I'm reviewing materials in preparation for an ENSO (Enactive Seminars Online) session on 3/3/16. This is one of the most important sections of The Freudian Wish (Holt, 1915). Something well worth meditating upon:
Let us consider, then, the higher forms of behavior, in human
beings, and the question of consciousness and thought.
If one sees a man enter a railway station, purchase a ticket,
and then pass out and climb on to a train,
one feels that it is clear enough what the man is doing, but it would be far
more interesting to know what he is thinking. One sees clearly that he is
taking a train, but one cannot see his thoughts or his intentions and these
contain the 'secret' of his actions. And thus we come to say that the conscious
or subjective is a peculiar realm, private to the individual, and open only to
his introspection. It is apart from the world of objective fact. Suppose, now,
one were to apply the same line of reasoning to an event of inanimate nature.
At dawn the sun rises above the eastern ridge of hills. This is the plain fact,
and it is not of itself too interesting. But what is the ‘secret’ behind such
an occurrence? "Why this is, as
everybody knows, that the sun is the god Helios who every morning drives his
chariot up out of the East, and he has some magnificent purpose in mind. We cannot
tell just what it is because his thoughts and purposes are subjective and not
open to our observation. We suspect, however, that he is paying court to Ceres,
and so cheers on by his presence the growing crops."
