Carl Jung

The Third Viewpoint

Jump into the Unknown

s27. “That which exists through itself is called the Way.”

s27. “The subtlest secret of the Tao is human nature and life.”

The Hui Ming Ching says “That which exists through itself is called the way.” The wording is significant because the way exists ‘through itself’ and not ‘by itself.’ Something existing through itself means an ongoing process, and in this case a living process. What’s more the phrase ‘exists through itself,’ implies a cycle as part of the process. It suggests something emerges through its own activity. But what exactly is the nature of this cycle?

So far we know that a process is implied because the Way is a living thing and is said to exist through itself. The word ‘through’ implies travel, movement or process of some sort. So the question we’re left with is what kind of process results in existence?

This of course is a trick question because the answer depends on our concept of what existence is. The typical concept we’re taught to believe is that things exist in and of themselves and that neither you nor I are necessary for them to exist. They just are and we may come along and encounter them—or not, as the case may be. This view of reality might be labeled in Jung’s terminology an extroverted attitude—one encounters a readymade reality of independent and particular objects that one has to come to some stance or accommodation with, solely based on the nature of the objects.

In contrast to this there is a corresponding introverted attitude where the emphasis of the interaction between self and world is placed on the self rather than on objects. Though, seemingly self-centered from the viewpoint of the extrovert it’s also a truism that without persons to experience the objects of the world there is no world as such. Everything we can talk about or refer to is due to a person or some sort of living being who is experiencing it. Experience requires sentience, sensitivity, reactiveness, etc., and there’s no way of getting around it.

There’s also another much rarer viewpoint I call the third viewpoint. The third viewpoint is independent of the extrovert and introvert views but can perhaps best initially be understood by seeing its relationship to the extrovert and the introvert attitudes. The third viewpoint arises when we recognize that the objects in the world we experience are fully real—meaning largely independent of us, but that they nevertheless exist only because of us.

Viewing reality from the third viewpoint means existence isn’t something independent of us. Neither is existence something that was here before we were. Rather existence arises due to a process which splits an undivided reality into subject and object. In this third viewpoint existence isn’t an already given thing but it arises because the perceived and perceiver mutually condition each other. What is undivided has transformed itself into polarized qualities where each quality has acquired a distinct but not absolutely independent reality through the other.

This third viewpoint has three irreducible components–objects, feelings, and consciousness. Each of these parts must be present for the others to be present, because they all mutually define each other in daily experience. In fact the experience of isness or existence only arises because something stands over and against us, denying us complete control over it, maintaining its own reality and in the same action giving boundaries to our own sense of self.

Objects stand as brute irreducibles over which we have limited power. They become the rock upon which our sense of individual existence is based. Feelings by contrast express the vector content of our inner experience as physical, emotional, and conceptual valuations. Consciousness in this scheme as you may have guessed is really the feeling of existence. An unbiased review of experience shows the sense of existence only occurs when we are consciously experiencing separate content either in the form of objects or in the form of inner sensations. The contrast is most easily made clear to ourselves when we consider the experience of dreamless sleep in our lives.

For extroverts external objects are the ultimate referents to their experience of themselves, while for introverts inner feelings are the ultimate referents of what is real or existent. The extrovert recognizes most strongly the necessity external objects demand of us while the introvert most strongly recognizes the necessity self-continuity requires. The introvert recognizes that objects have no meaning if they will never come into contact with them in any way.

Rendering freely, something originally undefined emerges through itself as both itself and not itself and in so doing experiences existence. While the content of its experience is evenly divided between what it is and what it isn’t, it experiences life or consciousness of its world and of itself. When the content of its consciousness is primarily comprised of objects the existence of the objects is primary and the attitude is primarily extrovert. When the content of consciousness is instead primarily focused on inner feelings, thoughts, and symbols, then the continuity of self-consciousness predominates.

Something previously undefined as separate parts emerges into a process of interacting and opposing parts which create experiences. Existence arises through the interplay of self and not-self as mutually conditioning forces and that experience of existence is consciousness. Stated in the converse when consciousness arises separate objects also arise as it. When consciousness ceases objects cease to appear in it. Likewise when objects arise consciousness is there and when objects cease consciousness dissolves.

Jung’s unconscious is then pure potential, something unbounded and unfettered by limitations, but also unformed. So when limitations arise so also does consciousness. When resistance arises so does consciousness. However, when consciousness arises so can knowledge. The very act of cognition is the experience of existence. It’s the experience of both other and of self. It’s also the experience of absolute necessity, freedom, and the relativity between them. The conscious arises from the unconscious and in turn the conscious fades into the unconscious.

s13. “The wise Chinese would say in the words of the I Ching: When yang has reached its greatest strength, the dark power of yin is born within its depths, for night begins at midday when yang breaks up and begins to change into yin.”

Both the character and content of experience arises as part of a process whose very nature is to bring things into existence in order to be experienced by a living being as that experience. The external objects as well as the sense of individual existence are mutually arising and mutually conditioned. As mutually conformed pairs of dynamic opposites the self and objects are completely bound to each other but temporarily separated or polarized. So we have in the Hui Ming Ching: “The subtlest secret of the Tao is human nature and life.” A human being fulfills this recipe exactly. A human being is a creature in which self-limitation by means of the other and the real experiencing of that limitation due to the other turns consciousness of objects into consciousness of self or self-knowledge (Jung’s individuation).

By adding an adequately developed self-knowledge a human being adds a rich inner world to a rich outer world. But when they see the limitations inherent in a strictly self-oriented viewpoint they then become ready to add the third viewpoint which brings back the objective outer content as connected or synchronistic with the inner self. With the third viewpoint pointed to by the Taoist teachings knowledge becomes action that transcends both self and object while being concretely experienced as both.

What the characteristics and limitations of this process are I’ll explore elsewhere.