realism vs. nominalism

“Where are conscious ideas prior to their becoming conscious?” Rather than closing down the question, the answer—in the unconscious—opens a series of definitions of the unconscious and culminates in the unexpected assertion that “not all that is Ucs. is repressed.” That is, by posing his initial question, Freud is led to a momentous conclusion: there must be something more elementary than external perceptions, and more elementary, too, than the ego that emerges or differentiates itself from that prior instance. Undifferentiated and pre-individual, there must exist a reservoir of libido—of excitation or tension—that is never drained up by the differentiations of the ego that start out from it. Prior to the ego, this elemental instance cannot be repressed and thus can never “return” or express itself, as repressed unconscious material is wont to do.

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Nominalists hold that there is no unity other than numerical unity, that whatever makes a subject this particular subject makes her so per se; they rigorously deny the existence of universals, which they regard as mere fabrications of mind, and insist that all there is is individual, concrete existence. Freud argues, contrarily, that there is “something” not concrete, differentiated, individual, or actual from which individual existence comes. He names this prior instance “id”—borrowing from Groddeck not only the German term (which is impersonal and general, as in “it rains” or “one assumes”) but also the conviction that the “ego behaves essentially passively” toward it, implying that the ego is able to undergo infinite modulation as long as it remains open to it/id.

-Joan Copjec, "Sexual Difference," Political Concepts: A Critical Lexicon (2012)