Journeys Within and Beyond: Jungian Archetypes and Platonic Ideals — by Zeenia Bhat

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t is said that all philosophy begins with Plato. In Western philosophy, Plato and Aristotle are regarded as foundational and canonized figures whose work has resonated across time and cultures. Plato coalesced all knowledge into innate ideas by proposing that the soul is immortal and exists before being born into a physical body. In this pre-bodily existence, the soul has access to all knowledge, which is perfect and unchanging. Plato believed that the physical world we perceive with our senses is not the ultimate reality. Instead, he argued that it is a mere imperfect reflection or copy of a higher, more perfect reality—residing in the world of the Forms. Plato's ideal world represents true reality, enabling us to see the physical world as an illusion, illustrated through his famous analogy of the cave.

Carl Gustav Jung, in the twentieth century, introduced the concept of “the collective unconscious.” Jung’s concept was an extension of Freud's unconscious or personal unconscious, as Jung termed it. Like Plato, Jung also considered the collective unconscious as consisting of innate archetypes (that a person is born with these images or ideas), and when exposed to consciousness (ego), it cultivates the psychological makeup of a human being. The innateness of archetypes and the Platonic ideals found in both theories could help us interpret Plato's ideal world as Jung's archetypes of psyche—to be considered as simultaneous or parallel ideas  while also being evaluated  in contrast with one  another.

The theory of innate ideas, or ideas that a human is inherently born with, began with Plato and was inherited and developed further by Descartes, Leibniz, and the 17th-century rationalists. In many of his dialogues, especially in The Republic, Plato states that human beings—before acquiring physical/material forms—know everything, but as soon as they enter the realm of material, they forget everything and all their life they struggle to recollect the knowledge that is lost to them. The recollection of the original concepts or images in our mind is how, according to Plato, humans attain knowledge of the material and spiritual realm.

Plato believed that an accomplished life was achieved when most of the things from the previous life (from the spiritual realm) are recollected or remembered, and it is this recollection that decides the fate of humans after death or after they cease to exist in the physical form. Plato saw the material world as a shadow of the real (ideal world), which remains unchanged and unharmed by time and space. The world of the objects for Plato was not real and hence could not be relied on. Instead, innate ideas were true and would determine reality. As the souls dwelled together in the spiritual realm, innate ideas were not originally distinguishable but were mutual to all. For example, the concept of the shape of a triangle is the same for all (no matter how many of its copies in the material world may exist), as it comes from the world of ideas. For Plato, we all have the same concepts or innate ideas, but when in the material world, the recollection of these is unique to everyone, depending upon their indulgence with the world of materials.

When we closely read Jungian psychoanalysis, we realize that the innate ideas that Plato refers to can be connected to the archetypes that Jung defined as the components of the collective unconscious. Jung himself states that the term ‘archetype’ comes from the writings of Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish Platonist philosopher who used it to refer, more or less, to Platonic Forms. In his work, Philo Judaeus explained the archetype as a God-given image or God's image (Imago Dei) in humans concerning that of the ideal (Jung, 1953–1979). Jung believed that humans are born with certain concepts, primordial images that are collective for all the generations. The collective unconscious was not the unconscious that Freud had defined, although Jung did not deny Freud’s notion of “the unconscious”  but called it the “personal unconscious” that is subjected to external experience, unlike the collective unconscious, which is inborn and inherited by our ancestors.

The collective unconscious was what Freud called the archaic remnants, as it led back to the commonality of the psyche of the earliest human beings, often best observed in mythologies. According to Jung, the collective unconscious is a part of the human psyche that consists of archetypes, which are believed to be common to all (Jung, 1953–1979), and which together comprise the archaic heritage of humanity (Jung, 1953–1979). The innateness of archetypes and the Platonic ideals found in both theories can help us interpret Plato's ideal world as Jung's archetypes of psyche. However, both the ideas and archetypes need the external world (world of senses) to embody their form; the difference is in the importance laid by Jung and Plato on the external world. For Jung, the collective unconscious manifests itself lucidly through dreams, art, social behavior, etc.

