The next presentation as part of British Psychological Society’s History of Psychology Centre, in conjunction with UCL’s Centre for the History of the Psychological Disciplines, History of the Psychological Disciplines Seminar Series will take place in London next week. On Tuesday March 19th, Paul Bishop (right) will be presenting on “The function of the symbol in Goethe, Cassirer, Jung and Klages.” Full details follow below.

Location: UCL Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, Room 544,* 5th Floor, 1-19 Torrington Place, London WC1E 7HJ (map)

Time: 6pm-7.30pm

The function of the symbol in Goethe, Cassirer, Jung and Klages

This paper will try to outline the ways in which three 20th-century thinkers take up and develop the notion of the symbol proposed by Goethe in his writings. How do a philosopher, a psychoanalyst, and a ‘biocentric metaphysician’ use Goethe’s notion in their respective intellectual systems? What are the specific characteristics of their use of this notion? And to what extent do all three draw on Goethe’s morphology to define what it means to live in a world?