Tag: Wittgenstein

$FALLEN ANGELS FEAR – Sacred aesthetics of fractal recursion$

FALLEN ANGELS FEAR – Sacred aesthetics of fractal recursion

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Angels Fear – The Sacred Destroyed

FALLEN ANGELS FEAR an obvious wordplay which crossed my mind after a blog reader pointed out that Bateson’s book  Angels Fear: Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred might be of relevance to me.

FALLEN ANGELS FEAR

The title created immediately multiple associations and images, so I became curious and got the book.  Bateson presents from a anthropologist view concepts and topology of structure- determined recursion – in a nutshell – sacred aesthetics of fractal recursion.

Douglas Hofstadter articulated fractal recursions mathematically in his book Goedel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid , 1979. The Bateson’s (father and daughter) define ecology and aesthetics, combining them to ecological aesthetics viewed at every level from the cellular to the cultural to the religious from a communicative perspective.  Angels Fear is food for thought and relevant indeed, this book is for anyone who feels that there is more to life than logic and science. Bateson’s main thesis is that aesthetics, beauty, and the spiritual are as valid as logic and science. It is an original synthesis of cybernetics, biology, anthropology (his daughter is anthropologist) but avoids New Age. The book resounds very well with my Jungian and spiritual side, although Jung has covered that area much broader and more coherent from empirical science as a physician.

Like the psychoanalyst C. G. Jung, Gregory Bateson never really says what the sacred actually is. To both, it is just beyond their scope, something which is beyond facile descriptions. The sacred ( to me the religious realm) is common intuitive knowledge in every human experience. The Ego (lets say mind) and unconsciousness cannot meet easily., hence there is a necessary gap between the two – so Bateson is essentially saying that our attempts to explain our human experience is always and necessarily incomplete. And that there is a lot more to life and mind than meets consciousness and unconsciousness depersonified. That is true, but hardly new – in Bateson’s words:

‘But the bits and pieces of mind which appear before consciousness invariably give a false picture of mind as a whole. The systemic character of mind is never there depicted, because the sampling is governed by purpose. We never see in consciousness that the mind is like an ecosystem – a self-corrective network of circuits. We only see arcs of these circuits. And the instinctive vulgarity of scientists consists precisely in mistaking these arcs for the larger truth, i.e., thinking that because what is seen by consciousness has one character, the total mind must have the same character.Freud’s personified ‘ego’, ‘id’, ‘super-ego’ are, in fact not, truly personified at all. Each of his components is constructed in the image of only consciousness (even though the component may be unconscious) and the ‘consciousness’ does not resemble a total person. The isolated consciousness is necessarily depersonified. The whole iceberg does not have those characteristics which could be guessed at from looking only at what is above water. I mean: the iceberg does – mind does not. Mind is not like an iceberg.”

The way that humans have dealt with this feature of human existence were religions.

‘The point is that, even before modern technology, something had to be done about the innate split between consciousness and the rest of the mind, because the unaided consciousness would always wreck human relations. Because the unaided consciousness must always combine the wisdom of the dove with the harmlessness of the serpent. And I will tell you what they did in the old Stone Age to deal with that split. Religion is what they did. It’s that simple, and religion is whatever they could devise to beat into man the fact that most of him (and, analogously, most of his society and the ecosystem around him) was systemic in nature and imperceptible to his consciousness. This included dreams and trances, intoxication, castration, rituals, human sacrifices, myths of all sorts, invocations of death, art, poetry, music and so on. And of course, they did not and could not really say or know clearly what it was they were doing or why. And, often, it did not work.” [Bateson]

Oh yes, it did work. The rise of psychoanalytic but also New Age quacks clearly is attributed to the decline of religion in the West. After pseudo-religious totalitarian states collapsed, the former religions came back and vice versa. To fully live in our humanness we must ‘give away’ our Ego to  our Self but resist the temptation futile attempts to describe or explain these experiences in a language of conscious .

Self

Here is what Wittgenstein says about this individuation (or religious) effort.

“My whole tendency and I believe the tendency of all men who ever tried to write or talk Ethics or Religion was to run up against the boundaries of language. This running up against the walls of our cage is perfectly, absolutely hopeless. Ethics so far as it springs from the desire to say something about the ultimate meaning of life, the absolute good, the absolute valuable, can be no science. But it is a document of a tendency in the human mind which I personally cannot help respecting deeply and I would not for my life ridicule it. ” [1929]

In this quote we can see that whatever we manage to concoct remains entirely our own subjective property (and thus a sense which never can proved), but that, on the other hand, we can and must transcend by making efforts to move beyond the ‘limits of language’, by bringing into question our given limits and by choosing domains where our understandings break down. In the view of Bateson, the willingness to make this effort is a symptom of  the sacred . So far so good. Did not mathematics, art and nature always cross the boundary of language in the search of ascetics and perfection?

Structure-determined recursion

Escher – structure determined recursion

Angels Fear argues that the science of biology required an ecological aesthetic because biology, like any self-recursive communication system, must become aware of the disruption of its own relations with the unity of nature to understand science’s limitation in a spiritual (if not even religious) realm.   In other words, biology becomes bad science, by violation of ” Gods plan”, be it tho one known by Christianity or Taoism and/or Zen Buddhism.  Christianity and Western cultures subsequently science have a linear concept of time and structures. C. G. Jung understood the true nature of time (linear, cyclical, and recursive), which generations have struggled to comprehend except ancient religions Taoists and Hindus knew.

There are two processes of recursion, the one semantic and interpretative , the other structural. Like C. G. Jung,  the Batesons conclude that the world of signals and signs (or images and symbols) are an universal and collective aspect of living systems, neglected by hard (and I might add soft) science).  Goedel, Escher, Bach describes many instances of such recursion and self-reference, where symbols and archetypes speak about or refer back to themselves. To describe such self-referencing objects, Hofstadter coins the term “strange loop”. To escape many of the logical contradictions brought about by these self-referencing objects, Hofstadter discusses Zen koans. He attempts to show readers how to perceive reality outside their own experience and embrace such paradoxical questions by rejecting the premise.

Computer programs use functions (or methods in OOP) which can call other functions, and also themselves. When a function calls itself, it is called recursive. The nature of programming is itself recursive. Programming languages are defined by grammars which are recursive, which is why programming has infinite possibilities. On a higher level, the programmer is always seeking to abstract and generalize essential pieces, so that they can be re-used in different contexts instead of re-written. A programmer and nature tries to repeat their processes by recursion), always attempting to find the most elegant solution to the problem. Eventually the solution arrives at a “metastable place and when in the future that model itself is transcended, the new model will be inside yet a higher meta-model (recursion), and so on. The higher up this pyramid of models, the more perfect the program seems. However, this pyramid has no end. This is why perfection is impossible – but beauty is the way and the way is the destination.

Recursion is all around us. It is in our computers, in our cells, in the plants we eat, in our brain, in the land we walk on, in Goedel’s incompleteness theorem, in Escher’s art, and in Bach’s music.

Mathematical aesthetics

The Platonic Solids
sacred-geometry

Kepler presents in Harmonices Mundi (The Harmony of the World, 1619) his findings about the concept of congruence with respect to diverse categories of the physical domain: regularities in three-dimensional geometry, the relationships among different species of magnitude, the principles of consonance in music, and the organization of the Solar System. Here we seek to highlight issues that provide a flavor of his thought:

“On the regular figures, the harmonic proportions they create, their source, their classes, their order, and their distinction into knowability and representability.”

This expanded his investigation of three-dimensional geometric shapes, notably of the semi-regular Archimedean Solids earlier, in the 1597 Mysterium Cosmographicum. Kepler proposed that a nested arrangement of the Platonic Solids determines the spacing between the planetary orbits of the known five planets.   As engineer, and having programmed  highly complex communication systems in a former live, I did observe, that only aesthetic solutions are good solutions (and programs). Well, programming was art then, before MS came into the picture. Angels fears resound from a biological view Greek philosophy: ” beauty can’t be evil”.

Indeed there are connections between mathematical aesthetics and spiritual receptiveness (religiosity). For example, I am having a hard time with my son and failed with daughter to show them how beautiful mathematic is. I am almost thinking it’s not my failure, but a systemic failure of a society which becomes intellectually flat and subsequently spiritual deaf (or vice versa). When I grew up, there was a book in our house that was called “The magic of numbers” – a brief history of numbers. Much later I read Hofstadter, with his unique synergy of art, mathematics, music, philosophy, symbolic logic, computers, genetics, paradoxes, palindromes and Zen koans among many, many other things. Most of it is still over my head like some aspects of structure- determined recursion. However this “nerd bible” is in a way like in religion and theology, revealing or disclosing some some form of truth or knowledge for (us) nerds: differently stated by the  Austrian mathematician Kurt Goedel , the Dutch artist M.C. Escher and the Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach. It became a cult classic , while a later book, I am a Strange Loop, goes to far darker side.

