Abstract

I set up the comparison between Socrates' erotic art in Plato's Phaedrus and Freud's psychoanalytic technique in his technical papers. I used Ricoeur's work on Freud to articulate the over-arching philosophic problem. Ricoeur argues that Freudian technique contains a dialectic between an archeology and a teleology of the subject. I will argue that Socrates' erotic art combines a similar dialectic. ;In the second chapter I interpreted Plato's Phaedrus as an explanation and an example of Socrates' erotic art. Socrates' employment of his erotic art was explained by his arguments and images in the dialogue. These arguments and images were interpreted through the dialogic context. Phaedrus attempts to trick Socrates into being his lover. Socrates' knowledge of Phaedrus and of himself enable him to make himself the object of Phaedrus' love. As the object of Phaedrus' love Socrates can better explore his opinions and desires by various combinations of enchantment, cross-questioning, and Odyssean dialectics. ;In the third chapter I showed that the intermediate region between the psychoanalyst and the patient sets up the dialogic conditions for remembering unconscious thought connections and desires. The patient resists remembering the unconscious by repeating it in the transference. The transference is an obstacle and an opportunity for the patient to remember. It brings the patient's libidinal anticipatory ideas into the analysis in a form that is both real and imaginary. The exploration of the patient by working-through involves archeological and teleological as well as affective and cognitive moments. The analyst's awareness of his counter-transference is necessary to lead the patient toward remembering instead of unconscious repetition. ;In the final chapter I explored some structural similarities of Socratic and Freudian technique. I compared the Socratic and Freudian dialogic relationship, Socratic recollection to Freudian remembering, the Socratic struggle of lover and beloved to the analytic struggle over the transference, Odyssean dialectics to working-through, and Socrates' awareness of himself with the analyst's awareness of his counter-transference, I argued that for Socrates there is no movement toward the forms without an archeological self-exploration of character and desire