Jung’s Kant: Between Philosophical Inspiration and Creative Misinterpretation

This paper examines the influence of Immanuel Kant’s epistemology and aesthetics on Carl Gustav Jung’s depth psychology, particularly with regard to the concept of archetypes. Kant’s division between the noumenal and phenomenal realms mirrors Jung’s view of the unconscious as a structuring force in human cognition. Jung adopted Kantian ideas through his own primary reading, but also from sources such as Carl du Prel and Arthur Schopenhauer, integrating them into his psychological framework. A key focus is Kant’s metaphor of crystallization in the Critique of Judgment and its connection to Jung’s archetypes, which organize psychic material into coherent symbols. The study also explores Jung’s divergence from Freud, emphasizing Jung’s teleological approach to psychology. By reconstructing Jung’s engagement with Kant, this paper argues that Jung’s method creatively extends Kantian rationality by integrating meaning-making as an essential cognitive function.