Ambiguity and contradiction: the outlines of Jung’s dialectics

This essay explores Jung’s thinking strategies, argumentation patterns, and concept formation processes, and reveals how they distinguish his work from normal present‐day science. Jung doesn’t much appreciate the law of noncontradiction, which is a cornerstone of classical logic, and he doesn’t refrain from using openly ambiguous theoretical terms. It will be pointed out that not only specific archetypes, but the notion of archetype itself, as well as other of Jung’s theoretical notions (energy, including libidinal energy, polarity, integration, wholeness, instinct, symbol, and so on), are consciously ambiguous and thus potentially contradictory. It is shown that this kind of dialectic research strategy and related contradiction‐tolerant and ambiguity‐tolerant methods connect his work to Post‐Kantian German Idealism, Schelling’s and Schopenhauer’s philosophy in particular. However, it was Hegel who, in his Science of Logic, presented a systematic overview of such dialectic principles of reasoning, which were, in the 19^th century, widely applied by German philosophers, theologians, and other scholars. Unfortunately, Jung decided not to study Hegel, but, instead, wrote derogatorily of his work. It will be argued that a Jungian who wants to be conscious of her own argumentation strategies and methods of concept formation should study Hegel’s complex and sophisticated dialectical logic. In addition, it is suggested that Jungian depth psychology might help us to amend the phenomenological deficits of Hegel’s system by providing it with a primal experiential source. This is needed because Hegel’s Geist, due to its intellectual emphasis, is a self‐conscious conceptual totality which advances progressively from stage to stage by guiding itself with the help of dialectical reason (Vernunft). It will be shown that if enriched with a proper kind of experiential givenness, which includes the Jungian unconsciousness (with libidinal energy, instincts, and archetypes), Hegelian metaphysics would be able to embrace a seriously aconceptual or preconceptual dimension. Aconceptual experience, which is, for Jung, mainly the instinctual layer of archetypes, remains essentially inaccessible, not only for normal scientific concepts, but for the concepts of any form of dialectics as well.     

The weariness of the hero: depression and the self in a civilization in transition

According to the World Health Organization, depression is currently the leading cause of disability, which is of great concern worldwide; however there is much dispute about depression and its causes. This article raises the hypothesis that depression could be related to an increase or inflation of ego‐consciousness, which, in turn, is inseparable from the development of modernity. The ‘hero’, symbol of this historical process of self‐consciousness and autonomy, stands now wearied and disoriented. The paper outlines how, in this cultural scene, certain ideas from Carl Jung's and James Hillman's depth psychologies may be useful in addressing the issue: the rediscovery of figures of the other through the analysis of the unconscious (Jung) and associating with others in groups imbued with communal sense (Hillman) could help the depressed individual to mitigate his or her inflated ego‐consciousness. These are two complementary ways of experiencing the conglomerate nature of the self, thus promoting the process of individuation.     

The Finnish Luther: Reflections from a Buddhist Perspective

Abstract : The author argues that the debate regarding the “Finnish Luther” can be illuminated by the rhetoric of merit of Shinran, the founder of the Jōdoshinshū sect of Japanese Buddhism. Tuomo Mannermaa and his colleagues have argued that Luther's doctrine of justification has more in common with the Orthodox doctrine of theosis than the theology of forensic justification of subsequent Lutheran theologians. In faith, the sinner undergoes an existential transformation due to the ontological indwelling of Christ. Both Luther and Shinran begin with similar starting points: the unbridgeable chasm between the sinner and the savior. In Shinran, this sets in motion an affirmation of the existential transformation of the sinner. Shinran's Buddhist rhetoric of merit, therefore, lends plausibility to this interpretation of Luther.     

