1.Carl Jung on Emmanuel Kant – Anthology

Carl Jung on Emmanuel Kant – Anthology

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Today we are convinced that in all fields of knowledge psychological premises exist which exert a decisive influence upon the choice of material, the method of investigation, the nature of the conclusions, and the formulation of hypotheses and theories. We have even come to believe that Kant’s personality was a decisive conditioning factor of his Critique of Pure Reason.

Not only our philosophers, but our own predilections in philosophy, and even what we are fond of calling our “best” truths are affected, if not dangerously undermined, by this recognition of a personal premise. All creative freedom, we cry out, is taken away from us! What? Can it be possible that a man only thinks or says or does what he himself is} ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 150

The use of dream-analysis in psychotherapy is still a much-debated question. Many practitioners find it indispensable in the treatment of neuroses and consider that the dream is a function whose psychic importance is equal to that of the conscious mind itself. Others, on the contrary, dispute the value of dream-analysis and regard dreams as a negligible by-product of the psyche. Obviously, if a person holds the view that the unconscious plays a decisive part in the aetiology of neuroses, he will attribute a high practical importance to dreams as direct expressions of the unconscious.

Equally obviously, if he denies the unconscious or at least thinks it aetiologically insignificant, he will minimize the importance of dream-analysis. It might be considered regrettable that in this year of grace 1931, more than half a century after Carus formulated the concept of the unconscious, more than a century after Kant spoke of the “illimitable field of obscure ideas,” and nearly two hundred years after Leibniz postulated an unconscious psychic activity, not to mention the achievements of Janet, Flournoy, Freud, and many more- that after all this, the actuality of the unconscious should still be a matter for controversy.

But, since it is my intention to deal exclusively with practical questions, I will not advance in this place an apology for the unconscious, although our special problem of dream-analysis stands or falls with such an hypothesis. Without it, the dream is a mere freak of nature, a meaningless conglomeration of fragments left over from the day. Were that really so, there would be no excuse for the present discussion.

We cannot treat our theme at all unless we recognize the unconscious, for the avowed aim of dream-analysis is not only to exercise our wits, but to uncover and realize those hitherto unconscious contents which are considered to be of importance in the elucidation or treatment of a neurosis. Anyone who finds this hypothesis unacceptable must simply rule out the question of the applicability of dream-analysis. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Para 294

Hegel seems to me a romantic thinker in contrast to Kant and hence a typical child of his time; and as a romantic he is already on the way to psychology. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 194

Kant’s categorical imperative is of course a philosophical touching up of a psychic fact which, as you have quite correctly seen, is unquestionably a manifestation of the anima. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 305.

It seems to me that transcendental judgments of the intellect are absolutely impossible and therefore vacuous. But in spite of Kant and epistemology they crop up again and again and can evidently not be suppressed. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 249.

In the intellectual world in which I grew up, Hegelian thought played no role at all; on the contrary, it was Kant and his epistemology on the one hand, and on the other straight materialism, which I never shared, knowing too much about its ridiculous mythology. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 501

The philosophical influence that has prevailed in my education dates from Plato, Kant, Schopenhauer, Ed. v. Hartmann and Nietzsche. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 500.

Kant himself emphasises that God, the Highest Being, is in no way affected by what we know about him. So the Yogin analyses what he knows about Buddha and takes the last word in the Mantra: “Aham” for this purpose. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 13Jan1939, Page 55.

The great question was, is there a non-ego, is there something that can pull me out of the isolation-in-the-ego of the Kantian world picture. ~Carl Jung, C.G. Jung Speaking; Interviews and Encounters, Pages 205-218

I assume that Evans is bristling with resistances against my psychological point of view because, as every true Easterner, he believes that he has produced an eternal truth, but, with the whole of the East, he has, of course, never heard of a theory of cognition and of Immanuel Kant, just as little as the Catholic Church. ~Carl Jung, Jung-Kirsch Letters, Page 179

“Morality is always paramount. It is the holy and inviolable thing which we must protect, and it is also the reason and purpose of all our speculations and inquiries. All metaphysical speculations are directed to this end. God and the other world are the sole goal of all our philosophical investigations, and if the concepts of God and the other world had nothing to do with morality, they would be worthless.”  ~Carl Jung, Citing Kant, Zofingia Lectures, Para 68

The third ally I will cite is our great master Immanuel Kant, the sage and prophet of Konigsberg who has, not unjustly, been called the last philosopher.  ~Carl Jung, Zofingia Lectures, Para 77

One hundred years ago, Kant in his lectures on metaphysics, in Part Two of the rational psychology, stated: “We can conceive of spirits only as problematic entities, i.e., we can cite no a priori cause to reject their existence.”  ~Carl Jung, Zofingia Lectures, Para 78

“I confess that I am strongly inclined to assert the existence of immaterial natures in the world, and to class my own soul among these beings.”  ~Carl Jung Citing Kant, Zofingia Lectures, Para 79

Kant says: “It appears that an intellectual being is intimately present with the matter to which it is joined, and that it does not act upon those forces by which the elements relate to each other but rather upon the inner principle of their state.”  ~Carl Jung, Zofingia Lectures, Para 86

“Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why, long after nature has emancipated them from the governance of others, such a large proportion of people are quite content never to grow up all their lives.”  ~Carl Jung citing Kant, Zofingia Lectures, Para 110

In research we are completely dependent on the empirical method, just as we are in our practical everyday lives .Intuition does not have the power to convince the critical mind, any more than theoretical considerations can show us how to deal with practical situations. ~Carl Jung citing Kant, Zofingia Lectures, Para 113

A classic example of clairvoyance, which has been authenticated by reliable historical sources, is cited by Kant in his letter about Swedenborg, to Fraulein Charlotte von Knobloch. ~Carl Jung, Zofingia Lectures, Para 129

And people do show what fools they are when they use Kant’s ideas to attack the spiritualists, when Kant himself said: “It will be demonstrated in the future, I know not where or when-that even in this life the human soul dwells in an indissoluble communion with all the immaterial natures of the spirit world, alternately affecting these natures and receiving impressions from them …. “! ~Carl Jung, Zofingia Lectures, Para 106-107

Elsewhere Kant states:

“All these immaterial natures, I say, regardless of whether or not they exercise their influence in the corporeal world; all rational beings which happen to exist in an animal state, whether here on earth or on other heavenly bodies, regardless of whether they animate the raw stuff of matter now, will do so in the future, or have done so in the past, would, by these terms, exist in a communion suitable to their nature, not determined by those conditions which limit the relations of corporeal entities, and in which the distances separating places and times, that in the visible world create a vast gulf abolishing all communion, simply disappear.

Accordingly it would be necessary to regard the human soul as already, in this present life, linked with two worlds of which, it being joined in personal union with a body, it clearly perceives only the material; whereas on the other hand, as a member of the spirit world, it receives the pure influences of immaterial natures and distributes these influences in turn, so that as soon as its union with the body has ended, nothing remains but the communion in which it continually dwells with spiritual natures, and which must reveal itself to consciousness as an object

of clear contemplation.”  Finally, in a third passage, casting his prophetic gaze far beyond his own age, Kant states: “Accordingly it has in effect been demonstrated, or could easily be demonstrated if we took a broad view or better yet, it will be demonstrated in the future, I know not where or when-that even in this life the human soul dwells in an indissoluble communion with all the immaterial natures of the spirit world, alternately affecting these natures and receiving from them impressions of which, in its human nature, it is not conscious as long as all goes well.” ~Carl Jung, Zofingia Lectures, Para 80-81