The word “unconscious” (in German unbewusst) was arguably coined by German idealist philosopher Friedrich Schelling (1775-1854), whose book System of Transcendental Idealism played a transformative role.
Freud’s solution presented a metaphysical picture of consciousness as a submerged mountain progressively surging upward to burst through the surface of the sea into the sunlight of rational conscious human life.
Freud postulated that this sunlit consciousness was “unconscious” of both its origins and its ascent from the muck of the seabed – that the conscious mind “suppressed” these dark and dirty origins and kept processes from entering the sunlit conscious mind. This is why Freud’s theory is called depth psychology.
Q: How can the conscious mind suppress that of which it is unconscious?
In order to “censor” the unconscious content, it must first be conscious of the content-to-be-censored, resulting in a contradiction – a conscious unconscious, or as logicians would state it: A and not-A.
The solution?
Consciousness must be an emergent phenomenon that begins in the muck of the seafloor and ascends to progressively higher levels until it rises above the waves into the sunlight, now complex and highly ordered, but (really) nothing other than the seafloor muck that has endured the “natural” and necessary process that compels its ascent. In a word, the unconscious becomes conscious, ascending the ladder to ever-higher consciousness, while at the same time being the same thing as the muck from which it sprung. Consciousness is nothing but the process itself of becoming conscious.Sound familiar?
It should, as this is the alternative logic – one might fairly call it an anti-logic – of 18th century philosopher G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831). This “logic” pervades the modern mind. It is the essence of Marxism, Freudian theory, Darwinism, postmodernism, Wokism, the advance of atheism and a host of other modern maladies that are systematically dismantling the scientific, moral and cultural achievements of the Western world nourished and enabled by Christianity.Everything.
Hegel’s philosophical system is built on the denial of a fundamental law of (Aristotelian) logic – the law of non-contradiction. In natural language this states that it cannot be the case that both a proposition and its negation are true.In logical notation: ~[A and ~A].
In other words, Hegel’s dialectical logic embraces contradiction – that which Aristotelian logic forbids. In practice this embrace means that contradiction is simply a part of (or, using Hegel’s terminology, “a moment in”) the process that is logic. Hegel’s logic embraces contradiction as the engine of progressive development.
For Hegel, “all that exists is logical, and all that is logical exists.”
This is process-metaphysics.
Like Einstein’s E=MC2, what is is reducible to a single fundamental “thing” (philosophers call this “monism”) from which all else is compounded:
in Einstein’s case the fundamental underlying substance is energy;
in Hegel, it is the progressive process of logic.
What is also evident, however, to any thinking being is that logic – the process of thought – is inextricably anchored in mind. If mind did not underlie reality, it could not emerge from it. Like the scientific law of biogenesis – life can only come from life, so consciousness can only emerge from consciousness. Hegel’s logic (here, anyway) is impeccable: if consciousness is to emerge, then at some level it must be the very substance from which everything emerges.
For Hegel, as we saw analogously with Freud, there is an ever-ascending logic to reality, a process of becoming conscious.
What is also evident, however, to any thinking being is that logic – the process of thought – is inextricably anchored in mind. If mind did not underlie reality, it could not emerge from it. Like the scientific law of biogenesis – life can only come from life, so consciousness can only emerge from consciousness. Hegel’s logic (here, anyway) is impeccable: if consciousness is to emerge, then at some level it must be the very substance from which everything emerges.
For Hegel, as we saw analogously with Freud, there is an ever-ascending logic to reality, a process of becoming conscious.
--For Hegel, though, there is no independent material “muck,” just the initial (contradictory) conjunction of an unconscious consciousness.
--From this, all else will emerge. Hegel calls this fundamental “substance” of reality, appropriately, “Spirit.” Because it begins as an unconscious-consciousness it possesses, in ever-increasing clarity, a goal-directedness – it is the process of becoming conscious.
Now to seal the deal.
Marx and Darwin (and their acolytes) are Hegelian metaphysicians – ALL is process, and process is all – but neither wanted Hegel’s mystical notion of Spirit. How can a scientific materialistic monist accept that?“Easy!”, says Marx (he learned so well from Darwin!) “Turn Hegel upside down,” substituting materialism for Hegel’s idealism (non-material) – Spirit. This is why Marx’s theory is called “dialectical materialism” – it is Hegel’s dialectical logic applied to metaphysically material monism.
Darwin and Marx presuppose (on faith) an ever-ascending process of reality, an EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS, substituting materialism for Hegel’s Spirit, denying the fundamental reality of consciousness. As with Freud, consciousness is derivative, emergent from something else.
Here’s the rub.
The substitution comes at a high price: cognitive and evidentiary dissonance. The material is by itself neither life nor logic, but both life and logic are a part of the world in and with which science operates – without them science, knowledge, and rational consciousness itself, are inconceivable.Admittedly, science can proceed while denying the contradiction – witness the history of biological science for the last 150 years! Hegel’s logic and Freud’s depth psychology have, after all, laid the
This is the meaning of the evolution of evolvability – the concession that consciousness is logically implied by reality, or there would be no reality of which to be conscious.
“In Him we live, move, and have our being” said Paul to the Athenians in Acts 17:28. "
CEH
