Power density spectra and phase synchrony measurements were taken from intracranial electrode grids implanted in epileptic subjects. Comparisons were made between data from the waking state and from the period of unconsciousness immediately following a generalised tonic–clonic seizure. Power spectra in the waking state resembled coloured noise. Power spectra in the unconscious state resembled coloured noise from 1 to about 5 Hz, but at higher frequencies changed in two out of three subjects to resemble white noise. This boosted unconscious (...) gamma power to a higher level than conscious gamma power. For both gamma and beta passbands, synchrony measurements showed more widespread phase synchrony in the unconscious than the conscious state. We conclude that neither gamma activity per se nor phase synchrony per se are neural correlates of consciousness. (shrink)

This article presents the position for a Psychoanalytic Discursive Psychology. This position combines two elements: an action-theory of language, derived from Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, and a revised Freudian concept of repression. According to Wittgenstein and most contemporary discursive psychologists, language is to be understood as action, rather than being assumed to be an outward expression of inner, unobservable cognitive processes. However, a critical approach demands more than an interactional analysis of language acts: it requires an analysis of ideology. Because what (...) is left unsaid can be as ideologically important as what is said, there is a need to investigate socially reproduced unconsciousness. This means taking the notion of repression seriously. Whereas Freud imagined repression to be an inner psychic process, it can, by contrast, be seen as an activity that is constituted within everyday language. In this respect, language is fundamentally both expressive and repressive. The social and psychological significance of a Psychoanalytic Discursive Psychology are discussed. (shrink)

The article provides a philosophical reconstruction of the composition of key motives in the phenomenological project of Mark Richir, who is known for his criticism of the symbolic institution. Following Richir’s deep inspiration in Schelling’s philosophy allows to find connections between his theory of the phenomenological unconscious and affectivity, his commentaries concerning Greek mythology and mythological thinking in La Naissance de Dieux—and his political theory. Along with general historical and philosophical comments on a number of translations of Schelling into French, (...) Richir repeatedly refers to Schelling in his own theoretical arguments. The research shows how some of Richir’s concepts — in particular, his interpretation of the phenomenological unconsciousness, myth, the Protean nature of power, the change of grand epochs as a change of types of the symbolic institutions of power—can be understood on the basis of relevant passages from Schelling’s philosophy, and how a semantic genealogical connection between them can be built. By considering the importance of the phenomenological unconsciousness in the course of phenomenalization process as described in Richir’s works, it is proposed to contrast the interpretation of the unconsciousness, which retains its simple mystery and the ways of dealing, with it in Richir’s version: while psychoanalysis is striving for the “disenchantment” of the unconsciousness by means of translating it into the symbolic language and transferring the living potentiation of meaning into the reproduction of a symptom. Richir’s phenomenological appeal to mythology turns out to be a non-trivial shift from theoretical philosophy to practical philosophy. The article also pays attention to the theory of power in Richir and Lefort, which presumably dates back to La Boétie. It is proposed to reveal the antithesis of the imaginary policy of the despot proposed by Richir, reproducing the symbolic institution of power and supporting the transcendental illusion of the need for control and order in the form of a kind of “hypnosis”—and real politics as a praxis of freedom. (shrink)

Philosophical (p-) zombies are constructs that possess all of the behavioral features and responses of a sentient human being, yet are not conscious. P-zombies are intimately linked to the hard problem of consciousness and have been invoked as arguments against physicalist approaches. But what if we were to invert the characteristics of p-zombies? Such an inverse (i-) zombie would possess all of the behavioral features and responses of an insensate being yet would nonetheless be conscious. While p-zombies are logically possible (...) but naturally improbable, an approximation of i-zombies actually exists: individuals experiencing what is referred to as “anesthesia awareness.” Patients under general anesthesia may be intubated (preventing speech), paralyzed (preventing movement), and narcotized (minimizing response to nociceptive stimuli). Thus, they appear—and typically are—unconscious. In 1-2 cases/1000, however, patients may be aware of intraoperative events, sometimes without any objective indices. Furthermore, a much higher percentage of patients (22% in a recent study) may have the subjective experience of dreaming during general anesthesia. P-zombies confront us with the hard problem of consciousness—how do we explain the presence of qualia? I-zombies present a more practical problem—how do we detect the presence of qualia? The current investigation compares p-zombies to i-zombies and explores the “hard problem” of unconsciousness with a focus on anesthesia awareness. (shrink)

