarity.
You moved from a position of lack of evidence to a claim that philosophy was not necessary to the conclusion that Freud was a quack. This was a rather sweeping opinion.
To some extent I do stand by my belief that experiences go beyond words, and that has led us both into a diversion into art therapy. But that does not to say that we should not be doing our best to find the words we need.
To say that psychoanalysis goes beyond words I am pointing at levels of reality which may be about evolutionary aspects of nature prior to the human level, namely the instinctual level of emotion.
Despite the mystics' claim of transcendent levels of awareness beyond words, I go back a bit on what I appear to have been arguing and say that as philosophers we need to find the best possible words to express our point of view. I am not sure if this means that logic is primary or whether it could include thinking about emotions and other instincts and drive from the position of reason.
I am glad you are still involved in the thread and engaging with the various comments. I went off in a bit of a diversion with The Mad Fool, into the realm of art therapy. One idea leads to another and it is all interconnected.
Any fool can see his theories are rooted in the biases of his time.
In the case of the wolf man Freud pretty much fabricated the cause of the poor guy and claimed that he was cured when the man himself says that such a memory would be impossible.
https://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/06/science/as-a-therapist-freud-fell-short-scholars-find.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
His entire practice has 0 evidence to support it. Literally anyone can see it and it's why his name no longer holds sway in psychology, some even say he set the whole thing back by 50 years.
His theories about women were just downright horrifying:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/friedan.htm
He even thought homosexuality was stunted repression of sexuality and that it contributed to several mental illnesses. He's responsible for several anti-gay myths.
I could go on but there is literally scores of evidence as to why the man was a quack.
I mean he even tried to peddle cocaine as a psychiatric cure-all: http://marsdentherapy.blogspot.com/2011/08/book-review-freud-and-cocaine-freudian.html
There is literally thousands of reasons to forget about the man.
I can see that you are providing evidence for your ideas and I do give you credit for that.The one bit I would question the most is the idea of discrediting the unconscious.
My questioning about discrediting the subconscious or unconscious is from a theoretical stance though. I am wondering is if we see the unconscious as a mere background process, I am left wondering if that would mean that sleep(and dreams) would be regarded as unnecessary. What would happen if we were awake constantly? I have experienced many sleepless nights and have felt absolutely terrible. I am not convinced that sleep is a mere rest for the body and do believe that dreaming is essential.I would suggest that it allows for some kind of synthesis of conscious experience.
I am not a biologist but do believe that the nervous system is complex. I am not sure that the brain itself is the only aspect of consciousness and the only way I can back this up is with reference to the limbic system and the parasympathetic nervous system.
Regarding biases I am inclined to think that rather that certain biases rather than him creating them he had certain views because he was affected by the prejudices of a former time. What I believe he did was about bringing sexuality into an open forum. The ideas he expressed provided a forum for discussion and this in itself has been a starting point for positive developments to further the awareness of women's rights and gay rights.
I am certainly not saying that Freud was without many weaknesses and I do acknowledge that you are getting into critical discussion. I certainly hoped that would happen and would not want Freud put on a pedestal. But I do believe that, as you say, he was not the only person exploring the many of the psychological ideas in his writings, but I would still say that his writings are a useful resource and I do believe it is not sufficient to simply dismiss him as 'a quack'.
My personal feeling is we have no good reason to believe (at this time, anyhow) there's anything beyond the universe. Nothing, therefore, that transcends it. Maybe we'll find out there is, sometime, or maybe there are other universes. People speak of a transcendent God, but we attribute characteristics to that God we can only conceive of though our existence as a part of the universe, and cannot even guess what is beyond it. The transcendent God makes no sense to me, and can't be known. If there's a God, I think it's immanent and impersonal.
So I would tend to doubt anything being "our true selves" unless it's thought to be a part of the universe. There's still a great deal we don't know about the universe, though.
I didn't need evidence to attack Freud but you refused to accept the obvious.
Quoting Jack Cummins
Not at all. He is one of the people responsible for perpetuation negative stereotypes of women and essentially gave people "scientific" grounds to discriminate against homosexuality. He didn't bring sexuality into an open forum, he pretty much validated the male-centered view of the world and still cast the women as "other". If he never existed women and gays likely would not have had the setbacks they would have because people would not be pointing to him as "science" behind their views.
I don't think you grasp how worthless the mans ideas were and yet he was able to influence people for years afterwards before they got smart as saw him as a quack. You are attributing positives to the man that don't exist. Nearly all of psychology today recognizes how Freud damaged the field pretty badly and almost led to people not taking psychology seriously.
