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Are archetypes transmitted or emergent? A response to Christian Roesler
Author(s) -
MartinVallas François
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of analytical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.285
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1468-5922
pISSN - 0021-8774
DOI - 10.1111/1468-5922.12010
Subject(s) - archetype , psychic , epistemology , argument (complex analysis) , philosophy , psychoanalysis , psychology , theology , medicine , biochemistry , chemistry , alternative medicine , pathology
In this paper the author argues that Jung's concept of archetype should not be reduced to an univocal definition. Jung himself proposed many definitions of this concept, some of them being partially or totally contradictory to others. A univocal and logical way of thinking can lead us to refute and reject part of those definitions, but a complex way of thinking, as proposed by Edgar Morin or Roy Bhaskar for example, can allow us to consider that those apparent contradictions in Jung's definitions of archetype reflect the complexity of the psychic reality. The main argument of the author is that Jung was missing the epistemological concept of emergence (which appeared in science at the time of his death) and that he tried to express it with the epistemological concepts of his time.