OF JUNG'S PHILOPSYCHICAL TYPES
"Kant's Dreams of a Spirit Seer came just at the right moment, and soon I
also discovered Karl Duprel, who had evaluated these ideas philosophically
and psychologically. I...read seven volumes of Swedenborg.... The
clinical semesters that followed kept me so busy that scarcely any time
remained for my forays into outlying fields. I was able to study Kant only
on Sundays." -- C.G. Jung1
I. Jung's Kant: The Making of a Philopsycher
The unique contribution which Carl Jung made to man's
understanding of himself is still in the process of being digested by the
modern world. All too often Jung's work is regarded as solely that of a
psychologist, so that the philosophical underpinning of his entire life's
work tends to be ignored or misunderstood. This, like most mistakes in
interpreting the intentions of past masters, is largely Jung's own fault. For,
although he was acutely aware of the importance of his philosophical
training (see below), he often responded to criticisms (such as "you are
nothing but a mystic in psychological clothing!") by protesting that he was
nothing but an empirical scientist. This protest cannot be taken entirely
seriously, however, if we recognize the wide variety of interests and
methods which came under the view of Jung's critical eye. In this paper I
will take a first step towards demonstrating the extent of Jung's debt to
philosophy (and vice versa) by demonstrating the structural identity between
Kant's favorite twelvefold divisions (e.g. in his table of twelve categories)
and Jung's theory of psychological types.
When not defending himself against the charge of mysticism Jung
readily admitted that he saw himself not so much as merely a psychologist
in the ordinary sense of the word, but more as a "lover of the soul".2 Thus,
it is quite misleading to group Jung together with the likes of a Skinner or
any other experimental psychologists, who would hardly grace (or
disgrace!) their science with such an epithet. Indeed, it was precisely his
love of the soul which put Jung in a different category from the
psychological sciences, such as behaviorism, which claim to take a more
strictly "objective" stance. This difference, which motivated Jung to study
the soul from such a diversity of perspectives, makes him more like a
philosopher than many psychologists would want to allow into their own
territory. Yet neither can Jung accurately be called a philosopher in any
ordinary sense of that word, since his emphasis was indeed always focused
on an empirical understanding of the human soul. This ambiguity gives rise
to the need to name a new category, for which Jung's own self-description
gives us the best of clues. Jung's peculiar brand of "philosophical
psychology" can best be described as "soul-loving", which we can render
with the Greek word "philopsychy". Throughout this article I will therefore
adopt this new term, and refer to Jung as a "philopsycher". Hereafter, the
term "philopsycher" will refer to any person whose work is devoted to
"soul-loving", as an art which can be learned through an approach which
synthesizes methods in philosophy and psychology.
Jung's philopsychy is based directly on the philosophical system of
Immanuel Kant, and can therefore be regarded as its (empirical)
psychological complement.3 Although Jung never develops in great detail
the precise ways in which his ideas depend on or assume Kant's, he does
say on numerous occasions that in Kant he found a philosophical
foundation for his own intellectual development.4 Indeed, it was his
immersion in philosophy prior to and during his medical training which
Jung believed was ultimately responsible for the differences between his
own view of the soul and that of his materialist colleague, Sigmund Freud.5
Kant's "transcendental perspective"--i.e., his search for the
necessary conditions for the possibility of experience6--is adopted by Jung
and transformed into a method for describing the contents of the hidden
depths of the human soul. For Kant, the "a priori" is never something
which can be found, as such, in experience. That is, it cannot be observed
as an empirical object in nature, but is always real only in virtue of man's
making it real by reading it into the fabric of nature. The a priori is the
unseen basis of the unity of the diverse aspects of our ordinary experience.
What is rarely appreciated by readers of Jung is that the same concept of
apriority operates in most of his theories of the structure of the human soul.
In other words, when Jung claims to have discovered an "objective
psyche", or a "collective unconscious", he is not asserting the empirical
reality of such constructs, but rather is postulating the necessity of an
underlying (a priori) objectivity. Consequently, the statement that (for
instance) "every human being has a shadow-figure living in the
unconscious" should not be regarded as an empirically-verifiable or
falsifiable fact. No, its objectivity stems from its logical necessity.
Although Jung's claims that his theories are established as matters of
empirical fact may give the impression that he would object to this way of
characterizing the epistemological status of his philopsychical theories, he
does on occasion clearly demonstrate his recognition of their apriority.7 In
fact, their apriority, as we shall see in section III, explains why they are
invariably found in the psychic experiences of human persons.
