 | The Journal of Abnormal Psychology |  |
THE NECESSITY OF METAPHYSICS
BY JAMES J. PUTNAM, M. D.
SOME years ago, at the Weimar Congress of the International Psychoanalytic Association, I read a paper on the importance of a knowledge of philosophy and metaphysics for psychoanalysts regarded as students of human life. Perhaps if I had had the experience and ability to contribute the results of some original analytic investigation on specific lines, I should not then have ventured into the philosophic field. Perhaps, indeed, if those conditions now obtained I should not be bringing forward similar arguments again, and if any one feels tempted to maintain that philosophic speculation is a camp of refuge for those who, in consequence of temperamental limitations and infantile fixations which ought to be overcome, draw back from the more robust study of emotional repressions on scientific lines, I should admit that the allegation contains an element of truth. But in spite of this, and in spite of the fact that there is some truth also in the statement that the effects—good and bad—of emotional repression make themselves felt, as a partial influence, in all the highest reaches of human endeavor, including art, literature, and religion;—in spite of these partial truths, philosophy and metaphysics are the only means through which the essential nature of many tendencies can be studied of which psychoanalysis describes only the transformations. And this being so it is perhaps reasonable that one paper should be read at an annual meeting such as this, where men assemble whose duty it is to study the human mind in all its aspects.
I presume that just as, and just because men have minds and bodies, an evolutional history in the ordinary sense and a mental history in a sense not commonly considered, so there will always be two, or perhaps three, parties among psychologists and men of science, and each one, in so far as it is limited in its vision, may be considered as abnormal, if one will. I decline, however, to admit that the
No one can doubt that function logically precedes structure; or if any one does doubt this, he need only observe his own experience and see how in every new acquisition of knowledge or of power there come, first, the thought, the idea, then the effort, next the habit, and finally the modification of cerebral mechanism, in which the effort and the habit become represented in relatively permanent and static form. In fact, the crux of the whole discussion between science and metaphysics turns on, or harks back to the discussion between function and structure; and it is the latter, in the sense in which I mean the word, that has had of late a too large share of our attention.
The enterprise on which we are all of us embarked,—whether we define it as an investigation, pure and simple, into human nature and human motives, or as a therapeutic attempt to relieve invalids of their symptoms,—is a larger one than it is commonly conceived of as being. Each physician and each investigator has, indeed, the right to say that for practical reasons he prefers to confine his attention to some single portion of one or the other of these tasks, be it never so small. But each one should regard himself as virtually under an obligation to recognize the respects in which this chosen task is incomplete. Every physicist is
To explain any matter is to discover the points of similarity, or virtual identity, between the matter studied and ourselves. But in order to do this thoroughly, or rather in order to do it with relation to the essential nature of some form of energy (the "Libido," for example, considered as an unpicturable force) one must first consider what we, the investigators, are, not at our less good, but at our best. It is with us, as given, with our best qualities regarded as defining in part the Q. E. D. of the experiment, that the investigation must begin. The nature of any and every form of real underlying energy or essence must be defined in terms of our sense of our own will and freedom. And this means that we must conceive and describe ourselves, and expect to conceive and to describe the powers that animate us, no longer as a system of forces subject to the so-called laws of nature (which are, in reality, not immutable) but as relatively free, creative agents; no longer as the product of the interplay of instincts, but as individuals possessed of real reason, real power of love and real self-consistent will. To claim to study the effects of the "Libido," to which we ascribe the vast powers with which we are familiar, yet fail to seek in it what would correspond to our own best attributes, would be to lay aside our duties as students of human nature. It would be to confine our attention to the "structure" of the mind, the form under which it manifests itself, without having studied the laws of its action under conditions which are more favorable to its development.
It must, now, have struck students of psychoanalytic literature that a marked tendency has been shown toward supplementing the study of structure,—that is, the detailed history of men's experiences and evolution, regarded as
Behind the experiences of childhood, for example, lie the temperamental trends of childhood, and it is these with which we really need to get acquainted; for these trends, if not the whole causes and equivalents of the experiences which are recounted to us by our patients, constitute the conditions without which the latter would not have been what they became.
But Jung himself, strangely enough, in both of his carefully prepared arguments, specifically rejects all intention of dealing "metaphysically" with this theme, in spite of the fact that every movement toward a fuller recognition of creative energy is nothing less than metaphysics, even though not in name.
