Kant's Categories and Jung's Types as Perspectival Maps To Stimulate Insight in a Counseling Session Stephen R. Palmquist, Ph.D. Stephen R. Palmquist, D.Phil. (Oxon), is presently a visiting scholar in the Department of Philosophy at Stanford University. Email address: stevepq@stanford.edu Abstract: After coining the term "philopsychy" to describe a "soul-loving" approach to philosophical practice, especially when it welcomes a creative synthesis of philosophy and psychology, this article identifies a system of geometrical figures (or "maps") that can be used to stimulate reflection on various types of perspectival differences. The maps are part of the author's previously established mapping methodology, known as the Geometry of Logic. As an illustration of how philosophy can influence the development of psychology, Immanuel Kant's table of twelve categories and Carl Jung's theory of psychological types are shown to share a common logical structure. Just as Kant proposes four basic categories, each expressed in terms of three subordinate categories, Jung proposes four basic personality functions, each having three possible manifestations. The concluding section presents four scenarios illustrating how such maps can be used in philosophical counseling sessions to stimulate philopsychic insight. 1. Philopsychy and Map-Making as Tools for Shaping Perspectives Contemporary philosophy and psychology share a common heritage. Both stem from the older discipline of classical (pre-Kantian) philosophy. Whereas classical philosophy included psychology and was motivated by a life-long search for self-knowledge (as epitomized by the maxim, 'Know thyself'), nowadays philosophy and psychology are generally regarded as distinct disciplines, often having very limited aims, such as the objective study of language and behavior, respectively. Such attempts to render philosophy and psychology scientific are laudable and worthy of pursuit, as long as practitioners do not regard their approach as excluding a more subjective approach that focuses on practical applications-an exclusion all too often recommended by prominent members of both disciplines. The past two centuries have witnessed an important, and I believe inevitable, rupturing of philosophy, with the fragments producing numerous new sciences, such as analytic philosophy and behavioural psychology. Fruitful as these approaches may be, we must not allow them to eclipse the classical understanding of 2 philosophy and psychology as modes of self-knowledge. I am not suggesting here that we go backward in time to a 'golden age', but that we press on to a new level of understanding by recognizing how philosophy and psychology, as distinct disciplines, can work together to help us understand who we are. With this renewed call to scholarly self-understanding in mind, I have coined the term 'philopsychy' to denote a specific approach to philosophical practice (or to scholarship of any type, but especially when it is applied to philosophical and/or psychological topics). The word 'philopsychy' is a hybrid, composed of the first syllable of the words 'philosophy' and 'psychology'. These two syllables come from the Greek words meaning 'love' (or friendship) and 'soul'. Philopsychy, therefore, is essentially a soul-loving approach to any scholarly issue. I take 'soul-loving' to imply a variety of guidelines for how we carry out our scholarly work. For instance, persons should be more important than principles. Likewise, theories and other truth claims should not be torn apart and left in a state of shambles, merely to demonstrate one's logical rigour; instead, recognizing the tentative, subjective nature of all meaningful truth, philopsychers will reject a proposed truth-claim only as and when they have a better ones to put in its place. The most fundamental philopsychic maxim is that scholarship should be done in the service of the twin virtues of self-knowledge and shared insight. The virtue of self-knowledge comes from the classical 'Know thyself' maxim. The virtue of shared insight includes the realization not only that our own insight is to be deeply rooted in the insights of our tradition (a point often neglected by analytic philosophers), but also that the experience of having an insight carries with it the responsibility of sharing that insight with others. In this essay I shall illustrate how philopsychy works by examining two well-known theories, as proposed by one early modern philosopher, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), and one early modern psychologist, Carl Jung (1775-1961)-two scholars whose work was in many ways 3 philopsychic. Before doing this, however, I would like to make one further point about how I believe philopsychy is best carried out. In order for our soul-loving to be authentic, we must recognize that the soul has and gives a structure. This structure gives rise on the one hand to the discipline we call 'logic', and on the other hand to an amazing ability human beings have to see one and the same experience in a variety of distinct (and equally valid) ways. I use the word 'perspective' as a technical term to describe a logically distinct way of interpreting a given experience. The goal of sharing philopsychic insights in any discipline, therefore, will always be related in some way to the clarification of perspectives. In The Road Less Traveled, M. Scott Peck (1978, pp.49,45) describes psychotherapy as 'a process of map-revising', explaining that 'the biggest problem of map-making is ... that if our maps are to be accurate we have to continually revise them.' This dual insight applies not only to good psychotherapy, but also to any attempt to do philosophy or psychology that is to be philopsychic, whether it be in a counselor's office or in a classroom. Indeed, as a university teacher attempting to guide students through difficult philosophical or psychological theories, or when discussing more personal issues with them outside of class, I frequently use diagrams to clarify the conceptual relations under consideration. I call these diagrams 'maps'. A map, as I shall employ the term, is a geometrical representation of a 'model' (i.e., of an abstract set of interrelated concepts) in which the logical relations between the concepts have a one-to-one correspondence with the structural relations between the different parts of the diagram. The process of coming to know and deciding to revise a conceptual model that guides our understanding of life can be greatly facilitated by actually drawing the model as a visible map. What I hope to demonstrate below is that this need not be a merely haphazard process that takes us by surprise in a series of psychotherapy sessions; rather, it is a skill that can be learned by studying the basic forms of logic and how they relate to changes in perspectives. 