Philopsychy is an empirical discipline, as Jung so regularly stressed,
yet it is not therefore an empirical science in the supposedly purely
"objective" sense in which the term "science" is often employed. Rather, it
is a discipline: empiricism which is fully conscious of the transcendental
(subjective) basis of its objectivity; and as such it is the perfect counterpart
of Kant's transcendental philosophy, with its fully conscious insistence
upon the equally important status of "empirical reality".8 Indeed, just as
one of the primary goals of Kant's transcendental philosophy is to
demonstrate the reality of the empirical world, so also one of the primary
goals of Jung's empirical philopsychy is to demonstrate the reality of an
unconscious (cf. transcendental) underpinning for the world of our ordinary
consciousness.
As I have argued elsewhere, the concept of the "architectonic" unity
of reason, as an a priori method of planning out the structure of a whole
system of philosophy, was of central importance to Kant. In the following
section I will therefore take a step back from Jung and investigate in some
detail just how Kant understood such patterns. Then, in the third section I
will demonstrate the surprising extent to which the same patterns can be
found permeating many aspects of Jung's philopsychy. Finally, in the
fourth section I will explain in more detail why the "philo" is necessary to
Jung's philopsychical system and how this necessity is related to Kant's
own (somewhat mystical) tendencies.
II. The Architectonic Logic of Kant's Categories
After briefly discussing the importance of the notion of
"architectonic" for interpreting Kant, I will begin this section9 by
introducing a method of "mapping" logical relations onto geometrical
figures with the same structure, which I have developed in more detail
elsewhere.10 As a prime example of Kant's use of architectonic reasoning,
I will then show how the resulting logical patterns can be used to explain the
inter-relationships between each of Kant's twelve categories, as well as the
rationale behind the whole idea of such a fixed table of necessary and
universal concepts. This will provide essential background information for
understanding the structure of Jung's typology in section III.
Kant's stress on the architectonic character of reason is often either
ignored or thoughtlessly rejected by his critics and commentators, who
assume that the architectonic plan only distorts the clarity of the valid
arguments which Kant develops in his Critical works. The distortion is
thought to be caused by Kant's supposed insistence upon forcing his
subject-matter to fit certain preconceived patterns. Thus, it is believed that
the true extent of the validity of Kant's arguments can be determined only
by freeing them from these plastic patterns.
What this common approach ignores, however, is that Kant's use of
an architectonic plan is an inseparable aspect of his a priori approach. In
other words, Kant's assertion that there are certain necessary conditions for
the possibility of any human experience just is the claim that human reason
operates in accordance with a fixed order. If reason fixes this order for us,
then philosophers ought to do their best to understand and follow this order
whenever they adopt the transcendental perspective in their philosophizing.
The major problem in interpreting Kant is, I believe, not that his love of
architectonic distorts his vision, but rather that he never explained in clear
and unambiguous terms just what this plan is. If, instead of undermining
the basis of the a priori approach at the outset, we concentrate on gaining a
deeper understanding of the rational structure of reason's architectonic plan-
-in other words, if we are able to make explicit what for Kant was always
only implicit--then I believe we will stand a far greater chance of
understanding what he was really trying to say. I will therefore devote a
major part of this section to an inquiry, independent of Kant's philosophy,
into the way in which the architectonic structure of human reason can be
seen to arise directly out of certain fundamental (fixed) "laws of thought".
Without a doubt, the most influential of all suggested "laws of
thought" down through the history of philosophy has been Aristotle's
famous "law of noncontradiction".11 This law can be stated in a wide
variety of different ways, but perhaps its most common informal version is:
"A thing cannot both be and not be in the same respect at the same time".
The formal versions of the same law are almost always expressed in
propositional terms, such as P --> ª(-P). (That is, if a proposition is true,
then it cannot be the case that its negation is also true.) An even simpler
version, however, can be derived by regarding the law as referring to the
bare relation between two concepts--in particular, between a concept (A)
and its opposite (-A). Aristotle's fundamental law of all consistent thinking
can then be expressed as A Ø -A, or (informally) "Black is not not black", "I
am not not I", etc. The simplest of all versions of this law would be one
which abstracts the furthest from all content (i.e. from the "formal content"
implied in any use of P to stand for any proposition or A to stand for any
concept). This can be done by merely removing the "A" from both sides of
the equation, thus leaving a kind of bare mathematical relation: + Ø -
(positivity is not negativity). Hereafter, whenever I refer to the "law of
noncontradiction", it is this latter version of the law which I will have in
mind.
