Jung's Psychology and Deleuze's Philosophy: The unconscious in learning

Abstract

This paper addresses the unconscious dimension as articulated in Carl Jung's depth psychology and in Gilles Deleuze's philosophy. Jung's theory of the archetypes and Deleuze's pedagogy of the concept are two complementary resources that posit individuation as the goal of human development and self‐education in practice. The paper asserts that educational theory should explore the role of the unconscious in learning, especially with regard to adult education in the process of learning from life‐experiences. The integration of the unconscious into consciousness becomes a constitutive part of subject‐formation and self‐knowledge, which in turn serves as a basis for experiential self‐education.

Keywords:

• adult education
• human development
• affects and archetypes
• consciousness and the unconscious
• Jung's individuation
• Deleuze's philosophy of education