8 ideas
| 3488 | 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. |
| 7439 | The qualities involved in sensations are entirely intentional [Anscombe, by Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Anscombe argued that the qualities involved in sensations are one and all intentional only (and I think this holds even for the bodily sensations). | |
| From: report of G.E.M. Anscombe (The Intentionality of Sensation [1965]) by David M. Armstrong - Pref to new 'Materialist Theory' p.xxii | |
| A reaction: Compare Harry Gildersleve's exactly opposite proposal in Idea 7272. I think I am coming round to the Anscombe view, which builds the more mysterious up from the less mysterious. Gildersleve must explain how atomic qualia arise. |
| 5689 | Freud and others have shown that we don't know our own beliefs, feelings, motive and attitudes [Freud, by Shoemaker] |
| Full Idea: Freud persuaded many that beliefs, wishes and feelings are sometimes unconscious, and even sceptics about Freud acknowledge that there is self-deception about motive and attitudes. | |
| From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by Sydney Shoemaker - Introspection p.396 | |
| A reaction: This seems to me obviously correct. The traditional notion is that the consciousness is the mind, but now it seems obvious that consciousness is only one part of the mind, and maybe even a peripheral (epiphenomenal) part of it. |
| 7444 | Type-type psychophysical identity is combined with a functional characterisation of pain [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: The materialist theory Armstrong and I proposed joins claims of type-type psychophysical identity with a behaviourist or functionalist way of characterising mental states such as pain. | |
| From: David Lewis (Mad Pain and Martian Pain [1980], §III) | |
| A reaction: Armstrong has backed off from 'type-type' identity, because the realisations of a given mental state might be too diverse to be considered of the same type. Putnam's machine functionalism allows the possibility of dualism. |
| 7445 | The application of 'pain' to physical states is non-rigid and contingent [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: The word 'pain' is a non-rigid designator; it is a contingent matter what state the concept and the word apply to. (Note: so the sort of theory Kripke argues against is not what we propose). | |
| From: David Lewis (Mad Pain and Martian Pain [1980], §III) | |
| A reaction: I like the view that a given quale is necessarily identical to a given mental state, but that many mental states might occupy a given behavioural role. The smell of roses might occupy the behavioural role of pain. Frog pain isn't quite like ours. |
| 7443 | A theory must be mixed, to cover qualia without behaviour, and behaviour without qualia [Lewis, by PG] |
| Full Idea: To pass our test it seems that our theory will have to be a 'mixed' theory, to account for the Madman (whose pain has odd causes, and odd effects) and also for the Martian (who has normal causes and effects, but an odd physical state). | |
| From: report of David Lewis (Mad Pain and Martian Pain [1980], §II) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: A statement that 'pain' is ambiguous (qualia/causal role) would help a lot here. Martians have the causal role but no qualia, and the madman has the qualia but lacks the causal role. I say lots of different qualia might have the same causal role. |
| 23950 | Freud said passions are pressures of some flowing hydraulic quantity [Freud, by Solomon] |
| Full Idea: Freud argued that the passions in general …were the pressures of a yet unknown 'quantity' (which he simply designated 'Q'). He first thought this flowed through neurones, …and always couched the idea in the language of hydraulics. | |
| From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by Robert C. Solomon - The Passions 3.4 | |
| A reaction: This is the main target of Solomon's criticism, because its imagery has become so widespread. It leads to talk of suppressing emotions, or sublimating them. However, it is not too different from Nietzsche's 'drives' or 'will to power'. |
| 22344 | Freud is pessimistic about human nature; it is ambivalent motive and fantasy, rather than reason [Freud, by Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: Freud takes a thoroughly pessimistic view of human nature. ...Introspection reveals only the deep tissue of ambivalent motive, and fantasy is a stronger force than reason. Objectivity and unselfishness are not natural to human beings. | |
| From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900], II) by Iris Murdoch - The Sovereignty of Good II | |
| A reaction: Interesting. His view seems to have coloured the whole of modern culture, reinforced by the hideous irrationality of the Nazis. Adorno and Horkheimer attacking the Enlightenment was the last step in that process. |