The law of noncontradiction is the absolute formal basis of all
analytic reasoning. "Analysis" is essentially the process of dividing a thing,
or concept, or proposition into two opposite parts. For example, the
twenty-four hour period of time we call "one day" can be divided into
"daytime" and "not daytime" (or "nighttime"). Of course, most analysis,
both in philosophical and in ordinary discourse, does much more than
simply divide one idea into two subordinate categories. For instance, there
are certain times during the day when we hesitate to say whether it is
"daytime" or "nighttime"; and as a result, a further level of analytic division
is made between "dusk" and "dawn". Analyses of this type can and do go
on to form quite complex patterns of relations between groups of related
concepts.
An interesting and largely unexploited parallelism exists between
formal logic and the structure of certain simple geometrical figures [see note
10]. Taking advantage of this parallelism by using the figures as logical
"maps" can help us to gain a clear understanding of some of the more
intricate patterns of what I shall call "analytic relations".12 The simplest,
twofold analytic relation, as defined by the law of noncontradiction, can
best be mapped onto the two (equal and opposite) endpoint of a line
segment, as in Figure 1. This is what I will call a "first-level analytic
relation" (1LAR).
- --------------- + night --------------- day
(a) formal (b) informal
Figure 1: 1LAR, mapped onto a line segment13
On its own, of course, such a simple map is of no use, since it puts in a
simple form something which is already simple enough. However, the
same does not hold true when we apply the same principles to higher levels
of analytic relations.
For example, the second-level analytic relation (2LAR) can be
derived by performing a first-level analytic division on each side of a
simple, 1LAR--i.e. by splitting both the + and the - into opposites by
adding an additional + or - to each. This gives rise to four logical
combinations of terms:14 --, -+, +-, ++. The new level can be mapped by
adding a line segment perpendicular to the one which appears in Figure 1.
Accordingly, in Figure 2 the first term in each combination represents the
line segment itself in its relation to the other line segment, whereas the
second term represents the opposition between the two endpoints of the line
segment segment in question.
++ day
³ ³
³ ³
³ ³
-+ -------Å------- -- dawn -------Å------- night
³ ³
³ ³
³ ³
+- dusk
(a) formal (b) informal
Figure 2: 2LAD, mapped onto a cross15
Thus, as we can see, an entirely new set of relations is created. We can call
++ and -- the "pure" or "primary" combinations, while +- and -+ can be
called the "impure" or "secondary" combinations. If we were to map a
1LAR (e.g. +/-, day/night or dawn/dusk) onto this 2LAR, it would appear
as a diagonal line in the upper right (primary) or lower left (secondary)
quadrants of the figure.
A 2LAR exists whenever two sets of yes-or-no questions are asked
side by side. For example, if we want to know what the weather is like
outside, we might ask "Is it raining?" and "Is the sun shining?", to which
there will be four possible combinations of answers:
++ Yes it is raining, and yes the sun is shining.
+- Yes it is raining, but no the sun is not shining.
-+ No it is not raining, but yes the sun is shining.
-- No it is not raining, and no the sun is not shining.
If the combinations in such an analytic relation represent real possibilities,
then I call such a relation "perfect". If one or more combinations describes
an impossible situation, the resulting relation is called "imperfect". (The
above example is a perfect 2LAR, because all four possibilities sometimes
occur in the real world: ++ in this example is rare, but it occurs whenever a
rainbow appears.)
Because any true 2LAR can be regarded as arising out of two sets of
yes-or-no questions, any time we map four concepts which we believe are
related together in this way, we should be able to specify their logical
relationships by defining them in terms of two sets of contrasting words.
Thus, the above example could be the solution to the 2LAR representing all
possible weather situations, as depicted in Figure 3.
rainbow
(raining, sunny)
³
³
³
sunny -------Å------- overcast
(not raining, ³ (not raining,
sunny) ³ not sunny)
³
normal rain
(raining, not sunny)
Figure 3: The weather, mapped onto a 2LAR cross
Indeed, one of the greatest values of mapping analytic relations in this way
is that it forces us to uncover the logical patterns which actually underlie the
relationships we thought we understood between familiar concepts.
Sometimes, when we attempt to do this, we find that the concepts we
thought were related are not in fact related, or not related as simply as we
had believed.
