On Paul Ricoeur Interpretation Of The Freudian Concept Of The Body

The philosophy of subjectivity has become more and more controversial. Ricoeur endeavored to open up more space for it by defending for subjectivity. Since Freud had proposed the concept of unconsicousness, the myth of Cogito was broken. And Ricoeur thought Freud brought forward a totally new concept of subjectivity. My dissertation is intended for the elaboration of the point of view of subjectivity Freud proposed.In Ricoeur’s book Le conflit des interpretations, he summaried the main points of Freud’s theory of subjectivity as follows:psychoanalysis doesn’t cancel consciousness and ego; thus it doesn’t take the place of subjectivity but tranfers it. Consciousness and ego continue to emerge in topography and roles, the sum of topography and roles constitute the human subjectivity. By taking examples in dream-work for which energy and meaning can’t be separated, Ricoeur points out that interpetation of dreams as a kind of systematic work also needs a mixed discourse, rather than pure linguistics or pure energetics. Upon the concept of consciousness as one of localities in topography, Freud added a concept of ego, whose energy is controled by master. Hence the problematic of subjectivity is transformed into two parts.The movement Freud named analysis calls for abandonment of immediate consciousness. Then unconsciousness becomes a psychic topography, which is the first route of the movement. The second one traces from the psyphic representation of instincs to the derivatives of representation in consciousness. How do we understand such double movement in a reflective point of view? Ricoeur thinks the task of first route is relinquishing and task of second route is recapture of meaning through interpretation. The concept of psychic representation is at the turning point of the double movement, at the start of the equivalence between becoming conscious and anthentic cogito, the recapture of meaning.Consciousness or ego, they are both not on the foundamental or the primordial standpoint now. What’s the new request for something that should be re-expressed? A perspective from other human sciences such as sociology and linguistics is brought in by the concept of psychic representation of affection. And the double movement between symbolism and reflection involves treating culture as concrete Cogito.Apart from critical revisement, the philosophy of subjectivity is granted a positive task by psychoanalysis. That’s a task of reflective philosophy after Frued, which dialectically relates a teleology with an archeology once again. At first, what’s to be elaborated is the fact that subject has its root in desire, which entails existentialisn and throws bright light upon archeology of subject. Secondly, to have an arche the subject must maintain a telos. Ricoeur refers to a classic teleology of consciousness, the Hegelian phenomenology. To prove that the problematic of Hegel is in Freud, and vice vesa, Ricoeur deals with three points in implicit teleology of Freudianism.