Table Of Content‘This compelling, rich and provocative exchange between a renowned
philosopher-psychoanalyst and a noted Jungian-oriented psychiatrist brings
new vitality and insight to one of the most complex concepts of analytical
psychology. The archetype, its origins and development in the human psy-
che, is explored in dynamic ways that challenge the premises of past debates
and offer novel non-binary reconsiderations that transcend previous nature
versus culture arguments. The authors offer an expansion of thirdness that
will help shape research, as well as philosophical and theoretical considera-
tions of archetypal realities into the foreseeable future.’
Joe Cambray, PhD, President-CEO, Pacifica Graduate
Institute; author of Synchronicity
‘This book is truly innovative in content and truly unique in style. Designed
as a dialog between two authors well known as experts in analytical psy-
chology, it reflects on C.G. Jung’s key concept of archetypes and presents
current progress in its proper understanding. A particularly valuable and
challenging aspect of their approach is its metaphysical frame, offering im-
portant cross-fertilization between Jung’s oeuvre and contemporary trends
in philosophy. An inspiring book that suggests novel avenues to explore the
origin of consciousness and the mind-matter problem beyond the all-too
narrow boundaries of physicalist positions.’
Harald Atmanspacher, Head of the Department of Theory
and Data Analysis of the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology
and Mental Health, Freiburg; Faculty Member, C.G. Jung Institute,
Zurich; and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Mind and Matter
‘A much needed and most welcome constructive debate on the centrality of
archetype theory in Jungian psychology. The authors’ intellectual rigor is to
be applauded. Anyone seriously interested in the future of Jungian psychol-
ogy should study this book carefully.’
Murray Stein, PhD, author of Jung’s Map of the Soul
Archetypal Ontology
In this novel re-examination of the archetype construct, philosopher Jon Mills
and psychiatrist Erik Goodwyn engage in spirited dialogue on the origins,
nature, and scope of what archetypes actually constitute, their relation to the
greater questions of psyche and worldhood, and their relevance for Jungian
studies and analytical psychology today.
Arguably the most definitive feature of Jung’s metapsychology is his theory of
archetypes. It is the fulcrum on which his analytical depth psychology rests. With
recent trends in post-Jungian and neo-Jungian perspectives that have embraced
developmental, relational, social justice, and postmodern paradigms, classical
archetype theory has largely become a drowning genre. Despite the archetypal
school of James Hillman and his contemporaries, and the archetype debates that
captured our attention over two decades ago, contemporary Jungians are pre-
occupied with the lived reality of the existential subject and the personal uncon-
scious over the collective transpersonal forces derived from archaic ontology.
Archetypal Ontology will be of interest to psychoanalysts, philosophers,
transpersonal psychologists, cultural theorists, anthropologists, religious schol-
ars, and scholars of many disciplines in the arts and humanities, analytical
psychology, and post-Jungian studies.
Jon Mills, PsyD, PhD, ABPP, is a Canadian philosopher and psychoanalyst.
He is Honorary Professor at the Department of Psychosocial & Psychoanalytic
Studies, University of Essex, UK, as well as a faculty member in the postgrad-
uate programs in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy at the Gordon F. Derner
School of Psychology, Adelphi University, and the New School for Existential
Psychoanalysis, USA. He is the recipient of numerous awards for his scholar-
ship, and the author and/or editor of over 30 books in philosophy, psychoanal-
ysis, and cultural studies.
Erik Goodwyn, MD, is Clinical Associate Professor, Department of P sychiatry,
WWAMI University of Washington School of Medicine-Billings, Montana
affiliate. He has authored numerous publications in the field of consciousness
studies, Jungian psychology, neuroscience, mythology, philosophy, anthropol-
ogy, and the psychology of religion, including 5 books. He is co-Editor-in-Chief
of the International Journal of Jungian Studies.
Philosophy & Psychoanalysis Book Series
Jon Mills
Series Editor
Philosophy & Psychoanalysis is dedicated to current developments and
cutting-edge research in the philosophical sciences, phenomenology, her-
meneutics, existentialism, logic, semiotics, cultural studies, social criticism,
and the humanities that engage and enrich psychoanalytic thought through
philosophical rigor. With the philosophical turn in psychoanalysis comes a
new era of theoretical research that revisits past paradigms while invigor-
ating new approaches to theoretical, historical, contemporary, and applied
psychoanalysis. No subject or discipline is immune from psychoanalytic
reflection within a philosophical context including psychology, sociology,
anthropology, politics, the arts, religion, science, culture, physics, and the
nature of morality. Philosophical approaches to psychoanalysis may stimu-
late new areas of knowledge that have conceptual and applied value beyond
the consulting room reflective of greater society at large. In the spirit of
pluralism, Philosophy & Psychoanalysis is open to any theoretical school in
philosophy and psychoanalysis that offers novel, scholarly, and important
insights in the way we come to understand our world.
Titles in this series:
Enriching Psychoanalysis
Integrating Concepts from Contemporary Science and Philosophy
Edited by John Turtz and Gerald J. Gargiulo
Psyche, Culture, World
Excursions in Existentialism and Psychoanalytic Philosophy
by Jon Mills
The Emergent Container in Psychoanalysis
Experiencing Absence and Future
by Ana Martinez Acobi
Archetypal Ontology
New Directions in Analytical Psychology
by Jon Mills and Erik Goodwyn
Archetypal Ontology
New Directions in Analytical
Psychology
Jon Mills and Erik Goodwyn
Designed cover image: Fishing by Levitation by
Bob ‘Omar’ Tunnoch, www.bobomartunnoch.com
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Jon Mills and Erik Goodwyn.
