Owen Barfield (1898–1997)

This is an interesting complement to Thomas Kuhn's book, but it is not about paradigm shifts. If I were to compare its spirit to another text, it might be Tillich's The Protestant Era. It is as Dr. Vernon Gras used to say, "an attempt to eff the ineffable": to trace, or gesture toward, an evolution, or movement of consciousness (in the spirit of "moving over the face of the waters", or glyphs to that effect) - to disregard the [provisionally] terminal proposition of Wittgenstein's Tractatus.

Apparently, this was written while the philosophical works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge were coming out in new volumes. Who knew the author of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner/the Hunting of the Snark was a philosopher, too! Apparently, a noted and productive one. So, we get the philosopher's subtlety and the poets metaphor: "“It is a dull and obtuse mind, that must divide in order to distinguish; but it is a still worse that distinguishes in order to divide.” (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aids show more to Reflection)

Coleridge sallies forth to distinguish from the directly perceptible world of natura naturata to explore the "supersensuous" realm of the natura naturans. From these musings he developed a polar logic, apparently refined from the writings of Giordano Bruno and Nicholas of Cusa from the idea of coincidence of opposites. Ultimately, we find Coleridge has affirmed a Christian mysticism that is his worldview. Regardless, of how we take the culmination, the journey sparkles with such observations as, "The want of adverbs in the Iliad is very characteristic. With more adverbs there would have been some subjectivity, or subjectivity would have made them." (Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: And the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Christabel) show less

This book is like really, really rich chocolate cake - it will require a long time to digest - and a couple more future readings. This is one of those instances - and it might just be my lack of comprehension and a density to all things philosophical - but there were many paragraphs I had to read over and over and only then did I have even the faintest idea of what Barfield might have been getting at.

My briefest explanation - and this does not do it justice - would be that it is firstly a show more treatise on the evolution of human consciousness and secondly could be considered - in part - a study in the history of ideas, religion, language, philosophy, anthropology, theology, imagination, iconoclasm and so much more all rolled into one.

That being said it is not entirely backward looking but also future looking. It could be seen as a kind of prophetic word to humankind in general and the church - the nursing mother as Barfield puts it - in particular. Over all it definitely cultivates some serious beta-thinking on behalf of your entire mass of grey cells. show less

A fascinating study---how rich a trove our language is that so much of our history and thought may be gleaned from it!