Freud’s investigation into the unconscious sphere of the human psyche and its complexprocesses did not merely provide a heuristic tool for the interpretation and understanding ofpsychic manifestations; above all, it demythologized anthropocentric narcissism...
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Freud’s investigation into the unconscious sphere of the human psyche and its complexprocesses did not merely provide a heuristic tool for the interpretation and understanding ofpsychic manifestations; above all, it demythologized anthropocentric narcissism and thephilosophical–metaphysical conviction that the self-conscious subject of modernity is governedby self-sufficiency and transparency and, consequently, is responsible for and in control of itsthoughts, desires, and actions through autonomous will. The Freudian discovery of theunconscious overturns the Cartesian notion of subjectivity; it questions the Cartesian equationsubject = ego = consciousness. This “Copernican” displacement of the center of consciousnessfrom the subjective ego to the unconscious structure of the psyche intimates the abyssaldarkness of Being and the chaotic texture of the Cosmos, which cannot be incorporated intosymbolic discourse, even though it traverses it and perpetually escapes it.
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