[MD] Ideas and Gods

[Matt Kundert]

Hi Jon,

Well, yeah, keep an open mind, but rarely would an intellectual recommend that one's mind be so open as their brain to fall out.  So I apologize for the critical attitude, it's just what one does.

In my experience, Jung was just another version of Platonism, and "archetypes" are just code for "historical types that I've de-historicized."  It seems a gross mistake to move from "look at this historically embedded evidence" to "it's so prevalent we don't need the embedding anymore."  To borrow an analogy from Richard Rorty, it's like the Village Champion moving from "I've defeated the three other fighters in the village" to "I can defeat anyone, anytime, anywhere!"  Maybe, but it isn't clear how the latter isn't just puffed up rhetoric.

So, maybe you like calling your position based on "facts" and whatnot.  I just don't take such fact-rhetoric that seriously.  The thing I think most people are missing here are not "the facts" (which you think they need to hear), but rather the underlying philosophical issue at odds between, say, universalists ("archetypers") and historicists ("typers").

Which is why I asked, "What transcendental premises are being denied?"  What am I denying when I shrug at your characterization of the patterns you've unearthed as "archetypes"?  What I think is at issue are not patterns, but calling them a certain name, a name intended to de-historicize the pattern.

I love stories.  I just think archetypal theory abuses them a little.

Matt

> Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2010 23:56:38 -0400
> From: jonbenn at gmail.com
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Subject: Re: [MD] Ideas and Gods
> 
> Hi Matt,
> If you think its hooey, the only thing denied is a hearing of the facts.
> And I understand there may be another way of understanding the facts, that
> there could be other aspects or perspectives. But this is one, and its an
> interesting one to me. Its fascinating that you can see the same ideas
> showing up in physics as you see in art, as you see in music and the popular
> culture and in the most serious science and philosophy, and that low and
> behold, they parallel math, logic, theology and politics.
> 
> Hear the story before you reject it. Patience is and an open mind might be
> the only principles you lack. Maybe more, but I'll start with those for
> openers.
> 
> Jon
> On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 8:50 PM, Matt Kundert
> <pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com>wrote:
> 
> >
> > What if you just think the notion of universal archetypes is a load of
> > hooey?  What transcendental premises are being denied?
 		 	   		  
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