File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2001/heidegger.0111, message 36


From: "Michael Staples" <michael-AT-intersubjectivestudies.com>
Subject: RE: Zollikon: Unconscious
Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 05:58:10 -0800




ME:

Thanks for the stimulus. I don't think that the issue of images is a side
track,
because representational thinking is so natural for us as subjects.

>>>OK. I don't want to let this slip away either.

I also agree that it cannot be a matter of denying the phenomenon of
'unconscious activity', but rather, the issue is how to think it adequately,
which includes how this phenomenon is to be named.

>>>Yes. Good. Very clear.

The violence done to the phenomena
is not situated so much in the notion of unconscious act, but in the concept
of
the unconscious itself which posits a deeper-lying subject to which
intentions,
desires, etc. can be ascribed.

>>>Again, very clear!

The other aspect is the notion of 'unconscious' as a quality of acts, which
is
marked by a negation (un-). This negation needs to be translated into
positive
phenomenological language so that the phenomenon itself can come to light.
Thus,
for instance, the un- can be understood as being somewhere else, i.e.
distracted. Or the un- can be elucidated as habit, in which the actions are
and
_must be_ carried out unconsciously. E.g. I can only drive a car because I
am
habitualized to do so, and if I tried to perform every action consciously, I
would soon crash the car. Habit is a phenomenon closely associated with
unconscious acts, but it has nothing to do with a postulated unconscious
subject.

>>>Very nice, Michael. There is a psychologist who caused a big stir in the
world of Jungian psychology. His name is James Hillman. The more I have
learned about the issues of phenomenology and Heidegger's thinking, the more
I have come to feel that Hillman was struggling with all these issues...and
comming up with creative attempts on his own to deal with them. I don't
think he ever pulled it off. I think that he ultimately sank back into the
terminology of the traditional metaphysics...but it does seem that his
efforts revolved around these issues.

Yet another aspect of 'unconscious activity' where the notion of 'activity'
breaks down is when beings themselves withdraw from sight. E.g  driving on a
dark night I mistake the reflection of a car in a display window for a car
about
to cross my path and brake sharply. My mistake is not a parapraxis in
Freud's
sense, but an action adequate to the perceived situation which disclosed
itself
to me as potentially dangerous. In other words, 'unconscious activity' can
also
be understood as goings-on in the world which do not show themselves clearly
and
therefore deceive conscious awareness..

Unconscious activity has to be thought in another location, namely, that of
presencing and absencing, and of the disclosure and hiding of beings in
their
self-showing. Only with this shift can the subject as the underlying
instance
for the being and truth of all beings be pushed off centre stage.

>>>Thanx again, Michael. More later

Michael S.




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