Determining the Third- Reflections on Freud, Schopenhauer And the Unspoken Variable

8/7/2019 Determining the Third- Reflections on Freud, Schopenhauer And the Unspoken Variable

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Thomas Wendt

Determining the Third: Reflections on Freud, Schopenhauer, and the Unspoken Variable

Who is the third who walks always beside you? (Eliot, The Waste Land, line 359)

[ D]eterminism stands firm; for fifteen hundred years attempts to undermine ithave been made in vain. They have been urged by certain queer ideas which weknow quite well, but dare not call entirely by their name. In consequence of it,however, the world becomes a puppet show worked by wires (motives) withoutits even being possible to see for whose amusement. If the piece has a plan, thena fate is the director. There is no escape from this absurdity other than the

knowledge that the being and essence of all things are the phenomenon of a really free will that knows itself precisely in them; for their doing and acting are not to be delivered from necessity. To save freedom from fate or chance, it had to betransferred from the action to the existence. (Schopenhauer, World, 2: 321)

The philosophical thought associated with Sigmund Freud and Arthur Schopenhauer is

often labeled determinist, and correctly so. Freud strongly asserts that psychic life is

determined by the constant conflict of desire and convention, that human behavior and

personality are merely deterrents, vague and ambiguous representations of what one really is, the

miniscule amount of psychic material that one is able to present. Similarly, Schopenhauer

presents the ideas of will and representation 1 as the real essence of an individualwilland that

1 Some translators prefer to use idea rather than representation as the translation of the German woVorstellung . I will not comment about the preferable English translation, as my knowledge of German isrudimentary at best; nonetheless, I will continue to use representation, as it seems to be a better choice inreference to Schopenhauer specifically. Idea places a certain amount of agency on the subject. It places thsubject in an active position insofar as he or she is consciously involved in the formation of a given idea.Representation, however, places the subject in a passive position; the representation is presented to the subjectand projected outward into the world. It may be true that Schopenhauers conception of will and representatiallows one to correctly posit that the individual can have an idea of will, but it is more important that the ibeen presented, or represented, by something outside the conscious self. I will use representation unless direquoting from a text that uses idea.


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which he or she is allowed to know about the willrepresentation. 2 One must ask, however,

what exactly motivates, or even dictates, the puppeteer? What determines the how, why, where,

when, etc. of the act of pulling strings? In other words, the strings determine the puppets

movement, the motion of the puppeteers hands determines the movement of the strings, but

what determines the puppeteer? What makes him perform the act? In order to answer these

questions it is necessary to extend the metaphor backward instead of forwardto discern, in a

general sense, the unspoken variable in the human psyche that is pure determination. This agent,

this truly free agent, is independent of external force and motivation; it exists only for itself, and,

in a sense, is separated from the individual qua individual. It is this third part that determinesdeterminism. What, then, is the third variable that determines the determiner and directs the

director of the puppet show?

The work of Freud and Schopenhauer allude to these questions but do not go into detail

about intricacies. There are ubiquitous and undeniable similarities between these two

philosophers work, resulting in much commentary and theoretical writing on the subject in the

last century. In order to elucidate the many similarities between the two thinkers, it is necessary

to return to the original texts rather than reiterate what has already been said of them. Part of this

extension of thought includes seriously considering what motivates motivation and what

determines the determiner. This must be done, of course, without slipping into an eternal

backward cycle attempting to find the origin of the origin of the origin ad infinitum .

Traces of Freudian psychoanalysis are found throughout the history of philosophy, even

dating back to the ancients. Specifically in the German tradition, Leibniz and Kant wrote of

unconscious thought processes and parts of the mind that are inaccessible to normal

2 The present essay differentiates between the illusory reality of the individual (or subject) and the rereality or unconscious reality from which access is barred.


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consciousness. Unlike Freud, they were working with a particularly biological model of

consciousnessthat is, the difference between waking and sleeping statesresulting in a

bodily conception of the unconscious. Schellings work on human freedom and art bears

similarities to the Freudian unconscious in that there is a special emphasis on the vast difference

between what actually exists and what one is allowed to believe. Schopenhauer also makes this

distinction, terming the two parts will and representation, which are often compared to the

Freudian unconscious and conscious. The will is that which the individual cannot know except

through its representation; it is what representation attempts to hide, to veil in what is called the

world. Individual existence, then, becomes a masquerade in which the mask is everything thatthe individual knows: everything that one can think, speak, and know is merely a disguise, a

defense 3 against what really is .

