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On the importance and the variety of forms of intuition in the early work of Carl Gustav Jung 1896-1921

This thesis examines and gathers together for the first time all the various forms of intuition in the early publications (1896-1921) of the Swiss psychologist C. G. Jung (1875-1961) in order to demonstrate the central role of intuition in Jung’s work. Issues of terminology, translation, and dissimilar editions of Jung’s writing are treated in Part 1, which defines the plurality of meaning of the notion of intuition to be found in early Jung. Part 2 looks at the different contexts of the birth of intuition in Jung’s psychology: the debates that animated the intellectual life at the turn of the twentieth century, Jung’s teachers, how Jung experimented spiritist sessions and what he termed “active imagination,” and finally what Jung meant by “under-conscious,” this state in between unconscious and consciousness, which favours the appearance of intuition. Those definitions and contexts clarified, Parts 3 to 6 chronologically investigate intuition in details in Jung’s psychology of the under-conscious, of the unconscious, in Jungian practice, and in Jung’s psychology of consciousness respectively. The section consecrated to the under-conscious (Part 3) divides intuition into supernatural intuitions (from the realm of the paranormal to prophecies – 3.1) and psychological intuitions (3.2). Jung’s undergraduate lectures at the Zofingia Club and Liber Novus – or else, Red Book – are treated in 3.1, as supernatural intuitions. There, common traits appear between Jung’s exposition (the lectures) and Jung’s experience (Liber Novus) of intuition. Jung’s Medical Dissertation, a psychiatrist study on so-called occult phenomena, and Jung’s word association tests are treated in 3.2. Teleological hallucinations, visions, automatisms, or Einfälle, to be defined in the course of the thesis, are some of the numerous forms of intuition that are classified under psychological intuitions. Intuition in the unconscious (Part 4) manifests itself through two ways: the “primitive” aspect of empathy (1) and the contemporary Anschauung. As a pre-form – because it is unconscious – the Anschauung is in turn extremely close to the two other unconscious pre-forms of instinct and archetype. After a close historical, cultural, and terminological examination of the term Anschauung (4.1), 4.2 investigates the equivalences and distinctions of the three unconscious contents, processes, and energies. Dear to Jung as a doctor, intuition in Jungian practice (Part 5) is extremely present in his early writing. Jung described it in his constructive method, which he equated to Bergson’s intuitive method, in active imagination, and through the form that we call empathy (2), which appears during the phenomenon of transference. Part 6 is devoted to the study of intuition in Jung’s psychology of consciousness, the central topics of which are functions and types. Because it is informed of the role played by intuition in all the other areas of Jung’s psychology, this section presents the intuitive type and function in perspective and permits to grasp their specificities with regard to the three other functions and types of sensation, feeling, and thinking.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:577589
Date January 2012
CreatorsPilard, Nathalie
PublisherUniversity of Aberdeen
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Sourcehttp://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=201688

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