Two Jungs: Two Sciences?

This paper arguea that Jung intentionally positioned his psychological theory in a liminal space between and inclusive of science and spirituality, while he performed the roles of both doctor and spiritual master. Jung formulated his psychological theory as a solution to his era’s social malaise, which many people believed stemmed from the rupture between faith and reason. Jung sought to build a bridge between science and spirituality through psychology by drawing on certain streams of thought in religion, science and spirituality in his day. The religious view he embraced was that of a “religionswissenschaftliche Religiosität,” which scholar of religions Hiroshi Kubota describes as a “religiously marked intellectuality” that developed due to the “‘scientific’ reflection on religion,” one informed by Enlightenment, Romantic, and liberal Protestant ideas. The scientific perspective with which Jung agreed was that held by holistic scientists, who sought to restore to life a sense of ultimate meaning that was grounded in science. Finally, the spirituality which Jung incorporated into his psychological theory was a Protestant-based, Germanic-inflected form of self-redemption. Formulated by members of the intellectual middle class, this new spirituality reflected their own self-identities as autonomous modern individuals, removed from kin networks and class restrictions. Seen as a completion of the Reformation begun by Martin Luther, self-redemption was touted as a form of spirituality specific to people of Germanic stock. It was within this nexus of ideas about science and spirituality that Jung formulated his psychological perspective. A much expanded version of this paper can be found in ch. 3 of my book, "Jung's Wandering Archetype: Race and Religion in Analytical Psychology” (Routledge 2016).

Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland), 2013

The behavioral sciences and Jung's analytical psychology are set apart by virtue of their respective histories, epistemologies, and definitions of subject matter. This brief paper identifies Jung's scientific stance, notes perceptions of Jung and obstacles for bringing his system of thought into the fold of the behavioral sciences. The impact of the "science versus art" debate on Jung's stance is considered with attention to its unfolding in the fin de siècle era.

It is impossible to do justice to the question of Jung's relationship to science if it is approached solely from within Jungian discourse. Until Shamdasani's (2003) groundbreaking Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology, there had been little scholarly interest in locating analytical psychology in a wider cultural or historical context [1]. Writings about analytical psychology tended to come from a narrowly Jungian perspective, and were mostly aimed at a narrowly Jungian audience. With regard to the question of science, this endemic parochialism shows up in the form of two contrasting approaches: one characterized by a persistent tone of embattled intellectual defensiveness (Zurich as bunker), and the other which enthusiastically trumpeted any scientific discovery (whether in ethology, quantum physics, or evolutionary science) which could be shown (however implausibly) to prove that Jung had been right all along. Behind these equally unedifying approaches it is possible to distinguish two distinct positions within the tradition of analytical psychology: the first approach, which we might describe as aggressively archetypalist, recognises science as only one archetypal or mythic mode amongst many, while the second derives from a defensive need to obtain recognition for Jungian psychology within the official scientific world at all costs (in order that it might eventually take up its rightful place as a true science). Each of these responses derives from, and can be defended by, a partial reading of Jung; and each reading maintains its claim to validity for as long as its alternative is ignored. It is my contention that a reading of Jung which attempts to overcome this partiality by acknowledging the importance of both aspects to Jung's thought not only has the advantage of being truer to Jung's psychology as a whole psychology, but also offers the only way to gain an better understanding of what Jung intended to achieve with that psychology. My contention is that while Jung's psychology does indeed seek to be seen as part of the western scientific tradition, it does so by offering a radical re-visioning of certain aspects of the very science within which it operates. In order to understand this, we need to recognise the context of Jung's ideas within the wider history of European thought. Such a recognition is in no way intended to diminish the value of Jung's psychology, but rather to allow its full heuristic potential to be released.

Provides interested general readers with an overview of the scientific movements in the nineteenth century that led to Jung's emergence with analytical psychology and places his work in the context of important events in his life.

Jung and question of science

Jung's science as depth psychology is itself, is close to humanities discipline

Journal of Analytical Psychology 2015, 2015

Barreto’s paper,‘ Requiem for analytical psychology’ utilized Jung’s dreams and visions to argue for the obsolescence of Jungian psychology. Its thesis rested upon the theoretical assumptions of Giegerich’s psychology as a Discipline of Interiority, which he and Giegerich claim are themselves based in Jung’s psychology. Here I argue that that claim is misplaced because it depends upon a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of Jung’s psychological project. I shall further argue that Giegerich’s arguments for a Jungian basis to his psychology rely upon misreadings and decontextualisations of Jung’s original texts. Finally, I shall attempt to draw attention to the weaknesses and contradictions involved in Barreto’s interpretations of Jung’s dreams and visions.

International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 2015

2019

The thesis falls into two parts. The first examines Jung’s two personalities, as described in his memoir, Memories, Dreams, Reflections. The argument is that Jung’s experience of the dynamic between the two personalities informs basic principles behind, first the development of Jung’s psychological model and second Jung’s entire mature psychology. It is suggested that what Jung took from this experience was the principle that psychological health required the avoidance of one-sidedness, achieved through the dynamic of the two personalities. This dynamic was thus central to Jung’s notion of individuation. In short, this required the individual to bring any one-sided position into tension with a conflicting ‘opposite’ position, in order that a third position could be achieved which transcended both of the earlier positions. The second part of the thesis utilises the conclusions of the first section to bring an internal critique to bear on Jung’s analytical psychology as enshrined in t...

Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2019

Suppose that in opening your mail today, you were to find a postcard announcing a series of lectures to be given live somehow by C. G. Jung on the historical development of psychology as an intellectual discipline. This is not far from the actual experience that the Philemon Foundation has given us with the publication of this set of sixteen public lectures that Jung gave in 1933-1934 at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (known by its German acronym ETH). Reconstructed to preserve Jung's voice from contemporary shorthand transcriptions and other materials, the lectures have been seamlessly edited by Ernst Falzeder, who provides a brilliant introduction and thorough notes that unlock all of Jung's passing references and correct all his little mistakes in a way that rescues Jung even from himself. And for this first, definitive English edition, the translators have attended to how Jung must have sounded in the original German. These lectures convey an impression of a mature Jung speaking to an audience of his own countrymen about territories of the mind he had by then made his own. This was brave. Psychology had not been considered essential to the Germanborn medical psychiatry in which Jung was formally trained, and he was essentially on his own in his studies of psychology. Here we find him nevertheless willing to stake his claim as an expert in the field. The lectures served that purpose; the Swiss Federal Council granted him 'titulary professorship' in 1935 and Jung continued under that title at the ETH until 1941. (As the first in a series of eight volumes of the entire ETH lectures, this one begins with a generous foreword by Ulrich Hoerni describing 'C. G. Jung's Activities at ETH Zurich'. It also includes a definitive chronology of 'Events in Jung's Career' between 1933 and 1941, compiled by Falzeder, Martin Liebscher, and Sonu Shamdasani, and set against the 'World Events' that marked this period. It was a time when consciousness was stressed, and in this volume Jung demonstrates that he is wise enough to give ample attention to all the various objects of consciousness. In doing so, Jung finds not just mind, but mind's