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True motives and the True motives and the subconcious
how can we really know

True motives and the True motives and the subconcious

Ibrahim
seeker of nothing

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Posted 09/10/06 - 10:08 AM: Subject: True motives and the True motives and the subconcious	#1
From the philosophy of the enlightenment all the way to existentialism, the consciousness of the subject has been privileged and extolled, as in the general belief was that the self and our own thoughts were the most certain think in existence( I think therefore I am). There were a few exceptions to this, namely Nietzsche and Freud, who believed our thoughts and even philosophizing are products of deeper motivation, buried in our minds that cannot be so easily conjured and identified. Let me quote a passage from beyond good and evil. I do not believe that a drive to knowledge is the father of philosophy; but rather another drive has, here as elsewhere, employed understanding and misunderstanding as a mere instrument. But anyone who considers the basic drives of man to see to what extent they may have been at play just here as inspiring spirits will find that all of them have done philosophy at some time- and that every single one of them would like only too well to represent just itself as the ultimate purpose of existence. My point of discussion is: if our conscious thoughts are largely just a function of subconscious processes and drives, how can we philosophize with any degree of certainty towards our own motives and intentions?
"And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh"--Nietzsche

Hypothesis
Free Spirit

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Posted 09/10/06 - 12:33 PM:	#2
If the product of the subconsicous is philosophising, then we can probably be sure with some certainty that our subconscious is trying to feed one of the basic human needs, which is to understand. And since we can't really know what goes un subconsciously (even though Freud would have us believe otherwise), to determine what it's motives are, we can only go by the manifestation of the conscious as to what these motives could be. offshoot: (Perhaps this kind of thinking might be down to evolution, those who could understand more stood more chance of surviving.)
over and over and over and over and over like a monkey with a miniature cymbal the joy of repetition really is in you - Hot Chip

arancino
Aspirant

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Posted 09/14/06 - 03:25 AM:	#3
Ibrahim wrote: My point of discussion is: if our conscious thoughts are largely just a function of subconscious processes and drives, how can we philosophize with any degree of certainty towards our own motives and intentions? The unconscious is not completely inaccessible, but what we get to see of it usually looks rather messy and confusing. Think of psychoanalysis, but also of what the surrealists show us. That's why we need the ego and superego (to say it in Freudian) as an extra layer (which animals don't seem to have) to manage our interests. This makes evolutional sense. You can ask yourself how deep you have to dig to find out what your motives are. If you dig deep enough, you might well find out that it's all about the struggle of the genes, i.e. staying alive and having offspring. If this is true most of our motives are in fact derived motives (understanding danger, understanding how to be attractive, understanding how to be happy, because happiness also improves your chances, but also knowing how to fight and destroy our enemy.) Apparently, because of our enormous thinking power (compared to anything else in nature), we can (either or not subconsciously) assume motives which are derived to a high degree. Why do we want to play football, play or only listen to Beethoven, study maths, etc. hypothesis wrote: (Perhaps this kind of thinking might be down to evolution, those who could understand more stood more chance of surviving.) Absolutely.
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. - Carl Sagan (1934-1996) A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere. - Groucho Marx (1890-1977)

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