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Obscurity and Involvement on the Unconscious of Thought in Leibniz, Spinoza, and Hume

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Obscurity and Involvement on the Unconscious of Thought in Leibniz, Spinoza, and Hume DePaul University Via Sapientiae College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences 7-2019 Obscurity and involvement on the unconscious of thought in Leibniz, Spinoza, and Hume Gilbert Morejon DePaul University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/etd Recommended Citation Morejon, Gilbert, "Obscurity and involvement on the unconscious of thought in Leibniz, Spinoza, and Hume" (2019). College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations. 268. https://via.library.depaul.edu/etd/268 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at Via Sapientiae. It has been accepted for inclusion in College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Via Sapientiae. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Obscurity and Involvement On the Unconscious of Thought in Leibniz, Spinoza, and Hume A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy February, 2019 By Gil Morejón Department of Philosophy College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences DePaul University Chicago, Illinois Contents Contents ii Acknowledgments iv Abbreviations v Introduction 1 1. Philosophy, Genealogy, Symptomatology 4 2. The Unconscious of Thought 11 3. Involuntary Freedom 19 4. Empiricism and Materialist Epistemology 25 5. Outline of the Project 31 Chapter 1. The Obscure Dust of the World 37 The Unconscious of Perception in Leibniz 1. Conscious Thought and its Limits 39 2. Imperceptible Perceptions 44 3. Inclination and Determination 55 4. The Metaphysics of Interaction and the Problem of Bodies 70 5. Infinitesimal Agency 81 Chapter 2. Inevitable and Persistent Inadequacies 85 The Unconscious of Ideas in Spinoza 1. From Clarity and Distinctness to Inadequacy 90 2. Inadequate Knowledge: Partial and Abstract Ideas 100 3. Adequate Knowledge: Causes and Actuality 115 4. Understanding and Power 125 5. The Persistence of the Inadequate 135 Chapter 3. Deteriora Sequor 143 The Unconscious of Desire in Spinoza 1. Spinozist Desire and the Critique of Voluntarism 146 2. The Identity of Intellect and Volition 155 3. In Defense of the Identity (Ethics II P49 Scholium) 163 4. The Unconscious of Desire 174 ii Chapter 4. Passages of the Mind 182 The Unconscious of Habit in Hume 1. Ideal Relations and Association 185 2. Secret Powers: Hume’s Critiques of Causation 194 3. Belief, Habit, Synthesis 213 4. The Problem of Correction 223 Conclusion: Obscurity and Involvement 230 Works Cited 238 iii Acknowledgments Every work is a collaborative project; it feels wrong, in a way, to put only my name at the top of this document. I can only hope to do justice to the many people who have influenced me and shaped this project during its development. I owe a debt of gratitude first to Rick Lee, my dissertation director, as well as to the other members of my dissertation committee here at DePaul University, Peg Birmingham and María Acosta. Their continual support and critical feedback was absolutely crucial throughout this process. They are not alone among the faculty of the department of philosophy at DePaul who made this work possible. I am also very grateful to Hasana Sharp, my outside reader. I tell everyone who will listen that the best part about being a student of philosophy at DePaul is the graduate student body, from whom I have learned so much during my time here. Let me name just a few of the most important people in this regard: Vilde Lid Aavitsland, Owen Glyn-Williams, Michael Peterson, Jacob Singer, William Meyrowitz, Ashley Bohrer, James Murphy, Daniel Pepe, Jeta Mulaj, and David Maruzzella. I am extremely fortunate to be able to name my family as a constant source of love and support. I thank my parents, Gil and Julie, but also Jason, my brother, and Andrea, my sister. I am sorry that I have not named everyone. For that, along with any errors that may be found below, the responsibility is entirely mine. iv Abbreviations Complete bibliographic information for all texts is available in the works cited at the end of this dissertation. For abbreviated citations I provide the following. First an internal reference, with increasing specificity based on the text’s own divisions; then the source of the English quotation, if different from the first; then a citation for the critical edition of the source text, if different from the preceding. I. Abbreviations for Texts AT Descartes, Oeuvres, eds. Adam and Tannery. CPR Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der Reinen Vernunft). CSM Descartes, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, eds. Cottingham, Stoothoff, and Murdoch. CWS Spinoza, Collected Writings of Spinoza, ed. Curley. DM Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics (Discours de métaphysique). DNR Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. E Spinoza, Ethics (Ethica). (See internal reference conventions for this text below.) EHU Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. G