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Category: C.G.Jung

The psychoanalytic Jung

  • Archetypes of the presidential debate 2012 part I

    Archetypes of the presidential debate 2012 part I

    This US presidential election is a (no-) choice between two similar masks  for the future of America in the the Presidential debate.  But Obama actually  backed off March 2009 when he had some power over the banks and did not touch Wall Street ever since. After that the financial empire became unstoppable and started to attack Europe on its weakest link (Greece) and used subsequently the crisis they induced themselves to take over positions in Europe – essentially taking over Europe.

    The other choice is a more open-ended King Archetype  of entitlement due to personal virtues (or more likely personal wealth) who likes to fire people:

    The Vice Presidents debate left the impression – if not if a father son conflict – at least between an old cynical and a fresh (likable) Hero. The media too likes this sensationalism and the neck on neck horse race at 48%.

    Both President Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney come with years of history, political and otherwise. One has a history of good rhetoric, and cool if not arrogant attitude. The other has a long history of deception, and ruthless business practices. One event – the media would like us to think it was the first debate – created myth and archetypes. Even the VP debate was influenced by it. Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s workout photos were shot late last year, but Time delayed their release to achieve maximum embarrassment: It published them online just hours before the vice presidential debate, to discredit the young Hero (and make him look foolish).

    time_paulryan_theantihero
    time_paulryan_theantihero

    There is a long tradition of using archetypical images of male candidates—in most presidential races, the only kind—to illustrate their faults. Think of John Edwards fixing his hair, Michael Dukakis grinning from his perch on a tank,

    Michael_Dukakis_in_tank
    Michael_Dukakis_in_tank

    John Kerry windsurfing, and Nixon strolling down the beach in a pair of wingtips.

    These photos gained traction because they conformed with the electorate’s unconcisous idea of who these guys were: Edwards was all ego, Dukakis was a softie, Kerry was effete, and Nixon was the kind of unnatural creepy. And the Time photo shoot squares with Ryan’s vision of himself as Wisconsin’s own superhero, living at the peak of emotional and physical control. All the most powerful ideas in history go back to archetypes,” Jung wrote in his book The Structure of the Psyche. “This is particularly true of religious ideas”, but the central concepts of politics, science, philosophy, and ethics are no exception to this rule.

    Interested in the US election, I asked myself what are the archetypes used in the American election debate. Especially for the election debates pictures seem to be important, because they have a distinct advantage over the language effects: images transport more quickly archetypes than words – although they do – think of “Yes we can” of the last election. A further key stimulus is the (cross/specific) cultural body language, for which every human being has a genetically or by learning established. C.G. Jung drew up a picture of layers from personal unconscious to collective unconscious. He thinks that in all cultures, at all times and everyone was influenced from the collective unconscious expressed by those archetypes e.g. King. Warrior, Magician, The Great Mother, The Temptress, The Hero, Lover, Serpent, Dragon and many more, manifested by symbols. Those symbols are, according to Jung pictorial or gestural manifestations of archetypes.

    These symbols often find themselves in fairy tales, whereof politics is one of them. Jung says psychology was not necessary in the past because all cultures had their rituals and symbols to integrate these archetypes in the conscious living. That seems to be true for Religion, where psychoanalytic sessions replaced the confession. Many psychological problems exist only since there is the psychology before some religions ditched their symbols. However, rituals, the use of symbols, and the experience of the churches were not forgotten by the politics (and the politicians). Jung said also, that totalitarian systems want to replace and also ask for (and receive) religious worship. That was certainly true for Hitler, Mao, and Stalin not to speak of the Roman Caesars or Egyptian Pharos. I believe we move in this direction again also in the secular and so-called democratic states, especially at time of crisis. In today’s debate the Christian Division of good and evil and the symbol of fallen angel Lucifer symbolize the secession of evil from the good. We unconsciously lived this perception. A related feature of archetypes is that, while they shape our perceptions and behaviour, we only become conscious of them indirectly, as they are manifest in particular instances. It is rather like Schopenhauer and Kant’s notion of the inaccessibility of the “thing-in-itself”, upon which Jung drew: you can’t experience archetypes directly but only when they are manifested in symbols and images. Religious believers relate to the archetype of the wise man via the images available to them in their culture (given, for the sake of argument, that wisdom is what Jesus or the Buddha represent).

    But what does this mean? Look of the disastrous readings Obama got from the – traditional left leaning – media after the first election debate, almost a image of the fallen angel Lucifer crossed my mind. We often even do not understand why we reacted this way, and we feel guilty even if we are aware of it. At the case of presidential debates, what we see is an image but of the following plot we unaware. In history stories arise and figures emerge which made or broke the bid of presidency. One should interpret this flood of images and, it’s about experience the unconscious and not to interpret, because the unconscious is not fully open to rational analysis, logic, or form in otherwise. The most important task is to understand the dualism of good or evil in us. With other words we have to differentiate between Ego and Persona and recognize our Shadow and our Animus/Anima.How far you might want to follow Jung along this path is up to personal (i.e. cultural) experience. The shadow is a useful concept to many, as that side of our character which is often buried and sometimes, suddenly emerges. The notion of the animus and the anima, say, evident in Taoism.

