Author Topic: The cooking pot of theories  (Read 20862 times)

Matt Koeske

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Re: The cooking pot of theories
« Reply #15 on: May 03, 2011, 03:38:04 PM »
  The dream says s/he dreamed such and such, and the analyst says, "That reminds me of this fairytale pattern", etc.
Thats quite accurate, But I think that that's the sort of mechanics or analytics of pattern is what he Medard Boss contests. For example, he would not see any significant difference in Freud's analysis and Jungs Analytics in so far as the understanding of that understanding goes.

Medard Boss problematizes Plato and post Platonic or neo-platonic methods by which one arrives at an understanding of being, or by which an understanding of being is achieved through the metaphysics of eidos. In Jungs case this would be his Analytics and positing of various meta concepts and neo-logism such as the psyche, the collective unconscious on which the signifier and the signified relation is achieved by the access enabling eidos.

Well, I don't mean to get myself into a position of defending Jung on all charges.  I have many disagreements with him.  But I still feel there is a motes and beams scenario developing here . . . especially regarding whether Jung's coinages like archetype and collective unconscious are derived from the observation of phenomena or are preconceived paradigms forced upon those phenomena.  Jung's primary declared deviation from Freud had much to do with the fact that he felt Freud was "too reductive" with his paradigms (Oedipus complex, infantilization, sexualization, etc.).  Jung certainly meant to, and I believed tried to, differentiate his approach from Freud's "reductiveness".  I don't believe he succeeded perfectly . . . and I suspect Jungians after Jung have succeeded less well (if they have even taken this project of a "phenomenological psychology" as valuable at all) . . . but he was not an utter hypocrite.

All I can say is that, to me and in my own vein of Jungianism, Jung's prescribed phenomenology is a still-viable life blood of Jungian thought.  It is the root of an as yet unrealized "Jungian science".  But Jung's phenomenology was different that that of philosophers like Heidegger.  Justified or not, Jung felt the philosophical phenomenologists were full of shit (and, if I remember correctly, possibly even "insane").  Roger Brooke's book, Jung and Phenomenology tries to make some reparations.  I've never read it (beyond the introduction).  I'm just not that philosophical.  My own angle on Jungianism is a weird amalgam of the scientific and the mystical.  I have yet to be convinced of the usefulness of philosophy in the study of psychology.  Most Jungians are, though, I admit.

In general, I remain unconvinced that anybody studying psyche is any more "phenomenological" than Jung . . . in the sense that they don't carry various "reified" and preconceived paradigms into their observations of phenomena.  Jung, at least, was up front about this limitation (in his concept of a "personal equation" that shapes the theories of any thinker).

I've noticed that it is common for critics of Jung (usually those who don't know his writing very well . . . and I mean those like Boss, not you), to claim that his greatest failing as a thinker was in the construction of reified concepts like the collective unconscious, archetypes, etc. that have no basis in "reality".  But this kind of criticism mistakes Jung the psychologist for a philosopher, or at least conflates him with Freud (as a kind of dogmatist).  Jung's ideas had numerous shortcomings, but reification is not one of the most prominent.  What these critics fail to see is that Jung derived these constructions from an observation of psychic phenomena that was extensive and diverse and compatible with scientific investigation.

In Jung's thought, there are the phenomena (as collected and valuated data) and there are the attempts to interpret those phenomena . . . and the two should be differentiated (as I think Jung made significant efforts to differentiate them).  So if we look at a concept like the collective unconscious (which I personally reject), we can see the Platonic and Kantian paradigms slipping in.  Today we can clearly reject these tenets.  But the body of data or phenomena that Jung was analyzing to construct the theory of the collective unconscious is still wholly valid and useful.  And the patterns of organization Jung observed in those phenomena are, I feel, valid scientific observations.  The problem is that what those patterns "mean" psychologically or tell us about the human psyche is still a matter of substantial debate.  And that is as it should be.

Jung had his hypotheses, but these were often in flux and tend to read (from one essay to the next) like dynamic field notes.  They never become dogma (until they get into the hands of Jung's followers).  And they are always educated and logical guesses.  They are never crackpot ideas (like, say, penis envy).  But they do show signs of Jung's "personal equation".  Not only his personal predilections, but also his cultural conditioning: patriarchal, Swiss, Protestant, Germanic, modernist rationalistic/romantic, 19th/20th century, medically trained, etc.  To Jung's credit, he was at least of two minds about many of these constructions (which I believe is a step along the path to dissolving or seeing through them).

