La ricerca di un punto archimedeo della psiche. Jung e la scienza della singolarità: nuovi spunti di lettura attraverso il Liber novus

The present research offers a re-reading of the epistemological question and of the status of science in Jung's thought, within the general re-reading of his work after the publication of Rotes Buch - Liber novus. For such reason, the work plan is historical; but it is also theoretical, since it aims at illuminating precise theoretical links, in order to highlight Jung's answers to a set of questions that cross his whole production: can the study of the psyche be called ‘science’? Is it legitimate to trace “an Archimedean point of the psyche”, so as to ensure the scientificity of such study? What heuristic and epistemological criteria can produce a science of such contingent set of images as the psyche? The present work traces a path from Jung’s apprenticeship, through the Rotes Buch experience, until his mature production. Among his later texts, particular attention is devoted to the essay on Synchronizität (1952), where Jung elaborates on his very concept of science, i.e., an empirical science, faithful to the unique and unrepeatable facts which are inevitably overlooked by statistical science. This is what is at stake in the question of what the ultimate meaning of a science of the psyche may be. How can one theorize a science of what is discarded, surplus, or pure infinitesimal contingency? In front of such manifestations of reality, the only possible attitude is, according to Jung, an empirical one, which stays close to what is happening without departing from it. Only to the extent that there is “an Archimedean point of the psyche”, perhaps, this science of transgression, of pure contingency might have external anchoring. The tension towards this “Archimedean point” has guided the whole construction of Jung’s epistemology and complex psychology. Through this perspective, one can understand how the paradox of Jung's empiricism lies precisely in the nature of psychic experience: it is empiricism based on structurally dual and ambiguous data, given the intrinsically symbolic nature of the psyche. It is empiricism based on paradox, one could say, or on the double.