Steven Specht wrote:
> When I was an undergraduate, oh so many years ago, I wrote what, at the
> time, I considered to be my most original paper for a class (i.e., I had not
> read anything like it before). In the paper, I compared Freud's three
> components of the psyche with Plato's three components of the "Republic"
> (i.e., the artisans, warriors and Philosopher-King... as I recall). The
> similarities were quite compelling. But I'm not sure if there is any direct
> link or if the similarities were a coincidence with most general structures
> of triads. I would suspect that it was an illusory relationship.
You may recall that Plato's theory of the state (in the Republic) is based on an
anaology to the psyche (badly translated as "soul"). Plato thought the psyche
had three parts -- the logistikon (roughly, intellect), thumos (usually
translated cryptically as the "spirited part" -- reponsible for indignation,
pride, and anger of a sort) and the epithumetikon (lower desires, passions).
Then Plato argued that the busniesspeople and laborers were ruled by the
epithumetikon, the soliders (or "auxilliaries") by the thumosm and rulers
("philosopher-kings") by the logistikon. Trouble started when the soldiers or
busniesspeople tried to rule, but didn't have the wisdom to balance the various
needs of the state and its people.
There is, to be sure, a rough mapping bewteen Plato's epithumetikon and Freud's
id. One might even be able to make some sort of case for the logistikon and the
ego. It is very difficult, however, to map the thumos on to the super-ego. They
just don't do the same things. In addition, the theorized dynamics among the
various parts are quite different.
That said, Freud's classical education was quite good (perhaps Allen E. can tell
us just how good), he might well have gleaned the general idea of intrapsychic
conflict from Plato (and a slew of others who got it from Plato as well and used
it in various ways).
And if that's not enough for you, see my new book:
Green, C.D. & Groff, P.R. (2003). Early Psychological Thought: Ancient Accounts
of Mind and Soul. Praeger.
Best,
--
Christopher D. Green
Department of Psychology
York University
Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3
Canada
office: 416-736-5115 ext. 66164
fax: 416-736-5814
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
WWW: http://www.yorku.ca/christo/
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