Carl Gustav Jung was born on 1875-26-07 in the family of one of the priests of the Evangelical Reformed Church in a Swiss town called Keswil. His family came from Germany: the great-grandfather of the young philosopher led a military hospital during the Napoleonic wars, and his great-grandfather's brother served as chancellor of Bavaria for some time. In our article we will focus on the philosophy of Jung. Let us briefly and clearly consider his main philosophical ideas.
The beginning of the philosophical path
Even as a teenager, Jung began to deny the religious beliefs of his own environment. Hypocritical moralizing, dogmatism, turning Jesus into a preacher of Victorian morality - all this aroused genuine indignation in him. According to Carl, everyone in the church shamelessly talked about God, his actions and aspirations, profaning all sacred things with beaten sentimentality.
Worth itnote that the essence of Jung's philosophy can be traced back to his early years. So, in the Protestant ceremonies of a religious orientation, the young philosopher did not notice even a trace of the presence of God. He believed that God once lived in the conditions of Protestantism, but left the corresponding temples long ago. He became acquainted with dogmatic works. This is what led Jung to think that they can be considered "an example of rare stupidity, the only purpose of which is to hide the truth." The young Carl Gustav was of the opinion that living religious practice is far above all dogmas
Jung's Dreams
There is also mysticism in Jung's philosophy. In his dreams of that time, one motive played the utmost importance. So, he observed the image of an old man endowed with magical powers, which was considered as if his alter ego. In everyday life, a timid and rather reserved young man spent his life - personality number one. In dreams, another hypostasis of his “I” appeared - this is a person number two, who even had his own name (Philemon).
Summing up the results of studying at the gymnasium, Carl Gustav Jung read "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", after which he was seriously frightened: Nietzsche also had a "person number 2", which he called Zarathustra. However, she managed to displace the personality of the philosopher directly (by the way, hence Nietzsche's madness; this is exactly what Jung believed, despite the extremely reliable diagnosis made by doctors). It is worth noting that the fear of similar consequences of "dreaming" contributed to a decisive, confident andrather rapid turn into reality. In addition, Jung had the need to study at the university and carry out labor activities at the same time. He knew that he needed to rely solely on his own strength. It was these thoughts that gradually led Carl away from the magical world of dreams.
Somewhat later, in Jung's teaching on two kinds of thinking, the personal experience of dreams was also reflected. The main goal of Jung's psychotherapy and Jung's philosophy is nothing more than the unification of the "inner" and "outer" person. It should be added that the thoughts of a mature philosopher regarding religion, to one degree or another, became only the development of those moments that he experienced in his childhood.
Teaching sources
When determining the sources of Jung's philosophical ideas, certain teachings, it is customary to abuse the word "influence". Naturally, in this case, influence does not mean “influence” in the literal sense of the word, when talking about great theological or philosophical teachings. After all, you can only influence someone who represents something. Carl Gustav in his development was primarily based on Protestant theology. At the same time, he absorbed the spiritual atmosphere of his own time.
Jung's philosophy belongs to German culture. Since ancient times, this culture has been characterized by an interest in the "reverse, night side" of existence. So, at the beginning of the last century, the great romantics turned to the legends of the people, the "Rhenish mysticism", the mythology of Tauler and Eckhart, as well as Boehme's alchemical theology. It is worth noting that before that, Schellingian doctors had alreadytried to use the philosophy of the unconscious Freud and Jung in the treatment of patients.
Past and present
Before Carl Gustav's eyes, the patriarchal way of life in Germany and Switzerland was breaking down: the world of castles, villages, small towns was leaving. As T. Mann noted, “something of the spiritual component of people who lived in the last decades of the 15th century” remained directly in their atmosphere. These words were spoken with an underlying mental predisposition to madness and fanaticism.
In Jung's philosophy, modernity and the spiritual tradition of the past, natural science and alchemy of the 15th-16th centuries, scientific skepticism and gnosticism collide. Interest in the deep past as a category that constantly accompanies society today, preserved and acting on us to this day, was typical for Jung even in his youth. It is worth noting that at the university, Karl most of all wanted to study as an archaeologist. The fact is that Depth Psychology, in its methodology, somehow reminded him of archeology.
It is known that Freud also compared psychoanalysis several times with this science, after which he regretted that the name "archeology" is still assigned to the search for cultural monuments, and not to "spiritual excavations." "Archae" is the beginning. Thus, "depth psychology", which removes layer after layer, gradually moves towards the roots of consciousness.