Spinoza, Opera, ed. Gebhardt. L Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters, ed. Loemker. LEHU Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. LPS Leibniz, Philosophische Schriften. M Leibniz, Monadology (La Monadologie). MFP Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy (Meditationes de Prima Philosophia). MOR Descartes, Objections and Replies to the Meditations on First Philosophy. NE Leibniz, New Essays on Human Understanding (Nouveaux Essais sur l’entendement humaine). NS Leibniz, New System of the Nature and the Communication of Substances (Système nouveau de la nature et de la communication des substances). PP Descartes, The Principles of Philosophy (Principia Philosophiae). v PNG Leibniz, Principles of Nature and Grace (Principes de la nature et de la grâce fondés en raison). PS Descartes, The Passions of the Soul (Les passions de l’âme). SAT Malebranche, The Search After Truth (De la recherche de la vérité). T Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature. TdIE Spinoza, Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect (Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione). TH Leibniz, Theodicy (Essais de Théodicée). TP Spinoza, Political Treatise (Tractatus Politicus). TTP Spinoza, Theologico-Political Treatise (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus). II. Reference Conventions for Spinoza’s Ethics Roman numeral Part number A Axiom App. Appendix cor. Corollary Cap. Chapter D Definition DA Definitions of the Affects dem. Demonstration exp. Explanation GDA General Definition of the Affects L Lemma P Proposition Post. Postulate Pref. Preface s Scholium vi Introduction This project seeks to retrieve and defend a simple idea: thought and consciousness are not coextensive. It is a project of retrieval, since the idea that thought and consciousness are identical is a relatively recent invention, a piece of modern doxa or ideology. But I want to put this nonidentity in a positive form, that is: there is an unconscious of thought. I will defend this positive claim by exploring the unconscious of thought as it is articulated in the metaphysics of ideas of early modernity, and in particular in the work of G.W.F. Leibniz, Benedict de Spinoza, and David Hume. These thinkers, I will strive to show, were highly sensitive to profound dimensions of unconscious thought, a domain that is not just unconscious accidentally, in the sense that there are ideas of which I may happen not to be conscious, but unconscious structurally, essentially, or necessarily, in the sense that there are elements of thought of which I am constitutively incapable of becoming directly conscious. Stronger still, these unconscious elements constitute conditions for the possibility of consciousness at all: without them, there could not even be consciousness. I argue not only that there is an unconscious of thought, but that we must actively work toward a devaluation of consciousness. To the extent that philosophical modernity effects an elevation of consciousness at the expense of the unconscious of thought, this project might even be called reactionary. It is a project of retrieval, then, but also a project of invention or rereading, since the positive terms in which I am putting this claim were not available as such to the thinkers in question. None of them said explicitly that there is an unconscious of thought. My task is to demonstrate that they nevertheless held this position. To do this I will undertake close readings of certain specific aspects of their philosophical works. In a sense, these readings should be able 1 to stand alone, but by threading them together I try to show that they all point toward and clarify a robust concept of the unconscious of thought. In this introduction I attempt to do three things. First of all, I try simply to get the concept of the unconscious of thought on the table, which involves sketching out what is involved in the concept itself as well as giving the reader a sense for the motivating stakes of the project. As I see it, the problem that gives the concept of the unconscious of thought its clearest stakes is the problem of akrasia, or akratic desire, that is, how it is possible to ‘see the better but do the worse’. Why do we persist in wanting what we know is bad for us? I hold that ‘voluntarist’ paradigms in which one’s actions follow from, and are thus fully explicable in terms of, conscious decisions or volitions are incapable of giving a satisfying account of this possibility. By contrast, I think a much better account of akratic desires and behaviors can be given on the basis of a conception of the mind and ideas that accords the unconscious dimension of thought its proper place, in which one’s actions are significantly determined by unconscious elements of thought rather than by conscious, voluntary decisions. For this reason, I will sometimes speak of an ‘involuntarism’ common to the three major figures treated.1 As for the concept of the unconscious of thought itself, it can only be sketchily introduced at the outset; it will become increasingly concrete as the individual chapters unfold.
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