The process of twofold division can be carried on indefinitely to
higher and higher levels of analytic relations, each of which can be
represented by a more and more complex combination of +'s and -'s, which
in turn can be mapped onto more and more intricate geometrical figures.
The formal apparatus adopted above can be used to express such higher
levels by repeatedly dividing each of the previous level's combinations into
two parts, and labelling each new part with additional + or -. Accordingly,
the formula for deriving the number of terms and combinations for any level
of analytic relation is quite simple:
C = 2t,
where "C" refers to the total number of possible combinations of terms;
and "t" refers to the total number of terms in each combination. (Note that
"t" is also identical to the level of analytic relation under question.)
Thus, for example, the ancient Chinese book of wisdom, the I Ching, is
based on a "sixth-level analytic relation", and so it contains 64 different
combinations of possible situations. But of all types of analytic relation,
2LAR is probably the most important, and the most frequently occurring in
philosophical arguments. It is, in fact, the only type of analytic relation
needed to understand Kant's table of twelve categories. Therefore, it will
not be necessary to discuss the higher levels here.
Before applying 2LAR to Kant's table, it will be necessary to draw
attention to another, quite different type of logical relation. Analytic
relations are based, as I have explained, on Aristotle's law of
noncontradiction. Indeed, the whole system of modern logic in its
conventional form is based on this most abstract of all analytic laws.
(Hence, I will refer to conventional logic as "analytic logic".) Many,
perhaps most, philosophers assume a kind of absolute validity for this law:
"Nobody will disagree that A and non-A are simultaneously
impossible".16a However, not all thinkers--not even all philosophers--have
agreed with this consensus (Aristotelian) view that words can carry a
meaning only if they are noncontradictory. Heraclitus, for example, took as
a first principle of his philosophy the notion that "Opposites are the
same".16b Moreover, the self-contradictory statements which can be found
in the Scriptures of every major world religion are taken by many people to
have a very profound meaning.17
How can any statement be meaningful if it breaks the fundamental
law of thought? The full answer to this question would require an entire
treatise on metaphysics. For our present purposes a rather dogmatic answer
must suffice. The law of noncontradiction must be regarded not as the
fundamental law of all thought, but rather, as laying the foundation for one
type of thought, namely, the type which is the subject-matter of analytic
logic. If apparently contradictory expressions can in fact carry some
meaning, then they must do so by depending on some other type of logic. I
will refer to this "logic of paradox" as synthetic logic.
Since contradictions are not forbidden in synthetic logic, there is
actually no way to talk coherently about it, except in terms of its analytic
(consistent) counterpart. Trying to describe synthetic logic on its own terms
would give rise to a totally unintelligible bundle of contradictions which
would not be anchored in anything concrete. The best way to talk about
synthetic logic is to regard it as the opposite of analytic logic. So if analytic
logic is based on the law of noncontradiction (+ Ø -), then synthetic logic
must be based on the law of contradiction, which we can express as + = -.
Likewise, just as the analytic law of noncontradiction is closely related to
the law of identity, + = +, so also the synthetic law of contradiction is
closely related to the law of non-identity, + Ø -. These four laws actually
form a perfect 2LAR, so they can be mapped onto a cross, as in Figure 4.
+ = +
(analytic, identity)
³
³
³
+ Ø + -------Å------- + = -
(synthetic, ³ (synthetic,
nonidentity) ³ contradiction)
³
+ Ø -
(analytic, noncontradiction)
Figure 4: The four laws of logic, mapped onto a 2LAR cross
The two questions which give rise to this 2LAR are: "Is the law concerned
with defining the nature of contradiction (i.e. does it refer to both a + and a
-)?" and "Is the law synthetic?"
Because synthetic relations do not obey the laws of analytic logic,
they cannot simply be mapped straightforwardly onto line segments, the
way analytic relations can be. Moreover, synthesis is not a process of
division, or opposition at all, but a process of combination or integration.
Consequently, it takes a minimum of three terms to describe a synthetic
relation. If we again use analytic logic as a basis, then this threefold
process can be described as the process whereby a pair of opposites (+ and
-) are regarded as the same--that is, the two are synthesized into one whole.
If we choose the symbol "x" to represent this paradoxical third step, then
we can conveniently map a first-level synthetic relation (1LSR) onto a
triangle, as in Figure 5.
