The unconscious in social explanation

Abstract

The proper range and content of the unconscious in the human sciences should be established by reference to its conceptual relationship to the folk psychology that informs the standard form of explanation therein. A study of this relationship shows that human scientists should appeal to the unconscious only when the language of the conscious fails them, i.e. typically when they find a conflict between people's self‐understanding and their actions. This study also shows that human scientists should adopt a broader concept of the unconscious than the one developed by Freud, that is, one free from his ahistorical concept of the instincts and his ahistorical emphasis on the sexual experiences of childhood. The unconscious, understood in this way, has an ambiguous relationship to more recent linguistic and narrativist strands of psychoanalysis.

Notes

Mark Bevir, Department of Political Science, University of California Berkeley, CA 94720‐1950, email: [email protected]

My interest is a philosophical one about the relationship between ways of talking about human life. In contrast, most discussions of the validity of deploying psychoanalysis in the human sciences focus on either the empirical issue of the evidence for psychoanalysis or the methodological one of how human scientists can recreate clinical conditions (Stannard, 1980, pp. 3–30; Anderson, 1981, pp. 455–75). Similarly, most discussions of the general validity of Freud's theories focus on either the empirical evidence or clinical problems such as that of contamination (Fisher & Greenberg, 1977; Grünbaum, 1993). The question of the validity of psychoanalysis as a research program depends not only on the empirical evidence but also on its internal structure. The best‐known criticism of its internal structure is Sir Karl Popper's claim that it cannot be considered scientific because it is not falsifiable (Popper, 1972, pp. 33–65; and for a defense of psychological theory against this criticism, Cosin et al., 1982, pp. 32–59). Of course, one might argue that Freud's theories were pretty reasonable in the context of the science of his times even if one concludes that today's biology or standards of evidence renders them obsolete (Kitcher, 1992).

Most philosophers accept not only that we share a moderately coherent folk psychology but also that we deploy it in our daily lives. Current debates center on whether this folk psychology is likely to be supplanted by a physicalist one and whether it needs to be validated by a physicalist one. For a defence of the ineliminable and sufficient nature of folk psychology see Rudder (1987). As we will see most physicalists regard a physicalist psychology as an aspiration, so contemporary human scientists have little option but to work with folk psychology even if they believe a physicalist alternative will eventually supplement it.

What follows concerns only a methodological, and at times metaphysical, behaviorism that would reject the use of concepts referring to mental states. It does not concern an analytical behaviorism that would allow for the use of such concepts but then interpret them in terms of behavior (Ryle, 1949).

Early examples of attempts at rapprochements between Freud and respectively the Chicago school and post‐structuralism include Swanson (1961, pp. 319–39) and Lacan (1977, pp. 30–113). I am unaware of any similar attempt on behalf of rational choice theory.

When Freud first reached his concept of repression, and thus the unconscious, in the work he did with Josef Breuer on hysteria, he defined what was repressed, and so unconscious, as an ‘incompatible idea’, that is, an idea in conflict with the self‐understanding, values, etc., of the patient (Breuer & Freud, 1895; Freud, 1894, pp. 43–61). Later he defined what was kept out as an impulse, especially a sexual one, not an idea, but the impulse was still kept out because it was incompatible with a part of the conscious. Freud's detailed account of this conflict changed somewhat once he committed himself to infantile sexuality. In general, however, the incompatibility was between a sexual impulse, typically rooted in either a post‐pubescent memory of a childhood experience or in a childhood experience itself, and a conscious evaluation of the acceptability of this impulse (Freud, 1916–1917). Freud's mature theory of the mind brought a shift of emphasis from the conflict between conscious and unconscious to that between Ego and Id. The Ego took over the active role of the conscious in repressing ideas or impulses that were incompatible with it, and the Id was seen as the location of these ideas and impulses as well as others that the Ego did not repress (Freud, 1923). Thus, the idea of incompatibility always entered into Freud's definition of what was repressed.

Throughout I refer to psychoanalytic studies in the human sciences only as examples to illustrate philosophical arguments. I do not want to imply they all fall foul of every error I point to.

Freud discusses rescue fantasies in (1910b, pp. 163–75).

To say this is to raise the question of what counts as an adequate explanation. I am reluctant to specify criteria of adequacy because it seems probable that whether or not we should accept an explanation as adequate depends on its relationship to a larger body of knowledge (Bevir, 1994). This suggests that the appropriate criteria of adequacy must vary with the context of the explanation being considered.

The difficulties of deploying psychoanalysis beyond the psychopathological might help to explain Freud's more or less coterminous descent from fairly reasonable scientific methods to more dubious speculations (Glymour, 1993).

The changes in Freud's thought at different stages in his life make it hard to give a satisfactory summary of his views of neurosis, repression, the unconscious, etc. I have attempted to deal with this problem by deriving this initial account largely from his most accessible work, written at the height of his powers (Freud 1916–1917) and by referring to some of the changes in his views as I develop my critique of them.

A resistance to Freud's positivism on behalf of folk psychology underlies Wittgenstein's (1982, pp. 1–11) argument that we should describe psychoanalysts as offering interpretations of meanings rather than diagnoses of causes.

Freud's attempt to reduce the unconscious to innate instincts and drives has been challenged by several prominent psychoanalysts, including Erich Fromm as well as the linguistic and narrative theorists I will consider later. I am trying to use a consideration of Freud not to refute psychoanalysis as such, but rather to see what constraints an acceptance of folk psychology places on the concept of the unconscious we might adopt.

Freud's insistence on the ‘paramountcy’ of childhood has been challenged by several prominent psychoanalysts, including Adler and Jung. A number of prominent psychoanalytic studies in the human sciences likewise consider the way later events shaped the character of those they study (Erikson, 1970).

Obviously I do not think Freud's appeals to things such as philology and folklore should blind us to his positivism. For a start, such appeals were not unusual among positivist scientists of his day (Kitcher, 1992). In addition, although Freud undoubtedly engaged in interpretation, he seems, as I have suggested above, to have conceived such interpretation in positivist terms with respect to both his underlying theories and standards of evidence. Freud, like the narrative theorists considered below, seems to have thought that interpretation, or narrative, did not constitute a proper form of explanation. However, whereas the narrativists thereby tend to divorce psychoanalysis from explanation, Freud sought to buttress his interpretations with forms of explanation premised on positivism or even physicalism (Freeman, 1989, pp. 293–308; and for a more general study of the limited nature of Freudian moves away from positivism, see Breger, 1981).

Among the many reasons for the growing interest in such things, we might mention not only the impact of other disciplines—such as philosophy and literature—but also the declining place of psychoanalysis within society and especially the difficulties psychoanalysts have had coming to terms with the emergence of relatively cheap and low‐risk medications. One response to the rise of such psychopharmacological therapies has been to emphasize the interactive, conversational and dialogic nature of their practice.

Although Lacan's use of structural linguistics dominates the field, other psychoanalysts have drawn on different theories such as the transformational grammar of Chomsky (Edelson, 1975).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mark Bevir

Mark Bevir, Department of Political Science, University of California Berkeley, CA 94720‐1950, email: [email protected]