Primordial Soup

Blindingly Bright Side: the Problem of Positive Psychology in the Dialectic of Conscious and Unconscious

2022-10-07T00:00:00Z

Introduction

Despite the fact that it is hard to doubt the good intentions driving the followers of positive psychology, the scientific approach that they utilize has epistemological issues present in unattended presuppositions and logical fallacies. In the following work I briefly discuss – on the basis of existing critical literature – the faulty dialectic of the conscious and the unconscious, implicitly present in positive psychology as well as the problematic tendency of the field to maintain morally unbiased position, which, on the contrary, is inspired by the Anglo-American cultural values.

The Problem of Conscious Control

Positive psychology claims that anyone can reach their goals if their attitude is positive enough: “Optimism is a tool to help the individual achieve the goals he has set for himself” (Seligman, 2006, p. 291). To this, Seligman (2006) adds that the goals must be realistic and achievable. This reasoning contradicts itself: On the one hand, if a person sets a goal that is realistic and achievable, how is it any different from the plans that would be successfully undertaken anyway? On the other hand, if the goals are rather ambitious and only attainable by changing the present situation, how can a person know in advance if they are realistic? The issue with this reasoning lies in the implicit conscious nature of the concept of goal setting (Miller, 2008).

Seligman, and positive psychology in general, believes that anyone can be reshaped into a goal achiever by controlling his emotions and motivations through rational self-reflection, as if one can assume full conscious control over one’s attitude and beliefs.

The notion of conscious goal setting brings forth Cartesian images: A homunculus that sits in a person’s head, controlling him. Although it is completely legitimate to distinguish conscious, deliberate, and purposeful behavior from the unconscious, instinctual behavior, claiming that a person can consciously control his attitude, motivation and thoughts regresses psychology 200 years in the past, where the consciousness and the psyche meant the same (Miller, 2008).

In the majority of people interests, dreams and plans come to be in life as the possibilities and opportunities arise. They are largely determined by a variety of dispositions: personality traits, attitudes, etc. None of those dispositions are chosen or controlled consciously, especially not as instrumental means to an end, that is, the goals. Nevertheless, the dispositions can be controlled by practicing “self-control” or “self-discipline”. This is usually necessary for the individual to achieve long-term goals in opposition to falling for instinctual behavior that leads to instant gratification. For that, the “self-control” requires persistence and dedication which, again, are (unconscious) personal dispositions (Miller, 2008).

“It is only because computers, machines and businesses do not have minds of their own that they need plans, goals, targets and programmes” (Miller, 2008, p. 594).

The deficiency of “self-control” entails an interesting paradox – when a person deliberately decides not to take a certain action but ends up accidentally doing the exact opposite, leaving him with a sense of guilt due to his perceived “weakness of will”. Goldie (2002) argues that the idea of “weakness of will” can only become conceivable in an ethical framework, as a matter of controlling bodily desires in favor of a “rationally conceived goal”. This idea is very similar to the Aristotelian temperate person that, through moral education, keeps his emotions and desires in check, in the name of a rational good. Miller (2008) claims that rational behavior can only exist in relation to the cultural norms where there exist specific definitions of good life and happiness – in other words, ideals in the context of a political group. Any behavior that fails to live up to these ideals, therefore, is deemed as a “weakness of will”, “irrational behavior” etc.

It is based on the aforementioned arguments, among others, that Miller (2008) claims positive psychology to be based not on a strict scientific approach when describing a successful, happy and healthy individual, but on cultural presuppositions that portray a stereotype of a successful person in western culture: an outgoing, cheerful, friendly, goal-oriented, and status-seeking extravert.

The Problem of Morality

Positive psychology takes pride in using a strict scientific approach, unlike fields like humanistic psychology (Peterson, 2006). This means maintaining distance from morals and ethics. For example, in research about “character strengths” Peterson states:

“…because good character and its components are morally esteemed, we worried that we were entering a domain so value-laden that our project was doomed from the start” (Peterson, 2006, p. 139).

Despite this, followers of positive psychology often use cultural and ethical concepts, among which “eudaimonia” is more distinguished – a Greek term for human flourishing, ultimate good and happiness. The concept of “eudaimonia”, as well as “weakness of will” leads us back to Aristotelian ethics. Lacan (2014) in his seventh seminar speaks about the dangers of happiness studies and criticizes Aristotle’s ethics. Aristotle makes a fundamental distinction between appetitive desires and moral reason – the separation between passions and rationality (Wright, 2013).

“A whole large field of what constitutes for us the sphere of sexual desires is simply classed by Aristotle in the realm of monstrous anomalies - he uses the term “bestiality” with reference to them. What occurs at this level has nothing to do with moral evaluation. The ethical questions that Aristotle raises are located altogether elsewhere” (Lacan, 2014, p. 5)

The philosophical discourse of Aristotle is based on a very particular understanding of truth – the rationally proved ultimate good. This in itself wouldn’t have implications worth the criticism if it wasn’t for Descartes that an important tendency appeared: to conflate the consciousness and rationality. Due to this, what opposed the consciousness - namely the field of sexuality - was altogether discarded from the virtuous, ethical life. It was therefore the unconscious in its entirety that - as it would seem - stood in opposition to a good life, therefore the consciousness must have taken the reins of power over it. This is precisely the Freud’s metaphor that the ego psychologists so eagerly adopted: “Thus in its relation to the id [the unconscious] it [the ego] is like a man on horseback, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse” (Freud, 2013, p. 25). Although the rest of the quote is usually left out: “Often a rider, if he is not to be parted from his horse, is obliged to guide it where it wants to go” (Freud, 2013, p. 25). All this is to say that if an argument of happy life is made with the opposition of the conscious and the unconscious, there is no ultimate rational good to speak of. Positive psychology may claim - just like the entirety of self-help culture - that through conscious control, one can get a hold of himself and have a good life but there is no life without the unconscious (and certainly not a happy and ethical one, as I will go on to show by Lacan’s example). More importantly, the moral bias cannot be escaped by pure rationality in science, especially in the field where the goal is to study “what goes right in life” and “how to encourage it” (Peterson, 2006, p. 4).

Lacan claims that morality requires a priori belief and to illustrate this, he compares the reasoning of Emmanuel Kant to Marquis de Sade. Kant, in Aristotelian fashion, regards the sphere of desires and passions as “pathological” and to overcome it, he offers us rather formal rationality of his Categorical Imperative. It is interesting that, according to Lacan, Sade adheres to exactly the same principles of rational universality but reasons to prove the exact opposite: the goodness that comes from disposing of moral restrictions in pursuit of sensual pleasure (Wright, 2013).

Is it possible to know “what goes right” in life by pure rational reasoning, devoid of any moral components that are given a priori, i.e unconsciously? Positive psychology, although portrayed as a strict field of science, is based on a vast multitude of a priori cultural beliefs, which is evident in many different fields of psychology in Anglo-American culture, be it ego psychology, humanistic psychology or others. Since people acquire and go against values and beliefs mostly by unconscious processes, without rigorous epistemological analysis, the ideas of positive psychology like what is positive, desirable, strengths and weaknesses of character and others are mere unconscious cultural values, namely Anglo-American values that are often criticized by Lacan in his seminars, deeming them repressive and ego-centered.

Such an epistemologically unrefined approach can have many negative moral, political and theological implications, such as pleasure commodification through capitalism (Wright, 2013), military exploitation and “playing god” (Beier, 2014).

Conclusion

Although in positive psychology the image of a successful and healthy person is based on empirical research, it utilizes a stereotype of a particular person, which is determined by the ignorance in the dialectic of the conscious and the unconscious. The position positive psychology takes in regards to morals is, on the one hand, formidable, as (ideally) the science should be morally unbiased but on the other hand, when dealing with humanitarian sciences, it becomes impossible to make conclusions without a priori values and the insistence against moral bias leaves important factors unattended which, in turn, brings negative results.

References

Beier, M. (2014). “Always look at the bright side of life?”: “Positive” psychology, psychoanalysis, and pastoral theology. Journal of Pastoral Theology, 24(2), 3-1-3–35. https://doi.org/10.1179/jpt.2014.24.2.003

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Freud, S. (2013). The Ego and the Id. W.W. Norton Company (NY).

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Goldie, P. (2002). The Emotions: A Philosophical Exploration. Oxford University Press.

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Lacan, J. (2014). Seminar VII: The ethics of psychoanalysis. London: W. W. Norton & Company.

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Miller, A. (2008). A Critique of Positive Psychology—or ‘The New Science of Happiness.’ Journal of Philosophy of Education, 42(3–4), 591–608. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.2008.00646.x

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Peterson, C. (2006). A Primer in Positive Psychology. Oxford University Press.

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Seligman, M. E. P. (2006). Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

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Wright, C. (2013). Against Flourishing: Wellbeing as biopolitics, and the psychoanalytic alternative. Health, Culture and Society, 5(1), 20–35. https://doi.org/10.5195/hcs.2013.151

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References

See references and free resource links on the website.

Outline of Aristotle's Political Philosophy

2022-08-30T16:37:15Z

The End of the State

According to Aristotle’s ethics, each individual and hence every community aims at some kind of good. But the state and therefore political science instead aim at the highest good i.e. Eudaimonia, which consists in the excellence of its citizens - happiness, or rather, human flourishing arising out of the habitual exercise of the virtuous life. This can be considered as the standard classical view, quite prevailing among ancient thinkers such as Socrates, Plato, and Cicero (Strauss, 1965, p.144). It regarded human excellence not merely as a good life, but more importantly, as a life in conformity with nature. This idea is closely tied to the problem of Natural Right discussed in my previous videos. Thus I will examine it in more detail below.

To come back to the question about the state’s end: unlike the previous forms of association, the state aims not only at the bare needs of life, at a mere existence, but at a good life, life in conformity with justice and law, i.e. with prudence and virtue. Life of excellence and philosophical leisure. For as Aristotle famously puts it:

“one who has no need because he is sufficient for himself is no part of a state, and so must either be a beast or a god.” (Aristotle, 1996, p.14)

To put it differently, an individual or a family separated from the state is like an organ severed from its organism - it is not self-sufficient and is therefore doomed to be destroyed both existentially and morally. Since according to Aristotle the state perfects its citizens in virtue by law and justice and thus protects them from degrading to the level of beasts.

Which brings us to his conclusion that the state is necessarily prior to the family and the individual. Since the whole is by nature prior to its parts. And if the whole gets annihilated the parts inevitably follow too.

The Nature of Man

But the question arises: why are humans bound to be part of the state? Does it necessarily follow from their nature? But how does Aristotle understand human nature? In his seminal work, Natural Right and History, Strauss gives a comprehensive overview of the classical, Platonic-Aristotelian view of human nature:

“[In contradistinction to the Moderns] the classics believed that man is by nature a social being. He is so constituted that he cannot live, or live well, except by living with others. Since it is reason or speech that distinguishes him from the other animals, and speech is communication, man is social in a more radical sense than any other social animal: humanity itself is sociality. Man refers himself to others, or rather he is referred to others, in every human act, regardless of whether that act is "social " or “antisocial.” His sociality does not proceed, then, from a calculation of the pleasures which he expects from association, but he derives pleasure from association because he is by nature social. Love, affection, friendship, pity, are as natural to him as concern with his own good and calculation of what is conducive to his own good… Because man is by nature social, the perfection of his nature includes the social virtue par excellence i.e. right and justice…” (Strauss, 1965, p.129)

To put it in Aristotle’s words, man is by nature a political animal, and thus as the final and most self-sufficient expression of his nature, the state is rather natural than artificial. It is the fulfillment of man’s inherent social instinct. The instinct that makes a human being much more a political animal than any kind of bee or any herd animal. Namely, the ability to communicate what is just and unjust, expedient and inexpedient instead of merely expressing the experiences of pleasure or pain as beasts do. I am talking about the gift of speech that is exclusive to human nature. To reiterate Aristotle’s chain of reasoning: human and only human is a political animal precisely because he is by nature an animal endowed with the gift of speech. Since a political union, the state is impossible without communicating what is just and expedient and what is - not.

Moreover, from the day of his birth man is fundamentally dependent on his parents; to go even further, a continuation of the human race itself is impossible without reciprocity of opposite sexes. Therefore, the individual on his own is so far from self-sufficiency that cannot even fulfill basic human needs when alone. Which further implies man’s natural inclination to live among his fellow humans.

The Family as the Origin of the State

But why is the state the most appropriate, or to put it in Aristotle’s words, the most natural form of human association? To understand this we must start from the origin, from the first growth of the state, and follow its natural development towards its self-fulfillment. This is because, like any other science, politics should always aspire to resolve its compound object into simple elements or at least parts of the whole (Aristotle, 1996, p.14). The simplest element of the state, the seed out of which it grows is the association of the male and female i.e. the family household; the first and most primordial form of community, conjoining of persons who cannot exist without one another.

According to Aristotle’s observation, the household consists of two basic forms of relationship:

On the one hand, there must of necessity be a unity of male and female i.e. husband and wife, On the other hand - of the natural ruler and subject.

