Sigmund Freud is famous above all for insisting that mental states can be unconscious. This momentous claim represented a significant change of course for psychology from the Cartesian view, dominant in Freudâs time, that held that the mental equals consciousness.
But what exactly is Freudâs argument for the view that it is possible for mental statesâspecifically ideas (Vorstellungen), such as thoughts, images, and other cognitive representationsâto be unconscious? This topic has received renewed attention from philosophers since John Searleâs (1992) influential critique of the Freudian notion of the unconscious. Despite some excellent philosophical scholarship in this area, especially John Livingstone Smithâs (1999a) book-length treatment of Freudâs âphilosophy of the unconsciousâ and many conceptually sophisticated entries in Edward Erwinâs (2001) Freud encyclopedia and in Morris Eagleâs (2018a, 2018b) two volumes on core concepts in psychoanalysis, as well as a slew of other illuminating books from philosophers and intellectual historians that address or touch on Freudâs philosophy of mind and its historic role (e.g., Boag, Brakel, & Talvitie, 2015; Churchland, 2013; Kitcher, 1992; Lear, 2015; Levy, 1996; Makari, 2008, 2015), I donât think we yet have a fully adequate answer to this question. I attempt to provide such an answer in this book by reconstructing Freudâs philosophical argument for the existence of unconscious mental states.
I argue that scattered throughout Freudâs writings there is a systematic andâeven when judged by current philosophical standardsârather sophisticated and subtle philosophical argument about the nature of the mental. This argument, I claim, has direct lines of contact with philosophy of mind today and its struggle to reconcile an intentionalist theory of the mental with the mystery of consciousness. The reconstructed argument, I believe, reveals Freud as a prescient and important philosopher of mind who made a seminal and underappreciated contribution when judged by the concerns that dominate philosophy of mind in the analytic tradition today.
Freud is under siege these days by critics, mostly for reasons having to do with his clinical and psychological theorizing and the questionable evidential base for some of his claims. This book does not address or try to save Freud from the resulting âFreud wars.â Rather, I sharply distinguish Freudâs clinical theorizing from the strictly philosophical argument that I claim he presented for the nature of the mental (in Chapter 3, I show that Freud himself recognized such a distinction), and I focus exclusively on the philosophy of mind argument. This undertaking is bound to arouse skepticism among those who have dismissed Freud as a pseudoscientist in his clinical theorizing. I aim to show that no such accusation can be lodged against his philosophical thinking; he is not a pseudo-philosopher but a bold and perceptive instance of the genuine article.
I focus on Freudâs major conceptual and theoretical strategic moves, following a path of ascent to the anti-Cartesian summit that has not been mapped before but became increasingly elaborated in Freudâs later years as he reflected on the centrality and complexity of his philosophical argument. The novel parts of the reconstructed argumentâsuch as an essentialist definition of âmental,â Freudâs new twist on psychophysical parallelism, the embrace of Franz Brentanoâs (1874/1995) account of the mental as intentionality while abandoning Brentanoâs equation of intentionality with consciousness, and the adoption with another crucial twist of Brentanoâs perceptual model of consciousnessâconstitute the most consequential and least-understood aspects of Freudâs assault on Cartesianism. Whether directly from Freud or as part of the intellectual background, I suggest that Freudâs philosophical argument contributed to reshaping psychology and philosophy of mind into what they are today. Given the prominence of Freudâs writings, I locate the argument within the history of psychology and philosophy of mind without claiming or attempting to document actual lines of influence.
Although the problem of the nature and existence of unconscious mental states may not be as hard as the âhard problemâ (Chalmers, 1995) of the nature of consciousness, it has proven quite challenging. Despite decades of heated discussion, no consensus yet exists among philosophers of mind as to what constitutes a genuine mental content that is realized in the brain, but not in consciousness. My analysis of Freudâs argument is the first step toward presenting a new solution to the ânot as hard but still quite difficultâ problem of unconscious mental states.
Freudâs argument requires reconstruction because, although its essential premises are clearly in Freudâs text, they exist in the form of scattered remarks rather than one unified logical presentation. There are also many enthymemic gaps in the argument that must be filled. Consistent with the surprisingly sophisticated nature of the argument itself, I formulate it within the context and apparatus of contemporary analytic philosophy. I try to be as charitable and sympathetic as possible in interpreting Freud, refining the structure of his argument where logic or more recent philosophical insights demand it and where an elaboration stays within the spirit of Freudâs approach. My prime concern here is conceptual insight into the nature of the argument, not strict historical accuracy regarding explicit statements. However, I believe that my reconstruction is supported by the textual evidence and stays well within the limits imposed by Freudâs presentation.
For some readers, the reconstruction contained in this book may seem superfluous. Freudâs argument for the existence of unconscious mental states is well known, they would object: In observing consciousness, one finds that it lacks rational or associative continuity and that there are âgapsâ in the sequence of conscious mental states (e.g., unconscious problem-solving, post-hypnotic suggestion) that can only be explained by unconscious mental states. Freud often presented the âcontinuity argumentââthat the sequence of conscious states lacks rational or associative continuityâas if it is his central argument for unconscious mental states, and othersâfor example, Smith (1999a)âtake it to be Freudâs central argument. It certainly has a role to play and is part of the larger Freudian strategy that I excavate. However, I argue that the continuity argument has to rely on a prior philosophical argument about the essence of the mental if it is to be effective. Otherwise, such an argument about missing links between conscious states begs the long-disputed philosophical question of how to properly interpret such examples (see Chapter 8). In the course of the analysis, I explain why I donât think the continuity argument can stand alone or be the starting point of a compelling argument that arrives at Freudâs conclusion. I will also address this issue in greater detail in a further volume in this series.