The theme of the current essay is not to summarize the similarities and differences

between Freuds thought and those who came before himthis has been established. Rather, the

focus is on the processes that mediate between the two polesbetween the conscious and

unconscious, between the will and its representationand how these processes manifest

themselves in the subject, resulting in a gap between what the subject thinks he or she knows and

what the subject is prevented from knowing, and that which resides in the gap: the third,

unspoken variable.

3 This is not meant to introduce a certain similarity to the Freudian notion of a defense, which functiprotect the ego from that which it cannot incorporate into its reality. Ego defenses and the way in whichrepresentation is a defense are similar insofar as they both function to protect the individual from something sreal that it is too real, an aspect of the self that the self cannot acknowledgei.e., the indivisible remainder,Slavoj iek might call it, that is left over from the subject being defined as such. Ego defenses and represas a defense differ in quantity and quality: the sole function of representation is to veil what is real, the willwhereas ego defenses perform the same function but do so in multiple ways, with some defenses working mefficiently than others in any given situation.


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To conceptualize the will within the framework of the conscious mind is to commit an

ironic injustice to the subject; however, this is not to say that the will exists independently of its

conscious representation. In fact, will and representation are intrinsically connected and cannot

exist exclusively as such: No one can in reality merely will, without willing this or that : a will

which does not will something, is not; only through the definite content does the will obtain the

possibility of existence, and this content (not to be confused with motive) is, as we have seen,

Idea . (Hartmann, 1: 118-119) In this way, will and representation exist in a dialectical

relationship, in which each side of the spectrum is dependent on the other: by definition, will

needs representation, and representation needs will. Without an object on which to act, the willis empty; and without motivation, which is possibly unconscious, representation is merely a

blank signifier. It is also through this dialectical relationship that one gains knowledge of the

will. Representation is limited insofar as it is mediated by influences beyond the scope of

consciousness; nonetheless, given that the will-in-itself is without knowledge (Schopenhauer,

World, 2: 293), the subjects only means of acquiring knowledge of the will is through its

dialectical opposite, representation. One of Schopenhauers fundamental theses is that the will

we find within us does not, as philosophy previously assumed, proceed first of all from

knowledge; that it is not, in fact, a mere modification of knowledge, and thus something

secondary, derived, and, like knowledge itself, conditioned by the brain. (ibid) Thus, will is not

something that results from the biological function of the body, conditioned by cognitive

processes of the brain; rather, will exists prior to the biological, to the physical, and, one might

say, to the individual.


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Given this preliminary summary of Schopenhauers will, one can easily note the

undeniable similarities to the Freudian unconscious. 4 One cannot ignore, however, the multitude

of differences between these two concepts:

It is thus natural to think that the central core of the human personality whichSchopenhauer calls will corresponds to Freuds Ucs. or id. However, it would bea mistake to identify the Freudian unconscious with the world-will of Schopenhauer: though the absence of the I of self-consciousness from both mayfoster the impression of such a correspondence, Freud does not conceive id ashaving the trans-personal status of Schopenhauer world-will, which stands

beyond the possibility of individuation. (Gardner, 380)

Gardners point is well taken. The will certainly does not correspond to the unconscious on the

level of the individual. Schopenhauers idea of the world-will is something much more universal

in scope: it serves as a way of thinking about the primal drive to live, to continue existence. In

this way, the world-will has much more in common with the Freudian life drive or pleasure

principle. Remaining faithful to Freud, 5 the unconscious is completely anti-universal in the

sense that it is comprised of the repressed and instinctual material of the individual i.e., one

cannot generalize the content and manifestations of the unconscious beyond its individual

existence for a single person. One the other hand, the world-will transcends the individual and

operates universally on all human life, thus bridging the gap between the individual and the

social aspect inherent to human life.

This is not to say, however, that the unconscious cannot universally influence the world

or that the will only operates socially. 6 In fact, the two concepts constantly intermingle with

each other, at times emphasizing their similarities and at other times their differences. Such an

illustration underscores the multiple ways to formulate this problem on the grounds of binary

4 A close explication of the Freudian unconscious will follow.5 One can certainly make a counter-argument from a Jungian perspective.6 This point is the reason for Schopenhauers distinction between will and world-will: the world-will is

nothing more than the individual will applied to the world in which he or she exists.


