I am interested in how Jung's understanding contributes to the philosophy of religion and I am asking to what extent his approach is useful for analysis? — Jack Cummins
In other words, he was not actually claiming that God exists. He was aware of a force which he felt able to call God but he was unable to say whether this force represented the reality of God beyond his own consciousness. — Jack Cummins
Although the existence of an instinctual pattern in human biology is probable, it seems very difficult to prove the existence of distinct types empirically. For the organ with which we might apprehend them - consciousness - is not only itself a transformation of the original instinctual image, but also is its transformer. It is therefore not surprising that human mind finds itself it impossible to specify precise types for man similar to those we know in the animal kingdom. I must confess that I can see no direct way to solve this problem. And yet I have succeeded, or so I believe, in finding at least an indirect way of approach to the instinctual image. — Translated by R.F.C. Hull. paragraph 399
From my reading of Jung, there seems to be a fair amount of ambiguity ranging from that which could be seen as supportive of traditional religious experience and that which is more in line with science. — Jack Cummins
I am thinking that if one wishes to read Jung's understanding of the development of the ideas of God in line with a Christian perspective, he is seeing the difference from the God-image from the Old Testament to that in the New Testament, it would not mean that God is changing. That is consistent with his emphasis on the inner realisation of God, as the God-image. So, as far as I can see, Jung's understanding of God could be seen as reductive, or in line with one's choice to fit with the possibility of a belief in God, if one chose to. He simply doesn't go as far as to say that the image of God points to the existence of God. That is where he limits his perspective to a psychological level. — Jack Cummins
Yet, I am aware that Jung's particular point of view is probably not seen as important within philosophy circles. — Jack Cummins
I'm not sure it matters much who venerates him. The question is: Are Jung's ideas more than one man's subjective experiment? The fact that people get things from Jung does not shift his status. Plenty of dodgy ideas have devotees. The fact that Jung is seen as a scientist who flirted with occult and religious matters makes him a kind of hero amongst the Theosophy set. The fact he wrote about symbolism and dreams and archetypes makes him attractive to a very broad cohort. — Tom Storm
You have dismissed him as a kook and are asking someone to talk you out of that conclusion — Valentinus
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/48225/48225-h/48225-h.htmJust as primitive man was able, with the aid of religious and philosophical symbol, to free himself from his original state, so, too, the neurotic can shake off his illness in a similar way. It is hardly necessary for me to say, that I do not mean by this, that the belief in a religious or philosophical dogma should be thrust upon the patient; I mean simply that he has to reassume that psychological attitude which, in an earlier civilisation, was characterised by the living belief in a religious or philosophical dogma. But the religious-philosophical attitude does not necessarily correspond to the belief in a dogma. A dogma is a transitory intellectual formulation; it is the result of the religious-philosophical attitude, and is dependent upon time and circumstances. This attitude is itself an achievement of civilization; it is a function that is exceedingly valuable from a biological point of view, for it gives rise to the incentives that force human beings to do creative work for the benefit of a future age, and, if necessary, to sacrifice themselves for the welfare of the species.
Thus the human being attains the same sense of unity and totality, the same confidence, the same capacity for self-sacrifice in his conscious existence that belongs unconsciously and instinctively to wild animals. Every reduction, every digression from the course that has been laid down for the development of civilisation does nothing more than turn the human being into a crippled animal; it never makes a so-called natural man of him. My numerous successes and failures in the course of my analytic practice have convinced me of the invariable correctness of this psychological orientation. We do not help the neurotic patient by freeing him from the demand made by civilisation; we can only help him[225] by inducing him to take an active part in the strenuous task of carrying on the development of civilisation. The suffering which he undergoes in performing this duty takes the place of his neurosis. But, whereas the neurosis and the complaints that accompany it are never followed by the delicious feeling of good work well done, of duty fearlessly performed, the suffering that comes from useful work, and from victory over real difficulties, brings with it those moments of peace and satisfaction which give the human being the priceless feeling that he has really lived his life. — Jung
We do not help the neurotic patient by freeing him from the demand made by civilisation; we can only help him[225] by inducing him to take an active part in the strenuous task of carrying on the development of civilisation. — Jung
Nice quote. Or as Jordan Peterson might frame it - 'first clean up your room.' — Tom Storm
And I suppose they have to feel its meaning, whatever it is. — T H E
If this is so, one may certainly expect to meet the same[290] contrast between psychological temperaments outside the sphere of pathology. It is moreover easy to cull from literature numerous examples which bear witness to the actual existence of these two opposite types of mentality. Without pretending to exhaust the subject, I will give a few striking examples.
In my opinion, we owe the best observations on this subject to the philosophy of William James.[185] He lays down the principle that no matter what may be the temperament of a "professional philosopher," it is this temperament which he feels himself forced to express and to justify in his philosophy. And starting from this idea, which is altogether in accord with the spirit of psychoanalysis, divides philosophers into two classes: the "tender-minded," who are only interested in the inner life and spiritual things; and the "tough-minded," who lay most stress on material things and objective reality. We see that these two classes are actuated by exactly opposite tendencies of the libido: the "tender-minded" represent introversion, the "tough-minded" extroversion.
James says that the tender-minded are characterised by rationalism; they are men of principles and of systems, they aspire to dominate experience and to transcend it by abstract reasoning, by their logical deductions, and purely rational conceptions. They care little for facts, and the multiplicity of phenomena hardly embarrasses them at all: they forcibly fit data into their ideal constructions, and reduce everything to their a priori premises. This was the method of Hegel in settling beforehand the number of the planets. In the domain of mental pathology we again meet this kind of philosopher in paranoiacs, who, without being disquieted by the flat contradictions presented by experience, impose their delirious conceptions on the universe, and find means of interpreting everything, and according to Adler "arranging" everything, in conformity with their morbidly preconceived system.