The skilled observer, scrutinizing the motives and peering into the history of the person whose traits and trends he is called on to investigate, must see, in imagination, not only a vast host of acts, but also a vast network of intersecting lines of energy of which the casual observer, and even the intimate friend, may be wholly unaware. We call these lines of energy by many special names,—"Libido" or "Urlibido," first of all, then love and hate and jealousy, and so on.
What are these lines of energy, and how can we study them to the best purpose? Obviously they are incomplete editions of the love and reason and will the laws of which we can study to best advantage in ourselves and in men where they are displayed in their best, that is, in their most constructive form. To make such studies is to recognize metaphysics, but instead of doing of doing this tacitly and
The study of human nature should, in short, begin at the top, rather than at the bottom; just as, if one had to choose what phase of a symphony one would choose in order to get an idea of its perfection, one would take some culminating moment rather than the first few notes simply because they were the first. To be accurate, one could not do justice to the symphony except by studying it as a whole, and similarly one should study the man as a whole, including his relations to the universe as a whole. It is as wholes that great poets conceived of their poems and great artists of their pictures, and it is as a whole that each and every human life, standing as it does as the representative of the body of the universe, and the spirit of the universe, on the other, should implicitly be viewed.
The psychologist should sympathize deeply with the anatomist and the physiologist and the student of cerebral pathology, but equally deeply with the philosopher and the metaphysician who study the implications, present although hidden, that point to the bonds between the individual and the universe. To fail to recognize that these bonds exist,—as is done when the attempt is made to study human beings as if they were really and exclusively the product of their historic past conceived of in an organic sense,—would be to try to build one-half of an arch and expect it to endure. The truth is, we do not, in my opinion, genuinely believe that a human is nothing but the product of his organic past, or the product of his experience.
We believe, by implication, in our metaphysical selves and our corresponding obligations, more strongly than we have taught ourselves to recognize. But to this fact we make ourselves blind through a species of repression, just as many a child, confident of its parents' affection, assumes, for his own temporary purposes, the right to accuse them of hostile intentions which they do not entertain.
We forget, or repress, the fact that the mind of man cannot be made subject to the laws of physics, and yet we proceed to deal with the phenomena dependent on the working of the mind of man as if these laws actually did prevail.
The misleading effects of this tendency are clearly seen
The notion seems to prevail that we should prepare ourselves for the formation of just ideas with regard to the mode in which the higher faculties of men come into existence by wiping the slate clean to the extent of assuming that we have before us no data except some few acts or thoughts that are definable in the simplest possible terms, and then watching what happens as the situation becomes more complicated. But one is apt to forget, in doing this, that there is one thing which we cannot wipe off the slate,—namely, ourselves, not taken in the Bergsonian sense alone, but as fully fledged persons, possessed of the very qualities for which we undertake to search, yet without the possession of which the search could not begin. This does not, of course, militate against the value of these genetic researches in one sense. The study of evolutional sequences is still, and forever will be, of enormous value. But it does not teach us nearly as much of the nature of real creativeness as we can learn through the introspection of ourselves in the fullest sense; and I maintain that psychoanalysts are persons who could do this to advantage.
Is not the notion that through the careful watching of the sequences of the evolutionary process, as if from without, we can get an adequate idea of the forces that really are at work, exactly the delusion by which the skillful juggler tries to deceive his audience when he directs their attention to the shifting objects that he manipulates, and away from his own swiftly moving hands?
My contention is that there are other means of studying the force which we call "Libido" besides that of noting its effects. The justification for this statement is that the force itself is identical, in the last analysis, with that which we feel within ourselves and know as reason, as imagination, and as will, conscious of themselves, and capable of giving to us, directly or indirectly, the only evidence we could ever hope to get, for the existence of real creativeness, spontaneity and freedom.
Every work of art, worthy of the name, gives evidence
Unity must prevail throughout all nature. Either we are,—altogether, and through and through, our best as well as our less good,—nothing but the expression of repressed cravings, in the sense that they or the conflicts based on them constitute the final causa vera of all progress; or else the best that is in us and also our repressed cravings are alike due to the action of a form of energy which is virtually greater than either one of them, inasmuch as it has the capacity of developing into something greater than either.