Quoting Jack Cummins
Dreaming is not essential. Sure we can't really know much about it because it's very hard to test, but plenty of people have dreamless sleep and feel fine. Some don't dream at all. It's not essential. Your first conclusion does not follow. The subconscious being background noise does not mean sleep or dreams are unnecessary. IF you were awake constantly then you would suffer terribly as your brain cannot operate at that level for extended periods of time. Sleep is just rest for the body, that includes the brain. As for synthesis of conscious experience that is literally all we do. Our brains construct reality based on our sensations so what you get is a simulation not the actual thing.
[
I have never denied that Freud's ideas are without weaknesses. You gave links with some articles but as for your own argument it is mere opinion.
It is impossible to say what would have happened in the world of psychology if Freud had never existed.
I don't think psychology has been too badly damaged by Freud. It is thriving amidst the social sciences. Clinical psychology is a sought career for many, with fierce competition.
I think Freud's ideas do reflect the prejudices of his times but would say that I am not so sure that he was really against gay issues because he spoke of the dangers of repression.
His ideas can be used in many ways as with most thinkers.
I am not a scientist and I have no idea if you are and I do not think that scientists should have monopoly on claims to truth? Even scientists are affected by the participation observer bias.
What about the arts? Perhaps psychoanalysis fits more into this than any other perspective. The psychoanalytic tradition is not Freud alone but a whole heritage, including Jung, Melanie Klein and Walter Bion, to name just a few. Are you dismissing Freud or the worth of the whole field of psychodynamic psychotherapy? It still exists and has not been overthrown by cognitive behavioral therapists entirely.
You have dismissed the subconscious and dreams? Perhaps you would like to propose a model for understanding the mind. You seem to have faith in neuroscience but is that the be all and end all? Will you be wishing for philosophy itself to become a mere footnote to add to an all encompassing brain science.
Freud was materialistic, right? Matter follows laws, right? Logos, reason, the controlling force of the universe, is nothing like the God of Abraham. It is not personal. We can live in harmony of the law or suffer the consequences of not doing so.
It is said there could be other dimensions. I think our 3 dimensional reality is only in our 3 dimensional reality and I have no concept of any other. :lol: I am reminded of The Disney movie Inside Out when the girl goes into the abstract room.
As for other controlling rules that are not about matter, Jean Shinoda Bolen's books Gods in Everyman and Goddess in Every Woman presents a realty that is not material. Using the Gods and Goddesses she tells us how these archetypes influence our lives and how our childhood influences us. A concept and an experience are not made of matter yet they influence what we think and how we feel. I don't think we can deny there is more to reality than matter.
Freud was as accepting of homosexuality as the Greeks were because he got a good share of information from the Greeks. Here Hippocrates is important to our understanding and judgment of Freud. Freud like Hippocrates held a materialistic understanding of disease. He said it is what happens in the body that causes disease, not the gods or demons. This was vital to the Christian understanding of medicine that associated illness with sin and demons. For biological reasons a person could be homosexual and we can dismiss everything the Bible has to say about it being sinful and disliked by a God.
As Ciceronianus the White mentioned there may not be a personal God who deals with us individually or cares what we do in private. No demons or miracles from a God and homosexuality is not a mental disease but a biological reality. HIV is not a punishment from God to punish people gay men.
I agree with you that it is hard to see how issues like post traumatic syndrome can be accounted for without the idea of the subconscious.
Psychiatrists have not dismissed the tradition of psychoanalysis as many undertake training in psychodynamic therapy. Many are progressing thinkers, go beyond sexism and homophobia. Of course psychiatry does use drugs, but most do recognise the importance of the subconscious and the past, especially relevant for both post traumatic syndrome and borderline personality disorder.
Of course psychiatry can come under attack. The whole anti antipsychiatry tradition questioned some of the labelling of disorders.
It seems today everyone is ready to attack anything and everything. This is a serious spiritual disease. That is something materialist have a problem discussing, but I will say our spirit is as important as material substance. The American Spirit is a high morale. We feel it when we believe we doing the right thing. But something has gone very wrong with our spirit. I am sure those people standing outside of polling places yelling "stop the count" believe they are doing the right thing, but they are angry and threatening. That does not look like a high morale to me.
I have no idea how Freud would judge what is happening now, but I know it is about spirit not just matter and facts.
Oregon has just legalized the clinical use of psilocybin and we have great hope for this drug. I would love to know what Freud would have to say of this? A cure for depression, addiction, post trauma syndrome without pyschoanalysis. Another cure can be art especially if the individual is being creative and making art. I think both the drug and creativity share something in common.
I think you were responding to me while I was responding to you.
