Psychology and worldview

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Psychology and Weltanschauung: Reality questions and their answers according to the current state of science in a generally understandable presentation , published in 1944 by Hans Huber Verlag in Bern , is a popular scientific and the most widely received psychological work by Hans Martin Sutermeister . The book takes views that were controversial at the time; therefore it has been received by a few psychologists and philosophers. The term anxiety gression , explained in psychology and worldview , found its way into Uwe Henrik Peters ' Lexicon Psychiatrie, Psychotherapie, Medical Psychology (6th edition, 2007).

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According to Mario von Galli , Sutermeister represents the following seven theses in psychology and worldview :

  1. "Humanity is in the process of evolving from humanity of pure brain stem consciousness to humanity of cerebral cortex consciousness."
  2. «This development is recapitulated individually by each person, i. H. he has to go through it, but this recapitulation takes place faster from generation to generation. "
  3. "Only the cerebral cortex is the real logician and works out unadulterated knowledge in mathematics and natural science."
  4. "[T] he individual [is] an end in itself, his purpose in life is self-development."
  5. "Metaphysics, music, art, religion, but also the social stratification of people are expressions of the prelogical, magical, catathymic attitude."
  6. "The main cause of today's world crisis is to be found in the fact that people do not apply the actually logical, scientific knowledge in their lives, but keep falling back (' regressing' ) into pre-logical behavior."
  7. "Overcoming the present crisis requires the adaptation of the practical concept of fief to theory, to logic."

context

Table of contents of a personal copy of psychology and worldview in the Burgerbibliothek Bern

Hans Martin Sutermeister published Psychology and Weltanschauung “after an international conference in Zurich in 1942 under Prof. Jung , which was dedicated to this topic ... but almost without echo, because the ' pansexualism' and totality claim of psychoanalysis was still unshaken”.

Sutermeister himself counted the book as one of his "main works" in the field of medical psychology , alongside his writings On Psychosomatic Medicine (1946), Film and Psychohygiene (1955) and On Rhythm Research in Medicine (1949) Mario von Galli looked at psychology and worldview as the culmination of a series of neo-positivist writings, to which Old and New Logic (1942), Understanding or Explanatory Psychology? (1942) and Nomen atque Omen (1942) include: texts in which Sutermeister fights “for a purely logical, metaphysical-free worldview that is hostile to all attempts at obscuring the humanities”.

reception

Psychology and worldview were praised by monistic psychologists such as Hans Rudolf Oehlhey (1947) . And Walther Saupe (1944) writes about psychology and worldview :

“Hans Sutermeister seeks to remedy the European crisis situation with the clearly defined objectives and mental attitude of his subtitle on the part of a ' physiological psychology' oriented more towards CG Jung than Wundt . Its on Nietzsche's cultural psychological disenchantment inflamed ethos, his extensive knowledge in medicine and sociology, to be finally on the order James Joices famous [sic] < Ulysses incurred> Literature ( Bernh. Fehr , E. Rob. Curtius ) trained presentation style make the book a Treasure trove of intriguing thoughts and suggestions for social psychotherapy in the near future, albeit with the ethical persuasiveness of a leopard. von Wiese ('Homo sum…' Jena 1940) or Ernst Harms ('Psychology and Psychiatry', Leiden 1939) is rarely reached. "

- Walther Saupe

For Wolfgang Goetz (1946) go into psychology and worldview

« Positivism and materialism ... a questionable bond. ... Sutermeister ... looks mockingly at mysticism and all metaphysics . But why does it keep repeating itself? That sounds like demagogy , and demagogy, at its deepest level, is fearful insecurity. ... »

- Wolfgang Goetz

From the spiritual side, psychology and worldview were criticized in a more differentiated manner. According to Gebhard Frei , Sutermeister, in particular, made psychology and ideology a “notable representative” of physiological psychology in Switzerland. For Frei (1946), "Sutermeister's writings show ... the great danger and one-sidedness that threatens physiological psychology that it cannot overcome a purely positivistic concept of science". On the basis of some quotes from Sutermeister, Frei criticizes the emphasis on epistemological "materialism as the only scientific basis", and others. a. Sutermeister's demand for a new and definitive "enlightenment to overcome all belief and all idealistic science", its individualistic ethics and relativization of " marital morality".

“Compare, for example, how catastrophic, despite very clever remarks about jazz and modern dance , the explanations in the attached book about art are. ... If the development of the mind were to run in a straight line, as Sutermeister tacitly presupposes, then the future would belong to materialistic psychology without psyche. But everything indicates that the history of ideas is spiraling and that we are at a turning point. "

- Gebhard Frei

In the same line, Mario von Galli (1945) criticizes a total of Sutermeister's neopositivist writings in detail : Sutermeister reminds us of Oswald Spengler or Alfred Rosenberg's myth of the 20th century , but leaves "everything abstract, unplastic" and deals more unscrupulously with materials than those. He shows psychologically

«A complete lack of understanding for all new insights of the“ understanding ”psychology, the holistic psychology, as well as the depth psychology of a CG Jung , which for him are only“ attempts at obscuring the humanities ”... But behind the torn image of man of a Sutermeister or Ludwig Klages is always the spirit of Kant is visible, who with his division of reason into a 'pure' and 'practical' philosophically legitimized the deep rift ... »

- Mario from Galli

According to the Catholic Italian doctor and psychologist Agostino Gemelli (1948), what resulted in psychology and worldview is a "mixture of neurological , psychoanalytic and philosophical data with a materialistic philosophy ".

