Reality is God's Dream: Religion and Philosophy of Mind in Bernardo Kastrup and Carl Jung

Date
2024-12-05
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Abstract

This thesis has two main aims. First, to demonstrate that Carl Jung can be understood as a philosopher in the German Idealist tradition. Second, to forward arguments and observations on behalf of Bernardo Kastrup’s Jungian philosophy of mind and its 21st century Idealist worldview. Bernardo Kastrup has led the revival of Idealism as a position by extrapolating ideas first popularized by Jung. Jung himself was very hesitant to offer clear metaphysical speculation in his work, mostly limiting his discussion of transpersonal forces like archetypes to the psychological dimension. First, this thesis aims to go beyond Jung himself by grounding his ideas in philosophical history, showing that he is connected to the German Idealist tradition while laying out Kastrup’s metaphysical schema and contributing to the reception of its arguments. The second section of this work posits that one can read Jung in two ways – as a dual-aspect monist and as an idealist, both understood as positions available in the philosophy of mind. Dual-aspect monism states that reality is monistic in some way but expresses itself as both mental and physical. Kastrup’s analytic idealism is the position that nothing exists other than phenomenal states. I will touch on some key arguments Kastrup makes against materialism. I will conclude by applying the ideas present in the Jungian philosophical worldview to some concepts in contemporary culture. The goal is to elucidate the meaning and reality of religious and social events as sites of unconscious apprehension of deep patterns in our reality. This also heralds a return of the primacy of mythology and storytelling in philosophy and metaphysics. The conclusion points towards a reconciliation of modern science to mankind’s ancient and powerful myth-making faculties which currently appear atavistic and absurd from a purely modernist perspective. This attitude towards religion results from materialism’s ascendancy as the main climate of opinion in our culture. According to Kastrup’s analytic idealism and Jungian philosophy in general, the world of scientific principles, which underlie our understanding of reality and the brain, can be reconciled to the intuitions and perceptions of religious symbolism and behavior. Thus we can achieve a vision of the re-enchantment of the world and overcome the malaise and nihilism that has been philosophically plaguing humanity since the 20th century, resulting from our general alienation from the richly meaningful realities perceived through religious traditions and spirituality in the past and today. This will also shed light on desirable changes that ought to be made in American and global culture.

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Master of Arts
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Thesis
Keywords
Jung, Archetypes, Dual-Aspect Monism, Materialism, Idealism, Philosophy of Mind, Religion, Spirituality, Esotericism, Synchronicity
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