    Seen from Europe, now what is the difference of the two presidential Egos in psychological terms after removing the mask? Answer, Nil.   Mitt Romney ran hard and successfully to the centre, and the president’s pathetic overall performance in the debate mirrored his economic performance the last four years.The same pathetic motivation speeches, but this time with bad bottom line economic figures on Obama’s watch. I have to admit, I liked the rhetoric four years ago, but it has become stale. The magic authority, his wisdom and magical transformation mantra (Yes we can) was not there anymore. Mitt Romney won the debate because he actually at least gave a convincingly impression, that he understands the issues and knows how he’s going to tackle them, not just presenting some empty rhetoric like Obama. Substance won over form, for a change. President Øbama was smart enough not to touch Wall Street the last four years, instead he left his US voters on dire street and supported the neo-con agenda in Europe to get better numbers at home  In foreign affairs, we will see. There Obama has not more to show, than his (correct) drone and terrorism strategy (i.e. Osama Bin Laden). That is not little, but in Europe and the Middle East he did not well and China does not take US (fiscal) policy serious anymore, working on plan B.

    This election is, as has been said, a (no-) choice between two similar masks (Persona) who both hide  by a plutocracy of wealth and corporate power; underway for 4 years by President Empty Chair or incoming President Cooperate Raider. Both  means that government would no longer serve the interests of the community but collaborate with their clients to establish a separate set of laws that entitle them to preferential treatment while creating barriers to competition by eliminating opportunities for others.

    The King seemed more centrist and plausible at the debate is because he crafted an exceptionally smart and pointed attack against the President’s record, and that stood in stark contrast to the lame deceptions of the Great Mother’s 30-second ads, sound bites and false and mischievous spin if the opposition intention. Mitt played actually quite reasonable and sophisticated the King’s role. For many Americans – including in my family – it was the first time they got a good impression of Mitt, and we will see if he can continue to ride on the white horse as the election approaches. Paul Ryan comes across young and authentic – not a superhero. He has potential. President Øbama was not helpful – if present at all – in Europe’s crises, Mitt could only be improvement but than he needs a steep foreign policy learning curve.

    Note October 16, 2012 – to be continued With no podium to hide behind in Tuesday’s debate, the candidates’ style and body language will be in the spotlight. In the shadow always wins the bank.

  • Karl Popper and the fireplace poker

    Karl Popper and the fireplace poker

    The two great philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper – who both had a rap of abusive discussion style met only once: on the 25th October 1946.  The meeting in a crowded classroom in Cambridge went bad. Legends formed rapidly to their loud and aggressive confrontation, Wittgenstein supposedly used a red-hot fireplace poker to emphasize his points, gesturing with it as also the argument grew more heated.

    Wittgenstein claims: In philosophy, there are no real problems, the language feigns them for us. Philosophical problems are only fake problems. Only mathematical, science or logical problems can be solved. Wittgenstein opened with the common language term “missed team spirit”. He explained that this term does not mean, that there is a being with this name. So before philosophizing one has to clarify bewitched language, has to exercise language critic in order to clarify what problem is worth to think about.

    Popper disagrees: In philosophy, there are real problems,  the  language is not the problem. In his view there valid physical problems exit and presented a prepared list of philosophical problems which can be solved through rational thinking:

    • The problem if we can know things by senses or by thinking. Reply: this is not a philosophical but logical problem.
    • The problem of the infinite. Wittgenstein replied that is a mathematical problem
    • The problem of moral problem principles. Wittgenstein replied – name one.  Popper was only mildly impressed and replied with an explanation of his moral principles: “you should not threaten scholars with a poker when they are guest lectures.”

    What happened really? Who were these two great philosophers? What was the point?. The majority of the philosophers in the  20th century followed Wittgenstein. How is it in the 21st century?

    Popper tried to determine how we can ascribe truth to the claims made by science, religion and politics. Karl Popper has criticized Hegel’s dialectic, Marx, Freudian psychoanalysis and Wittgenstein’s Tractatus as re-inforced dogmatism. He also argued,that scientific theories can never be proved to be true, but are tested by attempts to falsify them. Attempts to present theories such as Marxism,  Freudian psychology and Astrology as scientific are subjected by Popper to his own analysis of falsificationism, and fail the test.

    Wittgenstein’s relationship with science, religion and psychoanalysis is ambivalent.  For example, to him Sigmund Freud succeeded to merge the semantic and empirical level in his theory so successfully, that still many think of him as a great scientist. Wittgenstein declined the psychoanalysis as a theory of the human psyche in the fiercest form as unscientific and dangerous. “What says Freud about the unconscious”, Wittgenstein blasted once in a lecture, “sounds like science, but actually it’s just a means of representation to persuade the reader or the patients and to accept a specific image”.

