상세 보기
초록
Comparing the thoughts of Schelling; a major metaphysician of German Idealism, with those of Freud; a clinical physician grounded in empirical observation, may at first seem unfamiliar. However, if we recall that several decades before the publication of Interpretation of Dreams (1900), treatments for neurosis within German Romantic Psychotherapy had already been developed based on Schelling’s theory of the unconscious, then the comparison between Schelling and Freud is not strange at all. Of course, the fact that Schelling and Freud both discuss the unconscious does not mean that the aims or horizons of their discussions are the same. While Schelling’s investigation of the unconscious begins from a cosmological inquiry into the generative principles of existence itself, Freud’s discussion begins from the clinical intention to address neurosis and hysteria at the level of the individual psyche. Despite these differences, what is common to both is the view that the foundation of mental life lies not in the conscious realm but in the domain of the unconscious, that instinctual drives unfolding in this realm determine human existence, and that its inner depth remains a “remainder” that cannot be fully elucidated through rational understanding. This commonality is crucial to comparing their teachings because the theory of the unconscious and instinct that remained merely hypothetical for Freud can gain an ontological grounding through Schelling’s cosmological insight. In other words, by revealing that the unconscious realm, which Freud must inevitably posit to explain neurosis or hysteria, is in fact grounded in an ontological principle for understanding human existence, Freud’s metapsychology obtains a new philosophical foundation, while Schelling’s view, often dismissed as merely speculative, gains empirical concreteness. This paper examines how the unconscious; as the primordial domain of being for Schelling, is understood, how human personality is formed from this domain, and how these ideas are reflected in Freud’s thought. In particular, through this examination, the study argues that both Schelling and Freud understand the domain of the unconscious and pathological mental phenomena as resulting from conflicts and imbalances between opposing forces of nature, and that in this respect they share the same metaphysical foundation.