3.2 UNCONSCIOUS MIND PRIOR TO FRUED:

The term “unconscious “was coined by the 18th-century German romantic philosopher Friedrich Schelling and later introduced into English by the poet and essayist Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

The unconscious mind (or the unconscious) consists of the processes in the mind that occur automatically and are not available to introspection. It  include thought processes, memory, affect, and motivation. Even though these processes exist well under the surface of conscious awareness they are theorized to exert an impact on behavior.






Paracelsus is credited as the first to make mention of an unconscious aspect of cognition in his work Von den Krankheiten ("About illnesses", 1567), and his clinical methodology created a cogent system that is regarded by some as the beginning of modern scientific psychology. Several concepts of unconscious in his characterizations can be seen in the plays of  William Shakespeare. Western philosophers such as Espinoza,  Leibniz, A Schopenhauer[i],  Fichte, Hegel[ii]-[iii],  Kierkegaard, and  Nietzsche, developed a  view of the mind which foreshadowed Freud's theories. Psychologist Jacques Van Rillaer points out that, "the unconscious was not discovered by Freud.

 In 1890, when psychoanalysis was still unheard of, William James, in his monumental treatise on psychology, examined the way Schopenhauer, von Hartmann[iv], Janet, Binet and others had

used the term 'unconscious' and 'subconscious'". The  unconscious, cerebral activity and  debth psychology were well known to the nineteenth century psychologists and physicians who practiced psychiatry( like Eugene Bleuler and Emil Kraeplein).

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[i] The inward reluctance with which any one accepts the world as merely his idea, warns him that this view of it, however true it may be, is nevertheless one-sided, adopted in consequence of some arbitrary abstraction. And yet it is a conception from which he can never free himself. The defectiveness of this view will be corrected in the next book by means of a truth which is not so immediately certain as that from which we start here; a truth at which we can arrive only by deeper research and more severe abstraction, by the separation of what is different and the union of what is identical. This truth, which must be very serious and impressive if not awful to every one, is that a man can also say and must say, "the world is my will."......................................... We, however, who consistently occupy the standpoint of philosophy, must be satisfied here with negative know ledge, content to have reached the utmost limit of the positive. We have recognised the inmost nature of the world as will, and all its phenomena as only the objec tivity of will ; and we have followed this objectivity from the unconscious working of obscure forces of Nature up to the completely conscious action of man. Therefore we shall by no means evade the consequence, that with the free denial, the surrender of the will, all those phenomena are also abolished ; that constant strain and effort without end and without rest at all the grades of objectivity, in which and through which the world consists ; the multi farious forms succeeding each other in gradation ; the whole manifestation of the will; and, finally, also the universal forms of this manifestation, time and space, andalso its last fundamental form, subject and object ; all are abolished. No will : no idea, no world.

Before us there is certainly only nothingness. the will to foe, which" we ourselves are as it is our world. That we abhor annihilation so greatly, is simply another expression of the fact that we so strenu ously will life, and are nothing but this will, and know nothing besides it But if we turn our glance from our own needy and embarrassed condition to those who have overcome the world, in whom the will, having attained to perfect self-knowledge, found itself again in all, and then freely denied itself, and who then merely wait to see the last trace of it vanish with the body which it animates ; then, instead of the restless striving and effort, instead of the constant transition from wish to fruition, and from joy to sorrow, instead of the never-satisfied and never-dying hope which constitutes the life of the man who wills, we shall see that peace which is above all reason, that perfect calm of the spirit, that deep rest, that inviolable confidence and serenity, the mere reflec tion of which in the countenance, as Raphael and Cor- reggio have represented it, is an entire and certain gospel ; only knowledge remains, the will lias vanished. We look with deep and painful longing upon this state, beside which the misery and wretchedness of our own is brought out clearly by the contrast. Yet this is the only con sideration which can afford us lasting consolation, when, on the one hand, we have recognised incurable suffering and .^ndless misery as essential to the manifestation of will, the world ; and, on the other hand, see the world pass away with the abolition of will, and retain before us only empty nothingness. Thus, in this way, by contem plation of the lii e and conduct of saints, whom it is certainly rarely granted us to meet with in our own ex perience, but who are brought before our eyes by their written history, and, witli the stamp of inner truth, byart, we must banish the dark impression oi that nothing ness which we discern behind all virtue and holiness as their final goal, and which we fear as children fear the dark ; we must not even evade it like the Indians, through myths and meaningless words, such as reabsorption in Brahma or the Nirvana of the Buddhists. Kather do we freely acknowledge that what remains after the entire abolition of will is for all those who are still full of will certainly nothing ; but, conversely, to those in whom the will has turned and has denied itself, this our world, which is so real, with all its suns and milky-ways is nothing. 11 This is also just the Prajna- are no more. (Cf. J. J. Schmidt,Paramita of the Buddhists, the " Ueber das Mahajana und Prat-"beyond all knowledge," i.e., the schna-Paramita.") point at which subject and object.The World as Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer, translated by R B Haldane and J. KempFourth Book .

