Donald Davidson

the rational unconscious

pp. 156-158

in: David L. Smith, Freud's philosophy of the unconscious, Berlin, Springer, 1999

Abstract

I have shown, in earlier chapters, that Freud's theory of occurrent unconscious mental events was confronted by two rival theories: the neuro-physiological dispositionalist account and the dissociationist thesis. In the preceding two chapters, I have shown how John Searle revived a sophisticated version of the dispositionalist account which, however, remains vulnerable to Freudian criticism. In the present and succeeding chapters, I will argue that Donald Davidson has revived a version of the dissociationist approach. Unlike Searle, who rightly treats his thesis as a rival to that of Freud, Davidson offers his as a philosophical underpinning for Freud's work, apparently unaware that the two versions of mental architecture are deeply incompatible. Unlike Searle, whose argument, as we have seen, is strongly reminiscent of those advanced in the last century, Davidson gives dissociationism a distinctive twist.