This is the agency which we should preeminently study and it is best studied under conditions when, instead of being obviously subject to repression, it is most free from repression. That is, it is best studied as it appears in the thoughts and conduct of the best men, at their best, their most constructive moments.
We cannot use our power of reason to deny our reason; for in so doing we affirm the very thing which we deny. Nor are we under the necessity of using our reason to affirm our reason, since that is the datum without which we cannot undertake our task.
If this view is sound, what practical conclusions can we draw from it? I wish to insist on this question because it was distinctly and positively with the practical end in mind that I ventured to write this paper, and I suggest the following as a few of these conclusions.
(I) We should not speak of the "Libido," in whatever sense this word is taken, as if it were a fixed quantity, like so much heat, or so much fluid, that is, as representing so much measurable force. One current notion which has played a very useful part in psychoanalytic work, yet is misleading in its tendency, is that the "Libido" may be likened to a river which if it cannot find an outlet through its normal channel is bound to overflow its banks and perhaps furrow out a new path. This conception is based on this same law of the conservation of energy to which reference
One does not find that love or reason is subject to this quantitative law. On the contrary, the persons whom most of us recognize as of the highest type do not love any given individual less because their love takes in another. The bond of love holds not only three, but an indefinite number.
The same statement may be made with regard to reason and to will. The power and quantity of them are not exhausted but are increased by use.
I maintain, then, that although the "Libido," in so far as it is regarded as an instinct, does not stand on the same footing with the reason and disinterested love of a person of high cultivation and large views, neither does it stand on the same footing with the physical energy that manifests itself in light and heat and gravitation.
When we come to deal with man and any of his attributes, or as we find them at any age, we ought to look upon him, in my estimation, as animated in some measure by his self-foreshadowing best. And whether it is dreams with which we have to do, or neurotic conflicts, or wilfulness, or regression, we shall learn to see, more and more, as we become accustomed to look for evidences thereof, the signs of this sort of promise, just as we might hope to learn to find, more and more, through the inspection of a lot of seeds of different plants, the evidences which would enable us to see the different outcomes which each one is destined to achieve, even though, at first, they all looked just alike.
(2) The next point has reference to "sublimation." This outcome of individual evolution, as defined by Freud, has a strictly social, not an ethical, meaning. Jung also, in the interesting paper referred to, in his description of the rational aims of psychoanalysis, makes sublimation (though he does not there use the word) the equivalent of a subjective sense of well being, combined with the maximum of biologic effectiveness.
"Die Psychoanalyse soll eine biologische Methode sein, welche das hoechste subjektive Wohlbefinden mit der wertwollsten biologischen Leistung zu vereinigen sucht."
But in my opinion, while it may be true that the psychoanalyst may often have reason to be thankful if he can claim a therapeutic outcome of this sort, the logical goal of a psychoanalytic treatment is not covered by the securing of a relative freedom from subjective distress, even when combined with the satisfactory fulfillment of one's biologic mission. A man has higher destinies than this, and the sense of incompleteness felt by the neurotic patient, which was emphasized by Janet and is recognized by us all, must be more or less painfully felt by every man whose conscience does not assure him that he is really working for an end greater than that here specified. The logical end of a psychoanalytic treatment is the recovery of a full sense of one's highest destiny and origin and of the bearings and meanings of one's life.
On similar grounds I think that the conflicts to which all men find themselves subjected, must be considered, in the last analysis, as conflicts of an ethical description. For it is only in ethical terms that one can define one's relation to the universe regarded as a whole, just as it is only in ethical terms that a man could describe his sense of obligation to support the dignity of fine family traditions or the ideals represented by a team or a social group of which he felt reason to be proud. I realize that a man's sense of pride of his family, his team, or his country may be a symptom of narcistic self-adulation; but like all such signs and symbols—the symbol of the church tower, for example—this is a case where two opposing meanings meet.
Every act and motive of our lives, from infancy to age, is controlled by two sets of influences, the general nature of which has here been made sufficiently clear. They correspond on the one hand, to the numerous partial motives which psychoanalysis studies to great advantage, and on the other hand, to the ethical motives which are only thoroughly studied by philosophy.
(3) Another conclusion, which seems to me practically of great importance, follows from this same view. Every
We are told that our visions of the unpicturable, the ideal world, which our imagination paints and which our logical reasoning calls for as the necessary cap or final corollary to any finite world which our intelligence can actually define,—that such visions are nothing but the pictures of infantile desires projected on to a great screen and made to mock us with the appearance of reality.
