Petteri Pietikainen

Archetypes as symbolic forms

In Jungs psychology, archetypes are biologically inherited supra-individual predispositions of the collective unconscious, and in this paper this controversial theory of archetypes is evaluated in the context of Ernst Cassirers philosophy of symbolic forms. The main thesis of the author is that with the help of the Cassirerian approach, archetypes can be understood as culturally determined functionary forms organizing and structuring certain aspects of mans cultural activity, namely those predominantly non-cognitive (for example, emotional, numinous, pathological) mental aspects of human life, which remain more or less unarticulated due to their non-discursive nature. The revision the author is proposing revolves around the notion that the archetypal theory can be removed from the rather unfruitful discourse on the genetic inheritance of archetypes. When archetypes are seen as symbolic forms, Jungs theory is in a position to make a potentially valuable contribution to hermeneutical and cultural studies, as archetypes function in this new context as active constituents of human experiences, which give these experiences a non-discursive, symbolic form. Thereby, archetypes can become accessible to historical and cultural analyses, and hermeneutical inquiry into the manifold symbolism of mental (including unconscious) phenomena can be enriched.

Truth hurts: the sociobiology debate, moral reading and the idea of ‘dangerous knowledge’

This article examines the belief among the cultural elites that ‘people’ should be protected from dangerous knowledge, ‘dangerous’ in the sense that there are factual statements which may have negative moral and political consequences to society. Such a belief in the negative consequences of dangerous – that is, politically suspicious – knowledge represents an intellectual tradition that goes back to Plato and his famous state‐utopian work Republic. This article analyses moral interpretations of statements regarding matters of fact (so‐called moral reading), and draws conclusions about the reasons why knowledge can be considered dangerous to ‘the people’ or to some specific groups in the population, such as children, mothers, students, the sick and dying and the working class. The so‐called sociobiology debate, a controversy that started with the publication of the zoologist E.O. Wilson’s Sociobiology in 1975, is discussed in this article as a ‘case study’ of dangerous knowledge.This article examines the belief among the cultural elites that ‘people’ should be protected from dangerous knowledge, ‘dangerous’ in the sense that there are factual statements which may have negative moral and political consequences to society. Such a belief in the negative consequences of dangerous – that is, politically suspicious – knowledge represents an intellectual tradition that goes back to Plato and his famous state‐utopian work Republic. This article analyses moral interpretations of statements regarding matters of fact (so‐called moral reading), and draws conclusions about the reasons why knowledge can be considered dangerous to ‘the people’ or to some specific groups in the population, such as children, mothers, students, the sick and dying and the working class. The so‐called sociobiology debate, a controversy that started with the publication of the zoologist E.O. Wilson’s Sociobiology in 1975, is discussed in this article as a ‘case study’ of dangerous knowledge.

On the origins of psychoanalytic psychohistory

This article examines the origins and early development of psychoanalytically inspired psychohistory from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. It focuses on Erik H. Erikson, Bruce Mazlish, and Robert Jay Lifton and illustrates their contributions to psychoanalytic psychohistory. Erikson, Mazlish, and Lifton were core members of the Wellfleet group, a research project originally funded by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1965 to conceptualize the foundation of psychohistory. The article gives an account of the early history of the Wellfleet group and argues for specific historical reasons to explain why psychoanalytic psychohistory emerged on the East Coast of the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. A critique of the Wellfleet group in unpublished correspondence of Erich Fromm and David Riesman is also discussed.

Strengthening the Will: Public Clinics for the Nervously Ill in Sweden in the First Half of the Twentieth Century

This article examines the development of state-run clinics for the nervously ill in Sweden in the interwar years. After the establishment of the Royal Board of Pensions in 1914, an institution for the care of the chronically neurotic was high on the agenda of this governmental agency. The Swedish state became actively involved in the fight against nervous illnesses, and the primary goal of these state-financed clinics was to turn neurotic patients into productive citizens. Neurotics were seen as a large group of potential invalids who might become a heavy burden on the national economy. They needed to be provided with effective therapy that would strengthen their will and restore their capacity so that they could be swiftly returned to normal life. It was this principle that characterised the clinical work at these institutions. The further development of the care of neuroses was the subject of a long and arduous debate that took place at the Swedish Society of Medicine in 1937. Neurosis was regarded as a national malady (folksjukdom) mainly because medical professionals-neurologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and internists-formulated it in terms of an extremely contagious diagnosis which, by the 1950s, seemed to affect everyone.