The first relationship aims at the continuation of the human race, the other - to its preservation. The one is only present among the male and the female, whereas the second is present also among the master and slave, father and children. This is because the reproductive union of male and female is determined by their bare sexual differences, while the natural subjection of the less excellent to the more excellent i.e. the natural subject to the natural master is based on the difference with regard to the degree and manner each partake in the reasonable part of their soul. In short, as Aristotle himself puts it, he who can foresee with the mind is the naturally ruling and naturally mastering, while he who can do things with the body is the naturally ruled and slave (Aristotle, 1996, p.14). Any other disposition between the master and the subject will definitely prove itself disastrous.

Here the epithet “natural” must be taken seriously since it does not merely serve a rhetorical function but reminds us each time that Aristotle does not talk about just any form of subjection, especially that which stands solely on the power and abuse of authority. But rather about a very special kind of subjection - the subjection according to which the sole reason why a master ought to rule the subject is that he is more excellent than the latter. Aristotle believes that, unlike other forms of subjection, the one based on excellence and reason will definitely be mutually beneficial. The so-called natural subjection is then a rather synergic relationship between the master and the subject rather than parasitic. Aristotle thus concludes that not only slaves but the wife and children too should be subject to the head of the household i.e. the patriarch of the family. Since compared to him all of them are deficient in their use of reason. And therefore his rule will be equally advantageous for the whole family. This power dynamic is so important for Aristotle that it is present all throughout the different stages of his political development. Even though it undergoing very important qualitative alterations on its way.

Aristotle’s strictly hierarchical, nonegalitarian view of human affairs may sound very distasteful, harsh, and old-fashioned to modern ears; But for Aristotle himself, this hierarchical view is not merely a prejudice of his time, but the cornerstone of his whole philosophical worldview. As Strauss puts it:

“Since the classics viewed moral and political matters in the light of man’s perfection, they were not egalitarians. Not all men are equally equipped by nature for progress toward perfection, or not all " natures" are " good natures." While all men, i.e., all normal men, have the capacity for virtue, some need guidance by others, whereas others do not at all or to a much lesser degree.” (Strauss, 1965, p.134).

Aristotle goes even further and claims that the aforementioned relationship can be observed not only in the realm of politics but also throughout nature - both animate and inanimate:

“Whatever is constituted out of a number of things - whether continuous or discrete… always displays a ruling and a ruled element; this is something that animate things derive from all of nature, for even in things that do not partake in life there is a sort of rule, for example in a harmony.“ (Aristotle, 2013, p.46)

How the State is born and why it is a Natural association between Men

The family household, which consists of the aforementioned relationships between husband, wife, children, and slaves is the community constituted by nature for the needs of daily life. In other words, the sole aim of the household is a mere continuation and preservation of the human race.

But when the first community arises from several households and for the sake of non-daily needs the village is born. The community which is more developed and self-sufficient than any household and aims at something more than a bare existence. Yet not as self-sufficient and developed as the state. Besides, as Aristotle remarks: since the village seems to be a natural extension of the household, Its members are the children and the grandchildren of the patriarch (Aristotle, 2013, p.42); And because every household is under the eldest as king, the same may be held true for the village - it is bound under the personal rule of the monarch. To which Aristotle adds:

“This is why the states were at first under kings, and barbarians are even now. For those who joined together were already under kings” (Aristotle, 2013, p.42)

Which implies that from the associations of such villages the first states were born. The complete communities, arising from several villages. The association of men representing the last stage of political development. Hence the only one reaching a level of full self-sufficiency, so to speak. To again trace the Aristotelian genealogy: the origin of all human associations is the family i.e. household, which gives birth to the village, and from the latter, the state arises. Thus, to reiterate, the state is the most complete and self-sufficient form of political community, which while coming into being for the sake of living, continues its existence for the sake of living well. In other words, its end does not consist in a mere continuation and preservation of the human race anymore but rather in the good life of its citizens. As Strauss puts it:

“The state is essentially different from a gang of robbers because it is not merely an organ, or an expression, of collective selfishness. Since the ultimate end of the state is the same as that of the individual, the end of the state is a peaceful activity in accordance with the dignity of man, and not war and conquest.” (Strauss, 1965, p.134)

Therefore, unlike the household and village, the rule which prevails in the state is constitutional rather than monarchical. It is the rule not according to personal authority, but to political science. Where citizens rule and are ruled in turn. In other words, it is the government of the people, by the people, for the people.

But most importantly, according to Aristotle, the state is not an artificial institution, but like its earlier forms is a creation of nature. Which means that human beings are naturally and hence necessarily citizens of the state. Even though the state is itself the result of deliberation and statesmanship it is a natural institution. What Aristotle means by claiming the state to be natural can be understood in three ways:

While the earlier forms of human association are merely expressions of man’s nature, the state is its fulfillment; Since, unlike the household and the village, the state’s purpose is to enable its citizens to lead the good life. Which is a life in conformity with nature, more precisely, with human nature. The state then is the most natural of human associations in this sense. For it aims at what is most natural for human beings - the good life, the life according to human excellency, the life, which most distinguishes them from beasts, thus, the life most appropriate to men as men.

However the state may be considered natural also in another sense. Namely as a substance or telos, the final cause, the end to which the whole process of political development was for. The state as a complete self-fulfillment of the man’s political existence. The full growth and actualisation of its potentialities. As Aristotle puts it: “the state is an end of earlier forms of society and the nature of the thing is its end. For what each thing is when fully developed, we call its nature, whether we are speaking of a man, a horse, or a family” (Aristotle, 1996, p.13). In other words, according to Aristotle’s logic, the final and most complete form of a thing is actually its inherent nature, its essence only in correspondence to which it can be understood. Thus, since the state is the final and most complete form of human association, of political community, it must be understood as the nature and the fulfillment of the political existence.

And finally, the state’s naturality may also be understood as it follows: the state represents itself as a whole that unites all its citizens and their communities into one body politic. Which means that it enables individuals, households and villages to become self-sufficient through its efficient labor division. Thus if any of its parts be it individual citizen, household or a village breaks itself away from the state, like an organ severed from body it will no longer be self-sufficing; it is no longer able to exercise his proper quality - not only economically and politically but also morally. SInce as Aristotle puts it, man, when separated from law and justice, is the worst animal, while when perfected by them is the most excellent.

To sum this idea of the state being of the natural origin instead of artificial I will conclude it with the Strauss sharp observation as to why the classics including Aristotle stress so much on the notion of nature when talking about politics, law and morality:

“Aristotle and the classics in general presuppose the validity of that distinction between nature and law, when demanding that the law should follow the order established by nature, or when speaking of the cooperation between nature and law. They oppose to the denial of natural right and natural morality the distinction between natural right and legal right as well as the distinction between natural and (merely) human morality.” (Strauss, 1965, p.121)

References

See references and free resource links on the website.

Monarchy & Democracy - Hans Herman Hoppe

2022-08-28T10:24:47Z

Today, most of us have gotten used to considering Democracy as the best possible regime without ever questioning the validity of such a claim. And this is no surprise. Since after 1970 electoral democracies increased from about 35 to more than 110, what Samuel Huntington labeled as the “third wave” of Democratization. But should we celebrate this event as another step towards progress? There are thinkers, who recognize democratization as the opposite of progress, nay, as the greatest folly in human history. One among these thinkers is a famous German-American Libertarian, Hans Herman Hoppe.

Hoppe challenges the popular view taught in schools and standard textbooks, which presents democracy as the crowning achievement of human civilization. Opposite to this view Hoppe aspires to show that the centuries-long historical development of society from Aristocracy to Monarchy and from Monarchy to Democracy is nothing but a tale of progressive folly and decay. Indeed, Hoppe admits that the present world is richer than people were in the Middle-Ages and the following monarchical age. But not because of this development. “As a matter of fact” – says Hoppe – “the increase in social wealth and general standards of living that mankind has experienced during this time occurred in spite of this development, and the increase of wealth and living standards would have been far greater if the development in question had not taken place” (Hoppe, 2014, p.14).

In order to find reasons behind Hoppe’s hostile attitude towards democracy, one must look at his revisionist reconstruction of human history. Similar to classical contractual theory, Hoppe opens his analysis with the state of conflict. He remarks that the reason, why humans do not live in perfect harmony and are in dire need of natural authority, is the scarcity of goods. One wants to do X with a given good G and the other wants to do simultaneously Y with the very same good. And since the good is not superabundant both of them cannot use G for Y and X simultaneously. Thus they must clash and conflict arises.

But there is a way out of this conflict according to Hoppe, which consists in agreement on the facts. Namely, in agreement over who is the actual possessor of a given good i.e. who took first control of it. As Hoppe puts it: “if one can demonstrate that the good in question had been previously controlled by him and was taken away from him against his will and consent by the current possessor, then ownership reverts back to him and in the conflict between him and the actual possessor he is judged to be in the right” (Hoppe, 2014, p.15). Therefore, the source of actual conflicts lies not in the absence of law, but only in the absence of an agreement on the facts. This means that function of judges and conflict arbitrators consists not in law-making, i.e., legislating, but in “fact-finding and the application of given law to individual cases” (Hoppe, 2014, p.15), i.e. judging and executing. This remark will become very important later on when discussing Hoppe’s critique of state and Democracy.

Now, in order to settle the conflict, one needs lasting recognition and respect of this settlement by others. Thus he will eventually turn to natural authorities, to members of the natural aristocracy, to nobles and kings; to these who, Due to superior achievements of wealth, wisdom, bravery, or a combination thereof, come to possess more authority than others and whose opinion and judgment, therefore, commands widespread respect. Through selective mating and the laws of civil and genetic inheritance, such members of society often form noble families. It is to the heads of such families that men typically turn with their conflicts and complaints against each other.

This is how Aristocracy was born, which in Europe during the early middle-ages developed into a Feudal Monarchy and later into an Absolute Monarchy. Since, as Hoppe remarks, generally, in most cases of conflict, one would turn to the head of the noblest of families, namely, to a king. However, Hoppe adds that this must not mistake us into imagining king in Feudal Monarchy as having a monopoly on his position to judge. In modern imagination there are two very popular myths about Monarchy to be overcome: namely, that 1) king can make laws and 2) he is the ultimate arbiter of justice. In reality, according to Hoppe, “the king is supposed to only apply law, not make it” (Hoppe,2014, p.17). Since he is held to be under and bound by the same “good old law” as everyone else. As for the second myth, even though he is equipped with the status of an ultimate judge and peacemaker, “everyone remains free to select another judge, another noble, if he is dissatisfied with the king” (Hoppe,2014, p.17). For, as Hoppe remarks:

“The king has no legal monopoly on his position as judge, that is. If he is found to make law, instead of just applying it, or if he is found to commit errors in the application of law, i.e., if he misconstrues, misrepresents, or falsifies the facts of a given case, his judgment stands open to be challenged in another noble court of justice, and he himself can there be held liable for his misjudgment. In short, the king may look like the head of a State, but he definitely is not a State but instead part of a natural, vertically and hierarchically structured and stratified social order: an aristocracy” (Hoppe, 2014, p.17).

The same idea is held by James Burnham in his famous book “The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom”:

“Under feudalism there was no developed central state power each feudal lord claiming jurisdiction over his particular fiefs, vassals, and serfs, and acknowledging the authority only of his particular suzerain. The sovereignty of the medieval kings, therefore, was largely fictional except as it held over their immediate feudal domain, or as it might suit the interests of their feudal peers to collaborate with them. Until the 15th century, the attempts of the kings to consolidate a firm governmental authority always met a strong and on the whole successful resistance from the lords” (Burnham, 2019, p.32).

Alexis de Tocqueville goes even further in this regard claiming that:

“In the Middle-Ages, the inhabitants of each village had formed a community independent of their lord. The latter exploited their services, supervised them, governed them but they had exclusive common ownership of certain property. They elected their leaders and administered their own affairs democratically. You will see this old parish constitution in all those nations which had been feudal and in all those countries where nations had retained remnants of their legal systems. Traces of it are everywhere to be seen in England and it was still alive in Germany up to sixty years ago, as can be confirmed by reading the legislative code of Frederick the Great. Even in eighteenth-century France a few remains of it still existed” (Tocqueville, 2008, p.85).

All this will become more evident if we take into consideration the fact that during early medieval times kingship was gained not by birthright, but by the required consent of other nobles through an election.

Indeed, Feudal lords and kings profited off the special privileges, namely, they could tax inhabitants on their own land. Furthermore, at many places, under the feudal order, there sufficed the institution of serfdom. However, it must be noted, that “without consent, taxation was considered sequestration, i.e., unlawful expropriation” (Hoppe, 2014, 17). Which means that “feudal lords and kings could only “tax” with the consent of the taxed. Besides this, on his own land, every free man was as much of a sovereign, as the feudal king was on his” (Hoppe, 2014, 17). As for the serfdom, Hoppe remarks, the burden imposed on today’s modern so-called tax-serfs is way harsher than that imposed on the medieval serf.

