ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the history of the terms 'analysis' and 'synthesis' as they are used by two 'founding fathers', Sigmund Freud and C. G. Jung, and attempts to highlight the difference in their conclusions to which they are, as a result, led. It helps explain the difference in their respective conceptions of the 'symbol'. The distinction between 'synthesis' and 'analysis' comes to be seen in terms of three categories, namely: the sign, the allegory, and the symbol. Increasingly, the distinction between 'analysis' and 'synthesis' broadened out into a methodological dichotomy in the interpretation of dreams, forming the basis of analytical psychology's claim to be superior to Freudian analysis. For Cassirer, the emphasis in the term 'symbolic form' lies very much on the formal element: language, myth, science, and art are examples of 'symbolic forms'. Although equally insistent on the formal aspect of the archetype, Jung tends to emphasize both the visual aspect of the symbol or archetype, and its function.