+
³
³
³ x
³
³
-
Figure 5: 1LSR, mapped onto a triangle18
Like analytic relations, synthetic relations can be combined with each
other to produce higher levels of logical relations. For synthetic relations,
the formula which determines the number of terms and combinations at each
level is:
C = 3t
However, for our present purposes only 1LSR is relevant. In fact, it is
mainly relevant not on its own, but in combinations with 2LAR.
If each combination in the 2LAR is viewed as arising out of a prior
1LSR, then an interesting, twelvefold pattern arises. The twelve new
combinations can be derived by adding a third term (-, +, x, in succession)
to each of the four combinations in the 2LAR.
--- -+- +-- ++-
--+ -++ +-+ +++
--x -+x +-x ++x
This pattern, which can best be pictured by mapping it onto a circle, turns
out to be precisely the pattern used by Kant in his table of categories and by
Jung in his theory of types. Figure 6(a) uses the circumference, and Figure
6(b) uses the area of a circle to depict this important "twelvefold compound
relation" (12CR).19 (Note that the quadrants now represent the original
2LAR. And in order to derive all twelve combinations from a set of
questions, we would need to add a third, "yes, no, or yes-and-no",
question to the two "yes or no" questions from which the 2LAR is derived.)
After this brief inquiry into the architectonic structure of reason, let us
therefore examine the extent to which it can shed some light on Kant's
logic, and particularly on his theory of the Categories.
With a few broad strokes of the pen, and some argument, Kant
offers in Chapter I of the Analytic of Concepts [CPR 91-116] a "Clue to the
Discovery of All Pure Concepts of the Understanding", which contains
some of the most daring (and apparently illegitimate) declarations of
certainty which are to be found in the entire corpus of his writing. Because
of the scarcity of detailed argument, combined with the boldness of the
assertions, his entire theory has often been the object of scoffing and/or
outright rejection by his readers. Even those Kantian scholars who
recognize the potential value of establishing the categorial character of
human thought usually give all their attention to Chapter II, where Kant
provides a rigorous (and more sober) "Deduction of the Pure Concepts of
Understanding" [CPR 116-169 and A84-130]. However, almost invariably
included along with their praise of Kant's general idea of necessary
categories of thought is a rejection of the notion that these categories are in
any way universally fixed. One example will be enough to show the way in
which the falsity of Kant's table of twelve categories is usually dogmatically
assumed with no argument whatsoever: "It goes without saying that we
must not rigidly limit the number of categories, as Kant did, or assume the
classification of judgments to be complete.... Such a rigid symmetry is
artificial and does not reflect the true state of things."20
Although some of Kant's proud claims are indeed too brash,
especially considering the inadequacy of his defence, they are not for that
reason necessarily incorrect or unjustifiable. On the contrary, once they are
viewed from the proper perspective, and thereby related to the architectonic
structure of reason, I believe they can be defended almost in their entirety.
Kant's mistake was not to suggest that reason provides us with a fixed form
of categorial concepts, but rather it was to think that a mere "Clue to the
Discovery" of that form would be sufficient to convince the reader of the
point he was trying to make. Rather than a mere clue, he should have
provided a precise explanation of the architectonic relationships between the
different categories he proposed. The remainder of this section is my
attempt to fill that gap in Kant's System.
According to Kant, human thinking is limited primarily in two ways.
First, the law of noncontradiction determines the necessary form of all
human thinking. Thus, when he says "the highest principle of all analytic
judgments...is that they be not self-contradictory" [CPR 189], he is
agreeing with the view I put forward above, that this law is the basis of all
analytic logic. But this law does nothing to limit the content of thinking as
such. Recognizing this important fact (a fact Aristotle did not fully
appreciate), Kant begins the next section by saying:
The explanation of the possibility of synthetic judgments is a problem with
which general [i.e. analytic] logic has nothing to do. It need not even so
much as know the problem by name. But in transcendental logic it is the
most important of all questions; and indeed, ...it is the only question with
which it is concerned. [CPR 193]
He then explains that the relation between a concept and an intuition (i.e. a
synthetic relation) is "never a relation either of identity or of
[non]contradiction" [194]. Unfortunately, he stops short of generalizing
this fact into a set of laws of "synthetic logic", as I have done.