Of course, Hoppe does not claim here that feudalism was the perfect political order. He is conscious that it was marred by many imperfections. However, this does not stop him from preferring it over Democracy. Hoppe firmly believes that feudalism surpasses Democracy in three major ways: 1) in Democracy legislative branch of government claims the right to make laws, which makes the idea of natural law meaningless; by changing universal and immutable principles of justice they happen to betray their very essence. Which concludes into inequality before the law, privileging so-called public officials. Following this, it is evident that 2) in Democracy the supremacy of and the subordination of everyone under one law is impossible. As for the 3) judicial branch of Democracy, establishing a territorial monopoly of ultimate judgeship, the state declares monopoly over executing justice and applying the law. Now if we remember what has been said by Hoppe about Feudalism, none of these charges against Democracy can be stated with regards to Feudal Monarchy. Quite the contrary, king 1) neither makes laws 3) nor establishes monopoly over Judgeship. Thus 2) the supremacy of universal law is preserved since the king too is “held to be under and bound by the same law like everyone else” (Hoppe, 2014, p.16).

However, it is fair to say that this critique does not refer specifically to Democracy, but to any form of State – including Constitutional and Absolute Monarchy. But Democracy specifically, on top of that, is characterized by one more major vice. While under Monarchy king owns the capital stock on “his” territory and must bequeath his realm to his heir or a successor of his choosing, in Democracy presidents, prime ministers, and members of parliament are merely temporary and interchangeable “caretakers” of the country. Thus the latter only owns its current use. This results in the Democratic government’s exploitation being shortsighted, present-oriented and uncalculating. Therefore, promoting capital consumption. Whereas, in contrast, the king will be comparatively future-oriented with regard to exploitation. “In order to preserve or enhance the value of his property, his exploitation will be comparatively moderate and calculating” (Hoppe, 2014, p.22). Since as I have already pointed out, unlike the Democratic government, he owns the capital stock on his territory. In other words, to put it in economic terms, the Democratic government has a high time preference towards the state, focusing substantially on the present and immediate future. Monarchy, on the other hand, has relatively low time preference, placing more emphasis on the further future. This is very natural since after leaving office in a Democratic state politician is almost completely free from any responsibility towards the state. Whereas, the monarch cares for the fate of his realm even after his death.

For the same reason, the king’s motives for war are typically ownership-inheritance disputes, thus their objectives are mostly tangible and self-evident, while under Democracy they are always purposefully veiled in ideology, thus, are vague, elusive, and intangible. In order to wage wars, the Democratic state makes a huge effort to present them as just and legitimate, waged on ethical and moral ground. Hiding public official’s actual interests and aims behind the ambiguous terms such as Freedom, Equality, Progress and etc. As Hoppe puts it:

“Democracy radically transforms the limited wars of kings into total wars. In blurring the distinction between the rulers and the ruled, democracy strengthens the identification of the public with the State. And once the State is owned by all, as democrats deceivingly propagate, then it is only fair that everyone should fight for their State and all economic resources of the country are mobilized for the State in its wars” (Hoppe, 2014, p.26).

Moreover, since the Democratic government cannot (and do not) claim the foreign territory as its “own” as a king can do, the motive for war instead becomes an ideological one — national glory, democracy, liberty, civilization, humanity. Thus Ideology becomes one of the most powerful weapons of the Democratic state since with the help of modern means of communications it can mobilize huge masses of people around the world. The purges and genocides of the 20th century are precisely the outcomes of such change. For if objectives of war become the victory of ideas, and the unconditional surrender and ideological conversion of the losers, the mass murder of civilians becomes necessary because one can never be sure about the sincerity of their conversion. This is why “the distinction between combatants and non-combatants becomes fuzzy and ultimately disappears under democracy” (Hoppe, 2014, p.26).

This disappearance of the distinction between combatants and non-combatants is most clearly expressed in Lenin’s attitude toward the contained war of classical European international law, which is waged according to recognized rules between regular troops. Lenin calls it a mere play (igra). “Since, according to him, it is but a duel between cavaliers seeking their own satisfaction” (Schmitt, 2020, p.34). This is because, for Lenin, who is driven by Communist ideology, the enemy is not only an adversary with the uniform, insignia, and weapon openly and demonstratively displayed, but anyone who gets in the way of the communist revolution, be it a soldier or an unarmed civilian. Which, again, perfectly explains the mass shootings and exiles of citizens committed under Communist regimes. To reiterate Hoppe’s thesis, turning war from a dispute over ownership into an ideological conflict between nations, classes, races, or other political groupings typically leads to collateral damage and mass war involvement. As for the wars under Monarchy, “Public expects, and the kings always feel compelled, to recognize a clear distinction between combatants and non-combatants and to target their war efforts specifically and exclusively against each other and their respective personal properties” (Hoppe, 2014, p.26). Since at the end of the day these wars are private conflicts between different ruling families.

Now the question arises: if feudal Monarchy is superior in so many major ways, how did it end up losing with Democracy? And how did we end up with more than 110 electoral democracies around the globe? Although Hoppe has a very interesting explanation with regards to this development, let us save it for another video. As for today, thank you for watching.

References

See references and free resource links on the website.

Alternate Unconscious: Uznadze’s Theory of Set

2022-08-27T16:53:03Z

Abstract

In the following work I briefly explore the general psychology of set – a field founded by Georgian psychologist Dimitri Uznadze who rigorously, through experimental methods offered an alternate understanding of the unconscious, in contrast to fields such as psychoanalysis. The set is understood as a general state of readiness that constitutes purposive behavior. The issue of terminology is explored, as well as the usage of terms such as “set” and “attitue” in fragmentary studies that explored the same phenomenon, but lacked the unified approach, which is one of the merits of set psychology, explaining human functioning as a whole. This merit becomes evident by exploring Charpentier’s Illusion. The factors of set formation are discussed that serve the foundation of purposive behavior. Two types of sets are distinguished in terms of their differentiated and fixed nature. Their nature is further elaborated upon discussing their interrelationship. This is followed by exploring the notion of two levels of psychic activity which is based on Uznadze’s understanding of the term “objectification” and which is integral to understanding the psychology of set as a field of general psychology.

1 Introduction

In 1979 the second international symposium was conducted in Tbilisi, Georgia, where psychologists all around the world gathered to share their findings about one of the most ellusive phenomena known to the field: the unconscious. 150 guests from 17 countries attended (not including hosts from Soviet Union) and considering the fact that the “Iron Curtain” was still holding strong in USSR, these numbers were quite immense (Imedadze, 2022).

There were two notable things regarding this event, at least in the scope of this work. Firstly, in the first symposium of the unconscious held in Boston in 1910, what unified all the psychologists gathered there was their disregard for the Freud’s understanding of the unconscious. Unsurprisingly, Freud and his followers were not invited. At the Tbilisi symposium, however, representatives of many different psychoanalytic fields were attending. Even Jacques Lacan was invited, who unfortunately could not attend (Angelini, 2008). Considering the fact that in USSR psychoanalysis was the “scarecrow” of psychology, this was a notable event indeed. Secondly, the only opponent that psychoanalysis had in that symposium, as a general theory that explicitly focused on the unconscious, was Dimitri Uznadze’s Georgian school, psychology of set which, in spite of taking a completely different approach from psychoanalytic thought and practice, was viewed as the alternate theory of unconscious that the USSR had to offer in competition with its western peers. It was thanks to T. Bassin, who saw the value of Uznadze’s school, that the symposium was held in Tbilisi as he was one of the initiators of this event, alongside A. Sherozia and A. Prangishvili. Nevertheless, It took a great amount of effort for Uznadze and his colleagues to gain recognition which, in the end, payed off (Imedadze, 2022).

What greatly distinguishes the methodology of Uznadze’s school from psychoanalysis is the experimental approach to studying the unconscious. Although it made a name for itself after the Tbilisi symposium, its popularity outside post-soviet countries somehow has receded. Despite this, the theory of set offers a favorable approach for academic psychology which dismisses the achievements of psychoanalysis due to its allegedly unscientific methodology of exploring the unconscious.

2 Attitude or Set?

The terminology must be addressed first and foremost, namely the distinction between the attitude and set, and which one we should use when dealing with Uznadze’s notion. This will help us to formulate a general outline, which will serve as a guide throughout this work.

There doesn’t seem to be a concrete reason to draw strict conceptual distinctions between terms attitude and set, but we must nevertheless settle on one. Thus it would be helpful to see how each term is used in the literature available to us.

The original term in Georgian, used by Uznadze and his followers is “განწყობა” (pronounced gun-ts-ko-ba). In Georgian literature, both attitude and set can be translated into the same word and in Nadirashvili’s work named “განწყობის ფსიქოლოგია” (Nadirashvili, 1983), for example, All terms such as Allport’s attitude, Uznadze’s “განწყობა” and Muller’s (motor) set are all labeled as “განწყობა”. This is despite the fact that, as we will later see, motor set is restricted within the domain of physiology, while attitude carries a more general meaning and for Allport, more often than not, it is used in the context of social psychology. Uznadze’s notion, however, should be understood in the most general sense out of all three. Uznadze aimed to explain human functioning as a whole. This is not unlike Freud, who didn’t restrict his notion of the unconscious within the domain of psychopathology.

Other authors such as Nadareishvili (not to be confused with Nadirashvili) (for example, see Nadareishvili and Chkheidze, 2013, Nadareishvili, 2022) and Imedadze (Imedadze, 2009, 2019, 2022) use the term set. The English translation of Uznadze’s fundamental work by Haigh (Uznadze & Haigh, 1966), which is virtually impossible to acquire in digital form, also uses the same term.

We will settle on using the term set, prominent in the most recent, but rather scarce English works in this field. This will prevent us from mistakingly attributing set in isolation to social psychology, which we might be prone to doing in the usage of attitude. At the same time, we should keep in mind that the phenomena maintains a psycho-physical nature, like a disposition of sorts, which is dynamic as it “sets” in motion the greater part of human activity.

Allport (1935) noted that H. Spencer was the first to put attitude under scientific investigation. Where he used the term “attitude of mind” to describe a position an individual assumes when dealing with opinions that are contradictory to one’s beliefs. Later, the first experimental work was conducted by Lange, where he studied reaction speed. There Lange concluded that a reaction speed to the stimulus is dependent, among other factors, on an inner psychological state which he called attitude. Studies on attitude ranged from explaining specific events restricted to something as specific as motor set (physical mobilization of force in muscles) to something as broad as a general state of readiness.

The issue of terminology, such as using different terms to describe the same phenomenon has been rather intricate and it will be addressed in chapter 4. For, now I will formulate a general definition that, upon reading the next chapters, can be dissected and understood in depth:

A set is a psycho-physical state of readiness that arises upon a specific coincidence of individual’s need with the situation and operational capacity and which determines his or her purposive behavior.

3 Defining Set Through Charpentier’s Illusion

In 1948, Uznadze showed the merits of his set theory by explaining the phenomenon called “Charpentier’s illusion” (for example, see Murray et al., 1991), while also critically reviewing the existing theories surrounding the subject. Discussing where existing theories fell short and where Uznadze’s theory filled in the gaps, will help us formulate the most basic definition of set.

Charpentier’s illusion is described as follows: The objects of identical weight, but different sizes are perceived to have different weights. Muller and Schumann (1889, as cited in Nadirashvili, 1983) tried to explain the illusion with the concept of “motor set”. When a person intends to lift objects of different sizes, upon perceiving and visually assessing the objects, he automatically uses different impulses for each of them. For larger objects, a stronger impulse is mobilized, and for a smaller object – a weaker impulse. Since the objects weigh the same, a larger object lifted up with a stronger impulse leaves a sensation, as if it is “flying up in the air”. Accordingly, a smaller object of the same weight feels to be “sticking to the bottom”. Therefore the object that seems to be “flying up” feels lighter, while the object “sticking to the bottom” feels heavier.

To rule out the effect of “motor set”, Uznadze (2008) conducted experiments in different modalities of perception, where there would be no effects of “flying up” and “sticking to the bottom”. Baresthesiometer was used to apply pressure on subjects’ hands, so that they didn’t have to lift anything themselves. Initially, a pair of stimuli was applied to subjects multiple times: first strong, then weak. After multiple distributions of these pairs, participants were given a final pair of stimuli with equal pressures. It was discovered that they felt identical pressures to be different from one another. It was concluded, that the illusion appeared in many different modalities of perception, where it was possible to create sets that give rise to an illusionary perception of light, temperature, volume, etc. This means that the “motor set” doesn’t explain Charpentier’s illusion accurately (Nadirashvili, 1983).

Later, a notion of disappointed expectation was used by Martin and Muller (Martin, Muller, 1899 as cited in Nadirashvili, 1983), According to which an additional factor was considered, namely the conscious expectation of a person that a perceived large object must be heavy, therefore upon lifting it, the weight in contrast to the expectation feels much lighter and the other way around for the lighter object.

If conscious expectation indeed played a role, then being aware of the effects of the illusion should disperse the effect. Strangely enough, experiments proved that removing the expectation factor, on the contrary, strengthened the illusionary effect (Nadirashvili, 1983).

