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Argument Essay : ' Withholding The Missing Portion '

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The unconscious is not a concept, it is a rhetorical device." He wrote Stanley Fish in his article, "Withholding the Missing Portion". Fish 's article argues that Freud 's main concern in his writings is to influence the reader of the strength of his readings and the power of his theory through his clever use of rhetoric. In particular, Fish refers to the role of the unconscious in Freud 's theory, arguing that it can be freely used by Freud in such a way that it can appear to account for any data acquired in practice. This attitude reflects the commonly-held view amongst modern scientists that Freud 's theories are unscientific. In this essay, I aim to argue that while Fish makes a valid point about Freud 's use of the unconscious as a rhetorical device, to consider it as only a rhetorical device and to dismiss its importance as a scientific concept is not only unjustified, but also impractical in psychological theories of the mind. Freud 's theories, I argue, are no less scientific than other theories in science.
Before I say my own arguments concerning this matter, I will examine Fish 's spot in better detail, in order to understand the extent of his claim. A rhetorical device, according to Fish, "is entirely made and stands without external support", and "that insofar as it has been installed at the center of a structure of opinion, it obtains the status of that which goes without saying and that against which nothing can be said". Giving to Fish, Freud 's idea of the

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