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oppositions. For example, the opposition between knowledge and will, which is inseparable

from the life drive, plays a crucial role in Schopenhauers exposition of the will: [T]he great

attachment to life, or rather the fear of death, by no means springs from knowledge , for in that

case it would be the result of the known value of life, but that the fear of death has its root

directly in the will. (Schopenhauer, World, 2: 498) Schopenhauer sets up an opposition

between knowledge and will, or, for the present purposes, between consciousness and

unconsciousness: knowledge is merely what the individual knows , whereas will is the driving

force behind conscious knowledge to which the individual does not have access. 7 Schopenhauer

implies a primal drive that influences the individuals desire to continue life, which is thenequated to the fear of death. This formulation is in direct opposition with Freudian

psychoanalysis: throughout Freudian theory, one finds ubiquitous assertions that the unconscious

is the seat of the death drive, which motivates the individual toward non-existence. 8 Essentially,

Freud extrapolates Schopenhauers will to its logical conclusion, at least according to

psychoanalysis: for both Freud and Schopenhauer, the human has a primal fear of death, but

Freud elaborates on this point to conclude that the individual possesses a drive toward his or her

own death, which is repressed and appears in consciousness as a fear. The individual does not

fear death per se ; he or she fears the inevitability of death and the necessary split between the

knowledge that one will die and the way in which one assumes and wishes for immortality in

order to keep living.

Schopenhauer thus sets up an opposition between the will and knowledge, or between the

irrational and the rational: [T]he will is originally and in itself without knowledge and blind.

7 Perhaps it would be helpful to cite Lacans distinction between reality and the Real. On a generalreality is what the individualthinks he or she knows, whereas the Real is what the individual is prevented fromknowing; therefore, consciousness always has an illusory quality insofar as an underlying, unknowable realnessconstantly at work.

8 See Freuds Beyond the Pleasure Principle


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Knowledge, on the contrary, far from being the origin of that attachment to life, even opposes it,

since it discloses lifes worthlessness, and in this way combats the fear of death. (Schopenhauer,

World, 2: 466) For Schopenhauer, knowledge is a very dangerous thing. As opposed to Freud

for whom the rational part of the mind, consciousness, despite its illusory nature, protects the

individuals fragile consciousnessSchopenhauer argues, on the other hand, that rational

knowledge is the source of the individuals demise. It is important to remember that the fear of

death and the attachment to life are exactly the same feeling; therefore, fear of death allows one

to live. In other words, it is the will, the irrational nature inherent to the human, that allows him

or her to continue life; rational knowledge is what elucidates the absurdity of life. This assertionis in direct opposition to Freud, who argues that rational consciousness protects the individual

from the destructive irrationality of the unconscious. Insofar as knowledge is analogous to the

conscious, and the will is analogous to the unconscious, both Freud and Schopenhauer are

arguing from a stance of rationality vs. irrationality. They arrive at quite different conclusions,

however, on the question of what drives life: for Freud, it is the defensive function of rationality;

for Schopenhauer, it is the fear of dying evoked by inherent irrationality. Freud emphasizes the

repression of the death drive, which propels the individual toward a state of non-being, as the

impetus to live; Schopenhauer emphasizes the fear of non-being as the motivation to continue

living.

Schopenhauer never quite identifies what exactly motivates life. This identification is

always deferred to vague examples of what the motivation might besuch as what motivates a

plant to grow. Essentially, such a question is almost impossible to answer; philosophy must give

this force an amorphous name such as life drive, pleasure principle, will, or simply the fear

of death. It is this bleak and uncertain outlook on life that leads to the following conclusion:


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Thus, what are a short postponement of death, a small alleviation of need andwant, a deferment of pain, a momentary satisfaction of desire, with the frequentand certain victory of death over them all? Taken as actual causes of movementof the human race, what could such advantages achieve? [] Obviously, all thisis not to be explained, if we look for the moving causes outside the figures, and

conceive the human race as striving, in consequence of a rational reflection or of something analogous thereto (as pulling strings), after the good things which are presented to it and whose attainment would be an adequate reward for its restlessefforts and troubles. If the matter were taken thus, everyone would rather havesaid long ago Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle ,9 and would have passed out.(Schopenhauer, World, 2: 358)

As cited at the beginning of the present essay, the theme of the puppet returns: for Schopenhauer,

the difference between the puppet and the human is subtle at best. Individual thoughts and

behavior are always determined by something other, something that pulls the strings and

dictates the motion, literally and metaphorically, of life. Determinism becomes a puppeteer who

is indifferent to the audience:

[I]t is the blind will appearing as the tendency to life, the love of life, vital energy;it is the same thing that makes the plant grow. This vital energy can be comparedto a rope, stretched above the puppet-show of the world of men, on which the

puppets hang by means of invisible threads, while they are only apparently supported by the ground beneath them (the objective value of life). But if oncethis rope becomes weak, the puppet sinks; if it breaks, the puppet must fall, for theground under it supports it only in appearance. (Schopenhauer, World, 2: 359)

According to this formulation, then, the individual is merely an arbitrary aspect of a performance

over which he or she has no controla performance that is essentially the entire basis of

existence. The individual cannot even be called an agent of the performance, as he or she

assumes an entirely passive position with respect to the performance itself. Given that much of

Freuds theory is based on the ontological and psychical difference between activity and

9 The game is not worth the candle. (footnote in original)


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passivity, 10 one can see how the metaphor of the puppet is integral to Freudian psychoanalysis.

