Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'works', 'Reply to 'Rorarius' 2nd ed' and 'Immortality of the Soul'

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6 ideas

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 2. Unconscious Mind

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.

16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 3. Limits of Introspection

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.

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / a. Nature of emotions

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'.

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature

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.

27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / b. Relative time

19384	Space and time are the order of all possibilities, and don't just relate to what is actual [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Space and time taken together constitute the order of possibilities of the one entire universe, so that these orders relate not only to what actually is, but also to anything that could be put in its place.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (Reply to 'Rorarius' 2nd ed [1702], GP iv 568), quoted by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz 7 'Space and Time'
	A reaction: A very nice idea. Rather like the 'space of reasons', where all rational thought must exist, space and time are the 'space of existence and action'. Their concepts involve more than relations between what actually exists.

29. Religion / B. Monotheistic Religion / 4. Christianity / c. Angels

16689	The schools said spirits lack extension, and wonder how many could dance on a needle's point [More,H]
	Full Idea: Many, not without reason, laugh at those ridiculous fancies of the schools, that rashly take away all extensions from spirits, whether souls or angels, and then dispute how many of them booted and spurred may dance on a needle's point at once.
	From: Henry More (Immortality of the Soul [1659], III.2.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 17.3
	A reaction: This famous idea originated with William Chillingworth. More's version is the classic one. Pasnau cites Aquinas Summa 1a 52.3 as discussing the actual question (and says this couldn't happen).