Uznadze (2008) conducted an experiment using hypnotic sleep. After inducing a hypnotic sleep in the subjects, they were asked to hold pairs of different-sized spheres. This is the stage, which Uznadze called “the set experiment”, where he would “fixate the set” in the subjects, which would cause the biased perception, i.e illusion. The subjects then were told to forget everything before waking up from sleep. The illusion somehow still persisted and subjects, in the waking state, perceived spheres of identical size to be different (Nadirashvili, 1983).

From the aforementioned experiment, it was concluded that by fixating the set in the subjects, a particular inner condition is formed, which is not immediately present in the consciousness, as there is no consciousness in the hypnotic sleep (and therefore, no expectation to be disappointed), yet it persists and influences the conscious actions, such as deciding which sphere is larger. Such definition resonates well with Allport’s definition of attitude:

“a mental and neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a directive and dynamic influence upon the individual’s response to all objects and situations with which it is related.” (Allport, 1935, p.810)

Here, a mental and neural state of readiness, of course, doesn’t necessarily mean a conscious state, nor does it completely dismiss the influence of the conscious processes. At the same time, it is a state of readiness for any context, not constrained in social domain as one would expect from the term “attitude”.

4 Set Between Big and Small Theories

It is important to see how Uznadze’s experiments tackle the issue. The notion of set doesn’t simply aim to explain a particular phenomenon like Charpentier’s illusion. It is a theory that attempts to explain the general functioning of a human being as a whole. A theory using this approach is called a big (or general) theory. This is something that was often outside of the scope of the majority of research made in the field of psychology. There has seldom been a unified theory that would explain both specific peculiarities of psychological activity and human activity as a whole. This often resulted in a vast body of contradictory theories, experiments, and correlations that seemingly led to nowhere – the issue often present in small theories that focus on explaining just one particular, isolated phenomenon.

“When outlining the basis of the theory, Uznadze discussed set not as one of many psychological emergances, which should shed light on some psychological phenomena, but as the basis of human activity, which serves as a mediator between the human and the environment, moderating their interaction, determining human behavior, allowing it to be conducted purposively.” (Nadirashvili, 1983, p.41)

Theory of set, in this regard, falls in the same category as, for example, psychoanalysis, gestalt psychology, field theory, etc. Although no theory, big or small, is safe from inconsistencies and contradictions, the unified approach dominant in big theories provides a very helpful foundation that is less cluttered with implicit preconceptions and presuppositions yet to be put under question. This foundation ensures that less epistemological harm is done. Wurtzburg’s school is a clear example of such harm.

In Wurtzburg’s school of psychology, experimental studies of attitude took a rather subjectivistic and psychologistic turn (Nadirashvili, 1983). That is to say, the accent was made not on the fact of physical, motor functions but on the conscious organization of the subject. In every experiment conducted in the context of perception, memory, reasoning, volition, etc. a great deal of attention was given to subjects’ inner state of readiness, as they assess the problem they have to solve.

Allport (1935) claims that the study of attitude in Germany had a certain methodological flaw, which hindered the scientific study of attitude. In Wurtzburg, the unified notion of attitude had dissipated, which gave rise to terms, such as: determination tendency, schema, consciousness, etc., which depicted phenomena like attitude, but were used in isolation, without anything to unify them and show a bigger picture. Besides that, they were unable to determine the locus of attitude in the psyche, for example, whether it was a conscious or unconscious process.

Although Allport’s primary concern with the attitude was in the context of social psychology, he was quite aware of its crucial role in general psychic life; Arguably due to the fact that, by its nature, attitude is unconscious. It often exerts its force without the individual realizing it.

According to Allport, the notion of attitude was first attributed to the domain of unconscious psychological activity by Freud, while also stressing its fundamental importance in psychology. According to Freud, this unconscious constitutes the energetic reservoir of psychic life and its content can only be brought to consciousness with a specific form of analysis of the psyche. It is thanks to psychoanalysis that the unconscious found its place in psychology, art, cultureal studies and social sciences in general. Allport claims, that without rigorous experimental work, the concept of attitude wouldn’t exist in psychology, but without psychoanalytic work, this concept wouldn’t have a long lifespan and fruitfulness in the field of psychology. It, certainly, for one, wouldn’t have become the central concept in social psychology (Nadirashvili, 1983).

Uznadze’s inspiration derived from Allport’s work on attitude and Levin’s field theory as the nature of set started revealing its complexity, distancing him from simple mechanistic explanations.

We could argue, that the reason other explanations of Charpentier’s illusion, as well as Wurtzburg’s research, fell short is that all of them were constructed to explain a rather too specific event. By doing so, great many aspects of human mind and behavior were simply (perhaps accidentaly) ignored, rendering them inaccurate.

5 Conditions of Set Formation

Now that we are aware of the basic outline of the set, we should discuss how it comes to be. When discussing the psychic activity of a human being in relation to the environment, we assume that the behavior is purposive, i.e it serves a purpose, insofar as it is driven by inner forces, the need, that direct the actions of the individual towards the object which can gratify it. This ultimately means adapting to the environment or changing it in order to reach gratification. Changing the environment is stressed because the need on its own cannot be gratified if a particular situation is not provided, where fulfilling it is possible.

The need and the situation are what Uznadze distinguished as “the fundamental factors that give rise to any behavior and, therefore, set which precedes this behavior” (Uznadze, 2008, p.57).

Nadirashvili (1983) provided an additional factor, operational capacity, which stresses an individual’s ability to perform gratifying tasks.

5.1 Subjective Factor: Need

The activity of a human organism can be explained on different levels. Since the psychology of set concerns itself with human activity as a whole in relation to the environment, the need is understood in its general sense, not only as instinctual, social, functional or theoretical.

“The need can be described as any state of a psycho-physical organism, which requires a change of environment, as it is provided with the necessary impulses for activity.” (Uznadze, 2008)

It is important to note, however, that the need provides the organism with necessary impulses to adapt to or change the environment, but it does not organize them, in a sense that the need is only a (more or less primitive) tendency that cannot integrate the necessary impulses with the reflected environment (situation) to guarantee the correct usage of psycho-physical resources.

Nadirashvili (1983) argues that the description of need as “any state” is rather vague and formulated the “experience of lack” that gives rise to impulses for activity. The latter notion was commonly used as the causing factor of need in psychology. The lack can be biological, as a defficiency of certain chemicals in the organism, or psychological, as, for example, a lack of social recognition but it is often the case that the need can only provide necessary impulses when the lack is experienced by the individual and it is not merely objectively present. The objective presence of a lack on a physical level can be regulated by the organism automatically thorugh, for example digestive, endocrinal or neural systems, but when a complex task is necessary to deal with the lack – thought and behavior – it must be experienced. The physical or psychological lack therefore must be reflected in the psyche (consciously or unconsciously) so that the impulses are given which are then used in the behavior.

In theory of set, the origin of need is within the individual. Uznadze (2008) is opposed to the idea that the need can arise from the external source, as is the case in Kurt Lewin’s notion of “quasineed” (for example, see Lewin, 1951). If an object is presented to an individual that suddenly seems “alluring” to him or her, this means that there was a need for it in the individual to begin with. What varies is the intensity of need, which increases if the situation corresponds to it. The need is to be understood as a condition of an individual, which is expressed through yearning, tendency towards objects as “… it makes ground for psychic activity” (Nadirashvili, 1983, p.208).

There are two basic types of need – substantial and functional (Uznadze, 2008). The former implies a need that can be gratified by a substance. For example, hunger can be sated by food, therefore a need for food is a substantial need. The functional need implies an organism’s yearning for activity in itself. A child’s need to play games or a musician’s need to play an instrument is often solely driven by the desire of engaging in those very activities for their own sake.

Uznadze (2008) claims that there are more beyond the basic types of needs, such as a “purely human” theoretical need. It arises when the direct act of gratification is impeded and the task at hand becomes the object of observation. In this sense, Uznadze discusses theoretical need as the development or complication of substantial need. Nadirashvili (1983) further notes that people develop certain needs based on social and cultural values. All these “higher” processes are mediated by objectification which I will explain in later chapters.

5.2 Objective Factor: Situation

When we talk about situation in set psychology, we have in mind the relevant part of the environment that makes gratification of the need possible. A need on its own can not be satisfied without the object given in the environment and the need becomes individually “defined” when it can be gratified through a certain situation.

“When there are no respective situations for individual’s needs, the tendencies towards activities that are contained in those needs remain in a passive, inactive state.”(Nadirashvili, 1983, p.210)

While the need incorporates an impetus, the organism has no way of knowing what kind of activity must be conducted in order to satisfy it, unless the situation – which not only distinguishes future activity – gives the need a discrete, individual form.

Moreover, in order for the behavior to be purposive, the situation and need have to meaningfully coincide. A hungry person must be provided with food as a situation and not with, for example, kitchen utensils.

5.3 Operational Capacity

“The problem of purposive behavior implies the discovery of the mechanism that allows the individual to put all inner forces in service to this behavior.” (Nadirashvili, 1983, p.218)

An individual can conduct a behavior that doesn’t lead to the gratification of his need. In this case, the behavior lacks purposiveness. For example, one might intend to jump over a hole in the ground but fall in it because he did not jump hard enough. For the behavior to be purposive (to successfully jump over the hole), it, therefore, should not only have a relevant need and situation, but also an ability to utilize the right capabilities (in this case, leg strength).

The set – the readiness to act – can only be formed with the presence of all three factors: need, situation, and operational capacity. The need on its own will not compel an individual to act if there is no objective context where gratification is possible. A situation alone cannot incite a desire as the need for it should already be present in the individual. With the need and situation the set will not arise insofar as the future behavior is imprinted as a “sketch” within it, which determines if there are right operational capacities that can cause a purposive behavior – the one that ends with gratification.

6 Types of Set

Given all three factors discussed above, a set is formed that gives rise to a purposive behavior and only the latter (not the set) can actually be observed. Now we have to see how and in what forms the set is conceived.

6.1 Fixed Set

In chapter 3 we mentioned Uznadze’s studies, where he would fixate the set in test subjects in the “experimental” phase. This was the exposure of pressure on a hand or giving subjects spherical objects on serveral occasions. This was followed by a “critical” phase, where the effects of the newly fixated set were observed. It would therefore seem that the repetitive exposure to stimuli plays a significant role in forming the set. In fact, just one or two exposures are often not enough for participants to make them perceive final equal pairs of stimuli to be different (Uznadze, 2008).

When we encounter familiar situations, our readiness to act is well-formed. That is to say, we make quick decisions, our behavior is distinct and efficient as we know (consciously or unconsciously) what to do and how to do it. That is because we have been in similar situations many times and more often we find ourselves in them, the easier it becomes for us to actualize our readiness to act, which provides us with more concise “schemas” of behavior.

“Suppose that in a certain situation I have developed a set that has played its role by giving an appropriate direction to behavior. But what happens to it after that? Does it disappear without any trace, as if it never existed, or does it somehow continue to exist, retaining the ability to influence behavior again? Since set is a modification of the subject as a unity, it is obvious that after fulfilling its role it must immediately cede its place to another set, that is, it should disappear. But this does not mean that it must cease to exist once and for all and in its entirety. On the contrary, when the subject lands in the same situation, he should develop the set in question much more easily than if he were in a completely new situation that required creating a fundamentally new set. We can safely say that a set, once created, is not lost, the subject retains it in the form of readiness for reactualization in the event that the same conditions recur.” (Uznadze, 2009, p.80)

This is what characterizes a fixed set – an ability to remain in “the readiness for reactualization”. We could argue that what comprises a great deal of human personality is in fact a vast multitude of fixed sets, acquired through experience or genetic inheritance. It is no wonder that in set psychology there is a term called “dispositional set” that is akin to a personality trait and experience.

In Uznadze’s experiments, the repeated exposures played a crucial role. The set would not have had a distinct influence on the perception of equal objects or pressure on hands otherwise. This leads us to think that the category of fixed set encompases within itself a spectrum. That is to say, fixed sets will differ by a) how easily they can become fixed and b) how strong their readiness for actualization is.

The more often the set arises, the greater the readiness for actualization becomes. Apart from repetition, a certain situation can leave a powerful impression on the subject, so much so that even one occurance of this situation can be enough to make the set extremely fixed. Consequently, this often leads the subject to incorrectly reflect the newer situation. Instead of forming a new set, or utilizing a corresponding fixed set, the previous extremely fixed set becomes actualized and henceforth the subject becomes the victim of an illusion. This concept opens up possibilities of exploring psychological trauma in novel ways but this is beyond the scope of our discussion. We are interested on how the fixed set explains Uznadzde’s experiments.

“Therefore, because of frequent repetition or significant personal importance, a certain set may be as easily aroused as a habitual one that is easily actualized even under the influence of an unrelated stimulus that impedes the appearance of the appropriate set. This may be called a fixed set.” (Uznadze, 2009, p.80)

Indeed, this is what happens in Uznadze’s experiments, where upon many repetitions, the perception of two different stimuli is so strongly fixed that later, even the two identical stimuli are perceived to be different.