Ultimately, there are two main Jung's behind analytical psychology's creation: Jung the phenomenologist and Jung the spiritualist.  My own thought takes the phenomenologist much more seriously than the spiritualist.  Jung had a great nose for pattern recognition in the psychic data he analyzed.  Those patterns (archetypal phenomena) are still, in my opinion, well worth investigating (although I regret that Jungians have not chosen to do so very scientifically or systematically).  I agree with Jung that the study of these patterns is bound to lead to advances in psychology and our understanding of human thought and behavior.  Interpretations and spiritualizations aside, I am not aware of any other psychologist or philosopher who has brought together as large and complex a body of psychic data as Jung has.  And he deserves far more credit for this accomplishment that he receives.

Jung the spiritualist inspires many Jungians.  His spiritualism lies at the root of Jungian tribalism and identity construction (as he is taken as a prophet or shaman by many).  But Jung's spiritualisms have not held up well to criticism or to advances in science.  As Jung's scientific/phenomenological approach becomes increasingly devalued, Jungian thought slips back into pre-modern or occult constructions.  Taken as a spiritualist or metaphysician, Jung is easy for critics to deconstruct and destroy, but that is not all there was to Jung and his thought.

My only gripe here (and point of defense of Jung) is that where critics like Medard Boss see the same kinds of invalid, preconceived paradigms in Jung's thought as in Freud's, this constitutes an overly convenient and self-serving misunderstanding of Jung's thought.  I am entirely in favor of critiquing Jung, but it needs to be an honest and intelligent critique, a critique of the real Jung that does not rely on willful misunderstandings of Jung's ideas.

Also, philosophical talk of being and dasein feels antiquated to me . . . as do critiques of Cartesian and Newtonian thinking.  This whole dialect takes place before the era of complexity theory, which has presented a superior (though still flawed) language than older philosophical ways of approaching complex dynamic systems as they operate in areas like human psychology and culture.  Jung also wrote pre-complexity, but his observations (being decidedly non-philosophical) are still more compatible with contemporary complexity language.  Jung was more poetic than philosophical.  He knowingly used metaphors to try to describe the complexity in the psychic phenomena he studied.  He typically preferred such metaphors to abstractions and philosophical power words that no one but acolytes can understand.  That's something I admire about him.
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Matt Koeske

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Re: The cooking pot of theories
« Reply #16 on: May 05, 2011, 11:28:32 AM »
Thats the problem chucking around a label 'post-modernist' it is a catch all phrase that allows for  carpet bombing. A straw man is being created when you can speak in terms of post-modernist values and ethos that paves over the many, many differences. Whilst I may agree with your criticism  on the level of individual theories, or how particular tenets of thought has developed in academia warning sirens sound when you think you can grasp ideas and values independent of actually reading the various works.

Hi Billy,

Regarding the usefulness of the term postmodernism as I employ it, some basic Wikipedia articles can largely answer for me: Postmodernism, Post-structuralism, Criticism of Postmodernism, Postmodern Philosophy.  I am not advocating every opinion expressed in these articles, I mean only to advocate the general contextualization of postmodernism.

I acknowledge that postmodernism is a very slippery term.  I know I am generalizing, but I don't think I am "carpet bombing".  I feel there is a powerful need to put a kind of containing label on the trend that flows through postmodernism.  It has to be something we can talk about and address in a singular form.  That singular form may be a kind of statistical averaging.  It may describe something that does not exist in any perfect representation.  But if we cannot find a way to address it like this and talk about it, it will float beyond our psychological radar.  And what floats beyond the psychological radar is appropriated by "religious" ideologies.  It becomes a metaphysics.  It is essential in my opinion for us to be able to formulate a psychological perspective on postmodernism.  If we can't do this, we are just too caught up within it to be able to speak critically or intelligently about it.  What we cannot name, we invest with "mana", mystical power . . . like the power to be transcendentally True and require no justification or proof.