It should be noted that archeology was not taught to students in Basel, nevertheless, Karl could not study at another university: he received a small scholarship only in his native city. At present, the demand for graduates of the humanities and natural sciences faculties of this university is quite large, but at the end of the last century the situation was reversed. Only those who were financially well off had the opportunity to study science professionally. A piece of bread was also guaranteed by the Faculty of Law, Medicine and Theology.
A specific approach to science
For whom are all these old books published? Science at that time was a useful tool. It was valued solely for its applications, and also due to its effective use in construction, industry, medicine and trade. Basel was rooted in the deep past, and Zurich rushed into the same distant future. Carl Gustav noticed in such a situation the "split" of the European soul. According to Jung's philosophy, industrial-technical civilization consigned its roots to oblivion, and this was a natural phenomenon, since the soul in dogmatic theology became ossified. As the famous philosopher believed, religion and science came into conflict because the first to some extent broke away from life experience, and the second left really significant problems - it adhered to pragmatism and carnal empiricism. Jung's philosophical view of this will soon emerge: "We have become rich in knowledge, but poor in wisdom." In the picture of the world, which is created by science, a person is only a mechanism among other similar ones. So, his life loses all meaning.
That is why the need arosein revealing the area where science and religion do not refute each other, but cooperate in search of the roots of all meanings. Psychology soon became for Carl Gustav the science of sciences. From his point of view, it was she who was able to give the modern individual a holistic worldview.
Search for the "inner man"
Jung's philosophy briefly and clearly says that Carl Gustav was not alone in his search for the "inner man". Many thinkers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries had the same negative attitude towards the church, and towards the dead cosmos of natural science, and even towards religion. Some of them, such as Tolstoy, Berdyaev or Unamuno, turned to Christianity and gave it a very unorthodox interpretation. The rest, having experienced a crisis of the soul, began to create philosophical teachings.
By the way, not without reason they called these directions "irrationalistic". This is how Bergson's intuitionism and James's pragmatism appeared. Neither the evolution of nature, nor the world of human experience, nor the behavior of this primitive organism can be explained by means of the laws of physiology and mechanics. Life is a Heraclitean stream; eternal becoming; "impulse" that does not recognize the law of identity. The circulation of substances in the natural environment, the eternal sleep of the material, the peaks of spiritual life - these are just the poles of an unstoppable stream.
In addition to the philosophical significance of Jung's analytical psychology as a "philosophy of life", it is important to consider the fashion for the occult, which, of course, touched him. For 2 years, the philosopher participated in seances. Carl Gustav met many literaryworks on numerology, astrology and other "secret" sciences. Such student hobbies largely determined the features of Karl's later research. From the belief that mediums establish communication with the spirits of the dead, the philosopher soon departed. By the way, the very fact of such contact is also denied by occultists.
Jung's thesis
It is worth noting that the observations presented and Jung's philosophy, briefly describing them, became the basis of his doctoral dissertation "On the psychology and pathology of the so-called occult phenomena" (1902). It is worth noting that this work has retained scientific significance to this day. The fact is that the philosopher gave in it a psychiatric and psychological analysis of a mediumistic trance, compared it with a clouded state of mind, hallucinations. He noted that poets, mystics, prophets, founders of religious movements and sects experience similar conditions to those that a specialist can encounter in patients who have come too close to the sacred “fire”, so much so that the psyche could not stand it - as a result, a split in the personality took place.. In poets and prophets, their own voice is often mixed with a voice coming from the depths of a different personality, as it were. However, their consciousness seizes this content and gives it artistic and religious forms, respectively.
All kinds of deviations can be found in them, but there is an intuition that "far exceeds the conscious mind." So, they catch certain "protoforms". Subsequently, Carl Gustav identified these proto-forms as archetypes of the collectiveunconscious. Jung's archetypes in philosophy at different times arise in the human mind. They seem to emerge regardless of the human will. Protoforms are autonomous, they are not determined by consciousness. However, archetypes can influence him. The unity of the irrational and rational, the subject-object relationship to intuitive insight - this is what distinguishes trance from adequate consciousness and brings it closer to mythological thinking. Every individual has access to the world of protoforms in dreams, which serve as the main source of information about the psychic unconscious.
Teaching about the collective unconscious
Thus, Jung arrived at the basic concepts of the collective unconscious even before he met Freud. Their first communication took place in 1907. By that time, Carl Gustav already had a name: first of all, the word-association test brought him fame, which allowed him to experimentally reveal the structure of the unconscious. In the experimental psychopathology laboratory set up by Carl Gustav in Burghelzi, each subject was given a list of words. A person had to respond to them immediately, and with the first word that came to his mind. The reaction time was recorded with a stopwatch.