It is no surprise that, having read Schopenhauer, Freud was prompted to seriously consider the

role of what he would later term repression. 11

Repression is defined simply as a withdrawal of energetic cathexis (or of libido , if it is a

question of sexual instincts. (Freud, Repression, 112) Repression functions as a defense in

that it removes cathexis from a threatening object, thus designating that object, or the idea of the

object as threatening, into the realm of the unconscious. More precisely, an idea begins as

unconscious and is only allowed access to consciousnessthat is, in a direct manner 12 if and

only if it passes the censor of the ego: In the first phase the mental act in unconscious and belongs to the system Ucs; if upon the scrutiny of the censorship it is rejected, it is not allowed to

pass into the second phase; it is then said to be repressed and must remain unconscious.

(Freud, The Unconscious, 122) Individual reality, then, is mediated by something other than

itself; there is something that exists apart from reality but asserts a certain amount of control over

reality, dictating what is allowed access and what is barred, and therefore is in relation to it. This

third agent is, perhaps for lack of a better adjective, extimate :13 it is at the same time intrinsically

connected to, and a separate entity from, the reality that it influences. With reference to Freudian

discourse, one can easily indentify the ego as this agential variable between reality and what

really is ; however, one must remember that the ego is structurally bound within its unconscious

10 Activity and passivity are crucial concepts in Freuds analysis of human sexuality. See Three Essaythe Theory of Sexuality.

11 It should be noted that Freud did acknowledge the many similarities between Schopenhauersphilosophy and his own, but he denied any serious influence in his own work. It is very difficult to believehowever, that a well-read thinker such as Freud would have anything less than an active interest inSchopenhauers philosophy, which would certainly influence his own.

12 Unconscious thoughts slip into consciousness without censor in the form of symptoms. The differenis that a symptom presents itself in a veiled, symbolic form, such as a slip, a joke, or a dream.

13 Lacan uses this neologisma combination of the words external and intimateto describe theobjet petit a , which is so much a part of the subject that it is barred from the definition of the subject as such.


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counterpart, the id. The ego is nothing more than the censoring and self-conscious section of the

id, and as such, the ego remains both external and intimate to the individuals real identity.

Before engaging in a closer analysis of the unknown variable that determines individual

reality, it is necessary to further extrapolate the function of the unconscious with respect to the

self-conscious individual. To do so, one must consider the connected disconnect between self-

consciousness and the unconscious, and how this apparent contradiction functions as an

alienation from the world in which the individual exists. One must also consider the third part of

the opposition between subject and objecti.e., the thing that both mediates and determines.

This type of inquiry requires one to seek the origin of consciousness and self-consciousness, andthe difference between the two:

[W]hen in any particular phenomenon a knowing consciousness is added to thatinner being that underlies all phenomena, a consciousness that in its directioninward becomes self-consciousness , then that inner being exhibits itself to thisself-consciousness as that which is so familiar and mysterious, and is denoted bythe word will . (Schopenhauer, World, 2: 318)

Thus, given that the will is wholly irrational, the individual has a relationship to his or her own

consciousness that is grounded on misunderstanding, misrecognition, and repression. Self-

consciousness is so familiar that it becomes foreigni.e., it becomes so close to the real reality

of the subject that he or she has no other choice than to bar it from subjective knowledge. If one

is to remain faithful to the analysis thus far, it is apparent the subject qua subject is not the agent

who bars; the agent is something else, something other , which acts upon the subject, putting it in

a passive position to the familiar and mysterious. One can only seek knowledge of self-

consciousness by referring to the Other, resulting in further alienation from the self.

