Rhetorical Investigations

G. B. Vico and C. G. Jung

Leslie Gardner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135909284
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophie
• Subtopic: Histoire et théorie de la philosophie

Rhetorical analysis of texts exposes plausible 'truths' and presumptions implied by the writer's presentation. In this volume, Leslie Gardner analyses the master psychologist Jung, who claimed to be expert at uncovering personal, psychological truths. In his theoretical writings, his rhetoric reveals philosophical ramifications which bear strong similarities to those of the rhetorician of the 18th century, Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico.

This book is driven by an interest in arguing that it is possible to read Jung's works easily enough when you have a set of precepts to go by. The paradox of scientific discovery being set out in Jung's grotesque and arcane imagery begins to seem a startling and legitimate psychology for the 21 st century.

It is time Jungian studies took on this most appropriate examination of analytical psychology. Bringing Vico to bear directly on Jung's thought has only been cursorily attempted before although much alluded to. We find indeed that some of Jung's ideas derive directly from rhetorical theory, and this volume proposes to highlight Jung's innovations, and bring him into forefront of contemporary psychological thought. Rhetorical Investigations will be of interest to analysts and academics, and also to those studying philosophy and psychology.

1

TENSIONS

Psychoanalysis/rhetoric/science

All things are potent with unfathomed codes. We pass by without attending to them, without being even aware of them.

(Ernst Curtius, Franzosischer Geist in neuen Europa 1925 in Gelley 1966)

In a more recent work, The Rhetoric of Rhetoric (2004), Booth complains about the prevailing suspicion of rhetoric. When it is used as an adjective in ordinary language, it has pejorative connotations. ‘Rhetoric’ means deceptive and ‘empty words’ to many contemporary scholars and to the general public (Booth 2004: vii–xv).

To bring the discipline of rhetoric to bear on a discussion of psychoanalytic theory doubles up the anomalies. Psychoanalytic theory is regarded suspiciously when it claims to be scientific, as we have seen. And even worse than Freud’s science, Jungian analytic psychology appears more extreme: it privileges ‘ornamental’ or figural expression. Both Freud and Jung’s ‘science’ rests on unreliable reports ‘directly’ from patients’ psyches to provide proof: dreams and visions are cited from often mentally unstable patients. Arcane and obscure mythical characters and events, Gnostics, and alchemists are also hauled in as evidence in Jungian spheres. This combination of data provides the bulk of proof. But even psychology is anomalous. Kuhn’s paradigm-shifting analysis of scientific disciplines did not include psychology. As is well known, he contended that science was an argumentative rather than an objective and logical endeavour, depending on agreed-upon ideologies or dogmas. ‘Necessity’ was redefined to be about ‘certainty’ and not about ‘truth’. In Kuhn’s book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, science emerges as a rhetorical enterprise. But psychology and psychoanalysis are not mentioned.

There are two threads that weave this theme together that I will track, sometimes each on its own, and sometimes together: (1) the impact or presence of ‘ornamentation’ or ‘excessive’ language, or ‘figural’ language in supposedly neutral scientific prose and (2) the underlying suspicion of argumentative rhetoric as a solid basis of science, despite the latest critiques of science. This unease is especially the case with psychoanalysis: the ‘talking’ cure. But it is figural or ornamental elements that make rhetoric problematic, and this has been so since Plato’s day. Discourse is underhand when it makes emotional appeals. These formulations – anger; ‘narratio’ – stories of misery or grief; dazzling beautiful charms of prose or persona – provide lures which are subjective and irrational supplications, not to be trusted. The commentators I use in tracing the issue of rhetorician and scientist, often mean extraneous ornamentation when they refer to rhetoric, its hollowness or premeditated status.

Freeing science from its chains of logical, rational hide-bound theorising, allowed advances in technique and visions of a new world. To bring such insights to bear on psychoanalysis and psychology itself must open up further awareness of human nature and capacity. But there has long been resistance and tension. I will start with the most extreme claims.

