A revolution of the mind: some implications of George Hogenson's 'The Baldwin Effect: a neglected influence on C.G. Jung's evolutionary thinking' (2001). Issue 4 (14th August 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Colman, Warren
• Is Part Of: Journal of analytical psychology. Volume 60:Issue 4(2015:Sep.)
• Page Start: 520
• Page End: 539
• Publication Date: 2015-08-14
• Subjects: archetypes -- behindology -- cognitive evolution -- constitutive symbols -- distributed cognition -- emergence theory; Archétypes -- connaissance répandue -- evolution cognitive -- symboles constitutifs -- théorie de l'émergence; Archetypen -- 'behindology' -- kognitive Entwicklung -- konstitutive Symbole -- verbreitetes Erkenntnissystem; Archetipi -- evoluzione cognitiva -- simboli costitutivi -- cognizione distribuita -- teoria emergente; архетипы -- послелогия -- когнитивная эволюция -- основополагающие символы -- теория явления; Arquetipos -- 'behindology' -- evolución cognitiva -- símbolos constitutivos -- cognición distribuida -- teoría de lo emergente; Jungian psychology -- Periodicals; 131.3405
• DOI: 10.1111/1468-5922.12168
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0021-8774

Abstract

Abstract: George Hogenson's 2001 paper 'The Baldwin Effect: a neglected influence on C.G. Jung's evolutionary thinking' developed the radical argument that, if archetypes are emergent, they ' do not exist in the sense that there is no place that the archetypes can be said to be'. In this paper, I show how Hogenson's thinking has been seminal to my own: it is not just archetypes but the mind itself that has no 'place'. The mind is a dynamic system, emergent from the cultural environment of symbolic meanings to which humans are evolutionarily adapted. Drawing on the work of philosopher John Searle, I argue that symbols constitute the realities that they bring forth, including the imaginal realities of the psyche. The implications for clinical work include a rejection of structural models of the psyche in favour of the emergence of symbolic realities in the context of psychoanalysis as a distributed system of cognition.