The first reported case of postmortem sperm retrieval occurred in 1978, involving a man who became brain dead after a motor vehicle accident and whose wife requested removal of his sperm so that she could be artificially inseminated. Physicians performed the retrieval by surgically excising the ducts that transport sperm from the testes and removing sperm from them. Since that time, several other methods for retrieving sperm from such patients have been reported, and at least 141 cases have been documented (...) in which requests were made for removal of sperm from men who were dead or irreversibly unconscious. Moreover, there have been several reports of pregnancies and births resulting from assisted reproduction using sperm retrieved in such cases. (shrink)

정신분석은 증상, 꿈, 실수 등에서 무의식을 발견하고 이를 연구한 학문이다. 분열분석은 정신분석에 대한 비판으로부터 비롯되었고, 기존 무의식에 새로운 지평을 연 학문이다. 그러나 정신분석에 대한 비판 위에서 분열분석이 출현한 까닭인지, 두 학문의 대립은 여전히 첨예하다. 본 연구는 정신분석과 분열분석 각 학문의 정초 지점과 주요 문제를 살펴보며, 각각의 학문이 지향하고자 하는 방향과 그 의의를 밝히고, 그를 위해 다르게 개념화된 무의식의 특성과 그차이를 보여준다. 정신분석은 심인적인 증상과 아픔을 겪는 사람의 치유와 회복을 위해 시작되었다. 이를 위해 세팅된 임상 장면에서 무의식의 장을 발견하였고, 이에 접근하기 (...) 위하여 최초로 무의식의 이론들을 고안하고 연구해왔다. 분열분석은 정신분석이 주체의 자율성에 대한 지점으로 나아가지 못한다는 문제로부터 비롯되었으며, 무의식과 광기에 대한 긍정성을 재조명하며 분열증적 과정을 통한 생성과 실천을 향한다. 이에 작동과 생산을 강조하는 분자적 무의식·기계적무의식 등 무의식의 새로운 개념을 제시한다. 본 연구는 정신분석과 분열분석의 비판 혹은 대립 지점들에 주목하기보다, 각 학문의 근본적 차이와 개념의 차이에 대한 이해를 구하는 데에 그 목적이 있다. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Wellspring or Circuit?Commentary on Dewey and the Aesthetic UnconsciousnessFrank X. RyanEditor's note: This article contains material similar to a book review by the same author previously published in The Pluralist, vol. 18, no. 2, pp 114–21. The present article represents a further critical use of this material that we deem worthy of publication.in this vital and splendidly crafted work, Bethany Henning recovers a philosophy of aesthetic wisdom far richer (...) than the narrow epistemological lens dominant today. From its start, American philosophy looked beyond Europe's atomistic empiricism toward a continuity between our thought and nature's aesthetic splendor. Jonathan Edwards found beauty in the structure of being reflected in relations among ideas. For Emerson, each of us is a "transparent eyeball" in which nature's beauty fortifies our moral and spiritual agency. At the apex of this tradition is John Dewey, for whom "aesthetic experience [is] the highest mode of human experience" (Henning 55).Although aesthetic theory is usually associated with the cognitive evaluation of art, Dewey explores a broader non-reflective or unconscious dimension. Henning's appropriation of "unconscious"—the cradle of Freud's infantile id—is intentionally provocative. American culture, reflected in academic thought, has largely resisted appeals to subterranean urges and drives. In doing so, however, we perpetuate a myth of rational and moral exceptionalism masking a history of colonialism, oppression, and crass commercialism. In accepting the unconscious, European thought has