In Modern Occult Rhetoric, Gunn claims that psychoanalysis is an occultist practice so recognised by its secret and indirect language and proofs. A thrilling secrecy for the initiated is created by indirection and by metaphorical, ‘rhetorical’ terminology. The jargon’s appeal is compelling just as its language designs and intends it to be. Evidence in psychoanalytic theory is culled from unreliable personal testimony and its interpretations are shaped into ‘case studies’, made convincing by the writings of such master rhetoricians as Freud (Gunn 2005: 1–25).

Gunn proposes that its authors’ writing capacities are its downfall: ‘To understand something as “rhetorical” is to understand it as negotiable, as a contingent and protean object that can only be discerned partially – indirectly through case studies’ (ibid.: xxiii).

Like case studies of hysteria and their investigation and cure, the language of the occult is a magical, persuasive language, whose allure is hard to resist. And, particularly early on, it seems a sphere for women with contact in abstruse places which mingles with strange hysteria. Like Freud’s analyses and Jung’s, references in the occultist’s world are of titillating hidden potent and sexy deities and appealingly intricate beliefs.

Further, the case studies work up into good narratives. Occultist writers like Alistair Crowley (The Book of the Law: Centennial Edition; The Book of Thoth and The Goetia among many other titles which are constantly in print), or Scientology’s L. Ron Hubbard (with titles like Dianetics or Scientology) are gripping and popular reads, full of the same paranoiac introspection, and excessive heated prose. Public reception of Freud’s publications was initially taken in similar ways by many readers. His books were bestsellers in their time, even after a slow start – particularly his publication about the Dora case, and The Interpretation of Dreams. These books have gone on selling steadily since their first publications in 1900 and, in the case of the Dora case, in 1905. It might be that now they have found other serious audiences, but originally they sold also because they were intimate and robust narratives, with startling interpretations.

As an example, a sympathetic review of Freud’s Delusion and Dream (1921) reprinted in the Guardian (6 October 2008) newspaper from an earlier issue dated 6 October 1921 demonstrates contemporary response:

In this remarkable book there lies at least a double interest. There is, firstly, a longish short story of unusual merit and charm … and secondly, Professor Freud’s commentary on it from the psycho-analytic standpoint, a brilliant and ingenious treatment of the story as a narrative of real happenings …

The Guardian’s headline more recently in the 16 October 2007 issue reads: ‘Dr Freud’s new treatment of fiction’.

A less sensationalist writer about psychoanalytic writing, Donald Spence, starts from a premise related to Gunn’s in The Rhetorical Voice of Psychoanalysis. There he is disparaging of psychoanalytic theory because it relies on language that is hollow because it is rhetoric, and such language is unscientific:

rhetoric displaces evidence; we lose the ability to reach what Jurgen Habermas has called an ‘uncompelled consensus’. Protected by its use of secrecy, arcane language, and unprincipled rhetoric from the challenges of the disbeliever, alchemy and the occult in general became even more fallible and reached a dead end around the time of the Renaissance. Is psychoanalysis headed the same way?

(Spence 1994: 3)

Spence’s book is a clarion call to jettison rhetoric from psychoanalytic theory. Why? Because rhetorical language is always contingent. It is not only that he understands rhetoric to mean language that is provisional and florid but that he thinks psychoanalytic writing relies on opportunistic rhetorical concepts to prove a point. This is damaging and unscientific: ‘The time has come to call attention to the rhetorical voice of psychoanalysis before it can do further damage and before more evidence is displaced by unsupported assumptions’ (ibid.: 5).

Classical rhetoric language which aims at being ‘pleasing’ and ‘persuasive’ contributes to a psychoanalytic language that creates shadows, arcane and specialised words which disguise and obfuscate meaning, with made-up language, like the neologisms of the occult. Such rhetorical language is fustian, and excessive ornamentation. It promises significant and powerful truth, but it is a hollow undertaking. Spence claims that in the same ways as occult language is deceptive so is the language of psychoanalysis.

