Psychoanalysing Philosophy
This article has been inspired by a recent one by Paul Austin Murphy. In it he discusses the idea of hidden or ulterior motives in philosophers. I’m very interested in this topic, because it’s important to understand what might lead anyone, not just philosophers, to adopt a certain worldview, or for that matter any kind of viewpoint or attitude. I believe that we are all, at some level, philosophers; everyone has a worldview, even if we don’t think it through systematically to the same extent that philosophers do.
Murphy distinguishes between those ulterior motives which philosophers are well aware of but which they might deny if challenged, and hidden motives which are uncovered by others, for example by psychologists. He is therefore distinguishing between conscious and unconscious motivations. He says that “all this depends on how complex we take the mind to be and whether or not it can work on different semi-independent levels. (It’s not necessary to believe in a Freudian unconscious — or any equivalent — here)”.
I don’t know how complex he believes the mind to be, but I believe that it is extremely complex, that it can work on many levels, and that we should always take into consideration the possibility of powerful unconscious factors. I think that actually it is necessary and helpful to think in terms of a Freudian or Jungian unconscious, for in the language of psychology examples of unconscious factors which might be at work at any given moment are: repression, projection, denial, illusion, displacement, rationalisation, self-deception.
Murphy says that philosophers might have no idea how the unconscious can determine their philosophical views, and therefore does not criticise them: “If we’re talking about truly subliminal motives, then it’s clearly not worth criticising the philosopher concerned because a philosopher can’t be culpable for something he doesn’t know about”.
That is obviously true at a surface level. However, the whole point of philosophy is to get to the deep truth of issues, and philosophers have been trained to think systematically, clearly and logically. You would think, therefore, that if anyone were capable of examining their own thinking for unconscious factors and flaws, then it would be philosophers. Is it not reasonable to criticise them if they fail to do this?
On this theme, Murphy discusses Philip Goff and his preferred philosophy panpsychism. He quotes him talking about some philosophers “believing what they want to believe”; “when we’re doing science or doing philosophy, then we should certainly be thinking about not which view we’d like to be true; but which view is most likely to be true”. He is referring here to materialists who reject panpsychism simply because they don’t like the idea — they don’t want it to be true — and therefore believe what they want to believe. It would be interesting to know how conscious such a process is. I suspect that it is to some extent unconscious, that materialists have an emotional reaction to anything which contradicts their underlying preconceptions, which then manifests itself as a logical argument.
Materialism is a very interesting philosophy in the context of unconscious motivations. It is driven by, and is the logical conclusion of atheism, and in the modern world is extremely influential. It stands behind and drives other worldviews: Existentialism, scientific philosophies like neo-Darwinism and Behaviourism, and political philosophies like Marxism and Communism. Yet it is hard to believe, as Goff suggests, that anyone could want materialism to be true.
Many modern materialist philosophers, and scientists posing as philosophers, describe the universe as meaningless, purposeless, pitilessly indifferent, and so on. Nobody, unless they are extremely masochistic, could possibly want this to be the case; everyone would surely be happier if the universe were not indifferent, were actually caring, and if our lives were rich with meaning. There must therefore be other factors lying behind such statements. It is not hard to work out what these are. Philosophers and others make such statements because they presume that materialism is true, that the universe is nothing more than the interactions of particles obeying the laws of nature, that all this came into being through some kind of cosmic accident, that there is no God nor supernatural forces standing behind all this.
It would therefore be reasonable to ask philosophers and scientists, before they make such statements, to demonstrate the truth of materialism, their underlying preconception. Of course they would find that very difficult; evidence suggests otherwise, although sceptical materialists always find ways to dismiss this evidence. Murphy quotes Goff as saying that “materialism is dismal”. He says that this is not a proper philosophical comment, which may be so, but it is probably true nevertheless. I am also currently dipping into a very interesting book called Materialism is Baloney by Bernardo Kastrup, probably an intentionally provocative title, one not suitable for a proper philosophical book in Murphy’s eyes. Kastrup’s arguments are nevertheless compelling and well thought out. If he and Goff are correct, as I believe they are, then much modern philosophy is based upon an illusion, the illusion of materialism.
Do philosophers seriously analyse themselves in order to understand why they believe the things they do? Or do they, like so many other people, accept uncritically any thoughts which appear in their conscious minds? That is the whole point of psychoanalytic therapy, to make conscious hidden unconscious factors and motivations, with a view to resolving psychological problems. By analogy, is it also possible to consider some worldviews as psychological problems which need resolving? If some worldviews are illusions, and if believing in an illusion is a psychological problem, then I think it would be useful to consider them in this way.
When formulating a philosophy or worldview, it is best to start with one based on evidence and actual experience, not one that is merely appealing for whatever unconscious reason. Then one’s mind should ideally be a clean sheet without hidden assumptions, a tabula rasa. This is obviously very difficult, but it is at least something to aspire to.
One should be aware that there may be unconscious motivations for one’s thoughts, and be willing to seek them out. The Transpersonal Psychology Psychosynthesis has as part of a mantra, “I have a mind, but I am not my mind”, and encourages students to disidentify from their thoughts. In the same way, Buddhism instructs students to separate themselves from and examine their own thoughts, and not to accept them uncritically. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if such a basic training in self-analysis were part of all education systems?
With that in mind, in the next article I’ll offer some of my own thoughts, from a psychoanalytical perspective, on some of the better known philosophies.
I hope you have enjoyed this article. I have written in the past about other topics, including spirituality, metaphysics, psychology, science, Christianity, politics and astrology. All these articles are on Medium, but the simplest way to see a guide to them is to visit my website (click here and here).