It is important to note that although the purpose of set is subject’s adaptation to reality, it is not always necessary to fully reflect the external reailty. Within the set that constitutes impulsive behavior the individual reflects objects and his behavior to an extent that is important and enough for the corresponding behavior of this set. When interacting with reality, an individual comes in contact with a vast variety of objects, each of them unique. Despite that, those objects have similarities based on which human psyche tends to simplify and categorize those objects in an assimilative manner. This ensures purposive behavior without extra psychological strain (Nadirashvili, 1985). This is precisely what we see in Uznadze’s experiments, where the fixed set of perceiving different objects affects the perception of same objects – an “assimilative illusion” takes place.

6.2 Situational Set

What should we make of the set that is never retained in the subject and which simply disappears after serving its purpose as the corresponding situation never presents itself again?

“At the initial conception, the set does not simply form in a complete form, but rather it is usually in the undifferentiated state that lacks individualized nature.” (Uznadze, 2008, p.69)

When we are dealing with the set at its earliest stage of formation it is rather difficult to observe and study because it is diffused, and the behavior it produces is less apparent. It is important to note that if the set is not differentiated, it will not produce an organized behavior, let alone an observable one because the factors of set are not yet differentiated and they are not corresponding to each other (Nadareishvili, 2016). This is why, in unfamiliar situations, people tend to become clumsy and awkward. First and foremost, then, the factors of set must be differentiated, which is difficult in an unfamiliar situation and requires a bit more effort.

We are therefore lead to believe that in Uznadze’s research discussed in chapter 3, the set experiment does not only require the fixation of set but also its differentiation (Uznadze, 2008). Only after the set and the behavior it organizes become defined, we can make conclusions.

Once a completely new set is differentiated it serves its purpose and recedes if the situation passes and never recurs. Precisely because of that, it is called a situational set. It forms when an individual is presented with a completely new and unfamiliar situation.

There is no concrete general measurement on how many repetitions a set requires to become fixed. It largely depends on both the individual and the context in which he acts. It is even possible for the fixation to not occur at all, despite the amount of stimuli given, while in some subjects, even one strong impression is enough. In this case, the subject himself plays a crucial role, as a unitary living being. In experiments of Uznadze (2009), for example, it took 15 repetitions to successfully fixate the set in the majority of subjects.

In conclusion, when we speak about the formation of set, at the first stage we have a diffused set which has yet to be differentiated i.e to develop a distinct form. Through the help of repetition or personal significance of the situation, event or stimulus, the set starts to become differentiated. It either becomes a situational set that serves its purpose one time and disappears as the situation never presents itself again, or it becomes fixed as it acquires an ability to retain itself within the subject and to have readiness for actualization, provided that the subject encounters the same situation.

6.3 Intricacies of Fixed and Situational Set

There’s a complex interrelation between different sets within the individual which becomes apparent when we observe assimilative and contrast illusions that were present in experiments regarding object size. It also gives us insight on how the set disappears, allowing a new set to replace it.

“A test subject is repeatedly (ten to fifteen times) handed, and asked to compare, two objects that differ only in volume: a small one in the right hand, a large one in the left. When the test subject participates seriously in this experiment, he develops, under the effect of our instructions, a need to accomplish the task assigned to him (the subjective factor of set). The proffered objects (the objective factor) act on the subject who has this need by producing a specific effect (the set), on the basis of which a correct assessment is made of the relative volumes of these objects. Consequently, after each hand-off, the test subject develops a set (“big one on the left, little one on the right”). As a result of multiple repetitions this set becomes so habitual that in each subsequent experiment it is actualized even before the proffered objects exert the appropriate effect. After that, the test subject is handed, and asked to compare, objects with equal rather than different volumes (the critical experiment). What occurs in this instance? If objects of not very different volumes were used in the experiments designed to create a certain set, then the habitual set remains in effect, and the assessment of the equal objects is based on that: the right-hand object seems smaller to the test subject than the left-hand one. But if objects of starkly different volumes are used in the set experiments, when equal objects are presented in the critical experiment, the old set cannot manifest itself because of its gross discordance with the objective factor, and a new set must take its place. The experiments prove that everything occurs just that way.” (Uznadze, 2009, p.81)

In the critical experiments two different cases emerged. When the difference between two objects is not so big in the set experiment, the previous set still has an effect in the critical experiment, when they are handed equal objects – “the big one is on the left, little one on the right”. Here we have an assimilative illusion. When the difference between objects is far too big in the set experiment, the opposite happens when they are given equal objects – “the big one on the right, little one on the left”. The latter is a contrast illusion. Why would the newer set in the second case not conform to the previous set and instead be a direct opposite of it? Uznadze claims that in both cases the set developed in the set experiments play a significant role. According to Nadirashvili (1985) when the set meaningfully corresponds but at the same time signifficantly differs from objects and events, a contrast illusion takes effect whereby contrasting feeling further exaggerates the difference which exists between the individual’s set and events of the reality. The contrasting experience – due to the counteraction of the exaggerated information on the inappropriate set – speeds up the deterrioration of the set that is inappropriate for the given situation. This way, conditions form so that the individual can change according to the external reality. The contrasting feeling that derives from the set allows the individual to dispose of the inappropriate set and give ground for a new relevant set.

It is therefore logical to claim that fixed sets often play a mediating role between other sets and their behaviors (Nadirashvili, 1985). A dispositional set, for example, plays a significant role when a situational set is formd in an unfamiliar situation. Here, a dispositional set on its own might not correspond to the particular environment due to its general nature, therefore it influences the structure of the situational set that is being formed (Nadareishvili, 2016). It is worth noting, that volition plays a significant role in this process, which will be adressed in Chapter 7.2.

Furthermore, it is argued that situational set organizes the structure of a dispositional set (Nadareishvili, 2022). That is to say, a dispositional set (which is a certain type of fixed set) does not simply recede, but rather has its components modified by a situational set to better suit the demands of the newer situation.

In conclusion, we can see that human activity, in terms of set, cannot simply be explained by different sets switching places with one another, or ensuring the destruction of one on the basis of the other’s formation. The existing sets can modify each other’s structural components (for an in-depth overview, see Nadareishvili, 2022).

7 Two Levels of Activity

As the theory of set expanded, it became apparent that the elaborate nature of the human’s psychic activity, such as social and volitional activity, cannot simply be explained with set that arises from need and objective reality. It became necessary to explore sets that not only reflect the need and objects from external reality but also social demands and values – all of which happen on a higher level of activity (Nadirashvili, 1985).

In the early stages of the set theory, a more primitive level of human activity was considered. Later the notion of objectification was introduced to distinguish two forms of sets and, in general, two levels of activities.

7.1 The First Level

On the first level, we encounter an impulsive behavior. The behavior is, in this case, largely directed by set. An individual’s relation to the environment is mostly fragmented and practical – purely for the sake of “consumption”. The individual only interacts with the parts of the reality that is related to his need.

“During impulsive behavior, be it eating or a different form of consumption, an individual chooses, on the basis of his set, the agents of activity. He chooses food on the table that looks the most attractive to him. If this procedure happens on an official feast, he impulsively, through set, follows all the rules and etiquette which is socially reinforced and which he has developed from experience. For an individual who is well versed in this domain, reflecting necessary objects, giving direction to physical forces towards them and obeying the etiquette of the feast does not require special attention and volition”. (Nadirashvili, 1985, p.33-34)

If we were to display the first level of activity on a chart, it would look like this:

Structure of the first level of psychic activity (translated from Nadirashvili, 1985, p.35).

The set is directly related to all of its three factors, as well as the feeling – the experience that comes from external reality – and behavior. At the same time, it mediates all of them. Only the set’s relation with the object is not direct from both directions. The object is directly reflected in the set, but the set can only influence the object through behavior. At the same time, the object’s interaction with the set is not isolated because the corresponding need and operational capacity must be active.

A basic example of object’s direct reflection in set would be the separation of background and foreground in perception. The objects necessary for need gratification are differentiated from the rest of the environment, towards which an individual has specific reactions. This particularity of perception is due to the set. Objects related to the active set appear to be more distinguished and attractive. Hungrier a mouse is, the more attractive to it seems the piece of cheese and less noticeable – the mousetrap which holds this cheese (Nadirashvili, 1985).

During impulsive behavior, conscious processes are less involved as the relevant part of the environment is already reflected in the set. It is when the impulsive behavior is impeded (i.e fails to be purposive) that it becomes necessary to mobilize consciousness. This is where the objectification plays a crucial role.

Objectification is a mechanism that allows the individual to once more and far thoroughly reflect the environment (be it physical, social or theoretical) which, during impulsive behavior, has become an obstacle to need gratification. It might be seen as a “switch” that, as conscious resources become more necessary, moves psychic activity to the second level where it becomes possible to find a way to continue previous behavior or form a new behavior that will not be impeded. This requires conscious reasoning in particular.

The two levels of activities are not a division between the conscious and unconscious processes, as consciousness is involved on both levels to some degree. The experience of an object, which we encapsulated as “feeling” in the chart above is what Uznadze referred to as “contents of consciousness”. It is a stream of experiences that create a foundation for future operations in behavior. These experiences, feelings, contents are, however, fragmented on the first level of activity and therefore do not direct the behavior on their own as it is the set that contains a “general strategy for behavior” (Nadirashvili, 1985, p.54) and gives unity to these contents of consciousness on basis of which impulsive behavior takes place.

7.2 The Second Level

On the second level of activity an individual deals with problems that cannot be solved on the first level. Simply because such problems cannot even be noticed on a more primitive level.

Impulsive behavior, as we know, required several factors and when one of them falls out of place – for example, when the situation no longer can gratify the need – the impulsive behavior comes to a halt.

“Turns out, that a human can stop his impulsive activity by taking out one of its factors from the context of behavior. He does so by directing attention to, and therefore through objectification of, one of the factors of behavior… Once he starts contemplating about the functionality of his behavior’s components, his impulsive behavior is stopped.” (Nadirashvili, 1985, p.75)

The definition of objectification we see above is not exhaustive. During impulsive behavior there is no subjectivity in the individual to speak of, in a sense that the behavior is conducted unconsciously while the individual is a mere part of the activity: the subject is lost in the behavior. He does not get to (consciously) choose his actions. Through objectification the factor of behavior causing the impediment is differentiated as an object to which a now consciously thinking individual is related as a subject, thus forming a subject-to-object relationship. In other words, the individual starts abstract reasoning about what went wrong. While physically during this moment we can only observe that impulsive behavior stops, psychologically an activity is initiated on a completely different plain. Through objectification an individual can differentiate himself from the environment and relate himself to it as a subject to an object.

Objectification as an ability is developed in humans through social interactions and it is unique to humans insofar as they are capable of communication within a complex system that is language. Thus socialization develops the ability of objectification, “…when during collective work it would become necessary to point to the object towards which the common behavior of the group was directed” (Nadirashvili, 1985, p.76).

It is worth noting that although in this discussion we focus on objectification of an object (in the environment), other types of objectifications have also been distinguished, namely objectification of social influence and self-objectification (Nadirashvili, 1985) – all of which are beyond the scope of this article.

Despite the activities being on two different levels, the feeling of the external reality on the second level maintains the equivalency of the first level. The objects in reality are experienced to be the same on both levels, with the benefit of higher level comprehension through consciousness on the second level. This allows the individual to employ higher levels of cognitive functions to inspect the reason why the impulsive behavior was impeded and to find the solution. This also allows the individual to contemplate, in his psychic reality, all of its possibilities and potentialities. On this level, the behavior can incorporate physical, ideal, and social acts, therefore the behavior can become not only purposive, but deliberate and creative. This is the key difference in terms of behavior between two levels of activities: On the first level, the behavior is purposive, and on the second level, it is deliberate.

As mentioned above, the purpose of the activity on the second level is being able to return to the impulsive behavior on the first level. The transition back to the first level is one of the more complicated problems that is a subject of a debate to this day.

Some researchers in this field have argued that volition is always necessary for the activity to return to the first level. A research (Natadze, 1972, as cited in Nadirashvili, 1985) has shown that volition may only be required if the correct set cannot be formed due to an opposing set being too firm, which required extra conscious effort to oppose it. In other cases ideas and imaginations that arise on the basis of objectification are sufficient to form and fixate a new set.

Imagination plays a significant role on the second level. In fact, what distinguishes the sets formed on either level of activity is the nature of its factors. What constitutes impulsive behavior is a set that has real inner and outer factors: the need is truely present in the organism and there’s a real object (situation) that can gratify the need in the environment. The set that directs deliberate behavior, however, lacks this kind of reality in at least one of its factors.

Suppose that as we perform our morning routine, we prepare for work but as we reach out for a usual spot where we keep our car keys, we realize that they are not there. Up until this point, most of our activity – getting dressed, brushing teeth, having breakfast – was largely conducted by the set as all of its factors were present both within us and in the real world (we were hungry, and we had breakfast prepared), the same thing should have been true for the keys – we wanted to drive a car to work and the keys should have been at the usual spot. As the objective factor, the keys, fell out of place, and by feeling this mismatch we would initiate objectification: “Where are the car keys? I always put them here! Perhaps I left it in my coat pocket? Maybe it’s in my bag…”. With the help of reasoning, we would start looking for the keys in the places where we suspect it might be. What constitutes our set that initiates our search behavior? Well, we need to get to work (need), we are capable of driving (operational capacity) but the keys (situation) are not there! – they are imagined as possibilities of where they could be. Successfully finishing this behavior (finding the keys) will not gratify our need as we still have to get to work (therefore it is not purposive, but deliberate) but it will allow us to return to the impulsive and purposive behavior that ends with us going to work. This would also help as fixate a new set whereupon if the keys are missing again, we will (this time impulsively) without much conscious reasoning, reach into our coat pocket or a bag where we had found it previously.

