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Extending and deepening the horizons of psychological thinking and new philosophical ideas.
Extending the application of Jung's Psychological Types from clinical experience.
The title remains a starter to the notion that it is through the inferior function of the patient/client where insight can be forthcoming. A second point is that the primary notion of psych' Types can be both simplified and expanded to include archetypal identities as well as each type having objectives within their primary function. Thirdly: there is a critical path of decision making that can be both found, recognised and once understood, can offer insight into dis function according to where…
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If we realize that Hillman is using the same method as Derrida in dealing with his texts. And that Lacan and Jung are cognates. And take Zizek's interpretation of Lacan's cryptic messages to be canonical. And also realize that Giegerich is essentially right about Hegel being the corner stone of Depth or Archetypal methods. Then that puts a whole new light on Depth X-discipline (psychology, sociology, anthropology). Zizek says that Lacan and Derrida are duals of each other. So that means that Hillman's interpretation of Jung is going to be somewhat off, due to his method being derived from the dual of Lacan rather than Lacan himself. Of course, Derrida makes a lot more sense that Lacan does and Derrida was not a psychotherapist so Hillman was right to follow Derrida rather than Lacan. That way he could reinvigorate the Jungian tradition, which had degenerated into a non-thinking state prior to Hillman. However, Deleuze followed Lacan and tried to make philosophical sense of what Lacan was saying, and in the process diverged from him and tried to create an anti-Lacanian school with Guattari.
But to understand why this odd hypothesis is worth considering we need to understand more about what Derrida is doing, that makes him important. And that is where we have to get into a discussion of what Hyper Being, i.e. Differance (differing and deferring) is.
My guess is that Hillman would deny that basically what he is doing is Derridan Derconstruction, and probably even be insulted by my insinuation, because Derridan Deconstruction is now passe and since it was taken to extremes by his American followers has left a bad taste in many people's mouths. But my premise is that if you read Derrida and you read Hillman and you see how they handle the texts that they are working with, you will see a lot of similarities. Hillman never said he was mimicking the method of Derrida. But if you ask yourself where did Hillman get his way of treating texts, what is the closest example of someone doing the same thing, I think the answer will be Derrida.
I don't think I said it in my post but where I got this idea was from things Hillman said and did not say at a seminar where he was talking about his precursors at Pacifica. He said at one point something like I was in France and at that time I even wore a Barret and lots of interesting things were happening there at that time. I tried to figure out what the timeframe was, and realized that it was the time when Derrida was very popular. I may be wrong about that because I can't even really remember what year that was and Hillman was being quite vague at that point. But what he said was enough to trigger the realization that he might be alluding to Derrida, and as I thought about it more I realized that his style and that of Derrida are very similar in the way they deal with their materials. And this put into perspective for me what Hillman was doing and saying. I felt as if I really understood him for the first time. And he is pretty save in this because for some reason followers of Jung are unlikely to read Derrida, or any other thinker for that matter, and unlikely to catch this possible connection unless he specifically puts them onto it, which would be detrimental to Hillmans reputation as being a unique renegade thinker. I really don't think he will admit this, even if it is true. But I think it is something that is important for his followers to understand if they really want to understand what Hillman is doing, and the meaning of his ideas.
See a cleaned up version of my post here at Quora: http://www.quora.com/Carl-Jung/Where-does-the-thought-of-Carl-Jung-...
TopicMarks.com http://topicmarks.com/d/3BYBQIExeXDHlbq0B7qece7sB
Basically what I try to do is to put Jung in the context of Continental Philosophy where he belongs. Freud did not really know the Western Philosophical Tradition as Jung did. Jung was valuable to Freud for two reasons. He was not Jewish and he really knew the tradition well and so he was in a good position to be able to defend Psychoanalysis when it first started in ways that Freud could not. Losing Jung as the leader of the Psychoanalytic movement was a big blow to Freud. The biggest difference between the two was that Jung was not dogmatic like Freud was. Jung always put his ideas in the larger context of the Western philosophical tradition. This is one of the reasons that Jung's psychology is somewhat more coherent than that of Freud. But unfortunately Continental Philosophers only talk about Freud, and never talk about Jung. Because of that there is only so far that they can go in trying to look at the impact of the unconscious on their philosophical views. That is why the transformation of Freud into Lacanian Psychoanalysis was so crucial. It produced a form of Psychoanalysis that could stand up to Philosophical scrutiny. And Lacan had a huge influence on the next generation of philosophers after Sartre and Merleau-Ponty especially Deleuze. And this has become central to such an extent that both Badiou and Zizek are in fact Lacanian Analysts. Zizek spends much of his work explaining how Lacan really does make sense after all. Lacan is so cryptic that is is hard to challenge his interpretation. Basically Zizek says that Lacan who took Hyppolite's Hegel course that everyone else took among the French intelligentsia is really repackaging Lacan and all Lacanian ideas go back to Hegel not Freud. Thus, while Lacan feigns a reinterpretation of Freud, what he is really doing according to Zizek is reading through Freud back to Hegel. He is doing what Hillman calls "seeing through" which is a deconstructionist trick.