Hofstadter was fascinated by visual and conceptual loops: feedback, self-reference, recursiveness, anything that curved back on itself in an unexpected way. Goofing around with a video camera, Hofstadter pointed it straight at the TV screen to create an infinite receding tunnel of video feedback, some copy cat of it you might have seen in any modern art museum. Those themes–recursive loops and the physical origins of consciousness–get braided together in I Am a Strange Loop in unexpected ways. Goedel demonstrated in 1931 that conventional mathematics, which we think of as a supremely logical and consistent system, is actually capable of making all sorts of strange, paradoxical, self-referential statements about itself. There are mathematical statements that, while true, can never be proved. How can something be both true and unprovable? This idea, loosely known as “incompleteness,” came as a logical bombshell to all mathematical philosophers (like Wittgenstein) but in a way was inherent in Heisenberg’s famous uncertainty principle. It turns out that mathematics isn’t a neat straight line; it’s a loop, and so is life (if you are lucky enough to have kids).

Now I do see here a connection with the human mind and the main thesis of Angles Fear. The brain, if seen merely as a cluster of firing neurons (or like Freud of a linear, determined machine), shouldn’t by rights be able to think–it shouldn’t be able to wake up, think, become aware of itself, and in doing so become an “I am” but it does. Just Plato observed in his famous cave example: reality is a strange, self-referential loop–it’s a mirage, but “a very peculiar kind of mirage … a mirage that perceived itself, and of course it didn’t believe that it was perceiving a mirage, but no matter–it still was a mirage.”

Hofstadter and Bateson occupy a middle ground: it’s neither spiritual nor is it locked into the cold neurological materialism of cellular mechanics. The same rings true with  C.G. Jung, a friend of the great physician Pauli, to whom the human mind (and reality) is a bright, shimmering, self-sustaining miracle of collective archetypical : vague, metaphorical, ambiguous, and always exceedingly beautiful object oriented programming (OOP). Actually on a side remark, Jung’s very ambiguous description of archetypes (per se), symbols and images can be easily likened to objects and abstract classes found in computer science. My father lives in me, a faint but real copy of his software running on my neural hardware. Hofstadter says. “If you believe that what makes for consciousness is some kind of abstract pattern, then it’s sort of self-evident fact that whatever pattern exists in my brain could exist in other physical structures in the world.

Ecological aesthetics – fractal recursion

tree-result

Ever went hiking and looked closely to trees? Trees are beautiful and fractal. Trees played an important role in the movie Avatar and in Tolkien books. Fractals can be  generated by a program that defines a recursive process, and the resulting tree is a recursive structure. Curiously, such recursive structures and processes are found everywhere in nature. This program grows a simple tree (no sun, no other plants, no storm) recursively, by adding two branches to the end of the current branch until it bottoms out. Bottoming out happens when the tree has branched a certain number of times. The size of the two new branches relative to the current one is determined by the sizeFactor variable. The angle at which the two new branches will branch out relative to the current one is determined by the angleFactor variable. The height of the first tree is determined by trunkHeight, and the number of levels of recursion (the number of times the tree branches into new trees until it bottoms out) is determined by depth. Investigation of social and biological systems is not equivalent to investigation of physical systems, Bateson states, for all social and biological science is participant investigation, unlike the observer-oriented science of physical systems. As the example shows, this is not always correct for social science and as Pauli and Heisenberg found out not even true in quantum physics. Angels Fear proposes an ecological aesthetics within the unity of life, akin to the notion of the unity inherent in the sacred aspects of religion – and I would see also in what C.G. Jung coined as collective archetypes. That requires an epistemology, a set of procedures about how one might investigate the phenomenon of unity and derive from further understanding of holism, its order and its organization. Many regularities contribute to their own determination. In biology, Bateson argues that recursive regularities cannot be simply read-out or treated solely in an abstract context.  Again the psychoanalytic C.G. Jung and the quantum physics Pail would disagree. According to Angels Fear, another pattern permits rather than to deny circularity at the point of re-entry. These processes ‘bootstrap’ circularity so that any ‘top’ is continuously re-cycled through a ‘bottom’ and thus all cycles in between are able to support themselves in their own circularities creating aesthetics.

The beauty of a landscape or organism affects human emotions as well as ecological facts. Aesthetic preferences determine whether landscapes are viewed as beautiful, sustainable or threatened. Naturally these preferences are subjective and have changed through time and may reflect sociological context. However, while communication of ecological research may change public perception of nature, certain facts remain until today. A house on the hill not only looks good, but one does not get the feet wet, the air more healthy and you see whats coming. Beauty has always been recognized as a fundamental part of the human experience but, like truth and evilness, beauty is a complex term that resists simple definition (outside mathematics). Among the more persistent descriptions are terms like: a harmony of parts, unity in diversity,low complexity, high integration, recursive patterns and clarity—qualities readily observable in nature. The French scientist Henri Poincaré (1913:336) wrote: “…the scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living”. Aesthetic preferences clearly have played an evolutionary role in the development and the persistence of our species. C.G. Jung discussed how collective cultural responses , partially via development of aesthetic symbols over time, may have led to the survival of ancestral hominids through a deeper understanding of ecological phenomena, nature and human mind.

True and False – Right or wrong – good or evil – black or white

Seen from aesthetic epistemology, Kant’s definition of aesthetic judgment is exemplary of the subjective activity of judgment, the harmony of imagination and understanding. Unlike ordinary empirical judgment, aesthetic judgment phenomenologically reveals to us a synthesizing holistic activity. Aesthetic judgment is in the center of Kant’s epistemological project in order to show that our minds are capable of getting at something outside of ourselves in the world. Furthermore it commits to the necessary relation between the aesthetic judgment’s beauty and the reflective judgment’s logical principle of nature’s purposiveness. The principle of nature’s purposiveness must be grounded in the principle of beauty because of empirical cognition. On can indeed characterize aesthetic judgment as a resistance to or interruption of cognition.

Science has its own version of epistemology, but most of these lie in a scientific methodology and axioms. Western science rarely argues from a holistic view, and if so, it becomes like social sciences often soft and meaningless. Those aspects of the world that scientific method cannot determine through breaking or interfering the object – routinely taken care in the realm of synchronicity and spirituality, and remains unexamined. It has become too easy for modern science to continue to treat the biosphere and humans as it had treated any other mechanism since the sixteenth century. Ecology as a holistic phenomenon would be a very different sort of undertaking, not only in a switch of focus from the physical dimensions of ecological objects, but also in the methodological path it takes. Explanations derived from quantitative examination would have to be reconsidered or abandoned, as would the inferences of drawn from these correlations. The major investigation would be one of how parts fit into a holistic order, and vice versa, how holistic order is contained in the recursion. Such as investigation would also require to add some modesty in the rationality driving modern science. I do not argue that this epistemology of aesthetic holism incorporating needs to return to the mediaeval realm of superstition, nor did it mean uncritical acceptance of any New Age spirituality or take over world-views of major religions.  In fact, aesthetic preference may have affected our behaviors and our understanding of the natural world from ancient times to the present. Like social scientists, ecologists and biologists rarely acknowledge the way biases can affect research, and these may be significant and therefore worth discussing. It is important for scientists to recognize the inherent and subtle, yet powerful, persuasion of beauty as it shadows ecological research from conception through interpretation.

Conclusion

Athena_Perfection

Mutual acceptance of the idea that holism, unity and beauty are purposefully coincident with each other should be an integral part of any modern science deciphering Gods creation – particularly the human “imago dei”. Bateson’s argument in Angels Fear that when humans presume to ‘play God’ the consequences are grave, is sound. Also the presumption that humans can play God tempts fate in the same way that all acts of hubris do. Developmental biologist, a branch of biology that has generally been critical of the over-arching claims of the molecular biologists who have insisted for fifty years that they have discovered the blue-print of life just shows to him a wrong sense of the sacred. When the book strays in the intuitive realm of modern physics or Jung’s psychoanalysis (synchronicity and individuation) his claims are not backed by empiric science and a bit dusty (or too abstract or over my head).

