ABSTRACT
This chapter traces Jung's concept of the transcendent function back to its philosophical roots in the notion of dialectical change, first expounded by the German Romantic philosopher Frederick Hegel. Hegel's model is fundamentally about Spirit as the product of the dialectical interaction between subjective thought and the objective world, between Logic and Nature. The Hegelian notion of dialectical change permeates the psychological theories of Freud and Jung and their followers, steeped as they all were in the German speaking culture of their times. The psychological "transcendent function" arises from the union of conscious and unconscious contents. The years 1912-1916 were pivotal in Jung's psychic development, a time of great crisis. It was during this time that he wrote both the Seven Sermons to the Dead and The Transcendent Function. Michael Fordham's work offers us a further dialectical view of the processes in the development of the self.