The other traits which James depicts in this type follow[291] naturally from its fundamental character. The tender-minded man, he says, is intellectual, idealist, optimist, religious, partisan of free-will, a monist, and a dogmatist. All these qualities betray the almost exclusive concentration of the libido upon the intellectual life. This concentration upon the inner world of thought is nothing else than introversion. In so far as experience plays a rôle with these philosophers, it serves only as an allurement or fillip to abstraction, in response to the imperative need to fit forcibly all the chaos of the universe within well-defined limits, which are, in the last resort, the creation of a spirit obedient to its subjective values.
The tough-minded man is positivist and empiricist. He regards only matters of fact. Experience is his master, his exclusive guide and inspiration. It is only empirical phenomena demonstrable in the outside world which count. Thought is merely a reaction to external experience. In the eyes of these philosophers principles are never of such value as facts; they can only reflect and describe the sequence of phenomena and cannot construct a system. Thus their theories are exposed to contradiction under the overwhelming accumulation of empirical material. Psychic reality for the positivist limits itself to the observation and experience of pleasure and pain; he does not go beyond that, nor does he recognise the rights of philosophical thought. Remaining on the ever-changing surface of the phenomenal world, he partakes himself of its instability; carried away in the chaotic tumult of the universe, he sees all its aspects, all its theoretical and practical possibilities, but he never arrives at the unity or the fixity of a settled system, which alone could satisfy the idealist or tender-minded. The positivist depreciates all values in reducing them to elements lower than themselves; he explains the higher by the lower, and dethrones it, by showing that it is "nothing but such another thing," which has no value in itself.
From these general characteristics, the others which James points out logically follow. The positivist is a sensualist, giving greater value to the specific realm of the[292] senses than to reflection which transcends it. He is a materialist and a pessimist, for he knows only too well the hopeless uncertainty of the course of things. He is irreligious, not being in a state to hold firmly to the realities of the inner world as opposed to the pressure of external facts; he is a determinist and fatalist, only able to show resignation; a pluralist, incapable of all synthesis; and finally a sceptic, as a last and inevitable consequence of all the rest.
The expressions, therefore, used by James, show clearly that the diversity of types is the result of a different localisation of the libido; this libido is the magic power in the depth of our being, which, following the personality, carries it sometimes towards internal life, and sometimes towards the objective world. James compares, for example, the religious subjectivism of the idealist, and the quasi-religious attitude of the contemporary empiricist: "Our esteem for facts has not neutralised in us all religiousness. It is itself almost religious. Our scientific temper is devout."[186]
A second parallel is furnished by Wilhelm Ostwald,[187] who divides "savants" and men of genius into classics and romantics. The latter are distinguished by their rapid reactions, their extremely prompt and abundant production of ideas and projects, some of which are badly digested and of doubtful value. They are admirable and brilliant masters, loving to teach, of a contagious ardour and enthusiasm, which attracts many pupils, and makes them founders of schools, exercising great personal influence. Herein our type of extroversion is easily recognised. The classics of Ostwald are, on the contrary, slow to react; they produce with much difficulty, are little capable of teaching or of exercising direct personal influence, and lacking enthusiasm are paralysed by their own severe criticism, living apart and absorbed in themselves, making scarcely any disciples, but[293] producing works of finished perfection which often bring them posthumous fame. All these characteristics correspond to introversion. — Jung
Yes, although there is an element of 'fake it till you make it'. Meaning can have a funny way of arriving when you are not expecting it. Sometimes it sits with you for a while before you recognise you have been transformed. — Tom Storm
He was particularly interested in the religious experience, but his ideas have come under some criticism, especially by the theologian Victor White, who maintained that we cannot reduce God to images in the human psyche. I am interested in how Jung's understanding contributes to the philosophy of religion and I am asking to what extent his approach is useful for analysis? — Jack Cummins
Jung proves to be far more lethal to Christianity than Freud: for whereas Freud rejects religion per se as an infantile superstition, Jung claims to have discovered its rationale in his doctrine of what he terms the “collective unconscious.” What he offers, I maintained, as the enlightened or “scientific” religion proves in the end to be an Ersatz, a pseudo-religion based precisely on a false identification—the most perilous of all!
In other words, the self that's supposed to be immortal is mere persona or mask. It's the species that's (relatively) immortal, precisely through the generation and destruction of individuals (which can be viewed as cells in a larger organism.)From this standpoint, the conscious personality seems to be a more or less arbitrary excerpt of the collective psyche. It appears to consist of a number of universal basic human qualities of which it is à priori unconscious, and further of a series of impulses and forms which might just as well have been conscious, but were more or less arbitrarily repressed, in order to attain that excerpt of the collective psyche, which we call personality. The term persona is really an excellent one, for persona was originally the mask which an actor wore, that served to indicate the character in which he appeared. For if we really venture to undertake to decide what psychic material must be accounted personal and what impersonal, we shall soon reach a state of great perplexity; for, in truth, we must make the same assertion regarding the contents of the personality as we have already made with respect to the impersonal unconscious, that is to say that it is collective, whereas we can only concede individuality to the bounds of the persona, that is to the particular choice of personal elements, and that only to a very limited extent. — Jung
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