The Situation

Broadly speaking, philosophy since Descartes has broken up into four basic types of truth-claims: Empirical, Pragmatic, Subjective, and Rationalistic.

Empirical (historically represented by Great Britain)

holds that reality is that which is observable, verifiable, and replicable. It bases truth in perception, specifically sensation. Science is the most sophisticated example. A simple empirical test for truth would be stepping out of a third story window. It doesn't matter what you believe, what your culture, history, metaphysics, gender or race is. If you step out of a third story window (assuming no physical tricks such as wires etc.) you will fall and hurt yourself period. I predict it, it will happen. It will happen every time and no argument, thought experiment, world-view, obfuscating rationale, or belief will change that. You may not like it, but your views and preferences are irrelevant. Truth is truth. Empiricism would seem a strong world-view indeed.

The obvious strength of this system is it's reliability. It works. It's major deficits are three. One, that there are some things, especially cultural and emotional phenomena, which are real, important, life and death issues that are not so predictable. In the end Empiricism turns everything into an object. Feelings and consciousness disappear and the whole world becomes phenomena, matter in motion. Two, Empiricism leads to some untenable conclusions. Kant's problem with Hume applies here. Three, our knowledge is limited. There are simply things we know too little about to predict. Empiricism itself recognizes that, even though it proves itself again and again, it cannot prove itself once and for all by its own observations.

Pragmatic (the United States' contribution)

All Americans, at heart, are pragmatists. We like the bottom line question, "Does it work?" We agree with William James' statement that ideas have "cash value". Our economic system offers daily proof of that fact. Pragmatism is Empiricism with a broader, more flexible range of application. It goes beyond simple sensory observation to include intuition to evaluate truths. An example of this kind of truth-claim is, "Belief in free will gives people a sense of hope and avoids despair, therefore belief in free will is better than strict determinism."

The strength of this system is it's observable, predictable, and open to correction. It's danger is that purely practical "truth" can change. In spite of the protests of pragmatists themselves, pragmatism has never quite proven that it can avoid the danger that, in the short run, inaccurate beliefs and evil actions can be practical, hence, by Pragmatic standards, true. It would have been eminently practical, for example, in the 1930's in Germany to believe in the inferiority of Jews. Would it have been true as well as pragmatic? Slavery and later segregation was defended on practical grounds. Pragmatism too easily lends itself to self centered ethics. Believing something simply because it works makes it workable, but it is not enough to make it really True. People know that incorrect beliefs can "work". The solution to a conflict between theory and practice is not simply to collapse theory into practice.

Subjective

(popular, especially in post-modern thought, since Nietzsche developed perspectivalism) holds that reality is a matter of personal perception. Contemporary subjectivist philosophers love to protest "hegemonic" world views, defend reality as social construct, and explore truth as defined by "power" relationships. They use words like paradigm and episteme, and love sub-nuclear physics (the observer chooses and changes what is observed). An example of this kind of truth-claim is, "Jalapeño peppers taste great." It is a statement demonstrably true for some people under some conditions and yet not true for every one under all conditions.

The strengths of this system are three. One, that it can point to numerous examples of "objective" truth upon which people don't agree. Two, its methodology (skeptical discussion) is perfectly suited to a philosophy class. John Dewey's deconstruction of philosophy (it was invented by observers and talkers, not people who actually had to produce anything useful in the real world) applies. Three, it keeps people questioning and searching, hence, when all else fails, it keeps philosophers employed. But it has three dangers. One is that it is inherently negative. It protests and deconstructs, but chronic skepticism makes no real contribution beyond keeping people moving intellectually. Another minor danger is that it allows anyone to retain any idea they wish by simply labeling contrary ideas and even evidence as "opinion". The major danger is solipsism. Dialogue must perforce collapse and all truth claims come to the same level. All the assertions, "God exists.", "AIDS kills.", "Blue is a pretty color.", and "Jalapeño peppers taste great." become the same in the end.

Rationalistic (Kant and much of modern logic)

This school realizes that observed data may be flawed and is definitely limited. "Facts" change as observations improve and knowledge grows (or, if you're post-modern, as epistemes or paradigms change). It finds truth, therefore, in irrefutable logical statements such as a=a, and "p = not not p". Kant himself said that no ethic worthy of the name could contain any reference whatsoever to anything empirical (facts, observations, or results). His reasoning was that the world of observed results is unsure and changing and provides no consistent evidence about whether a decision was right or wrong. Yielding at a "Yield" sign, for example, cannot be considered "right" if you avoid a collision and "wrong" if you don't. Obviously the collision can happen or not happen in either case.

An example supporting this school of thought can be observed in Washington, DC any given day. Kant held that people ought to tell the truth (to say what they mean as clearly as possible). If people focus on trying to get the hearer to hear a message rather than on trying to say it clearly, the whole basis of "clarity" and the very definition of "truth" contorts and ultimately collapses.

The strength of the system is that it's methodology is solid. After all, it's impossible to argue that a does not equal a or that a + b is less than a. The cornerstone of this system is agreed upon definitions so this school has contributed a lot to linguistic analysis. The weakness of this school is that every meaningful assertion must be tested in the real world. Any real-world meaning rests on agreed upon facts both as assumptions and as proofs of accuracy.

