Sunday 22 January 2017

PLATO AND FREUD AND OTHERS


Mark Vernon is a writer and psychotherapist and as such has written much of interest – not just books about Ancient Philosophy, but numerous articles which cover Socrates and Plato, Freud and the unconscious, spirituality and the soul, faith and transcendence, wonder and well-being, and the big question: God.  He was ordained in the Church of England, but later left the priesthood and the church, and then – from what one reads – went from theism to atheism and on to agnosticism.  An obvious guest to invite to Wychwood Circle, then, where we question everything, whatever our world view.  We look forward to hearing much more from him in person on February 5th.

Faith and the unconscious

Dipping - in anticipation - into a book on Psychoanalysis and Religious Experience (by Meissner, pub 1984) provided the following quotations about Freud and religion, though the author went on to place Freud himself on the couch, so to speak – also an illuminating exercise:
All religious behaviour and belief is a form of obsessive-compulsive neurosis … an exercise in passivity, compliance, and dependence – essentially a feminine preoccupation… Freud could not conceive of religion on other than emotional grounds…
Mark Vernon will surely not have ducked such claims in making his own journey and in an article celebrating the 100th anniversary of Sigmund Freud’s “The Unconscious” in 2015 he concluded thus:
The founder of psychoanalysis is not often thought of as a friend of religion.  But read him more closely: his curiosity concerning the dynamics of the human soul produces reasons for confidence in, as well as the development of, the insights of generations of people of faith.

A way of reaching towards the unknown

Vernon's 2011 book How To Be An Agnostic includes chapter headings such as Cosmic Religion: How Science Does God; How To Be Human: Science and Ethics; and Socrates or Buddha? On Being Spiritual But Not Religious.  In chapter 7, Following Socrates: A Way of Life, Vernon has some interesting things to say that may illuminate where he is coming from, which makes it even more intriguing to know where he has got to in 2017:
Religion is not just a set of beliefs or a moral code.  It is a way of seeing the world and a way of approaching what is unknown. …
This also adds to why, although I lost my faith, I found atheism unsatisfying.  Atheism is not a practice but a principle. You can no more believe in atheism than you can in science: the whole point is that you don’t believe; you know. … We need something bigger than ourselves to be ourselves. My religious imagination demanded this something else. …
Agnosticism as a way of reaching towards the unknown reaches back before Christianity. It rest on the shoulders of Socrates.  And he can provide a complementary resource to the Christian one.
Elsewhere he has noted that spirituality has become 'a kind of taboo': serious people are embarrassed by it, rather like Victorians felt the need to cover up piano legs!  But we are depriving ourselves (and our souls?) of making certain essential connections and this lack of perspective may be one reason why 'we find ourselves so frequently to be ethically and personally at sea'.


Anthropology, Psychoanalysis, and then Theology? 

The conclusion of Psychoanalysis and Religious Experience, by the way, is that psychoanalysis only goes so far: it is very useful in negative terms for studying the ‘impeding psychic forces’ which we need to be released from, but then theology needs to take over where psychoanalysis leaves off.  And then the theology also needs an anthropology which benefits from psychoanalytic input...

So if we are to understand ourselves and our human needs it seems we need three or more disciplines to interact. Mark Vernon will be able to provide insights from at least two of them and maybe persuade us that 'secular enlightenment ... is not enough'. 


Dr MARK VERNON joins us at Wychwood Library on Sunday, February 5th at 7pm. 
On Sunday, March 5th at the same time and place, our guest speaker is Canon BRIAN MOUNTFORD, author of Christian Atheist - Belonging without Believing (2011) and formerly vicar of the University Church in Oxford, whose topic is Spiritual but not religious
Anyone is welcome. Entry is free and donations are requested at the end. 

2 comments:

  1. "Anthropology, Psychoanalysis, and then Theology?

    The conclusion of Psychoanalysis and Religious Experience, by the way, is that psychoanalysis only goes so far: it is very useful in negative terms for studying the ‘impeding psychic forces’ which we need to be released from, but then theology needs to take over where psychoanalysis leaves off. And then the theology also needs an anthropology which benefits from psychoanalytic input..."

    No, this is incorrect and is simply following the conservative method of science, i.e. the scientific method proceeds like a train on a railway track, the track in the distance is all ready determined.

    Psychology may be able to formulate an understanding of the soul however psychology/science cannot discern the nexus between Soul and Spirit. The use of anthropology is simply an admission that it is deed that precedes proposition.

    Only the Bible has anything to say concerning the Spirit...Which is what in the end Levi-Strauss admits.

    It is simply confused to think that theology needs anthropology... no it is pretty obvious that what theology requires is the Bible: For G-d is beneath the text no matter what the words, i.e. Spirit.

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    Replies
    1. With respect to Dr Vernon's chapter concerning Socrates...

      What is intriguing is that in Plato's Republic Book 2, specifically: Republic book 2, 361e - 362a answers what the unknown destination is that Dr Veron refers...and what happens when one reaches it... Plato stated the proposition...

      [361e] We must tell it, then; and even if my language is somewhat rude and brutal, you must not suppose, Socrates, that it is I who speak thus, but those who commend injustice above justice. What they will say is this: that such being his disposition the just man will have to endure the lash, the rack, chains,

      [362a] the branding-iron in his eyes, and finally, after every extremity of suffering, he will be CRUCIFIED, and so will learn his lesson that not to be but to seem just is what we ought to desire. And the saying of Aeschylus was, it seems, far more correctly applicable to the unjust man. For it is literally true, they will say, that the unjust man, as pursuing what clings closely to reality, to truth, and not regulating his life by opinion, desires not to seem but to be unjust,“ Exploiting the deep furrows of his wit

      Plato proposition states that the most just man would be CRUCIFIED.

      Christ did the deed!

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