Spirituality Studies 11-1 Spring 2025 51 Ivana Ryška Vajdová precedes reason. Hence, reason does not serve as a tool for criticizing values, but, rather, we find satisfaction when reason confirms values with all its instruments. The value system is not universally given, since the energetic intensity of complexes differs among individuals, affecting both their emotional experience and their mode of rationalization. In this way, Jung identifies reality with psychological value, or, as he frequently states, what is valuable to us is also real to us. The “personal equation”, which describes typological variations of psychic structure, blurs the distinction between reality and psychological “effectiveness” – the degree to which something influences human thought and feeling – to the point that “reality is simply that which exerts an effect on the human soul” (Jung CW6 1921, 41). At this point, one might get the impression that Jung is attempting to relativize truth as it is commonly understood. It is important to remember, though, that his goal is to describe the predetermined way in which we experience the world – much like Kant’s phenomena, which do not allow us to determine anything about things-in-themselves. Nevertheless, the “personal equation” introduces a fundamental problem that Kant’s mental universe of “all human beings” does not account for. While, according to Kant, humanity cannot know anything beyond the world of phenomena, at least people can communicate and find agreement based on the universal laws of logic, which provide an identical order to both these phenomena and our thinking about them. Jung, however, disrupts this “pure” human universe by introducing a critical psychological obstacle – the personal equation. While this does not negate the universal laws of logic, it renders them psychologically negligible in comparison to the value systems characteristic of each psychological type. Each type tends to use logic only insofar as it supports its own starting position and desired conclusion. According to Jung, the only way to minimize this subjective bias is to overcome a one-sided typological orientation, which he sees as a sign of insufficient personal development and a source of latent neurosis. The solution lies in working toward a balanced development of seemingly opposing psychological attitudes – a process that Jung encapsulated under the concept of individuation. Jung’s psychology ultimately demonstrates that objectivity is an ideal – one that cannot be practically achieved. 9 Meaning Before Reason or the Hidden Art of Synthesis We have arrived at the conclusion that human beings create meaning based on their individual value “morphology”, and this meaning can resonate, with conflict, or remain unnoticed within another value system. This naturally raises the question: what is meaning, after all? At this point, the interconnection between philosophy and psychology becomes evident. If we are to even attempt an answer, we need the theoretical capacity of the former and the practical capacity of the latter. Philosophy provides us with notions, while psychology can demonstrate their effect in human life, thereby indirectly proving meaning through its lived impact. Meaningful content is, first and foremost, something that cannot be exhausted by analyzing its individual parts. It possesses its own intrinsic value. This is because such content is not merely the sum or juxtaposition of its original components but rather emerges as something qualitatively new. Within the nature of the original parts, there was no obvious key by which one could predict the outcome of their synthesis. This process, which is capable of integrating even seemingly unrelated elements, was named by Kant as synthesis. Since synthesis is neither a mathematical nor a logical operation, it remains a mystery to human reason. Reflecting on its general nature, Kant describes it as “[t]he mere effect of the imagination, of a blind though indispensable function of the soul” (Kant 1998, A 78). We are, thus confronted with something that provides content asymmetrically to reason – what Kant calls “blind”, impervious to the light of reason. He refers to this capacity as “a hidden art in the depths of the human soul, whose true operations we can divine from nature and lay unveiled before our eyes only with difficulty” (Kant 1998, A 141). The very fact that Kant introduced the term “art” into his philosophy when discussing the synthetic process of meaning formation permanently ties him to the concept of the unconscious. By describing the irrational nature of imagination in this way, he attracted the attention of those seeking connections between his philosophy and depth psychology. As Andrew Bowie has pointed out, in Kant’s era, the meaning of the word “art” (Ger. Kunst) shifted from the Greek techné (Gr. “skill” or “craftsmanship”) to Schleiermacher’s understanding of “creation that is not governed by rules”. As such, art became the capacity to transcend any system, meaning that its manifestations cannot be fully grasped or predicted from within any given framework.
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