    Popper was not member of the Vienna Circle, that group of logical positivists who, following on from the work of Wittgenstein (i.e.Tractatus) aimed at the unification of the sciences and the wholesale rejection of metaphysics. Popper’s antipathy to Wittgenstein meant of course, that he was not invited – although Wittgenstein was not a neo-positivist either.

    Popper took a stand against an empiricist view of science, endeavouring  falsificationism. The key difference between Popper and the Logical Positivists is that their division was between science and nonsense, in that a non-scientific statement was of no value, whereas Popper’s was between science and non-science, in that a non-scientific statement had a value, just not a scientific one. Popper seems to have been a radical inductionist. Only conclusions based on induction and therefore subject to falsification – for instance the arrival of a black swan to contradict the conclusion that all swans are white – have any validity. The best we can hope for is not truth but more or less useable correlations. For Popper a theory is an ideology if it is based as it is on deductive logic generalizing the empirical evidence.

    It is perhaps worth noting that Popper’s own doctorate was in psychology. Popper’s had, as Wittgenstein a distaste for the psychological models of Freud’s for different reasons, in particular for attempts to present psychology as a science. Popper pointed out, psychological theories are unfalsifiable in principle.

    Each generation got their own problems, and in Europe we have plenty of real ones. With regard to analytic philosophy, it has undergone a very good transformation keeping the treasure of  Wittgenstein’s language critics without getting too much back into the puzzle-solving mode. It gave way to a ‘ general language philosophy’, whereby here the emphasis on must be “language”, which shares its theme with the linguistics and in some other philosophy branch which looks and feels more than sociology than philosophy. To make it short: I think that in this century a synthesis born between philosophy and natural sciences will leave both areas transformed – naturally the philosophy more than the natural sciences. In the moment I see (as an layman) in French and German philosophy more sociology than philosophy. This was a value statement.

  • C.G Jung Wittgenstein and Plato – Introvert and iNtuition

    C.G Jung Wittgenstein and Plato – Introvert and iNtuition

    Based on Carl G. Jung’s typology [Jung, 1921], Wittgenstein and Plato can be classified using four mental functions sensing, intuition, thinking and feeling together with the attitude (extraversion-introversion). Jung was fond of saying that personality types often change throughout ones life. So an answer to your question will be more or less inaccurate, depending upon which part of his life is under consideration. I find it understandable that several different personality types have attribute to Jung : INFP, INTJ, INFJ, INTP. Jung identified himself as both  ISTP (when he was young) and 1959 as INTP. I take the late C.G. Jung. There is almost consensus  that Jung was an iNtuitive Introvert, and thinking instead feeling but what is judging-perceiving preferences. Myers identifies Jung as an introvert. Keirsey & son identify Jung as INFJ. Von Franz identifies Jung as IN-J. 

    There is a funny story about an Introvert and iNtuition told by C.G. Jung. about a “lady with a snake in the abdomen” who lived in a private brothel without noticing it (BBC Interview Face to Face available in youtube). These individuals, Jung thought, are profoundly influenced by their internal motivations even though they do not completely understand them. They find meaning through unconscious, subjective ideas about the world. Introverted intuitive people comprise a significant portion of mystics, surrealistic artists, and religious fanatics. Pretty often they are mystic dreamers or shamans or seers. After World War I, this 28-year-old woman consulted Jung. She wanted “to be cured within ten hours” – that is, within only ten analytic sessions. The woman told Jung that “she had a black serpent in her belly.” That was the reason the woman had consulted him, “for she thought that it should be awakened” . The woman was “only intuitive, entirely without a sense of reality.” Then she announced that the snake, which had been dormant, had suddenly become active. “One day she came and said that the serpent in her belly had moved; it had turned around,” Jung says. “Then the serpent moved slowly upward, coming finally out of her mouth, and she saw that the head was golden.” Jung amplifies the image of the snake in the abdomen by reference to the serpent in Kundalini Yoga. “I told you,” Jung says, “the case of that intuitive girl who suddenly came out with the statement that she had a black snake in her belly.” He situates the snake in the context of the collective unconscious. “Well now, that is a collective symbol,” he says. “That is not an individual fantasy, it is a collective fantasy.” The image of the snake in the abdomen, Jung says, “is well known in India.” Although the woman “had nothing to do with India” and although the image “is entirely unknown to us,” he says that “we have it too, for we are all similarly human.” When the woman first told Jung about the snake in her belly, he wondered whether “perhaps she was crazy,” but then he realized that “she was only highly intuitive.” She had intuited a typical, or archetypal, image. “In India,” Jung says, “the serpent is at the basis of a whole philosophical system, of Tantrism; it is Kundalini, the Kundalini serpent.”

    Was Jung an INFP?

