In his “Understanding Human Nature,” Adler presents his view of Human Nature in two books. Book I talks about human behaviors, and book II talks about the science of characters. He notes that all human beings must make an adjustment to their environment while acting. He calls the faculty of taking up impressions from the outer world (the environment) psychic mechanism. He thinks that mechanism pursues a definite aim based on a definite interpretation of the world whether he/she has an ideal behavior pattern learned in his past to follow or not. He notes that nobody can express the cosmic interpretation and the goal in a definite and exact term. However, quoting his exact wording “we can describe it as an ever-present aura, and as always in contradistinction to the feeling of inadequacy. [Anyone’s ]Psychic movements can occur only when they have an innate goal.” I think I know what he has meant. In my opinion, this aura is not planned explicitly but come to the person dynamically, and it leads to an array of actions, exhibiting in the way that is described by Kant as intuition. “Intuition without concepts are blind.” (Critique of pure reason) It means that learning has occurred and that, if the person can conceptualize it, the event will be understood explicitly so that it won’t be seen as blind. This intuition is part of the psychic movement. Adler used a child falling and raising from the ground as an example to sense his/her environment, whether other people are around or not, what are reactions these people have made, and so on. Indeed, it is the child’s intuition to get up while some may be taught to get up on his/her own that could be an ideal behavior pattern (concept) in his memory. Adler calls it the structure of our Cosmos, which can be filled in with more experienced content, gradually. Adler listed three elements in the filling of the structure: perception, memory, and imagination. Perception, memory, and imagination are three essential elements in building up the cosmic picture, which is the world we live in, used to develop an individual’s soul. In addition, fantasy, dreams, empathy, and identification are auxiliary elements to help develop individuals’ souls. They are not absolutely necessary in building one’s cosmic picture of the world.
At this point, I should make a connection between Wittgenstein (1889-1951) and Adler (1870-1937) about the world we live in. The building materials of the world we live in, each individual experience—each individual psychic mechanism, and the teleological thinking about the world each has experienced are not the same; the result of a cosmic picture varies among human beings. That reflects what Wittgenstein’s saying, “my limit is my view of the world, “ which matches to Adler’s building of a soul, an individual cosmic picture: limited and not the same.
Everyone has souls but not everyone has all of the characters described in his book II, including both aggressive and not aggressive ones. Therefore, Individual Psychology has no universally applicable laws. For example, Adler has told the story of a girl having her hallucination. He even has push this kind of human behaviors as a possible human imagination or human creativity. Don’t feel sad. Adler has emphasized it in his introduction chapter: “The science of human nature may not be approached with too much presumption and pride. On the contrary, its understanding stamps those who practice it with a certain modesty. The problem of human nature is one that presents an enormous task, whose solution has been the goal of our culture since time immemorial. It is a science that can not be pursued with the sole purpose of developing vocational experts. Only the understanding of human nature by every human being can be its proper goal. This is a sole point with academic investigators who consider their research the exclusive property of a scientific group.”
In my article “My view of the book: Atlas of the Heart” I have expressed my opinions about the Random House book, Atlas of the Heart, by Brene Brown, which mapped 87 human emotions to help people make more meaningful connections to their environment. Sensing the environment during any event, the person uses his/her intuition. A book with examples about people’s intuition is not meant to remember and apply but rather reference when we have built up our own experience relating those feeling words. Again, let’s emphasize Adler’s saying: It is a science that can not be pursued with the sole purpose of developing occasional experts. Only the understanding of human nature by every human being can be its proper goal. This is a sore point with academic investigators who consider their research the exclusive property of a scientific group.
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