For the artist, the making of the perfect piece of art has always been a purification process of his soul. When he finished his work, he knew that gods and humans alike would feel pleasure when they see the sculpture. Investigation nature, likewise ancient Greek´stated God was a geometer, and felt that aesthetically appealing objects were beautiful in and of themselves. Plato felt that beautiful objects incorporated proportion, harmony, and unity. Similarly, in his Metaphysics, Aristotle found that the universal elements of beauty were order, symmetry, and definiteness. That was clearly revived in Renaissance art again and transferred to science (just think of the Astronomer Kepler) and on secular issues of human life. Medieval art focusses´highly on religious images and symbols. Post-modern aesthetics often rebels against beauty in modernist art. This Anti-Aesthetic reaction has been described “kalliphobia” (after the Greek word for beauty kalos) which leads to an inner and outer wasteland.   Although ascetics is determined by cultural contexts, a common ascetic clearly is visible and sacred. I like to believe it is recursional.

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid , Douglas R. Hofstadter

Angels Fear: Towards An Epistemology Of The Sacred by Gregory Bateson and Mary Catherine Bateson ( 2004)

Complex/Archetype/Symbol in the Psychology of C.G. Jung. J. Jacobi;

Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky. (From Vols. 10 and 18, Collected Works). C.G. Jung; R.F.C. Hull, trans.

Four Archetypes: (From Vol. 9, Part 1 of the Collected Works of C. G. Jung)

Psychology and the East: (From Vols. 10, 11, 13, 18 Collected Works). C.G. Jung;

Psychology and the Occult: (From Vols. 1, 8, 18 Collected Works). C.G. Jung;

Psychology and Western Religion: (From Vols. 11, 18 Collected Works). C.G. Jung;

Jung, C. G., Pauli, W. (1952): Naturerklärung und Psyche. Zürich: Rascher (Download)

C.G. Jung (1955) Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle

Wolfgang Pauli und die moderne Physik. Virtuelle Ausstellung der ETH-Bibliothek

W. Pauli, The Influence of Archetypal Ideas on the Scientific Theories of Kepler

Kepler, Harmonices mundi, Harmony of the Worlds, 1619

April 18, 2013
Crazy Wisdom – the Archetype of the Fool, the Clown, the Jester and the Trickster.

The Archetype of the Fool, the Clown, the Jester and the Trickster are universally recognized patterns of characters. Every of this four archetypes challenges conventional wisdom differently, offering different types of Crazy Wisdom. When I lived in California I listened often to the KFOG radio commentator Wes (“Scoop”) Nisker who happened to be also a comedian:  “If you don’t like the news … go out and make some of your own”, was his frequent catchphrase. Very recently many European ( foolish) fools call an Italian comedian a clown. Because he did not like the news, and made them himself.

C.G. Jung stressed the point that archetypes are not inherited only collective patterns of potential representation. When they are touched by the light of the conscious mind they may become in the lower plane instincts and the higher realm images. That, while it is the core of the matter, can said simpler. First instincts transport in an instant information and trigger predefined reaction and save the soldier’s life. Second, symbols do the same as images – they convey a message and transport it instantly on many layers.

A picture is a fact. – Ludwig Wittgenstein

Lets face it, Archetypes are numerous and often ambiguous under the Jungian folk – worse the Fool, the Clown, the Jester and the Trickster are often interchanged in common language. So lets the sort them out.

Clown

BEPPE GRILLO, satirist, blogger and protester has staged one the greatest coups de theatre in Italian political history unison named as most dangerous Clown ever

The clown is the most lovable human and timeless. He tries hard and fails pathetically. Lets face it, he encourages us laugh at ourselves, because in a way we all are clowns. The clown does not need words, just by mime Charley Chaplin managed to get the awkwardness of modern times across. They even outsmart the philosopher Wittgenstein who wrote in Tractatus … Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent – Clown mainly are silent and are not. Like Max Frisch’s “Gantenbein” put on the blindman’s stick and glasses, the Clown puts his mask on to either laugh at the ridiculous masks of life, or to cut through the social shams and reveal our hypocrisy in an acceptable way. This makes clowns wise, because they can see through who we are and what people do. Their talent is to reveal such things to us. Take the mentioned Beppe Grillo, his storming finish in the Italian general election is not only turning Italy upside down, but threatens to do the same across the EU. The “Clowns” Five Star Movement, just a blogger’s favorite four years ago has now 150 members of parliament. Why? Because he showed the Italian emperors without clothes.

But the clown has another aspect as a man – usually the clown is male – of sorrows. He leads us to tears as often as he leads us to laughter and reveals our modern prehistoric tribal society. The clown mirrors the basic (and personal unconscious) functional complex Persona (literal mask) and shows us the wonderful and tragic human feelings under those masks we might wear and see in daily life. Stupidity, wisdom love, life, loss, success and failure, all have their deeply human side. The traditional circus is no longer in vogue. Once emblematic of optimism, fun and entertainment it now carries an air of shabbiness and decay. The 1960’s were probably the last heyday of fun and positivism. Since MacDonald’s Corporation launched its hamburger chain television commercials in 1963 with Ronald MacDonald, the world’s most recognizable clown, there has been a slow decline in the popularity of clowns. Thanks to the crisis and politicians the clown is back – if not even in charge.

C. G. Jung had a special Swiss sense of humor (on YouTube even in English) and impressive smile, but in his works one finds no clown. Apart from the essay on the “trickster”archetype, which is not a Clown at all and not particularly cheerful written. For the first and last time I give credit to Freud who took himself far too serious but handled the Clown in the still readable essays : his failures, his wit and sense of humour (“Die Antwort, warum wir über die Bewegungen der Clowns lachen, würde lauten, weil sie uns übermäßig und unzweckmäßig erscheinen”). Well, Freud’s cultural back ground provided not only many outstanding scientists, intellectuals but certainly the sharpest and legendary humor – Chuzpe.   This one I took from Wikipedia. Two Rabbis argued late into the night about the existence of God, and, using strong arguments from the scriptures, ended up indisputably disproving His existence. The next day, one Rabbi was surprised to see the other walking into the Shul for morning services: “I thought we had agreed there was no God,” he said. “Yes, what does that have to do with it?” replied the other. That leads us to the cynical Jester.

Jester

We have all seen how an appropriate and well-timed joke can sometimes influence even grim tyrants. . . . The most violent tyrants put up with their clowns and fools, though these often made them the butt of open insults.
—Desiderius Erasmus, Praise of Folly

Jesters use pen and words, and have the (social) context of a specific time. They operate with wit and criticize, even with cynicism, the weapon of the powerless. For instance, nowadays non-technical Consultants are Jesters. Like court jesters grew and flourished in the Middle Ages as well-paid attendants of Royal Courts. Power was highly consolidated in medieval times as it is today. The typical Jester is a Management Consultant. They, just temporarily, move up the social ladder with borrowed authority. They have come from a wide range of backgrounds — from monasteries to universities. The jester is the natural enemy of an overinflated ego (since a jester has one too), which drives on its own importance. They are born nay-sayers, even critical to what is holy to religions and business. Richard Quest in CNN is a funny Jester; one of the few journalist in the media crowd of mostly foolish fools. Having said that, be reminded, that a Jester will always act in public on behalf of the King he services )and pays for the show).

Resourceful jesters would gather an audience with clever attention-grabbing techniques before the invention of PowerPoint. Added to their wit, most had developed several additional performance skills — they played flutes, danced, juggled, told jokes, did acrobatics and pantomime, performed ropewalks and tongue twisters, sang and did vocal tricks. Since they have no stake in the power game, Jesters have told Kings and later Managers the truth. As kings and queens’ confidants, jesters often developed deep friendships with them. The royals often became tired of the false compliments and praise from their many lackeys and valued a connection with these offbeat performers, who, between witty wisecracks, would share very valuable insights. After all, many truths have been spoken in jest, and many lies have been spoken in earnest. It better be funny, though – otherwise the Jester loses his head. Perhaps more common was the jester’s role as healer. Medieval doctors believed that human health was controlled by four forces: Sanguine, Melancholia, Choleric and Phlegmatic, considered emotional states. Although these theories of human mind-body-spirit relationship fell into disrepute after the Renaissance, many have been reexamined in recent times by psychologist C.G. Jung . The idea that laughter aids recovery, long considered evident in Eastern philosophies, is steadily gaining traction in Western medicine so much so that it’s now considered mainstream. Few people would argue that a comedian can also help a group bond by sharing in deep laughter. Philosophers of the East and West were, dreamers, and unconventional wisdom seekers and Ego’s like Shaw, Wittgenstein, C.G. Jung and Nietzsche. The latter three deserve a few words more.

Many have interpreted that Nietzsche believed in a literal death or end of God. Instead, the line points to the western world’s reliance on religion as a moral compass and source of meaning. The true Jester explains in “The Gay Science – Die fröhliche Wissenschaft”:

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? ”

Nietzsche’s works foresaw that the decline of religion, the rise of atheism, and the absence of a higher moral authority would plunge the world into chaos.