The relationship, or lack thereof, between the individual and his or her consciousness is

one of confusion and ambiguity; nonetheless, the individual is not only compelled to remain


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alive by some inherent drivethe willhe or she also continues to seek clarity through the vain

pursuit of direct self-consciousness. Throughout this constant striving, the subject is always

repressing the idea that the will, the very same aspect of life that sustains fear of death, is also

that which prevents the subjects complete knowledge of itself. Knowledge of consciousness is

accumulated indirectly and passively:

We can thus only hope to attain our goal by an indirect path. [] Self-consciousness is thus only a special case of the application of consciousness to adefinite object, namely, to the supposed inner cause of mental activity which isdenoted by the name Subject. It is not the active subject itself which becomes inthe act of self-consciousness the content of consciousness or the object of consciousness, but it is only the idea of the subject, regressively inferred by

means of the category of causality from the activity of the subject, that becomesthe object of consciousness. (Hartmann, 2: 78)

According to Hartmanns analysis, self-consciousness is nothing more than a theoretical

application: self-consciousness is merely consciousness attached to the nebulous concept called

the subject. Insofar as consciousness is consciousness of something , self-consciousness is

consciousness inverted on the selfbut not the self in-itself , the self as interpreted by something

other. Again, the subject is alienated from what it really is; it can only refer back to itself

through the filter of the Other. In this way, the Other is the agent that mediates the self-

conscious subject: without reference to the Other, the subject does not exist as such. Rather, the

subject becomes lost in the dilemma of being conscious of something that is not it i.e., it is not

able to refer back to itself, as the mediator is absent, resulting in a state of pseudo-subjectivity

that operates as a blank signified.

In the event that the subject reaches a state that resembles self-consciousness, it is clear

that achievement of this state is dependent on the idea of the state; therefore, the idea of self-


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consciousness is also caught within the bounds of illusory reality. Essentially, the prevention of

direct self-consciousness operates in a similar manner as repression:

[I]t may happen that an affect or an emotion is perceived, but misconstrued. By

the repression of its proper presentation it is forced to become connected withanother idea, and is now interpreted by consciousness as the expression of thisother idea. If we restore the true connection, we call the original affectunconscious, although the affect was never unconscious but its ideational

presentation had undergone repression. (Freud, Unconscious, 126)

Through the ideational component of consciousness, which restricts its content to a

representation of the real psychical content, repression is able to act in a secondary rather than

primary manner. In other words, Freud formulates repression as an act that censors anunconscious thought before it reaches conscious awareness; the thought cannot become

conscious unless it passes this censorship. Now, with the introduction of the representation,

which is set in opposition to the thought itself, repression functions in the reverse: an idea of the

repressed thought can make its way into consciousness and, if found particularly threatening,

succumb to the egos repressive force. If one seeks self-consciousness through an indirect route,

then it is possible, at least according to Freud, for the representation of self-consciousness to be

repressed. This conclusion, however, introduces a major problem to Freudian theory insofar as it

implies a regression of the most extreme variety. If self-consciousness were to be repressed, the

individual would essentially return to a state of oneness with the worldi.e., the infantile state,

in which there is no distinction between self and Other. Instead of regressing to such an extreme,

the ego forms a substitute.

A substitute-formation essentially performs what its name implies: it forms a conscious

substitute for an unconscious thought. The substitute is connected with the unconscious but not

in such as way that disturbs the ego; it is a symbolic replacement, a way to release unconscious


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tension without causing trauma. As a substitute, however, it is never mutually exclusive from

the original unconscious thought; therefore, potential always exists for the substitute to become

too real, thus motivating the ego to take a defensive stance. The result of the extimate nature of

the substitute is a very fine distinction between what is conscious and what is unconsciousfor

the only actual difference between the two is the extent of cathexis (Freud). Thus, the ego

remains obsessively alert:

The further the sensitive and vigilant anti-cathexis becomes extended round thesubstitute which is feared, the more exactly can the mechanism function which isdesigned to isolate the substitutive idea and to protect it from fresh excitation.

Naturally these precautions guard only against excitations approaching the

substitutive idea from without through perception, never against instinctualexcitation which encounters the substitutive idea from the direction of itsconnection with the repressed idea. So they begin to operate only when thesubstitute has successfully taken over representation of what has been repressed,and they can never operate with complete security. (Freud, Unconscious, 132)

There is a certain extent of libidinal plasticity implied here: libido is constantly flowing,

cathecting and de-cathecting according to the level of threat, and therefore can never reach a

state of rest or homeostasis. A substitute is more threatening than a representation due to its

proximity to the real thought. Representations operate on a metonymic level, diverting libido

away from the thought but still decreasing unconscious tension, whereas substitutes work

metaphorically, representing the thought while maintaining a direct libidinal connection with it.

The reciprocity between libido and thought/substitute 14 is evidentnot only the reciprocal nature

involved in the dependence on each other, but also that, to a certain extent, libido is determined

by thought/substitute and vice versa. In other words, libido reacts to the threatening power of the

thought/substitute by retracting or implementing cathexis, thus forcing the thought to remain out

14 Thought/substitute represents the distinction between cognitive processes that are conscious(substitutes) and unconscious (thoughts). That is not to say that all conscious thoughts are substitutes forunconscious content; but within this context, they are treated as such.