4 In a number of previous publications-most notably, Chapter 3 of Kant's System of Perspectives (Palmquist, 1993) and Chapter 5 of The Tree of Philosophy (Palmquist 2000a)-I have developed a systematic theory of perspectival mapping, called the 'Geometry of Logic'. Although the original book-length manuscript that lays out the basic principles of this new mapping-technique in great detail (see Palmquist, 1986) remains in draft form to this day, I have applied this tool in numerous articles as an aide to interpreting Kant's philosophy and throughout my books on Kant (Palmquist, 1993 and 2000b), as well as in several articles where it is applied in a variety of other ways (e.g., Palmquist, 1992 and 2006). The most basic distinction shaping this theory is between 'analytic' (twofold) and 'synthetic' (threefold) ways of forming conceptual relations. A simple analytic relation exists between any pair of opposites, while a simple synthetic relation consists of two opposites plus a third term that combines (or 'synthesizes') the opposites. The most obvious geometrical maps that can be used to represent these simple forms of relation are the line segment (with its two opposite endpoints) and the triangle (with its three vertices), respectively. Figure 1 uses the '+' and '-' symbols to denote conceptual opposition, while Figure 2 adds a third term, 'x', to denote the synthesis of opposites. +Figure 1: The Line Segment as a 1LAR Map 5 + x Figure 2: The Triangle as a 1LSR Map In both cases these simple forms of relation also give rise to more complex 'levels'. The formula determining the structure of all analytic relations is: 2L = N where 'L' stands for the 'level' of the distinction (i.e., how many pairs of opposites are being interrelated) and 'N' stands for the 'number' of different combinations. For instance, the most common type of analytic relation, the 'second-level analytic relation' (or '2LAR'), consists of two pairs of opposites that combine to produce four interrelated concepts (2 x 2 = 4). As such, it is best mapped onto the four endpoints of a cross (i.e., two line segments intersecting at their midpoints, with each segment representing the distinction between one pair of opposites), as shown below: ++ ---+ +Figure3:TheCrossasa2LARMap 6 The formula determining the structure of all synthetic relations is similar to the one for analytic relations, the only difference being that the '2' is replaced by a '3': 3L = N Thus the 'second-level synthetic relation' ('2LSR') has nine combinations (3 x 3 = 9) and would need to be mapped onto a geometrical figure with nine distinct points, such as the Enneagram (see Beesing, et al., 1984, and Palmquist, 1997, pp.177-185). Analytic and synthetic maps can also be combined to form what I call 'compound relations'. For our purposes the most significant compound relation is the '12CR', or 'twelvefold compound relation'. This consists of a 2LAR with each of its four components divided into a 1LSR (4 x 3 = 12). Examples of this form of conceptual relation abound in our daily life: the twelve hours on our clock dials, the twelve months on our calendars and the twelve houses of the zodiac are a few of the most obvious and familiar examples. What is important to note here is that, in order to be a true 12CR, these relations must be regarded not merely as a haphazard collection of any twelve items, but as an integrated whole made up of four sets of three, where the four is a 2LAR and each set of three is a 1LSR. Other, less known examples could also be cited, such as Maxwell's twelve equations defining the nature of electro-magnetism or the twelve types of sub-atomic particle postulated by the Standard Model in contemporary physics (see Palmquist, 2006). But rather than dwelling on such examples here, let me draw attention to the map shown in Figure 4. 7 + + x - x- + x + x - + + + - - - - ++ + - + + + - - - + - +- + - - - + -- + ++ 1 2 4 3 Figure 4: The Crossed Circle as a 12CR Map A circle divided into four quadrants by a cross, with each quadrant having two additional points equidistant between the two poles of the cross (like a clock dial), is the most obvious geometrical representation of the logical form of a 12CR. The two examples of philopsychic insight I have chosen to discuss below (one from Kant and one from Jung) can both be understood in terms of this basic 12CR map. But before turning our attention to Kant, one final point must be stressed: the primary purpose of making such conceptual maps is to clarify the logical relations between different perspectives. This, indeed, is where the Geometry of Logic has its most significant practical application. For when attempting to organize a given set of concepts in a way that enables us to map it onto a geometrical figure, we often discover new perspectives on the topic at hand-e.g., new options that we had not previously considered, or new ways of holding together multiple options in tension with each other. Particularly when it comes to employing maps as tools for philosophical counseling, the notion of perspectives will prove to be of utmost importance. With these preliminary points in mind, I shall examine in the next two sections two very different, but highly influential models with a high potential to be employed as philopsychic maps: Immanuel Kant's grouping of