Just how unconscious is the unconscious? Revisiting Freud's theory of the mind

CFS lecture by Joona Taipale, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Jyväskylä, Finland.

The lecture is open to all and all are welcome.

Abstract:

The Freudian concept of the unconscious is generally presented in terms of a region of the mind that is inaccessible to consciousness. Upon closer scrutiny, however, Freud admits – here and there, yet throughout his career – that the unconscious must be somehow given to itself. In other words, be it latent dream-thoughts or repressed wishes, the mind can only disguise the inappropriate content and repress the unwanted if it somehow “knows” what it thereby represses and disguises. The paradox that Freud thus faces is that of an unconscious that is nonetheless aware of itself. To account for such self-givenness, Freud introduces the notion of “endopsychic perception” (endopsychischen Wahrnehmung). He never managed to clarify the issue, however, and the notion has been only touched upon in the subsequent psychoanalytic tradition. Clarifying the notion, I will argue that, unlike it first seems, the notion of endopsychic perception does not annul the psychoanalytic theory of the unconscious but instead sets it on a stable philosophical foundation.