Julie's invocation of the unconscious

[David Samuels]

Jim and Julie,

I don't think it's an allergy to the notion of unconscious so much as an
allergy to the notion of depth psychology.  In my view the move to
"discourse" from "language" puts us in a positioin to ask some interesting
questions about the unconscious, such as:

(1) what is the relationship between consciousness and things that go under
terms like "doxa," "habitus," "hexis," and so on.  This covers things like
the relationship between grammar and textual construction, the linking of
things like quantity, stress, intonation and gesture in performance, as
well as the question of linguistic consciousness and linguistic ideology.
I think that's what Greg Urban is trying to do, to use the Peirceian
trichotomies to empirically investigate how the things that people are
conscious they are doing are linked to the things they are not conscious
they are doing, even though those latter things have meanings; and how
features of discourse can move from one domain to the other.

(2) is a depth psychology model of the unconscious supported by the
empirical evidence of discourse?  For example, Freud and Wertheimer (not to
mention Levi-Strauss, and let's add Hegel while we're at it, why not)
assert that there is a subconscious desire for resolution, tranquility, the
good form.  Freud says that ambiguity creates anxiety, Levi-Strauss that
ambiguities are resolved in myth, and so forth.  Whereas I think it can be
argued from the evidence of discourse that people desire indeterminacy at
least as much as resolution.  So it's this area where "unconscious" slides
imperceptibly into "psychological motivation," and specifically
psychological motivation as a means of resolving our anxiety to find an
explanation for "behavior."  Discourse can help us unpack some of these
issues so that we're not held in thrall by the German aesthetic tradition
of holism.

So that's my opinion.

Best,



David W. Samuels
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
212 Machmer Hall
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003

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email: samuels at anthro.umass.edu