Continuation of last entry

 

I don’t feel like I nailed down the last thought. Here another attempt.

 

The apple in myth and poetry is not a different object. For example, the apple in the Golden Apple of Discord or the fruit in the Book of Genesis (often imagined as an apple in later tradition). These are not simply arbitrary projections or decorative uses of language. What changes in these symbolic uses is not the object but the mode of disclosure. In everyday use, the apple appears as edible, classifiable, useful; in poetry or myth, it  can appear as temptation, beauty, strife, knowledge, or a gift. I am trying to understand the thought that in apprehending the apple, we reveal something about our own being. Thus our being is practical and classificatory as well as symbolic, moral, imaginative, and dwellers in meaning beyond utility. Thus when the apple appears in myth or poetry, it discloses not only what apples are, but what we are capable of seeing in them. And this is not merely anthropomorphic projection. If it were mere projection, anything could mean anything. But not everything can become a symbol of temptation or a symbol of beauty. The apple works because it already has beauty, sweetness, fragility. . .a kind of perfection of form. These features make it fitting for certain meanings attuned to it. Therefore, myth and poetry do not invent meaning out of nothing; they unfold possibilities already rooted in the thing. Neither projection nor a mirror. A “fusion of horizons” (Gadamer) or sorts, or potentialities, since I am not sure apples have horizons.

 

   If this is right, then truth is not exhausted by correct classification and scientific description. More broadly, more essentially, truth as disclosure of meaning, of reality as latently meaningful. Without us, the full being of apples and such would remain latent, known only to the Creator if indeed there is a Creator. Without apples and such, essential aspects of our being would remain closed off. And poetry and myth (art in general) can sometimes disclose aspects of reality and of human life that cannot be captured in purely logical or scientific terms. Our basic grasp of things allows us to identify them; but in myth and poetry, the same things can disclose deeper dimensions of reality and of ourselves. The apple we eat and the apple of myth are not two apples, but one reality seen at different depths.

 

    Fit this into my intellectual landscape. Wittgenstein: language as use is the ground floor, the precondition for the possibility of humanity. Thomas Aquinas and metaphysics seeks intelligibility, wisdom. Shakespeare, Dante, Dostoevsky, Bach, Rembrandt (and many more) reveals depth. Religion and the hope it can at its best (rare in the course of human events, as rare as Shakespeare and Dante) inspire, seeks a narrative that makes sense of the whole mystery.

. . .

I resist the intellectual and cultural  the fragmentation of reality into “mere facts” vs. “mere meanings.” Both belong to one intelligible whole. The truth of the apple (conceptual level) and being of the apple (ontological level) are aspects of one realit. The truth of the apple (as grasped in thought) and the being of the apple (as it is in reality) belong together like two sides of one coin. Well, I need to be careful here. Thomas Aquinas would say tht truth is the adequation of intellect and thing (adaequatio intellectus et rei), which means that the apple is (ontological level) and the intellect grasps it as it is (conceptual level). And truth occurs when the two are in conformity. Therefore, truth depends on being but is not identical with being. Two sides, but asymmetrical: Being is primary (the apple exists, has a nature, is intelligible); Truth is derivative (our mind successfully grasps what is there). So the image of “two sides of the same coin” image is good, but needs refining.

   Being is such that it can be known and the mind is such that it can know being from a certain point of view – a mutual fit, but asymmetrical. I recall Aristotle: the form of the thing and the form in the intellect are not the same, but are the same in kind. I would say analogous or attuned. That is why conceptualization that is of something is possible at all. The apple is not a “blank object” but already intelligible, even to young children to a limited but genuine degree. The human knower, not a passive mirror, is a being capable of apprehending aspects of the world. Truth is neither imposed nor merely copied; it is a successful participation in intelligibility. Two big philosophical and cultural misconceptions: 1) reality is “out there” and thought is “in here” (the gap results in skepticism if pressed); 2) reality is just what is thought, an anthropomorphic projection onto a blank, indifferent, meaningless screen. Those two errors define the culture I grew up in. It has taken me decades to overcome it, with the help of others. The truth is that truth and being are distinct but intrinsically ordered to each other, as Aquinas knew centuries ago. The being of the apple grounds the truth of the apple, and the truth of the apple is the mind’s participation in that being. Being makes truth possible; truth is the mind’s alignment with being. And metaphysical truth is open because reality is bigger than we are.

