THE COINCIDENCE OF OPPOSITES C.G. Jung’s （对立的巧合C.G.荣格的）.pdf

Studies in Spirituality 20, 101-113. doi: 10.2143/SIS.20.0.2061145 © 2010 by Studies in Spirituality. All rights reserved. DAVID HENDERSON THE COINCIDENCE OF OPPOSITES C.G. Jung’s Reception of Nicholas of Cusa ABSTRACT — The focus of this essay is on C.G. Jung’s reception and appropriation of Cusa’s concept of the coincidence of opposites. The coincidence of opposites is a key to understanding Jung’s psychology. Jung’s use of Cusa is a case study in how he adopts and subverts histori- cal resources to build his own theory. The paper is written from the perspective of Jungian studies and is not a comparison of the use of the concept by the two writers. Looking back on his life, in Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Jung recalled read- ing Goethe when he was a teenager. ‘Faust struck a chord in me and pierced me through in a way that I could not but regard as personal. Most of all, it awakened in me the problem of opposites, of good and evil, of mind and matter, of light and darkness’.1 While initially he experienced this as a per- sonal problem he came to see that it had wider resonances. ‘The fact, there- fore, that a polarity underlies the dynamics of the psyche means that the whole problem of opposites in its broadest sense, with all its concomitant religious and philosophical aspects, is drawn into the psychological discus- sion’.2 However, this theme did not emerge explicitly in his work until well after his break with Freud. In his writings Jung discusses the union of opposites, the coincidence of opposites (coincidentia oppositorum), complexio oppositorum, conjunction of opposites (coniunctio