principles
The term ‘Principle’ traverses the depth-psychology corpus along several distinct but intersecting axes. In Plotinus, it functions as the metaphysical ground of emanative hierarchy: the One is the Principle of Emanation, preceding Intellect and Soul, itself without shape or predicate, the source from which all multiplicity derives while remaining untouched by it. This Neoplatonic usage—Principle as that which generates without itself being generated—resonates deeply with Jung’s later formulations of psychic archetypes as originary structuring forces. Jung, approaching the term empirically, recasts it in energic language: the conservation-of-energy principle anchors his account of psychic transformation, while the pleasure principle and reality principle (absorbed from Freud) structure the temporal dialectic of psychic life. Ferenczi extends this dialectic to include male and female principles in nature, linking biological polarity to psychic economy. The I Ching’s light and dark principles—rendered by Wilhelm as Creative and Receptive—enter Jungian amplification as cosmological correlates of the opposites. Ricoeur’s deployment of Aristotle’s arkhē as ‘principle of action’ ties agency to self-ascription, bridging the metaphysical and the ethical registers. Across the corpus, ‘Principle’ names simultaneously a cosmological origin, an energic law, an ethical foundation, and a structural pole—making it one of the most semantically layered terms in the tradition.
it must have been before Intellect and abundance were; these are later and things of lack… the Source of all this cannot be an Intellect; nor can it be an abundant power: it must have been before Intellect
Plotinus argues that the ultimate Principle transcends Intellect and Being alike, constituting the generative source from which all derivative realities, including the Intellectual-Principle itself, necessarily flow.
, The Six Enneads, 270thesis
The Unity, then, is not Intellectual-Principle but something higher still: Intellectual-Principle is still a being but that First is no being but precedent to all Being
Plotinus establishes the One as the highest Principle precisely by stripping it of all attributes, including Being itself, positioning it as the formless ground anterior to every determinate form.
, The Six Enneads, 270thesis
this engendering principle must be the very highest in worth; and its immediate offspring, its secondary, must be the best of all that follows
Plotinus articulates an axiological hierarchy in which the engendering Principle necessarily exceeds its products in worth, establishing the metaphysical logic of emanation.
, The Six Enneads, 270thesis
the agent the principle (arkhé) of his actions, but in a sense of arkhé that authorizes us to say that the actions depend on the agent himself
Ricoeur, reading Aristotle, identifies ‘principle’ as the locus of ascription linking agent to action, grounding ethical responsibility in the self’s status as originary cause of its own deeds.
, Oneself as Another, 1992thesis
An energic standpoint is otiose if its main principle, the conservation of energy, proves to be inapplicable… we must follow Busse’s suggestion and distinguish between the principle of equivalence and the
Jung grounds his energic psychology in the physical principle of conservation, demanding that this foundational law be tested against empirical psychic material before it can anchor a viable depth-psychological theory.
, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 1960thesis
Blood is the symbol of the dark principle, just as breath is the symbol of the light principle… the light principle also suffers injury in this struggle
Wilhelm’s I Ching commentary renders the cosmological opposition of light and dark as co-wounding principles, a symbolic framework central to Jung’s amplificatory method for treating psychic opposites.
, The I Ching or Book of Changes, 1950supporting
the light principle still exists. Blood is the symbol of the dark principle, just as breath is the symbol of the light principle
The passage encodes a dualistic cosmological symbolism in which breath and blood serve as somatic emblems of opposing metaphysical principles, directly informing Jungian polarity thinking.
, The I Ching or Book of Changes, 1950supporting
Thinking governed by the reality principle is already weighed down to some extent… The dominance of the mind by the pleasure principle means freedom of the will
Ferenczi frames the pleasure and reality principles as opposing modes of mental governance, setting the pleasure principle as the condition of a freedom that logical-causal thinking necessarily forecloses.
, The Clinical Diary of Sándor Ferenczi, 1932supporting
this free Principle is not an absolute possession of the animal Kinds and is not even an absolute possession to all men… There are men in whom it alone acts, giving its character to the life
Plotinus distinguishes a free Principle operative in the highest human souls from the necessitated substratum, anticipating depth-psychological distinctions between autonomous psychic centres and compelled instinctual complexes.
, The Six Enneads, 270supporting
the Intellectual-Principle our King… we are king when we are moulded to the Intellectual-Principle
Plotinus presents the Intellectual-Principle as the sovereign ordering principle of the self, achievable when the soul aligns itself with the higher intellective centre rather than remaining dispersed in sensory life.
, The Six Enneads, 270supporting
The anima is definite and the animus is indefinite… Animus in a man is not a person, it is his conscious principle, and then I call it Logos
Jung identifies animus with the conscious principle (Logos) in men, distinguishing principle as a structural psychic function from a personified figure, and aligning this with Chinese hun/kwei symbolism.
, Dream Analysis: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1928-1930, 1984supporting
this Logos is not the Intellectual Principle unmingled, not the Absolute Divine Intellect; nor does it descend from the pure Soul alone; it is a dependent of that Soul
Plotinus carefully distinguishes the Logos-Reason-Principle of the universe from the pure Intellectual-Principle, characterising it as a mixed, derivative ordering force that mediates between the intelligible and material realms.
, The Six Enneads, 270supporting
The First, the Principle whose beauty is self-springing: this attained, there is an end to the pain inassuageable before
Plotinus characterises the ascent toward the First Principle in terms of the resolution of erotic suffering, linking metaphysical ultimacy with the quenching of the soul’s deepest longing.
, The Six Enneads, 270supporting
before our universe there exists, not expressed in the outer, the Intellectual-Principle of all the All, its source and archetype… if there is thus an Intellectual-Principle before all things, their founding principle, this cannot be a thing lying subject to chance
Plotinus grounds cosmic Providence in the pre-existence of the Intellectual-Principle as founding Principle, distinguishing ordered archetypal necessity from contingency.
, The Six Enneads, 270supporting
it is on the level of the principle of autonomy, in the nakedness of the relation of freedom to law, when persons have not yet been
Ricoeur locates the principle of autonomy as the fundamental ground of Kantian moral experience, prior to the elaboration of persons and respect, marking it as the primary locus of practical self-attestation.
, Oneself as Another, 1992supporting
If the Intellectual-Principle were envisaged as preceding Being, it would at once become a principle whose expression, its intellectual Act, achieves and engenders the Beings
Plotinus explores the ontological priority of Principle over Being, arguing that the Intellectual-Principle and Being are ultimately co-constitutive, their apparent separateness an artefact of discursive habit.
, The Six Enneads, 270supporting
there must always be a yet higher, a principle above all such diversity… The Supreme must be an entity in which the two are one
Plotinus argues that any principle exhibiting internal differentiation points necessarily to a prior, simpler Principle, culminating the regress only in an absolute unity beyond all dyadic structure.
, The Six Enneads, 270supporting
The Intellectual-Principle itself contains every cause of the things of its content; but these of its content are identically Intellectual-Principle, each of them Intellectual-Principle
Plotinus affirms the self-sufficiency of the Intellectual-Principle by showing that the causal principles of all Ideas are immanent within them, precluding any appeal to an external explanatory ground at this level.
, The Six Enneads, 270aside
we cannot assail the principle; but neither, he insists, can we demonstrate it in the demanded way. It is, for us, the starting-point of all discourse
Nussbaum, via Alexander of Aphrodisias on Aristotle, treats the principle of non-contradiction as the indemonstrable starting-point of all rational discourse, an arkhē that can be defended only from within the practice of reasoning itself.
, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy, 1986aside