the 12 logical functions of thought into four 'categories', 8 and Carl Jung's grouping of psychological types into four 'functions'. Both theories are well known and much-discussed, so for our purposes a brief summary of their main points (paying close attention to the logical parallels between them) will suffice. I shall then conclude by providing four illustrations of how such maps might be used to assist counselees in identifying new perspectives on life-situations, thereby solving practical problems in a 'philopsychic' way. 2. Kant's 12 Categories as a Philosophical Map A fact about Kant's philosophy that is almost always either neglected as irrelevant or else explicitly rejected as an unfortunate impediment to understanding his true insights is that his philosophical System is permeated through and through with a deep sense of systematic interrelation between its different parts. Kant himself refers to this map-like aspect of his way of doing philosophy as an 'architectonic plan' (e.g., 1965, p.27). In so doing he is employing one of his favorite metaphors, between a philosopher's attempt to construct a coherent system out of the raw materials of various concepts and intuitions and an architect's attempt to design a sturdy building out of raw materials such as bricks and mortar. But for Kant, reason's architectonic structure is more than just a random analogy: he believes it is rooted in our very nature. Thus, in the course of explaining the 'interest' reason has in finding a solution to the irresolvable conflicts Kant calls 'antinomies', he asserts that '[h]uman reason is by nature architectonic' (Kant, 1965, p.502). The architectonic, he explains, is reason's tendency to regard 'all our knowledge as belonging to a possible system'-i.e., to a logically coherent set of interrelated concepts. Just as good architects make a blueprint of their plans before attempting to construct a given building, so also good philosophers should make a map of reason's structure before attempting to answer the deepest questions of metaphysics (especially those relating to God, freedom and immortality). 9 Kant's hope was that the perceptive reader, assuming the System's architectonic unity, would be able to apprehend 'the idea of the whole' and thereby 'easily resolve' the 'apparent contradictions' that arise when 'single passages' are 'torn from their contexts' (1965, pp.860-79). Unfortunately, although he clearly explains what 'architectonic' is–namely, 'the art of constructing systems' (p.860)–Kant himself never clearly explained the structure he used to organize his philosophical System. History has thus proved his hope to be overly optimistic. Instead of taking Kant's hint and attempting to clarify the structure of reason's architectonic, interpreters have tended to regard Kant's emphasis on the latter as the source of his most lamentable errors. Wolff (1963), for example, assumes throughout his book that exposing the complications and apparent inconsistencies arising out of Kant's adherence to his architectonic plan will 'carry us closer to the truth [than the architectonic itself], not farther from it' (p.204; see also p.191n), for such 'architectonic considerations ... obscure and misrepresent Kant's real teaching' (p.206): 'The first aim of a commentary ... should be to show how this is so, and why it has happened.' By contrast, I have attempted in a series of previous publications to counteract this tendency by drawing hints from Kant's various incidental comments about the structure of his System (see Palmquist, 1986, 1993, ch.3, and 2000, ch.5). In a nutshell my claim is that the architectonic unity of reason is itself a twelvefold structure-a 12CR, to be exact-and that Kant's Table of Categories exhibits the basic form of this structure. We could discuss this structure by examining the four basic 'perspectives' in Kant's System (each corresponding to one of the four 'faculties' of the mind): the transcendental, the logical, the empirical and the hypothetical perspectives are rooted in the faculties of sensibility, understanding, judgment and reason, respectively. But instead, let us look at the theory of categories itself. Kant's table of 12 categories has often been prematurely rejected by those who neglect Kant's warning, near the beginning of the first chapter of the Analytic of Concepts, to the effect 10 that his goal in introducing the table at that stage is not to prove the validity of each category, but merely to present the form for any complete system of categories; as such, he explicitly contrasts his own a priori approach with Aristotle's empirical approach (Kant, 1965, 105-109). (Kant supports his choices with rigourous arguments only later, in the chapter on the Principles of Pure Understanding.) He describes this form quite clearly as one consisting of two sets of oppositions, combined together to form four main 'heads', each having three 'moments' that represent a development from two opposites to a third, synthetic moment. In other words, the categories form a perfect 12CR. In preparation for showing how this 12CR can be used for clarification of the kind of personal problems that tend to arise in counseling situations, let's take a closer look at the structure of Kant's table. The basic 2LAR is between the categories of 'quantity' and 'quality' on the one hand and the categories of 'relation' and modality' on the other. All possible items of empirical knowledge-i.e., any human experience that can give rise to scientific knowledge- must have a conceptual form that includes items falling into each of these four categories. As shown in Figure 5, the first pair gives rise to the 'mathematical' principles (i.e., the 'axioms of intuition' and the 'anticipations of perception'), while the second gives rise to the 'dynamical' principles (i.e., the 'analogies of experience' and the 'postulates of empirical thought'). After drawing this distinction at the beginning of the chapter on the Principles of Pure Understanding (Kant, 1965, pp.199-200; see also p.110), Kant uses the four phrases quoted in parentheses in the previous sentence as headings of the chapter's four main sections. 