Of course, the imagined factor does not have to be just the objective one. For example, a individual may through volition acquire necessary skills for a task that he wants to accomplish by practicing.

As a side note, the formation of situational set can be now described precisely. Since the situational set forms in a new, unfamiliar situation, the impulsive behavior is impeded, since the factors of set are not differenciated. This means that an individual must use volition and imagination to differenciate those factors and through deliberate behavior find means to “make himself at home”, in other words to return to purposive behavior in a (now) familiar situation.

In conclusion, what differentiates the two levels of activities is the behavior and set which constitutes it. The behavior on the first level is largely driven by the set that has its factors fully and objectively present, therefore it is impulsive. The behavior at this level is also purposive, as it ends with the gratification of need. The second level of activity becomes necessary when the impulsive behavior is impeded. The objectification allows an individual to “take a step back” and once again, albeit thoroughly, observe the cause of the impediment. Through more involved conscious processes it becomes possible to create a new set, this time with imagined factors that allows the individual to conduct deliberate behavior which serves the purpose of returning to an impulsive and purposive behavior.

8 The Reach of Set Psychology

Uznadze’s school of set psychology became the most prominent field in USSR that studied the unconscious. Interestingly enough, it withstood the pressure of falling in line with Marxist philosophy, even though it was mostly devoid of any ideology (Imedadze, 2022).

The unique and generalized approach of set psychology allows it to be applied to many fields, such as social psychology (Nadirashvili, 1983, 1985), criminal psychology (Nadareishvili & Chkheidze, 2013), abnormal psychology (Uznadze, 1977; Uznadze & Haigh, 1966) and more.

Uznadze was ambitious enough to claim that Freud’s understanding of the unconscious is flawed and the Freudian term unconscious should be replaced by the set (Uznadze & Haigh, 1966, p.213-214). His claims are not to be dismissed so easily as while psychoanalysis could vouch for its validity through success in treatment, the set psychology was able to experimentally study the unconscious and as a result founded the alternate theory of the unconscious which, to this day, lacks the attention it deserves beyond the borders of Georgia.

References

See references and free resource links on the website.

Natural Rights and Positivism - Leo Strauss

2022-05-12T00:00:00Z

In the last video, I discussed the relationship between historicism and natural right according to Leo Strauss. And showed the fruits that this relationship bears. However, I have not yet discussed the relationship between natural right and Positivism - another equally powerful enemy of natural right alongside Historicism.

In the last video, I have already defined the concept of a natural right and I will not go into this anymore. Here I am only going to reiterate the formulation offered by Strauss: “natural right claims to be a right that is discernible by human reason and is universally acknowledged” (Strauss, 1971, p. 9). Unlike historicism, which merely challenges natural rights universality, positivism singlehandedly denies any form of natural right considering it as something unscientific. This is because positivism assumes that conflict between different values or value systems is essentially insoluble for human reason. This is most evident in Max Weber’s work, which, according to Strauss, is the greatest representative of social science positivism. Considering procedures and methodology of natural sciences as its standard, positivist social sciences presumably banish any form of unempirical claims out of its field of expertise, especially - value judgments. Or as Strauss puts it, “the belief of positivism that value judgments are not subject to rational control, encourages inclination to make irresponsible assertions regarding right and wrong, good and bad” (Strauss, 1988, p. 23). Thus, in order to preserve its scientific status, social science aspires to make itself totally value-free or value-neutral.

This leads us to the core of positivism, namely, to the division or distinction between Facts and values. The social scientist claiming to be scientific i.e. positivist draws a sharp line between values and facts, regarding himself as unable to pass any value judgments (Strauss, 1991). Again, to borrow Weber’s position, social science can only answer questions of facts and their causes, but it is not competent to answer questions of value. Because, as Strauss remarks, “the absolute heterogeneity of facts and values necessitates the ethically neutral character of social science” (Strauss, 1971, p. 40). Because in the case of this absolute heterogeneity “no conclusion can be drawn from any fact as to its valuable character, nor can we infer the factual character of something from its being valuable or desirable” (Strauss, 1971, p. 39). It is another question whether such restriction (expectations) is realistic for social sciences?

This ethical neutrality of positivist social sciences results in total abandonment of Natural Rights. Presumably, it is considered as yet another value judgment on which social science cannot rely upon. Therefore, any right, according to positivism, is merely a positive right. This means that what is right is determined exclusively by the legislators and the courts of the various countries (Strauss, 1971). But none of the scientists, who hold this view, acknowledge the disastrous conclusions to, which their position leads. If all right is only a positive right this means that there is no transcultural and trans-historical standard, an ideal that is universal. But, instead, all societies have their own ideals and each is of equal value. Hence, if any principle is sufficiently justified by the fact that it is accepted by society, the principles of cannibalism are as defensible or sound as those of civilized life (Strauss, 1971). Or as Strauss puts it:

“Therefore, our believing in certain values cannot be traced beyond our decision or commitment. One might even say that, to the extent to which we are still able to reflect on the relation of our values to our situation, we are still trying to shirk the responsibility for our choice” (Strauss, 1991, p. 10).

In other words, there is no reasonable way to demonstrate the superiority of one value over another. We can merely persuade or indoctrinate people into preferring one value over another. However, at the end of the day, it is nothing but propaganda. Hence Isaiah Berlin remarks:

“To realize the relative validity of one’s convictions and yet stand for them unflinchingly, is what distinguishes a civilized man from a barbarian” (Berlin, 1958, p. 51).

When there persists no universal value discernible by human reason, the single choice we are left with is to embrace the relative validity of our values. In short, rejection of natural right (or of value judgments in general) eventually leads to moral relativism.

However, here we ought to reiterate the aforementioned question: how realistic it is for social science to be faithful to its positivist ideal i.e. to reject any value judgment and limit itself to facts only? Strauss demonstrates four major considerations, which speak decisively about the theoretical weaknesses of social science positivism:

“It is impossible to study social phenomena i.e. all important social phenomena, without making value judgments… Because, generally speaking, it is impossible to understand thought or action without evaluating it” (Strauss, 1988, p. 21). Besides this, as Strauss ads, one must not overlook the invisible value judgments that are necessarily presupposed by any social scientist; value judgments of significant importance, yet often concealed from undiscerning eyes. For example, a fundamental distinction between “ethos” and "techniques of living (or “prudential” rules). Any sociologist must recognize and appreciate a distinctive character of an ethos (he is studying). But such appreciation necessarily implies a value judgment. The same may be said of morality, religion, politics, art, civilization, etc.
As we have already mentioned, “the rejection of value judgments is based on assumption that the conflict between different values or value-systems is essentially insoluble for human reason. But this assumption, while generally taken to be sufficiently established, has never been proven” (Strauss, 1988, p. 22).
Another reason, why positivists look down on value judgments, is their belief that scientific knowledge is the highest form of human knowledge. Because of this, they depreciate pre-scientific, common sense knowledge. However, this superstitious distrust towards pre-scientific knowledge fosters all sorts of sterile investigations or complicated idiocies. Futile discussions that eventually lead to nowhere. This is because any study in social science presupposes knowledge about basic common sense distinctions. “To illustrate this by the simplest example: all studies in social science presuppose that its devotees can tell human beings from other beings”. And everyone can agree that this fundamental knowledge was not acquired by them in classrooms; moreover “this knowledge is not transformed by social science into scientific knowledge, but retains its initial status without any modification throughout” (Strauss, 1988, p. 23). In other words, it never ascends from the status of pre-scientific knowledge to the status of scientific knowledge.
And finally, Positivism necessarily transforms itself into historicism. By virtue of its orientation by the model of natural science, social science is in danger of mistaking peculiarities of, say, mid-twentieth century United States, or more generally of modern Western society, for the essential character of human society. To avoid this danger, it is compelled to engage in “cross-cultural research,” in the study of other cultures, both present and past. But in making this effort, it misses the meaning of those other cultures, because it interprets them through a conceptual scheme which originates in modern Western society, which reflects that particular society, and which fits at best only that particular society" (Strauss, 1988, p. 25).

Presumably, if one takes into consideration these theoretical problems, it becomes hard to accept positivism as a viable option for social sciences. Even though it is still very popular among western academics. But as Strauss remarks, although „Positivism may be said to be more dogmatic than any other position of which we have records… It is able to present itself as very skeptical; it is that manifestation of dogmatism based on skepticism in which the skepticism completely conceals the dogmatism from its adherents" (Strauss, 1995, p. 26). It is precisely thanks to this veil of skepticism that positivism is still considered by many as the most reasonable and scientifically accurate viewpoint.

References

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Natural Rights and Historicism - Leo Strauss

2021-11-13T00:00:00Z

Strauss starts his lecture with the famous passage from the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Strauss considers the dedication of Americans to this proposition as one of the cardinal reasons for their power and prosperity. However, as he observes, Americans do not cherish the faith in these words anymore. If a generation ago “the natural and the divine foundation of the rights of man” was self-evident to all Americans, today the very notion of “natural right” has become almost incomprehensible. Hence, the principles of the Declaration of Independence are not interpreted as expressions of natural right, but merely as an ideal, if not as an ideology or a myth.

Strauss traces this phenomenon to Present-day American social sciences, which have adopted the very attitude towards natural rights characteristic to German thought. More precisely, its “historical sense”. Strauss remarks that Germany, although defeated on the battlefield, “has imposed on its conqueror i.e. America the yoke of its own thought, depriving it of the most sublime fruit of victory” (Strauss 1971, 2).

Before discussing the very essence of the “historicist” attitude towards the problem of natural rights, first of all, let us give a comprehensive definition of natural right per se. “natural right claims to be a right that is discernible by human reason and is universally acknowledged” (Strauss 1971, 9). In its classic form, it presupposes a teleological view of the universe. According to which “all natural beings have a natural end, a natural destiny, which determines what kind of operation is good for them” (Strauss 1971, 7). And since “man is endowed with reason he can know his end and thus of the general principles that govern his conduct. Principles that constitute a “law”, promulgated by nature itself, which enables him to discriminate between right and wrong” (Fortin 1987, 281).

In opposition, the historical school of thought that emerged in 18 century Germany believed that no such universal rights existed. Instead of insisting on the ethnic character of all genuine rights, it trailed all natural rights to unique folk minds. In other words, according to historicism, what claimed to be universal appeared eventually as derivative from something locally and temporally confined. As Strauss himself puts it: “radicalizing the tendency of men like Rousseau, the historical school asserted that the local and the temporal have a higher value than the universal” (Strauss 1971, 14). In this manner, historicism does not deny the notion of natural right all at once, as does for example positivism – another powerful enemy of natural right alongside historicism. Instead, historicism had preserved natural right, only in a historical guise: on the one hand, 1) by assuming history as a process ruled by intelligible necessity i.e. trans-historical principle, and on the other hand, 2) by reducing universality of genuine rights to individual cultures i.e. folk minds.

According to Strauss, the historical school of thoughts with its aforementioned tendencies “emerged in reaction to the French Revolution and to the natural right doctrines that had prepared that cataclysm” (Strauss 1971, 13). Founders of the historical school somehow assumed that the acceptance of any universal or abstract principles has necessarily a revolutionary, disturbing, unsettling effect similar to the French Revolution. Thus In opposing the violent break with the past, the historical school insisted on the wisdom and on the need of preserving or continuing the traditional order. According to the historical school, “the recognition of universal principles such as natural rights tends to alienate men from their place on the earth, making them strangers in their social order, and even strangers on the earth” (Strauss 1971, 13). Recognizing this historicism intended to make men absolutely at home in “this world.”

“Since any universal principles make at least most men potentially homeless, historicism depreciated universal principles in favor of historical principles. It believed that, by understanding their past, their heritage, their historical situation, men could arrive at principles that would be as objective as those of the older, pre-historicist political philosophy had claimed to be and, in addition, would not be abstract or universal and hence harmful to wise action or to a truly human life, but concrete or particular—principles fitting the particular age or particular nation, principles relative to the particular age or particular nation” (Strauss 1971, 16).

Hence for historical school historical studies became the mainspring of knowledge. For history was thought to supply the only empirical, and hence the only solid, knowledge of what is truly human, of man as a man: of his greatness and misery. In other words, establishing his end divorced from all dubious or metaphysical assumptions.

However, as Strauss puts it, “history proved utterly unable to keep the promise that had been held out by the historical school” (Strauss 1971, 17). This was evident already from the contradiction between the basic premises of the historicist paradigm. On the one hand, 1) by perceiving nations or ethnic groups as natural units, as independent organisms, historicism encloses nations in their own cultural and historical boundaries, making the existence of transcultural and trans-historical principles impossible. Yet, on the other hand, 2) by claiming to have discovered the existence of general laws of historical evolution, historicism recognizes the transcultural and trans-historical principles that govern the historical process. Moreover, any sincere member of the historicist school of thought must admit that his view too is as temporary, local, and ephemeral as any other paradigm that has been replaced before.