Empiricism and pragmatism are materialistic, subjectivism and rationalism are idealistic. Since Witgenstein all of them spend a great deal of time discussing language as the medium of the philosophical enterprise.

The Application

Over time academic disciplines and professions are established by several processes, one of which is the creation of ground rules. These rules include proper subject matter (what data is appropriate to the specialty) and what methodology will be acceptable when manipulating that data. The rules of physics, for example, admit things and processes observable by our collective senses and reject subjective or emotional data. The method for data manipulation is mathematical. Theory generation can be by any means at all, including myth, reason, dreams, imagination, and guesses. Theory testing must be conducted through a strictly defined combination of observation and mathematics.

"Academic" disciplines such as physiology or philosophy, due to their highly specialized roles in society (primarily research), rely on rigorously controlled experiments, clear definitions, and specifically observable data to constitute "evidence" (quantitative research). "Practical" disciplines such as medicine and ministry, due to their roles as service providers to people in situ, rely on broader more probabilistic and descriptive evidence (qualitative research). The more specific rules produce more quantitative, definable, teachable, specific observations of more limited use. The broader rules produce more qualitative, apparently generally useful guidelines for action with greater margin for error. Psychology has come in recent years to include both ends of the spectrum.

When a discipline gets itself into trouble the problem, from a Jungian point of view, is probably over specialization. It looks at too narrow a slice of the world or rejects some relevant evidence from its decision-making. Perhaps Descartes method of doubting everything he possibly could produced too limited a definition of truth and led him to an inappropriate dualism. Perhaps Hume eliminated something important when he only admitted observation and logic as the basis for "real".

What probably intrigues us most about Jung is his ability to bridge the gap between apparently different viewpoints. He, more than either Freud or Adler, took psychology out of the medical or psycho-social worlds and into the wide world of religion, history, anthropology, and philosophy. He does this primarily by distinguishing between the psychic functions while remaining adamant that they are necessarily complementary to each other. In this, Jung describes (in his artistic, cross-cultural way) what later cognitive psychologists are just now fleshing out. Perception, while real, only becomes sensible to us when it is coordinated through pre-existing human mental categories.

Naive realism is too simple. Locke was wrong about the mind being a tabula rasa. Our perception of the world is not simple, direct, or always accurate. Our senses and the ways we can combine them are specialized and limited. We cannot see radio waves, we can only see a narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum, and it is not difficult to play visual tricks on us. Yet pure subjectivism is wrong as well. We don't create our sensations out of whole cloth, we perceive them. We don't perceive every possible aspect of "things as they are", but our perceptions are not imaginations, they are gathered real aspects of the outside world.

Our Sensations provide substance to our Intuitions, our Intuitions provide organization for our Sensations. Sensations are not always reliable, but that's not so much because they're wrong as because they're limited. They evolved to meet our needs in a specific environment. We only perceive that part of the electromagnetic spectrum that is good for finding food and avoiding danger on the African savannah. Our intuitions are not wrong, but they can be archaic. They evolved for the same world as the senses. Archetypes evolved for our survival needs as explorers, learners, and family members.

In fact, we have shown a remarkable ability to extend our range of perception and, to a lesser extent, our thought-forms beyond their original scope through technology and accumulation of cultural paradigms. We have extended our vision to include radio waves, even if we do print pictures of them in the colors of the night sky and ripe fruit. We have extended our intuition to include equations that describe intangible relationships virtually perfectly.

Thinking or Feeling (data organizing Jung used the term "rational" functions), have to refer regularly to Sensation and Intuition for content. It is certainly possible to reason or feel one's way to a completely inaccurate conclusions, so all rational or value structures need to refer to observations but observations alone are not enough to lead to logical or value judgments.

Newton's equations (the theory of gravitation being the best simple example) describes a real pattern of relationships (an Intuition), in mathematical (one kind of Thinking) terms that predicts actual observed behavior (sensed) in the world. What it lacks is any sense of values (Feeling), which was exactly the problem with the Newtonian world-view. Post-modernism, as another example, admits Intuition (patterns of relationships), Thinking (logic), and Feeling (values) but rejects testing by evidence (Sensation). A more complex example, Creationism, imposes a very truncated set of observations on the whole of reality. It says, "Because I value a particular set of "facts" (in this case a literal reading of the first chapter of Genesis) I will see them when I observe the world." Creationism runs the knowledge-gathering system backwards. A pre-determined set of specifics (Sensations) drives Thinking to force all Sensations to conform.

Any system that involves specialization runs the risk of being dominated by one or another function.

Philosophy is clearly dominated by thinking. Jung wrote, of Extraverted Thinking "This type...elevates objective reality, or an objectively oriented intellectual formula, into the ruling principle not only for himself but for his whole environment." That's not a bad description of Empiricism and Pragmatism. Yet he goes on to say, "[The Extraverted Thinker's] moral code forbids him to tolerate exceptions; his ideal must under all circumstances be realized, for in his eyes it is the purest conceivable formulation of objective reality..." ¹² Which is a good description of what happens when Empiricism and Pragmatism go wrong. Given how well "the elevation of an intellectual formula into a ruling principle that tolerates no exceptions" describes Fundamentalism, his example, intriguingly enough, was Darwin.

