File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2001/heidegger.0111, message 1


From: "Michael Staples" <michael-AT-intersubjectivestudies.com>
Subject: Zillikon: Unconscious
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 06:17:18 -0800



I've been reading the Zollikon Seminars recently published. Boss's name is
certainly prominent throughout the text. Perhaps it should be, as he was
instrumental in getting Heidegger into the Seminars in th first place. But
it also seems to me that Boss's thinking should not be considered to be the
same as H's thinking. I think there is a world of difference here. In Boss's
"Foundations" I always felt a critical and pronounced distinction between
the first half of the book (felt to be the Heidegger half) and the second
half (which seemed to be Boss's attempt to pull Heidegger's thinking into
the realm of applied psychology). Anyway, I wanted to ask about H's notion
of the unconscious:

What is his complaint about the unconscious? Is it the case that he is
focusing on the notion of "The" unconscious versus merely unconscious
activity (and perhaps we could leave asside the philosophical/technical
argument about the terms consciousness and unconsciousness here)? Doesn't
seem as though H could be suggesting that there is no activity outside
consciousness. In fact, seems just the other way around -- that the absorbed
activity of being-in-the-world is mostly outside of consciousness
(unthematized, primordial activity).

There is a passage on page 207 of the hardback edition (p.260) where H says,

"For conscious, human phenomena, he (Freud) postulates an unbroken chain of
explanation, that is, the continuity of causal connections. Since there is
no such thing 'within consciiousness,' he has to invent 'the unconscious' in
which there must be an unbroken chain of causal connections."

Anyone have any thoughts about this passage?


Seems at times that Heidegger does a great job of ripping into the
traditional metaphysics, but quite often leaves me wondering what
specifically I am to replace the metaphysical concepts with. The Zollikon
Seminars so far has this same feel to it. There is a lot of time trying to
convince the reader that the traditional this-and-that is flawed, nasty old
Neo-Kantian thinking. But there isn't (so far) a lot of discussion about
what specifically we are to replace it with.

Michael S.




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