taken strides to acknowledge and address such ills. Henning wonders whether America might accept "a dynamic unconscious, were it presented with an alternative mythology" (10) and finds a viable candidate in Dewey's underappreciated notion of qualitative immediacy: an "aesthetic (directly felt) connection between ourselves and [End Page 77] the world" (Henning 5). In affirming the unconscious depth of experience, this American reconfiguration welcomes "aesthetic experience back into our philosophical lives" (Henning 5).When embodied meaning supplements cognitive reflection, we come to champion "the sensuous, lived body" as "the primary reality" of qualitative immediacy—a felt aesthetic unity punctuated by "impulsions" arising from an organism's needs (Henning 69). As "a site of adaptive adjustments," Henning continues, "the body is responsive to the brink of coalescence at the point of contact with the world, in which things that are 'outside of it' belong to it" (71). "To move adeptly into aesthetic experience means to be skilled at loosening focal consciousness" so as to cultivate "the essential porousness of the world" (130).With this, the body-mind relation becomes a problem of normative aesthetics, not epistemology. The Cartesian detachment of intellect from nature perpetuated our cultural alienation from our bodies, our environments, and one another (Henning 81–84). With the re-emergence of the body, however, we can begin to acknowledge and heal this trauma.In tapping the significance of qualitative immediacy, of "having" beyond "knowing," Dewey and the Aesthetic Unconscious strives to recover Dewey's remarkable insight into our essential situatedness in the world. This alone establishes its importance. But Henning's book is equally ambitious in suggesting how Dewey's aesthetic understanding can(1). reconfigure the shadowy daemons of Freud's id;(2). replace the myth of American exceptionalism with authentic relationships rooted in pluralist values;(3). rehabilitate the body as an authentic vehicle of expression and communication;(4). vindicate the bold claim that all unified experience is aesthetic; and(5). identify and promote connections forged in shared human experiences.These aims are of inestimable value. I pledge to do whatever I can to defend and advance them. At the outset, however, I feel we must shore up the relationship between two different approaches to thinking about our situatedness in the world: (1) of organic beings existing in a porous world they dynamically interact with, and (2) a phenomenology of experience wherein nonreflective having is an unanalyzed totality from which thought and thing, subject and object, organism and environment, functionally emerge in what Dewey calls the pattern of inquiry. [End Page 78]The general consensus that Dewey failed to reconcile these two approaches—of existence with experience—was dubbed the "deep crack" in Dewey's thought, by Richard Bernstein in 1961. Bernstein laments Dewey's being caught between (1... (shrink)

