Nowadays I'm looking at Homepathy from a post-structuralist point of view - Michel Foucault used the term épistémè to describe "the historical a priori that grounds knowledge within a particular epoch". It's wider than the idea of a paradigm, in that it includes fundamental assumptions and attitudes that are almost invisible to the people operating within its limits - a sort of 'epistemological unconscious' of an era.
Scholten, as a philosopher and scientist is introducing ideas that are, at the moment, beyond the épistémè of Classical Homeopathy. More specifically, the main difference is that his approach is nomothetic, that is, he identifies, classifies and maps the universal and common characteristics shared by everyone into logical dimensions, whereas classical Homeopathy is strongly ideographic, focusing entirely on the unique aspects of the individual, and any attempt at "chunking up" to see the big picture is still an anathema to many.
In fact each approach has its own advantages, which becomes clear when we compare the overlap and variation within the DSM categoires with the "Big Five" (Costa & McCrea, 2007), a statistical model of personality derived from factor analysis. The synonym clusters (of symptoms) used in the Plants Project (this author,2008) were derived through this methodology.
Historically, Dr. Rajan Sankarn, by sheer force of logic and personality challenged this ideographic approach in the 90's and opened the way for some of us to think about the relationshps of states and remedies with a more scientific person centered approach.
Scholtens amazing work on the 'Series' of the periodic table explores the pathology and the prognosis of the more materialistic first tier vMemes, and even more significantly, his examination of the Lanthanides explores the inner spiritual development and the autonomy of the second tier. [Ref: Spiral Dynamics]
Hope you enjoy exploring this with me - and leave a few comments!Warmly,
Steph.
*epistemology = study of the nature of knowledge.
All work
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ReplyDeleteVery interesting material. I think you'll agree with me when I say this bears further looking into, even if only to enhance what one knows on the matter.
ReplyDeleteThis is exceedingly interesting. First of all it would be clear that the idiographic (basically individual) and nomothetic (abstract universal principals) should be fully integrated into any sensible structure for Homeoopathy. I’d strongly suggest any bickering between these two aspects is a lost cause and a focus on what it would take for an integration should be focused on.
ReplyDeleteI say this because without reinventing the wheel it has already been proved that for a well over several thousand millenniums the Astrological structure is both long standing and coherent with the idiographic and nonmthetic concepts. For example the concept of the nomothetic or abstract universal principals is aligned with the stars, the constellations, the four elements.
The idiographic and individualised concept applies in the sense of the birth chart of ones zodiac. That is the unique signature. It is a blue print of an individual’s planets in their gravitational orbits at the precise moment of birth. As Jung would quote “We are born at a given moment, in a given place and, like vintage years of wine, we have the qualities of the year and of the season of which we are born. Astrology does not lay claim to anything more”
I am sceptic of the big five personality traits. This does not mean I have no room for discussion on this matter however. It is simply that personality seems more than judgements, assumptions and labelling. Furthermore it is unclear and undecided what personality is, let alone what a human being is.
Despite these highly contrived models coming out such as the Myers Briggs typology I do not see adequate reason to give up the under-valued and under-used and often over looked original Jungian four personality types. These are sensate, intuition, feeling and thinking.
The Myers Briggs typology indicator made a mess of Jungs concepts. I believe Jung would have used his original typology lightly in relation to good consultation methods and not constrain anyone into some “Extraverted sensate intuitive thinking” type of label. One last point is the connection The basic Jungian concepts have to the four elements, Sensate Earth, Intuition Fire, Feeling Water, Thinking Air, so there is a connection to Astrology and so forth. Finally as your touch of this work is quite orientated towards Psychology here is one last quote relevant “Astrology is assured recognition from Psychology, without further restrictions, because astrology represents the summation of all the psychological knowledge of antiquity”.
I find reference to a spiral interesting however I am not entirely clear on the connection of it to Scholten. I have not read the book but have had a look on Wiki. If you could elaborate on it, that would be helpful.
PS: I promised myself that the first person who added me as a friend on the community I would write a special poem to, and it was you. So I hope you are not shocked by this as it would have been the same for anyone. You appeared to add me at a time where I was in a real creative state and had just began to look at one of your articles. I put two things together, saw a coincidence, and started writing. I noticed you removed the poem but I trust it is safe, otherwise I have opened a discussion on it in the forum.
Love and light
Alexander Begg
Many thanks for your comments Alex, here's a bit more on the context I had in mind when I used the term "nomethetic"...
ReplyDeleteRajan Sankaran started off the nomethetic trend with his "Sensations" series of books, I followed on his idea with the plants database - by mapping groups of rubrics onto larger themes (after Mirilli) but Sholtens work in "Repertory of the Elements" is the ultimate ...
"Wow ... he's done it!"
He's Mapped the entire domain of Homeopathy onto 18 Stages.
What do you mean by the entire domain of Homoeopathy? What domains are these?
ReplyDeleteHow has it helped you?
:)
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Sorry I didnt reply J.Ferrera - the story of my husbands car crash in 2011 would have been a spectacular addition.
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