I have nothing whatever to say against the value of the evidence that a portion of our visions are of this origin. In fact, I believe this as heartily as does any one. But I desire strenuously to oppose the view tacitly implied in the statement of the projection theory just cited, the acceptance of which as an exclusive doctrine would involve the virtual rejection of our right, as scientific men, to rely on the principle that the evidence afforded by logical presuppositions and logical inference is as cogent as that furnished through observation.
It is, in my opinion, just because we all belong to a world which is in outline not "in the making" but completed,—because, in short, we are in one sense like heirs returning to our estates,—that this remarkable preparedness of each child is found that impresses us so strongly. The universe is, in a sense, ours by prescriptive right and by virtue of the constitution of our minds. But the unity of such a universe must, of course, be of a sort that includes and indeed implies diversity and conflict as essential elements of its nature.
Psychoanalysts should not make light of inferential forms of reasoning, for it is on this form of reasoning that the value of their own conclusions largely rests. We infer
Our immediate environment and the world that surrounds us in that sense, appear to our observation, indeed, as "in the making." But besides the power of observation which enables, and indeed forces us to see the imperfection in this environmental world, we possess, or are possessed by, a mental constitution which compels us, with still greater force, to the belief in a goal of positive perfection of which our nearer goals are nothing but the shadow.
It is because I believe in the necessity of such reasoning as this that I am not prepared to accept the "Lust-Unlust" principle (that is, to use philosophical terms, the "hedonistic" principle) as representing the forces by which even the child is finally animated. Men do not reach their best accomplishments, if indeed they reach any accomplishment, through the exclusive recognition, either unconscious or instinctive, of a utilitarian result, or a result which can be couched in terms of pleasure or personal satisfaction as the goal of effort. They may state the goal to themselves in these terms; but this is, then, the statement of what is really a fictitious principle, a principle in positing which the patient does but justify himself and does not define his real motive. Utilitarianism and hedonism and the pleasure-pain principle, useful though they are, are alike imperfect in that they refer to partial motives, partial forms of self-expression; whereas that which finally moves men to their best accomplishments and makes them dissatisfied with anything less than this, is the necessity rather than the desire to take complete self-expression as their final aim. The partial motives are more or less traceable as if by observation. The larger motives must be felt and reached through inferential reasoning, based on observation of ourselves through careful introspection.
Finally, the practical, therapeutic question arises, as to what measures the psychoanalyst is justified in taking to bring about the best sort of outcome in a given case?
It is widely felt that the psychoanalyst would weaken his own hold on the strong typically analytic principles through which painful conflicts are to be removed if he should form the habit of dealing with ethical issues, and talking of "duties", instead of stimulating his patients to the discovery of resistances and repressions, even of repression the origin of which is not to be found within the conscious life. Yet,—parallel, as one might say, with this clear-cut standard of professional psychoanalytic obligation, the force of which I recognize,—it has to be admitted that there are certain fairly definite limitations to the usefulness of psychoanalysis. As one of these limitations, well-pronounced symptoms of egoism, taking the form of narcissism, are to be reckoned. These symptoms are not easily analyzed away. But if one asks oneself, or asks one's patients, what conditions might, if they had been present from the outset, have prevented this narcistic outcome (Jehovah type, etc.), the influence that suggests itself—looming up in large shape—is just this broad sense of ethical obligation to which repeated reference has here been made. If these patients could have had it brought home to them in childhood that they belonged, not to themselves conceived of narrowly (that is, as separate individuals) but only to themselves conceived of broadly as representatives of a series of communities taken in the largest sense, the outcome that happened might perhaps have been averted.
And what might have happened may still happen. What is to be done? Each physician must decide this for himself. He should be able both to do his best as a psychoanalyst and at the same time help the patient to free himself from that sort of repression in consequence of which he is unable to see his own best possibilities. But he cannot do this unless he has trained himself to see and feel in himself the outlines of this vision any more than he could help the patient to rid himself of an infantile complex if he did not appreciate what this complex means. We must trust ourselves, as physicians, with deadly weapons, and with deadly responsibilities, and we ought to be well harried by our consciences if we should do injustice, in using them, either to our scientific or our philosophic training.
| The Journal of Abnormal Psychology | |