Another small tidbit: The philosopher Wittgenstein (a millionaire by inheritance) gave away all his money just like St. Francis from whom Pope Francis I took his name. The bulk of Wittgenstein’s work deals with logic and language. His view of religion and religious language was a by-product but had significant implications for the understanding of the God exists. In Tractatus he wrote:

“To understand a statement is to know what is the case if it is true.” But we do not know what is the case when someone says that “God sees.”

While theologians spent much time proving the existence of God, and while atheists have done their very best to show how incompatible religious claims are with the ´convential wisdom of common sense and science, both sides always took it for granted that basically religious statements are either true or false. Both Wittgenstein and C.G. Jung were religious, and both declared religious statements simply out of scope. Political theorists have long been frustrated with Jesters. Although they develops profound critiques of society, morality, culture, and religion, it is very difficult to (ab)use them for political implications of their insights. There is a reason for this: skepticism. Unsettling, that is what Jester do well.

The Fool

Jesus Agent of Change

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions says that holy fools subvert prevailing orthodoxy and orthopraxis in order to point to the truth which lies beyond immediate conformity. Or as a monk said in his Sermon rethinking “metanoia” is the beginning of our journey with “authentic” faith in Jesus Christ, not as a U-Turn but as “think further”. In English the closest synonym is repentance, but it is not quite the same. The word repentance implies a “turning away from sin” or in German a form of turning around. This is an incorrect interpretation of biblical doctrine. One must first widen his thinking (metanoia) be critical of orthodoxy.

Let the fool lead the way. The wise and the sacred fool provide truth, balance, play, recreation, destruction, creation, change. Would Buddha live today his followers would be reprogrammed, Jesus would be in jail for subversion and the DEA wold breath down the neck of the Sufi poets. Lao-tse,well we all know the story of Gandhi a contemporary holy fool. I would even think the new pope comes across as a sacred fool in the media. They did not think, change comes from obeying rules. The sacred fool is the destroyer of our well-ordered world run by foolish fools. The wise fool is the creator of the new through play. It is by change that we are made new. We are all Phoenixes, capable of rising out of the ashes, if only the holy fool will bring us change.

The fool gets to tell the truth, the hard truths that might cause trouble if anyone else tells them. The fool can get (for while) away with telling the hardest truths just because he is a fool. He speaks in parables and paradoxes, we struggle to understand. He can speak harsh truths and we must listen because he is entertaining in his difference. We must listen because he is a misfit and cannot be held fully responsible . The fool plays and everybody believes that play is not serious so he can accomplish the difficult, controversial issues in play. In the middle ages there was an implicit understanding of this with the belief that joking could help shield one from misfortune and indeed we can understand the truth of this.

Jesus was a sacred fool. At the command of God he came to change the world. He sought to destroy the old structures and bring God’s kingdom, a change of great magnitude. His methods were subversive to the society where he lived. He was viewed as a dangerous fool but like all sacred fools, brought a message of change and hope crashing down empires. When Jesus was betrayed and arrested he said:

Luke 22-52: “Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders, who had come for him, “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs? 53 Every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour—when darkness reigns”.

Crazy visionaries as Jesus, the Sufi Poet Rumi, Buddha, Lao-Tse, Mahatma Gandhi travelled on a comedic course to enlightenment, representing the collective “Self” – that is the divine.

God has no religion ― Gandhi.

Tao called Tao is not Tao ― Lao-Tse.

“My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there.” ― Rumi.

Trickster

Coyote runs over the ground, warm in his thick fur, while Eagle soars over the wind, and Eagle does the wise thing and does not offer Coyote power anymore, and Coyote is crazy and cheers Eagle up with his tricks.

The Trickster, often represented as a coyote is no fool. It seems they come from a time, in which there was no good and evil. There is a duality here that often gets expressed in the trickster god being viewed both as hero and villain. Jung has assigned his collective shadows under the name ” Trickster”. According to Jung, the Trickster is a figure whose physical appetites and senses dominate his actions and decisions. His thinking does not rise above his belly or his genitals. Frequently the Trickster figure exhibits gender variability, changing gender roles and engaging in frequent sex practices. Not understanding finer feelings, his responses to other people seem crude, self-centered, cynical and unfeeling. In some of the stories however, the his exploits bring transformation and he becomes a man instead of an animal. In the Navajo worldview, coyote sickness arises out of activities that distort social relationships like the breaking of a taboo or self-indulgence. It comes from contact with a storm, lightning, a corpse, or a substance outside the natural order of harmony and beauty. Or it comes from losing sight of the Holy Way, contact with ghosts, sorcery, or the intrusion of an evil force.

The Trickster as collective Shadow mirrors the basic ( personal unconscious) archetypes of the shadow experienced in individuation. That denotes the process by which a person becomes a psychological unity connecting two fundamental psychic aspects, the conscious and the unconscious. The Shadow is the easiest of the archetypes for most persons to experience. We tend to see it in “others.” That is to say, we project our dark side onto others and thus interpret them as “enemies” or as “exotic” presences that fascinate. We see the Shadow everywhere in popular culture. We see it in popular prejudice as well. Of course, Satan is the great Shadow image of popular religion. The Shadow is the personification of that part of human, psychic possibility that we deny in ourselves and project onto others. The goal of personality integration is to integrate the rejected, inferior side of our life into our total experience and to take responsibility for it.

Trickster delights in all sorts of pranks mischief and jokes but is not by nature evil, even though the results of his activities are often unpleasant. These activities centre on bringing attention to our own or other people’s often hidden stupidity shams or lies. The Trickster is a shape shifter and so has the possibility of transformation an alchemist and shaman. In mythology, and in the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a spirit, man, woman, or anthropomorphic animal. In many cultures, (as may be seen in Greek or Norse with Odin or Wotan), the trickster and the culture hero are often combined. Odin’s Germanic predecessor, Wotan, was associated with Mercury (Hermes) by the Romans. Odin and Mercury often deceive and trick. In Native American mythologies, the coyote (Southwestern United States) or raven (Pacific Northwest and coastal British Columbia) stole like the Greek Prometheus fire from the gods. The trickster is thus an important archetype in the history of man. He is a god, yet he is not. He points out the flaws in carefully constructed societies of man and rebels against authority. Sometimes he pays dearly. Jung said once, ” unfortunately that the so-called civilization has forgotten the trickster”.

Throughout human history the mythological trickster, has played an essential role, the role of change of a therapeutic effect. In many myths the trickster brings a treasure to man, but is it really a treasure? All change has mixed blessings. When the Raven trickster of the Northwest Indians brings fire to the people is he a destroyer or creator? Looking back we say he brought a valuable change. But fire is also dangerous, a change that can and does destroy.

Satan thought as trickster may serve a crucial role. What if instead our understanding of Satan was influenced by the concept of the “trickster” figure, which seems to be present in the Hebrew Bible? Learning to interpret Satan as the ultimate trickster, rather than the embodiment of dualistic Evil, could end blaming the present reality on the metaphysical reality of evil or on the moral depravity of humanity.

For example, Satan in the book of Job leads Job to insights. The Satan who confronted Jesus in the desert in a way helped Jesus, in all his humanity, to assert also his own divinity. Jahweh did listen to Satan, as God did in the case of Job.  Viewing Satan as trickster is not without problems, specifically the ambiguity that exists between Satan and God—an ambiguity that can find its full expression in the trickster figure. Rather than being God’s antithesis, God’s opposite, a certain ambiguity, if not complimentary position, is held by Satan. If Satan has no power except that given by God, we are left wondering whether evil can come from God, a proposition that the early biblical writers and ancient Church Fathers like Augustine raised.

Conclusion

According to the psychological model of C. G. Jung the archetypes originate in the collective unconscious, described as a repository for all of mankind’s experience and knowledge and are therefore not available directly — only its images and created patterns can become manifest as symbols potentially unlimited in number and variety. Symbols of God are the core of our culture being the universal patterns of myth, religious symbols and ideas. They can be employed very beneficial in life. I am neither especially crazy, or especially wise. Sometimes my job was to communicate complex issues to those who shuns, even hate it.  Ideally I could get the Crazy Wisdom across with the headline, with a simple picture. I was the Jester on the court. Senior Managers were the Kings. The picture is easy understandable, isn’t it? Why? Because I don’t need to explain what a good King or weak King is or enumerate his virtues or deficits. We know it since thousands of years, Plato has written a long book about virtues of leaders.

