Metaphysical foundations of Freudian psychology: |a transcendental reconsideration

Abstract

In the present thesis we compare the metaphysical foundations of Kant's ontology (as it is given in Kant's First Critique) and Freud's psycho-analytic theory. This comparison involves an investigation of the understanding of soul in a theoretical framework in view of these two approaches. In that study we try to show that the foundations of psycho-analytic theory partially and ontologically rests on the elements of the transcendental philosophy and that psycho-analytic theory also contains elements which appear to be complementary to Kantian metaphysics. We can summarize the conclusion of this investigation in the following way: In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant aims at an ontological investigation of the Gegenstand(s) whose source lies in the (outer) thing-in-itself. For this reason, his understanding and theoretical constitution of soul in the First Critique is limited to the consideration of the soul as the ground of the possibility of the knowledge of things that appear in space as substantial entities. Yet such a constitution renders the knowledge of the soul, that is the science of psychology as theoretically impossible. In this regard we conclude that by including the (inner) thing-in-itself, that is the id (it) into the theoretical framework of the constitution of the soul and by introducing the capacity of the memory as a transcendental capacity into the constitution of the mind, psycho-analytic theory extends the limits of transcendental philosophy and thereby provides a theoretical ground for the possibility of psychology as a science proper.