When the personal unconscious and the Ego (conscious mind) come into contact with the external world, Plato's theory of forms suggests that innate ideas try to manifest themselves in physical objects but can never achieve perfection. Unlike Plato, Jung does not dismiss the material world as unimportant or unreal. Instead, he emphasizes the significance of art and dreams in understanding the human psyche. The ideals of Plato symbolize perfectionism, as they belong to the world where divinity exists. Platonic Forms are often associated with phenomena such as mathematical or geometrical principles and physical laws. On the other hand, the Jungian archetypes refer to aspects of human personality and mental experience.

In his definition of archetypes, Jung divided them into four major categories: The Self, The Shadow, Animus, and Anima. For example, one of his archetypes, "The Shadow," which he calls the source of both our creative and destructive energies (Jung, 1953–1979), is found in every myth as the antagonist to the hero within himself or as the other, the opposite of which goes beyond the ego and leads to a complete realization of human individuality. In Plato's theory of forms, the concept of the Self or the realization of the ideal form of human beings is quite relative to that of Jung. However, the concept of the Shadow or the destructive energy in Plato's theory can only be exemplified by the physical form and forgetfulness of prior knowledge. The good and the evil, the Self and the Shadow, cannot reside together for Plato. While Jung collects all shades of life and bundles them up into several archetypes, Plato associates the soul with whiteness and the body with blackness. He takes up mathematical forms of physical laws as universal and unchangeable and therefore relates them to his ideal world. On the other hand, Jung’s psychoanalytic framework associates universality not with mathematical or physical laws but with the presence of similar archetypes among different cultures and religions.

According to Jung, it was these archetypes that have been carried from one generation to another through biological evolution and form the basis of major similarities between different cultures or religions, as seen in several mythologies. In a similar vein, for Plato, the qualities of a hero and a villain, with their consistent signs, patterns, and characteristics across civilizations, reflect universal ideals; similarly, the traits of a "virtuous man" or a "sinful man" would also align across cultures.

The traits of the Hero or the Villain, according to both theories, would have similarities as they spring from the universal. Jung examined the cycle of life or the quest of a hero or protagonist to attain Self-actualization. Plato's Quest can be of a man's remembrance of the knowledge that was hidden within himself. Countless mythologies around the world illustrate the struggle of a man fighting for The Self (actualization) by overcoming his fatal flaws or shadows and entering the realm of the divine or the ideal. The Hero's (immortal man's) quest follows a pattern. They start their journey with nothing but return as changed men who have attained resurrection.

In Plato's philosophy, heroes must struggle to ascend on the ladder to divinity, avoiding the traps of the physical and material world. Like Jungian heroes, they face important choices, resist the call to evil or base actions, and meet a mentor or philosopher guide (similar to Jung's "wise old man"). They cross various thresholds, make judgments, and pass tests that lead them closer to their larger goal. This journey often includes a symbolic approach to death, representing rebirth. For Plato, the quest of a mortal is to return to the ideal form they originated from and rediscover the innate knowledge of the Self, rooted in the ideal world. In contrast, Jung does not separate the ideal world from the human body or existence.

The archetypes or the inner knowledge of The Self exist together with The Shadow, i.e.  destructive energy. It is the mortal human's confrontation with the parts of themselves that are inclined toward actions capable of leading to their downfall. Plato neglected human personality and behaviors and avoided the fact that such things could also manifest the ideal and can be universal too. Additionally, he also rejected the importance of the world of senses in the realization of the lost knowledge. Jung took both the worlds of the universal and the senses and formed a bridge (like Kant) by studying myths and examining the resemblances. Thus, Jungian archetypes echo Platonic universals, but unlike Plato, Jung did not envision a separate ideal realm accessible only to nobles or philosophers. Instead, he mapped a journey through the world of senses, guiding individuals to discover the Self that resides within us all.

References

Plato. (1997). Plato:Complete Works (J. M. Cooper, Ed., & D. S. Hutchinson, Assoc. Ed.). Hackett Publishing Company.

Jung, C. G.(1953-1979). The Collected Works of C.G. Jung (H. Read, M. Fordham, & G.  Adler,  Eds., R.F.C. Hull, Trans.). Princeton University Press.

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