I am glad that you can see that Freud's ideas do not have to be seen as attacking gay people.
The only thing to bear in mind when speaking of Freud's views in relation to religion is that he wrote a vast amount on religion himself. He was not a believer in God but he did give credit to the oceanic feeling.
I think one of the problems we have with Freud is that in his role as psychiatrist/ psychologist/ psychiatrist is that he did step outside of his role and that is where he goes into philosophy.
Nowadays, at least the roles of different professionals is marked out because the fuzziness of roles can become problematic. While Freud can be seen as a great writer and that is the main strength I would attribute to him, I think that no one today could get away with jumping around areas of thought as he does.
I think that even philosophers have to be careful about this. The main problem is that it could undermine the importance of what is being said.
But I am not wanting a philosophy put in a box.
I see you have written another post while I am writing this. Yes, a cure for post traumatic disorder would be good. I will be very surprised if a psychedelic gets prescribed, even CBD is being frowned upon by many. In my antipsychiatry voice I would say that psychiatry is far more in favour of antipsychotics for post traumatic disorder than psychedelics because visionary healing is not valued enough.
You mention the creative arts and I don't know whether you noticed that The Mad Fool created a thread on this in response to a discussion he had with me.
You should be able to find it, if you are interested, by just scrolling down the page because it was active yesterday.
Pot was made legal sometime ago and there are stores selling everywhere. We have also moved from stiff criminal sentences for possession of drugs to treatment.
Personally I do not want to be around people who are stoned or under the influence of alcohol. However, when I face death I am looking forward to doing psilocybin in a facility that includes that in its services. I do not believing dying has to be an unpleasant experience and I am glad Oregon has assisted suicide.
PS measure 109 passed.
On a diversion from Freud I am wondering if you have read The Doors of Perception/ Heaven and Hell, and I believe that he used Mescalin when he was dying.
I will read the Freud links as the point I was interested in him was his views on the life and death instincts. I think that part of his work may be the most interesting. The structure of id, ego and superego are also unique and useful I believe.
After all, in assessing Freud it does not have to be about an all encompassing rejection or acceptance of everything he said. That applies to all thinkers too. We do not want to be philosophical robots.
"The mind" so far has no evidence for existing as neuroscience gets more advanced. What was termed the mind is just the brain: personality, behavior, emotions, everything. As for Freud psychology would have been better off without him. Talk therapy was his only good contribution but that was not news.
Your essential argument seems to be most in line with the material reductionist. It is compatible with the behaviourist approach of B F Skinner. You do appear to believe that the neuroscientists have the final word. When you say that the 'mind' does not exist you are making an assertion about the mind and body problem of philosophy, a huge a whole branch of philosophy in itself and yet you write as if you can sum the whole field up in a couple of sentences.
Also, in your approach to post traumatic syndrome and its healing you say that the experiences come down to a rewiring of the brain. Of course, the brain is involved in all human experiences but once again you are being completely reductionist. You say that 'tricky part' involves more than 'a nip and a tuck'. Indeed, that is the problem as the repair of human suffering is complex.
As you are so opposed to Freud's ideas what do you believe the answer is for working with life experiences of the past ? You say that talk therapy was not new and I am not sure if you are dismissing it at all or not. I would say that it can help depending on the approach of the therapist. I have been in therapy for personal issues and as part of an art psychotherapy course and would say it can be hinder or help. I believe that this applies to all therapy, including person centred, psychodynamic, Gestalt or cognitive behavioral techniques. There are many therapists with bad attitudes who have absolutely no connection with the ideas of Freud.
All in all, you argue that the 'what was termed the mind is just the brain' , dismissing the 'personality, behaviour, emotions, everything''. In saying this you are dismissing the essence of what it means to be a human being. Do you believe we are just brains? You are looking at the hardware of human existence and wishing to look at nothing beyond this. But, more than anything you need to realise that your dismissal of the mind, and the subconscious of Freudian thought , involves debate around the philosophy of mind which is a whole branch of philosophy and cannot be written away in a couple of sentences.
I guess that depends on how we define the subconscious. We surely can not be aware of all the information stored in our brains. Would not the information we are not aware of be a subconscious? I watched a show last night about how we are preprogrammed for prejudice, selecting for our own kind. It is something we do automatically without being aware of doing it.
Oh, oh, oh I think it should be obvious to everyone that our body and brain are not separate. I believing our bodies hold information and memories our brains may have forgotten.