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_World_as_Will_and_Representation/Fourth_Book

[ii]  Title: The Unconscious Abyss: Hegel's Anticipation of Psychoanalysis Author:  Mills, Jon
Publisher: New York: SUNY Press, 2002 Reviewed By: Marilyn Nissim Sabat, Winter 2005, pp. 65-68

Preliminary Rather, in showing that Hegel anticipated Freud, Mills seeks to accomplish two goals: first, he aims to restore the unconscious to the status and role it has in the Freudian body of writings; secondly, Mills aims to motivate the transformation of psychoanalysis into what he calls a “process psychology” or, equivalently, a “dialectical psychoanalysis.” Were this to come about, a sea change in clinical thinking and clinical work should follow. Thus, the showing of Hegel’s anticipation of psychoanalysis (a highly successful tour de force by Mills), is intended to evoke something like the following reflections: if Hegel anticipated psychoanalysis, then psychoanalysis can benefit greatly, at the very least, from Hegel’s dialectical method (Mills repeatedly states in the book that he does not advocate adoption of Hegel’s philosophical stance tout court).

However, as Mills notes in his introductory chapter on the prehistory of Hegel’s notion of the unconscious abyss, the Hegelian dialectic is radically different from the Fichtean thesis-antithesis-synthesis; for Hegel, rather, every “synthesis” is a new beginning, and this places the emphasis properly: the dialectical process is ever ongoing. Perhaps Hoffman has not fully appreciated this aspect of the Hegelian dialectic.

The Unconscious Abyss is in many ways a remarkable book, particularly, as will be illustrated below, in the manner and content of Mills exposition of both Hegel’s and Freud’s ideas. Hegel has benefited from having quite a few superb expositors and interpreters; While it contains many significant quotes from both Hegel and Freud, the book clearly is the product of an extraordinary process of internalization of Hegel’s writings and thought. Mills gives us Hegel from the inside, so to speak, Hegel as Mills’ lived experience of his thought, Mills’ love for and mastery of Hegel’s system, and Freud’s as well. Thus, Mills’ presentation of Hegel is neither merely expository nor merely interpretive; rather, it is a representation of Hegel infused throughout by a vision of the whole and by Mills’ conviction not only that Hegel anticipated Freud, but that if psychoanalysis is to have a future, qua psychoanalysis, that is, then it must be grounded in core ideas of Hegelianism.

From a critical perspective, it must be said that the marriage of Hegel and Freud is based on, so to speak, a pre-nuptial agreement; that is, Mills assumes that Freud’s philosophical perspective was not physicalist reduction (or positivist), as Hegel’s was not. This is certainly a plausible view of Freud for which many have argued, given that Freud’s own remarks are notoriously ambiguous on this point. Were Freud a physicalist reductionist, his system would be radically incompatible with Hegel’s. In the conclusion of this review, I will make some further remarks on this point.

The best way to characterize The Unconscious Abyss is by discussing the meaning of the phrase itself, as Mills understands it. However, before doing so it is necessary to discuss some of the most important factors that lead Mills to believe not only that Hegel anticipated Freud, but that Hegel provides a philosophical grounding for Freud’s conception of the psyche that gives psychoanalysis needed credibility.

