128 Agnes Petocz
subject as a mere point of intersection in network of signifiers, we now need to have an
adequately developed theory of the psychology of the subject which addresses such things as:
the ontogenesis of symbols (how and why they occur); the selection of the symbolised (what
exactly is primary and why); what determines symbol ubiquity and cross-cultural
consistency, and what determines individual variation; how is the similarity (iconic) relation
between symbol and symbolised itself subject to variations (e.g., in degree of obscurity, in
changes across time); and what is the relationship between conscious and unconscious
(nonconscious or implicit)^19 aspects of symbolism.
I remarked at the beginning of this paper that a semiotics-psychology integration does not
depend on the return of Darwin into psychology, since (as I noted subsequently) the
requirement of a cognising organism or person is imposed by the logical features of the
triadic semiotic relation. Now, however, the need for a Darwinian evolutionary perspective
follows from the requirement that our psychological theory of the subject elucidate the crucial
distinction between what is primary for the human and what is derivative, for this distinction
lies at the heart of conceptual metaphor and of nonconventional symbolism alike. This is
obviously a developmental issue. The fact that the subject term of the signifying (and,
thereby, cognitive relation) is an embodied, motivated subject suggests that what is
symbolised is primary in terms both of development and importance. As William James put
it:
My own body and what ministers to its needs are thus the primitive object, instinctively
determined, of my egoistic interests. Other objects may become interesting derivatively
through association with any of these things, either as means or as habitual concomitants;
and so in a thousand ways the primitive sphere of the egoistic emotions may enlarge and
change its boundaries. (James, 1890/1950, p. 324, emphasis in original)Freud, too, in his Darwinian-based, naturalistic elucidation of the psychodynamic origins
and the economic functions of a wide range of symbolic phenomena, described the ego as
―first and foremost a bodily ego‖ (Freud, 1923, p. 26). According to Wollheim (1982), what
makes the thesis of the bodily ego interesting is "that it ties not just the mind to the body but
the development of the mind to the development of the body" (p. 138). Freud maintained that
motivational (instinctual) renunciation is always in exchange for a substitute. We never give
anything up – ―what appears to be a renunciation is really the formation of a substitute or
surrogate‖ (Freud, 1908, p. 145). Along similar lines, the art historian Ernst Gombrich drew
together conceptual metaphor and non-conventional symbolism. He argued that the pleasure
derived from metaphors and symbols comes not, as Aristotle claimed, from the way in which
they establish new linkages and make us see new resemblances, but from the way in which
they indicate linkages not yet broken, reminding us of what are simply "very wide pigeon-
(^19) Owing to the Freudian connotations of the term unconscious, the terms nonconscious or implicit are widely
preferred in the experimental psychological literature, though they are used to refer both to the automatic
perceptual and cognitive processes that are temporarily unattended to, and to those that are defensively kept
out of awareness. Yet Freud's ―descriptive‖ distinction between conscious and unconscious mentality (Freud,
1912, 1915, 1916/17, 1923, 1933), according to which ―every mental process exists to begin with in an
unconscious stage or phase‖ (1916/17, p. 295) is consistent with the realist relational view of mind (cf. Petocz,
1999, pp. 161-163). Supporting this relational or ―epistemic‖ view, Freud asserts: ―let us call ̳conscious‘ the
conception which is present to our consciousness and of which we are aware, and ... an unconscious
conception is one of which we are not aware‖ (Freud, 1912, p. 260). Thus, "every psychical act begins as an
unconscious one, and it may either remain so or go on developing into consciousness" (Freud, 1912, p. 264).