The argument over the existence of unconscious mental states has an empirical component, but it was first and foremost a philosophical debate in Freudâs time. Freud was, of course, not a philosopher in terms of his lifeâs major work. Yet, common statements over the decades that âFreud was not a philosopherâ (Quinton, 1972, p. 72; Gyemant, 2017, p. 491), and even the characterization of Freud as a âreluctant philosopherâ (Tauber, 2010), are misleading. I believe this verdict on Freud is due to inadequate attention to the nuances of Freudâs text.
Freud was in a small portion of his work a philosopher, and he was anything but reluctant to challenge philosophical views and defend philosophical claims. He returned to the same philosophical points again and again, sharpening his arguments over time. Commentators tend to confuse Freudâs contempt for both the standard Cartesian views that dominated philosophy of mind at his time (which he dismissively refers to globally as âphilosophyâ or the views of âthe philosophersâ) and the mysticism of the Germanic metaphysical tradition that preceded him for a general hatred of philosophy. What we now know of his university years (detailed in Chapter 6) reveals instead a deep affinity for and enduring engagement with philosophy. Indeed, we know from Freudâs letters that his philosophy teacher, Franz Brentano, instilled in Freud some of his extreme negative attitudes toward earlier philosophers even as he inspired Freudâs love of philosophy. Following Brentano, Freudâs disdain for philosophy was a would-be philosopherâs disdain for an admired subject being poorly pursued. The documentation of Freudâs supposed negative attitude toward philosophers and philosophy has been presented so many times that I do not go through it again; it is not relevant to my task of reconstructing Freudâs philosophical argument. Those interested can see Smith (1999a), who agrees with me on this point but nonetheless dutifully summarizes the claims and the quotes, and there are many other sources (e.g., Tauber, 2010).
In my view, the philosopher of science Clark Glymour (1991) gets closer to the truth when he states:
Freudâs writings contain a philosophy of mind, and indeed a philosophy of mind that addresses many of the issues about the mental that nowadays concern philosophers and ought to concern psychologists. Freudâs thinking about the issues in the philosophy of mind is better than much of what goes on in contemporary philosophy, and it is sometimes as good as the best. ⌠Even when Freud had the wrong answer to a question, or refused to give an answer, he knew what the question was and what was at stake in it. And when he was deeply wrong it was often for reasons that still make parts of cognitive psychology wrong. (p. 46)
My reconstruction of Freudâs philosophical argument for the existence of unconscious mental states places Freudâs argument within both Freudâs own historical context and the context of contemporary philosophical debate. In arguing for the existence of unconscious mental states, Freud explicitly challenged the then-dominant tradition that I will refer to here as the âCartesianâ view of the mind or as the âconsciousness criterion,â namely the doctrine that the mind consists of consciousness and thus mental states are conscious states. (Note that here and throughout this book I tend to use âCartesianâ to refer specifically to the doctrine that confronted and was challenged by Freud, that mental states are conscious states, and not to any of the rest of the doctrines about mind associated with Descartes, such as substance dualism.) I believe that it is by anchoring an analysis within the context of Freudâs challenge to Cartesianism that the reconstruction of Freudâs argument can best proceed and is most illuminating.
The reconstruction of Freudâs argument for unconscious mentation potentially has a broader significance. I believe that the Freudian argument that emerges from this reconstruction in important respects approximates âtheâ argument for unconscious mental states. That is, from Freudâs day through to our own cognitive science, the kind of argument that Freud attempted to mount is in certain respects the central type of argument that addresses the issue of unconscious mental states in a way that engages the objections raised by Cartesians (Wakefield, 1992). Despite the ubiquity of belief in unconscious mental states these days, the features of such an argument that make it prima facie persuasive as to the existence of unconscious mental states are not well understood, in my view. Reconstructing Freudâs argument reveals some of those features. One supposes that, if one wanted to formulate a parallel argument for cognitive science that engaged the objections and alternative perspective of todayâs Cartesians, something along the lines of Freudâs argument must underlie the postulation of unconscious mental states there as well.
Regarding Freudâs relationship to cognitive science, there is of course nothing new in seeing Freudâs work as an early precursor of todayâs cognitive theorizing. Many writers have commented to this effect. For example, Glymour (1991) says that âA big part of contemporary cognitive science is pretty much what you would expect if Sigmund Freud had had a computerâ (p. 144), Kitcher (1992) describes Freud as âthe first interdisciplinary cognitive scientistâ (p. 5), and Smith (1999b) says âSigmund Freud was clearly an unacknowledged pioneer of cognitive scienceâ (p. 421â422). However, these writers have various substantive aspects of Freudâs theory in mind that go beyond the strictly philosophical justification for rejecting Cartesianism and placing unconscious representational contents at the heart of the science of the mind. It is specifically and e...