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of conscious bounds or within consciousness in a less threatening state. Similarly, libidinal

investment determines whether thought is unconscious or conscious. This relationship is

ambiguous, as it is not clear which agent is the dominant one: thought/substitute or libido.

The opposition set up here is essentially between drive and representation. In a similar

manner to Schopenhauers conception of the will, libido attempts to externalize itself within the

world in its pure form; however, due to the censoring function of the ego, libido ultimately fails,

and the result of this libidinal attempt is a secondary representation or substitute. The

formulation becomes circular: representation and substitution are determined by libidinal

cathexis, libidinal cathexis is determined by the censorship of the ego, censorship of the ego isdetermined by the extent of threat that the object posesbut one must remember that the

threatening nature of an object and/or thought is a perceived threati.e., the representation of a

threatand thus, the origin of determination is something that the subject cannot know. The

first step in the circle of determination, the potential resolution of the dialectical opposition, falls

into the gaps left by the steps in the circle.

A similar operation is in effect during the acquisition of self-consciousnessthat is, the

fundamental distinction between consciousness of some other thing versus consciousness of the

subjective thing , the self. The two categories seem to be mutually exclusive:

All belief in an immediate self-apprehension of the Ego in the act of self-consciousness depends on the same self-delusion as the nave realistic belief inthe immediate conscious apprehension of the thing in itself that existsindependently of consciousness. Consciousness as such is, consequently,according to its own notion, free from conscious reference to the subject, in that inand for itself it refers only to the object (i.e. , not to the external correlate of theobject of ideation or the thing in itself, but merely to the represented object whichresults from the ideational process, and presents itself as content of consciousness), and only becomes self-consciousness by the idea of the subject

becoming accidently object to it. (Hartmann, 2: 79)


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Hartmann provides a pseudo-Freudian formulation of self-consciousness that is nothing more

than consciousness turned in on the self; it is consciousness that, instead of cathecting to objects

in the world, 15 merely happens to take the self as its object. The presentation of self-

consciousness as consciousness introjected on the self is sound; however, it is problematic to

situate this occurrence as an accident, as there essentially are no accidents in Freudian discourse.

There is an underlying reason for everything, be it conscious or unconscious. Within Freudian

psychoanalysis, the act of becoming self-conscious must serve some kind of purpose: whether or

not the individual is aware of the purpose or impetus toward action is irrelevant. Self-conscious

is a means toward establishing oneself as an acting agent in the world. Through self-consciousness, one becomes separated from the world in which he or she exists, thus enabling

the individual to act upon the world as an separate agent. Self-consciousness, then, is a means by

which the individual defends against passivity.

At the same time, according to Hartmann, self-consciousness is essentially an illusion:

one cannot experience self-consciousness as such, given that the act itself implies forcing the self

to assume the role of an object. Thus, insofar as self equates to object qua object of

consciousness, self is no longer subject; essentially, self ceases to exist. Self-consciousness

becomes a sort of self-nihilating act, in which the individual negates his or her subjectivity

through the very act of becoming a subject. This certainly cannot be the case for Freudian

discourse. It is more advantageous to interpret Hartmanns analysis, which is based on his

reading of both Freud and Schopenhauer, as an alternate, perhaps more extreme, way of

interpreting the illusory nature of self-consciousness. One must emphasize the notion that the

subject is only aware of the representation of self-consciousness, not self-consciousness in itself.

15 This assertion, of course, assumes that self and world are distinct entities. Psychoanalysis posits ththe mature individual is separate from the world but still maintains an intimate relationship with it.


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As such, self-consciousnessan aspect of reality commonly thought of as a primal, basic part of

individualityis determined much in the same way as any other aspect of human consciousness:

determined, illusory, and biased.

One even finds evidence in Freudian theory for the notion that consciousness is

determined by the converse of what really is i.e., consciousness is a negation, the binary

opposite of its determined influence. The egowhich for Freud, serves as the functional seat of

self-consciousnessis comprised wholly of thoughts that oppose their unconscious counterparts:

The truth is that it is not only what is repressed that remains alien to consciousness, but also

some of the impulses which dominate our ego16

and which therefore form the strongestfunctional antithesis to what is repressed. (Freud, Unconscious, 139) The subtle irony is that

Freud makes an assertion concerning the nature of consciousness, which claims that

consciousness, particularly self-consciousness, is influenced by something outside itself, that it is

essentially a product the unconscious manufactures as a defense. The conscious mind is an agent

of its own defense. The irony is that Freud makes this claim while acknowledging its own

potential status as a negation. There is a significant disjunction between consciousness of

oneself and consciousness of something other, as indicated by Freuds tacit implication that

thoughts concerning others are less biased than thoughts directed toward the self. Any given

thought is potentially a negation of the real, unconscious thought; therefore, it is possible to

interpret any aspect of consciousness as determined toward its opposite form by an extimate

agent.

