Transcendental Philosophy, The History of Psychology Kant and Freud.

Abstract

Kant is not generally recognised to be an Aristotelian hylomorphic Philosopher because of his extension of logic into Philosophical Psychology in the form of Transcendental Logic. This extension is a natural articulation of hylomorphic metaphysics. Aristotle’s 4 kinds of change, 3 principles, and 4 “causes” are all transformed into the Kantian system of categories of judgement and also transposed into the faculties of sensibility, understanding, and reason. The principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason obviously have origins in Aristotelian logic and Metaphysics. Freud claims that he is writing the Psychology that Kant would have written had he written subsequent to the “divorce” between Philosophy and Psychology in 1870 but it is clear that Freud too must be considered a hylomorphic Psychologist. This latter claim must be true if it is the case that Kant can be regarded, a hylomorphic Philosopher. Freud regards Consciousness and psychological residues (rituals) that we find in institutions as vicissitudes of Instinct. Instinct is here of course a philosophical concept possessing an aim, an object, a bodily source and a demand for motor activity. Early vicissitudes of instincts are narcissistically based and give rise the genesis of a strong ego under favourable circumstances. Freudian theory correctly interpreted ought to give rise to ethical theory of the type we find in Kant. This is a requirement for theories that we find in the arena of transcendental psychology.