Clown and Jester are paid to entertain or present. Fools and Tricksters unsettle. Foolish fools claim they lead with conventual wisdom.

“silence is the language of god, all else is poor translation.” ― Rumi

Sources

Wes Nisker, 1990 Crazy Wisdom

C.G. Jung Four Archetypes (Routledge Classics)

C. G. Jung Archetypen (dtv, Bd. 11)

Jung, C. G. (Hg.) (1968). Der Mensch und seine Symbole. Olten: Walter

Jung, C. G., Jacobi, J. (1971 ): Mensch und Seele. Zitate von C. G. Jung aus dem Gesamtwerk 1905 bis 1961. Olten: Walter

Tractatus logico-philosophicus: Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung (edition suhrkamp) von Ludwig Wittgenstein von Suhrkamp Verlag (1963)

Wittgenstein: Eine Einführung von Joachim Schulte von Reclam, Philipp, jun. GmbH, Verlag (1989)

Vorlesungen und Gespräche über Ästhetik, Psychoanalyse und religiösen Glauben von Ludwig Wittgenstein von Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag (27. Juli 2005)

C. G. Jung Das Rote Buch, Patmos-Verlag Olten, 2010

C.G. Jung Speaking: Interviews and Encounters (Bollingen Series), 1993

The Essential Rumi – Edition von Coleman Barks, Jalal al-Din Rumi und John Moyne von HarperCollins e-books

Freud: Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten

April 3, 2013
From language games to mysticism – Allan Watts and Wittgenstein’s Tractatus
This article explores Wittgenstein’s Tractatus as a mystical, metaphysical insight in the light of Eastern philosophy, Catholic mysticism and C. G Jung. Please be gentle and read this as an (intuitive) essay not as a scholarly article. There are methodological implications of Wittgenstein’s doctrine of silence for transcendental philosophy, Zen Buddhism, psychoanalysis and metaphysics. Or there is a line from Lao-Tse to Wittgenstein, connected by Jung and Watts.

Wittgenstein’s Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus,(Logisch-Philosophische-Abhandlung,1921 translated by C.K. Ogden 1922) is much closer to me than his work Philosophical Investigations (Philosophische Untersuchungen,1953 translated by G.E.M. Anscombe). Simply because I understand the Tractatus largely transcendental (similar to Allan Watts). A fellow blog author (Recollecting Philosophy), who knows definitely more about philosophy and Wittgenstein than I do, objected slightly to Allan Watts rating the Tractatus higher than the Investigations,however.

In the eighties and early nineties during my time in California  I picked up Allan Watts thoughts. Allan Watts knew C.G. Jung well and both were quite knowledgeable in Eastern Philosophy. Watts proposed that Buddhism could be thought of as a form of psychotherapy and not just a religion. Like Jung he was (to me) a bridge between the ancient and the modern, between East and West, and between culture and science. Both had considerable problems with the institution of the church, were mystics and in a way certainly religious. Both emphasized that we Westerners cannot and should not escape our Western cultural roots but value them. Both valued Catholicism although Watts view is more bizarre. It’s not difficult to see therefore, that Allan Watts, who became a kind of Guru in California and postmodern mystic, reads Tractatus as a product of mystic consciousness.

Wittgenstein’s Tractatus

Before I had read more of Wittgenstein and secondary literature, I regarded Wittgenstein’s writings as a kind of academic “Glass Bead Game”. I still think, that what he tried to achieve, could have done simpler by mathematical language (or computer science). Therefore I can relate to Allan Watt, classifying the writings of Wittgenstein “as a form of jnana-yoga, intellectual bending” and that he favors Wittgenstein’s Tractatus.

Logic without Mystic

The Tractatus is notorious for its interpretative challenges. In Europe we live in a post-metaphysic world. If you approach Tractatus, however, from C.G. Jung’s Symbols as representation of archetypes, which manifest themselves in language (as part of the cultural context which are those archetypes) you see it crystal clear.

The Tractatus’s structure contains  seven basic propositions translated by Ogden and Pears/McGuinness. Here I stick with German:

The seven basic propositions are (in German):
- 1 Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.
- 2 Was der Fall ist, die Tatsache, ist das Bestehen von Sachverhalten.
- 3 Das logische Bild der Tatsachen ist der Gedanke.
- 4 Der Gedanke ist der sinnvolle Satz.
- 5 Der Satz ist eine Wahrheitsfunktion der Elementarsätze. (Der Elementarsatz ist eine Wahrheitsfunktion seiner selbst.)
- 6 Die allgemeine Form der Wahrheitsfunktion ist: [ p, ξ, N(ξ)].Dies ist die allgemeine Form des Satzes.
- 7 Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen.
After three propositions Wittgenstein leaves metaphysics realm but comes back to it with the most elegant proposition seven, which again mirrors a sentence in the bible. For that reason only 1-3 and 7 will be discussed.

Proposition (1) The world is everything that is the case.

Starting with a metaphysics, Wittgenstein sees the world as consisting of facts, rather than of objects and reads to me like the beginning of the Gospel of John:
- Tractatus 1 The world is everything that is the case.
- Tractatus 1.1 The world is the totality of facts, not of things.
- Tractatus 1.11 The world is determined by the facts, and by these being all the facts.
This is poetry to me. Let’s hear what the mystic (slightly Gnostic / Neoplatonic) St. John says:
- Jh 1.1 In the beginning was the Logos, the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
- Jh 1.2 The same was in the beginning with God.
- Jh 1.3. All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made that hath been made.
Equally beautiful and pretty much the same statement except god is absent. Logos, originally a word meaning “word,” “speech,” or “reason was used by Heraclitus to describe the principle of order and knowledge. There are some remarkable implications here starting of a debate between Plato and Aristotle which I want to move in an area between Wittgenstein and Western (Catholicism) and Eastern Mystic (Taoism and Zen Buddhism) and the psychoanalytic model of C.G Jung.

The idea of Tao is always stated negatively. The same is true of all its major characteristics, of which I would distinguish three: nothingness, the formless, and the unconditioned. Again Lao-tse as starting point of our inquiry is strikingly similar:
- The Tao (Way) that can be told of is not the eternal Tao;
- The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
- The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth;
- The Named is the mother of all things.
Wittgenstein’s Tractatus – Seen from Eastern metaphysic

I understand Wittgenstein, who was from the personality type based on C.G. Jung (and like him) an innovative thinker from the mystic as well as a logic angle. As anybody knows, Wittgenstein was fond of Augustine and Kierkegaard, of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky and wanted to become a monk on more than one occasion. Wittgenstein’s Tractatus support my religious views, which are based on Catholicism, C.G. Jung and some pantheistic Asian influence coming from Taoism and Buddhism. There is alignment between Buddhism and psychoanalysis, as Watts stated, although I see goal of alignment more in an integration of the Ego and the main archetypes than a dilution of the Ego. However, Watts followed Zen Buddhism or Zen, a 5th century line of Mahayana Buddhism, which was heavily influenced by Chinese Taoism in China. And Taoism is indeed much more compatible with Wittgenstein, Jung and Catholicism.

Crist and Buddha

Since I know Taoism and Zen Buddhism better I will focus on those. Both offer direct access to most deepest essence of our mind, exactly like Jung’s individuation.

There is good book about that particular topic from Russell Nieli, “From mysticism to ordinary language”, 1987. He claims, that Wittgenstein’s experience of language (and indeed the language game) was deeply influenced by his experience as rural school teacher, but got stuck there, staying in the uncritical childhood experience (page 244). Wittgenstein’s language analysis offers no differentiation of what is of value or absurd in a given society. Obviously he received a harsh criticism not only from the Marxist side: “When … Wittgenstein set up the actual use of language as a standard that was equivalent to accept a certain setup and belief of the society of the standard. And when he says philosophy “may not interfere”, that come to saying that it may not interfere with a currently accepted society and culture”. I think this may by a misunderstanding taking him as a positivist.

Proposition (2) What is the case (a fact) is the existence of states of affairs.

Mystics, such as Taoists or catholic mysticism, can be aligned to the West and especially Wittgenstein. Systematic inquiry through a logical analysis make its mystical elements clear and comprehensible to non intuitive audiences. But as C.G. Jung noted, its intuitive sensing is highly beneficial to the individuation in our Western culture. When for Wittgenstein, the logical structure of the picture is identical to the logical structure of the situation, in Taoism it is simpler: the inexpressible Tao is in everything, or alternatively, everything is a manifestation of the inexpressible Tao. That is pretty similar what catholic monk told me a few weeks ago: God is in us and above us or God does not exists. When one sees both statements to express the same thought, one can see Wittgenstein’s transcendental elements can be coupled with Eastern and Western religious and mystical elements.