Quoting Jack Cummins
I have no problem with the notion of an experience wiring our body/brain. This is especially true of our sex drive. While hormones play a role in our sexual impulses and may determine our sexual preference, so does experience wire our sexuality. Molesting a child can result in the child becoming a pedophile, or a person can be fixated on feet or rubber. I knew a man who was so cursed, and he lit up like a Christmas tree when children were in the swimming pool. He had lied to me about having this problem and I ended that relationship. The point is obviously he had this reaction without mental control. He had no more control over his physical reaction than I can avoid thinking I am hungry when I see food.
Quoting Jack Cummins
From experience I would say this is where linguistics comes in, self-talk, how we tell ourselves the story. My original trauma happened when I was preverbal so I had a lot of work to do to figure out why I was have a problem. When I pin pointed the experience that caused the trauma and told a counselor what happened, he was able to change the self talk, and I went from experiencing myself as different personalities back to one person having different experiences. What a relief that was.
A key for me was reading a book about traumatized children and realizing I was preverbal when the event happened. I would have had no words for explaining what happened if my mother had not told me what happened. But it was recorded emotionally. First fear and than absolute chaotic terror that could get tripped, if something in the present, tripped the emotional memory. At least for me, understanding all these explanations and getting the right help made a big difference in my life. That counselor introduced me to linguistics and I think of what he did to help me as mind magic because it seemed to rewired my brain.
In my adult life the problem presented as panic attacks and that was fascinating. I got so tired of doctors dismissing what was happening to me as nothing but panic attacks, that I refused to give in to the panic attack the last time I went to the emergency room, many years ago. I calmly told the doctor I was in a state of panic. He didn't believe me but checked my body for signs of panic and sure enough, my body thought I was in a terrifying situation. That is when I began my effort to understand how our brains work and I have preferred the mechanics of how our brains work to Freudian analysis. I think Freud would prefer that too, he just didn't have the tools researchers have today.
The field of post traumatic stress disorder is interesting. I have come across a few people who feel that they have it and it is sometimes gets mistaken for borderline personality disorder. In fact, one of the tutors on my art therapy course thought that complex post traumatic stress disorder would be better for what is regarded as borderline personality disorder. To some extent I agree but I am not sure that there is not a subtle difference. Whatever the labels, severe stress does terrible things to us.
Really, even though I am writing about Freud and arguing against Darkneos's dismissal of Freud I think that various schools of thought can contribute to the understanding of various conditions. I am sure that Freud would not be opposed to neuroscience and in his time hypnotherapy was fashionable so he went down that route.
Understanding is an open quest and can learn from the various competing disciplines and fields of thought. I think philosophy needs to engage in this way rather than thinkers becoming too rigid, fixed and attached to any one way of thinking. The philosopher needs to be able to do mental gymnastics to stay adrift in the rocky slopes of our times.
I hate labels! The only thing we should label is a behavior, not the person, with a few exceptions that have biological causes that can be validated. I think, when we get to personality disorders, we are getting into skittishy territory. We all know what a unicorn is and there is no such thing as a unicorn. If we can think it, we can create it in our own minds, but that doesn't make it so. That is kind of like becoming aware of a concept and naming a god to represent that concept. Civilizations with multiple gods eventually had to give them up because there was no end to the number of new gods.
Oh but when it comes to specialist and rigid thinking that is a dead end road! I love the gods because they were essential to the development of our consciousness. This is not possible when there is only one God. When there are many gods(concepts) we can realize new ones (concepts) and when they interact, our consciousness is expanded. That just does not happen when there is only one God. Your awareness is limited to what that one God said. Today different fields of study have replaced the gods and too much specialization lead to realizing these specialist must interact to increase understanding. Each god and each field of study is a different point of view. The more points of view we have the more will see up to a point. Too many gods can be overwhelming. Expanding consciousness is kind of like breathing. There is a rhythm to it. Expand awareness, assimilate it. Expand awareness, assimilate it.
I am sorry that I did not reply to your post sooner, but I have reflected on what you said. I agree with what you say about labels. While I was working in mental health care it was very difficult to stay clear of the limitations of labels, especially the one of borderline personality disorder. Just the idea evokes prejudice before you even meet a person. Psychiatric reports can also make horrible sweeping, condemning evaluations of people. Sometimes the reports and diagnostic statements are taken as facts when they are only opinions.
In a way I do find that I can think more freely having stepped outside of working in the psychiatric system. If I do go back to working in the area of mental health, because I am still interested in it as much as ever, I would prefer to do in some way which is less rigid and bound up with institutions.For example, I would consider working with the homeless and I prefer spending time with the people directly.
As for psychoanalysis, even that can be diagnostic and some therapists can be very judgemental. I prefer to read the writings of Freud, Jung as well as drawing upon the many different psychological perspectives in order to form the broadest possible understanding of human suffering and creative solutions.