Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:21 — 28.8MB)
On Carl Jung's "Approaching the Unconscious" from Man and His Symbols, written in 1961.
This is a short preview of our full-length, vintage episode, which you can purchase by itself, or get our whole catalog free, beamed to your mobile device, by becoming a PEL supporter: see partiallyexaminedlife.com/support.
What's the structure of the mind? Jung followed Freud in positing an unconscious distinct from the conscious ego, but Jung's picture has the unconscious much more stuffed full of all sorts of stuff from who knows where, including instincts (the archetypes) that tend to give rise to behavior and dream imagery that we'd have to call religious. We neglect this part of ourselves at our psychological peril, and Jung also attributes the ills of the age (like nihilism and WWII) to being out of touch with our larger, unconscious selves.
Sound like goofy pop psychology? Well, Jung's book was written specifically for the populace, and many have run with his emphasis on spiritual self-knowledge and his openness to talk of the paranormal to conclusions less well founded than Jung would have liked. Mark, Seth, and Wes keep trying to make the text speak to other philosophical works but eventually get sidetracked and occasionally personal on this very special episode.
Read more about the topic and get the text. Listen to Wes's introduction.
Toby Keymer says
August 29, 2013 at 3:56 pm“Collectively Unconscious.” Genius.
JS says
August 30, 2013 at 3:26 amJust wanna say Seth is my dude. He’s basically me in his entire world view. Does my liking and agreeing with nearly everything he says make me a narcissist? They need to have a Seth entry on SEP someday. I’ve listened to about 30 episodes thus far.
Seth Paskin says
August 30, 2013 at 6:41 amThanks JS. Liking me does not make you a narcissist, it just means you have great taste. AS for the SEP – that might be a reach. Perhaps Wikipedia.
I appreciate the kudos!
–seth
Baron says
August 30, 2013 at 4:42 pmHey guys! I’ve been listening to the podcasts a lot lately. A hobby of mine is Jungian cognitive types, Myers-Briggs, and the Russian version, Socionics, and I can’t help wonder as I listen to you guys talk what types you are… Is it too personal to ask which types you fall under?
Thanks guys!
dmf says
August 30, 2013 at 7:52 pmit’s too bad that Jung didn’t connect his early work on feeling-toned-complexes with the work of William James and the pragmatists on habits, he would have been well on his way to some of what we now are coming to understand in terms of our non-conceptual response-abilities, Alva Noe gets to much of the state of the art (nascent as it is) in his new book on Real Presences.
Always important I think in terms of any attempts at so called dream analysis/interpretation to keep in mind that the dream itself is not present in our waking life and so we are dealing with recreations/interpretations at best.
Here is Noe on Concepts&Practical knowledge:
Roger, Australia says
September 3, 2013 at 4:23 pmAt the conclusion of this podcast, one of your hosts laments that he found the Jung reading “thin” and “for a general audience”. Isn’t the whole premise of this podcast one of non-professional philosophers making obscure academic philosophical scholarship more accessible to an informed lay audience?
To be honest, this is the first of your podcasts I’ve go through right to the end. In general – and this may be a cultural thing – I find your discussions wordy, obscurantist and just a little bit pompous.
Mark Linsenmayer says
September 3, 2013 at 4:53 pmWelcome, Roger. The premise of the podcast is not primarily a presentation to a lay audience, or any audience at all, but having a conversation. Still, having an audience and trying to play at that level (not that we always succeed) keeps us honest: if you can’t explain yourself clearly, you likely don’t know what you’re talking about.
On the flip side, these figures are often new to us, so we really don’t know what we’re talking about. Since “obscurantism” implies an intentional obscuring of the truth, I’ll deny that, but we often fall short of our aim to be clear, and honestly, much as we try, we can’t keep explaining some basic terms over and over, so a bit of stopping to look up terms on the Internet and/or going back and listening to the episodes from the beginning may be required to really get every little bit.
Having complete thoughts, especially when you’re grasping like we often are, requires going on and on about things. Short, concise sentences only come when you’ve already figured it out and have presented it a hundred times (and often not even then).
I think the complaint about the Jung work in particular was that it seemed he was glossing over some of the subtleties in this work that would really be required to actually evaluate it.
Thanks for listening and sharing your thoughts.
Best,
-Mark
Wayne Schroeder says
September 3, 2013 at 5:49 pmMark, your response was worth the price of admission alone 🙂
Roger, Australia says
September 6, 2013 at 8:07 amThank you Mark, for your gracious and patient reply to my possibly typically Australian directness.
I am reminded if this statement by Montaigne:
“Difficulty is a coin which the learned conjure with so as not to reveal the vanity of their studies and which human stupidity is keen to accept in payment.”
On the other hand I recognize that stretching oneself beyond one’s comfort zone of understanding is the path to growth. I will persist.
Anthony Draper says
September 15, 2013 at 9:01 pmThis may very well have been the most pleasant flame-war I’ve ever observed! Bravo, to both gentlemen!
Rob says
September 11, 2013 at 4:57 amHi guys – loving the podcast. Just listened to the Jung one, a thinker I’ve looked at a lot – SETH states at the beginning he doesn’t believe in the introversion/extraversion dichotomy – FASCINATED to know why Seth!
PS I think recognition of the all-pervading effect of such “personality differences” will comprise the next Kantian revolution in human thought. But then I also think They Might Be Giants are a better band than the Beatles. Yours, Nottingham, England, Old World.
Piaget says
September 15, 2013 at 12:45 amJEAN PIAGET EPISTEMOLOGY!!!!
Mark Linsenmayer says
September 15, 2013 at 8:02 amI assume you’re referring to the “Structuralism” book? Yes, I liked that a lot and will put that in our list of options. (If there’s a different or supplementary text to that you had in mind, please speak up.)
dmf says
September 15, 2013 at 9:01 amhttp://www.academia.edu/2131473/Experiential_structuralism_and_neo-Piagetian_theories_Toward_an_integrated_model