Dreams

Wittgenstein’s Tractatus – Western metaphysic view

Plato put forth the idea that the metaphysical world is more knowable than the physical world. Following Socrates, Plato illustrates this idea through allegory of the cave. The idea is that this physical world we reside in is merely a shadow of a more real and more knowable world that is not physical but metaphysical. From here Plato posits the idea of the Forms. Plato would tell us that we know that it is a thing because there exists in our minds an abstract thing and the reason we know that the thing before us is this thing, is because of its resemblance to the archetype.

Archetypes

That archetype equals the collective known form and is a centerpiece in C.G.Jung psychoanalytic model. In short, we have knowledge of physical things here and now because of the resemblance of these physical things to their ideal metaphysical form. In contrast, Aristotle denies that the Forms exist way out there in the metaphysical realm. So, the lines are defined : Is knowledge of a thing transcendent (Plato) or is it immanent (Aristotle)? Is the nature of all things Being (Plato) or Becoming (Aristotle) or in Kant seeking a synthesise? In his Critique of Judgment, Kant says that “a final purpose is a purpose that requires no other purpose as a condition of its possibility:

The final purpose is unconditioned, and that nature would therefore be incapable of achieving it and producing it in accordance with the idea of this purpose. … But a thing that, on account of its objective character, is to exist necessarily as the final purpose of an intelligent cause must be of such a kind that in the order of purposes it depends on no condition other than just the idea of it.

Proposition (3) A logical picture of facts is a thought – Archetypes in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus

Tractatus, however, also with the conditions with Symbolism in which a sentence “means” something quite definite. In practice, language is always more or less vague, so that what we assert is never quite precise. And that’s the beauty of it – of Jung, Taoism and Christianity. Wittgenstein’s logic tries to overcome: (1) the conditions for non/sense combinations of symbols; (2) the conditions for uniqueness.
- Tractatus: 3.32 The sign is the part of the symbol perceptible by the senses.
From Carl Jung’s “The Structure of the Psyche”, 1927:
- The collective unconscious — so far as we can say anything about it at all — appears to consist of mythological motifs or primordial images, for which reason the myths of all nations are its real exponents. In fact, the whole of mythology could be taken as a sort of projection of the collective unconscious.
- We can see this most clearly if we look at the heavenly constellations, which original chaotic forms were organized through the projection of images. This explains the influence of the stars as asserted by astrologers. These influences are nothing but unconscious, introspective perceptions of the activity of the collective unconscious. Just as the constellations were projected into the heavens, similar figures were projected into legends and fairy tales or upon historical persons.
So according to Jung, those archetypes, which Wittgenstein calls symbols, are models (abstract classes in computer science) which are innate, universal and hereditary. And that’s the point. Archetypes are unlearned (but some shared by some cultures and some by all cultures) and function to organize how we experience certain things. “All the most powerful ideas in history go back to archetypes,” Jung wrote:

“This is particularly true of religious ideas, but the central concepts of science, philosophy, and ethics are no exception to this rule. In their present form they are variants of archetypal ideas created by consciously applying and adapting these ideas to reality. For it is the function of consciousness, not only to recognize and assimilate the external world through the gateway of the senses, but to translate into visible reality the world within us.”

Conclusion

Wittgenstein’s deep understanding of the mystical dimension brings him close to Taoist and Jungian thoughts. Wittgenstein is almost a Taoist and certainly a sophisticated logician. And, both these qualities are spontaneously exhibited in Wittgenstein. No other Western philosopher is better than Wittgenstein for the representation of the synthesis of mystics and metaphysics with sophisticated logical analysis. As Wittgenstein said once, a deep thinker makes us see that there is something that cannot be said. In his transcendental philosophy, Wittgenstein shows that there is something that cannot be said. In contrast, Lao-tse says that there is something that cannot be named – this is the single difference to monotheistic views,

Proposition (7) Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent

There are methodological implications of Wittgenstein’s doctrine of silence for transcendental philosophy and metaphysics. There are two senses of “sense” which Wittgenstein uses in the Tractatus, the actual sense. and the logical sense. Wittgenstein explains that “every proposition is essentially true-false. Wittgenstein calls this “true-false” possibility bi-polarity an important concept, important to C.G. Jung, Taoism and C.G. Jung.

Philosophers should keep silent about the not speakable because “philosophy is not one of the natural sciences. The doctrine of silence is applicable to mysticism, however. Mysticism may be seen as equivalent to metaphysics, or as not too far away from metaphysics. Now we can see why the doctrine of silence is applicable to mysticism as well. Wittgenstein explains that

the urge towards the mystical comes of the non-satisfaction of our wishes by science. We feel that even if all possible scientific questions are answered our problem is still not touched at all. Of course in that case there are no questions any more; and that is the answer.

Transcendental mysticism seen in this light is the attempt to tell the same story: the inexpressible Tao and nonsense are the same story, a story that, technically and literally speaking, cannot be told. That story begins with the Lao-tzu’s inexpressibility covers Jung’s collective – not to be learned archetypes – and ends with the Tractatus’s silence.
December 14, 2012
Wittgenstein meets C.G. Jung

Wittgenstein and C.G. Jung will be in this essay in a highly subjective and indirect way connected to C.G. Jung. I stumbled recently over the connection between Sigmund Freud and the very innovative Ludwig Wittgenstein, an Austrian-born philosopher and contemporary of Freud. Wittgenstein’s ( and C. G. Jung’s) contributions while not in everybody’s mind like Freud’s, are more significant and much more widely still in use today. I have to admit, that I have been only mildly interested in Freud’s theories, which have been discredited from many sides. On the other hand I do regard C.G. Jung’s psychoanalytic theory particularly the collective unconscious and its approach to self-understanding and spirituality as very useful. Most people have heard of C.G. Jung, often linking him vaguely with Sigmund Freud, and although the terms ‘complex’, ‘introvert’, and ‘extrovert’ are often used in everyday speech, few realize that they were coined by him not speaking about major concepts like personality types and collective archetypes.

C.G. Jung and Wittgenstein never meet, so this intellectual exercise is based on bibliographic facts, quotes and indirectly by the Jung-Freud-Wittgenstein triangle. The reader should kindly be aware, that even if I know a thing or two about C.G. Jung, I am still learning about Wittgenstein.  Most accounts on Wittgenstein on psychoanalytic methods, philosophy of religion, alchemy (magic) and mystic are either not his own writings but notes of conversations and lectures or interpretation of those. A thesis can be made, that Wittgenstein was closer to C.G. Jung than to Freud in any aspects of this scope and by studying  Wittgenstein’s and Jung’s texts, it is evident that both viewed Freud’s basic concepts as a break-through and starting point but finally dismissed Freud’s psychology, sometimes for the same reasons.

Jung-Freud-Wittgenstein biographic facts

C.G. Jung was the son of a protestant pastor in Basel, whereas Wittgenstein and Freud, had both a secular background and shared a very well off bourgeois upbringing. The Wittgenstein’s were large and wealthy family of assimilated Jews origins. No doubt the father Karl Wittgenstein was overwhelming father figure. The and steel magnate made his family fortune within a relatively few years as sizable as the Rothschild’s. Ludwig hat a hard time to give his heritage away In 1914, he donated the equivalent to today half a million euros) for needy artists (e.g Georg Trakl and Rainer Maria Rilke). He distributed his considerable paternal heritage 1919 to his siblings. Three of his four brothers committed suicide, Rudolf, who was obviously gay, poisoned himself in a Berlin restaurant in melodramatic way, his brother Hans by drowning overseas and Kurt an army officer of the k. u. k., shot himself at the end of the first world war on the collapsed Italian front. The three sisters were more visible and pragmatic. Margaret Stonborough was painted by Klimt (a very famous painting). But the older sisters, Hermine and Helene were after 1938 at risk. Because the Nazis had no access to their foreign capital bunkered in a Swiss foundation, they chose the means of blackmail. In tough negotiations with representatives of the Reichsbank in New York and the Switzerland millions were reclaimed from the Ludwig Wittgenstein, to get his Sisters out. The Nazis certified the Grandfather Christian promptly “Aryan” descent – to claim tax money from Switzerland accounts Germans authorities already then went the extra mile.

In a nutshell C.G.Jung can be understood best as an “avant-garde conservative” intellectual (Jay Cherry). To the contrary Wittgenstein and Freud were definitely closer to the left spectrum – one might say “salon communists”. The principal historical difference lie partly in Wittgenstein’s sympathy for certain aspects of the left in the 1930s—he is said to have described himself as “a communist, at heart”.  It seems that Wittgenstein believed like C.G. Jung in mystical truths that somehow cannot be expressed meaningfully but that are of the utmost importance.