Of Introverted Thinking, he said "It begins with the subject and leads back to the subject, far though it may range into the realm of actual reality." This is the substance of Subjectivism and Rationalism. He goes on to say, "...new views rather than knowledge of new facts are its main concern....Facts are collected as evidence for a theory, never for their own sake." ¹³ That is the inherent danger in both Rationalism and Subjectivism. His example, perhaps with a degree of friendly correction, was Kant.

I leave it to the reader to play with Jung's descriptions of the other types and decide to what extent other disciplines have a collective bias. Note that both types of thinking run the risk of creating a system and allowing your system to run your world. It is no wonder that colleges and corporations are learning the necessity for interdisciplinary dialogue. Specialization has great power, but the process of specialization is not only one of fine-honing skills. Of necessity the process of specialization requires the losing of skills and perspectives as well.

I will note that, unlike science and philosophy, which are dominated by Thinking, Religion is dominated by Feeling. It deals with matters important in their impact on people and other sensate beings. To a certain extent it fulfills an underground (unconscious) role, perhaps similar to the role alchemy filled in mediaeval Europe. However much Religious views are downplayed in public and academic discourse they still retain great power and vitality "underground" among the people. Most Americans are religious, but the public (conscious) discourse on values in America demands that religion not be a basis for policy. We, therefore, treat values as political issues. This leads to a complicated situation. Introverted Feeling is Idealistic, in the classic sense. Jung wrote, "Fundamental ideas, ideas like God, freedom, and immortality, are just as much feeling-values as they are significant ideas." ¹⁴This means that we must argue our public ethics as political/legal issues, but our treatment of ethics as legal or political issues can never be adequate since our they are founded on bigger, more fundamental ideas than politics can address.

By speaking of Feeling as a function equal to Thinking, Jung describes people as we really are, in the sense that we use moral categories and believe moral laws just as we use logical categories and laws. The difference is that the laws of logic can be expressed in formulae and the laws of morality have to be expressed in the trialogue language of universal goals (e.g., inflict as little pain as possible), linked with probabilistic laws (in general it is better to tell the truth), applied in specific situations (telling the truth to my wife when I've lost my job or when she asks "Do I look fat to you?").

Jung wrote of Extraverted Feeling "The extravert's feeling is always in harmony with objective values." ¹⁵ Now "objective values" is a phrase that moderns consider oxymorinic. Values, Hume held, are statements of personal preference. Current dogma agrees, values are subjective and cannot be "objective" except when we talk about majority opinion. But note that Jung did not equate all "objective" values with socially accepted values. He writes, "The valuations resulting from the act of feeling either correspond directly with objective values or accord with traditional and generally accepted standards." ¹⁶ A major part of Jung's appeal is that he allows people to think and have objective values at the same time.

Jung did not overtly commit himself to any particular metaphysical philosophy he wanted to form his own, new theories primarily from observations rather than from commentary on previous thought and he especially wanted his theories to be universally applicable. But his use of previous philosophy, combined with his observations, helps flesh out the meanings of some of his specialized vocabulary and sheds light on a proper understanding of Introversion and Extroversion and tasks proper to the different functions of data-gathering (Sensing and Intuiting) and data structuring (Thinking, and Feeling).

In conclusion, Jung is a wide-ranging philosophical writer but I suggest that the bottom line, central contributions Jung can make to correcting contemporary philosophy are three: First, he points out the inadequacy of any truth-discovering procedure that systematically ignores one or another part human experience. Two, his constant, inescapable emphasis on our direct participation in the universe by means of Introversion, Intuition, and the archetypes. Third, his recognition of Feeling, a morally evaluative function, as equal in importance and realism to Thinking (logic, mathematics, analysis etc.).

The second contribution overcomes the philosophical difficulties introduced by the Enlightenment's strong subject-object split. The third avoids the Humian doctrine that morals are expressions of personal preferences, hence, ethics are collective personal preferences, hence, political or legal issues. The first contribution reminds us that we all need correction and suggests a framework within which to get it without narrowness or trendy inclusivism.

Notes

1. C.G. Jung. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Vintage Books: New York, 1965. p. 207.
2. Immanuel Kant. Critique of Pure Reason. Great Books of the Western World, Mortimer J. Adler, Editor in Chief Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., Chicago, 1991. Kant, Vol. 39. p. 1.
3. Kant, p. 14.
4. C.G. Jung. Psychological Types. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971. p. 395.
5. Types, p. 397.
6. Types, p. 452.
7. C.G. Jung. Aion. Collected Works, Part 2. R.F.C. Hull trans. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959. p. 13.
8. Kant, p. 24.
9. Types, p. 400.
10. Types, p. 400-401.
11. Memories, p. 326, 339.
12. Types, p. 347.
13. Types, p. 380.
14. Types, p. 387-388.
15. Types, p. 354.
16. Types, p. 355.

Copyright 1997 William R. Clough. All rights reserved.

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