The unconscious : $b The fundamentals of human personality, normal and abnormal — John Shaqi
The unconscious : $b The fundamentals of human personality, normal and abnormalPrince, Morton
Science
The unconscious : $b The fundamentals of human personality, normal and abnormal
Prince, Morton
Psychology, Pathological; Subconsciousness
There should be no difficulty in deciding what the facts permit us to
postulate. The subconscious is a theory based upon observed facts and
formulated to explain those facts. There are many precise phenomena of
different kinds which can only be explained as due to explicitly
subconscious processes, that is, processes which do not appear in the
content of consciousness; just as the phenomena manifested by radium can
only be explained by emanations (or rays) which themselves are not
visible and cannot be made the object of conscious experience. In each
case it is the manifestations of such processes of which we become
aware. Subconscious processes and radio-activity stand on precisely the
same basis so far as the determination of their actuality is concerned.
(The latter have the advantage, of course, in that being physical they
are subject to quantitative measurement.) Such being the case it ought
to be possible to construct the theory of the subconscious by inductive
methods on the basis of facts of observation just as any theory of the
physical sciences is constructed.
This task I have set before myself as well as that of giving precision
to our conception of the theory and taking it out of the domain of
philosophical concepts. With this purpose in view I have endeavored to
apply the method of science and construct the theory by induction from
the data of observation and experiment. I dare say this has been a
somewhat ambitious and some will say, perhaps, overbold undertaking.
Undoubtedly, too, this attitude toward this and other individual
problems has not been always consistently maintained, nor perhaps is it
completely possible in the present state of the science.
Our formulations should be as precise as possible and facts and concepts
of a different order should not be included in one and the same formula.
I have, accordingly, divided the subconscious into two classes, namely
(1) the _unconscious_, or neural dispositions and processes, and (2) the
_coconscious_, or actual subconscious ideas which do not enter the
content of conscious awareness. An unconscious process and a coconscious
process are both therefore _subconscious_ processes but particular types
thereof—the one being purely neural or physical and the other
psychological or ideational.
The soundness of the conclusions reached in this work I leave to the
judgment of my critics, of whom I doubt not I shall have many. I do not
hesitate to say, however, that it is only by practical familiarity with
the phenomena of mental pathology and artificially induced phenomena
(such as those of hypnosis, suggestion, etc.), requiring a long training
in this field of research (as in other scientific fields), that we can
correctly estimate the value of data and the conclusions drawn
therefrom; and even then many of our conclusions can be regarded as only
provisional.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account