Philosophy and Psychology

Several strong and opposing philosophical traditions, as well as a number of non-dynamic psychological systems, shaped the emergence of dynamic psychological discourse, and provided perspectives and insights taken up and in some cases formalized by dynamic psychologists. My intention is not to detail these traditions and systems, but, drawing on philosophers’ and psychologists’ own work as well as that of historians who have contextualized them most accurately, to sketch briefly their contributions to the following discourses: on consciousness; on what lies beneath the threshold of consciousness, whether figured as a subconscious, subliminal, or unconscious; and on selfhood, including the debates on time, memory, and will. The main focus will be on selfhood, and particularly on the thinkers whose discourse functioned as the most richly associative nexi of ideas for writers.