11 postulates (++) (intensive, thought) anticipations (+-) (intensive, intuition) axioms (--) (extensive, intuition) analogies (-+) (extensive, thought) dy na mi ca l (+ ) (i. e., dis cu rsi ve ) ma the ma tic al (-) (i.e ., i ntu itiv e) Figure 5: Kant's Principles Mapped onto a 2LAR Cross Each category (as well as its derivative principle) can itself be broken down into three subordinate categories (principles), as shown in Figure 6: necessity totalityreciprocity limitation causality reality pluralitypossibility actuality unity negationsubstance Quantity QualityRelation Modality Figure 6: Kant's Table of Categories as a 12CR As we shall see in §4, an easy way of referring to each subordinate category in a counseling session is to focus on the type of judgment it generates, as shown in Figure 7 (which uses a slightly more sophisticated map, combining the cross and circle with triangles and a square to form a map with all the basic components of a Jungian mandala): 12 Assertoric (+++) Universal (---) Categorical (-+-) Negative (+-+) Problematic (++-) Particular (--+) Hypothetical (-++) Affirmative (+--) Ap od eic tic (+ +x ) Singular (--x) Disjunctive (-+x) I nfi nit e (+ -x) Quantity (mathematical) (--) Modality (dynamical) (++) Quality (mathematical) (+-) Relation (dynamical) (-+) Figure 7: Kant's Forms of Judgment as a 12CR In his discussion of 'the logical function of the understanding in judgments' (Kant, 1965, 95-101), Kant lists under quantity the opposites 'universal' and 'particular', claiming they are synthesized by 'singular' judgments. Under quality, the opposites 'affirmative' and 'negative' are synthesized by 'infinite' judgments. Likewise, the three judgments of relation are 'categorical', 'hypothetical' and 'disjunctive', while those of modality are 'problematic', 'assertoric' and 'apodeictic'. Each triad is meant to imitate the logical form of a simple syllogism, with the two opposites being like the premises of an argument and the third term being like the conclusion. The Table of Categories follows the same form, doing for concepts what the earlier table did for judgments (namely, laying bare the formal structure imposed by the human understanding on all our knowledge). And the Principles, too, are meant to follow this twelvefold form, though Kant does not fully elaborate all 12 components in that application. 13 (A tangential point of significant interest is that the overall exposition of Kant's argument in several of his key systematic works can be interpreted as fitting into the same twelvefold form as his Table of Categories. This is true not only in the first and second Critiques, written in 1781 and 1788, but perhaps most obviously in his 1793 book, Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason. I have demonstrated this aspect of the formal structure of Kant's arguments in Chapters VII and VIII of Kant's System of Perspectives (1993) and in Chapters VII and VIII of Kant's Critical Religion (2000).) Kant's theory of categories has been criticized from a variety of angles ever since he first proposed it in 1781. The most frequent criticism nowadays is that, although Kant was correct to argue that some categorial scheme is necessary for human knowledge, he was wrong to assume there could be only one. Such critics argue that a variety of categorial schemes is possible- though I have yet to find a critic who actually goes so far as to suggest a detailed alternative to Kant's. My point in this section has not been to defend the legitimacy or even the coherence of Kant's specific choices in constructing his Table of Judgments. I have done that in numerous previous publications. Instead, it is enough merely to introduce the map, with a special emphasis on its logical-systematic structure, so that I can include it in my subsequent reflections on how such philosophical and psychological maps can be used as counseling tools. Concerning this structure, it is important to keep in mind that the whole theory is based on three levels of logical distinctions, interwoven in a single model: on the first level, mathematical categories are 'intuitive' (-) while the dynamical categories are 'discursive' (+); on the second level, 'quantity' (-) and 'quality' (+) are opposite types of intuitive categories, while 'relation' (-) and 'modality' (+) are opposite discursive types; and on the third level, each of the four categories is broken down into a triad consisting of a pair of opposites and a third, synthetic term. This logical form, as we shall see, provides us with a model of the mechanism of human cognition that can be 14 helpful in understanding numerous life-situations that might be discussed in counseling sessions. 3. Jung's 12 Types as a Psychological Map At first sight, Jung's Analytical Psychology may seem to bear little resemblance to Kant's Critical Philosophy. The latter is a priori, whereas the former takes an explicitly empirical, a posteriori approach. Kant is interested in solving the deepest and most abstract problems of metaphysics; Jung prefers to focus on the concrete, personal problems brought by his patients to psychotherapy sessions. Yet a closer look reveals a surprisingly high degree of complementarity between these two scholars. Both, I would argue, exemplified a way of practicing their respective disciplines that can be called 'philopsychic'. This similarity is no accident, for Jung himself acknowledges on numerous occasions the extent of his debt to Kant. In his autobiography, for example, Jung speaks of reading Kant as a youth and finding great insight in his writings. At one point (Jung, 1983, p.122), he goes so far as to express his frustration at being too busy as a medical student by saying 'I was able to study Kant only on Sundays.' Particularly influential was Jung's reading of Kant's 1766 book, Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, Illustrated by Dreams of Metaphysics, which he says 'came just at the right moment' (Jung, 1983, p.120). That many of Jung's theories