Abstract

This dissertation addresses the following questions, which have received little or no previous attention in the scholarly literature: Does Gadamer's notion of understanding as hermeneutical event accurately characterize what goes on in depth psychotherapy? What does Jung understand by "dialectic" when he describes psychotherapy as dialektisch? ;Gadamer's hermeneutical theory as presented in Truth and Method is contrasted with that presented by E. D. Hirsch, Jr. in Validity in Interpretation and The Aims of Interpretation, stressing the issues of subjectivity and objectivity in interpretation. The background of Gadamer's theory in Hegel's dialectic and concept of the subjectivity of Being itself is contrasted with Hirsch's Cartesian background. Jung's use of the word dialektisch to characterize the relationships between the analyst and analysand and between the conscious and unconscious psyche is surveyed, and his concepts of "active imagination" and psychotherapy as "dialectical procedure" rather than the application of method are discussed. Jung's theory of synchronicity and the "psychoid" level of reality is presented as moving, despite Jung's avowed Kantianism, toward an essentially Hegelian position on the unity and subjectivity of Being. ;For both Gadamer and Jung, dialectic means dialogue between pairs of interlocutors: in Gadamer, between the interpreter and the text; in Jung, between the analyst and the analysand, and between the conscious and the unconscious psyche. Each of these dialogues is concerned with and has its basis in a "third thing" which is ontologically independent of the interlocutors and has the characteristics of subjectivity: in Gadamer, the subject matter or Sache selbst; in Jung, the collective unconscious and the "psychoid" level of reality. In both Jung and Gadamer the human subject taking part in the dialogue is led, via an essentially Hegelian movement of "recognizing oneself in other being" to a more universal or "higher" level of consciousness. Finally, both Gadamer's understanding of Geisteswissenschaften and Jung's understanding of individuation involve humanistic "self-cultivation" , as opposed to an application of scientific method or a merely "technical" procedure. ;Directions for further related research, including implications for the self-understanding of humanistic disciplines in the academy, are suggested