C. G. Jung, Opere complete. Arhetipurile si inconstientul colectiv Ed. Trei, Bucuresti, 2003.

The concept of unconscious knowledge is fundamental for an understanding of human thought processes and mentation in general; however, the psychological community at large is not familiar with it. This paper offers a survey of the main psychological research currently being carried out into cognitive processes, and examines pathways that can be integrated into a discipline of unconscious knowledge. It shows that the field has already a defined history and discusses some of the features that all kinds of unconscious knowledge (...) seem to share at a deeper level. With the aim of promoting further research, we discuss the main challenges which the postulation of unconscious cognition faces within the psychological community. (shrink)

Unconscious knowing : psychoanalytic evidence in support of a radical epistemic view -- The limits of rationality : vagueness, a case study -- Agency "me"-ness in action -- The placebo effect : psychoanalytic theory can help explain the phenomenon -- Explanations and conclusions.

While the human agent must have the capacity for reflexivity, intentionality and consciousness, the same agent must also be affected by the social world in which she lives: herein lies the essence of the structure and agency dialectic. This paper argues that while some realists are in principle committed to a dialectical relationship between structure and agency, there is some dissonance between this commitment and the concepts of agency that they develop. I highlight the exclusion of the unconscious and habit (...) from realist notions of agency and argue that this oversight serves to unbalance the dialectic between structure and agency thereby leading to the over-empowerment of agency. The concepts of agency developed by Margaret Archer, Anthony Giddens and Pierre Bourdieu are discussed in this paper. Archer's concept of agency is argued to focus exclusively on reflexivity whilst neglecting to include the unconscious and habit. Giddens is shown to develop a much improved concept of agency, which includes the unconscious, however, his rejection of the independent causal powers of structure and agency problematises his commitment to the dialectic. A much improved approach to theorising agency, developed within a critical realist framework, is offered drawing on Bourdieu's concept of habitus. The paper concludes with a discussion of gender, and considers how the unconscious and habit can help to better understand the myriad ways in which gender functions in society. (shrink)

Unconscious emotions are of central importance to psychoanalysis. They do, however, raise conceptual problems. The most pertinent concerns the intuition, shared by Freud, that consciousness is essential to emotion, which makes the idea of unconscious emotion seem paradoxical. In this paper, I address this paradox from the perspective of the philosopher R. C. Roberts’ account of emotions as concern-based construals. I provide an interpretation of this account in the context of affective neuroscience and explore the form of Freudian repression that (...) emotions may be subject to under such an interpretation. This exploration draws on evidence from research on alexithymia and utilises ideas from free-energy neuroscience. The free-energy framework, moreover, facilitates an account of repression that avoids the homunculus objection and coheres with recent work on hysteria. (shrink)

There is an emerging consensus among interpreters that in his Critical writings Kant ascribes unconscious representations to the mind. The nature and extent of this ascription over the course of Kant’s philosophical development is however not well understood. I argue that from his earliest published writings Kant consistently ascribes unconscious representations to the mind; that some of these representations are unconscious in the strong sense that they are not available to introspection; and that Kant extends his commitment to unconscious representations (...) by ascribing to the mind unconscious acts of judging and reasoning. (shrink)

Having, in previous papers, distinguished at least three forms of consciousness , I now further examine their differences. This examination has some surprising results. Having argued that neither C1 nor C2 is a phenomenological state?and so different from CN?I now show that CN itself is best thought of as a subclass of a larger state . CS is the set of image?representation states. CN is that set of CS states that we are also C2 about. I argue that CN states (...) should be considered a subset of CS states because they share with other CS states imagistic representational powers as opposed to the sentential ones of C1 and C2. And I argue that there are good reasons to consider any state which utilises imagistic representation as a sensation. I then show that the notion of an unconscious sensation makes sense if we think of it as a CS state that is not C2. More radically, I conclude that either it makes sense to say that there are unfelt sensations or there are felt sensations we are not conscious about. While there are good reasons for saying one or the other of these surprising things, I argue that the second, more radical sounding, alternative is actually better motivated?and not quite so surprising as it sounds. (shrink)

The Unconscious in Neuroscience and Psychoanalysis presents a unique and provocative approach to the assimilation of these two disciplines while offering a thorough assessment of the Unconscious from a neuropsychoanalytic and Lacanian perspective. Marco Máximo Balzarini offers a comprehensive overview of Freud's theory of the unconscious and its importance within psychoanalysis, before looking to how it has been integrated into contemporary neuropsychoanalytic work. Paying close attention to the field-defining work of neuropsychoanalysts such as Mark Solms, Francois Ansermet and Pierre Magistretti, (...) Balzarini considers the dichotomy between neuroscience and psychoanalysis, and the omnipresent debate on if and how they should be integrated when working with the unconscious. Throughout, he provides a fascinating Lacanian interpretation, showing how the work of Lacan can offer a new way of developing the dialogue and understanding around this vital topic. Part of the Routledge Neuropsychoanalysis Series, this book will be of interest to any psychoanalyst seeking to explore the foundations of the relationship between neuropsychoanalytic and Lacanian ideas in their clinical and theoretical work. (shrink)