bear the mark of this Kantian influence can hardly be doubted. For Jung himself attests repeatedly (though never in any great or systematic detail) to the Kantian nature of his psychological theory. Thus, for instance, after mentioning Kant's use of the categories at one point (Jung, 1984, p.132), Jung says the categories are 'intellectual applications of the archetypes.' The archetypes, of course, are the theoretical constructs Jung uses to describe how the human unconscious fulfills its compensatory function in relation to the conscious mind. Unfortunately, Jung does not provide any details concerning his understanding of the relationship between the archetypes and the categories. One obvious difference is that, in 15 contrast to Kant's highly logical map of the categories, Jung shies away from providing a systematic description of the archetypes. He makes it clear that the shadow and the anima (or animus) are the two main archetypal personalities, and that several others (such as the wise old man, the great mother and the trickster) are of secondary importance; but he also claims to have discovered numerous others. How Kant's categories can be regarded as 'applications' of these archetypes is far from evident. Fortunately, Jung does develop one aspect of his psychology into a systematic theory with a clear logical structure: perhaps for this reason, Jung's theory of psychological types is probably the most widely accepted of all his theories. Jung relates his theory of types to the archetypes in some interesting ways, suggesting that the archetypes might have the potential to be more logically ordered. On this basis, as I have argued elsewhere (Palmquist, 1997, p.168), the four most important components in Jung's theory of archetypes (namely, persona, ego, shadow and anima/animus) seem to have a direct correspondence to the four basic components in his theory of types (namely, thinking, sensation, feeling and intuition). But elaborating on this correlation, and its possible implications for the connection between Jung and Kant, is beyond the scope of the present essay. In his book, Psychological Types, Jung constructs a logically well-formed model of the differences between four basic types of personality 'function': thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition. Just as every item of empirical knowledge is, according to Kant, characterized by some manifestation of all four categories of understanding, so also Jung argues that every human being manifests each of these four personality types-though with different degrees of consciousness. Like Kant, Jung describes this fourfold distinction in terms of a perfect 2LAR, which can be mapped onto the cross, as shown in Figure 8: 16 thinking (++) (intensive, rational) intuition (+-) (intensive, arational) sensation (--) (extensive, arational) feeling (-+) (extensive, rational) jud gin g (ra tio na l) pe rce ivi ng (ar ati on al) Figure 8: Jung's Functions Mapped onto a 2LAR Cross Here we see that thinking and feeling are grouped together as 'judging' functions and regarded as the opposite of the 'perceiving' functions, sensation and intuition. Moreover, just as in Kant's case (cf. Figure 5), the pair of functions on either side of this basic opposition is itself an opposition: sensation and intuition oppose each other in a way directly parallel to quantity and quality; thinking and feeling likewise correspond directly to relation and modality. The parallel between Kant's map of the understanding's categories and Jung's map of the psyche's types goes still further. For just as Kant regards each category as manifesting itself in two opposite forms that can be combined or synthesized into a third form, so also Jung regards each function as having either an 'extraverted' or an 'introverted' manifestation, with the ideal goal being to learn how to balance these two throughout the course of one's life. Although Jung himself only hints at this possibility, some Jungians have argued that introversion and extraversion can appear as 'mixed' (i.e., synthesized) in some persons. Thanks to the development and popularization of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Test, the conventional way of systematizing Jung's theory has been to regard it as a series of four dyadic levels, beginning with the extravert-introvert opposition, proceeding through the functional oppositions between sensation-intuition and thinking-feeling, and ending with the more general opposition between 17 judging and perceiving. According to this way of mapping, Jung's system must be regarded as a 4LAR, with 16 possible combinations (2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 16). I have no objection to this conventional interpretation of Jung's distinctions; my point here is simply that an equally plausible interpretation is to regard them as giving rise to a form (see Figure 9) that corresponds directly to Kant's Table of Categories. E-Thinking (+++) I-Intuition (---) I-Feeling (-+-) E-Sensation (+-+) E-Feeling (++-) I-Sensation (--+) I-Thinking (-++) E-Intuition (+--) Introvert (unconscious) (--) Extravert (unconscious) (+-) Extravert (conscious) (++) Introvert (conscious) (-+) ERa tio na l (+ +x ) I-Arational (--x) I-Rational (-+x) EAr ati on al (+ -x) Figure 9: Jung's System of Psychological Types as a 12CR If my suggestion is correct, then we should be able to find a number of interesting correlations between both the structure and the applications of Kant's categories and Jung's types. I have already mentioned one significant example. In both systems the basic 2LAR denotes a set of concepts that all apply in each possible case, whereas only one of the three subordinate concepts will apply at any given time. In Kant's theory this means a judgment cannot be fully categorical and fully hypothetical at the same time, though if it is disjunctive, then it can be 18 regarded as combining key features of both. Likewise, in Jung's theory, a person's attitude at any given point of time cannot be both introverted and extraverted, yet if one's personality is balanced, then