    Of the four types, INFP seems the least likely type for Jung. While capable of seeing the big picture and valuing holism to a certain extent, Jung was far too analytical, systematic, and attentive to detail to qualify as an INFP. He himself saw his feeling function inferior the 1959 interview below.

    Was Jung an INTP?

    This is most likely. The BBC Interview, Face to Face, aired 1959, with transcript published in the above mentioned C.G. Jung Speaking, Princeton University Press, 1977: “I most certainly was characterized by Thinking … and I had a great deal of iNtuition, too. And I had a definite difficulty with Feeling.” So what Jung is saying here is that his Dominant Function is Thinking, his Auxiliary Function is iNtuition and his Repressed Function is Feeling. The fact that INFP is Jung’s least likely type doesn’t bode well for the INTP though. On the other hand, his hunches ( of Nazi Germany) seem more consistent with that of a perceiver than a judger. So now we have INT_?_, and I have to guess a bit at P v. J. His struggle with feeling leads me to believe that his faculties of perception (i.e. intuition) were dominant over his faculties of judgment (i.e thinking).

    The Case for ISTP

    The manuscript prepared in 1926, published in English as Analytical Psychology: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1925: “As a natural scientist, thinking and sensation were uppermost in me and intuition and feeling were in the unconscious and contaminated by the collective unconscious. [Princeton University Press 1991 edition, p. 69]” I would attribute this as his persona (mask) and to establish the psychoanalytic method as science.

    Was Jung an INTJ or INFJ?

    Though his feeling preference was likely much less pronounced than his intuition, the most compelling reason for Jung being INFJ rather than an INTJ, would be Jung’s ineluctable attraction to religion and spirituality.  Jung consistently reiterated Feeling as his repressed Function. There is consensus that Wittgenstein and Plato was INFJ, heaven knows why.

    Perhaps the reason has its root in psychology. The Myers-Briggs ‘Thinking’ preference is associated with principled and rule-based thought, whereas its counterpart ‘Feeling’ is associated with decision making on the basis of values. At a statistical level, we can analyse patterns in such preferences, and it is not wholly surprising that the Myers-Briggs types associated with the job of programmer are all Thinking preference types (INTJ, INTP, ISTJ, ISTP, ENTP). Conversely, the job of writer is associated with Feeling preference (INFJ, INFP, ENFJ, ENFP – although also INTP and ENTP), as well the job of artist or composer (ISFP, INFJ, ENFP, INFP – although also INTP and ENTP). It should be stressed, those are just statistical tendencies.

  • Metaphysics and C.G. Jung in a post-metaphysic world

    Metaphysics and C.G. Jung in a post-metaphysic world

    In Europe we live in a post-metaphysic world.

    »There is no alternative to post-metaphysical thinking.« This statement, made by Jürgen Habermas in his 1988 collection of essays, Post-Metaphysical Thinking, sounds very much like “There is no alternative to the Euro-Zone”. Jürgen Habermas continues to develop his philosophical ideas with the shift in perspective from metaphysical worldviews to the phenomenal world (als C.G. Jung stressed) exposing the uneasy relationship between religion and post-metaphysical thinking. Habermas discussed and somewhat agreed with Pope Benedict XVI,  that »even in its post-metaphysical form, philosophy can neither replace nor suppress religion«,or diminish the role of religion on the political context of a post-secular, liberal society. Postmetaphysical thinking is, to the contrary, indifferent to any particular worldview and focuses on procedural rationality by reconstructing the normativity inherent in linguistic practices and detranscendentalizing postmetaphysical thinking. That is, putting reason within the context of (a Western) history and social reality. Whatever that means  for instance in a high context cultural environment – see also my definitions in the appendix. I admit its all this post’isms are alien to me.

    This article wants tho show metaphysics is important to understand C.G. Jung (who claimed not to strive into to it, but indeed did) and to us to navigate a post-metaphysic world. The term metaphysics is defined as following: “teaching of the last, not recognizable contexts of the existing” derived from Greek word Meta – behind and Physics – importance (of nature). The study of last things, the things behind everything created “the reality of the supernatural”. Christian metaphysics called metaphysics in the context of Roman and Byzantine Christianity and that term was introduced among others by Karl Jaspers. Every person is spiritual (metaphysical), by its very nature if he is looking for meaning and value. Common to all metaphysic systems are different, culturally related spiritual and / or religious views: the belief in a higher power of a creative intelligence, which “can be brought in for the purpose of creation of order and / or  salvation”. This is the metaphysical foundation: Faith is psychologically to hold true, to know without knowing. Religious belief is only one of them. Gnostic belief another.