Nevertheless, this explicit rejection of the two basic laws of analytic logic as
principles of synthesis clearly indicates that, had he attempted to formulate
precise logical laws for synthetic relations, he would have chosen the
negation of the analytic laws, as I have done above. Instead, he suggests
that "the highest principle of all synthetic judgments" is "the possibility of
experience", which "gives objective reality to all our a priori modes of
knowledge."21 The a priori modes, or conditions, of knowledge he is
thinking of here are, in fact, the twelve categories. So the second way in
which human thinking is limited is that its content is limited by the general
conditions of knowledge which Kant calls categories. And this means
Kant's theory of the categories must be interpreted in terms of synthetic
logic, and not in terms of analytic logic, as has almost always been done in
the past.
Our first conclusion about Kant's Table of Categories, then, is that
Kant's cocksure attitude towards its completeness is not (or at least, ought
not to be) based on the certainty of the specific choices he has made to
describe each category, but rather on the appropriateness of the pattern
which, as he discovered, does indeed necessarily arise when analytic and
synthetic relations are seen in combination (as they always must be in order
for knowledge to arise). Thus, when Kant boldly claims that his Table of
Categories lists "all original pure concepts of synthesis that the
understanding contains within itself a priori" [CPR 106], we should not
assume that he is refusing to consider any minor changes in the details of
his list. On the contrary, he explains his confidence by referring
immediately to the fact that his list "is developed systematically from a
common principle...not...rhapsodically, as the result of a haphazard search
after pure concepts" [106]. Whereas Aristotle based his enumeration of
categories "on induction only", and could therefore never hope to reach
absolute certainty, Kant explains that he has adopted an entirely different (a
priori) procedure--namely, the procedure which he describes in the Doctrine
of Method as "architectonic" [see CPR 860-879]. If Kant's claim to have
arrived at an absolutely valid Table of Categories were intended to refer to
his description of their content, then it would be unforgivable for him to
pass over any accurate description by saying "In this treatise, I purposely
omit the definitions of the categories" [108]! Yet he does excuse himself in
this way, adding that "The divisions are provided; all that is required is to
fill them" [109]. Here Kant seems to leave no doubt that the certainty of his
conclusion is not based on the content of his table, but on its form. This
indeed is the "clue" Kant is giving in the first chapter of the Analytic of
Concepts: the a priori categorization of all possible knowledge takes place
in accordance with a fixed, twelvefold pattern. When this is recognized, his
failure to give a detailed description of each category loses its force as a
criticism of his argument in this chapter. No proof of the content is
intended in this chapter--that is a task which is left for chapter II of the
Analytic of Principles. Unfortunately, the misunderstanding of this point
has led to no end of unjustified criticism of Kant's position.
[note?] The justified criticism is that Kant did not explain in much
detail the actual structure of his Table of Categories, or the exact ways in
which his own choices fit into the desired pattern. Fortunately, he does
give enough hints so that a more or less complete account of the
architectonic basis of his Table can be given.
Presumably, if someone wished to fill the form provided by Kant's
Table of Categories with content which differs from Kant's own
descriptions, he would not have objected too strongly, as long as the same
"divisions" were preserved. [Note his willingness to accept suggestions for
better terminology.] This does not imply, however, that Kant was
uninterested in the detailed content of his particular choices of categories.
On the contrary, when it comes to applying the categories to the world of
experience, Kant (though not quite as systematically complete) is at the peak
of his argumentative rigor. Let us therefore turn our attention now to the
details of his theory. Assessing the actual validity of Kant's choice for each
of the twelve categories is beyond the scope of this paper [but see
Ellington...]. Instead, what I intend to do in the remainder of this section is
simply to examine the extent to which Kant's choices actually can meet the
rigorous demands of the 12CR pattern which I have described above.
Kant explains in CPR 110 that his Table of Categories "contains
four classes" (each containing three categories), and that these "may...be
divided into two groups; those in the first group being concerned with
objects of intuition..., those in the second group with the existence of these
objects..." The former he calls "mathematical" and the latter "dynamical"
[see also CPR 199-202]. The mathematical categories are classified under
the headings of "quantity" and "quality", while the dynamical categories are
classified under the headings of "relation" and "modality". Although he
does not clearly point out the formal difference between the two classes in
each main division, we can see from his descriptions of them that they
involve a distinction between "inner" and "outer". (Quantity is "outer
magnitude" and quality is "inner magnitude"; relation is the "outer" relation
of objects to each other and modality is their "inner" relation to the knowing
subject.) Once we recognize these distinctions, we can see that Kant's
Table of Categories is based on a perfect 2LAR, as shown in Figure 7.
relation
(experiential, outer)
³
³
³
quantity -------Å------- quality
(intuitive, ³ (intuitive,
outer) ³ inner)
³
modality
(experiential, inner)
Figure 7: The four classes of categories, mapped onto a 2LAR cross
The two questions out of which this 2LAR arise can be expressed as
follows: "Is the concept based on an experienced object (as opposed to
intuition alone)?" and "Does the concept describe an external (as opposed to
internal) aspect of the given object (or intuition)?" So at its most basic level,
Kant's theory of the categories boils down to the claim that every human
concept which is to produce knowledge must contain within it an implicit
answer to these two questions. This has nothing it do with analytic logic as
such, but is the foundation of Kant's understanding of the basic law of
synthetic logic.
