A Freudian’s Journey into Jung’s World

ABSTRACT

Jung’s Ethics: Moral Psychology and His Cure of Souls by Dan Merkur is the late scholar’s compelling journey into Jung’s psychology, worldview, and methods. Merkur, who sees Jung through a psychoanalytic lens, conducts an open-minded inquiry into many of Jung’s ethically relevant theoretical and clinical discoveries, including the phenomenon of “neurotic denial of guilt” and the thesis of the inborn foundations of morality. Although these ideas diverged from Freud’s conceptions, they also anticipated many future developments in psychoanalysis. The possibility of a convergence between the ethical views of Freud and Jung, via a critical comparison with Nietzsche, is also considered.

KEY WORDS:

• conscience
• ethics
• Freud
• guilt
• Jung
• morality
• Nietzsche
• psychoanalysis
• shadow
• unconscious

NOTE

References to The Collected Works of C. G. Jung are cited in the text as CW, volume number, and paragraph number. The Collected Works are published in English by Routledge (UK) and Princeton University Press (USA).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Giovanni Colacicchi

GIOVANNI COLACICCHI, PhD, is an independent scholar and teaches philosophy, history, languages, and literature at various higher education institutions in Italy and the UK. He has a master’s in philosophy and a PhD in psychoanalytic studies. He is also a philosophical counselor, a contributor to L’Indiscreto (www.indiscreto.org), and the author of Psychology as Ethics: Reading Jung with Kant, Nietzsche and Aristotle (Routledge, forthcoming). He lives in Ferrara, Italy, with his wife, Elisa, and their son, Francesco. Correspondence: [email protected].