ABSTRACT
II. 2. But, first, as an initial digression, we must consider Plato. (Freud is most indebted to Plato and Schopenhauer among philosophers, even though he seldom cites Schopenhauer, and his references to Plato are peculiarly trivial, considering his debt to Plato.)a. W e shall ignore the metaphysical error which Plato seems to make in separating soul and body as if they were independently existing things. W e shall also ignore the errors which follow in Platonic psychology. All these are repeated by Descartes [37].b. Here we are only concerned to state Plato’s true insights about the nature of man:(1) That he is a rational animal, and is, therefore, subject to the fundamental conflicts between animality and rationality. (Thus, the myth of the charioteer in the Phaedrus, which is devoted to speeches about love.2 3) Here Plato anticipates Freud in great detail concerning sexuality, and love as its proper sublimation. I am referring to the three papers by Freud on the psychology of love in 1910, 1912 and 1918.* Here, furthermore, Plato describes in detail the conflicts in man between his lower and higher nature, between his animality and his rationality, between his id and his ego and super-ego.4(2) That he is a loving animal. This means that in all his activities, whether they be sexual or artistic or philosophical, man acts through love. The Platonic insistence upon Eros as a fundamental trait of the psyche is the Freudian insistence that all human activities are an expression of libido. Libido, desire, love-all name the same fundamental root of activity. In the Symposium, and elsewhere, Plato enumerates and orders the various objects of love. His distinction between sensual and intellectual love is the Freudian distinction between sexuality and its various sublimations.(3) That man can be rational without ceasing to love, and love without ceasing to be rational. Here the 2 V d . especially the second speech which Socrates makes: Phaedrus, 244-257. 3 In Collected Papers, London, 1925: V o l. IV , Papers X I-X III, three contributions to the psychology of love. 4 V d . Republic, IX, 588 C-590 B, in which Plato employs the image of a three-headed beast to describe the soul.
