Enantiodromy
Enantiodromy ( Greek ἐναντιοδρομία "countercurrent") is the idea developed by Heraclitus from Ephesus (around 535–475 BC) of the constant opposition of forces that are inherent in all living things as the basic law of being and the cosmic rhythm.
Heraclitus formulated: Panta rhei = "Everything flows, changes and transforms into its opposite." Warm becomes cold, day night, summer winter, life death. We step into the same river and yet not into the same; we are and we are not. After that, it is also impossible to finally determine what is good and bad. And every judgment about it is only a imagination.
The communication scientist and psychotherapist Paul Watzlawick took up this idea again and pointed out that too much of a good always turns into bad . Too much patriotism creates chauvinism , too much security coercion or too much buttercream cake causes nausea. The founder of analytical psychology, Carl Gustav Jung , also discussed the concept of enantiodromy in his writings.
According to Clifford A. Pickover , enantiodromy is also the process in which a belief is transformed into its opposite. Pickover cites the Damascus experience of the apostle Paul of Tarsus as an example .
See also
- chinese yin and yang
- Antinomy
Individual evidence
- ↑ CG Jung. About the psychology of the unconscious . Rascher, 1966, p. 83ff.