    To the contrary, the central tenets of the ‘project of modernity’ including rationality and progress for which Habermas attempted 1981 to formalise it as practical achievements, should be seen against the dark context of today.  Fundamentalism shows a deliberate throwback to an archaic ‘society of ideology’, a society of savagery and a society with a lust for domination, control and power; a society which raises significant questions to the enlightenment project. Coupled with this, there have been periodic episodes of inhumanity which have ranged from the Middle East in the 8th century to genocide in Rwanda , from recent mass genocide and ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Sudan to the Arab Spring in the news today. The most spectacular  example was the terrorist attacks on ‘twin towers’ in New York. It is very difficult to implement Habermas’  universalized narratives and solution to a postmodern problem: for example, diversity of fundamentalist beliefs. For consequent actions (postmodern), communicative action is very brittle in overcoming instabilities of such beliefs (Habermas’ modernism).

    C.G. Jung’s  Humanistic Metaphysics

    C.G. Jung follows the Buddhist concept of reality, real to him is what works, psychoanalytic sessions, catholic confession, astrology, alchemy. C. G. Jung gave amazingly clear statements on the effectiveness of those as physician and therapist of empirically and analytical methods. The sureness of C.G. Jung when he described such medical operations, was based on a type of treatments which has been practiced for thousands of years. At first, there were the shamans and medicine men of different cultures that had religious and healing tasks combined. C.G. Jung regarded himself as empiricists and physician. As such, he represents the phenomenological point of view. As a scientist he felt not competent to apply philosophical or metaphysical points of view.  That is in line as Kant famously argues, that the concepts of traditional metaphysical speculation cannot be determined in any possible cognition (i.e. experience). Thus, such concepts — the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the freedom of the will — are necessarily unknowable.

    C.G. Jung’s Christian Metaphysics

    C.G. Jung psychological criticism of metaphysics, however, focuses only on the theological doctrine of the privatio boni (after Augustus), which concluded that the evil did not the contrast (and include) the good, but the evil is just a lack of good. By excluding the evil forces, Christ is only one half of the archetype; the other appears in the Antichrist. A denial of the reality of evil, with an ontological status of its own as an opposition of the good must lead to a metaphysical dualism, separated in the heaven and hell as hostile counter powers.  This was evident the heretical system of Christian Gnosticism.

    The psychological aspects of the individuation of the person have to be evaluated in the light of this Christian tradition, which was inclined to deny the reality of evil. Not only experience, but a number of symbols and history speaks against the exclusion of the evil forces from the empirical self. In her memoirs the famous director Leni Riefenstahl tried to cope with Hitlers – what she thought positive personality – and his evil dark side. She literally wrote, both slit personalities must have been combined.

    C.G. Jung model of the unconscious is much more enlightened than that of Freud who pressed human behaviour into a rigid mono-causal theory. It concludes a private unconscious and thus a “suppressed” part, which is called the “shadow”, i.e. that part of personality, we do not like to want to acknowledge. It goes down but further into the depths of the soul, and then you will find the fixed and fate-determining structures of animus and anima, which each contain the images of the “other family” in us for young. For C.G. Jung, the soul is a layered construction; It contains almost “geological” deposits of ancient mankind experience. Archetypes express analog to the instincts of animals certain behavioral dispositions. Beyond the personal unconscious, there is a collective “culture psyche” that may also have a “numinose” property. Archetypes appear in dreams, but also to the deliberate fantasies (imagoes’) and the spontaneous pictures (in psychotherapy as a helper method). In terms of Jungian psychology, one discovers even archetypal forms in the religions and myths, in the poetry of art at all. Even philosophical and social systems can be archetypical inspired. The “numinose” is the “archetype of the self”. This is enabled if the person on the way of “individuation” moves, which is awareness to Jung the actual objective of life. According to Jungian’s, the “loss of self” as well as the remoteness to God is the source of all neuroses.

    C.G.Jung saw clearly that he could provide information only about the existence of a God’s image in the human soul, and left the “existence of God” to theologians and metaphysicians. But already the thesis that the human psyche per se and indelible produces a God image is quite religious. C.G. Jung stressed that the soul was “naturaliter christiana et religiosa”. So, the collective unconscious contained an indirect commitment to the (not organized) religion. This is in contrary to materialist scientists who describe the universe, as a mechanical or biological system, a complicated super engine that spontaneously emerged and evolved, regulated exclusively by rigid natural laws, and completely determined.

    C.G. Jung’s  Nature Metaphysics

    One factor which has influenced Jung’s poor reputation was his tendency to cast his empirical ideas in terms of metaphysical explanation: like  his much misunderstood notion of the “archetype”. But his early work on word-association – basís of his analysis of complexes is empiricism at its best, and his comparative mythology gave him the insight that human problems are the same all the world over, and always have been. Jung regarded true to Kantian principles, that reason is best used and protected by understanding its limit(ation)s. “Reason is often not sufficient to modify the instinct and make it conform to the rational order”: an observation my daily experience all too often confirmed. Besides enormously tapping in religious symbolic C.G. Jung, used also non “numinose” experience systems e.g. the astrological world view that sees the universe as an organic system, in which the events in the psyche, the dynamics of the archetypal areas, and the events in nature are aligned with the movements of the planets and their angularness relations are symbolically linked. One of the most important principles of Western scientific thought is the linear causality. C. G. Jung has shown convincingly the existence of strange coincidences which are beyond any statistical probability, are a major objection to a conception of the universe as a system which is dominated exclusively by deterministic causal effects. This is even more striking when this coincidence brings a purely mental operation (such as for example a dream, a fantasy, or a vision) with events in the material world (consensual reality) in a meaningful relationship. This situation has called Jung synchronicity.