Despite popular consensus to the contrary, the notions mapped onto
Figure 7 are not themselves categories, but classes of categories. The
categories themselves are the twelve subordinate notions which arise when
each of these four are regarded as arising out of a prior synthesis. Kant
gives a brief explanation of how this comes about. I will follow his
account, filling in the gaps where necessary.
The three categories of quantity are "unity", "plurality" and
"totality"....
The three categories of quality are "reality", "negation" and
"limitation"....
The three categories of relation can best be expressed in pairs as
"substance and accident", "cause and effect" and "agent and patient"....
The three categories of modality, also expressed in pairs, are
"possibility and impossibility", "existence and non-existence" and
"necessity and contingency"....
NOTES
1. C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections [hereafter MDR], tr. R. and
C. Winston (London: Fontana Paperbacks, 1983 [1961]), pp.120,122.
2. (Clift, p. ix.)
3. Kant was careful to distinguish between the "transcendental psychology"
which he develops in the Critique of Pure Reason [hereafter CPR] and the
usual "empirical" sort, with which Kant himself was not directly concerned.
Many of the criticisms of Kant's "psychologism" are based on the entirely
incorrect assumption that by "psychology" he means empirical psychology.
(But see CPR ....)
4. In MDR, for example, Jung describes how his "philosophical
development extended from my seventeenth year until well into the period
of my medical studies" [89]. After describing the insights he gained from
his study of Schopenhauer, Jung explains that through his study of Kant's
first Critique he "discovered the fundamental flaw...in Schopenhauer's
system. He had committed the deadly sin of hypostatising a metaphysical
assertion... I got this from Kant's theory of knowledge, and it afforded me
even greater illumination, if that were possible, than Schopenhauer's
'pessimistic' view of the world." Even though his formal education "was
thoroughly saturated with the scientific materialism of the time", he notes
that this tendency was inwardly "held in check by the evidence of history
and by Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, which apparently nobody in my
environment understood" [92].
5. He makes this statement in a BBC interview shortly before his death.
Parts of the interview are presented in the three part film series "The Story
of C.G. Jung". See also MDR ??.
6. I provide a detailed description of Kant's transcendental perspective,
together with its counterparts, the empirical, logical and practical
perspectives, in "Knowledge and Experience: An Examination of the Four
Reflective 'Perspectives' in Kant's Critical Philosophy", Kant-Studien 78.2
(1987), pp.170-200.
7. [Note on Jung's awareness of the apriority of his theories.]
8. As Kant says in CPR ??? his "transcendental idealism" is at the same time
an "empirical realism". (see KSP note in ch.5?)
9. An earlier version of the argument presented in this section can be found
in sections III and IV of "The Architectonic Form of Kant's Copernican
Logic" [hereafter "AFKCL"], Metaphilosophy 17.4 (October 1986),
pp.266-288. In the footnotes to this section, I will explain several respects
in which the present version is superior to the previous one. As a whole,
the present article can be regarded as a kind of Jungian sequel to its
predecessor.
10. The implications of this method of "mapping" logical relations onto
geometrical figures with a corresponding structure are worked out in
considerable detail, and applied to numerous patterns used in philosophy as
well as a number of other disciplines, in The Geometry of Logic [hereafter,
GL] (manuscript in preparation).
11. This law is usually called the "law of contradiction", presumably
because it denies the possibility of contradictory statements both being true.
The name I have adopted has the advantage of describing the positive side
of the law: it defines the basic requirement for consistency. My reasons for
choosing the latter will become obvious shortly.
12. In "AFKCL" I use the term "division", because that is the word Kant
uses in his important footnote on p.197 of Critique of Judgment. In
synthesis, however, terms are not being divided, but combined; therefore
"relation" can serve as a more general term to refer to the formal structure of
both analytic division and synthetic combination (or integration, as I call it
in GL).