16 It is important to remember that Freud distinguishes between consciousness and the ego. The egobelongs to the system consciousness, but parts of it do remain unconscious. Footnote added.


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For Freudian psychoanalysis, negation is much more significant than the mere act of

creating a negative counter-statement. 17 Negation serves as a linguistic reaction to repressed

material and a means of incorporating that material into consciousness:

Negation is a way of taking account of what is repressed; indeed, it is actually aremoval of repression, though not, of course, an acceptance of what is repressed.[] Negation only assists in undoing one of the consequences of repression namely, the fact that the subject-matter of the image in question is unable to enter consciousness. The result is a kind of intellectual acceptance of what is repressed,though in all essentials the repression persists. (Freud, Negation, 214)

Negation points to the opposition between the unconscious and realityor perhaps between will

and representationin that the consciousness of self and others is potentially the negation of something akin to unconscious narcissism. 18 In other words, the logic of negation allows for the

interpretation that the unconscious exists wholly in-itself and for-itself; therefore, the

consciousness of something outside the unconscious, or something that works to counter the

unconsciouse.g., system consciousnessis nothing more than a representation in negated

form. The ontological implications of such an interpretation are vast: a problem arises

concerning the extent to which one can think and speak of the unconscious, and how negation, as

an acceptance of the repressed, influences this discourse. The authenticity of reality as such

becomes grounded on a very unstable base, which ultimately results in a further ambiguity

concerning the categories of subject and object, and the extent to which these oppositions are

able to act freely.

17 The common, almost clich example of negation is Freuds example of an analysand who stated, Ia dream last night about a woman. I dont know who the woman was, but I am certain it wasnot my mother.The point is that the man was, in fact, dreaming about his mother, and the dream included some form ofunacceptable desire directed toward her, resulting in repression.

18 Unconscious narcissism is a bit of a contradiction in terms insofar as narcissism is an ego functiowhich libido is inverted onto the ego and the individual takes him- or herself as a love object. The term ishere, however, to display the nature of the unconscious in this formulation as an entity that is only cognizantitself.


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Freedom of the will, unconscious, and subject is in no way dependent on the individual.

With respect to these terms, freedom acts in a manner that is both removed from the psychic

entities on which it ostensibly actse.g., will, unconscious, and subjectas well as removed

from freedom itself. Freedom is an aspect of the world: it acts objectively on the individual,

forcing him or her into the contradictory position of a free, acting agent who is determined by the

same freedom that allows action. Such determination has its origin in the Other: [T]he

determination required for the willing is not contained in it, because the self-consciousness

contains only the willing but not the grounds which determine the willing; the latter are found in

the consciousness of other things. (Schopenhauer, Freedom, 18) The extent to which theindividual acts according to his or her conscious volition, therefore, is dependent on

consciousness on things other than him- or herself; freedom is an illusion created by the idea that

an individual is a free agent independent of the Other. Freedom is not located within the subject,

as subjectivity does not necessarily imply independence insofar as motivation is sufficient cause

to act.

Action is only the result of the inconceivable combination of motivation, existence of

counter-motivation, influence of the Other, desire of the will, and unconscious desire. Due to the

inconceivability of its result, freedom is a concept that turns out to be negative. It signifies

merely the absence of any hindrance and restraint. But this restraint, as it manifests power, must

be positive. (Schopenhauer, Freedom, 3) Thus, the subject is only free to act insofar as the

action is within the acceptable bounds of the world. In this way, the Other censors unconscious

content and desire in much the same way as the ego. If consciousness is the consciousness of

other things , and these things exert a certain amount of preventative control over the freedom of

the will, then these other things influence both self-consciousness and subjectivitytwo aspects


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of the self as separate from the worldwith regard to an individual sense of freedom. In an

ostensibly paradoxical shift, self-consciousness is not only dependent on the Other but also on

the extent of hindrance the Other exerts on the individual.

Such a formulation places freedom and self-consciousness completely outside individual

control: the individual is wholly dependent on the Other and is subject to its direction. One must

question the extent of agency allowed to the individual and whether he or she is able to

consciously will certain actions. The conceptualization of freedom regarding the will points to

an ambiguity in the relationship: [F]ree means in accordance with ones own will.

