Re: Myth!

[Guest guest]

it would help if we had an agreed-upon definition of the word: MYTH!

The problem seems to be it is truth on one level and not on another!

thus this heated debate will be endless.........................

ao 'motherator'

It is not a "belief". Just because I cannot put an archetype under a microscope and show it to you, doesn't mean that it is a belief. Archetypes aren't molecules. Jungian psychology isn't hard science. Nor is anything you say hard science. You present absolutely no facts and no logical factors that can gainsay anything in Jungian psychology. You are just philosophizing. There is no scientific evidence behind your critique of Jungian psychology.You are also pontificating. You insult me repeatedly by saying that I am a devotee of mere belief, meaning that I subscribe blindly to a credo. But I, if anyone, have severely criticized the ideological mind-set which lacks foundation in instinctual nature and in the unconscious. The unconscious psyche is also nature. It is also an empirical reality. I observe this empirical reality continually, and I have verified that the Jungian concept of reality is both truthful and useful. I have however found that the theory doesn't work in some cases. I have written extensive critical articles on the failings of Jungian psychology, where it does not give a satisfactory account of the reality of the psyche. So how can I be a Jungian believer, then, if I am capable of finding faults in it? If I am stuck in a "largely subjective domain", how come I can criticize the framework and suggest improvements to it? After all, I have formulated a critique of Jungian psychology, but you have not. The point is that Jungian psychology "works". It works in interpreting dreams and myths. I have verified this time and time again. So I know that it works, but you don't, because you don't know Jungian psychology. You haven't tried it out. I also know that Jungian therapy works. It succeeds in helping people. It's like mathematics. Mathematics works, but nobody knows why. Cosmologists are baffled by the fact that they can use mathematics to understand what took place 13 billion years ago. Scientists make use of numbers, but nobody knows what numbers are. Nobody has put a number under a microscope and verified its existence. They just work. This means that the hard sciences builds on similar premises as Jungian psychology, namely on "archetypes", as it were. Scientists say that the potential energy is equal to the kinetic energy and set up the equation: mgy = ½mv2. It is very useful. Empirical data confirms this mathematical equation all the time! Yet, nobody has been able to put "energy" in a glass jar and observed it. Many physicists believe that there is no such thing as energy. Electric energy equals electrons, heat energy equals photons, etc. Nobody knows Whether there really exist such entities as energy, number, etc. But the universe functions "as if" they existed.Likewise, the unconscious functions "as if" there were archetypes. The scientific motivation for all these concepts is that they "work". What "works" is regarded as true, regardless if the concept has any tangible sense of reality attached to it. It doesn't matter if you cannot taste, watch, or touch numbers or energy. Entities of reality needn't have this concrete reality-status. This is according to the modern scientific paradigm. The conclusion is that not only do you lack knowledge in the realm of Jungian psychology, you are lacking in the understanding of the scientific paradigm. Your philosophical stance is a modern disease. People who spin themselves into a cocoon of philosophical theory and bury themselves in Heidegger, Derrida, Wittgenstein, and whatnot, resort to a psychological defence against reality. You really ought to read this sobering article: 'The Waning of the Light: The Eclipse of Philosophy' The Review of Metaphysics 57, Sept 2003, 105-133, is a sobering article by H. Schlagel. All philosophers should read it. It is a poignant critique of the modern philosophical project, and its subjectivistic leanings, since Cartesius.http://tinyurl.com/cceectkMats Winther> > >> > > >> > > > Mats,> > > >> > > > > > For me, Analytic(al) Psychology provides a rich set of concepts and tools> > > with which to organize and self-organize a novel and subjective vocabulary> > > and view about one's experience of meaningfulness in human context.> > > > > > You write:> > > > > > >> > > > But to say that "almost nothing of Analytical Psychology survives as an> > > > accurate framework for understanding human mental functioning" is an> > > > hideous underestimation of Jungian psychology.> > > >> > > Hideous?> > > > > > > > > > It has proved an extremely powerful method of understanding dreams,> > > > fairytales, myths, symbols, and religious phenomena. I find it immensely> > > > useful. Through learning Jungian psychology one can come to grips with the> > > > unconscious, and the emancipative effect it has on the conscious ego is> > > > inestimable.> > > >> > > I do not question the "use value" of what you term Jungian psychology.> > > > > > Inasmuch as the emancipative effect is reported, the value of using the> > > framework is demonstrated within the largely subjective domain where those> > > effects are encountered.> > > > > > The question raised, however, is: does all this understanding have to do> > > with the efficacious *belief* in the Jungian psychology, or, does it have> > > to do with the Jungian psychology itself being the correct model of human> > > mental functioning?> > > > > > For this question, of course, there is a single correct answer.> > > > > > regards,> > > > > > > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------> > > squareone-learning.com> > > squareone-learning.com/blog/> > > > > > the entire 'kit and kaboodle'> > > squareone-learning.com/blog/my-outposts/> > >> > > >>