     This is why I explore – and that is all I am doing – the idea of truth as a kind of translation of being into thought, never complete, but genuinely answerable to what is. So a better metaphor than two sides of the same coin might be to see the apple as something like a text (to be read). The apple is not exhausted by a first glance; it can be read at different depths: everyday use, a basic, literal reading (edible object); science, i.e., a more articulated reading (biological structure); philosophy, i.e., a deeper reading (form, nature, intelligibility); myth/poetry, i.e., a symbolic reading (temptation, beauty, loss, gift); religion, i.e., the ideal limit, the idea of the apple in the mind of God. The text is not created by us, but neither is it grasped all at once. This recalls Hans-Georg Gadamer and the hermeneutic idea that understanding is always historically unfolding and open-ended.

  Perhaps another way to put it would be that the apple (reality) is a field that can be entered more or less deeply. At the surface, recognition and use and at deeper levels, structure, meaning, significance. Different disciplines (science, poetry, philosophy, theology) are not competing descriptions, but different modes of access

     Or phenomenlogically, the apple is not a mute object, but something that shows itself and can show more over time. This avoids the twin errors of projection (we invent meaning) and passivity (we just copy what is there). In truth there is a kind of reciprocity: the thing gives, we receive, and learn to receive better if all goes well. In this progressive revealing, the apple also reveals who we are. A purely practical being would see only food; a scientific being sees structure and regularities; a poetic being sees symbol and meaning; a religious being sees temptation or gift. So the depth at which the apple appears corresponds to the depth of the knower. And therefore the history of what the apple “means” is also a history of what we are capable of seeing. But an important caveat: this process is not guaranteed to be pure, true, or even adequate. We can deepen our understanding or distort it, as the culture into which I was socialized has. Original sin, interpreted sociologically and politically, means we are all socialized into cultures distorted by injustice, by ruling classes constructing reality in a way to support their power, and thus distorting our personalities and social relations, and thus distorting our experience of the world. Thus myth can reveal truth but also conceal or mislead. Science can enlighten but also reduce reality in order to conquer it technologically-industrially. The disclosure of being and the self-disclosure of the knower are morally and politically charged. The industrial apple in the supermarket reveals this.

     The being of the apple is not given all at once, but progressively disclosed through different modes of engagement – practical, scientific, philosophical, poetic, and religious – and in this unfolding disclosure, it reveals not only what the apple is, but what we are capable of seeing, for better and for worse. Essence is something like a depth that can be entered, not a formula that can be stated once. Being invites understanding, and understanding, in responding, reveals both the world and ourselves, often (our tragedy) in a distorted way.

. . .

 

A footnote.

 What I have been saying might sound Hegelian: i.e., reality as we know it is not static, but unfolds, understanding develops over time in different modes (use, science, poetry, philosophy); truth is not given all at once, but emerges through a process. Hegel would say that Truth is the whole, and the whole is the result of its development. My sense of open-ended disclosure and deepening understanding seems close to his spirit. Hegel, as far as I understand him, which is not too far, claims that Reality becomes what it is through the development of thought (or Spirit). In other words, the unfolding is necessary, possesses an inner logic, and culminates in philosophical comprehension. I believe, on the other hand, that Reality is already intelligible, but our grasp of it unfolds over time, and not necessarily in a complete or guaranteed way. So my emphasis is different. The unfolding belongs to our encounter with reality, not to reality becoming itself through us. Hegel risks collapsing being into thought, reality into its historical articulation. I am with Aquinas on maintaining the truth of the priority of being. Reality does not become through our thinking, but it can be progressively disclosed through it, and this disclosure reveals both the world and ourselves.

 

Summary

  Being is not equivalent our current understanding of being.

  Deeper understanding does not imply arbitrary reinterpretation.

  Different modes of disclosure does not entail equal adequacy or depth.

  Things are intelligible.

  We come to understand them over time.

  And in doing so, we discover both what they are and what we are.