Correspondence

Recent discussions, articles, papers and correspondence have led me to reflect, yet again, that there are two distinct ways of approaching and studying a system of thought, which deserve to be clearly differentiated and recognized as separate and different: there is the actual work, that is the edifice composed of ideas, thoughts, hypotheses, and of research which involves examination of the methods used, the results obtained and the conclusion drawn from the results. The second way entails a quite separate and discrete approach, which really belongs to the domain of biography; it is concerned with the character of the originator of the system of theories, hypotheses and conclusions.

The differentiation of these two enquiries is obviously easier in the field of the ‘hard’ sciences. The law of gravity, the theory of relativity, of quantum mechanics and within it the principle of indeterminacy, are all judged and evaluated quite independently of the personality of Newton or Einstein or Bohr or Schroedinger. We learn and study their theories irrespective of any knowledge we may have gained about their personal lives - were they pleasant or nasty, were they faithful or not to their wives or mistresses, were they ‘politically correct’? Their scientific contributions stand there, independently.

Should we in the human or social sciences respect and observe the same discrimination, the same discernment? For instance there is the person, C.G. Jung, with all his human qualities and faults, with his own personal and cultural history, his own strengths and weaknesses. Of course we are bound to remain fascinated by, and preoccupied with, the personality of C.G. Jung, given our particular interests, competence, our professional training, our professional idiosyncracies and bias: given also our particular study of and interest in the psychological pre-condition that are either favourable, or else an obstacle, to creativity; or given our resistance to change and i