Consequently, to ask whether the will itself is free, is to ask whether the will is in accordancewith itself. (Schopenhauer, Freedom, 6) Questioning the freedom of the will, then, is

counterintuitive: the two terms are synonymous. It is necessary, however, to elucidate the

problem of will as an aspect of the individual but also as dependent on the Other. Insofar as the

will is defined by pure freedom, it is also defined within the bounds of the Other; therefore, a

separation exists between the subject and his or her will, as it is impossible to establish a direct

connection between the concept of freedomin its original, empirical meaning derived from

actionand the concept of willing. (ibid) Freedom signifies something different from willing

in that freedom implies subjective agency, whereas willing is both the origin of freedom and the

influence that oxymoronically determines freedom . Willing removes the agency from the

subject: it is free by definition but not free in the sense that the subject is able to influence it.

Action only occurs if it is in accordance with the will, and thus, the will, as it is free in itself,

determines the individuals action from within and from without.

One can conclude from the preceding analysis that all aspects of psychic life are

determined, which then determine the individuals behavior. The exact causal influence that


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serves as the beginning link in the chain of determinism, however, is much more difficult to

discern. This ambiguity results in an insufficient definition of what it means to be self-

conscious. Freud and Schopenhauer present conflicting ideas concerning the nature of

rationality and irrationality in the conscious self. For Freud, the rational mind serves to defend

the individual from reaching a real state of consciousness, in which he or she is able to become

cognizant of a true ontological state, free from the protection of ego defenses, whereas for

Schopenhauer, the rational mind leads one to think logically about the world, thus revealing its

utter absurdity. Self-consciousness always exists in an alienated, indirect manner insofar as it is

determined by something other than the subject. One is unable, then, to form any kind of stablerelationship to the self; whether self-consciousness is related to the rational or irrational mind is

irrelevant in that the individual is always prevented from determining a true existence.

It is evident that both Freuds and Schopenhauers philosophies indicate a certain

existential conundrum: the individual is trapped in a state somewhere between acceptable

knowledge and barred knowledge. Consciousness only exists as it is allowed to exist. Freud

attempts to solve this problem through the work of analysis, which essentially seeks to decrease

the psychical impact of the gap between the known and unknown. The analyst attempts to evoke

relief through language, to bring the analysand to a point at which he or she is able to represent

neurosis linguistically, thus leading to a relief of symptoms. Schopenhauers cursory solution is

based on representationthe individual is aware of part of his or her will in the form of its

conscious representation. Much like the Freudian notion of consciousness, representation allows

for an indirect experience of the subjects real nature. Subjectivity and self-consciousness,

therefore, are mediated by an extimate agent; the individual exists in a completely passive


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position to the potentiality for self-knowledge. There is something else at work in the binary

oppositions of consciousness/unconsciousness and will/representation: a third variable.

It is the third variable that exists in the gap between these binaries; the third variable

mediates, determines, and essentially asserts power over individual potential to acquire

subjective knowledge of the self. As opposed to establishing a direct epistemological link, the

subject is always forced to look outside him- or herself to gain knowledge and self-

consciousness, resulting in an alienated, indirect connection between the subject and his or her

psychic existence. In a sense, the third variable is not an identifiable entity insofar as one can

point to some discrete object as the mediator or the determiner. The third variable is just that: avariable. It is an influence, a force that acts upon objects in a clandestine manner, thus sustaining

its own ambiguity; consequently, it remains indiscernible in any kind of concrete sense. Much

like Schopenhauers will and Freuds unconscious, one can only conceive of the third variable

indirectlyi.e., one can produce knowledge about the third variable, but one is unable to

successfully identify it as such. The individual is not only alienated from self-consciousness, the

will, and the unconscious, but he or she is also alienated, perhaps even more so, from the

variable that mediates and determines these factors.


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Works Cited

Freud, Sigmund. General Psychological Theory. Repression. Ed. Philip Rieff. New York:

Collier, 1972. Pages 104-115.

---The Unconscious. Ed. Philip Rieff. New York: Collier, 1972. Pages 116-150.

---Negation. Ed. Philip Rieff. New York: Collier, 1972. Pages 213-217.

Gardner, Sebastian. Schopenhauer, Will, and the Unconscious. Cambridge Companion to

Schopenhauer. Ed. Christopher Janaway. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. 375-421.

von Hartmann, Eduard. Philosophy of the Unconscious. Trans. William Coupland. 3 vols. NewYork: Harcourt, 1931.

Schopenhauer, Arthur. The World as Will and Representation. Trans. E. F. J. Payne. 2 vols. New

York: Dover, 1966.

--- On the Freedom of the Will. Trans. Konstantin Kolenda. New York: Basil Blackwell, 1985.

Determining the Third- Reflections on Freud, Schopenhauer And the Unspoken Variable

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