Let's go back in the history of philosophy -- briefly -- to the philosophy of Johann Fichte even if I don't care too much for what I can understand of his very obscure, head-scratching philosophy-psychology. Fichte dropped one of Kant's most important concepts -- the 'noumenal' (or 'objective') world -- and kept Kant's bipolar concept of the 'phenomenal' (or 'subjective') world as being 'all inclusive', meaning no 'noumenal (objective) world' exists.
Admittedly, the noumenal-objective world is a metaphysical concept in that 'How can we know what is purportedly 'beyond the reach and grasp of our senses'? Obviously, we can't -- as in we Kant -- which is what makes the epistemological domain of Kant's philosophy a highly skeptical, metaphysical business.
However, Fichte -- in trying to eliminate this 'Kantian epistemological skepticism' -- i.e., never knowing for sure whether our senses and reasoning process having actually accurately, or at least semi-accurately, captured and represented our noumenal-objective world -- to repeat, Fichte only takes us down a more obscure, mystical path that all but eliminates the art and science of epistemology altogether.
Read Wikipedia's biography of Fichte to get Schopenhauer's rather sharp-witted 'deconstruction' (from Schopenhauer's 'Parerga and Paralipomena' -- Greek for 'Appendices and Omissions', 1851) of Fichte's 'philosophy that metaphysically eliminates 'the real, (noumenal)-objective world' that we live in'...
The good part of Fichte's philosophical system is that he introduced a 'philosophy of consciousness -- and self-consciousness, partly in 'Descartean-Spinozian subjective-wholistic style', that created a path for Freud to follow in the Freud's 'psychology of the ego'. Indeed, as far back as I can trace this concept, Fichte seems to have created the concept of 'the ego' -- as in meaning 'the Whole Self', and/or been the first to use it philosophically.
In between Fichte and Freud, Nietzsche still under Hegel's influence in Nietzsche's first book, 'The Birth of Tragedy' (1872) -- by interpretive extension (even though Nietzsche didn't use the term 'ego') -- created the bipolar conceptuology of 'the Dionysian Ego' vs. 'the Apollonian Ego' -- which in turn, may or may not have had an influence on Freud's triadic conceptuology of 'the id', 'the ego', and 'the superego'.
Freud may have thought differently but he was basically compartmentalizing 'the Wholistic Self' or 'the Ego-as-a-Whole' into three separate 'ego-compartments' or 'ego-states': i.e., the ego, the id, and the superego.
In this regard, Freud was changing -- i.e., 'reducing' -- the meaning of 'the ego' -- at least in most contexts -- from 'the ego-as-a-whole' to 'the ego as consisting of one third or at least one of three parts of the Whole Self'....(the id and the superego making up the other two thirds or at least the other two parts of The Whole Self/Personality/Psyche).
In this regard also, Freud's concept of 'the ego' was taking the place of a concept he used to call 'the reality ego' -- i.e., that part of the whole Self concerned with perceiving, interpreting, and evaluating reality both inside and outside the organism -- and then making the final decision (at least under 'normal' conditions) on how best to act and/or not act in order to meet internal and external stressors (and/or 'exciters').
So Freud might roll over in his grave if he saw me writing this next point but 'the id' really is nothing more than an 'alter-ego state or compartment' -- what I have previously called 'The Dionysian Ego' (under Nietzsche's influence).
The fact that the 'primal state of the id' might be deemed located in the unconscious or subconscious is really a non-sufficient point -- the id as Freud described it can equally be viewed as an 'alter-ego state ' consisting of 'impulsive -- often uncivil -- human drives' that is often radically different than our more customary 'social ego' or 'personna' -- as described by Jung -- or even 'the ego' as in 'reality-ego' as opposed to 'pleasure-ego' as described by Freud.
Similarily, the 'superego' can also be viewed as another form of 'alter-ego state', in this case not based on 'impulsive drives' as from the id, but rather from 'introjected (or internalized) parental restraints, values, judgments, and more generally speaking, society's laws, regulations, codes of ethics, morality, and the like...
In conclusion, we can talk about 'three different ego-states' in Classical Freudian Psychoanalysis making up the 'structural triad' of 'the ego-as-a-whole' as originially historically defined and described by Fichte...
Now obviously, if Freud was alive today, he would righteously object -- and probably ostracize me -- for having the nerve to call 'the id' an 'ego-state' or 'ego-compartment...but Dr. Freud...Weren't you the one who said that the ego was origininally 'born' from the id? Wouldn't that make the id a 'rudimentary, primitive, uncivil, unsocialized ego or ego-state or ego-compartment or ego-function -- since we all seem to still carry this 'primitive ego-state-compartment-function' into our adult personalities. We often guard against its (the Id's or 'The Shadow-Id's') 'impulsive propulsions' -- but it is still there our 'unadulterated early childhood ego' if you will -- before it was 'properly and fully socialized'. Perhaps I am over-extending Freud's words but I don't think so...I have to go dig for the exact quote....Not tonight...I have a headache (I don't)...I'm tired (I am)...Time for a break...
On this note,
I will say goodnight.
-- dgb, July 13th, 2011.
-- David Gordon Bain