Historically, mental imagery has been defined as an experiential state - as something necessarily conscious. But most behavioural or neuroimaging experiments on mental imagery - including the most famous ones - don’t actually take the conscious experience of the subject into consideration. Further, recent research highlights that there are very few behavioural or neural differences between conscious and unconscious mental imagery. I argue that treating mental imagery as not necessarily conscious (as potentially unconscious) would bring much needed explanatory unification to (...) mental imagery research. It would also help us to reassess some of the recent aphantasia findings inasmuch as at least some subjects with aphantasia would be best described as having unconscious mental imagery. (shrink)

The possibilities of unconscious perception and unconscious bias prompt parallel debates about unconscious mental content. This chapter argues that claims within these debates alleging the existence of unconscious content are made fraught by ambiguity and confusion with respect to the two central concepts they involve: consciousness and content. Borrowing conceptual resources from the debate about unconscious perception, the chapter distills the two conceptual puzzles concerning each of these notions and establishes philosophical strategies for their resolution. It then argues that empirical (...) evidence for unconscious bias falls victim to these same puzzles, but that progress can be made by adopting similar philosophical strategies. Throughout, the chapter highlights paths forward in both debates, illustrates how they serve as fruitful domains in which to study the relationship between philosophy and empirical science, and uses their combined study to further understanding of a general theory of unconscious content. (shrink)

Unconscious processes are mental states that occur in the absence of subjective awareness. We offer a focused historical survey of the robust debate about the nature of unconscious mental processing, from ancient and medieval theories that allow for bodily functions without subjective awareness to the 20th century acceptance of autonomous unconscious processing. The background introduction culminates with the rise of cognitive science in the latter half of the 20th century, as dual systems theories claimed that the mind had two forms (...) of processing: an unconscious system that is associative, fast, and automatic and a conscious system that performs sequential, deliberative, and slow mental functions. More recently, the “cognitive unconscious” has been discovered to perform most if not all cognitive functions including higher-level cognitive processing, such as addition and subtraction. Despite a rich history of experimental methods and findings, recent criticisms are forcing scientists to reexamine these advancements. We are optimistic that the field will develop novel techniques that answer these criticisms, including measures for studying subjective reports in the absence of subjective awareness of the content of the unconscious state and the act of reporting. (shrink)

The very idea of unconscious emotion has been thought puzzling. But in recent debate about emotions, comparatively little attention has been given explicitly to the question. I survey a number of recent attempts by philosophers to resolve the puzzle and provide some preliminary remarks about their viability. I identify and discuss three families of responses: unconscious emotions involve conscious feelings, unconscious emotions involve no feelings at all, and unconscious emotions involve unconscious feelings. The discussion is exploratory rather than decisive for (...) three reasons. First, the aim is to provide a framework for the debate, and identify a number of key issues for further research. Second, a number of the positions depend for their plausibility upon theoretical commitments that can be made clear, but cannot be evaluated in detail, in a survey article. Third, I believe no fully satisfactory, comprehensive solution has yet been developed. (shrink)

Recent findings in different areas of psychology and cognitive science have brought the unconscious mind back to center stage. However, the unconscious mind worry remains: What renders unconscious phenomena mental? I suggest a new strategy for answering this question, which rests on the idea that categorizing unconscious phenomena as “mental” should be scientifically useful relative to the explanatory research goals. I argue that this is the case if by categorizing an unconscious phenomenon as “mental” one picks out explanatorily relevant similarities (...) to a corresponding paradigmatically mental conscious phenomenon. Explanatory relevance is spelled out in terms of mechanistic norms. (shrink)

This book contains a series of essays that explore the concept of unconsciousness as it is situated between phenomenology and psychoanalysis. A leading goal of the collection is to carve out phenomenological dimensions within psychoanalysis and, equally, to carve out psychoanalytical dimensions within phenomenology. The book examines the nature of unconsciousness and the role it plays in structuring our sense of self. It also looks at the extent to which the unconscious marks the body as it functions outside (...) of experience as well as manifests itself in experience. In addition, the book explores the relationship between unconsciousness and language, particularly if unconsciousness exists prior to language or if the concept can only be understood through speech. The collection includes contributions from leading scholars, each of whom grounds their investigations in a nuanced mastery of the traditional voices of their fields. These contributors provide diverse viewpoints that challenge both the phenomenological and psychoanalytical traditions in their relation to unconsciousness. (shrink)

