Socrates, Consciousness, and the Unconscious Mind
This paper examines Socrates' conviction that self-examination is necessary to overcome ignorance and attain the good and the beautiful, situating his view alongside Edith Stein's distinction between passive unconscious processes and active conscious engagement, and Franz Brentano's argument that unconscious mental phenomena cannot exist independently of consciousness. Drawing on Plato's Apology, Euthyphro, and Meno, the paper argues that Socrates is primarily concerned not with the mechanics of consciousness but with its moral and epistemic goal—rousing individuals from passive ignorance to an active pursuit of truth and virtue. The paper contrasts Socrates' persuasive, teleological approach with Brentano's more mechanical analysis of mental phenomena, concluding that the two thinkers operate on fundamentally different levels of inquiry.
- Introduction: Thesis: conscious self-examination overcomes passive ignorance
- Dealing with Ignorance and the Unconscious Mind: Socrates confronts men living unconscious, unreflective lives
- Brentano's Infinite Regress and the Mechanics of Consciousness: Brentano's mechanical view of conscious and unconscious phenomena
- The Will, Passivity, and the Door of Consciousness: Euthyphro example illustrates resisting active consciousness
- Differences Between Socrates, Stein, and Brentano: Socrates pursues truth's goal; Brentano studies its mechanics
- Conclusion: Consciousness requires active will directed toward virtue
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper clearly states its thesis in the introduction and explicitly delimits what it is not arguing, preventing misreading and demonstrating intellectual precision.
- It uses concrete textual examples—particularly the Euthyphro episode—to illustrate abstract philosophical distinctions between passivity and active consciousness, making the argument accessible without sacrificing rigor.
- The comparison structure is well-managed: rather than treating Socrates, Stein, and Brentano as equivalent, the paper carefully distinguishes their levels of inquiry (goal vs. mechanics), which gives the analysis real analytical depth.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates comparative philosophical analysis: it places multiple thinkers in dialogue without collapsing their differences. By asking "are they not all arguing the same thing?" and then answering "not quite," the author models the kind of nuanced comparative reasoning expected in upper-level philosophy writing. This technique requires holding each thinker's framework stable while probing the points of genuine divergence.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a thesis-driven introduction that maps the argument and previews the structure. It then moves through three thinkers in sequence—Socrates, Brentano, and Stein—before a dedicated "Differences and Response" section that synthesizes and adjudicates among the views. The conclusion briefly restates the central distinctions without introducing new material. This classic funnel-and-synthesis structure suits a comparative philosophy essay well.
Introduction
Socrates held the view that one must engage in self-examination if one is to thwart ignorance. Ignorance—a lack of knowledge of truth and of one's self—prevents men from reaching the good and the beautiful. Those who live in ignorance persist in a state of self-deception and false contentment, for within they harbor bitterness, envy, hatred, and all other manner of vices—that is, the opposite of virtues, which must be possessed to attain the good and the beautiful. For Socrates, wisdom comes through self-examination, because it is in one's mind and will that one sees who one really is in relation to the truth of things.
For Edith Stein, the unconscious in terms of past decisions is relevant here. Stein noted that information can act on one's mind and will without a person being conscious of it. However, one must still overcome passivity and become conscious—which is essentially what Socrates is trying to get people to do. In this essay, I argue in favor of Socrates' view that man is in a battle between his conscious and his unconscious self, and that to attain the good and the beautiful he must become conscious of his true self in relation to them. Through contemplation of this reality, he enjoys the good and the beautiful. What I am not arguing is that the unconscious acts independently of the conscious mind and will; for as Stein points out, the unconscious is passive, and one must ultimately become active if one is to thwart ignorance.
This paper first defines Socrates' view on the unconscious. Second, it clarifies that view in light of Stein's views on passivity and activity. Third, it discusses Brentano's view on consciousness. Finally, it explains the difference between Socrates' view and Brentano's by developing the idea that Socrates is focused on the goal of consciousness—which is truth—whereas Brentano is focused on the mechanics of consciousness.
Dealing with Ignorance and the Unconscious Mind
In the context of Plato's Apology, in which Socrates discusses why he teaches, the existence of unconscious thoughts and behaviors is relevant because Socrates goes about seeking to find a man wiser than himself, so as to prove the oracle wrong. Yet the men he interacts with all prefer to lead lives in which there is no reflection; they do not even want to engage in self-analysis or try to discern who they are or whether what they are doing is right or wrong. They prefer to live unconscious lives, with unconscious thoughts leading them into unconscious behavior. They want to be rid of consciousness, of thought, of self-knowledge—because to have self-knowledge is to have wisdom and the ability to discern how one is living. When one discerns how one is living, one can also discern the extent to which one is living well. At the root of Socrates' inquiries is the goal of getting men to live better lives—but men prefer only to live in a subjective mode, where truth is not a condition of goodness.