The right of Jon Mills and Erik Goodwyn to be identified as authors
of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and
78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-032-39481-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-39480-0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-34992-1 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003349921
Typeset in Times New Roman
by codeMantra
Contents
Prolegomenon viii
JON MILLS
1 The essence of archetypes 1
JON MILLS
2 Archetypal origins: Biology vs culture is a false dichotomy 28
ERIK GOODWYN
3 On the origins of archetypes 45
JON MILLS
4 Commentary on Mills’ “The essence of archetypes” 50
ERIK GOODWYN
5 Archetypal metaphysics and the psyworld 59
JON MILLS
6 The origins of psyche: From experience to ontology 77
ERIK GOODWYN
7 Archetype, psyche, world: From experience to cosmopsychism 95
JON MILLS
8 Psyche, world, archetype: Final thoughts 113
ERIK GOODWYN
About the authors 135
Index 137
Prolegomenon
Jon Mills
Arguably, the most definitive feature of Jung’s metapsychology is his
theory of archetypes. It is the fulcrum on which his analytical depth
psychology rests. With recent trends in post-Jungian and neo-Jungian
perspectives that have embraced evolutionary science, attachment theory,
developmental, relational, and postmodern paradigms, as well as social
justice activism, classical archetype theory has largely become a drowning
genre. Despite the archetypal school of James Hillman and his contempo-
raries and the Cambridge archetype debates that captured our attention
over two decades ago, contemporary Jungians are preoccupied with the
lived reality of the existential subject and the personal unconscious over
the collective transpersonal forces derived from archaic ontology. In our
re-examination of the archetype construct, Erik Goodwyn and I engage
in spirited dialogue on the origins, nature, and scope of what archetypes
actually constitute, their relation to the greater questions of psyche and
worldhood, and their relevance for Jungian studies and analytical psychol-
ogy today.
Apart from offering a novel theory of mind and cosmos, what is unique
about this book is the structure, format, style, and approach to mutual cri-
tique. Each of us presents a chapter on the essence and origins of archetypes,
only then to critique each other’s work in an ongoing interchange of ideas,
challenges, and joint criticisms where both agreements and disagreements
are fleshed out from different vantage points in the human sciences. This di-
alogical format builds on each other’s previous theses and arguments, clar-
ifies ambiguities, and refines earlier theoretical commitments that naturally
develop into more fruitful comparisons in methodology and content that
are mutually compatible and complementary in focus. As the discussion un-
folds in an organic fashion, we move beyond the parameters of archetype
theory to engage the greater questions of what constitutes psyche, world,
and a transpersonal collective mind. The end result leads us to entertain a
psychic cosmogony based in speculative metaphysics that offers new per-
spectives in ontology, which further expands and enriches Jung’s original
theory of a collective unconscious.
Prolegomenon ix
To this day, there is no unified consensus on what constitutes an archetype.
Even Jung himself was murky at best. Jungians are divided and propose
contradictory—if not unintelligible theories—about the ground, breadth,
and limits to archetypal discourse, ranging from uncritical acceptance of
classical paradigms to dismissing the notion altogether. This book provides
a corrective in clarity and debate between two scholars from two different
backgrounds: one from philosophy and psychoanalysis, the other from the
biological sciences and psychiatry. Together these dialogues are unique in
the history of Jungian psychology for they approach the archetype question
from sundry points of view including metaphysics, onto-phenomenology,
philosophy of mind, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and cultural an-
thropology. Taken as a whole, we suggest, these exchanges advance the dis-
cipline of analytical psychology with philosophical, scientific, and logical
rigor. The result is a new theory of archetypes and psyche that are decon-
structed from their historical origins, updated, and theoretically refined to
account for conventions in understanding the interface between philosophy,
psychology, bioscience, and culture in modern society today.
Overview and new directions
Jung’s notion of the archetype remains an equivocal concept, so much so
that Jungians and post-Jungians have failed to agree on its essential nature.
In Chapter 1, I wish to argue that an archetype may be understood as an
unconscious schema that is self-constitutive and emerges into consciousness
from its own a priori ground, hence an autonomous self-determinative act
derived from archaic ontology. After offering an analysis of the archetype
debate, I set out to philosophically investigate the essence of an archetype
by examining its origins and dialectical reflections as a process system aris-
ing from its own autochthonous parameters. I offer a descriptive explica-
tion of the inner constitution and birth of an archetype based on internal
rupture and the desire to project its universality, form, and patternings into
psychic reality as self-instantiating replicators. Archetypal content is the ap-
pearance of essence as the products of self-manifestation, for an archetype
must appear in order to be made actual. Here we must seriously question
that, in the beginning, if an archetype is self-constituted and self-generative,
the notion and validity of a collective unconscious become rather dubious, if
not superfluous. I conclude by sketching out an archetypal theory of alterity
based on dialectical logic.
In Chapter 2, Erik Goodwyn offers his thesis on archetypal origins and
argues that the framing of the debate as being either derived from biol-
ogy versus culture is a false dichotomy. Here, he argues that the question
of whether or not archetypes are transmitted biologically or culturally is
wrongly posed and has hampered progress in Jungian thought regarding ar-
chetype theory. Considerations regarding psychological development show