13. The relative position of the - and + on such maps is purely a matter of
convention. I have followed the rule, whenever possible, of placing the +
to the right or on top of the -, because of the associations most people have
with "top" and "right" being stronger, or more positive, than "bottom" and
"left". However, a different set of rules could just as easily be chosen,
without affecting the essential nature or value of the maps, which are
themselves merely tools for visualizing logical relations.
14. I will use "term" to denote any single occurrence of a + or -. The word
"combination" will refer to any set of (one or more) terms which is used to
represent one part of a logical relation. In "AFKCL" the word "variable"
was used instead of "combination", and the word "expression" was
suggested in a footnote as a possible alternative. But "variable" could be
taken (incorrectly) to imply that the logical status of each set of terms can
vary, when in fact it is fixed. And "expression" could be taken (incorrectly)
to imply that each set of terms expresses some fixed meaning, when in fact
it is an entirely abstract representation of a mathematical possibility.
Although "combination" is sometimes rather awkward, I think it is
preferable to these alternatives.
15. In "AFKCL" 277 I map the second-level analytic relation onto the cross
by putting "+-" at the three o'clock position, "-+" at six o'clock, and "--" at
nine o'clock. I have since adopted the convention of beginning at three
o'clock with the negative ("--") and proceeding clockwise through "+-" and
"-+" to the positive ("++") at twelve o'clock.
16a. V.YA. Perminov, "On the Nature of Logical Norms", Philosophia
Mathematica II.3.i (1988), p.37.
16b. F. Magill (ed.), Masterpieces of World Philosophy ( : , ), p.12-13.
17. I am thinking here of statements such as the following: "the ten
thousand things are one" and "right is not right" (Taoism); "He who sees
inaction in action and action in inaction, he is wise (Hinduism); "the
phenomena of life are not real phenomena" (Buddhism); "I and the Father
are one" and "you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Christianity); etc.
18. My description of the form of a simple synthetic relation in "AFKCL"
280, as based on an eightfold pattern of three-term expressions, is actually
best regarded as describing the form of a third-level analytic relation.
However, the idea of deriving the twelvefold form of a compound relation
from an 8+4 pattern was correct. The mistake I made in "AFKCL" was to
regard the eight three-term expressions as synthetic simply because they
each contain three terms. Nevertheless, "AFKCL" correctly explains that
the synthetic (threefold) aspect comes from combining pairs of opposites in
the eightfold pattern to produce the fourfold pattern. In other words,
although the eight three-term expressions themselves are not synthetic, the
(4+4)+4 pattern as a whole does contain four separate (threefold) synthetic
relations. I have now attempted to make this more clear by introducing "x"
as the third term in each expression of a compound relation. In "AFKCL" I
simply left off the third term in the four expressions derived from the
synthetic operation. Taken together, these two factors explain why Figure 5
in "AFKCL" 281 looks so different from Figure ? in this section. The two
diagrams are actually based on the same formal structure, but the order and
clarity of the symbolism is far less ambiguous in the present model.
19. The interrelationships and sub-patterns within a 12CR are examined in
detail in GL, ch.6. The ways in which this pattern can be see operating in
Kant's Critical System are explored in my forthcoming book, Kant's
System of Perspectives (Oxford University D.Phil. thesis, 1987),
chs.7,8,11.
20. V.YA. Perminov, "On the Nature of Logical Norms", Philosophia
Mathematica II.3.i (1988), p.48. A good example of a Kantian who fits
this bill is P.F. Strawson, who states that "..." (The Bounds of Sense
(London: Methuen, 19 ), p.4?).
21. CPR 193,195. It is interesting to note that in his description of this
basic law of synthetic relations, Kant several times comes very close to
saying that it implies what can be conceptualized only in contradictory
terms. Thus, when he says "in synthetic judgments I have to advance
beyond the given concept [+], viewing as in relation [=] with the concept
something altogether different [-] from what was thought in it" [193-194],
he seems to be implying that synthesis requires the union of opposites.
This is made even more evident when he explains that two concepts can be
synthesized only through the mediation of "a third something", something
"given", immediately in intuition [194-195]. But perhaps the best example
is when he describes this principle of synthetic relations in explicitly
paradoxical terms: "experience, as empirical synthesis [i.e. as the law of
synthetic logic (+ = -)], is...the one species of knowledge which is capable
of imparting [empirical] reality [+] to any non-empirical [-] synthesis"
[196].
22.