Earlier in the twentieth century, I’d contend that Stephen Toulmin raised more profound issues. He also contemplates the rhetorical/argumentative position of psychoanalytic language, and also tries to come to terms with the nature of its scientific posture. Psychoanalysis is a ‘half-fledged science’ he claims (Toulmin 1948: 132) seeking desperately to reinforce its own status. But since it is the ‘logical status’ of a discipline that is the measure of its being scientific, a language that employs figural arguments and proofs will have great difficulties, according to Toulmin, in proving its bona fides.

Freud and his followers, Toulmin says, only appear to focus on Aristotelian logical analysis by tracking cause to effect. They do so in order to fall into line with what they think is certain and logical and therefore, scientific. In their theoretical writings, Freud and his colleagues present and prove their proposals in this way. (Toulmin does not mention Jung’s ideas.)

But Toulmin thinks that they confuse their endeavour, and it is not the traditional underpinnings of ‘mechanical’ causality that is their proof. Toulmin notices that in the reports of the face-to-face case work, Freud actually focuses on analysing motivations. And, curiously, it is when the theories are written up, in order to conform to a traditional view of how science should be proven and expressed, that theoreticians use the explanations of causality but not in their practice. This misconception has caused damage to psychoanalysis’ reputation, he claims.

Toulmin presumes that psychoanalytic language is rhetorical (Toulmin 1948, Flew 1949, Madden 1966). But, as I am arguing, although he spots that it is a subjective construct, which involves motivation, he focuses only on the logic of motivation. There are other constraints on motivation – repressed desires, unconscious associations, emotions – the subjective and irrational range of human experience, etc. Demonstrations, i.e. extrinsic and deductive justifications, in Aristotle’s Rhetoric, are usually, but not always, logical deductions leading to action. Toulmin’s ideas are based on his definitions of ‘warrants’ for action which are his supports for argumentation (Toulmin 1958). Motivation is cast as a logical coordinate so that psychoanalysis might achieve scientific status. Motivation can be isolated and quantified. Scientific proofs must be extrinsic, based on unconditional support, not dependent on shades of definition in terms, and so forth (Toulmin 1948, 1958).

But on the other hand, there is an aspect of motivation that is distinctly contingent and subjective. And, in fact, argumentative analysis of discourse is the most effective means by which a commentator can assess motivation. But, as for his premise, Toulmin’s argumentation turns on a belief in extrinsic logical underpinnings, and this pulls him up short from committing himself to consideration of the figurative level of scientific discourse. Jeanne Fahrenstock pursues the idea that figurative language is distinctly at the basis of all scientific endeavour. Therefore figurative language is totally the language of science. Fahrenstock demonstrates underlying ornamental ploys of scientific writings, discussing inference and gradation, for example, to prove its ubiquity.

Paul Ricoeur supports the discussion of Freud’s ‘proof’ in psychoanalysis; argumentation clearly includes motivation as a persuasive element, and he demonstrates that its triangulation with subjective elements to achieve proven healing transformation makes the process quantifiable and verifiable and therefore, a scientific project.

At the same time, Roy Shafer in A New Language for Psychoanalysis (1976) recommended making certain that psychoanalytic language is ‘action language’; he advises authors of psychoanalytic texts to ‘eschew mixed physiochemical and evolutionary biological language’ (Shafer 1976: 3). Such metaphors are ‘inappropriate [when] elevated to status of theoretical terms’. Verbs, and in circumspect times, adverbs, should be used instead of adjectives and analogies. He wants to prohibit psychoanalytical terminology and theories from use of the figural realm, i.e. its use of analogy and indirect reference. The metaphorical edifice of the mechanistic language Freud uses undermines psychoanalysis’ status as a science. Like Spence, his concern is use of what is deemed irrational formulae as proof.

Psychoanalytic theory should reform itself to become less ‘rhetorical’.

