Page 18 - GALIET METAPOIESIS AND TRUTH IV+

Galiet & Galiet
2. Of particular beings within the open space.
a. Though it also involves concealment, humans overcome it ‘partially and case by case’45
To Heidegger, Plato errs in associating truth to light.46 Both, hiddenness and the privative sense of a-letheia are lost; for how unnatural, impossible and disabling it is, not only to be constantly, always in the light, but also for a single light to account for the openness of the open and for the unconcealing of particular entities.47 Freud and Jung48 would particularly agree: truth is rarely found in luminosity, but in the secret, dark recesses of the unconscious. However, the unconscious’ journey towards consciousness, by means of symbols, archetypes, dreams and visions, is one from darkness to clarity, from sensory perception to interpretation to understanding, to seeing. That is, the analyst, not the Philosopher King, turns soul’s gazes from ignorance’s dark towards understanding’s light, from false images to contemplating reality in the world, or Heidegger’s openness in the open, as opposed to a true, unchanging, eternal reality whose final end is the Supreme Idea or Form of the Good. In Plato’s theory in the Republic, the Philosopher King and the best and most capable natures can be said to dwell always in Heidegger’s openness of the open where particular entities are unconcealed. Given their arduous learning, all things are revealed to them, including the Forms and things-in-themselves. Thus, they can discern the false from the true. Moreover, in their arduous ascension towards what is, that is, “true philosophy” (521c), they move “away from becoming” towards “truth and being” (525c). The image of the Divided Line and the Allegory of the Cave symbolize ascension from
45 Heidegger. Vol. 65: Beitrage zur Philosophie. Vom Ereignis. Ed. F.W. von Hermann, 1989. Manuscripts of 1936-8. 338
46 Cited too in Michael Inwood’s A Heidegger Dictionary. 13-14 Indeed, once the leap is made from Dianoia to noesis, the Sun-in-itself is seen as parallel to seeing the Good-in-itself. That is, just as the sun in visible world, by its light, causes sight and the existence of objects of sight, the Good, in the intelligible world, by its truth, causes knowledge and the existence of objects of knowledge: the Forms.
47 Heidegger. Vol. 65: Beitrage zur Philosophie. Vom Ereignis. Ed. F.W. von Hermann, 1989. Manuscripts of 1936-8. LXV, 339 48 To Freud, Plato’s cavern would be symbolic of the unconscious id, superego and ego, which mirror Plato’s tripartite soul. Plato’s appetitive part of the soul is analogous to Freud’s id (driven by its two impulses: Eros and Thanatos); Plato’s spirit part of the soul is parallel to Freud’s superego (it represents the socialized ideals of honour and shame, that is, an individual has to choose between the tension of what he desires and what ought to be repressed, which is similar to Plato’s story of Leontius and the Corpses in Book IV; and Plato’s rational part of the soul is analogous to Freud’s Ego (it pursues pleasure in the sense that it seeks to minimize suffering, pain and the tragic. That is, it seeks temperance or to compromise between thetwoextremepoles:IdandSuperEgo. Moreover,Platopositsthatbeastlydesiresseekinggratificationareawakenedin sleep. These dreams will repress nothing; they will encourage every act of folly including having sex with a mother, god or beast, committing murder, etc. This concurs, in part, with Freud’s Oedipus and Electra Complex theories. Plato. Republic. Book IX, 571d. Freud. On the Interpretation of Dreams. Trans. James Strachey. New York: Basic Books, 2010. 363-68. Carl Jung’s theory posits that myth is an experience, the original revelation of the unconscious and the symbolic manifestation of archetypes. That is, myth is a projection from the collective unconscious, which beholds the archetypes, primordial universal images. The archetypes can be associated to the Forms of Plato and their symbols to the particular artefacts or effigies journeying towards consciousness. However, the Forms as Archetypes and the artefacts as symbols would be experienced by the senses within Plato’s cave or Jung’s collective unconscious. Segal, Robert. Theorizing About Myth. Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999. 72-77
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