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The Corrupt Individual Consciousness: Freud and Jung

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Book cover Freud, Marx and Morals

Part of the book series: New Studies in Practical Philosophy ((NSPP))

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Abstract

The writings of Freud appear to be applications of two basic principles of explanation. The first is a generalisation of our usual manner of explaining human actions and policies, in terms of the motives and intentions of their agents, to account for behaviour in cases where the agents themselves cannot thus account for it; where these motives and intentions are thus ‘unconscious’, but still supposed to exist and to operate. The second is a kind of reductionism which at times presupposes, and at times tries to demonstrate, that thinking is really only an indirect route to pleasure, and pleasure really only a matter of the release of tensions which have built up in the organs of the body. In terms of the distinction I suggested earlier,1 the first principle is a matter of extending B explanation to phenomena to which it had not previously been applied; the second of reducing B explanation to A explanation. The first principle surely represents one of the most important discoveries ever made in the human sciences. The second seems, on the contrary, for reasons which I have already given,1 to be almost entirely superstitious; due to an attempt to reconcile a great discovery with erroneous beliefs about the nature and implications of scientific explanation.

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References

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  36. The words in brackets form part of the quotation.

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  39. Ibid., p. 133.

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  66. Ibid., pp. 178–81.

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  68. An admirably clear summary of the results of such an investigation is provided by E. H. Erikson, ‘Growth and Crises of the Healthy Personality’ in R. S. Lazarus and E. M. Opton (eds), Personality (Harmondsworth, 1970).

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  69. Cf. Freud’s ‘Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of his Childhood’, Collected Works, vol. XI (London, 1957).

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  71. See p. 114 above.

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  75. C. G. Jung, ‘Freud and Psychoanalysis’, Collected Works, vol. 4 (London, 1961) p. 125; ‘Symbols of Transformation’, Collected Works, vol. 5 (London, 1956) pp. 128–31, 136.

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  94. Cf. p. 146 above.

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  96. Jung, ‘Psychogenesis of Mental Disease’, pp. 241 – 2; ‘Psychology and Religion’, p. 289.

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  97. The Supplement (1976) to the Oxford English Dictionary describes the ‘mandala’ as follows: ‘a symbolic representation of a magic circle usually with symmetrical divisions and figures of deities, etc., in the centre, used by Buddhists in meditation and found in many cultures as a religious symbol.’

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  98. Jung,’Archetypes of Collective Unconscious’, pp. 10, 352, 357, 360–1; Jung and Kerenyi, Essays on a Science of Mythology (London, 1951) p. 18.

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  99. Jung, ‘Archetypes of Collective Unconscious’, pp. 125–7, 130; ‘Symbols of Transformation’, p. 345; ‘Psychology and Religion’, pp. 273, 294–5. Cf. Jung, ‘Psychology and Alchemy’, Collected Works, vol. 12 (London, 1953) p. 18.

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  100. Jung, ‘Psychology and Religion’, pp. 104–5, 294.

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  101. Cf. Calvin S. Hall and Vernon J. Nordby, A Primer of Jungian Psychology (New York and London, 1973) pp. 23, 36–8.

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  102. Jung, ‘Symbols of Transformation’, pp. 102, 294. Cf. ‘Freud and Psychoanalysis’, p. 151; ‘Mysterium Coniunctionis’, p. xix; ‘Archetypes of Collective Unconscious’, pp. 66, 79; ‘Two Essays’, p. 93. Cf. also the following from Jung’s ‘Civilisation in Transition’, Collected Works, vol. 10, cited by J. Jacobi, Complex/Archetype/Symbol (New York, 1959), p. 37; ‘Archetypes ... are systems of readiness for action, and at the same time images and emotions. They are inherited with the brain structure — indeed they are its psychic aspect.’

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  103. Jung, ‘Two Essays’, pp. 76, 93; ‘Mysterium Coniunctionis’, p. 523; ‘Psychogenesis of Mental Disease’, p. 262.

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  104. Jung, ‘Archetypes of Collective Unconscious’, pp. 39, 285; ‘Two Essays’, p. 205; ‘Psychology and Religion’, p. 30; ‘Mysterium Coniunctionis’, p. 186. Cf. Hall and Nordby, Primer, pp. 46–8.

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  105. The success of Alf Garnett seems to illustrate the point.

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  106. Jung, ‘Archetypes of Collective Unconscious’, pp. 260, 264–5; Hall and Nordby, Primer, pp. 49–51, citing Jung’s ‘Civilisation in Transition’.

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  107. Jung, ‘Symbols of Transformation’, pp. 277, 347, 382, 383; Jung and Kerenyi, Essays, pp. 38, 48–9; Jung, ‘Archetypes of Collective Unconscious’, pp. 117, 218, 221, 225, 227, 270.

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  108. Jung, ‘Freud and Psychoanalysis’, p. 26. The difference between the thesis that all psychic phenomena are meaningful on the one hand, and psychic determinism on the other, is crucial. J. A. C. Brown, Freud and the Post-Freudians, p. 191, writes: ‘By the single assumption of psychic determinism, Freud brought every manifestation of the irrational into the sphere of psychic investigation.’ But it seems that the correct assumption, which underlies Freud’s real discoveries as opposed to his mistakes, is that such phenomena are meaningful rather than that they are determined. For a useful discussion of this question, cf. Paul Ricoeur, Freud and Philosophy (New Haven and London, 1970).

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  109. Cf. p. 121 above.

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  110. Cf. p. 152 above.

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  111. Cf. p. 140 above.

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  112. Cf. p. 127 above.

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  113. Cf. pp. 140–1 above; and many examples from Freud’s The Psychopathology of Everyday Life.

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  114. Cf. p. 134 above.

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  115. Cf. pp. 150–1 above.

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  116. J. A. C. Brown, Freud and the Post-Freudians, p. 43. It is only fair to add that Brown does not content himself with this suggestion, but goes on to argue, erroneously as I have suggested, that Freud is far more scientific than Jung.

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  117. Cf. p. 113 above.

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  118. K. Lorenz, Studies in Animal and Human Behaviour, vol. 2 (London, 1971) pp. 164–88.

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  1. Hugo Meynell
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© 1981 Hugo Meynell

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Meynell, H. (1981). The Corrupt Individual Consciousness: Freud and Jung. In: Freud, Marx and Morals. New Studies in Practical Philosophy. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05640-8_5

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