Since there is a plethora of Freewill threads, might as well add another one – and I apologize if this has been recently covered elsewhere. But if Freewill can be considered to have a kind of common sense existence, in the manner that even those that argue against it actually experience it, that is the reality of its description in real, everyday life, so too does the Unconscious seem to have the same kind of common sense existence, in that in everyday life – slips of the tongue, repetitions of childhood traumas in adult life, the benefits of therapy, if not for ourselves, then others - we have come to understand and explain everyday phenomena by way of reference to the Unconscious. So it seems that there are two competing explanations of behavior, both of which seem obvious to each of us at times. And while Freewill has a much deeper entrenchment in our language, given the brief amount of time that the Unconscious has been in common parlance, certainly not more than 80 years - though its antecedents may go back quite far, being linked to conceptions of the Irrational -, the Unconscious has a considerable presence in our everyday reality. So my questions are: are Freewill and the Unconscious in anyway compatible?; does one imply the other, or exclude the other?; is the Unconscious a kind of determinism?; when something unconscious becomes conscious is it then submitted to Freewill, or other determining factors?; does the Unconscious play the same role as the Devil once did in Christian theology (and perhaps for some, still does), that is as a force that operates behind the scenes, but awareness of which promotes a kind of Freedom and self-mastery?; is it possible to conceive of oneself without an Unconscious of some sort in this day and age? Is not Desire to which we are blind to, whatever its form, ultimately undermining to the idea of Freewill, for how can we be aware of all desires in their infinite structure? And for those that place importance on the concept of Freewill, what role do you allow for mental illness in Freewill’s suspension? And questions of that kind.
Dunamis