So what we get in Continental Philosophy is a skipping of Jung, because the first generation only talked about Freud, and then the Second generation were heavily influenced by Lacan. But what gets missed in this is the fact that Lacan and Jung have a lot in common. Lacan studied under Jung briefly during his residency. It is interesting that many of his conclusions are very similar to those of Jung, although Lacan never mentions Jung. But Lacan is much more interesting than Jung in some ways because all of his reinterpretation of Freud is though the lens of Structuralism of Levi-Strauss and Semiotics of de Saussure. However, Lacan knew Heidegger, and he had taken the Hegel course that was the standard one in France at the time. We can see Lacan as going back to Hegel through Heidegger's Being and Time, because Heidegger was basically going back to Hegel himself. The references to Freud and the reinterpretation was basically a smoke screen according to Zizek.
Jung's major influence was Nietzsche. He developed a psychology that was contrary to that of Nietzsche. But Nietzsche was reversing Hegels idea that only the Slaves could have self-consciousness and thus ethics. So if we see this double reversal that puts Jung back with Hegel too. However, Jung was more of a Kantian. However, after Hegel, Kant can only be seen through the eyes of Hegel. There is no pure Kantians after Hegel. Another example of that is Charles Peirce, who is also a Kantian, but working on mostly Hegelian problems.
Giegerich makes the case that Depth Psychology is really just Hegelian Dialectics. His is the only positive theory, because Hillman merely does Derrida like deconstruction (which actually comes form Heidegger) as his practice based on Jungs works. Hillman is basically doing to Jung what Lacan had done with Freud, using him as a foil. But as Zizek points out Derrida and Lacan are duals that are opposite each other in most respects. Hillman never mentions Derrida. Derrida of course is influenced heavily by Hegel in his critique of Heidegger. In fact all Continental Philosophy could be seen as just Hegelianism warmed over. So what we get to is that Hegel is the key figure in all this, and where Kantianism comes in it is mostly a retrenchment and reaction against Hegelianism like in Peirce and Jung.
These lineages of the history of Ideas with respect to the philosophical underpinnings of Jungian thought which goes back through Nietzsche to Hegel. Jung is reacting to both and that is why he is the opposite of Nietzsche and a Kantian. This places him very close to Peirce in many ways, who is also a Kantian reacting against Hegel, but concerned with Hegelian problems, as Jung is.
So in my understanding when we say Depth Psychology, it also means going back to the roots, and all roads are leading back to Hegel. So I think Giegerich is on to something. Hillman is obscuring the connection between himself and Derrida, otherwise we could trace back though Hillman to Hegel as well.
Now what this means is that Depth X (Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, etc) is really another way to approach what Hegel calls Spirit. That is what Hegel thought of as Depth. But Spirit is in the realm of transcendentals if you give the standard interpretation of Hegel. So here is where Jung's brillance is crucial. Jung was also heavily influenced by Plato, but he tries to come up with what is the dual of Plato's Ideas, and that is the Archetypes. So when we go back to Spirit, it is not with a transcendental idea as in Hegel (under the standard interpretation of Hegel) but with archetypes. So we have an Archetypal Spirit embodying the meaning of Depth X. I think this is the essential thing that Giegerich does not see, that we get a better picture of from Hillman's deconstructionist approach. The way that Jung differs from Hegel by way of Nietzsche's reversal is that he posits an anti-transcendental realm called the Collective Unconscious. The Spirit of Hegel is the Collective Consciousness. That has Absolute Ideas in it. So opposite these Absolute ideas are the non-Absolute Archetypes. This is basically Hillmans attack of Monotheism and instead supporting a return to Polytheism. It is his argument against Spirit and instead emphasizing the Soul.
This awareness has allowed me to deeply take in and breathe through my life and experiences, has allowed me to envision myself as sheer as silk, transparent and soft, allowing all of the world to move through me too. The ability to make manifest, to create our lives and our world lies in the ability to move our visions from the unseen world of thought/idea into the physical world of tangible form... This is what the creative soul knows, and knowing where we get stuck at the threshold of these two places will enable us to navigate across them more easily...
Accepting the world as it is, setting intention for how we would like our world to be, andloving all of it enables the Universe to make manifest our deepest desires/dreams.
With gradual suddenness, I realize that more than simply noticing, I can experience this world with my senses, hearing the crashing of the waves and call of the gulls, smelling the salt and seaweed, tasting the saltiness that has condensed on my lips, seeing the brilliant blue of the water, feel the sand, slightly rough, beneath my palms and the soles of my feet.
Having gone this far, having invited and even surrendered the glory of nature to touch me, I realize I can go yet one step further: I can make an effort and go to it. I plunge my hands into the damp sand next to where I sit, encountering smooth rocks and digging them out to see what the mysterious feel of their shape reveals. I shift my weight, power my muscles, lift myself up and enter the water. I go to it, seeking it with my senses, not simply allowing encounter but seeking encounter and the union that follows. As I glance up as seagulls in nearby flight, everything is amplified, and without effort, without any thought or movement on my part, for a split second, I feel I am them, navigating the breeze with powerful wings through a viscous sapphire sky, textured and palpable, as the ocean roars through me. The moment quickly fades, but I feel like the cat that swallowed the canary, having made a discovery that changes everything, as significant and grand as that of Columbus who finally knew the world was round.
Looking back, I realize I went through four steps in this process: 1) being absorbed in another world, detached, not present to the physical world my body was inhabiting, 2) noticing I was in the world, 3) inviting and embracing experience of the world as I allowed it to touch me, and 4) making active effort to meet the world, to reach out and touch it at the same time I allowed it to touch me, thereby actively engaging with the world. This fourth step seems to be congruent with what Steve is saying about creative intention---when we move toward something, committing our own energy and presence to it unconditionally, magic happens and movement takes place…
Soul/ Animated (Living
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