Hence historicism not only relativizes universal truth but also makes truth inaccessible to man as man; “it asserts that the basic insight into the essential limitation of all human thought is not accessible to man as a man or it is an unforeseeable gift of unfathomable fate” (Strauss 1971, 28).

“According to the ancient and medieval philosophy – Strauss says - the whole is knowable or intelligible, which presupposes that the whole has a permanent structure or that the whole is unchangeable. In contradistinction, according to historicism, what is called the whole is actually always incomplete and therefore not truly a whole; the whole is essentially changing in such a manner that its future cannot be predicted; the whole as it is in itself can never be grasped” (Strauss 1971, 30).

Consequently, it is no surprise that historicism ends up denying the natural right. Since without the accessibility of truth and the whole, the notion of natural right falls apart. Thus, in the face of a valueless universe, historicism’s last hope lies in the absolute moment of history, when the ultimate truth is revealed. But the irony of historicism consists in the fact that the absolute moment is nothing but “the moment in which the insoluble character of the fundamental riddles has become fully manifest or in which the fundamental delusion of the human mind has been dispelled” (Strauss 1971, 29); the moment in which Historicism culminates in nihilism.

As Strauss puts it: “the attempt to make man absolutely at home in this world ended in man’s becoming absolutely homeless” (Strauss 1971, 18). Historicism has revealed nothing but absolute meaninglessness of “the historical process”; that history is merely a tale told by an idiot.

However, surprisingly enough, despite all its consequences historicism did not lose its prestige. The mood created by historicism and its practical failure was interpreted as the authentic experience of the true situation of man as man—of a situation which earlier man had concealed from himself by believing in universal and unchangeable principles. The nihilistic consequence of historicism could have suggested a return to the older, pre-historicist view. According to, which classical notion of natural rights reign. Nevertheless, modern intellectual trends in social sciences hold enough proof that the historicist strand has only become more powerful in the West.

References

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Object Relations: from Freud to Klein

2021-11-04T20:00:00Z

Object of Sigmund Freud

Object is a term chosen by Freud to describe the target of drive gratification, be it something imaginary (an idea, fantasy), or real (food, sexual partner, etc.). Despite the fact that other people play a crucial role in Freud’s work, “object” is the most accidental and least inherent concept in his theory of drive. A certain source, goal, and impetus are a priori, so to speak, an inherent part of the drive, but the object itself is dependent on the experience. It is discovered through the interaction with the outer (or inner) world and only later does it become attached to the drive. Object is merely a medium with which the drive gratification occurs (Mitchell, 1981).

For an infant, for example, the mother’s breast is desirable only because that is the first thing he encountered to gratify his oral desire. This nature of the object, as Freud noted, is due to the fact, that in the earliest development stage an infant experiences the so-called primary narcissism. An infant channels libido towards his ego and only later does he learn to redirect it to other external objects. In classical theory, this is what determines the secondary nature of the objects. A child is predisposed to have the ability to channel his sexual energy but needs to come in contact with the objects to overcome primary narcissism and henceforth internalize objects.

As for the term “internal object” - Freud never mentions such a concept, but in his early works, he describes the phenomena about inner voices, images, and values. That is something he would later formulate as the Super-Ego. It functions as an autonomous inner entity with certain structural features - In the child’s psyche, therefore in his imagination and fantasy, there are the images and values of his parents, which help the ego to direct the drive or desire in regards to those values. For example, a child learns, that he must not steal, therefore when he passes a bakery while hungry, he will not grab the first cake he sees, but check if he has enough money to buy it, because in his mind there are his parents, reminding him that stealing is wrong, promising him a variety of undesirable consequences. System of such dynamics ensures that the drive is gratified while the social well-being or a good relationship with the authority (the parents) remains.

In conclusion, for Freud outer objects and the super-ego, i.e inner objects, have similar functions: they are the mediums for drive reduction. To better understand the extent of object’s role in psychoanalysis, we need to take a look at the concept of identification.

The ego doesn’t have its own source of energy, so to perform any necessary psychic tasks such as drive regulation, object-cathexis, or bringing perception, memory, and reasoning to a higher level, it has to draw energy from somewhere. The process of identification is the means for the ego to draw energy from the id. With identification ego acquires the features of the object, which could be someone or something else towards which the id has channeled the energy. The most common example of this process is the “identification with the aggressor”, in other words, becoming like the parent of the same sex. That is how the central structure of the super-ego is formed. A child tries to think and behave like his parent, he begins to reason with the same values and beliefs. In this process the id is tricked, so to speak, as the ego displays itself as the object of desire and since the id has no sense of reality, fills the ego with libido. A child, as he grows, gains maturity and self-esteem by becoming like the ones he admires.

Identification is sometimes used as a defense mechanism, such as in the case of identification with the lost object. When one loses the object of cathexis, the ego internalizes its features for the means of compensation and prolongation of drive reduction. As I mentioned earlier, it presents itself as the object of love to ease the sense of loss, saying “look, I am so much like that object, you may as well love me” (Freud, 1962).

As with any defense mechanism, identification can also get out of hand. If the amount of object-identifications grows significantly, their intensity and incompatibility can cause pathology. Freud suspected that the identity disorder could be explained as different identifications taking over the consciousness one after the other. In summary, for Freud, object is a medium of drive arousal and reduction, which in itself is not inherent, but acquired with experience via introjection. This internalization serves a variety of purposes: drive gratification, regulation, and social security.

Melanie Klein and Object-Relations

Melanie Klein was one of Karl Abraham’s students, who made great advancements in psychoanalysis. Her vision of the human mind contains many modifications of Freudian theory. Among them, most interesting for this topic are concepts such as inner objects and phantasy (written with “ph” to differentiate it from the classical understanding of “fantasy”). Freud describes fantasy as a result of frustration from unfulfilled gratification. In his theory, fantasy is an alternative to direct drive gratification. Klein’s vision of the phantasy introduces elements that Freud didn’t pay attention to (Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983):

elaborate unconscious fantasy apart from specific and conscious compensation of frustrated desire;
A reservoir of unconscious images and knowledge for phantasy to draw on, possessed by child by virtue of a phylogenic inheritance;
Phantasy, which serves not as a substitute for, but as an accompaniment to, actual gratification.

Freud’s notion of parents’ inner “voices”, described as images and values, is limited within the boundaries of the super-ego. Klein’s development of that concept is related to her usage of phantasy with a broader meaning. According to her description of the Oedipus complex, a child’s life is full of elaborate, mostly sadistic and erotic phantasies directed at his parents.

An important distinction to make is that in Freud’s metapsychology, drives have no knowledge of reality and nature of the objects, which underlines the id’s pleasure principle. This “objectlessness” persists until the object presents itself to the newborn and becomes associated with the drive gratification. For Klein, drives have inherent, a priori images of the outside world which seek gratification through either love or destruction (Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983). It is easy to notice a certain Jungian influence in such formulations.

Klein claims that there exist not just traces of specific phylogenic memories and images, but a whole spectrum of inherent images and phantasized activities such as breast, penis, womb, infant, perfection, poison, convulsion, incineration, etc. A child’s earliest object-relations consist of interactions with the images of body parts, despite the fact that the child has never seen those objects in reality. This is what Klein calls a “universal mechanism” (1932). The images acquire the forms of real objects later, when the child - through interaction with the outer world - associates images with their real-world representations (Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983).

According to Klein (1935), in the second half of the first year, an infant develops an ability to internalize whole objects, which determines a certain shift of focus in his psychic life. If previously child only perceived mother’s parts, at this stage he can integrate once separate objects and realize, that there’s only one mother with good and bad features. If there’s only one mother, the whole of her becomes the subject of anger and not the separate “bad mother”, which could be a bad breast, bad hand that took away his toy and so on. This is her beloved mother - both the real outer object and reflected, as an inner object - which the child destroys in evil orgies of his fantasy, when he’s frustrated or anxious, for example, because of weaning (Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983).

At a first glance, it seems odd, as to why a child should have such strong aggressive tendencies towards the mother. It has a lot to do with Klein’s modified concept of what Freud called the Death Drive.

According to Freud, since birth, a child has an active death drive, which is directed towards the self. This would be devastating, if the life instinct didn’t redirect the death drive outside, as sadistic energy. We can picture two active sources of energy in the child, one of which, if maintained inside, could be damaging, therefore the other source of energy, functioning as a life preserver, redirects it, thus saving the child from himself. The part of the death drive that is not redirected, remains as erotogenic masochism. And so, a child’s sadomasochistic tendencies come to be (Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983).

So what did Klein add to that?

Along with Freud’s description, Klein offers us the following: An additional portion of the death drive is redirected outwards. The life instinct phantasizes an outer object, projects the part of the death drive towards it, and therefore channels the destructive part outside, onto a newly created object.

“By projection, by turning outward libido and aggression and imbuing the object with them, the infant’s first object-relation comes about. This is the process which . . . underlies the cathexis of objects” (Klein, 1952).

The world with projected death drive is full of “bad” objects, and since it would be very damaging for the child’s psyche to go on living in such a place, to balance this, a part of life instinct is projected outwards as well, the “good” objects are created, towards which the child is directed with love. Good and bad objects are defined by the child’s motivation. He develops beliefs that there are friendly figures - a belief that is based on the nature of his libido. In this sense, the primary objects of drive represent the extension of the drive itself (Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983).

This view accounts for the fact that a child imagines punishments in a fashion that matches his own aggressive tendencies. A child lives in dread of his objects burning, poisoning, and mutilating him, exactly because such activities dominate his phantasies towards those objects and therefore constitute the substance of his projections onto them (Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983).

“External reality is mainly a mirror of child’s own instinctual life . . . peopled in the child’s imagination with objects who are expected to treat the child in precisely the same sadistic way as a child is impelled to treat the objects" (Klein, 1936).

And so it is - as Mitchell and Greenberg (1983) put it - “in child’s psychic economy the punishment always fits the crime”. This train of thought leads Klein to the formulation of “depressive anxiety”. A child’s fear and dread caused by the thought that the child has destroyed a whole object. If paranoid anxiety means the fear of destruction of self from outside, depressive anxiety means worrying about other’s well-being, be it inner or outer other, which is a victim of destructive phantasy born from child’s aggression.

A child is scared of his phantasies, which are directed on others and could potentially destroy them. At the same time, he is afraid of others, who are imbued with the child’s own destructive phantasies. The same could be said about the life instinct although it would be better to discuss this as we contrast Freudian and Kleinian understanding of drives.

Nature of Drive for Freud and Klein

There is one way we can picture Freud’s view of drives as originally objectless. The psychic apparatus has multiple layers, at the bottom of which there is a seeping cauldron of drives, directionless and isolated from the outer world, operating with primary processes. The ego operates in an organized fashion, with reality principle and its duty is to direct psychic forces with secondary processes (Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983).

For Klein, drives themselves have inherent object-relatedness, which in Freud’s theory is the realm of ego’s secondary processes. Drives are directed towards others, towards reality, and contain information about objects from which they seek gratification. If Freud considers psychic energy to be derived from certain organic tension, for Klein psychic energy is an independent force. In this case, the body is merely a vehicle of the drive’s expression.

“There is no instinctual urge, no anxiety situation no mental process which does not involve objects, internal or external; in other words, object relations are at the centre of emotional life” (Klein, 1952).

So, libido for Klein is directed, organized, personal and complex. It is out of love for his objects that a child is concerned about his destructive impulses and seeks parents’ help in order to control them. This reasoning leads us to conclude, that the Oedipus complex is resolved because the child is driven by the feeling of love and guilt, he wants to preserve his father as an external and internal figure (Klein, 1945).

In summary, For Klein drive is discrete psychic energy, not derived from the tension of the organism. These are feelings of passionate love and hatred directed towards others and for that drive uses the body as its vessel of expression. As Mitchell and Greenberg wonderfully put it – “Drives, for Klein, are relationships”. And So, relationships as such, are at the center of the investigation, for Object-Relations theory.

References

See references and free resource links on the website.

Concept of the Political - Carl Schmitt

2021-06-20T00:00:00Z

Let us assume – Schmitt argues – that in the realm of morality the final distinctions are between good and evil, in aesthetics beautiful and ugly, in economics profitable and unprofitable. The question then is whether there is also a special distinction that can serve as a simple criterion of the political and of what it consists. The nature of such a political distinction is surely different from that of those others. It is independent of them and as such can speak clearly for itself (Schmitt 2007, 42). The Political per se is often formulated as antitheses of other realms of thought such as morality, law, religion, culture and thus is deprived of its own essence. Hence Schmitt aspires to offer us ultimate, substantive criteria for the political that cannot be reduced to anything but itself. Criteria that is independent of any realm of thought and does not borrow itself from any other social domains.

This criterion – according to Schmitt -, this specific distinction to which any political action and motive can be reduced is that between friend and enemy.

