A Psychohistory of Metaphors

Subtitled 'envisioning time, space and self through the centuries', this is an extraordinarily interesting book building on the work of Julian Jaynes about the emergence of interiority or what the author calls 'the inward turn'. We think in terms of metaphors, images, mentalities and frames, which all depend on visualisation and spatialisation, regardless of form. For the author, the transition from what he calls a cosmic to a scopic worldview in modern times is central. He coins the terms 'introcosm' and 'introscopic' (think of telescope and microscope) to characterise the inner world of these worldviews. Time goes from cyclical to linear, which also entails the emergence of the idea of progress and future. Soul is now understood as mind, qualities are quantified, while our instruments open up new spaces. Interestingly, the development of perspective is also understood as a form of interiorisation, although associated with geometry and measurement.

It is characteristic of modernity to question authority with its unshackling and emancipatory ethos that saw the rise of capitalism, science, technology, industrialism, national statism, market forces, democracy, bourgeois lifestyle and civil society. The self is redefined in terms of conscious interiority involving self-authorisation, self-narratisation, self-autonomy, individuation and self-reflexivity. This emergence is fascinatingly paralleled by the appearance of words with the self prefix from the 16th century onwards. For instance, self-love appears in 1563, self-knowledge in 1621, self-interest in 1649 self-esteem in 1657 and self-determination in 1683. We have to wait until 1775 for self-important and 1795 for self-respect. It would be fascinating to know if parallel concepts emerge concurrently in different European languages. The scope of the book is very wide in dealing with well-known and less well-known figures in the history of psychology (e.g. Fechner, although there is little coverage of William James). Towards the end, the author considers the therapeutic turn and forms of self-idolatry in various forms of narcissistic display. Given the nature of conscious interiority, the author might have extended his analysis to mystics who take this process to the next stage, while also finding the root of the self in the universal, for instance in Teilhard or Thomas Merton. There is also no mention of the cultural contribution of Iain McGilchrist. The book is nevertheless a significant contribution to our understanding or psychohistory.