it will combine prominent features of both attitudes. Rather than citing additional similarities, I shall conclude this section with a brief note on a rather different topic: despite the obviously a priori (logical) structure of Jung's system of types, he claims his theory is based on empirical evidence (see e.g., Jung, 1964, pp.45-56). This may be true, but only in the same way that Kant acknowledges Aristotle's theory of categories as an important empirical precursor to his own a priori theory of categories. For in its most mature formulation, Jung's theory undoubtedly exhibits an architectonic structure (whether it be a 12CR or a 4LAR) that gives it an undeniably a priori form. 4. Philopsychic Maps as Stimuli for Insight: Four Counseling Scenarios As a university professor and teacher of philosophy and religion (including one class that focuses on Jungian psychology) for nearly two decades, I have had numerous opportunities to speak with students outside of class about a wide variety of personal issues. Students respond well, I have found, to a caring teacher whose commitment to a philopsychic way of life becomes obvious in class. Hong Kong students tend to have a rather difficult time communicating with their parents-especially fathers are generally remote and too busy or too authoritarian to approach for counsel. As a result, I have found myself, almost accidentally, in numerous conversations that could be described as 'counseling' situations. Seeing myself not as a psychologist, or even as a counselor in any traditional sense, I have had to formulate a rather different self-understanding of what I am doing when I engage in such conversations. My knowledge and appreciation of Jungian psychology make me keenly aware of the psychological aspects of what I am doing. Being primarily a Kantian philosopher, however, I 19 prefer to think of these conversations as opportunities to practice doing philosophy. In the early 1990s I developed the concept of 'philopsychy' as a single term that combines the soulful focus of psychology with the wisdom-loving of philosophy (see §1). I'll therefore conclude with some illustrations of how the logic maps introduced above can be used to bring philopsychic insight into such situations. I'll draw the main features of my examples from actual counseling experiences, but will change key details to protect the identity of the persons concerned-and also, at times, to enhance the applicability of the illustrations. Although each of the following illustrations is based on one or more real situation(s), I shall refer to them as 'scenarios' in order to indicate that they are more like imaginative accounts of how such maps could be used than historical accounts ('case studies') of how I have actually used them. This section, then, should be regarded more as a manifesto outlining my intent to use such methods in the ways described, than as a record of my past success in using them. The real situations from which I have adapted these scenarios involved the emergence of insights similar (if not identical) to the ones described below, though in some cases the problems were not resolved in exactly the way I have indicated. Having learned something from my mistakes, these quasi-imaginary accounts describe how I would have used the maps, had my understanding of their potential been sufficiently well developed at the time. The application of Jung's theory of psychological types to counseling situations is somewhat obvious and has been examined by numerous writers and employed by counselors the world over. It is used, in the first place, to help the counselor understand differences between types of 'normality' that might at first seem highly abnormal, due to a difference in psychological types between the counselor and the counselee. This helps counselors to be more accepting of those who come to them for help. But it also equips counselees with a map enabling them to see problem relationships from alternative perspectives. Such applications of Jungian typology are so 20 well known that I shall cite only one scenario. This will enable me to spend more time exploring the less obvious applications of Kant's categorial map in three subsequent scenarios. Scenario I. Sally sat at my feet, gazing up at me as if I were God. (I have a carpet and some loose cushions in my office, so some students prefer to sit on the floor rather than on chairs.) She had been a student in my psychology class the previous semester, and liked to drop in every so often to chat about a wide variety of topics. On this occasion we had been discussing Nietzsche's theory of eternal recurrence, when suddenly she said 'Close your eyes. I want to give you something special.' Naively, I complied, thinking she had a gift to give me. The next thing I knew I was on the receiving end of a more-than-friendly kiss. Instinctively, I drew back in surprise, exclaiming 'what was that about?' Sally was taken aback by my reaction. Catching her breath, she looked at me sheepishly and inquired, 'You do love me, don't you?' Immediately I suspected the presence of a perspectival misunderstanding, stemming in all likelihood from a difference in our personality types. Sally was a moderately attractive young lady; but I was certainly not in love with her, nor did I wish her to harbour such feelings for me. Instead of responding to this situation in one of two (perhaps typical) extreme ways- either expelling Sally from my office and asking her not to return until she had come to terms with her inappropriate feelings, or taking advantage of the opportunity to engage in a clandestine affair-I suggested we meet on a subsequent day to discuss what had happened. The result was a series of philopsychic counseling sessions that went something like this. After listening to Sally interpret some of my past actions as evidence of a deep affection for her, I became convinced that this was indeed a problem relating to personality types. So I took out the map of Jungian types that I had used in the previous semester's class (see Figure 9) and suggested we