One necessary condition on any adequate account of perception is clarity regarding whether unconscious perception exists. The issue is complicated, and the debate is growing in both philosophy and science. In this paper we consider the case for unconscious perception, offering three primary achievements. First, we offer a discussion of the underspecified notion of central coordinating agency, a notion that is critical for arguments that purportedly perceptual states are not attributable to the individual, and thus not genuinely perceptual. We develop (...) an explication of what it is for a representational state to be available to central coordinating agency for guidance of behavior. Second, drawing on this explication, we place a more careful understanding of the attributability of a state to the individual in the context of a range of empirical work on vision-for-action, saccades, and skilled typing. The results place pressure on the skeptic about unconscious perception. Third, reflecting upon broader philosophical themes running through debates about unconscious perception, we highlight how our discussion places pressure on the view that perception is a manifest kind, rather than a natural kind. In doing so, we resist the tempting complaint that the debate about unconscious perception is merely verbal. (shrink)

This paper defends the view that a correct analysis of knowledge must take empirical data into consideration. The data here provided is from experimental psychology, namely from phenomena involving unconscious cognition.

The traditional model of human cognition (TMHC) postulates an ontological and/or structural gap between conscious and unconscious mental representations. By and large, it sees higher-level mental processes as commonly conceptual or symbolic in nature and therefore conscious, whereas unconscious, lower-level representations are conceived as non-conceptual or sub-symbolic. However, experimental evidence belies this model, suggesting that higher-level mental processes can be, and often are, carried out in a wholly unconscious way and/or without conceptual representations, and that these can be processed unconsciously. (...) This entails that the TMHC, as well as the theories on mental representation it motivates and that in turn support it, is wrong. (shrink)

The importance of unconscious cognition is seeping into popular consciousness. A number of recent books bridging the academic world and the reading public stress that at least a portion of decision-making depends not on conscious reasoning, but instead on cognition that occurs below awareness. However, these books provide a limited perspective on how the unconscious mind works and the potential power of intuition. This essay is an effort to expand the picture. It is structured around the book that has garnered (...) the most attention, Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink , but it also considers Gut Feelings by Gerd Gigerenzer and How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman . These books help deepen the . (shrink)

A clarification of Husserl's changing conceptions of imaginary consciousness ( phantasy ) and memory, especially at the level of auto-affective time-consciousness, suggests an interpretation of Freud's concept of the Unconscious. Phenomenology of consciousness can show how it is possible that consciousness can bring to present appearance something unconscious, that is, something foreign or absent to consciousness, without incorporating it into or subordinating it to the conscious present. This phenomenological analysis of Freud's concept of the Unconscious leads to a partial critique (...) of Freud's metapsychological determination of the Unconscious as a simple, internally unperceived representational consciousness. It also suggests an account of how a reproductive inner consciousness can free the subject from the experience of anxiety by allowing for possibilities of self-distanciation and symbolic self-representation that protect the subject from traumatic affection by and through its own instinctual drives. (shrink)

The nature of unconscious information processing is a heavily debated issue in cognitive science, and neuroscience. Traditionally, it has been thought that unconscious cognitive processing is restricted to knowledge that is strongly prepared by conscious processes. In three experiments, we show that the task that is performed consciously can also be applied unconsciously to items outside the current task set. We found that a same–different judgment of two target stimuli was also performed on two subliminally presented prime stimuli. This was (...) true for target and prime stimuli from entirely different categories, as well as for prime and target stimuli at different levels of abstraction. These results reveal that unconscious processing can generalize more widely than previously accepted. (shrink)

