RE: [tips] Ahoy! Iceberg Ahead!
Mike Palij cites Douglas Whitman’s “Cognition” textbook giving the “consciousness is the tip of the iceberg” analogy: A check of his references shows two entries by Freud, both in Strachey's The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (Hogarth Press). First is the 1925 Inhibitions, symptoms, and anxiety (pp77-175). Second is 1895 Project for a scientific psychology (page 302). As Annette reminds us, the TIPSter Iceberg Group established that no such analogy occurs in Freud’s writings, and this is the case with the above citations, which may refer to something else in Whitman’s text. As should be well known by now, the general notion in question was a commonplace among psychologists in the latter half of the nineteenth century, as expressed by Henry Maudsley (*The Physiology and Pathology of the Mind*, 1867): “It may be affirmed that the most important part of mental action, the essential process on which thinking depends, is unconscious mental activity… Far more important than any conscious mental state is the unconscious mental or cerebral life… Consciousness reveals the particular state of mind of the moment, but does not reveal the long series of causes on which it depends.” (Quoted in Mark D. Altschule, *Roots of Modern Psychiatry*, 1957, pp. 68-69.) Francis Galton, in an article in Mind (1879), reiterated that there exist “still deeper strata of mental operations, sunk wholly below the level of consciousness, which may account for such mental phenomena as cannot otherwise be explained.” (Quoted in M. D. Altschule, *Origins of Concepts in Human Behavior*, 1977, pp. 140-141.) Galton’s (typically Victorian!) analogy was with “the complex system of drains and gas and water-pipes, flues, bellwires, and so forth… which are usually hidden out of sight, and of whose existence, so long as they acted well, we never troubled ourselves.” Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London allenester...@compuserve.com http://www.esterson.org - From: Mike Palij [m...@nyu.edu] Sent: Monday, December 20, 2010 3:14 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Mike Palij Subject: [tips] Ahoy! Iceberg Ahead! So, I got my review copy of Douglas Whitman's Cognition textbook today (ominously, it's identified as First Edition) and I was skimming through the chapters. There is a chapter on consciousness (another bad sign) and what did I behold? A subsection labelled Conscousness Is the Tip of the Iceberg. Quoting from page 332: |Sigmund Freud, proposed an iceberg model of consciousness, |illustrated in Figure 10.2. Fig. 10.2, on page 334, is similar to many other iceberg representations Tipsters may be familiar with but with far more detail to the three levels (i.e., conscious level, preconscious level, and unconscious level). Of course, there is no citation either to Freud or any of the usual suspects. It's almost as though Whitman's saying so was enough to make it true for him. ;-) A check of his references shows two entries by Freud, both in Strachey's The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (Hogarth Press). First is the 1925 Inhibitions, symptoms, and anxiety (pp77-175). Second is 1895 Project for a scientific psychology (page 302). Anyone have a copy handy to check what is on these pages? I thought that intro psych textbooks were abandoning the Freud iceberg and it comes as a surprise that a textbook for an upper level course would use such a figure. Is this a sign of progress in cognitive psychology or another sign of the apocalypse? -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu - RE: [tips] Ahoy! Iceberg Ahead! Annette Taylor Mon, 20 Dec 2010 15:32:37 -0800 More likely a sign of a particular author's lack of knowledge about this bit of unsupported information--as is other information attributed to Freud :( Of course, the little iceberg group that formed as an off-shoot of tipsters interested in this topic never published anything that I am aware of on this topic :( :( Annette Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph. D. Professor, Psychological Sciences University of San Diego 5998 Alcala Park San Diego, CA 92110 tay...@sandiego.edumailto:tay...@sandiego.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5n=Tl=tipso=7396 or send a blank email to leave-7396-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
RE: [tips] Ahoy! Iceberg Ahead!
