Notes on §III of Gardner’s ‘Psychoanalytic theory: historical reconstruction’
1. Commonalities between Spinoza and psychoanalysis a.
explanation of mental states and changes in a way that parallels and tracks bodily conditions and changes b.
strict psychological deter- minism: mind as moving from one condition to another according to laws of efficient causality - economic model. c.
wish-fulfilment based in structure of mind (imagination) d.
inability to correct emotions directly by virtue of their truth alone - importance of working through. e.
devaluation of consciousness in account of mind f.
conatus – libido g.
reductive conception of the self h.
rejection of free will i.
concept of expression as a linchpin of psychological explanation j.
overhauling of the common-sense taxonomy of mental states k.
failures of reason suffices to falsify the kingdom-within-a-kingdom conception of the subject (naturalism)
2. Rational explanation a.
reasons for action (one prominent model) i.
Desires combine with beliefs to provide reasons for action, and intentions ii.
The desire is satisfied by successful action, and extinguished by a belief iii.
We intend to act, on the basis of beliefs, to satisfy desire iv.
Intentional explanation: desire + belief about world and how to satisfy desire = reason for and cause of action b.
Ratman and the stone i.
Removing the stone: He believed the stone would harm his lady; he wanted to protect his lady from harm ii.
Replacing the stone (cs): He believed the action was ridiculous; he wanted not to be ridiculous? iii.
Replacing the stone (ucs): He wanted to harm his lady; he believed replacing the stone would achieve this. c.
Ratman’s other symptoms i.
He believes his father will die or suffer if he has sexual thoughts; even after his father is dead?? ii.
He wants to kill Dick; he believes running will achieve this?? d.
Acting on phantasy is distinct from acting on desire: it works as wish-fulfilment
3. Wish-fulfilment, phantasy and sub-intentional explanation a.
The explanation of dreams i.
We don’t have a desire (to fulfil the wish) and a belief (that dreaming will do so);
We don’t dream in order to fulfil a wish – dreaming is not intentional ii.
A dream fulfils a wish: the motive instigates the wish (freeing the motive from realistic constraint), and the wish instigates the dream by wish-fulfilment iii.
the motivation (latent content) transmits its content to its effect (manifest content) b.
But the wish is not acted upon and is only imagined satisfied

i.
Wishes don’t work with beliefs as desires do – wish-fulfilment is driven by wishes alone ii.
the way in which the wish is imagined satisfied doesn’t tend to make use of beliefs about how the world is or how we can realistically change it iii.
The imaginary experience, in the absence of reality testing, directly extinguishes the wish; the experience that would gratify a wish occurs in the absence of anything that would mark that representation as ‘unreal’; hence we cannot distinguish between the representation of a wish fulfilled and the fulfilment of the wish c.
Because intentions are not involved, but meanings are, this is called ‘sub-intentional’ explanation i.
there is no instrumental belief (belief about how to act to satisfy desire) and no intention ii.
The wish is not a reason for imaginary wish-fulfilment iii.
But a lack of rationality is not a complete lack of sense d.
Unconscious symbolism: The Rat Man is not aware of his wish to kill Dick or its connection to his running i.
“The strangest characteristic of unconscious… processes... is due to their entire disregard of reality-testing; they equate thought with external actuality, and wishes with their fulfilment” {‘Two Principles’) ii.
When Dick (Richard) becomes dick (German: ‘fat’), weight loss becomes a form of homicide
4. Reason, cause and the logic of affect a.
reason: i.
A traditional model: in our calmer moments, we come to understand what is going on, and so understand the influence the misleading passion exerts upon us. We come to understand the apparent good the passion presents and then evaluate this claim rationally. We may think – often rightly – that if we understand why we react as we do, this gives us some control over the passion. Our passions respond to reasons; reasoned accounts of the object and of the passion should therefore alter the passion if necessary. The question ‘what do I feel?’ gives way to the question ‘what ought I to feel?’, such that the answer to the latter determines the answer to the former. normative necessity associated with rational choice theory and the ordinary practical syllogism; ii.
But this is psychologically too simple – sometimes we can neither understand nor change what we feel in this way. iii.
Unconscious determinants don’t operate in the same way: they cannot be incorporated into our self-reflection as justifications for our actions b.
(external) cause (weak reading): how the affects comport themselves when left to their own devices; but this would be to picture the affects as situated on the outside, and ourselves—as centres of rational self-determination—on the inside; so if an emotion doesn’t yield to rational self-determination, it is simply ‘alien’ to us c.
in between: affects and their causation are not what we qua rational beings are set over and against, rather they are what we are. i.
Spinoza’s logic of affect is designed to show that psychological life proceeds in ways that are not driven by any power of practical reason, they affect our dispositions to

act without passing through our ‘reflective endorsement’. The ordinary concept of a reason for action does not survive. ii.
But our emotions don’t operate mechanically – the relation between cause and effect remains ‘internal’ to our concept of each, and is intelligible, not merely explicable; fusion of thought and mechanism iii.
Examples (not rational, but ‘natural’): we shall love or hate an object which we imagine to be similar to an object that is wont to affect us with pleasure or pain; we will share the emotion of whatever we imag- ine to be like ourselves; we will seek to deprive someone of anything they enjoy that only one person can possess; someone’s hatred of an object that he has previously loved will be proportionate to the strength of his former love d.
Therapy: appreciation that emotions cannot be expected to respond to reason in the way that we naively supposed can spur us to adopt the less direct but truly effective measures for their regulation