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Freud's Unconscious: A Concept or a Rhetorical Device?
By: Hane Htut Maung

“The unconscious is not a concept, it is a rhetorical device.”

Thus wrote Stanley Fish in his article, “Withholding the Missing Portion”. Fish’s article argues that Freud’s primary concern in his writings is to convince the reader of the strength of his interpretations and the validity of his theory through his clever use of rhetoric. In particular, Fish refers to the rôle of the unconscious in Freud’s theory, arguing that it can be freely manipulated by Freud in such a way that it can appear to account for any data acquired in practice. This attitude reflects the commonly-held view amongst contemporary scientists that Freud's theories are unscientific. In this essay, I aim to argue that while Fish makes a valid point about Freud’s use of the unconscious as a rhetorical device, to consider it as only a rhetorical device and to dismiss its importance as a scientific concept is not only unjustified, but also impractical in psychological theories of the mind. Freud's theories, I argue, are no less scientific than other theories in science.

Before I assert my own arguments concerning this matter, I shall examine Fish’s position in greater detail, in order to understand the extent of his claim. A rhetorical device, according to Fish, “is entirely constructed and stands without external support”, and “that insofar as it has been installed at the centre of a structure of conviction it acquires the status of that which goes without saying and that against which nothing can be said”. According to Fish, Freud’s idea of the unconscious fits these definitions. By postulating a component of the mind that is completely inaccessible to us, Freud is constructing a theory that is entirely underdetermined by data. It cannot be validated or refuted by observation alone. Rather, as Fish says, “the unconscious… is a placeholder which can be given whatever shape the polemical moment requires”. Thus, the unconscious becomes, for Freud, a flexible tool in his theory. Not only can be given any desirable shape so that it appears to validate his interpretation of his observations, but Freud can also select a particular interpretation of his observations that appears to validate his assertions about the nature of the unconscious.

It follows that Freud is able to make any seemingly inconsistent data compatible with his theory by manipulating his idea of the unconscious, or by adding to it new properties that resolve any inconsistencies. Indeed, he is confronted in his writings by data that appear to undermine his theory, and indeed he does find the resources to resolve these anomalies by delving into the mysterious world of the unconscious. Two examples of this can be found in chapter seven of The Interpretation of Dreams, in which Freud acknowledges punishment dreams and anxiety dreams, not least due to their painful nature, as potential counterexamples to his theory that all dreams are attempts at the fulfilment of wishes. In response to punishment dreams Freud makes the claim that the individual possesses an unconscious wish to be punished for harbouring other perverse unconscious wishes, while in response to anxiety dreams he claims that the repressed infantile unconscious wishes are associated with painful feelings of prohibition and punishment. By finding his answer in the unobservable realm of the unconscious, Freud is able to make his theory fit the data, since there is no possible way for us to refute his claims. There have even been times in which he would explain away a seemingly unintelligible dream by asserting that the unconscious wish content of the individual’s dream was to prove his theory wrong!

Furthermore, Fish comments on Freud’s ability to manipulate the idea of the unconscious to argue both for and from it at the same time. He refers to Freud’s analysis in The Wolfman, and how he feels obliged to combine both a historical and a thematic account instead of giving one or the other. In other words, Freud interprets the data in such a way that it appears to validate his hypothesis, while at the same time using this hypothesis to account for his interpretation of the data! By doing this, Freud presents to us a situation in the form of a circular argument, in which it is impossible to undermine his theory.

We can conclude, therefore, that the idea of the unconscious clearly does fit Fish’s definition of a rhetorical device. It is not only entirely constructed, but it can also be given any desired shape in order for it to account for any data, or for it to be accounted for by the data. However, I feel it important to question whether its use as a rhetorical device actually undermines its importance as a scientific concept. Why does Fish assert that the unconscious is a rhetorical device but not a concept?

A concept, used in reference to scientific theories, is an explanatory principle derived or inferred from data. Such an example in physics would be Bohr’s model of the atom. From the data acquired through experimental observation, Bohr derives the structure of an atom, and furthermore this proposed structure is used to explain not only the data, but is also applied to predict and explain other phenomena. I argue that Freud’s use of the unconscious in his theory is, in principle, not dissimilar to the use of the model of the Bohr atom in theories of physics. Both are proposed ideas based on the data gathered in observation, both are used as simplified models to predict and explain observable phenomena in a convenient way, and importantly, both are entirely inaccessible to observation. The last point is important, because it emphasises the fact that both the model of the Bohr atom and Freud’s idea of the unconscious are ideas that are intangible to us and undetermined by data. The acquired data merely forms the foundation upon which the models are constructed. Thus, the models themselves are constructed by the scientist’s mind to account for and unify the data in a convenient and coherent form.

