Psyche

Psyche (sī`kē), in Greek mythology, personification of the human soul. She was so lovely that Eros (Cupid), the god of love, fell in love with her. He swept her off to a beautiful, isolated castle but forbade her to look at him since he was a god. When she disobeyed, he abandoned her, but she ceaselessly searched for him, performing difficult and dangerous tasks, until at last she was reunited with him forever and made immortal.

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Psyche

Psyche, depicted with wings, classical sculpture; in the Louvre, Paris

(credit: Alinari-Art Resource/EB Inc.)

In Greek and Roman mythology, a beautiful princess who won Cupid's love. Her beauty was such that worshipers began to turn away from Venus, and the envious goddess commanded her son Cupid to make Psyche fall in love with the most despicable of men. But Cupid himself fell in love with Psyche and hid her in a remote place, where he visited her secretly under cover of darkness. One night she lit a lamp and discovered her lover's identity. He left angrily, and Psyche wandered the earth searching for him and was captured by Venus. After Cupid rescued Psyche, Jupiter made her immortal and gave her in marriage to Cupid.

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psyche

the human mind or soul

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psyche [′sī·kē]

(psychology)

The mind or self as a functional entity.

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Psyche [′sī·kē]

(astronomy)

An asteroid with a diameter of about 155 miles (249 kilometers), mean distance from the sun of 2.92 astronomical units, and unusual (M-type) surface composition; it may be made of solid metal.

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Psyche 

in Greek mythology, the personification of the human soul, usually represented as a butterfly or a maiden. The myth of the love of Psyche and Eros has been used as a subject in literature by Apuleius, La Fontaine, Molière, I. Bogdanovich, and others and in art by A. Canova, A. Pajou, and Raphael, among others.

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Psyche 

a property of highly organized matter; a special form of the reflection of objective reality by the subject.

The most important characteristic of psychic reflection is activity. Psychic reflection is a product of the subject’s activity. In addition, however, by mediating this activity, psychic reflection orients and controls it. Thus, psychic phenomena constitute the essential internal aspect of the subject’s objective activity, and the character and laws of the psyche can be scientifically explained only by analyzing the structure, kinds, and forms of this activity.

The concept of the psyche as a reflection makes it possible to overcome the false formulation of the problem of the correlation between the psychological and the physiological, which may result in the dissociation of the psyche from the functioning of the brain, in the reduction of psychic to physiological phenomena, or finally, in a simple assertion of the parallelism of psychic and physiological phenomena. If psychic reflection is interpreted as the product of activity that results in the interaction of the material subject with objective reality, the treatment of psychic phenomena as purely spiritual phenomena isolated from corporeal cerebral processes is precluded, since it is through these processes that reflected reality is transformed into psychic reflection. However, the characteristics of the subject’s activity cannot be derived directly from the physiological processes that realize the activity. The subject’s activity is determined by the properties and relations of the objective world, to which it is subordinate, and to which the psychic reflection arising in the subject’s brain is, therefore, also subordinate. Thus, although psychic phenomena exist only as a result of the functioning of the brain, and although they are, in this sense, a function of the brain, they can neither be reduced to physiological phenomena nor derived from them. Psychic phenomena constitute a special quality manifested only in the system of relations of the subject’s activity.

Originating at a particular stage in biological evolution, the psyche became a necessary condition for the further development of life. As it changes and becomes more complex, psychic reflection acquires in man a qualitatively new form—the form of consciousness produced by man’s life in society and by the social relations that mediate man’s ties with the world. The development of consciousness is necessary, owing to the special character of human labor, which differs qualitatively from the instinctive behavior of animals. As a purposeful, productive activity, labor requires the representation of its objective result in the human mind, in a subjective form that makes it possible to compare the result of labor with the original material (the object of labor), with its transformations, and with the final result (the product of labor). The representation that regulates the subject’s activity is embodied in the product of this activity—the objectified form in which man perceives the representation. The process of comparing the representation, which mediates activity, with the reflection of its product is the process of conscious perception, which is possible only if the subject perceives the object in a form that is reflected in language. Therefore, what is consciously perceived is also invariably verbalized. In performing this function, language is not only a means of communication among people but also a true consciousness, which exists for an individual only insofar as it exists for other people (K. Marx, in K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 3, p. 29). Thus, as a form of the individual psyche, consciousness is possible only in society. Although consciousness is the main form of the human psyche it is not the only form. There are also unconscious psychic phenomena and processes in man, but he is unaware of them, for they are not accessible to introspection.

Although the phenomena of conscious reflection are accessible to introspection by the subject, their character can be determined only by objective analysis. The study of the psyche is the subject matter of psychology.

A. N. LEONTEV