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Most people do not know much about Matte Blanco's bi-logic, so I will first present something about his fundamental conceptions and afterwards work towards a finale about feelings. These basic conceptions turn out to be extremely simple but they are so general, so abstract, that they are maddening to grasp. With this warning, off we go.Freud's greatest contribution was, perhaps, to show that certain fundamental forms of transformation, representation or symbolization were taking place in the mind: a conscious idea or act could stand for some other experience but the link between the two was often not apparent. Unconscious processes were inferred as taking place. Freud showed that these unconscious processes do not obey the ordinary rules of logic. In fact he spelt out especially five characteristics of the unconscious which highlighted the differences from conscious level thought. These were displacement, condensation, timelessness, absence of mutual contradiction and replacement of external by internal reality.

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The author suggests that the concepts of fairness and justice might be psychoanalytically useful. They are social ideas but often arise clinically. Since psychoanalysis is about intimate and internal events, the wide social and legal settings associated with formal justice are not addressed. Fairness and informal justice arise more intimately and are central here. Fairness is concerned with thorough consideration of an issue. To be fair, the people involved must be considered with impartiality before a decision. Justice generally is more formal, aiming to ensure the integrity of a system, its parts and individual members. It is noted that psychopathogenic conditions can arise in conflicting situations involving fairness and justice. Clinical illustrations suggest that the psychoanalytic process can implicitly aim to resolve their after-effects. Technique is addressed in this light. A central suggestion emerges here. The philosopher Jürgen Habermas proposes that justice rests essentially upon opportunity for argumentation between all those affected. The author suggests that psychoanalytic therapy is likewise a constructive argumentation.

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