ABSTRACT
At the beginning of ‘The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales’, Jung says the following:
One of the unbreakable rules in scientific research is to take an object as known only so far as the inquirer is in a position to make scientifically valid statements about it. ‘Valid’ in this sense simply means what can be verified by facts. The object of inquiry is the natural phenomenon. Now in psychology, one of the most important phenomena is the statement, and in particular its form and content, the latter aspects perhaps being the more significant with regard to the nature of the psyche. The task that ordinarily presents itself is the description and arrangement of events, then comes the closer examination into the laws of their living being. To inquire into the substance of what has been observed is possible in natural science only where there is an Archimedean point outside. For the psyche no such point exists – only the psyche can observe the psyche … Consequently, knowledge of the psychic substance is impossible for us, at least with the means presently available. This does not rule out the possibility that the atomic physics of the future may supply us with the said Archimedean point … I do not think it superfluous to acquaint my reader with the necessary limitations that psychology voluntarily imposes on itself, for he [sic] will then be in a position to appreciate the phenomenological standpoint of modern psychology, which is not always understood.
(Jung 1968: 384)