Archetype (philosophy)

The term archetype or archetype (from ancient Greek ἀρχή arché 'beginning', 'beginning' and τύπος typos ' 'model', 'sketch') in its philosophical use first refers to Plato and his concept of the idea , which means the metaphysical being, in which the sensually perceptible things participate. According to Plato, the idea or the abstract, metaphysical form is the true, since it alone is eternal, identical and perfect. Such general archetypes can be found today e.g. B. in the representations of the biology books as a primordial plant ( Goethe) as a uniform blueprint or type of all flowering plants with the components root, stalk, leaves and flower or as a basic pattern of an insect, a vertebrate, etc. It is an ideal-typical image of all insects, all vertebrates, etc., i.e. each a prototype. Living beings (plants or animals) with the same blueprint are also referred to as homologous . Each construction plan represents a formal, anatomically or histologically verifiable criterion, but is also tied to a certain specific performance plan .

Archetypes are therefore viewed as a noumenon (intellectual thing) in contrast to the phenomenon (sensory thing). Archetypes are generally non-illustrative, not empirical and therefore more likely to be part of intuitive thinking .

Archetype was introduced into philosophy as a term by René Descartes and John Locke . The archetypes are the basis for ideas.

With Locke, the archetypes also exist outside the knowing subject (in: Experiment on the human understanding). The subjective idealist George Berkeley, on the other hand, does not recognize the archetype outside the knowing subject, since one cannot prove that it also exists. The question is whether we perceive the world as it is or just how we construct it for ourselves.

Immanuel Kant used the term archetype in connection with "natura archetypa". He referred to the archetypal nature, which man only recognizes in reason and whose counter-image in the world of the senses is the replicated (natura ectypa) (in: Critique of Practical Reason ). - In the Critique of Pure Reason, the term is used in the sense of divine reason (intellectus archetypus) in contrast to human reason (intellectus ectypus). Through the divine intuition and through the self-understanding of God, all objects are given themselves (KrV B 68, 72, 135, 138 f., 145, 159, 723). Human reason (intellectus ectypus) is only discursive ( conceptual ), not perceptive (Prolegomena § 57). "The ideal [of pure reason] is to it [reason] the archetype (prototype) of all things, which as a whole as defective copies (ectypa) therefore take the material for their possibility [...] (B 606)."

Friedrich Nietzsche took account of the developmental point of view of archetypal images in dreams with the phrase: "In sleep and dreams we go through the whole workload of earlier humanity." ( Nietzsche )

Henri Bergson viewed the archetypes as "les éternels incréés" (the eternally uncreated).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Schmeil, Otto : Textbook of Botany . General botany. Volume II. Edited by A. Seybold, Quelle & Meyer, Heidelberg ⁵⁷ 1958, concept of the primordial plant , page 43
2. ^ Kühn, Alfred : Outline of general zoology . (1959) Georg Thieme, Stuttgart ¹⁵ 1964, concept of the building plan, pages 5, 7
3. ^ Nietzsche, Friedrich : Menschlich-Allzumenschliches . Vol. II, page 27 ff.
4. ↑ Jolande Jacobi : The psychology of CG Jung . An introduction to the complete works. With a foreword by CG Jung. Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt March 1987, ISBN 3-596-26365-4 , page 50