And this is the case for many who identify with postmodernist tribes and dogmas.  It is employed "thoughtlessly" or unconsciously . . . merely as an expression of identity and affiliation.  It is typically not an intellectual tool.  Too many advocates of postmodernist thought have no perspective on postmodernism . . . and to me, that is an indication that a kind of "participation mystique" is in effect.  That mystique can and must be studied psychologically.  Postmodernist ideas themselves are muddled with various identity programs and tribalist affiliations.  If the theories can eventually be extracted from the ideologies and identity constructions, we can make a more logical assessment of their worth and lasting usefulness in human thought.  But postmodernists have resisted self-analysis or the critical analysis from others.  They have typically insisted on sticking with their own identity constructions rather than observing and analyzing them.  The only criticisms they respond to are the jockeyings for status within the greater postmodernist tribe . . . but this all remains within the mother tongue of postmodernism and is not a true confrontation from an other.

Ultimately, my gripe with this trend of belief and behavior I'm calling postmodernism is that it is un-psychological.  Even its analytical approach is typically used only on "others", like a weapon (or again, to demarcate status hierarchies within the tribe).  I.e., it is subject to determination by the psychology of tribal warfare.  It does not really belong to philosophical thought, but to a specific ideology and identity.


I certainly don't claim to understand works I have not read or works I have read parts of but gave up on.  I have read enough to be as yet unconvinced of the lasting value of these postmodernist works or of their value to the study of psyche, my own primary area of interest.  All I claim to have some insight into (and it is inadequate are imperfect insight) is the way academic postmodernist ideas have been bolstered by academic identity groups or tribes.  I can see and understand (without much difficulty) how these academic postmodernist theories are used not as attempts to understand phenomena or even contribute to a history of thought on various subjects, but to construct identity and serve tribal grouping patterns.  I also notice that these tribal identity groups are more common and more voracious in the humanities than they are in the sciences, for instance.

On this level, I can comprehend and observe and even relate to postmodernism.  But I willingly admit that I do not engage deeply with postmodern texts and authors.  So I am not actually lumping different theories together and carpet bombing them.  I am recognizing patterns of behavior.  And the recognition I am making, ironically, is not unlike the recognitions and projections some postmodernists have seen in institutions of modernist thought and belief.  One difference is that I make some effort to remove myself from the tribal warfare.  I have no stake in philosophical arguments between modernists and postmodernists.  I have some stake in the so called Science Wars, but not as a scientist or as a true rationalist or materialist or whathaveyou.  My stake is in feeling that the arguments of the science tribe are more logical, stronger, and more valid than the arguments of the postmodernist side.  Moreover, I feel that the postmodernist critique of science (by which I mean those that go far beyond Kuhn) is dangerous to intellectual and scientific progress, because it misrepresents and demonizes science while offering no viable alternatives.

That misrepresentation and demonization is best understood psychologically in my opinion.  That is, it is a kind of "shadow projection" of traits many postmodernists are more guilty of than scientists are.  This is not to say that there isn't a degree of validity and even usefulness in these postmodernist critiques of science.  I completely agree that science (and all intellectual and academic groups that gather around philosophies and ideologies) should be scrutinized and analyzed or deconstructed.  But postmodernism sees an imaginary demon in science that is not really there . . . and the postmodernist desire is to slay this demon.  Therefore, I see this aspect of postmodernism as overdetermined or "complexed".

If postmodernism can endure a real analysis of its own motives and identity constructions, I will start to take it seriously.  But until then, I remain skeptical.  I have made various attempts to engage with postmodernist texts and have yet to be convinced that they amount to more than a heap of convoluted nonsense gussied up with indoctrinating power words.  Perhaps at the core of some are some decent ideas, but to me, these decent ideas are just plain common sense and do not warrant all the fancy languaging that colors postmodernist writing like gang paraphernalia.  These affectations immediately say "I belong to this (postmodernist) tribe" . . . just as Jungian talk of soul or archetypes or the collective unconscious is a dead giveaway of the author's tribal affiliations.  When an author is fanning his or her peacock feathers at me, I need another reason to look deeper.