Escalation and Regulation of Emotional Arousal in Couples Predicts Relationship Satisfaction Concurrently and 25 Years Later

Relationship distress and divorce are major risk factors for the development or exacerbation of psychopathology and psychosocial impairments. Given that heightened negative emotions within couples’ interactions may portend negative relationship outcomes, it is critical to understand how emotions unfold across a conversation and how partners may influence each other’s immediate emotional experiences. This study examined whether these regulatory dynamics within one interaction predicted relationship satisfaction concurrently and 25 years later. Vocally‐encoded emotional arousal (f₀) was measured during couples’ (N = 25 couples) conversations about a relationship issue. Across different analytical strategies, results demonstrate that one partner’s f₀ dynamics had immediate and long‐term associations with the other partner’s satisfaction. Partners were less satisfied if the other partner (a) expressed higher f₀ overall and (b) escalated more in f₀ across the conversation. Yet, partners were more satisfied when their f₀ escalated across the conversation. Also, women specifically were more satisfied if their f₀ remained elevated longer before regulating back to their emotional baseline. Thus, higher f₀ was associated with higher satisfaction in the same partner, but associated with less satisfaction in the other partner—particularly when these emotions come from women. It may be that partners have to decide whether to prioritize expressing their emotions fully or limit expression in the service of their partner’s happiness. These findings challenge us to think of ways to address this “win–lose” scenario so that couples can balance both partners’ emotional needs and preserve relationship quality across the life span.     

Semantic feature representations for normal and aphasic language

Aphasic and non-neurological patients grouped nouns on the basis of similarity of meaning. These word groupings served as input matrices for hierarchical clustering and multidimensional scaling analyses. The emergent structures suggest that, while the normal adult has a number of levels upon which to organize his lexicon, the adult aphasic's lexicon can be characterized as a set of partial entries that are tied to affective and situational data. The results also suggest that semantic feature representations derived from similarity-of-meaning judgments are of relevance in the study of factors which influence actual language performance.     

脂多糖受体mCD14定量研究的方法探讨

本文通过横断面研究,对100例正常人群(一次性)采集外周全血2ml,选用流式细胞技术测定单核细胞群、mCD14平均荧光强度值,行盲法测定.观察正常人群外周血mCD14的表达水平,探讨正常人群mCD14定量研究的方法.结果显示单核细胞与淋巴细胞的比值比单个读取mCD14的平均荧光强度值更具可重复性,集中趋势较好,有利于临床应用和比较研究.此方法可作为流式细胞仪定量检测数据校正的方法参考.     

Soul in the world: symbolic culture as the medium for psyche

Whilst the loss of a sense of living connection with the material world is mainly associated with the scientific revolution in seventeenth century Europe, it can be traced back to Plato's introduction of a hierarchy between soul and body. Jung's attempted solution to this – esse in anima – is ingenious but maintains the Cartesian split by which the aliveness of the world is reduced to a projection of psychic forces (the archetypes). An alternative approach is proposed, rooted in the Aristotelean emphasis on practical activity that sees the soul as a function of our way of being in the world. Human cognition is extended and distributed by our social and material engagement with the world, especially via collective representations whose symbolic character is constitutive of the reality of the world in which we live. Despite the dominance of ‘scientific Cartesian’ representations in the modern Western world, there remain numerous instances of participation mystique that cannot be captured by the Cartesian notion of projection. These indicate an opening to ways of being in the world that may lead us out of the impasse of the Cartesian matrix.     

On Łukasiewicz's Four-Valued Modal Logic

ukasiewicz's four-valued modal logic is surveyed and analyzed, together with ukasiewicz's motivations to develop it. A faithful interpretation of it in classical (non-modal) two-valued logic is presented, and some consequences are drawn concerning its classification and its algebraic behaviour. Some counter-intuitive aspects of this logic are discussed in the light of the presented results, ukasiewicz's own texts, and related literature.     

Bion and C.G. Jung. How did the container‐contained model find its thinker? The fate of a cryptomnesia

This paper investigates the possible impact of C.G. Jung's Tavistock Lectures on Bion's concept of the living container. In the first part of the paper, the author offers clues pointing to such an essential impact, which can be found in text passages as well as in the facts of the Bion‐Beckett case, up to and including Bion's first publication of ‘The imaginary twin'. The author suggests that cryptomnesia is the result of repression targeting a highly cathected author's communication which functions like a deep interpretation for the recipient, whose new theory then is a return of the repressed content as well as a transformation of it. The second part of the paper investigates the fate of the assumed cryptomnesia. From this point of view Bion's concept of the container in itself appears to be the result of growth in the container‐contained mode. Finally the author deals with the question whether cryptomnesia in psychoanalytical literature can frequently be seen as the result of psychic growth.