Rhetoric is traditionally closely associated to logic, and of course to argumentation. But Aristotle’s ‘demonstrations’ are two kinds of proofs. They are on the one hand syllogistic, rigid verification in which contradictions are honoured as outside contingent event. But they can also be extrinsic proof that are agreed-on conclusions by an audience not subject to logical deduction (Aristotle Topics, Warnick 2002, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 1969, Nichols 1987, Stocks 1933).

By using the coordinates of argumentation to reckon motivation, a form of human purpose that combines external and internal, personal drive, Ricoeur and Toulmin are able to bring psychoanalysis into line with scientific argument. Motivation can be discerned and analysed and verified. In this way, by considering psychoanalytic theory in the light of argumentative language, and raising its status, Toulmin only challenges Spence’s dismissal of the power of rhetoric in part. He uses the underpinnings of logical language to ‘prove’ that basically the subjective element of motivation is really ‘logical’ and not contingent or irrational. Therefore, it meets the criteria of irrefutable and verifiable science which is its nature.

Equally persuaded about the value of using rhetorical language to discuss psychological concepts is Michael Billig (Billig 1987, 1996, 2002). Billig develops another aspect of psychoanalytic language that moves it toward appreciation of it as a fully subjective and yet still valid rhetoric. Billig defends the earliest rhetoricians, Gorgias and Protagorus, despite their bad reputation. Plato condemned them as ethically anomalous because they were adept at arguing both sides of a case (Plato, Gorgias, Symposium). Billig revives admiration for the Sophistical proposition that examination of all sides of a dispute is valuable. Both the anticipated and the reactive response to the audience is a useful means to investigate psychological theory, and the sophists had to take that on board. He proposes that psychological theory is a form of dialogical thinking, and sophistical rhetoricians devised the most appropriate technical idiom to theorise about psychology. He links dialogism to rhetorical strategy, and especially to the sophistical tradition. However, he does not address the ornamental or figural devices of rhetoric, staying close to sociological communication theory and argumentation.

John Shotter, a socio-psychologist, reveals that despite appearances, his arguments are based on the extrinsic objective proofs of rhetoric. In Conversational Realities (1993), he applies rhetorical terminology to psychological discussion, citing Vico as a principal. Shotter uses Vico’s idea that historical eras have a distinctive and specific style. This notion supports his proposition that conversational exchange ‘constructs’ realities.

[Genres are] … form-producing ideologies, that is, the ‘imaginary worlds’ they embody. Indeed, the study of writers’ practices, rather than their content, can be expected to extend to a study of the tone in which they write, for the different dialogical opportunities for relationship (and being) offered to readers by authors will become important.

(Shotter 1993: 63)

In both Billig’s and Shotter’s case their considerations reflect sociologically orientated hypotheses. While psycho-sociologists do often use discourse analysis, the aesthetic and ornamental aspect of rhetoric is not addressed. This element is crucial to Vico’s approach to rhetoric – he is looking to the persuasive and alluring side of rhetoric.

So far, I have been demonstrating that psychology and psychological analysis has been accruing increasing status as a science despite its reliance on variable human talk. But this is not broad enough scope for our purposes.

Psychoanalysis gained status by reference to logical discourse. Spence and Gunn are challenged in at least one of their assumptions, i.e. that psychoanalytic talk is hollow rhetoric. Toulmin, Ricoeur, Billig, Shotter, Shafer, et al. point out that scientific talk can be rhetorical and still have scientific status. But, there is still a way to go. It is particularly vital to discuss figural/poetic language in a study of Jungian stylistic. There are rhetoricians and literary theorists who make links to expression and scientific endeavour.

Booth recalls Susanne Langer’s work that points at the necessity of considering a broader emotional and figural scope in thinking about all communication, not only psychoanalytic discourse:

A philosophy that knows only deductive or inductive logic as reason, and classes all other human functions as ‘emotive’, irrational, and animalism, can see only regression to a pre-logical state in the present passionate and unscientific ideologies … All other things are dis...