My reaction to Jungian peacockery is just as negative (or alternatively, just as psychological) as my reaction to the parallel phenomenon in postmodernism.  In general, I am not interested in what tribe someone identifies with . . . unless I want to make an anthropological or sociological study of the tribe (as I have been attempting with Jungianism).  But generally, I read in order to learn and expand my knowledge and ability to relate to the world and others around me.  I don't read things that tell me I should believe in such and such, take it on faith, become a disciple of this or that guru.  If an author presents an argument with the attempt of communicating, I can parse it and gain something from it (even when I disagree).  But a lot of the postmodernist writing I've read might as well be a copy of The Watchtower handed to me by some roving Jehovah's Witnesses.

In other words, convince me logically . . . don't tell me what I should believe.  With any credible thinker or scholar, we should be able to compile a list of points with which we agree (or are convinced by), a list of those with which we disagree (are not convinced by), and a list of those we feel there is not enough information to base a solid opinion on.  I think there is much to gain from that approach . . . but I have often felt that postmodernist writings preclude this in much the same way evangelical literature precludes it.  It's all or nothing.  Indoctrination or enmity.  As a nonbeliever, I become an enemy . . . and that just makes me lose interest.


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“I am not claiming that you are wrong that data and theory are in separable, but I do not agree (with the postmodernist program) that this essential relationship inherently invalidates scientific inquiry.”

I never claimed such a thing. How you characterise 'post-modern' approach to science certainly is applicable to how some theories are developed yet bears no resemblance to great swathes of what I have read.

Perhaps, but my own (admittedly limited) reading of what I (along with many others) have called postmodernism (or academic postmodernism, in my preferred refinement) accords with my interpretation.  But my opinions are significantly colored by the two main places I have encountered this academic postmodernism.  The first is in my "old life" as a poet and a poetry student in universities.  Where professors and (especially) grad students where influenced by academic postmodernism, it was applied extremely dogmatically, very much like religious evangelism.  Numerous people felt I needed to be "converted", because I was a "non-believer".  I was told time and again that I had to go read such and such an author . . . and then I would see the light.  But I remain entirely benighted.  In fact, it was these evangelical commands that got me to read some pomo texts in the first place . . . and it was this reading that founded my rather negative opinion of the thought behind them.  Although it was my experience with the tribalism of the pomo professors and students that led me to look at the whole phenomenon through a social psychological lens.

The second place I have been faced with a lot of pomo dogmatism is in my membership in the IAJS.  A number of the most vocal members are heavily influence by academic postmodernist authors . . . and quote arcane and nonsensical philosophical ramblings as if they reveal great truths.  Their reactions to my critiques of academic postmodernism are similar to yours.  Although I respect other aspects of the thought of these people (one of them especially is a very strong thinker in my opinion), I find their pomo streams of thought to be habitual and dogmatic, unavailable to criticism or self-reflection (i.e., they are identity constructions from tribal affiliations).  Although my problems with pomo theory, rhetoric and tribalism date back to my undergraduate days, I admit that I am especially troubled by the incorporation of postmodernism into Jungian thought, where I feel it adds nothing and actually compounds a preexisting Jungian problem where arcane acolytes-only ideas and power words are tossed around thoughtlessly and exclusively.  Postmodernism allows Jungians to feed a preexisting trend of self-deception and intellectual muddiness.

This is especially apparent in the case of Jungianism and its relationship to science.  Jungians already have a terrible problem with science.  They continue Jung's railing against 19th century science and have failed to recognize that science has developed significantly since then.  They keep going on about "positivism" and other dead versions of materialism, as if these ghouls still plagued and even destroyed scientific thought.  Since there is a strong trend in academic postmodernism that argues for the same thing, some Jungians have been very eager to leap at embracing postmodernism as an ally in the ongoing Jungian war against science and rationalism/naturalism.  This seems not only wrongheaded but self-defeating to me.  Moreover, postmodernism adds nothing to Jungian thought, in my opinion.

As noted previously, I employ numerous "postmodernisms" in my thinking and certainly don't claim that they are worthless or wrong.  But I did not acquire any of these from reading postmodernist texts.  They all come from a combination of common sense (through analytical investigation) and reading Jung (who was one of the first thinkers to note the kinds of arbitrary social constructions that go into the makeup of our attitudes and personalities and the way we perceive and language our worlds).  I see Jung's "postmodernisms" as superior to those coming from philosophy and literary criticism, mostly out of the French schools of thought in the latter half of the 20th century.  It hits all the same key points, but doesn't shovel in all that nonsense language and those massive abstractions and power words that can't be translated into a more universal language.  Also, it is entirely free of the posturing and pompousness and hypocrisy that plagues the later French postmodernism.  It doesn't, for instance, include the nihilistic and petulant desire to "kill giants" and tear down historical social institutions just because they are imperfect (if anything, Jung errs on the other side).  Jung recognized that this adolescent desire to destroy for destruction's sake is not ultimately functional.  Jung, simply, had a more mature (if less elaborate and grand) version of postmodernist analytic deconstruction.
 
