On 26 May Ken Steele wrote [snip]: >So, a second mystery is why is the iceberg analogy so widely used in >textbooks when it does not seem to represent psychoanalytical writings?
I think it is only used when the writer wishes to represent the single notion that much of the mind's activities are unconscious. Stuart McKelvie wrote: > I think it is clear now that we have not found the term "iceberg" in > Freud, but I would like to draw attention again to the point made > by Jon and Alan that Freud did include schematic diagrams in his works, > particularly the New Introductory Lectures, The Ego and the Id and the > Interpretation of Dreams. > The diagram in the first two sources could be taken to be like an > iceberg, so I think that we are looking for the person who took these > diagrams and made this interpretation. The diagram in New Introductory Lectures can be seen in the spoof article at: http://www.fermentmagazine.org/Editorial/edit20.html Scroll down a little, and it is the first diagram, unfortunately turned sideways. (It is taken from the original German publication.) I suppose it could be taken as looking vaguely like an iceberg. But I support Robert Wilcock's view already mentioned that the diagram in "The Ego and the Id" looks more like a haggis. Annette Taylor wrote: > I went to several of the websites on the web that freely attribute > the iceberg analogy to Freud and asked each of the authors to provide > me with their source. > Here is the first; if there are more I will send them on as well. I > don't have the source book and will keep the authors anonymous for > now. But if someone has the source and can check.... >> He made it in several places....the first time in a letter to Wilhelm Fleiss >> I think. The image came originally from Fechner. I'd check but all my >> Freud books are in storage. I re-checked the letters to Fliess, checking every reference to the unconscious in the index, and there is no iceberg analogy. >> He made it in several [sic] places. If this were the case I think we would certainly have found at least one by now. Mike Donnelly wrote [snip] > I think my own motivation here comes from the "urban legend" > aspects of this story. [...] Gould's interest in the fox-terrier and my own > in the iceberg is it's potential to reveal the soft underbelly of textbook > writing-the overuse of secondary sources-and the potential that this practice > has for introducing errors into what should be clean, accurate representations > of the discipline to novices. I agree with Mike here. There has been at least one book (some time ago in the UK) that looked at school physics books and highlighted erroneous items (arguments, diagrams, etc) that recurred again and again in different books. What evidently happens is that the author of a new physics textbook for schools (quite naturally) uses current text books as a basis on which to work, but in doing so often reproduces material without thinking it through. One can understand why (and perhaps more so with a more advanced course, such as that for College psychology), in that to check closely on much of the material involves a considerable amount of extra labour. I would argue that that's why it is not a trivial matter to pick up on contentions that seem to have no historical basis, or quotations the source of which cannot be traced, and bring the issue into the public domain. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org/ http://www.human-nature.com/esterson/index.html http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=10 http://www.srmhp.org/0202/review-01.html http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=18 http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=195 --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english
