Reading note: Freud’s “The ego and the id” — Chapter 1

The main theme in Chapter one would be the distinction between what is consciousness and unconsciousness. Unlike traditional philosopher, what Freud wants to state the difference between psychoanalysis and philosophy is that philosopher situated the buildup on the Cartesian subject, a reflective ego as the ground of science, while according to Freud “psychoanalysis cannot situate the essence of the psychical in consciousness”.[1]

He thinks that why modern philosophers confined in the consciousness rather than discovery the truth in unconscious due to the lack of studying the relevant phenomena of hypnosis and dreams. “Being conscious” for him is not something immediate but very transitory.[2]

But why there are some of the ideas that human have experienced before, he is not aware of at present? Freud would say that it is the function of mental dynamics, something repressed onto the layer of unconsciousness. Therefore, the duty of “psychoanalytic theory steps in and asserts that the reason why such ideas cannot become conscious is that a certain force opposes them, then otherwise they could become conscious.”[3]

There are two kinds of unconsciousness to be precise: 1. Preconscious: a kind of mental realm that is latent but capable of becoming conscious. 2. Unconscious: the repressed and which is not, in itself and without more ado, capable of becoming conscious. However, there are two kinds of the unconscious as he mentioned, but Freud still wants to emphasize that there is only one unconscious in a dynamic sense.[4]

For Freud, each individual has a coherent organization of mental process, that is what he called ego. When subject interacts with the external world, the excitation from the outside world, the ego would supervise all its own constituent process. It could be said that ego is a so-called organized self and the agency to interact with the external world.[5]

[1] Freud, The Ego and the Id, translated by Joan Riviere, page. 3

[2] Freud, The Ego and the Id, translated by Joan Riviere, page. 4

[3] Freud, The Ego and the Id, translated by Joan Riviere, page. 5

[4] Freud, The Ego and the Id, translated by Joan Riviere, page. 6

[5] Freud, The Ego and the Id, translated by Joan Riviere, page. 8