2 The invention of the unconscious
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Rhodri Hayward
Abstract
This chapter explores the tension between different ways of knowing the past and the conflicting understandings of selfhood entailed in them. It is a conflict, which is sustained by different conceptualisations of death. These different conceptualisations determined both the form of the historical object and the imagined shape of the historian's insight. Christ emerged as a historical character in the Christologies of the nineteenth century through reference to his carnal limitation. His being and consciousness were portrayed as entities bounded in the kenosis by death. Similarly, the authority of the historical text was itself dependent on an implicit understanding of the limits of the historian's self. Within the new professional discipline of history, interpretations only became acceptable if they could demonstrate that the interpreted object was somehow insulated from the infective or partisan concerns of the interpreter.
Abstract
This chapter explores the tension between different ways of knowing the past and the conflicting understandings of selfhood entailed in them. It is a conflict, which is sustained by different conceptualisations of death. These different conceptualisations determined both the form of the historical object and the imagined shape of the historian's insight. Christ emerged as a historical character in the Christologies of the nineteenth century through reference to his carnal limitation. His being and consciousness were portrayed as entities bounded in the kenosis by death. Similarly, the authority of the historical text was itself dependent on an implicit understanding of the limits of the historian's self. Within the new professional discipline of history, interpretations only became acceptable if they could demonstrate that the interpreted object was somehow insulated from the infective or partisan concerns of the interpreter.
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Dedication v
- Contents vii
- Preface ix
- List of abbreviations xi
- 1 The invention of the self 1
- 2 The invention of the unconscious 31
- 3 The soul governed 80
- 4 The self triumphant 107
- Index 145
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Dedication v
- Contents vii
- Preface ix
- List of abbreviations xi
- 1 The invention of the self 1
- 2 The invention of the unconscious 31
- 3 The soul governed 80
- 4 The self triumphant 107
- Index 145