reflect on our types in an effort to understand why this misunderstanding had arisen. She, it turns out, regarded herself as a feeling type, with a secondary emphasis on sensation, while I (at that time) regarded 21 myself as a thinking type, with intuition as secondary. In discussing the implications of this difference-to make a long story short-I came to realize how words and actions I had regarded as innocent had been genuinely misleading; and Sally came to realize how she had imposed her own assumptions onto my behavior, assuming that anyone who acted as I did must be thinking and feeling the same things she would be thinking and feeling, if she were to behave in such ways. This may not have been much consolation in helping Sally recover from the heartache of unrequited love; but it did avert the highly undesirable alternative outcomes of her potential suicide or my potential loss of a job and/or a marriage, should the situation not have been treated in this philopsychic way. I'm pleased to say that Sally and I maintained a healthy friendship for some time after her graduation and are still on good terms to this day. Similar examples would be easy to construct for anyone familiar with Jung's system of psychological types. Other perspectival transformations that could arise in a counseling situation would be the insight that an introverted approach to a given situation needs to be extraverted, that one's intuition was being trusted too much and needed to be supplemented more often by the concrete realities available through sensation, etc. The key to all such insights is that the counselor presents the Jungian system to the counselee as a map that empowers the person to make his or her own decisions as to how to proceed, on the basis of any changes in perspective that need to be made. The counselor's role is in the first place to listen to the problem and identify which philopsychic map is likely to be most helpful, secondly to introduce the map to the counselee as clearly and simply as possible, thirdly to ask questions that will encourage the counselee to reflect more deeply on the situation at hand, and finally to provide feedback as the counselee grapples with the implications of various perspectival shifts. Let us now look at some less obvious illustrations of how Kant's Table of Judgments can be used in a very similar way. Scenario II. Benjamin, a slightly older-than-average student in my Introduction to 22 Philosophy class, came to me distraught. His mother had just kicked his father out of the house. The humiliation of having a father who was being forced to live on the street was too much to bear. After some initial discussion, it became apparent that Benjamin was blaming God for this whole mess and that this was being used as a subtle way of avoiding any sense of responsibility. I therefore reminded him of the theory we had discussed in class several weeks earlier, regarding Kant's theory that all human judgments have four formal aspects. Showing him the map (i.e., Figure 7), I asked Benjamin to select two categories that seemed most closely related to his recent emotional disturbance. First Benjamin selected quantity. After being asked to elaborate, he explained that the amount of time available for he and his father to be together would now be drastically reduced. Since this fact was beyond his control, I asked him to set that thought aside for the moment and reflect on the category opposite to quantity, i.e. quality. 'Does the word "quality" bring to mind any possible solution to your problem?', I asked. We then commiserated for some time about how western culture has reduced the quality of life to a point far inferior to what it once was, enticing us to measure value almost exclusively in quantitative terms. The turning point in our conversation came when Benjamin suddenly realized that a few minutes of high quality time with his father each week might be more meaningful than many hours spent in non-communicative cohabitation. Benjamin had begun to change his perspective with respect to the problem he was facing. Hoping to encourage a still deeper transformation, I asked Benjamin to select another category from the map. Out of the remaining two, he chose relation as the source of his anxiety. Unsure of his reasons, I asked him to explain his choice in terms of one of the three subordinate categories of relation. He replied that he had always thought of the relation between he and his father as categorical ('Be my father!'), but now it seemed to be disjunctive ('You are my father, 23 but you live away from home.'). Again, this is not something Benjamin was in a position to change. So I suggested that maybe he could change the modality of his interpretation of this whole situation (i.e., his relation to his own way of thinking about it). Our subsequent discussion revealed that he had been approaching the whole problem in a fatalistic mood that assumed what Kant might call 'apodeictic' modality (i.e., absolute necessity). In a flash of insight the student came to realize that he did have the power to change his perspective and view the whole situation in terms of 'problematic' modality (i.e., as a problem with a wide variety of possible solutions). The next time I met with Benjamin, he told me the situation with his father had not improved much, but that he had stopped blaming God and was beginning to implement several plans designed to improve the quality of all the relationships involved. Scenario III. John's problem was very different from Benjamin's. He had written a short essay for my Self-Discovery of Man class, and had dropped by to find out why he had received such a low grade. In the course of our discussion, he revealed that he was currently in the middle of a crisis with his girlfriend, and that this was partly responsible for his poor performance. Less concerned now about his grade, John asked for advice about whether or not he should break up with this girl, who was apparently very selfish and easily angered by anything that did not go her way. Of course, I refused to make his decision for him. Instead, I brought out the map of Kant's Table of Judgments and asked him to select two categories that seemed most responsible for the trouble he was having in making this decision. After I explained the nature of each category to John in some detail, he chose modality, on the grounds that he was in a 'problematic' situation, a situation with too many potential outcomes. I thus asked him to look at the opposite category, relation, in hopes of finding an alternative way of interpreting his situation. No sooner had I drawn his attention to the three subordinate categories of relation, than he exclaimed, 'I must love her!