Wittgenstein, a very handsome man having considerable success with women, was homosexual. Francis Skinner a friend, collaborator was an alleged longtime lover of Wittgenstein. In 1934, the two made plans to emigrate to the Soviet Union. Throughout his life, Freud experienced competitive feelings in male-female-male triangles (John and Pauline; Wilhelm Fliess and Emma Eckstein ; C.G. Jung and Sabina Spielrein) with a male intimate companion.   It is perhaps ironic that when Sigmund Freud – who lived by the psychoanalytic theory that sexual desire was the prime driver for human beings – found out his young protégé, Carl Jung, was having an extra-marital affair Sabina Spielrein, a 22-year-old Russian who was a patient in the Swiss hospital at which Jung worked, and later became one of his most brilliant students, and committed lover. Sabina Spielrein, seems not the only femal patient with whom C.G. Jung had an relationship, he was a decidedly heterosexual man of impressive stature. Note: that part seems to be a interesting topic for another essay.

Carl Gustav Jung and Freud interaction

Carl Gustav Jung and Freud first met in person 1907 and corresponded extensively until 1914, with Freud viewing Jung as protégé and innovative and original heir to psychoanalysis. Jung, however, soon questioned some of the basic tenets of Freudian theory. Freud’s reaction to the defection of Jung, and later that of Alfred Adler, was to close ranks and further guard his theories. C.G. Jung’s view fit nicely to contemporary thinking, that innovative conservatism, which is called for to protect freedom -and- the world environment as well as western heritage. C.G.Jung’s cultural roots were decisively neo-romantic drawn to symbolism and irrationality or at least mystic and he uniquely connected psychology and religion. In politics he questioned democracy and rejected socialism preferring elitism – but certainly not Nietsche’s kind. He criticized also the rationalistic, “disenchanted” view of the world, Freud’s hostility against religions and contradicted him on many theses. More or less, he thought that Freud was to one-dimensional and a product of a special, narrow and bourgeois short overcome period.

Ludwig Wittgenstein and Freud interaction

Ludwig Wittgenstein lived in Vienna when Freud was developing psychoanalysis and was in contact with people who were either undergoing treatment or ‘experimenting’ with these new ideas. Wittgenstein, who had delivered a devastating critique of traditional philosophy was a severe critic of Freud’s scientific claims and held a coherently ambivalent view of Freud. Wittgenstein, however, never wrote a paper on Freud or on Psychoanalysis. Everything that we know about, so his criticisms on Freudian psychoanalysis has been either passed on to us through third party, who carefully some conversations with Wittgenstein on the subject (see “Conversations on Freud” in Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief), or through some minor remarks made by Wittgenstein himself in his writings. Freud’s objectivity seems sometimes to function as a pseudo-religion. It’s usefulness for science I don’t deride. What bothers many is positivists’ making a petty-god of it the the claim of Marxism as well as Freud’s theories of being scientific. This is where motive meets epistemology and Jung meets Wittgenstein.

The Jung-Freud-Wittgenstein triangle

/1/ The psychoanalytic theory – are they plausible?

For same basic information about C.G. Jung please refer to my article. While sharing basic terminology and concepts, Freud and C.G.Jung differ completely. Freud view of an accomplished life is being materially established in society and having a healthy relationship (money and sex). C.G. Jung’s view of an accomplished life is having accomplished individuation and finding spirituality (not necessarily within a religion). Freud’s psychology focuses on the years when persons achieve maturity, knowledge and assurance, settle into their careers and family lives. C.G. Jung focuses after it inner growth and development to establish the whole self.

When Jung joined psychoanalysis in 1907, it could plausibly claim to be a radical new psychology. Later both became players on a world stage, but while Freud’s psychoanalytic movement guarded by orthodox body-guards (or academic and media priests) tinkering with the peripheral concepts and core premise of childhood sexuality, more original and fertile new hypotheses were developed by practitioners like C.G. Jung who in one way or another were considered “unorthodox.”

Did Freud present a scientific hypothesis about the unconscious, as he always maintained and as many until today keep repeating? Freud claimed that there are two innate forces or instincts behind human behaviour, is life instinct (Eros – life force and sexual drive) and death instinct (Thanatos – aggression towards ourselves or/and others). Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis was developed from this views on early psychological development and it has as its cornerstone the hypothesis of the unconscious as answer to ‘mental problems’. Eros and Thanatos make up the ‘Id’ (Es), which is the first part of personality to develop and operates solely on those instincts of life and death, i.e. those urges in the unconscious mind to satisfy desires and survival needs. Later the rational and logical ‘Ego’ develops, which is the conscious part of the child’s personality dealing with the outside world. At the age of three the child develops the third component of its personality, that is, the ‘Superego’.Freud believed that the Superego was divided into two parts, namely ‘Conscience’ (what we should not do) and ‘Ego Ideal’(what we should do). Freud and Jung disagreed on what constituted the unconscious. Freud viewed the unconscious as a collection of images, thoughts and experiences the individual refused to process, which lead to neuroses.

Jung drew a complex and rich multi-layered concept of the subconscious. C.G. Jung criticized that Freud’s concept of the unconscious was to narrow, overly negative and too focused on sexuality as a motivating force. Instead of simply being an evil storage room of repressed thoughts and motivations, as Freud believed, Jung argued that the unconscious is one of the major energy foe creativity. The theory of the unconscious was for Wittgenstein a new form of thinking and speaking, or rather, a new symbolic language context, for Jung a source of potential positive energy to be employed. As later been shown, both saw dreams as a message in a (coded and context sensitive) language.

/2/ The psychoanalytic methods – are they consistent?

Wittgenstein maintained that Freud’s methodology on interpretation of dreams were utterly mistaken or at best arbitrary based on the cultural context of the chosen symbolic. Wittgenstein criticised the fact that Freud seems to argue sometimes that the right interpretation of dreams is the one provided by the analyst and, at other times, the one which favours the best outcome for the patient. For Wittgenstein as mathematical mind this is unacceptable. Wittgenstein’s Therapeutic Positivism or Philosophical Method is based on his Theory of Meaning, which says that the  meaning of a word is never completely given, i.e. there is always an uncovered facet to the meaning of a word because the meaning of a word is linked to its usage. In the same way, for Wittgenstein, the meaning of a dream depends upon how the dream is recalled or reported by the subject – a subject’s choice and use of words influences the meaning of a dream, which is not given all at once but is something that unfolds during the course of a narrative. Wittgenstein also understands that there is nothing hidden in a dream, everything in a dream is in principle accessible to the dreamer who already knows everything he needs to know about the dream. Wittgenstein says: “when a dream is interpreted we might say that it is fitted into a context in which it ceases to be puzzling…”. Likewise C.G. Jung  first contextualizes dreams in this method, with the (real) context of the person or (in the case of individuation) with the archetypical cultural background of the collective unconscious. A collective unconscious, a group of shared images and archetypes common to all humans often bubbles up to the surface of the personal unconscious. Individuation dreams could be better interpreted by understanding the symbolic reference points of universally shared symbols. The similarity of the basic thoughts is strikingly. Wittgenstein’s and Jung’s criticism on Freud cannot be entirely ignored and the charges that the Freud’s methodology of dream interpretation is somehow arbitrary (and stereotyped), and that it is only a sort of self made mythology that is being offered to the patient, cannot be overlooked. The use of interpretations of dreams,  within Wittgensteins’s constraints, that is, only insofar as a dream is reported or recalled by a patient (i.e. his or her choices of words will impinge on the meaning of the dream, and the meaning of the dream is something that unfolds during the course of the narrative) is contextualizing. The goal of the therapist, according to Jung, was to help the person recognize the work of the unconscious, and thus to assist the patient in understanding how better to strive for individuation which would produce a “whole” person.

/3/ The psychoanalytic benefit – does it work or does it harm?

