Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

István Mészáros, The Unconscious, and False Consciousness

  • Article
  • Published:
The American Journal of Psychoanalysis Aims and scope

Abstract

Hungarian philosopher István Mészáros’ more recent work expands our understanding of consciousness in a way that is particularly relevant to psychoanalysis. He underscores the tragedy of consciousness, increasingly alienated from the totality of our social and individual being, and replaced by its false analog. To make sustainable an anachronistic type of vertical social structure, ideologists of false consciousness join arms with those who control society's historically developed means to reproduce itself and its members. This results in the social phenomenon of alienation, whereby actively produced false consciousness creates a correlate individual unconscious. Mészáros’ theory seems compatible with the psychoanalytic paradigms developed by Karen Horney and the Neo-Freudians.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Declaration of Independence. Accessed from http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/ on April 30 2012

References

  • Devereux, G. (Ed.) (1956 [1980]). Normal and abnormal. Basic problems of ethnopsychiatry B. Miller Gulati & G. Devereux (Trans.). (pp. 3–71). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Engels, F. (1843). Outlines of a critique of political economy. In Collected works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels (Vol. 3, pp. 418–445). New York: International Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferenczi, S. (1932 [1988]). The Clinical Diary. J. Dupont (Ed.) Cambridge, MA & London, England: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freud, S. (1926). Inhibitions, symptoms and anxiety. Standard Edition (Vol. 20, pp. 75–176). London: Hogarth.

  • Fromm, E. (1962). Beyond the chains of illusion. My encounter with Marx and Freud. New York: Simon & Schuster.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hegel, G.W.F. (1807 [1977]). Phenomenology of spirit, A.V. Miller (Trans.). New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hegel, G.W.F. (1820 [2001]). Philosophy of right, S.W. Dyed (Trans.). Kitchener, Ontario, Canada: Batoche Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horney, K. (1945). Our Inner Conflicts. New York: W. W. Norton and Co.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horney, K. (1950a). Alienation from self. In Neurosis and human growth. The struggle toward self-realization (pp. 155–175). New York: W. W. Norton and Co.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horney, K. (1950b). Neurosis and human growth. The struggle toward self-realization. New York: W. W. Norton and Co.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hyppolite, J. (1974). Genesis and structure of Hegel's phenomenology of spirit,S. Cherniak & J. Heckman (Trans.). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marx, K. (1932 [1959]). Economic & philosophic manuscripts of 1844, M. Mulligan (Trans.). Moscow: Progress Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mészáros, I. (1970). Genesis of Marx's theory of alienation. In Marx's Theory of Alienation (Chapter 2). István Mészáros Internet Archive. http://www.marxists.org/archive/Meszaros/works/alien/meszaro2.htm, accessed April 30, 2012.

  • Mészáros, I. (2010). Social structure and forms of consciousness. First volume: The social determination of method. New York: Monthly Review Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mészáros, I. (2011). Social structure and forms of consciousness. Second volume: The dialectic of structure and history. New York: Monthly Review Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Plato (2012a). The Republic. Trans: B. Jowett. Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1497/1497-h/1497-h.htm, accessed April 24, 2012.

  • Plato (2012b). Phaedrus. Trans: B. Jowett. Project Gutenberg. Posting Date: October 30, 2008 [EBook # 1636]. http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=1446405, accessed April 24, 2012.

  • Rendon, M. (2001). Toward a genealogy of culture. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 61 (4), 325–341.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sartre, J.P. (1969). Being and nothingness. Northampton, Great Britain: John Dickens and Co.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. M.D., 34 Skyline Drive, Sherman, 06784, CT, US

    Mario Rendon

Authors
  1. Mario Rendon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mario Rendon.

Additional information

1M.D., Training and Supervising Analyst, American Institute for Psychoanalysis; Clinical Associate Professor, Albert Einstein College of Medicine; Former Editor of the American Journal of Psychoanalysis.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Rendon, M. István Mészáros, The Unconscious, and False Consciousness. Am J Psychoanal 73, 173–183 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/ajp.2013.8

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/ajp.2013.8

Keywords

Search

Navigation