After that, the test became more complicated: with the help of various devices, the physiological reactions of the individual to certain words that acted as stimuli were recorded. The main thing that we managed to find out is the presence of those expressions that people do notfound a quick response. In some cases, the period of selection of the word-reaction was lengthened. Often, the subjects fell silent for a long time, stuttered, "turned off" or reacted not with one word, but with a whole sentence, and so on. At the same time, people did not realize that the answer to one word, which is a stimulus, for example, took them many times longer than to another.
Jung's Inference
Thus, Carl Gustav made the conclusion that such violations in response arise due to peculiar "complexes" charged with psychic energy. As soon as the stimulus word only “touched” this complex, the individual participating in the experiment showed traces of a minor emotional disorder. After some time - thanks to the experiment - there were numerous "projective tests", widely used in recruitment and medicine. In addition, a device as far from pure science as the "lie detector" was developed.
The philosopher was of the opinion that this test is able to reveal certain fragmented personalities in the human psyche that are located beyond the boundaries of consciousness. It is worth noting that in schizophrenics, personality dissociation is more pronounced than in he althy people. In the end, this leads to the disintegration of the personality, the destruction of consciousness. So, in place of the once existing personality, a whole pool of “complexes” remains.
Subsequently, the philosopher distinguished between the categories of the complex of the personal unconscious and the archetype of the collective unconscious. It should be noted that it is archetypes that resemble individualpersonalities. If previously madness could be explained by “possession by demons” that came into the soul from outside, then with Carl Gustav it turned out that their legion originally existed in the soul. So, in the presence of certain circumstances, they defeated the "I" - one of the components of the psyche. In the soul of any person there are a large number of personalities. Each of them has its own "I". At times they try to declare themselves, to come to the surface of consciousness. The ancient saying could be applied to Jung's interpretation of the psyche: "The undead do not have their own appearance - they walk in disguises." However, there should be a caveat here that the mental life itself, and not the “undead”, has various kinds of masks.
Of course, the presented ideas of Carl Gustav are connected not only with psychological experiments and psychiatry. They seem to be floating in the air. It is interesting to know that K. Jaspers spoke with a sufficient degree of anxiety about the aestheticization of various deviations of the mental plane. In his opinion, this is how the "zeitgeist" expressed itself. In the work of a number of writers, interest has increased in the "legions of demons" that inhabited the very depths of the soul, as well as in the "inner man", which is radically different from the outer shell.
Often this interest, like that of Carl Gustav, merged with religious teachings. Suffice it to mention G. Meyrink, an Austrian writer, whose novels were often referred to by the philosopher (“Angel in the West Window”, “Golem”, “White Dominican”, and so on). In Meyrink's books, theosophy, occultism, Eastern teachings constituted, as it were, a systemreference in order to oppose the metaphysical-wonderful reality of the world of everyday common sense, for which this reality is considered "insane". Naturally, both Plato and the Apostle Paul knew about such a contrast (“Has not God turned the wisdom of this world into madness?”). In addition, one could encounter him in European literature (Shakespeare, Cervantes, Calderon and others). This contrast has been a hallmark of German Romanticism, of the literary works of Dostoyevsky and Gogol, and of many writers of our century.
Conclusion
So, we have considered the main philosophical ideas and thoughts of Carl Gustav both in theory and on concrete examples. In conclusion, it should be noted that the philosopher's meeting with psychoanalysis cannot be called accidental, just like the break with Freud, which occurred somewhat later. In the philosophy of Freud and Jung, the interpretation of the unconscious is fundamentally different. Although Carl Gustav owed much to Freud, he considered P. Janet and E. Bleuler to be his mentors.
Bleiler wrote about situations of split personality, as well as about "autistic thinking", which in any case was opposed to "realistic". It was he who introduced into psychiatry such a term as "schizophrenia" (in other words, a split, a split personality). From Janet, Jung inherited, first of all, the energy concept of the psyche, according to which the reality of the surrounding world one way or another requires a certain amount of energy, and with the weakening of its flow “reduceslevel of consciousness.”
Today, a number of Jung's literary works are known: "Man and His Symbols", "The Red Book", "Psychology and Alchemy", "Psychological Types" and so on. It is worth noting that the circumstances of the publication of each of the books are quite unusual. They are already interesting for this, which is directly related to their content and design.