-it's categorical!' But 24 that, as soon became clear in our subsequent discussion, was the root of the problem. He had unconditionally committed himself to love a person who was proving to be very different from the person he thought he knew, when they first fell in love. I then asked John, as usual, to choose one of the remaining two categories in hopes of gaining further insight. This time, after a more lengthy deliberation, he selected quality, explaining that his relationship seems to have a more and more 'negative' quality, the longer it progresses. 'The more I try to encourage positive interaction', he lamented, 'the more negative the outcome seems to be.' Eventually, however, we focused on how his attitude to the quantity of love relationships could provide a way out. He realized that this relationship was 'singular', in the sense that it was but one instantiation of a principle with universal validity (i.e., to love others). In the end, this insight led him to make the difficult decision to break up for a two-week 'trial period'-which ended up being permanent. Scenario IV. Alice was an openly religious person who was being plagued by doubts, largely as a result of attending my Hermeneutics class. Fearing she would reach a 'point of no return' if she gave up too many of her childhood religious beliefs, she came to my office one day. Her original intent, I think, was to confront what she perceived to be heretical tendencies in my teaching; but her objections soon turned into an expression of her own insecurity. I suggested we think together about the proper role of religious beliefs by examining how they fit into Kant's Table of Judgments. She agreed. Interestingly, Alice deviated from the norm by insisting on expressing her problem in terms of the two dynamical categories, relation and modality, instead of one mathematical and one dynamical category. She expressed anxiety over the fact that her beliefs had once been very 'categorical' (i.e., black and white), but were now becoming more and more 'hypothetical' (i.e., dependent on various qualifications). Likewise, she had once felt confident to be 'assertoric' 25 about her beliefs (i.e., to assert them as definite, actual truths), but was now seeing them as much more 'problematic'. These changes disturbed her, because she felt they represented a weakening of her religious commitment. This situation called for two responses. First, I encouraged Alice to look to the synthetic category in both cases, in hopes of finding a way forward: a 'disjunctive' approach to belief might provide her with a smaller but more reliable set of core truths that could be held with 'apodeictic' certainty. But more importantly, I encouraged her to consider whether her decision to ignore the categories of quantity and quality might be symptomatic of an overly intellectual approach. I challenged her to experience the God about whom she had constructed these various beliefs. Her response to these suggestions would need to be explained in considerable detail in order to be fully appreciated; instead, let it suffice to say that these reflections empowered Alice to face her religious crisis with a new awareness of what was (and was not) really at stake. In conclusion I would like to emphasize that the main point of this essay has been to illustrate how philosophical and psychological maps can be used as tools for stimulating perspectival shifts in our thinking about any given problem. I am myself only at the very early stages of investigating how Kant's categorial scheme, with its logical structure so similar (if not identical) to that of Jung's psychological types, can best be used in this way for counseling. I do not claim to have proven anything, but merely hope to have encouraged those scholarly-minded readers with a 'philopsychic' bent to join me in exploring such possibilities. The points to keep in mind are that most personal (as well as philosophical) problems require a change of perspective in order to be solved, that philosophical practitioners are especially well-equipped to see things from a variety of perspectives, that actually constructing visible (geometrical) maps is a good way to facilitate such changes, and (perhaps most importantly) that in philosophical 26 counseling situations we must be careful to allow the counselee to make the key decisions, without letting our scholarly acumen push through the solution we may think is best. References Beesing, Maria, Robert J. Nogosek, and Patrick H. O'Leary (1984). The Enneagram: A journey of self discovery. Denville, New Jersey: Dimension Books. Jung, C.G. (1964). 'Approaching the Unconscious', in Man and His Symbols, ed. C.G. Jung, et al. New York: Dell Publishing Co., pp.1-94. ––––––– (1983). Memories, Dreams, Reflections, tr. R. and C. Winston. London: Fontana Paperbacks. ––––––– (1984). 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Hong Kong: Philopsychy Press. ––––––– (2000b). Kant's Critical Religion: Volume Two of Kant's System of Perspectives. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. ––––––– (2007). 'Emergence, Evolution, and the Geometry of Logic: Causal Leaps and the Myth of Historical Development'. Foundations of Science 11, forthcoming. Peck, M. Scott (1978). The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth. New York: Simon and Schuster. Wolff, Robert Paul (1963). Kant's Theory of Mental Activity. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.