For Mills, the view that psychoanalysis ought to be construed as a “process psychology” or a “dialectical psychoanalysis” is the outcome of comprehending the development of the ego from its inception in the unconscious abyss to its attainment of mature self-consciousness. This is so because Hegel’s notion of the inception of the psyche as “drive,” and as ceaseless self-activity and change is identical to Freud’s notion of “drive,” and anything that is in ceaseless change is necessarily in a process of becoming. Most important is a point Mills reiterates throughout his study: following Hegel, Mills insists not only that the ego (the ego in the psychoanalytic and Hegelian senses) originates in the unconscious; in addition and most importantly, he insists that the unconscious ontologically, logically, and developmentally precedes consciousness and self-consciousness and is the dynamic root of human psychic and psychosocial development. It follows from this that failing to appreciate this relation between consciousness and the unconscious amounts to abandoning psychoanalysis.

Mills is of course not the first psychoanalyst/theorist to deplore what is taken to be the jettisoning of the Freudian unconscious. Defense of the unconscious has come from a variety of sources, including some theorists who proclaim that Freud was a physicalist reductionist and that the unconscious consists primarily of drives that originate biologically, i.e., in the body where the body is construed as pure materiality. The problem with this perspective is that it inevitably culminates either in an untenable pure materialism that denies freedom or in some form or other of psychophysical dualism, for example epiphenomenalism, which Freud at times espoused. Mills’ defense of the Freudian unconscious rejects the view that Freud was a reductionist, even though Freud understood correctly that drives originate in the biological body. This is one of the crucial points that Mills believes is resolved by the Hegelian perspective. The issue to be resolved is this: how do we understand both that drives originate in the biological body and at the same time that this is not a reductionist claim?

The solution lies in the rejection of mind-body dualism. The Hegelian philosophy is entirely monistic, and its method is dialectic. In this perspective, subjectivity and substance (nature, materiality) are dialectically interpenetrated such that the progress of Spirit (Mind) towards freedom is a progress from substance to subject. In other words, when subject recognizes nature as its own externalized self, spirit will have returned to its beginning prior to its own self-diremption (splitting into Nature and Mind). There is no dualism, then, because subject and nature are ontologically the same. Thus, physicalist reductionism (or positivism), the view that there is a nature that exists entirely independently of subjectivity, is untenable within the Hegelian monistic perspective. Importantly, however, Mills cautions that he does not advocate acceptance of Hegel’s entire system. For example, we need not accept Hegel’s notion of all of human history as the odyssey of Spirit towards Absolute Knowledge, i.e., freedom consequent upon Spirit’s reconciliation with its own alienated self, Nature.

[iii] Historical Origins of the Abyss:Hegel himself did not originate the notion of the unconscious abyss. Rather he took it over in large measure from Boehme, neo-Platonism, and Schelling. The concept of the abyss (Ungrund) derives from Boehme's theosophic Christianity. Inspired by the study of Plotinus,⁽³⁾ Boehme radically reconceptualized God as the ens manifestativum sui, "the being whose essence is to reveal itself."⁽⁴⁾ Boehme developed an elementary form of dialectic. In this dialectic, positive and negative polarities emerge out of the Godhead's original undifferentiated non-being (das Nichts), and these unfold through orderly stages of manifestation as it ascends toward absolute self-consciousness.⁽⁵⁾ At one time, scholars thought that Boehme's term Ungrund originated in the Gnostic 'abyss,' since there are shared similarities between the two.⁽⁶⁾ But Koyré has cogently disputed this claim, interpreting Boehme's notion of the abyss as the "ground without a ground."⁽⁷⁾ Before the divine Ungrund emerges, there is no source of determination, there is nothing; the Ungrund is merely "unfathomable" and "incomprehensible." The Ungrund is the uncertainty which precedes the divine will's arousing itself to self-awareness.⁽⁸⁾ Furthermore, Boehme's Ungrund acts as a subject who desires: "it 'seeks,' it 'longs,' it 'sees,' and it 'finds'."⁽⁹⁾While Hegel does give testimony to Boehme,⁽¹⁰⁾ he probably owes more to Proclus (through Creuzer), Plotinus, Erigena, and Schelling.⁽¹¹⁾ Boehme's impact on Schelling was considerable; and Schelling was among the very first philosophers to underscore the importance of the unconscious and the role of irrationality in human experience.⁽¹²⁾ However, it was two arch-rationalists, Leibniz and Kant, who paved the way for this development. In the New Essays on Human Understanding, Leibniz propounded a theory of unconscious petits perceptions. Kant, in his Anthropology, discussed the nature of "obscure presentations" (dunkele Vorstellungen) that remain just below the level of conscious awareness.⁽¹³⁾ Schelling's revision of Kant's and Fichte's transcendental idealism together with Schelling's own philosophy of identity (Identitätsphilosophie) and philosophy of nature (Naturphilosophie) led to one of the first systematic conceptualizations of the unconscious.⁽¹⁴⁾ Hegel on the Unconscious Abyss: Implications for Psychoanalysis. Jon Mills © published in The Owl of Minerva, 1996, 28 (1), 59-75.