This stance was significantly marred, though, by his tendency to interpret socio-historical events in terms of archetypes.  That I find wholly wrong and more importantly unhelpful (perhaps even detrimental) in treating social problems.  Jung was not a very good social critic.  But he was an astute psychological critic.  He understood the problems of the individual personality well . . . and understood culture inasmuch as it constructed the ego or persona (i.e., was "introjected" into the individual psyche).  Outside the individual psyche, he was rather lost, though.


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“So, I'm sure you can see a trend in my thought: I tend to see schools of thought as tribal (whether Jungian, Freudian, post-modernist, or otherwise).  The rhetoric of these tribes, from my perspective, is dogma.  It is not directed at "truth-seeking" or knowing objects.  Rather, it is a matter of constructing identity.  Use the right words (and invoke the right authorities) and you belong to the tribe.  Identity is language.”

What is interesting for me about your concern with tribes (dogma) is how it taps into a well established platonic lineage, between the loaded distinction between philosophy/sophistry. Governing this distinction are presuppositions regarding a natural plenitude verses artificial supplement,from the inside of truth verses outside of truth. My interest is not in disputing what belongs on  what side, but in showing how the latter (the external artificial supplement) is considered as a unnecessary supplement to plenitude (of truth, objects) can nevertheless be seen as supplementing a lack. Derrida's Dissemination I found particularly compelling on this point, this link... http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/english/courses/60a/handouts/pharmacy.html does a reasonably good job of a summary of the different steps of the argument.

Contextualizing my psychologizing approach within a philosophy vs. sophistry paradigm is not entirely inaccurate, but I think it misses the real point I mean to make.  It is not merely that postmodernism is sophistry (which I assert that it is when having to chose from only either philosophy or sophistry).  Most ideologies are "sophistry" to the degree that they can be deconstructed to show that they are formed from arbitrary personal and social (i.e., unconscious and unintentioned) identity constructions . . . and are not "objective".  But my approach is psychological.  I am interested in postmodernism as a psychological (or psychopathological) phenomenon.  What characterizes postmodernism for me is its psychological coherence as a tribalism.  It may have latent "philosophical" value, but this can only be determined where postmodernist dogmas can be translated into logical arguments that make solid use of evidence and are capable of explaining and predicting phenomena.

But postmodernism doesn't do this, because it commonly rejects that whole enterprise of logic, evidence, and reason as "modernist" (the enemy) and refuses to treat it as valid.  In my opinion, this refusal is not warranted by what postmodernism can prove.  It is not an argument but an identity-constructing ideological belief.  It can only be understood psychologically.  It is just like saying, "this world we live in is not truly "real", but once the Rapture comes and the chosen are swept up into heaven, then we will be vindicated and shown to be right."  In other words, postmodernism has not presented a better way of thinking about "reality" or a better way of truth testing than the one the underlies the scientific method.  Postmodernist challenges to the scientific method are made not on philosophical grounds, but on ideological grounds.  They force the debate into a tribalistic Us vs. Them war where we cannot evaluate arguments but must take sides.

At the article you link, Spurgin writes of Derrida's preface: "Derrida begins by mocking the confidence and arrogance of the structuralists, who tended to suggest that they had discovered the laws or rules governing the production of myths. Derrida insists, by contrast, that texts not only hide their "laws" and "rules" from a "first comer," but actually remain "forever imperceptible" (63)."  But I feel the critique Derrida levels against Plato is equally applicable to Derrida (and to any other postmodernist and perhaps any thinker at all).  What I want to know is how Derrida (as a token postmodernist) differentiates himself from this problem.