     Metaphysics is still alive

    Communicative Action challenges the Marxist focus on economics. Habermas argues that the key to emancipation is rather to be found in communication, that is, in free moral discourses between individuals amongst equal citizens. Ironically, there are two modernistic yet sociological grounds that Habermas fails to incorporate or appreciate in his analysis: human and cultural differences. The former because Habermas’ theorizing is built on a conception of the world in which, albeit essentialism characteristics but realities, ‘middle class’ ‘western’ ‘philosophers’ dominate. The whole ‘project of modernity’ and associated discourses of rationality and progress have historically sided with a small segment of Western thoughts. But Europe now is the weakest link in the West in defending Enlightenment.  Just think over todays self-censorship in regards to more vital cultures.  It seems C.G. Jung’s views are much better suited for todays need understanding cultural clashes between low and high context cultures. Metaphysics is not a science. It is not going to give you the price of apples. What metaphysics can do is start where physics ends. When physicists arrive at their final ultimate set of equations, they don’t have anything to say or when post-modern sociologist have nothing to say anymore the world ends in the unspeakable silence. Philosophers can always ask why things are the way they are. It is bold philosophy, and that is how I like it.

    Appendix Terms and Definitions:

    Post-metaphysical is a label which may be among other things:

    /1/ dismisses substantive conceptions of rationality in favor of procedural or formal assessments (e.g. “a rational person thinks like this”) – the basic of pc;

    /2/.replaced foundationalism (rationalism and empiricism) with fallibilism (being open to new evidence) with regard to valid knowledge may be achieved – which is routine to science at least from Galilei and Kepler;

    /3/ doubts that reason can be conceived abstractly beyond history and social reality but must contextualized or situated within actual historical practices – soft relativism;

    /4/ concern for pragmatic structures of language and action as part of the contextualization of reason instead of individual consciousness – ideology matters;

    /5/ replaces traditional theoretical truth with representational functions of language, i.e.  the moral and expressive functions of language as part of the contextualization of reason – deconstructivism.

    One may say, splitting hairs, that if communicative rationality is contextualized and historicised, it is still not relativistic holding reason to be only context sensitive instead context dependent. Logic-based examination of language is related to thinking and objectification uncovering presuppositions and validity dimensions of communication – while the relativist focus on the content. Postmodernism, Post-metaphysical sociology and late Logical Positivism are united in critique of foundationalism and metaphysics.

    Postmodernism is based on the position that reality is not mirrored in human understanding of it, but constructed in a own personal reality as truth relative to groups, cultures, traditions, or races, and gender. A general and wide-ranging term which is applied to literature, art, philosophy, architecture, fiction, and cultural and literary criticism,  it is largely a reaction to any scientific or objective efforts to explain reality.  Postmodernism relies on a socalled concrete (in reality white male subjective) “experience” over abstract principles, because the outcome will necessarily be fallible and relative and denies within the existence of any ultimate principles,  may they be scientific, philosophical, religious truth. Ironically, postmodernism becomes political correctness when it denies that it cannot on its own principles ultimately justify itself any more than can the various metaphysical system against which the “postmodern modern mind ” has defined itself.

    Postsecularism is a theoretical concept whose central idea is that Secularism may have come to an end.

    Metaphysical from the Greek meta ta physika (“after the things of nature”) refers to the studies that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, cause. Areas of metaphysical studies include ontology, cosmology, and often, epistemology. Metaphysics is a type of philosophy or study that uses broad concepts to help define reality and our understanding of it. Metaphysical studies are concerned with explaining the features of reality that exist beyond the physical world and our immediate senses. Metaphysics, therefore, uses logic based on the meaning of human terms, rather than on a logic tied to human sense perception of the objective world. Metaphysics might include the study of the nature of the human mind, the definition and meaning of existence, or the nature of space, time, and/or causality. The origin of philosophy, beginning with the Pre-Socratics, was metaphysical in nature. For example, the philosopher Plotinus held that the reason in the world and in the rational human mind is only a reflection of a more universal and perfect reality beyond our limited human reason. He termed this ordering power in the universe “God.” Metaphysical ideas, because not verified by experiments are considered unverifiable by modern science. On the other hand in religion, validating of metaphysical claims like attempts to scientifically prove the existence of God and other nonobjective, nonhuman realities is seemingly impossible and meaningless. By its very nature, it cannot become an object of scientific studies.

