Beyond Jung: Jung and Pauli, 1 of 6 – The Radical Epistemological Vision of Jung and Pauli’s The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche

Beyond Jung: Jung and Pauli 1/6

The Radical Epistemological Vision of Jung and Pauli’s The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche
With Roderick Main

Saturday November 14, 2026
9:00 am PST | 12:00 pm EST | 5:00 pm GMT | 6:00 pm CET

This session is two hours. All registered participants will receive access to the recordings, so you can attend live or watch at a time convenient to you.

In this talk, I shall offer a reading of Jung and Pauli’s joint book, The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche (1952/1955), focusing on the fundamental problem both thinkers were attempting to address: the rationalistic one-sidedness of modern science with its perilous psychological, social, cultural, and environmental consequences. I shall highlight how, in response to this problem, each of the two essays in the book—Jung’s Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle and Pauli’s The Influence of Archetypal Ideas in the Scientific Theories of Kepler—offers a radically expanded, holistic vision of the origin, nature, and scope of knowledge. I shall show that this epistemological vision also has implications for ontology, methodology, and ethics, that is, for how we might understand reality, pursue science and scholarship, and relate to one another, nature, and our ultimate concerns. Throughout, I shall draw attention to how the two essays interrelate, support each other, and together make a richer and more compelling case than either essay makes individually. Finally, I shall assess the extent to which the radically different way of doing science and scholarship that emerges from the essays is exemplified by the essays themselves.

Roderick Main, PhD, works at the University of Essex, UK, where he is Professor in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies and Director of the Centre for Myth Studies. His books include The Rupture of Time: Synchronicity and Jung’s Critique of Modern Western Culture(Brunner-Routledge, 2004), Revelations of Chance: Synchronicity as Spiritual Experience (SUNY, 2007), and Breaking the Spell of Disenchantment: Mystery, Meaning, and Metaphysics in the Work of C.G. Jung (Chiron Publications, 2022).