Washburn (philosophy, Indiana U.) explains how the Jungian transpersonal theory of ego transcendence might be grounded in the psychoanalytic theory of ego development.

Five types of psychic duality are distinguished: bipolarity, bimodality, contrariety, dualism, and the coincidentia op–positorurn. Bipolarity is the basic division of the psyche into egoic and nonegoic (physico–dynamic) poles. Bimodality is the division of egoic functioning into active and receptive modes. Contrariety is the division of the nonegoic sphere into opposing sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. Dualism is the organization imposed upon the bipolar structure by primal repression. And the coincidentia opositorum is the condition of psychic integration that would emerge were (...) dualism to be transcended and the bipolar structure (together with the bimodal and contrarietal structures) unified into a higher whole. (shrink)

From the beginning of the modern period to the mid-twentieth century most people who wrote on matters of philosophy and psychology assumed that the self is the ego, an inner subject that is the centre of conscious experiencing and an agency of thought and will. However, in the second half of the twentieth century — indeed, beginning even earlier, in the 1920s and 1930s — the notion of the ego became a target of criticism for theorists of widely differing points (...) of view. This critical attention has turned opinion against the notion of the ego in many circles and has raised the issue of its legitimacy. In this paper I address the issue of legitimacy by undertaking a survey of major historical conceptions and criticisms of the ego to see if the notion of the ego might be reconceived in a way that satisfactorily meets critical challenges. The survey begins with Descartes and then works its way forward in time to consider the views of Hume, Kant, Freud, Hartmann, Heidegger, Sartre, object relations theorists, Lacan, postmodernists, and materialists in the philosophy of mind. I state and comment on each of these views. Of necessity, statements of views are highly condensed. The comments assess the views by evaluating each in terms of the others and offer proposals about how particular conceptions of the ego might be reformulated to meet the criticisms discussed. Having completed the historical survey, I gather together proposals from the comments and present a revised conception of the ego that, I believe, is tenable in light of historical criticisms. This revised conception is presented here as a proposal only, a proposal, moreover, that outlines one of perhaps multiple ways in which the ego can be reconceived to meet critical challenges. (shrink)

Steven Rosen has written a fascinating book which brings together and updates essays he has published over the past twenty years. Rosen is a professor of psychology who is well versed in philosophy, mathematics, and physics, and his essays treat topics that draw together ideas from all of these fields. Some of the chapters of Science, Paradox, and the Moebius Principle discuss issues in mathematics and physics in ways that may present a challenge for people in the behavioral sciences or (...) humanities. This is especially true of the chapter "A Neo-Intuitive Proposal for Kaluza-Klein Unification," which, originally published in Foundations of Physics, is a technically sophisticated essay on cosmogony conceived as a process of dimensional generation. Even this paper, however, is accessible in its basic ideas to the general reader. And it is well worth serious study, for it formulates Rosen’s theoretical program in an uncompromisingly rigorous and elegant way. It is a tour de force and the centerpiece of the collection. (shrink)