I think it prudent that we start our meditations with the Freudian unconscious, then move on to Husserl’s transcendental-phenomenological ego. In so doing I hope to show that the unconscious is closer to the notion of the phenomenological ego than at first thought, and as a basis on which the arguments will hold forth, principally the similarities and dissimilarities between the two. If as Husserl maintains the epoche is the horizon or stream from which self-reflection is carried out by the transcendental-ego, and the unconscious is that area attainable only through translation or interpretation, a symptomology, both phenomena seem to have ubiquitous geographies, existing on a plane outside of conscious thought or perception.
They seem to have a reaching-back or away-from as characteristics of there systematic, to a plane or horizon not immediate or attainable from conscious mediation. Self-reflection would appear to involve a looking back-over or away from the immediateness of perception or conscious cogitation. Only by pulling away, or in Schopenhauerian terms, disinterestedness, can we be said to be truly self-reflecting. Husserl’s self-reflective transcendental-ego does just this, a Cartesian self-reflection that does not do away with the world, but accepts it as given, in existence always. But first let us go to the Freudian unconscious, the source of much perplexity and conjecture.
The unconscious is there if we look for and acknowledge these proofs and signs, which are to be found in symptoms, forgetfulness, i.e. repression, slips of the tongue, repetitions and so forth. The unconscious, or primary process, is that part of the psyche that is hidden, or concealed, until drawn out, be that through interpretation, translation or free-association. Ricoeur for example, conceived of the unconscious as a hermeneutics, a language of symbols and representations. Lacan defined the unconscious as a language, a structural assemblage of meaning found in the interpretation of unconscious patios.
They seem to have a reaching-back or away-from as characteristics of there systematic, to a plane or horizon not immediate or attainable from conscious mediation. Self-reflection would appear to involve a looking back-over or away from the immediateness of perception or conscious cogitation. Only by pulling away, or in Schopenhauerian terms, disinterestedness, can we be said to be truly self-reflecting. Husserl’s self-reflective transcendental-ego does just this, a Cartesian self-reflection that does not do away with the world, but accepts it as given, in existence always. But first let us go to the Freudian unconscious, the source of much perplexity and conjecture.
The unconscious is there if we look for and acknowledge these proofs and signs, which are to be found in symptoms, forgetfulness, i.e. repression, slips of the tongue, repetitions and so forth. The unconscious, or primary process, is that part of the psyche that is hidden, or concealed, until drawn out, be that through interpretation, translation or free-association. Ricoeur for example, conceived of the unconscious as a hermeneutics, a language of symbols and representations. Lacan defined the unconscious as a language, a structural assemblage of meaning found in the interpretation of unconscious patios.