I am not interested in "Truth".  When I talk about logical or scientific "truth-testing", I don't mean to invoke some kind of philosophical ideal of Truth (that Plato may have been interested in).  I'm talking about "scientific facts" which are observations of things that have extremely high probabilities.  A scientific theory predicts the outcome of a certain scenario where the factors are consistent based on previous observations.  Philosophical Truth is not even remotely interesting to me.  I'm far too practically predisposed to bother debating such things.

Postmodernist tribal behaviors, identity politics, and rhetoric fit in with patterns that I recognize and label "tribal".  I predict therefore that other tribal patterns will emerge from postmodernist thinking and socializing.  So far, my predictions have not been contradicted.  There is, beyond this, a level at which I can't really parse postmodernist rhetoric.  It is not unlike the way I can't parse mystical or religious rhetoric.  I predict, based on my experience as a scholar and thinker, that rhetoric that I cannot parse is not inherently meaningful, but is frequently a display of identity construction and tribal affiliation.  I can only understand it on that psychological level.  No one has been able to translate this rhetoric for me in a way that enables me to see its "philosophical" validity.  My ability to parse rhetoric is, on the whole, excellent.  I'm not an idiot.  I can parse almost all the rhetoric I encounter, except postmodernist rhetoric, some religious/mystical rhetoric, and perhaps some extremely technical scientific rhetoric (but in these latter cases, if I spend the time to learn the terminology, I can then parse the rhetoric).

I have to logically conclude that either I am just not smart enough to understand postmodernist rhetoric (in which case, I could only accept it on faith or reject it outright) or postmodernist rhetoric is largely meaningless.  If it is just too sophisticated for my mind to grasp, then I still have a gripe with it, because I can grasp probably more (rhetorically speaking) than 95+% of people in the world.  So the elitism of postmodernism renders it ineffectual and practically meaningless or worthless.  I have also seen no evidence that elite groups claiming to have special knowledge have proven the benefits of that knowledge.  But a study of such elite groups does strongly suggest that their "special knowledge" was the totem of their identity constructions and tribal affiliations.

Noam Chomsky drew much the same conclusion about postmodernism, and I consider myself a "Chomskian rationalist" in many ways.  My reasoning about postmodernism has followed the same path as Chomsky's and arrived at the same conclusion.


As an example of such a displacement in yours (and Jung's) thought we do not need to look further than...

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“That is "amplification".  The danger of this is that the parallel logics are themselves often dependent on interpretations and may very well have nothing to do with one another.  That's another topic, though . . . and I will only suggest that functional amplification is an art form, perhaps more like poetry than science.”

Here, poetry and art (also alchemy) supplement science, but whose supplementary movement is obscured by recourse to theory/practice divide. The elephant in the room of course the distinction made between individual/collective unconscious.

Science needs metaphors in order to think about things . . . especially things that have yet to be languaged.  But science and art are not the same thing . . . nor are science and psychoanalysis the same thing.  I do not deny the theories are based on assumptions which are based on assumptions and so on.  No one denies this.  But this root system of assumptions is not evidence that a thus-rooted theory is invalid.  One must prove that the assumptions are invalid and then that the invalidity of these assumptions invalidates the theory.  From my perspective, the elephant in the room here is your own tendency to throw unexamined hunks of postmodernist dogma/rhetorical constructions at what I've written in an attempt to exorcise its "threat" instead of actually thinking through the argument and its assumptions.  What I see in your responses here is an inability to examine your own assumptions, which to me seem to rely on postmodernist dogmas that you accept but have not thought through enough.  That is, your response to my arguments seems to be to displace them into a rhetorical context in which you can bank on "certainty" (i.e. dogma).  But once displaced, they no longer resemble my actual arguments.


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“I think the general feeling (though it is sometimes hard for true believers in their theory to admit it), is that the therapeutic effect relies mostly on the rapport between analyst and patient.”

Yes we agree, this is where I find the limit to both Jung and Freud and why I  find phenomenological psychology interesting as it grapples with the implications of this.