The last reception of the book comes from Leopold von Wiese , who devoted the last part of the chapter “Main Types of Ethics” to psychology and worldview in his book Ethics in the Perspective of the Sciences of Man and Society . For von Wiese, Sutermeister's book represents a form of the individual ethics that he has criticized that has been taken to extremes:

“The skeptical attitude ... denies the target sphere at all, ultimately the importance of the subjective. She only knows one reality; that is the visible material world. In it all ethics, including politics, aesthetics or economic theory elevated to ethics, become mere fiction in human intercourse and a means of deceiving others and deceiving oneself. "

- Leopold von Wiese

In the following pages, von Wiese analyzes psychology and worldview . He assumes that Sutermeister's way of thinking "has the advantage of (as far as we can judge) a good knowledge of modern brain anatomy and physiology":

“The categories of ethics are dissolved here at all. The dualism of good and bad is replaced by the contrast "harmless" (sympathetic) and "dangerous". That which has less power than ourselves, that which is comparatively "small" appears to us to be sympathetic; we estimated z. B. friendship, because we entered into a community of interests with friends and could increase our own power in it. What is dangerous to us, however, appears to us to be evil. "

- Leopold von Wiese

Von Wiese comes to the following thesis:

“The materialistic view of history shared by Sutermeister confuses reason and consequence when it assumes that the relativization of objective reality, which the humanities undertake, is only done in order to save a belief that is useful to the upper class. Rather, this interpretation is the product of a sociologism based on resentment . "

- Leopold von Wiese

"Fear gression"

Sutermeister's term of anxiety gression , used in psychology and ideology , found its way into Uwe Henrik Peters Lexicon Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Medical Psychology : Anxiety gression is a downgrading of behavior to biologically older stages of development triggered by fear; Examples are play dead reflex (paralysis) or storm of movement. IwS any 'primitive' behavior in fearful situations. "

literature

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Remarks

  1. ↑ Uwe Henrik Peters : Lexicon of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Medical Psychology . 6th edition. Urban & Fischer , Munich / Jena 2007, ISBN 978-3-437-15061-6 , pp. 36 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e Mario von Galli. New psychology in search of the causes of the present intellectual crisis: On the theses of Hans Sutermeister. In: Apologetisches Blätter , Volume 9, No. 9, May 15, 1945, pp. 81–83.
  3. ↑ Hans Martin Sutermeister: Basic concepts in today's psychology . Elfenau Verlag, Basel 1976, DNB  201026058 , p. 326 ( full text [accessed January 15, 2013]).
  4. ↑ OCLC 100210580
  5. ↑ OCLC 104288436
  6. ↑ OCLC 80741064
  7. ↑ Autobiographical note by Hans Martin Sutermeister in: Universitas , Volume 6, 1951, p. 383.
  8. ↑ OCLC 46228443
  9. ↑ OCLC 602246350
  10. ↑ OCLC 20741992
  11. ↑ Hans Rudolf Oehlhey. Book review in: Structure: Kulturpolitische Monatsschrift , 1947, No. 3, p. 282 f.
  12. ↑ Walther Saupe. Book review in: Journal for Educational Psychology and Youth Studies , Volume 45, 1944, p. 63.
  13. ↑ Wolfgang Goetz. All kinds of books. In: Berliner Hefte für Geistiges Leben , Volume 1, No. 6, 1946, p. 479 f.
  14. ↑ a b c d Gebhard Frei. Psychology, parapsychology and worldview. In: Schweizer Rundschau , Volume 46, No. 7/8, Oct./Nov. 1946, pp. 585-593.
  15. ↑ Agostino Gemelli. Book review in: Scientia: rivista di scienza , Volume 83, 1948, p. 119 f.
  16. ↑ Leopold von Wiese : Ethics in the view of the sciences of humans and of society . Unchanged; new with keyword register . 2nd Edition. Francke Verlag, Bern 1960, DNB  455522359 , OCLC 837372 , p. 102-109 .
  17. ^ A b c Leopold von Wiese: Ethics in the view of the sciences of man and society. P. 103.
  18. ↑ Leopold von Wiese: Ethics in the view of the sciences of humans and of society. P. 108.
  19. ↑ Uwe Henrik Peters : Lexicon of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Medical Psychology . 6th edition. Urban & Fischer , Munich / Jena 2007, ISBN 978-3-437-15061-6 , pp. 36 .