According to many criteria, agency, intentionality, responsibility and freedom of decision, require conscious decisions. Freud already assumed that many of our decisions are influenced by dynamically unconscious motives or that we even perform unconscious actions based on completely unconscious considerations. Such actions might not be intentional, and perhaps not even actions in the narrow sense, we would not be responsible for them and freedom of decision would be missing. Recent psychological and neurophysiological research has added to this a number of (...) phenomena (the "new unconscious") in which behavior is completely unconscious or in which the decision or its execution is influenced by unconscious factors: priming, automatic behavior, habitualized behavior, actions based on plain unconscious deliberations, intrusion of information from the dorsal pathway, etc. However, since this makes up the largest part of the behavior which is generally regarded as action, intentionality, yet agency, responsibility and even compatibilist freedom of decision for the largest part of our behavior may be threatened. Such considerations have led to a lively debate, which, however, suffers from generalizations that lump all these unconscious phenomena together. In contrast, the aim of this article is to discuss individual unconscious influences on our behavior separately with respect to what extent they require changes in traditional conceptualizations. The first part (2-4) of the article outlines the "traditions" and their elaborations: the intentional causalist concept of action, an associated empirical theory of action and standard concepts of responsibility and compatibilist freedom of decision, as well as the challenges for them. In the second part (5-9), the aforementioned unconscious influences on our actions (except for automated and habitualized actions, which I discuss elsewhere) are examined: 1. unconscious priming, 2. dynamically unconscious motives, 3. dorsal pathway information influencing conscious decisions, 4. unconsciously altered execution of conscious intentions, 5. unconscious deliberations and decisions. To what extent do these phenomena C1. require a change in the concept of action, C2. curtail intentionality or agency, C3. responsibility and C4. freedom? The result is: The curtailments prove to be far less dramatic than they initially appear; they require more watchfulness but no conceptual change. (shrink)

Introduction : Involuntarism and philosophy -- The obscure dust of the world : the unconscious of perception in Leibniz -- Inevitable and persistent inadequacies : the unconscious of ideas in Spinoza -- Deteriora Sequer : the unconscious of desire in Spinoza -- The gravity of ideas : the unconscious of habit in Hume -- Conclusion : obscurity and involvement.

What occurs in the mind of an expert who is performing at their very best? In this paper, I survey the history of debate concerning this question. I suggest that expertise is neither solely a mastery of the automatic nor solely a mastery of intelligence in skilled action control. Experts are also capable of performing automatic actions intelligently. Following this, I argue that unconscious-thought theory (UTT) is a powerful tool in coming to understand the role of executive, intelligent action control (...) in the fluidly automatic performance of expertise. Relying on a body of empirical evidence concerning the cognitive structures and perceptual strategies employed by experts, I show that the realm of skilled action is an ideal environment within which the powers of unconscious cognitive processing can have positive effects on action. I conclude that experts rely upon unconscious thinking in the production of intelligently automatic skilled actions. (shrink)

Traditionally, philosophers have appealed to the phenomenological similarity between visual experience and visual imagery to support the hypothesis that there is significant overlap between the perceptual and imaginative domains. The current evidence, however, is inconclusive: while evidence from transcranial brain stimulation seems to support this conclusion, neurophysiological evidence from brain lesion studies (e.g., from patients with brain lesions resulting in a loss of mental imagery but not a corresponding loss of perception and vice versa) indicates that there are functional and (...) anatomical dissociations between mental imagery and perception. Assuming that the mental imagery and perception do not overlap, at least, to the extent traditionally assumed, then the question arises as to what exactly mental imagery is and whether it parallels perception by proceeding via several functionally distinct mechanisms. In this review, we argue that even though there may not be a shared mechanism underlying vision for perception and conscious imagery, there is an overlap between the mechanisms underlying vision for action and unconscious visual imagery. On the basis of these findings, we propose a modification of Kosslyn’s model of imagery that accommodates unconscious imagination and explore possible explanations of the quasi-pictorial phenomenology of conscious visual imagery in light of the fact that its underlying neural substrates and mechanisms typically are distinct from those of visual experience. (shrink)