I see an inflation* in a "phenomenological psychology" that would lump Jung in with Freud on this account (as I mentioned in my response to Rajiv above).  This placement of Jung is convenient for the phenomenological psychologist in his/her quest for superiority (or for the superiority of his/her tribe).  But Jung's psychology is on this point very, very close to philosophical phenomenology (minus all of its abstract totem/power words like "dasein").  Freud's psychology is not very phenomenological, relative to Jung's.  I (again) make no claim that Jung's phenomenology was ideal, but I do think his phenomenological orientation is the real heart of analytical psychology.  I am unaware of any Jungians who have expanded on this aspect of Jung, so it may seem as if Jung, like his followers, is guilty of the kind of dogmatisms Freud was, but a thorough reading of Jung should dispel this misconception.  Not that I recommend a thorough reading of Jung in general.  There is much in Jung that I would not advocate.

Jung, unlike the philosophical phenomenologists (he despised, but did not really elaborate on) had a simpler (and in my opinion, "cleaner" and more elegant) phenomenology that owed more, perhaps, to empiricism and science.  He wasn't concerned with metaphysical ideas and indecipherable abstractions.  He wanted an empirical tool for the observation and analysis of the psyche.  He treated psychic phenomena as "facts" and sought to understand their emergent patterns before subjecting them to interpretation.  At least, at his best, this is what he did or strove to do.


* Although I initially used this term casually (but in the Jungians sense), upon further reflection, I think this inflation may be endemic in philosophical phenomenology's program.  It wants to overthrow the giants of rationalism and reductionism, claiming that it has a superior solution to these "defective" ways of approaching knowledge.  But it in unapparent to me that it can make this case.  It relies on vague, sprawling abstractions and totemic neologisms instead of on logic and evidence.  Perhaps the same inflation that characterizes postmodernism was inherited from its phenomenological roots.  Stripped of its abstractions and transcendent posturing, phenomenology is very simple . . . yet I find phenomenological rhetoric largely impenetrable and typically characterized by smoke and mirrors and other linguistic "stage effects" that function as misdirections.


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“I don't think this is actually valid.  I.e., I don't think it is valid that a lack of awareness of the way data are yoked to a series of commitments that allow data to be presented as data, "reifies data".  This I take to be a statement of dogmatic belief that is not based on actual evidence.”

What you are conflating here, from my perspective, is the difference between Being/beings. You do not explore the conditions of possibility of a particular being i.e. evidence.  This supposes a granting of pertinence to transcendental arguments. 'Reifies data' is perhaps poor on my part as it assumes the presence of data which then goes on to become fixed, when it is actually a question of what The Old Spirit called 'presencing '.

This is the kind of rhetoric that I can't parse.  There are too many variables and too little clarity in "the difference between Being/being".  What are "the conditions of possibility of a particular being i.e. evidence" that you claim I do not explore.  I'm not convinced that I fail to explore something by this statement, which sounds like mumbo jumbo to me.  I can no more universally define being or Being than I could Truth or God.  This kind of abstraction is meaningless unless it is contextualized.  This type of rhetoric is precisely the kind of thing I object to.  If there is a context that "relativizes" this rhetoric into something meaningful (and I'm not convinced there is), it would have to be a context of belief in a particular ideology.  It would be like saying that I'm going to burn in hell because I refuses to "let Jesus into my heart".  Explain to me logically why 1.) I fail to let Jesus into my heart (i.e., how is this act is defined?), 2.) why this supposed failure will lead to my burning in hell (also, define hell and burning in it), and 3.) why one who does "let Jesus into his heart" does NOT burn in hell.

No one could do that without relying on dogmatic Christian assumptions that cannot be corroborated from a non-Christian perspective.  My suspicion is that you cannot provide a context for me to be able to understand your terms that does not ultimately rest upon dogma.  And I mean dogma, not educated hypotheses or high probabilities.

Also, how does my purported failure to "explore the conditions of possibility of a particular being i.e. evidence" suppose "a granting of pertinence to transcendental arguments"?  What is your definition of a transcendental argument and how do my arguments grant pertinence to them?  I can hardly be described as any kind of transcendentalist (i.e., a "supernaturalist") as I am a very adamant naturalist and an atheist.  But you may mean to employ the Kantian definition of transcendental: "I call all knowledge transcendental if it is occupied, not with objects, but with the way that we can possibly know objects even before we experience them."  Jung took a lot from Kant, but I don't.  This "intuition" is not a philosophical issue to me, but a neurological and psychological one.  There is no magical way to "know objects even before we experience them".  Intuition does not "know", it predicts, constructs, and extrapolates based on already acquired data and assumptions.