    Relativism

    Recently, both metaphysics and science have come under attack the first for its apparent lack of access to real knowledge (in the religious context also for absolute ethics) , the latter in claiming absolute knowledge, surprisingly,  since the act of scientific observation itself always may influence the reality it hopes to explain, and scientific truths and laws continue be revised with new explanations of reality as new data comes in. Philosophical and sociological movements known as postmodernism and deconstructionism consequently issued a small-minded repudiation of both metaphysics and science.  Thus, being sarcastic, metaphysical universal knowledge fight together with objectivity (scientism) against pagan postmodern cultural and historical relativity of all knowledge.

    The correspondence theory of truth is often associated with metaphysical realism. Its traditional competitors, coherentist, pragmatist, and verificationist theories of truth, are often associated with idealism, anti-realism, or relativism

    Wittgenstein

    There are really two Wittgensteins; an early and a later one, both of whom significantly differed from each other. The early Wittgenstein was a logical positivist and mathematician who tried to dismiss all metaphysics by creating a system of logic in which the meaningfulness of propositions were evaluated in terms of how they pictured the external world. The later Wittgenstein is more psychological, more interested in linguistics. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/

    Habermas

    Recently Habermas has further developed his views on the relation between philosophy and faith in his dialogue with Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI). There he notes how much Western philosophy owes to its Christian heritage. The Christian idea of human beings as created in the image of God has been especially important for Western moral-political theory, which translated the religious idea into the secular view of persons as equal in dignity and deserving unconditional respect. Both, Habermas and  Pope Benedict XVI call for a dialogue in which secular and religious forms of thought mutually inform and learn from each other.

    http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/habermas/

    Other sources:

    • The Oxford Companion of Philosophy;
    • History of Western Philosophy, B. Russel
    • British Empirical Philosophers, Locke, Berkely, Hume
    • plato – augustin – kant, Karl Jaspers
    • Culture matters, L. Harrison S. P. Huntington
    • Dialektik der Säkularisierung, J. Habermas & J. Ratzinger
    • GK Pilosophie III, Philosophie des Geistes, Reclam
    • C.G. Jung Gesammelte Werke (see resources)

  • Neuschwanstein and Wagner – Every dream needs a renovation

    Neuschwanstein and Wagner – Every dream needs a renovation

    Heading for the mountains

    Last Sunday we headed west of Munich for the Alps – that is, the more moderate mountains of the Allgaeu. I picked an easy mountain hike – The Great Tegelberg Circle – for the family, including our Labrador, who climbs like a mountain goat. The route offers lots of views, but requires a bit of stamina and passes Neuschwanstein. A big part of the castle is wrapped because of a façade renovation – even dreams need revovation, I thought when I made the usual pictures.. From the mountain station of the cabin we went up to the Branderschrofen top, and then down the nature trail on southern slopes to the Branderfleck. From here the trail leads straight up some switch back to the Ahorn (Maple) Saddle. After a short moderate climbing, the trail leads to the alpine meadows of the lower alpine meadow. From there we continued on comfortable way over a creek (always a highlight for a dog) to the forest service cabin, our first stop for a good beer (always a highlight for the adults).

    The mountain walk on wide forest road to the Marienbrücke at Neuschwanstein rewarded us with beautiful views. The surrounding mountains are dotted with evergreen trees and numerous lakes. When I turned the last corner I couldn’t help but stop and stare. After six hours of solitude, we were surrounded by thousand of tourists. It’s the perfect castle of course, best seen from the bridge in a perfect setting perched high and precariously on its rocky foundation. The Marienbruecke is the best for taking pictures. I don’t have a huge fear of heights, but the thought of walking out onto a bridge paved with wood planks with so many people made me hesitate. At least most of the current visitors are not XXL anymore. In this beautiful landscape, the castle did right fit in without Disney’s help.

    Every dream needs a renovation

    Neuschwanstein Castle is a fairy tale palace, or better said a romantic Richard Wagner dream visualized. With its beautiful white limestone facades and numerous turrets and spires and with large windows it was built as a home, not a fortress several hundred years after medieval times.. King Ludwig II (or the swan-King) ordered the castle (as many others) to be built in the late 1860s as homage to the bygone era of knights and mythology. Good tourism investment, despite at his time people thought differently of his spending. I watched the shadows of clouds float lazily over a landscape dotted with villages that, aside from the modern roads, have probably looked the same for centuries. The lakes were a glittering white, and all the vegetation was a lush green.