This paper suggests the utility of studying unconscious cognition from a selectionist perspective, specifically as outlined by theory and research in the field of behavior analysis. Currently, issues surrounding the complexity of the unconscious cognitive behaviors, the number of variables involved, and the multidirectional influences of these variables, are of utmost concern to theories of mind and behavior. Unanswered questions about these factors leave us without the ability to predict outcomes in an individual case or adequately manipulate variables in order (...) to alter outcomes. Multiple examples of current work by behavior analysts are suggested as potentially fruitful ways of addressing some of these concerns. (shrink)

Previous research has shown that subliminally presented stimuli accelerate or delay responses afforded by supraliminally presented stimuli. Our experiments extend these findings by showing that unconscious stimuli even affect free choices between responses. Thus, actions that are phenomenally experienced as freely chosen are influenced without the actor becoming aware of the manipulation. However, the unconscious influence is limited to a response bias, as participants chose the primed response only in up to 60% of the trials. LRP data in free choice (...) trials indicate that the prime was not ineffective in trials in which participants chose the non-primed response as then it delayed performance of the incongruently primed response. (shrink)

The nature of unconscious information processing is a heavily debated issue in cognitive science , and neuroscience . Traditionally, it has been thought that unconscious cognitive processing is restricted to knowledge that is strongly prepared by conscious processes . In three experiments, we show that the task that is performed consciously can also be applied unconsciously to items outside the current task set. We found that a same–different judgment of two target stimuli was also performed on two subliminally presented prime (...) stimuli. This was true for target and prime stimuli from entirely different categories, as well as for prime and target stimuli at different levels of abstraction. These results reveal that unconscious processing can generalize more widely than previously accepted. (shrink)

According to Phillips, (1) genuine perception is attributable to the individual (i.e. it’s a personal state/event, as opposed to sub-personal states/events in the individual’s brain); (2) since unconscious perceptual representations are ill-suited to guide action, there’s no good reason to attribute them to the individual; (3) not being attributable to the individual, they don’t instantiate genuine perception, thereby failing to support the hypothesis that genuine perception can occur unconsciously. I argue that this reasoning is flawed and can’t be easily fixed. (...) Phillips contends that unconscious perceptual representations don’t guide action because they fail to meet certain conditions that are sufficient for action guidance. But those conditions may not be necessary for action guidance. Consequently, unconscious perceptual representations may guide action even if they don’t meet Phillips’ conditions. Furthermore, due to his commitment to the distinction between personal and sub-personal states/events, Phillips isn’t in a position to argue that his conditions are necessary for action guidance. For the distinction applies to action as well as to perception, and when genuine action is identified by personal-level criteria, Phillips’ conditions turn out unnecessary for action guidance. (shrink)

The representational nature of human cognition and thought in general has been a source of controversies. This is particularly so in the context of studies of unconscious cognition, in which representations tend to be ontologically and structurally segregated with regard to their conscious status. However, it appears evolutionarily and developmentally unwarranted to posit such segregations, as,otherwise, artifact structures and ontologies must be concocted to explain them from the viewpoint of the human cognitive architecture. Here, from a by-and-large Classical cognitivist viewpoint, (...) I show why this segregation is wrong, and elaborate on the need to postulate an ontological and structural continuity between unconscious and conscious representations. Specifically, I hypothesize that this continuity is to be found in the symbolic-based interplay between the syntax and the semantics of thought, and I propose a model of human information processing characterized by the integration of syntactic and semantic representations. (shrink)

It is sometimes claimed that certain experiments show that free will is an illusion by showing that all decisions are made unconsciously. I have argued elsewhere that these experiments do not show that any decisions are made unconsciously. But suppose I am wrong about that. Even then, I argue, these experiments do not pose a serious threat to free will. First, one is not warranted in generalizing from findings about the decisions allegedly made in these experiments to the claim that (...) all decisions are unconsciously made. Second, even if all decisions are made unconsciously, the findings are compatible with a modest time-lag hypothesis about our conscious detection of decisions we make, and the supposed truth of that hypothesis is compatible with our making some of our decisions freely. (shrink)