Also, I have to consider (from the same article the Kant quote is from): "In phenomenology, the "transcendent" is that which transcends our own consciousness - that which is objective rather than only a phenomenon of consciousness."

But probably you mean: "A transcendental argument is a deductive philosophical argument which takes a manifest feature of experience as granted, and articulates that which must be the case so that experience as such is possible."  There is a lot of philosophical hanky panky in the assessment of transcendental arguments that doesn't really interest me.  I don't assume that any thoughts I might have about some inner being or reality beyond my psychological and somatic experience has validity unto itself.  I can't test this in any viable way, and so I am happy to pay no real attention to it (e.g., is the table in front of me that I can see and feel "real"?  Who cares.  My immediate experience of it is "real").  I'm not a speculative thinker.  I'm very practical . . . which is why I gave up on the study of philosophy when I was about 19 (after taking a class on Kant and another on the philosophy of language) and turned instead toward psychology.

You seem to be contextualizing your responses to me (and I assume also your perception of my arguments) within a philosophical realm (structured largely by phenomenology and some postmodernist ideas).  I don't think this permits you much access to what I'm really saying.  You are only seeing a small fraction of what I am arguing, and that small fraction is seen only as it is familiar to your own languaging context (and it is familiar to that context only as something that is habitually dismissed as "other").

My grasp of what you are saying is also limited.  I do not live intellectually within your specific philosophical context, so many or your terms seem overdetermined to me.  They mean nothing to me, but I can read your voice and subtext well enough to recognize that they mean a great deal to you, that they are tinged with affect and identity construction.  Many of my own terms suffer the same shortcomings (as far as universalizing a dialog goes).  For instance, "overdetermined" is jargon from psychoanalysis (but I am assuming you are familiar with the term, so I'm OK with using it).  There are also a slew of Jungian terms I use (psyche, archetype, sometimes "unconscious", etc.) .  These are all terms that I have challenged devotedly and continue to challenge.  I remain unsatisfied with them.  But I refuse to take them on faith, to make them dogmas or "reify" them.  I can switch languages and describe these phenomena in different ways to anyone not familiar with Jungian jargon and ideas.  I accept no circular definitions from Jungian language.  But at times, the best I can do is settle for complex definitions where various assumptions rest upon other assumptions that rest upon other assumptions.  But in these cases, I can trace the root system of assumptions logically and I know where the assumptions can be falsified.


I think there is a disconnect here.  I don't get the feeling that your philosophical contextualizations are capable of comprehending my arguments.  Your responses to things I've said reflect back arguments that don't really resemble my own.  I.e., they are straw men spun by your own familiar rhetoric.

I'm not sure if the same thing is going on on my side.  It could be argued that it is, but I don't mean to misrepresent you.  In truth, I have a hard time understanding what you are talking about.  Whether it is accurate insight or ignorance that makes it so, I am only able to understand your philosophical statements as programmatic responses based on a familiar dogma (that it seems to me you accept and employ but do not analyze or challenge).  Trying to be as fair in assessing this reaction/intuition I'm having as I can be, I would guess that there is a higher than 50% chance that my intuitive analysis is valid.  Still, it could be that I am just benighted.  I remain very skeptical of things that I can't understand even after a great deal of effort.  Especially when we are talking about ideas and logic/philosophy.  If we were talking about advanced mathematics or something very technical, I would recognize that my ignorance of the subject was hindering my ability to understand the rhetoric of its expression.  But I continue to feel that philosophical/logical arguments should be renderable into common sense terms and not rely on abstractions and totemic language and ideas.

At this point, I feel like I understand your position much better than you think I do, but that you don't understand my position.  If I am wrong, I'm afraid that I will have to ask you to try to argue your points in a more communicative and simpler language in order for any fruitful dialog to proceed.  In any case, I believe I have made all of my anti-postmodernist arguments clearly and thoroughly enough to at least warrant serious consideration (and have yet to receive reasoned arguments for why they are flawed . . . either from you or from any other postmodernism advocate I've ever had this kind of discussion with).  If my arguments are invalid, this would have to be demonstrated to me in terms that I can understand.

Best,
Matt
You can always come back, but you can’t come back all the way.

   [Bob Dylan,"Mississippi]