Freud-Negation Discussion Notes PDF

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Freud-Negation Discussion Notes...

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Negation Freud, Ricoeur, Hyppolite Freud on Negation 1. Provide more examples of denials in politics, literature, and everyday life a. “No offense, but…” b. “I don’t care…it doesn’t matter…” c. Omnipresence of negation as denial to deal with conflicting situations 2. Provide more examples of everyday life about Freud’s claim that we have the two impulse of seeing something and wanting the throw it out or to want to eat it a. When you see someone you know, but you have to decide whether to say “hi” or not b. We have two dimensions – impulses and rational description of using impulses 3. Elaborate on the similarity and difference of the two negations: no and not. Examine the role of aggression a. Similarities – both are forms of negation b. Differences – “no” is a response to a question; can stand by itself. “Not” depends on others/sentence i. “Not” cannot be used unless it’s in a sentence. Content related. Intellectual ii. “No” always includes aggression; is a response to someone 1. Difficult to say “no” to those you love, because you don’t want to introduce aggression with people you know 4. Discuss the reasons why Hyppolite and Ricoeur want to translate Freud’s article on “Verneinug” by either Négation or Dénegation. a. Hyppolite and Ricoeur both translate how we deal with unconscious i. Something is revealed while it is negated b. Ricouer – asks “how is it that death instinct that wants to reject something is satisfied by linguistic expression of “no”” How can “no” replace real aggression? i. Ricour (pg315): “with the help of the symbol of negation, thinking frees itself from the restrictions of repression and enriches itself with material that is indispensible for its proper functioning. Thus a “negative judgment is the intellectual substitute for repression” c. Hyppolite – denegation i. Once we negate what we’ve already negated, we feel the repression ii. Connects it with Hegelian idea. 1. You say that something is not the case, but it is the case. How can you deal with that? a. By a synthesis in which you negate your own negation 5. Discuss the epistemological discussion of Freud’s article by Hyppolite a. Hyppolite argues that in negation, we first present ourselves as what we are not [you are lazy and the only way you can accept that is by saying I am not lazy.] i. But in doing so, you introduce the correct description of your character. You draw attention to the fact of laziness. And everybody who listens understands. b. So that is the epistemological puzzle that we are only capable of describing ourselves in our negative ways by a negation. i. What we like, we are able to say. What we do not like, we can only say in the form of a negation 6. Discuss the metaphysical discussion by Ricoeur of Freud’s article a. Psychotic people who have both an impulse to reject and an impulse to take in i. The impulse to take in is the ability to love what you see ii. The expulsion is the ability to have aggression or refuse what you do not want b. In psychotic people, the ability to love is diminished so much that the impulse to reject dominates i. In the use of language, where they deny everything they are asked c. More generally, Ricouer connects the “no”-saying more than the “not”-saying to the impulse to reject d. And he asks, “how come the linguistic of “no” is a satisfactory explanation of our rejection” i. What we do not want and have to accept, we describe in the form of a “not”-negation e. He says that “no” and “not” have totally different uses/meanings Background  Freud started dealing with mentally ill in 1880s. the article on negation was a philosophical account of his interactions with mentally ill people  The conclusion that applies to all of us: just as mentally ill people, we have a dual dimension in ourselves, we have impulses and we have rational considerations o Freud argues that these two, mainly our impulses and rational self-conception, are not the same o Hence, a conflict emerges and language provides instruments to work with that conflict and to say “I am not lazy” is a way to deal with the double dimension that we are in ourselves...