Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 09:33:45 -0800 (PST) From: Gary D <gedavis1-AT-yahoo.com> Subject: HAB: Nonconscious vs. Unconscious --- kenneth.mackendrick-AT-utoronto.ca wrote (re: Balancing practicality and self formativity, 12 Jan): > ...what if repression far from simply blocking the verbalization of conscious discourse... G: As distinguished from *unconscious* discourse? Of course not; there's no such thing. So, you must mean consciousness (since discourse is a highly derived construction, far from mere verbalization of anything) K:...[repression] is also [consciousness's] indispensable precondition? G: Respectfully, I say this is nonsense. (And it's a domesticated version of your earlier claim to me that *trauma* is unavoidable, which I associated with infant abuse, not an essential aspect of the psyche). K: > This would render any kind of "undistorted speech situation" a conceptual impossibility.... G: In fact though, an undistorted situation is *quite* conceivable (in a phrase: enough openness during enough time) ; you must mean practical impossibility or unrealizable possibility. But this is invalid, since the definition of undistorted speech implies a condition that is, in principle, quite *practically* accessible (given education and experience): analytic *skills* to question at all relevant levels that concern a person, *opportunity* to question and work through to understanding with local others, *openness* to radically different views (that are credible); and so on (in accord with JH's formal definition, which could be re-posted). K:...In other words: if we can only be communicative *because* there are certain things we cannot communicate or verbalize, then the presupposition of undistorted speech is a logical fiction. G: If this isn't nonsense, then you must mean something analogous to: If we can only shine a light in one direction at a time, then the presupposition of omnipresent enlightenment is absurd. In fact though, we can turn the light throughout space (necessarily having it no longer shine where it did a few moments ago), and still *know* what's out of the light (like a discourse that must proceed one theme at a time, to be cogent). And also, of course, we're always at some stage of development---and the psyche is largely an evolutionary mystery in all events (for psychology, for philosophy of mind, not to mention any given life's finitude). Meanwhile, epistemic means are evolving (so much in the youth of humanity, whose scientificity is merely a few centuries young). But this has nothing to do with repression (rather: finitude); nor the impossibility of learning (rather: family, education, democracy, etc.). K: However, I'm feeling rather sympathetic to communicative theory today - what kind of theory of systematically distorted speech might be articulated on this basis? G: I try to keep in mind that "systematically" (for JH) pertains mainly to distributed social relations (dissimulation, false pretenses disguised as good faith, force disguised as caring, etc.), not a generalization of the psychoanalytic scene (subject-centered concerns) to social relations. The psychoanalytic *process* exemplifies a methodic correlate (for Critical Theory) to hermeneutical processes in human sciences and empirical-analytic processes in natural sciences. K...The implication being that we can only agree on one topic by deliberately (or unconsciously) excluding something central to that very topic... G: Again, the difference between nonconscious and unconscious is relevant. We do one thing at a time, but one thing can be a very complex engagement (or project) in which given actions are instrumental. But a project isn't unconscious just because it can't all happen immediately. > G: [Valuing imaginativeness] is an old theme in Analytical psychology (the Jungian vein of psychoanalysis), which James Hillman has expressed as a "re-Visioning" of psychology, for several decades. K:> I can't stand Hillman... G: I only meant to indicate that the valuation of developmental imaginativeness in psychoanalytic culture has been around a long time. The Hillmans of the world attest that psychoanalysis is commonly seen as the beginning of developmental psychology (contrary to FvG's balking at this or your complaint vis-a-vis Habermas that, in effect, he should be attending to something other than what's he's attending to). Kindest regards, Gary __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! http://photos.yahoo.com/ --- from list habermas-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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