C. D. Broad, Mind and Its Place in Nature , 1925

SECTION C

Introductory Remarks

"Satyr and Faun their late repose
Now burst like anything;
Fresh Maenads, turning sprightlier toes,
Enjoy a jauntier fling;
With lustier lips old Pan shall play
Drainpipes along the sewer's way.

Priapus, long since left for dead,
Is dead no more than Pan;
Silenus rises from his bed
And hiccoughs like a man.
(There's something rather chaste, between us,
About Priapus and Silenus.)"

(Owen Seaman, The Battle of the Bays)


SECTION C

The Unconscious

Introductory Remarks

It is admitted by almost every one that the contents of a mind are not all open to introspection, and that the occurrence of those mental events which we can introspect cannot be completely accounted for in terms of other mental events which we can introspect or remember. In admitting this people are admitting facts to which the general name of "The Unconscious" is applied.

But here agreement ceases. People quarrel violently about the general nature of "The Unconscious", and about the reality of particular "unconscious" events which are alleged to happen. It is certain that much of this controversy is due to the scandalous ambiguity with which the term "unconscious" is used. I think it is not unfair to say that "the Unconscious" has been the occasion for a greater flood of more abject nonsense than any other psychological concept, with the possible exception of "Instinct".

In this section I shall first try to distinguish the various senses in which people have used the terms "unconscious mental states" and "The Unconscious". I shall show that, in most of these senses, an "unconscious mental state " is either not unconscious or not mental; and I shall try to define a literal meaning of the phrase "unconscious mental states". I shall then consider the arguments which have been alleged to prove the existence of "unconscious mental states". This will lead up to a discussion of the nature of "traces" and "dispositions", which will bring this Section to an end.


Contents -- Go to Chapter VIII