You’ve probably heard of the Briggs-Myers personality test, which is a classification system of 16 different personality types based on the writings of Carl Jung, a man who believed that his library books sometimes spontaneously exploded.
This is the most beautiful ad hominem I’ve read all week.
Jung, C. G. (1989). Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Rev. ed., C. Winston & R. Winston, Trans.) (A. Jaffe, Ed.). New York: Random House, Inc. (Original work published 1963)
This is Jung’s autobiography, edited by Jaffe, so we only have Jung’s word on it. The only other witness was Freud. I did not find indication that Freud reported the event.
You can persuade Google Books to show you the relevant page of the book. Type in the title, then search in the book for “bookcase”. There’s another mysterious crack on page 104-105. Search for “walnut”.
Agreed. I had assumed that Jaffe’s role as editor was similar to Random House’s role as publisher in the sense that neither would be expected to change the facts of the story, but that does not appear to be the case.
So maybe Jung didn’t believe that his library books sometimes exploded and perhaps the original ad hominem didn’t apply. However, it’s also possible that Jung’s other statements went through the same corruption process that the exploding books story did, so the ad hominem does cast doubt on the truth of other things he is claimed to have said, even if Jung didn’t really believe in exploding books.
I’m not much interested in tracking down whether other statements attributed to Jung were manipulated by a third party.
This is the most beautiful ad hominem I’ve read all week.
I agree, but from a different week. :-).
I tried looking up the source for this. According to http://soultherapynow.com/articles/carl-jung.html, it’s pages 155-156 of:
Jung, C. G. (1989). Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Rev. ed., C. Winston & R. Winston, Trans.) (A. Jaffe, Ed.). New York: Random House, Inc. (Original work published 1963)
This is Jung’s autobiography, edited by Jaffe, so we only have Jung’s word on it. The only other witness was Freud. I did not find indication that Freud reported the event.
You can persuade Google Books to show you the relevant page of the book. Type in the title, then search in the book for “bookcase”. There’s another mysterious crack on page 104-105. Search for “walnut”.
Unless we can view this part of MDR in Jung’s handwriting, we do not have Jung’s word for it.
Agreed. I had assumed that Jaffe’s role as editor was similar to Random House’s role as publisher in the sense that neither would be expected to change the facts of the story, but that does not appear to be the case.
So maybe Jung didn’t believe that his library books sometimes exploded and perhaps the original ad hominem didn’t apply. However, it’s also possible that Jung’s other statements went through the same corruption process that the exploding books story did, so the ad hominem does cast doubt on the truth of other things he is claimed to have said, even if Jung didn’t really believe in exploding books.
I’m not much interested in tracking down whether other statements attributed to Jung were manipulated by a third party.