For Socrates it is imperative that one understand what exists and that, above all, truth exists. That is why he points out to those who think they are wise that they are in fact ignorant, because they do not examine or critique their so-called wisdom. Their views are all based on presumptions and false assumptions. He states candidly, when speaking dismissively of a so-called wise politician: "Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is—for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know" (Plato).
Brentano's Infinite Regress and the Mechanics of Consciousness
Socrates' assertion connects with Brentano's infinite regress argument. Brentano states: "As everyone knows, memory is, to a great extent, subject to illusion, while inner perception is infallible and does not admit of doubt. When the phenomena which are retained by the memory are substituted for those of inner perception, they introduce uncertainty and the possibility of many sorts of self-deception into this area at the same time." Socrates was pointing out that the so-called wise men of Athens were full of self-deception and thus could not be considered wise, for a wise man is not blinded or fooled by deception; he perceives rather than deceives or is deceived.
Yet Brentano also argues that unconscious mental phenomena do not exist, because one is always somewhat conscious of what one is doing. Socrates felt similarly, for in his defense of his actions he explains that his teaching was really a pursuit of knowledge, born of a desire to be free from deception. He is advocating for conscious thought; he wants men to awaken to consciousness. Brentano differs in that he does not perceive unconscious thought as having independent existence, since the mind is always at work—always working either to be true in its linear perceptions or false in its distortions of reality through inaccurate memories and depictions.
Brentano also states that "we call not only perception and cognition, but also all presentations, states of consciousness. If something appears in our imagination, we say that it appears in consciousness. Some people have characterized every mental act as consciousness, be it an idea, a cognition, an erroneous opinion, a feeling, an act of will or any other kind of mental phenomenon." This is where Brentano blurs the line between consciousness and unconsciousness, as though the two were sides of the same coin. It is Stein's argument that the unconscious may be at work—but what is absent is the will and conscious effort of the mind to bring the unconscious into actuality. It must be brought into actuality to be real—and that is Socrates' contention as well. It is why he teaches and why he speaks: he wants truth to be brought out into the light where it can be examined and treated as real, which it is.
Brentano argues that all mental phenomena are both actively and passively conscious (Marchesi). Part of the reason for this argument is that he sees all mental phenomena as having two objects—a primary and a secondary: for example, sound is primary and the hearing one does is secondary. Brentano elaborates on the play between the unconscious and the conscious: "We use the term 'unconscious' in two ways. First, in an active sense, speaking of a person who is not conscious of a thing; secondly, in a passive sense, speaking of a thing of which we are not conscious. In the first sense, the expression 'unconscious consciousness' would be a contradiction, but not in the second. It is in the latter sense that the term 'unconscious' is used here" (79). In Brentano's view, therefore, a person cannot actively be unconsciously conscious, yet one can be passively unconscious. The important takeaway is that unconsciousness is tied to passivity—a claim that Stein also makes.
Conclusion
The unconscious is associated with passivity and dullness in Socrates' view; consciousness must be active and open. In Brentano's view, unconsciousness does not exist by itself because there is an unconscious and conscious element to all mental phenomena. While Socrates might not necessarily disagree with this view, his concern is not with the mechanics of knowledge: for him, the mechanics have a practical application but are not the goal of self-examination. Is there virtue in expounding upon mental phenomena in the manner of Brentano? Socrates would argue that there is only if the aim is to overcome passivity and move the mind and soul into a state of activity in which it begins the climb upward to wisdom and virtue.
Works Cited
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Brentano. Infinite Regress Argument.
Brentano, F. Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. Trans. L. MacAlister. London: Routledge, 1995.
Eddy, Marianna, Annette Schmid, and Phillip J. Holcomb. "Masked repetition priming and event-related brain potentials: A new approach for tracking the time-course of object perception." Psychophysiology 43.6 (2006): 564–568.
Haas, Jens, and Katja Maria Vogt. "Ignorance and investigation." Routledge International Handbook of Ignorance Studies 17 (2015): 24.
Irwin, Terence. "Recollection and Plato's moral theory." The Review of Metaphysics 27.4 (1974): 752–772.
Marchesi, Andrea. "Brentanian inner consciousness and the infinite regress problem." Dialectica 73.1–2 (2019): 129–147.
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Stein, Edith. On the Problem of Empathy. ICS Publications, 1989.
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