More likely a sign of a particular author's lack of knowledge about this bit of unsupported information--as is other information attributed to Freud :( Of course, the little iceberg group that formed as an off-shoot of tipsters interested in this topic never published anything that I am aware of on this topic :( :( Annette Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph. D. Professor, Psychological Sciences University of San Diego 5998 Alcala Park San Diego, CA 92110 tay...@sandiego.edumailto:tay...@sandiego.edu From: Mike Palij [m...@nyu.edu] Sent: Monday, December 20, 2010 3:14 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Mike Palij Subject: [tips] Ahoy! Iceberg Ahead! So, I got my review copy of Douglas Whitman's Cognition textbook today (ominously, it's identified as First Edition) and I was skimming through the chapters. There is a chapter on consciousness (another bad sign) and what did I behold? A subsection labelled Conscousness Is the Tip of the Iceberg. Quoting from page 332: |Sigmund Freud, proposed an iceberg model of consciousness, |illustrated in Figure 10.2. Fig. 10.2, on page 334, is similar to many other iceberg representations Tipsters may be familiar with but with far more detail to the three levels (i.e., conscious level, preconscious level, and unconscious level). Of course, there is no citation either to Freud or any of the usual suspects. It's almost as though Whitman's saying so was enough to make it true for him. ;-) A check of his references shows two entries by Freud, both in Strachey's The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (Hogarth Press). First is the 1925 Inhibitions, symptoms, and anxiety (pp77-175). Second is 1895 Project for a scientific psychology (page 302). Anyone have a copy handy to check what is on these pages? I thought that intro psych textbooks were abandoning the Freud iceberg and it comes as a surprise that a textbook for an upper level course would use such a figure. Is this a sign of progress in cognitive psychology or another sign of the apocalypse? -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: tay...@sandiego.edu. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13534.4204dc3a11678c6b1d0be57cfe0a21b0n=Tl=tipso=7383 or send a blank email to leave-7383-13534.4204dc3a11678c6b1d0be57cfe0a2...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5n=Tl=tipso=7386 or send a blank email to leave-7386-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
Re: [tips] Ahoy! Iceberg Ahead!
And my heart will go on Michael - Original Message - From: Mike Palij m...@nyu.edu To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) tips@fsulist.frostburg.edu Cc: Mike Palij m...@nyu.edu Sent: Monday, December 20, 2010 9:14 PM Subject: [tips] Ahoy! Iceberg Ahead! So, I got my review copy of Douglas Whitman's Cognition textbook today (ominously, it's identified as First Edition) and I was skimming through the chapters. There is a chapter on consciousness (another bad sign) and what did I behold? A subsection labelled Conscousness Is the Tip of the Iceberg. Quoting from page 332: |Sigmund Freud, proposed an iceberg model of consciousness, |illustrated in Figure 10.2. Fig. 10.2, on page 334, is similar to many other iceberg representations Tipsters may be familiar with but with far more detail to the three levels (i.e., conscious level, preconscious level, and unconscious level). Of course, there is no citation either to Freud or any of the usual suspects. It's almost as though Whitman's saying so was enough to make it true for him. ;-) A check of his references shows two entries by Freud, both in Strachey's The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (Hogarth Press). First is the 1925 Inhibitions, symptoms, and anxiety (pp77-175). Second is 1895 Project for a scientific psychology (page 302). Anyone have a copy handy to check what is on these pages? I thought that intro psych textbooks were abandoning the Freud iceberg and it comes as a surprise that a textbook for an upper level course would use such a figure. Is this a sign of progress in cognitive psychology or another sign of the apocalypse? -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: msylves...@copper.net. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13424.eb17e1c03643c971ab35c22d86587541n=Tl=tipso=7383 or send a blank email to leave-7383-13424.eb17e1c03643c971ab35c22d86587...@fsulist.frostburg.edu No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.872 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/3327 - Release Date: 12/20/10 05:34:00 --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5n=Tl=tipso=7387 or send a blank email to leave-7387-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