As I revealed earlier, Fish criticizes Freud for giving the unconscious “whatever shape the polemical moment requires”. In other words, he adapts his idea of the unconscious so that it becomes consistent with and can account for any data that appears to undermine his theory. However, is this not the same method of adaptation that is applied when a scientific theory is faced with anomalous data? For example, when experimental data suggested that electrons act sometimes as particles and other times as waves, quantum theory was adapted to resolve any anomalies by the introduction of the complementarity principle, otherwise known as the ‘wave-particle duality’. This, like the unconscious, is a concept that is intangible to our observation, but it is an adaptation of the theory which allows the theory to account for and predict observable outcomes. Thus, Fish’s criticism of Freud’s shaping of the unconscious can also to be applied to the method of adapting scientific theories in general.

Another objection raised against Freud is the way he argues for and from the unconscious at the same time. He interprets data in such a way that appears to validate his propositions about the unconscious, while also referring to the unconscious to account for data. Again, I argue that this is common scientific practice. If we consider a scientific theory, such as the Mendelian theory of inheritance or the Darwinian theory of evolution, the data acquired is statistical or qualitative, and thus requires some form of interpretation for a theory to be constructed from it, and the theory, having been constructed from a particular interpretation of the data, is used not only to explain the data, but also to account for and predict further observable phenomena. Furthermore, the theory can then be adapted in order to account for results that do not fit the predicted pattern, as discussed earlier. Therefore, once again Fish’s objections cannot apply to Freud’s theory exclusively.

From my analysis, there appears to be no clear distinction between a concept and a rhetorical device. True, Freud argues from the unconscious in order to convince the reader of the validity of his theory, but isn’t that common practice in writing a novel scientific paper? Theoretical concepts have not only the function of explanation and prediction, but also of communicating ideas to the reader in a simplified and comprehensible form. Freud recognises that a comprehensible means of explaining certain neurotic behaviour and the nature of dreams is to postulate the partitioning of the mind into a functional component that is accessible to awareness, and a functional component that is inaccessible.

In fact, I argue that it is difficult to think about a complete theory of behaviour that does not assume an unconscious aspect of the mind. How else could we account for the fact that we often perform tasks without necessarily being actively aware of them? Any musician will be familiar with how performance requires the most intense concentration when learning a piece, but becomes essentially an unconscious procedure once the piece is mastered. In his article, “Paradoxes of Irrationality”, Donald Davidson argues that the partitioning of the mind into conflicting components is the simplest and most comprehensible way of explaining irrational behaviour. There may, of course, be other explanations, but assuming an unconscious aspect of the mind appears to be the most successful in terms of simplicity and comprehensibility.

I can therefore conclude that, like all scientific models, the rôle of Freud’s idea of the unconscious in his writings is not only used for explanation of phenomena, but furthermore to simplify and communicate his ideas to the reader. Thus, Fish’s criticism that the unconscious is not a concept is unjustified. As we have seen, the partitioning of the mind is a successful means of accounting for much of our behaviour in a simplified manner. Freud’s theory of the mind simply adapts and extrapolates the concept of the unconscious to account for a much wider range of phenomena, from dreams to sexuality, and it would indeed be difficult to see how some of these phenomena could be explained in a comprehensible way without the suggestion of such unconscious thought.

REFERENCES

  • Bohr NHD (1913). "On the Constitution of Atoms and Molecules." Philosophical Magazine 26: 1-15, 467-502, 857-875.


  • Davidson D (1982). "Paradoxes of Irrationality." in Wollheim R and Hopkins J (eds.), Philosophical Essays on Freud (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 290.


  • Fish S (1986). "Withholding the Missing Portion: Power, Meaning, and Persuasion in Freud's 'The Wolf Man'." in Meltzer F (ed.), The Trials of Psychoanalysis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 183-209.


  • Freud S (1900). in The Interpretation of Dreams.


  • Freud S (1914). From the History of an Infantile Neurosis.


Article Source: http://journal.ilovephilosophy.com

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