“For as long as a people exist in the political sphere, this people must, even if only in the most extreme case (and whether this point has been reached has to be decided by it), determine by itself the distinction of friend and enemy. Therein resides the essence of its political existence, its existence as a state. When it no longer possesses the capacity or the will to make this distinction, it ceases to exist politically. If it permits this decision to be made by another, then it is no longer a politically free people and is absorbed into another political system. The justification of war does not reside in its being fought for ideals or norms of justice, but in its being fought against a real enemy” (Schmitt 2007, 57).

The enemy that has no mere normative meaning, but an existential meaning only, particularly in a real combat situation with a real enemy. The enemy, who is not merely any competitor or just any partner of a conflict in general, but an enemy that exists only, when one fighting collectivity of people confronts a similar collectivity, at least potentially.

This real friend-enemy grouping is existentially so strong and decisive that the nonpolitical antithesis, at precisely the moment at which it becomes political, pushes aside and subordinates its hitherto purely religious, purely economic, purely cultural criteria and motives to the conditions and conclusions of the political situation at hand.

However, this does not lead to the conclusion that religious, economic, cultural, or any other social matter cannot become political. Quite the contrary, “every religious, moral, economic, ethical, or other antithesis transforms into a political one if it is sufficiently strong to group human beings effectively according to friend and enemy” (Schmitt 2007, 49). Since political does not reside in the battle itself, which possesses its own technical, psychological, and military laws, but in the mode of behavior which is determined by this possibility, by clearly evaluating the concrete situation and thereby being able to distinguish correctly the real friend and the real enemy. For example, a religious community that wages wars against members of other religious communities or engages in other wars is already more than a religious community; it is a political entity.

Hence it follows that 1) only state has the authority to decide political matters, that is, determine the distinction of friend and enemy, and 2) war, or at least, the possibility of war is necessary for the political to exist. Thus through Schmitt’s political philosophy Heraclitus’s famous words - “war is the father of all and king of all” - take on an absolutely new meaning. On the one hand, the state represents the ultimate source of power, since it is preoccupied with the most decisive and fundamental question, namely, that of friend and enemy. But, on the other hand, this preoccupation, along with the state as such is only possible because of war that may be waged between friend-enemy groupings. In other words, as Schmitt puts it, “the political entity presupposes the real existence of an enemy” (Schmitt 2007, 60) therefore presupposes the real possibility of war.

However, the question arises: what if a people is afraid of the trials and risks implied by existing in the sphere of politics? Schmitt takes into account such states of affairs too. In this situation – according to him - another people will appear which will assume these trials by protecting it against foreign enemies and thereby taking over political rule. The protector then decides who the enemy is by virtue of the eternal relation of protection and obedience. To which he adds, No form of order, no reasonable legitimacy or legality can exist without protection and obedience. A political theory which does not systematically become aware of this fact remains an inadequate fragment. As Schmitt remarks:

“Hobbes designated this as the true purpose of his Leviathan. Since he himself had experienced this truth in the terrible times of civil war because then all legitimate and normative illusions with which men like to deceive themselves regarding political realities in periods of untroubled security vanish” (Schmitt 2007, 59).

References

See references and free resource links on the website.

Split Subject: Lacanian Psychoanalysis

2021-03-05T00:00:00Z

The subject can be understood as an agent of the human mind and behavior, along with its sense of self. While certain fields of philosophy and psychology find the locus of the subject in human consciousness, psychoanalysis compels us to look for it beyond the ego, the self-conscious instance, beyond the spoken words, and ultimately to question such an understanding of the term. So it is that we come to doubt the very principles of Cartesian philosophy, where “I think, therefore I am” can be turned upside down and rephrased, as Lacan would, into: “I think where I am not, therefore I am where I do not think” (Lacan, Fink, Fink, & Grigg, 2006). The very sentence that describes the split subject. To understand the meaning of this statement, we must come to it as a conclusion, therefore we must inspect, why the subject is located in the unconscious, not in the ego, and why it is split. In the end, we will also see how psychoanalytic therapy utilizes this knowledge.

Ego and Imaginary Alienation

Psychoanalysis leads us to believe there is always a conflict in our psyche. Certain ways that we think of ourselves don’t quite match the way we sometimes act or even think.

“According to both Freud and Lacan, the psychic agency of the ego has to be subordinated to the logic of a more primitive “layer” of subjectivity. This is precisely what the experience of psychoanalysis manages to show empirically: that there is an unconscious subject whose reasoning, far from simply being identifiable with sheer irrationality, does not coincide with the ego and which manifests itself in phenomena such as dreams, bungled actions, slips of the tongue, and psychosomatic symptoms” (Chiesa, 2007).

Like Freud, Lacan claims that the ego is constructed by the unconscious, but that is where the similarity ends, as Lacan develops a different notion of the ego, which is not a regulating instance between the id and the super-ego, but an elaborate organization of images and identifications. While ego psychology, expanding upon Freudian theory, converges with descriptions of sensation and perception assumed to provide the bedrock of cognitive psychology, Lacan radically opposes such assumptions (Parker, 2003). For him, the ego is but a symptom, therefore we must not focus on it specifically, but rather its cause – the unconscious.

The mirror stage is one of Lacan’s most famous theories, according to which, a child, at around eighteen months of age, develops a tendency to find himself in an external object. Imaginary identification occurs in the subject through the unconscious assumption of an external image, initially of the subject’s own body as reflected in the mirror, in which he recognizes himself. The subject is captivated by his reflection, he is necessarily attracted to it - an image that seems so complete that a child has a moment of revelation, an ah-ha experience, as he is excited to realize: “This is me!”. Such an image has a (de)formative power. It constitutes a set of beliefs and images that make up his conscious sense of self – the ego. At the same time, it denies its own functioning, it doesn’t realize it is an object outside of the subject. This is the reason why being captured fascinates the subject by providing him a primal, yet alienated, form of identification (Chiesa, 2007). It is a misrecognition and at the same time – denial. A slip of the tongue, a bungled action – they are never considered intentional in everyday life. It is something that you didn’t do, as if it was something else, Other than you, when in truth it is the unconscious discourse, conflicting the conscious one. The unconscious subject assumed as an ego, diluted by imaginary identifications, doesn’t recognize its former self, it is alienated at the imaginary level.

We can conclude that the agent or the subject cannot be reduced to an ego, because it is a passive object, which makes a child misrecognize himself. “The ego is structured exactly like a symptom. At the heart of the subject, it is only a privileged symptom, the human symptom par excellence, the mental illness of man” (Lacan, 1988).

Language and Symbolic Alienation

The unconscious is structured like a language. The language and its structure are established in this world long before a child, or his parents are born. Before you are born, you are given a name and have clothes prepared according to your gender. As you grow, you have to communicate, you have to use the language as it is given to you, not as you see it fit, for any silly words and sentences you come up with, no matter how genuine, are met with confusion and laughter. A child has to unconsciously shape his thinking according to this preestablished language, which often forces him to express himself in words that don’t ever quite capture his intentions and desires, but it is a compromise he has to make, for social adaptation (Fink, 1995).

There are certain symbolic rules, people follow. These rules are defined by signifiers - the names and meanings that are given to objects and events, yet they are not determined by those very objects, or people themselves. For Lacan, Language and signifiers are seen not as simple tools of communication, but rather as something alive and alien. The relation between signifiers, named as “symbolic order” is beyond human manipulation and it determines the functioning of humanity. A child, just like his parents and everyone before him, has no other way, but to learn to perceive everything in accordance to that symbolic order, his thoughts and desires are shaped by the language and he becomes like the language. Freud’s conclusion is no coincidence, he argues that the ways unconscious reveals itself, i.e “unconscious formations” are fundamentally linguistic. The language, for a child, is something foreign that slips into his mind, and in doing so, shapes his very being. This is why the unconscious is also described as the discourse of the Other, as it is a discourse beyond the subject’s control, belonging to the symbolic order.

Since the Language subordinates a significant part of the child’s unconscious, this part, the one subjected to the language, becomes alien to him. Any desire he tries to convey is lost through the “wall of language”, by which the majority of his unconscious operates. This part of his is the Other, the foreign body which the child both fears and loves, a concept that is somewhat similar to Freud’s super-ego, but not as the images of parental figures, but rather their voices, words – their entire discourse assimilated by the child, or to better put it in Lacanian view, the discourse that has assimilated the child’s unconscious - The Other, an ultimate symbolic figure, to which a child “chooses” to subordinate, and in relation to which any thought of a human being occurs.

The Split Subject

We have just mentioned, that the unconscious is subjected to language, but this isn’t the only determining factor of the split subject. The subject is split, on the one hand, because it is alienated on the imaginary level, and on the other hand because it is alienated on the symbolic level. In other words, the subject is split because it has formed an ego, and his unconscious has been assimilated by the language.

Here we encounter a certain problem. It becomes hard to see, where exactly is the substratum of the agent. From where does the human being, at its basis, operate? In truth, as Lacan puts it, the subject may as well not exist at all. “The split is not something that can be explained strictly in linguistic or combinatory terms. It is thus in excess of structure” (Fink, 1995). The subject is nothing but a split between two forms of otherness – the ego as other and unconscious as Other’s discourse – the split stands in excess of the Other.

Lacan distinguishes a subject of the statement from a subject of enunciation. Simply put, the “I” which serves as a grammatical subject of a certain statement is not the same “I” which speaks it (Chiesa, 2007). The imaginary alienation overlaps with the symbolic alienation, i.e the “wall of language”, the ego is in this case, constructed into words. “The personal pronoun “I” designates the person who identifies his or herself with a specific ideal image. Thus, the ego is what is represented by the subject of the statement” (Fink, 1995). This kind of statement represents an “empty speech” – the one we use in everyday life.

Chiesa (2007) describes the subject of enunciation as follows:

“The subject undergoes a split “by virtue of being a subject only insofar as he speaks.” In speech and because of speech, the subject is never fully present to himself. That which is not present in the statement but is presupposed and evoked by it (the enunciation) indicates the locus of “another scene” in the subject: the subject of the unconscious which, depends on specific linguistic laws, and sustains a particular “thought.”

“I think where I am not, therefore I am where I do not think”. The unconscious subject thinks where the ego and subject of the statement are not. At the same time, the linguistic ego resides, where the unconscious subject doesn’t think - in consciousness. The moment they overlap, a necessity arises for the subject to come into being, even if its being is hypothetical.

Here Freud’s famous quote comes into play: “Wo Es war, soll Ich werden” - I must become I where “it” was or reigned. I must assume the place, where “it” was. “I” here is the very subject the analysis tries to reach or evoke, in other words – to enunciate.

“An I that assumes the responsibility of the unconscious, that arises there in the unconscious linking up of thoughts which seems to take place all by itself, without the intervention of anything like a subject” (Fink, 1995).

This kind of I is ordinarily excluded in the unconscious thought, but it arises momentarily, not like interruptions in Freudian slips, but as the assumption (“assomption” in French), taking the responsibility for that, which interrupts. The Lacanian subject, despite that, is not temporal in the sense that the interaction of opposing discourses – conscious and unconscious – is a condition of possibility of subject’s existence, while the overlap is its realization.

Psychoanalytic therapy utilizes the subject’s realization through “full speech”. Full speech allows the unconscious subject to be fully expressed, by bypassing the wall of language. As Lacan states, the unconscious subject has a desire to be recognized by the Other, that is to say, to communicate its desire to the Other subject, without the obfuscation of the “wall of language” and ego, so that the analysand himself hears, what his unconscious desire is. How does the analysand assume full speech? The analyst takes the place of the Other subject and lets the unconscious subject be fully present in speech, by enunciating or evoking it. The analyst returns the message of analysand in a positively inverted form.

“The analyst sends back to the analysand the latter’s own (initially empty) message in an inverted, full form - that is, he makes the analysand assume his full speech. One could thus suggest that, for Lacan, successful analysis manages to invert imaginary inversion: the analysand’s own message as empty, imaginary, inverted speech is itself inverted by the analyst who places himself in the position of the Other. It is important, however, to underline how the (analyzed) subject will still receive his own message with his ego. This is the only way in which the subject, as an individuated subject, can receive any message whatsoever. Despite this, analysis achieves the temporary suspension of the alienating mediation provided by the imaginary counterpart. The subject qua ego receives his message directly from the Other, to be understood as the subject’s own unconscious embodied and refracted back by the analyst due to the suspension of the latter’s own ego during analytic treatment” (Chiesa, 2007).

Simply put, the analyst lets analysand, as the subject, to realize the meaning and cause of his unconscious thought and, at the same time, to take responsibility for it.

References

See references and free resource links on the website.

Primordial Soup

Blindingly Bright Side: the Problem of Positive Psychology in the Dialectic of Conscious and Unconscious

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Outline of Aristotle's Political Philosophy

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Monarchy & Democracy - Hans Herman Hoppe

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Alternate Unconscious: Uznadze’s Theory of Set

Table of Contents

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Natural Rights and Positivism - Leo Strauss

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Natural Rights and Historicism - Leo Strauss

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Object Relations: from Freud to Klein

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Concept of the Political - Carl Schmitt

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Split Subject: Lacanian Psychoanalysis

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