ABSTRACT
This chapter looks in detail at how the philosophical and the psychoanalytic concerns can intertwine. The kinds of mental states with which psychoanalysis deals mediate between the world and the social and linguistic practices in ways which are far removed from the operation of the conscious mental processes. On the psychoanalytic view developed by Wilfred Bion, the unreflective involvement with objects is itself dependent upon unconscious mechanisms governing thought. Equipmental dealings, as fundamental structures of Being-in-the-world, depend upon prior, unconscious structure in terms of which they can be understood psychoanalytically. All 'mental activity' is primarily founded on unconscious phantasy through the holistic network of the world, which depends on phantasy. Relations in phantasy to internal objects and the operation of a level of symbolism below that of conscious cognitive processes mean that there is a kind of hidden representation operating within behaviour which is consciously unreflective and apparently instinctive.