[iv] PHILOSOPHY OP THE UNCONSCIOUS. BT EDUARD VON HABTMANN. SPECULATIVE RESULTS ACCORDING TO THE INDUCTIVE METHOD OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE. AUTHORISED TRANSLATION 

BY WILLIAM CHATTERTON COUPLAND, M.A., B.Sc IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III. SECOND EDITION. LONDON: KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER, & CO. L PATERNOSTER HOUSE,CHARING CROSS ROAD. 1893. 

http://archive.org/stream/philosophyoftheu032424mbp/philosophyoftheu032424mbp_djvu.txt

If we may assume that the former errors might be got

rid of in the judgment of a large number of individuals,

the latter source of error, on the contrary, weighs so much

the heavier. Whoever knows how powerful is the un-

conscious bias of thought and judgment by the will, by

instincts and feelings, will immediately allow the great

importance of the errors thereby rendered possible.

Let any one reflect how easily unpleasant impressions

are blotted out of the mind and how pleasant ones re-

main, so that even an event or adventure disagreeable

enough in reality appears in memory in the most charming

light (jurat meminisse malorum) ; in consequence of this

the recapitulating memory must attain to a far more

favourable summing up of the pleasure-content of personal

life than a review of the pleasure and pain actually felt

in the course of life undistorted by the glasses of memory

would yield. What memory is unable to accomplish in

the way of hushing up really felt pain, the instinct of

hope most certainly accomplishes for future feeling

(comp. below No. 12), and the balance of the past will

be involuntarily falsified by all younger persons by the

introduction of the idea of a future which is purged by

hope of the main causes of past pain without the causes

of pain hereafter to be added being taken into account.

Thus it is not the true life as it actually was and will be, but as it is exhibited to the uncritical eye in the embel-

lishing mirror of memory and in the deceptive roseate

hue of hope that is used for drawing the balance between

the sum of pleasure and the sum of pain ; and hence it is

no wonder if a result appears to be yielded which little

enough agrees with reality.

Let one consider, further, that the foolish vanity of man

goes so far as to prefer to seem rather than to be not

merely well but also happy, so that every one carefully

hides where the shoe pinches, and tries to make a show of

opulence, content ment, and happiness which he does not

at all possess. This source of error falsifies the sentence

that one passes on others according to what they express

and reveal of the balance of pleasure and pain of their life, just as the two just-named sources of error the judgment

on their own part. If one, however, judges according to

what other people are wont to declare concerning the sum

of happiness of their whole life, it is clear that we have

here to deal with the product of the two mentioned

errors. One already sees from this with what caution

we must accept the judgment of mankind on their own

felicity.

Lastly, when we consider, as is a priori to be expected,

that the same unconscious will which has created beings

with these instincts and passions will also through these

instincts and passions influence conscious thinking in the

direction of the same life-impulse, we should rather only

wonder how the instinctive love of life should come to

be able in consciousness to condemn this same life; for

the same Unconscious which wills life, and, moreover, for

its quite special ends wills just this life in spite of its

wretchedness, will certainly not omit to fit out the crea-

tures of life with just as many illusions us they need, in

order not merely to make life supportable, but also to

leave over enough love of life, elasticity, and freshness for the life-tasks to be accomplished by them and claiming

all their energy, and thus to cozen them concerning the

misery of their existence.