    Neuschwanstein and Wagner’s Myths

    There is still an enigma of King Ludwig’s death by drowning in Lake Starnberg south of Munich under mysterious circumstances just three days after being declared legally insane.. By any measure, he was a somewhat odd young man who had problems relating to women and people in general. As their copious correspondence shows, Ludwig and Richard Wagner (by any measures even more social dysfunctional) became very close, if stormy, friends until the famous composer’s death. On several occasions Wagner was the beneficiary of Ludwig’s patronage and support, but the relationship with the notorious underfunded Wagner had its highs and lows. Ludwig was attracted to Wagner’s music and talents, but the composer’s egocentric ways put strains on the friendship between the two. Ludwig was also compelled rumors of Wagner’s dalliances with Cosima von Bülow (at that time wife of Wagner’s concertmaster and an illegitimate daughter of Franz Liszt). It took many years before they would meet again and Wagner managed to get Ludwig to help him finance the building of the now famous Festspielhaus (concert hall) in Bayreuth. I like Wagner’s music.

    But it is still odd to see German’s “so called elite” flocking the hill of power ever since. I guess dreams have been abused by any politician to present their ego on stage. Neither Wagner nor the Swan King was a politician, Cosima (later Wagner’s wife) and Winfried (English born daughter-in-law) definitely catered to them.

    Neuschwanstein as political statement

    Bavaria was involved during reign of Ludwig II in a war on the losing Austrian side in the Seven Weeks War against protestant Prussia. Ludwig’s latent resistance against the military state of Prussia and his patronage of Richard Wagner has contributed to his legend. In 1868 Ludwig began the building campaign. Much of the Bavarian king’s fame is associated with his castles: Neuschwanstein, Linderhof, and Herrenchiemsee. Ludwig took a special interest in the building of all his palaces, sometimes to the extreme irritation of his architects and drew much of his inspiration for his castles from Wagnerian opera. I also do agree with on politician in our parliament (also an odd misfit), who connects today’s debate of Germans identity within the future identity of Europe: “Neuschwanstein castle was the Declaration of War of King Ludwig II after the loss of sovereignty”  by postmodern art, I would like to add. The Bavarian King Ludwig II. saw himself in the wake of the French Sun King as King of the Night.  The loved night sledging and  carriage rides in the Moonlight,  and artificial  moonlamps were illuminated Neuschwanstein. King Ludwig II has been likened to Andy Warhol. Funny enough, most likely both got killed, but their political statements but prevailed globalization. Modern artist Andy Warhol helped to establish the puella (eternal girl) image as an icon in modern society with pop art images of Marilyn Monroe and King Ludwig the archetypal Bavarian castle in a stunning Alpine surroundings establishing such a clear link between the inner (dreams) and the outer (consensus reality) worlds. Archetypal psychology runs counter to all the scientific disciplines of the West pointing out, the fanciful, the poetic, the abstraction, the symbol, and the wisdom of the mystics and the insight of dreams and hunches.

    German intelligence?

    Speaking about hunches, ironically, there is a Bismarck monument on the lake Starnberg as a symbol of the State Prussia standing for economic and military power and the birth of the first German nation-state. For Thomas Mann, it symbolized “Prussianizing (Verpreußung) of German intelligence” and that was not indignantly meant.

    Then it was Prussia, however, now it is unfortunately the European Union (without Prussian values like efficiency and integrity). North and South became “eternally one and deleted is the border of the (river) Main” says the inscription of the Bismarck Tower. That is the very lake Starnberg where King Ludwig II died. After the Second German Reich with the Prussian King as German Emperor was proclaimed, Bavaria retained only some minor feudal rights, and was “meditated” in a political Union. In July 2012 the German parliament signed hastily away its core rights to a grandstanding chaotic autocratic entity, based on ambiguous documents in English, hardly understanding its language and implications.

    Democratic globalization needs strong roots – location and tradition.

    Just a few meters away from the castle all the people were gone. We went sharp right down in the canyon (Pöllatschlucht),  crossed the river and reached a meadow under the mountains. There we run by chance right in a local county fair (Schützenfest) with Bavarian music and good food. After a good dinner we walked to the base station in the valley headed back to Munich. But the light was still good so I made a small detour to the Wieskirche, made more pictures and listened to an unusual church concert (Saxophone and Organ). The sunset provided the light show. .

    Felix Bavaria Neuschwanstein revisited

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    Felix Bavaria, still so much beauty and so much tradition on the countryside but again (or still) an odd state in today’s void Germany having no dreams but only illusions. Was the “Mad King Ludwig” mad or was he just one of the legendary figures in Bavarian history, a history full of legendary figures who had a dream a simple dream of beauty and sovereign life. This expropriation of the democratic sovereignty was and will be a central theme of the upcoming debate on the future of the EU institutions too. Is the formation of a centralized state like the Second Reich and Third Reich and today the EU (with a Germany in the role of powerless Bavaria before 1871) a right or left project? Maybe enforced centralization bundles historically disadvantages of both directions: A disoriented and delocalized left, the right being a wannabe-power with pro-active appeasement to the cruel gods of the “market”. Collectivism aimed at dispossession the self-sufficient, an unholy union of G&S, Marx and Mao. I think King Ludwig’s dream of Bavarian sovereignty needs to be renovated too if not re-built.