Wittgenstein also criticised Freud’s use of the technique of ‘free-association’ because it is all-embracing, that is, everything has an explanation and is significant. Psychoanalysis satisfies patients by providing easy explanations,which makes patient’s lives ‘easier’, just as mythology did in the past or still does in some parts of the world today. He says: ‘Analysis is likely to do harm. Because although one may discover in the course of it various things about oneself, one must have a very strong…criticism in order to recognise and see through the mythology that is offered or imposed to one. A powerful mythology’ (Wittgenstein, 1966, pp. 51-52). C.G. Jung questioned Freud’s, therapeutic approach similar: “May I say a few words to you in earnest? … I would, however, point out that your technique of treating your pupils like patients is a blunder. In that way you produce either slavish sons or impudent puppies (Adler-Stekel and the whole insolent gang now throwing their weight about in Vienna). I am objective enough to see through your little trick. You go about sniffing out all the symptomatic actions in your vicinity, thus reducing everyone to the level of sons and daughters who blushingly admit the existence of their faults. Meanwhile you remain on top as the father, sitting pretty. For sheer obsequiousness nobody dares to pluck the prophet by the beard and inquire for once what you would say to a patient with a tendency to analyze the analyst instead of himself. You would certainly ask him: “who’s got the neurosis?” (McGuire, 1974, 534-535).
Jung’s assault on Freud’s theories and practice is frontal. Freud has never come to terms with his own neurosis. To him Freud’s methods are one-sided sexual. His self-understanding is flawed, and he is — in the case where it matters most — no therapist but projects his shortcomings onto his disciples.

/4/ The psychoanalytic science claim

The most interesting criticism raised by Wittgenstein against Freudian psychoanalysis is that it is just a sort of myth. Part of Wittgenstein’s fame in modern times is due to the fact that he claimed to have found a therapeutic process analogous to psychoanalysis. This therapeutic process was very often referred to as ‘Therapeutic Positivism’ in the years just after the Second World War. It has been noted, that the word positivism is most unfortunate for the original positivists argued that all thinking should follow the patterns used by the sciences, whilst Wittgenstein tried to show that there are areas of human knowledge which are not accessible through a science. Wittgenstein’s criticism is that Freud provides new meanings to events which would be normally seen as ordinary. Wittgenstein claims similarly to Jung, that Freud is offering the patient a sort of own mythology – a mythology with no cultural, historical and empirical foundation. One could say, and it has been said, just based on values and interpretation of a male in a narrow historical and class context.  While Freud made small use of Greek mythology (Oedipus complex), C.G. Jung’s concept of collective unconsciousness is broadly and deeply based of mythology and historical and anthropological context.

/5/ The philosophy of religion

With regard to religion, Wittgenstein is often considered a kind of Anti-Realist (see below for more on this). He opposed interpretations of religion that emphasize doctrine or philosophical arguments intended to prove God’s existence, but was greatly drawn to religious rituals and symbols. Although his writings on religion were few,Wittgenstein nevertheless developed a distinctive way of understanding religious belief that holds great appeal for many readers and philosophers, especially those who do not view theistic religion as simply a form of superstition or irrationality. Leading Wittgenstein scholars have varying views on the correct interpretation, and acceptability, of Wittgenstein’s writings on religion. Wittgenstein’s comments on religion (and mystic) stress the distinctive character of religious discourse. He emphasizes how we can misunderstand its nature if religious statements are viewed as contradicting scientific ones. If one compares Wittgenstein’s views on creation, magic and free will, with Kierkegaard and C.G. Jung, it sheds new light on the perennial debate between faith and reason. It highlights the disagreements between Wittgenstein and the religious sceptics especially Freud (and Bertram Russell). Freud felt religion was an escape and a fallacy,which ought not to be propagated. His relationship to religion resembles that of the materialists. Jung conversely believed that religion was an important place of safety for the individual during the process of individuation, exploring and accepting all parts of the self. Religion further was a means of communication between all types of people, because although religions ar based on common archetypes and offers needed symbols. Jung stressed also the positive impact of confessions an its similarity to psychoanalytic sessions: “You can take away a man’s gods, but only to give him others in return.”

Wittgenstein is primarily known for his work on philosophy of logic and language and mind, but he was a cult figure at Cambridge when he taught there in the first half of the 20th century. Maybe it has to do with his eccentric but enduringly fascinating views on ethics and religion. He was deeply touched by Dostoyevsky’s romance The Brothers Karamazov. Wittgenstein made once a telling remark to his friend Maurice O’Drury: “I am not a religious man but I cannot help seeing every problem from a religious point of view.” It’s curious because Wittgenstein was like Jung not religious in the traditional sense. Yet both were deep thinker, passionate about his own attitude toward life and spiritual men. There is the famous word of C.G. Jung: I cannot prove to you that God exists, but my work has proved empirically that the pattern of God exists in every man and that this pattern in the individual has at its disposal the greatest transforming energies of which life is capable. Find this pattern in your own individual self and life is transformed.

Wittgenstein likewise distrusted and disapproved of any attempt to prove the existence of God, asserting even that none of the usual proofs could bring about belief: A proof of God’s existence should really be something by which one could convince oneself of God’s existence. But I think that believers who have provided such proofs, have wanted to give their ‘belief’ an intellectual analysis and foundation, although they themselves would never have come to believe through such proofs. Perhaps one could ‘convince someone of God’s existence’ through a certain kind of upbringing, by shaping his life in such and such a way. Life can educate one to a belief in God. And also experiences can do this; but not visions and other forms of sense experience which show us the ‘existence of this being’ – but, e.g. sufferings of various kinds. These neither show us God in the way a sense impression shows us an object, nor do they give rise to conjectures about him. Experiences, thoughts, – life can force this concept on us.

Wittgenstein, was baptized and raised catholic, became after the first world war – in his own way – spiritual and religious. He was a very unique man, and I doubt whether one can really knew what manner of man he was. Just like C.G. Jung he was, however leaning on the catholic side. Wittgenstein worked as a gardener’s assistant at a Benedictine monastery near Vienna after he left school teaching, and,more than once considered becoming a monk or priest: “Religious faith and superstition are quite different. One of them results from fear and is a sort of false science. The other is a trusting. “A friend of Wittgenstein’s, a Dominican priest said prayers beside Wittgenstein’s death-bed and at his graveside and on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s wish, his funeral was done with catholic rites. Like for C. G. Jung religious symbols, Wittgenstein called them “religious pictures” his respect for sincere religious faith was much broader than his respect for the Christian faith alone. To Drury he once said: “All religions are wonderful … The ways in which people express their religious feelings differ enormously.” Wittgenstein’s own faith was non institutionalized (or, to use his word, “ascetic”), that is, without dogma, with mythology serving only as life-guiding pictures. To Drury: The symbolism of Catholicism are wonderful beyond words. But any attempt to make it into a philosophical system is offensive. However austere it may have been, however, Wittgenstein’s faith must have been deep because it lasted to the end of his life.

C.G. Jung had a great interest in the Christian sacraments, particularly in the Mass. He repeatedly stated that he considered Catholicism a far more complete religion than its Protestant counterparts. The mystery of the sacraments, said Jung, had great value, and produced a degree of psychological health among Catholics that was not found among Protestants and atheists. (One wonders whether he would have made the same statement about the post-Vatican II rituals.) Jung contended that the Eucharistic sacrifice contained a vital mystery: The ritual act [of the Mass] consecrates both the gift and the givers. It commemorates and represents the Last Supper which our Lord took with His disciples, the whole Incarnation, Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ. But from the point of view of the divine, this anthropomorphic action is only the outer shell of husk in which what is really happening is not a human action at all but a divine event. To revert to magical terminology once again, there are two main categories of magic. According to Jung, the Mass, when properly understood, is best treated as an act of “high magic” (a word also used by Wittgenstein).

Conclusion Wittgenstein and C.G. Jung

Contemporary philosophy and psychology share a common heritage. Both stem from the older discipline of classical (pre-Kantian) philosophy. Whereas classical philosophy included psychology and was motivated by a life-long search for self-knowledge (as epitomized by the maxim, ‘Know thyself’). Nowadays philosophy and psychology are generally regarded as distinct disciplines, often the contemporary philosophy being very limited and abstract. The past two centuries have witnessed an important rupturing of philosophy, with the fragments blurring sometimes borders between philosophy, (soft and hard) science and psychology.Humans are driven by their need to achieve individuation, wholeness or full knowledge of the self. Many emotions drive humans to act in psychologically unhealthy ways, but all these ways were a longing for the desire to feel complete.

Bibliography C.G. Jung and S. Freud

Vorlesungen und Gespräche über Ästhetik, Psychoanalyse und religiösen Glauben
Vorlesungen von Ludwig Wittgenstein in Cambridge aus dem Jahr 1938

Tractatus logico-philosophicus Suhrkamp Verlag;
Ludwig Wittgenstein

Philosophische Untersuchungen Suhrkamp Verlag;
Ludwig Wittgenstein

Wittgenstein Reads Freud
Jacques Bouveresse

Wittgenstein: Eine Einführung Reclam
Joachim Schulte

Wittgenstein: A Religious Point of View?
Norman Malcolm

Short essay on youtube.

Wittgenstein and faith (BBC)

September 28, 2012