Psukhe-logia in Plato's and Freud's thought

Plato, who established the stage of philosophy by giving its name and principles to philosophy as an activity, puts psukhê, which he sees as the ultimate arkhê, on the ground of his thought. Psukhê, being an arkhê, has the quality of substance. Psukhê, from which the power (dunamis) originates, belongs to to on in its ultimate origin, and is therefore divine (theios) and immortal (athanatos). That is, it comes from to on and returns to to on again; it is not subject to becoming (genesis) and passing away (phthora); it is of a simple nature (monoeidês); is always identical to itself and indissoluble (adialutos). Yet, psukhê, who falls into the body by being born, forgets its divine origin and mistakenly identifies the body as its true source. Its radical belonging to to on provides psukhê with an ontological grounding particularly within the context of catharsis as knowledge (epistêmê) and the ascent from the cave (ekodos). The pivotal power in these processes is that of memory (mnêmê). Through the faculty/power of memory, psukhê ascends to on by apprehending the truth of its own essence. The mimetic expression of this ascent in Plato's dialogues is the periakteon, the ascent achieved through turning the scene. Psukhê ascends from the realm of genesis to that of to on by turning the scene, thereby contemplating (theôreô) to on through its eidê. The sole pathos that both facilitates and accompanies this ascent is expressed as erôs. The erôs expressed as pathos is intertwined with the beautiful (to kalon). The beautiful is also seen in the place (topos) of psukhê as it is in itself (autê kath' autên) through the faculty of memory by means of the face of the sophos. When the psukhê remembers his original self by turning the scene and observing the essences preserved in memory, he achieves harmony (harmonia) and virtue (aretê) in terms of pathê and achieves releasement. Plato's thought provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the foundation of experience by reading the pathos of psukhê, that is, the pathê, in an integrated and interconnected manner, without separating them. Freud's thought, rooted in a Darwinian conception of vitality, critiques the psychological theories of his time for their limitations and proposes a broader framework under the name of "psychoanalysis" to address and treat the psukhê and its disorders more comprehensively. Freudian psychoanalysis interprets psychic processes through three interrelated dimensions – dynamic, economic, and topographical – and posits that the primary agent that constitutes experience is It (das Es). This conclusion is grounded in vii various clinical cases and theoretical observations. This result, when considered, is a process that is completely opposed to the process of elimination of metaphysics in Kant and its aftermath. Revealing the topography of the psychic apparatus and the principles governing its layers means, first and foremost, paving the way for the science of the thing-in-itself, a pursuit rendered impossible by Kantian metaphysics. Freudian psychoanalysis, through various analyses, asserts that the psychic apparatus is timeless (zeitlos). However, the conclusions of Freudian psychoanalysis arrive at an inherently undermining basis particularly because it does not fully bring its arguments to their logical conclusion. This failure results in overlooking the fact that the psychic apparatus is a substance. Consequently, Freudian psychoanalysis, unable to see that the psychic apparatus is a substance, failed to realize that the force of memory fundamentally determines experience and that the fall into the body through birth constitutes a primary trauma. Using various Platonic analyses and arguments, it is argued in this thesis that Freudian psychoanalysis, which overlooks these, cannot be thought of as a complete science and, as such, its conception of health is incomplete and needs a first-class metaphysics to complete it.