Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Symbolic Reasoning' and 'New Essays on Human Understanding'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


2 ideas

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 2. Unconscious Mind
It is a serious mistake to think that we are aware of all of our perceptions [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Many errors can flow from the belief that the only perceptions in the soul are the ones of which it is aware.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.01)
     A reaction: What a perceptive remark, for its time! I took it that it was only modern neuroscience and psychology which had woken us up to how much non-conscious activity is central to the mind.
Freud treats the unconscious as intentional and hence mental [Freud, by Searle]
     Full Idea: Freud thinks that our unconscious mental states exist as occurrent intrinsic intentional states even when unconscious. Their ontology is that of the mental, even when they are unconscious.
     From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by John Searle - The Rediscovery of the Mind Ch. 7.V
     A reaction: Searle states this view in order to attack it. Whether such states are labelled as 'mental' seems uninteresting. Whether unconscious states can be intentional is crucial, and modern scientific understanding of the brain strongly suggest they can.