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(1999) Freud's philosophy of the unconscious, Dordrecht, Springer.
Searle's (1992) discussion of Freud underestimates the complexity and subtlety of Freud's position.153 Searle believes that, in contrast to his own concepts, Freud's view of the ontology of unconscious mental states is incoherent, and summarizes Freud's position as claiming that (1) unconscious mental states are occurrent rather than dispositional, (2) unconscious mental states possess a mental ontology, (3) all mental states are unconscious in themselves and (4) becoming conscious of a mental content is like perceiving an object. Searle argues that this position is inconsistent with present-day neuroscientific understanding of the brain, and that the analogy between episodes of consciousness of intentional content and episodes of perception does not make sense.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-1611-6_15
Full citation:
Smith, D.L. (1999). Freud versus Searle, in Freud's philosophy of the unconscious, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 151-155.
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