Seminar based around Sigmund Freud

The second seminar of the semester focused around the theories of Sigmund Freud and whether they were still relevant today. The starting point for the discussion was focused around chapter 3 of Anthony Kenny's book, Philosophy of the Modern World. As a group we concluded that Freud was still influential and in our everyday lives we say "Freudian slips" for example a man says to his friend 'Would you like to eat bread and butter, or cake?' and the friend replies: 'Bed and butter please'.  After discussing "Freudian slips", Shira asked us our opinions on Freud's theory of the id, ego and superego and whether this theory can be applied today. I think that each human being contains an id, ego and superego as everyone has instincts to do something and our brain tells us whether we should do it and what the consequences are if we carry out that action.

Following this debate, Shira raised an excellent point by saying was Freud a god-like figure and had any other philosophers from history had any ideas that opposed Freud's theories. Freud believed that  the three structuress consisting of our id, ego and superego controlled and shaped us as human beings. Whereas Ancient philosophers such as Plato argued that society had a tripartite structure made up of the appetite, spirit, reason which represent appetite/spirit/reason arts of a human body. The appetite part of the structure represents the abdomen which are the workers and labourers. The chest represents the spirit and this is made up of warriors who are strong and brave. The final part of the structure is the reason which is represented by the head and this consists of rulers, Kings and Philosophers who are intelligent, rational and make decisions on behalf of the people. These people were considered to be special and have a God-like presence among society. Therefore, Plato's tripartite self was not solely based around the mind, but also the occupation of people in society, which is very different to Freud's interpretation of a tripartite self which was influenced by thought and expression.