From: Philosophy and Human Values (1990) Lecture 8: Philosophy and Postmodern Culture

Transcript: Freud compares the conscious mind, in the book I have – I am talking about now, he compares the conscious mind to a garrison. A captured, tiny garrison in an immense city. The city of Rome. With all its layers of history. All its archaic barbarisms. All its hidden avenues. Covered over by civilization after civilization. That’s our mind. That whole thing. But the conscious part of it is that one garrison that’s clear, that holds out in this captured city.

A magnificent metaphor for all the surrounding motives, motivations, motifs, desires, that drive us… that are not philosophical… that cannot, even if we talk to our therapist a long time, all be brought up at once.

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