Memory in The Ontopoesis of Life Book 2

MEMORY IN THE ONTOPOIESIS OF LIFE
A NA L E C TA H U S S E R L I A NA
THE YEARBOOK OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH
VO L U M E C I I
Founder and Editor-in-Chief:
ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA
The World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning
Hanover, New Hampshire
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MEMORY IN THE ONTOPOIESIS
OF LIFE
Book Two
Memory in the Orbit of the Human Creative
Existence
Edited by
A N NA - T E R E S A T Y M I E N I E C K A
The World Phenomenological Institute, Hanover, NH, U.S.A.
Published under the auspices of

A-T. Tymieniecka, President
123
Editor
Prof. A-T. Tymieniecka
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USA
wphenomenology@aol.com
ISBN 978-90-481-2318-6 e-ISBN 978-90-481-2319-3

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TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix
INAUGURAL STUDY
ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA / Memorys Sustenance of the
Human Orbit 5
TOPICAL STUDY
ROBERTO VEROLINI AND FABIO PETRELLI / Ontopoietic
Vestige: Memories of Ontogenesis in Biology and in Human
Culture 15
SECTION I
THE SELF IN CREATIVE MEMORY
THOMAS RYBA / A.-T. Tymieniecka, the Work of the Analecta
Husserliana and Conversion 43
KIYMET SELVI / Lifelong Learning and Self-Actualization 51
GRZEGORZ GRUCA / Faces of Memory the Work of Franz Kafka

as a Record of Consciouness Lost in the Labirynth of Being in the
Context of Existential Philosophy 67
EWA LATECKA / Which Self? Or What is it Like to Speak

or Listen An Existential Phenomenological Approach 79
ALI ZTRK / Art Education as an Expression of Phenomenon 87
SECTION II
CIPHERING REMEMBRANCE: SIGNS, SYMBOLS, SPIRIT
MARIA-CHIARA TELONI / The Functions of Memory in Edith
Stein and in Anna-Teresa Tymienieckas Phenomenology of Life 103
v
vi TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S
JOANNA HANDEREK / The Symbol Code of the Past, Record

of Human (Existence) Life, and Ontopoiesis of Life 125
SEMIHA AKINCI / On Knowing: Whether One Knows 143
J. C. COUCEIRO-BUENO / Without Beauty there is No Truth 149
ANTONIO DOMNGUEZ REY / El a Priori Correlativo Y

Ontolgico Del Lenguaje ngel Amor Ruibal (18691930) 165
MARIA TERESA DE NORONHA / Saudade and Memory in the

Ontopoiesis of Life 195
DAVID A. ROSS / Meta-Analysis and the Question of Being 207
SECTION III
MEMORYS NETWORK OF THE HUMAN HORIZONS
KONRAD ROKSTAD / Memory and the Historicity of Human
Existence 231
PIOTR MRZ / Structure as a Collective Memory of Cultural Systems 251
NOVIKOV DMITRIY / Agricultural Landscape

as Philosophical-Ecological Phenomenon 263
VASILIY NILIPOVSKIY / Terrain as Subject Matter

of Cultural-Ecological Value 271
A.L. SAMIAN / Newtons Theology of Mathematical Problems 277
SECTION IV
MEMORY IN THE COMMUNAL CIPHERING OF LIFE
ILVITSKAYA SVETLANA VALERYEVNA / Orthodox Monasterial
Complex in Contemporary Sociocultural Environment 301
ELIF IRAKMAN / The Art of Memory in a Pluralistic Universe:

William Jamess Republican Banquet 307
TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S vii
ISMAIL SERIN / Can Reason Regulate the Reality by which we

Experience the Life as Our Private Life? 335
BARIS PARKAN / Relatively Completely Happy 341
INDEX 355
AC K N OW L E D G E M E N T S
This volume, devoted to the ontopoiesis of memory, is the second part of

the collected papers, presented at our 57th International Phenomenology
Congress, held by the World Phenomenology Institute on the subject: Mem-
ory in the Ontopoiesis of Life which took place at the Istanbul Kultur
University, in Istanbul, Turkey on June 1822, 2007. Our heartiest thanks go
again to Professor Erkut Sezgin for his initiative and insightful cooperation
in organizing this Congress. We are sincerely grateful to the Kultur Univer-
sity personnel presided by Prof. Dr. Dursun Kocer and assisted by Yrd. Doc.
Dr. Hikmet Cadlar and Yrd. Doc. Dr. Gursel Hacibekyrodlu.
Particular thanks go to the then rector, Dr. Tamer Kocel for his sympathetic
welcome to our initiative.
We are greatly thankful to our colleagues on our organization committee,
especially Professors Carmen Cozma, Alexandra Pawliszyn and Halil Turan,
for their day-to-day care of our progress.
The extraordinary hospitality extended by the Kultur University, and the
unique beauty of Istanbul will be remembered by all the participants.
A-T.T.
ix
I N AU G U R A L S T U DY
ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA
M E M O RY S S U S T E N A N C E O F T H E H U M A N O R B I T
We have in the first volume on the theme of memory1 outlined the crucial
role of memory in retaining our already actualized constructive accomplish-
ments/efforts as an inventory to be called up propitiously in the creative thrusts
of the becoming of life. The emphasis here has been on the constitutive role of
the continuity of becoming and its grounding in the ontopoietic unfolding of
life itself. Synthesizing, we may say that in some essential respects, memory
was revealed to play a basic role in life as such.
As pointed out in the first part of this inquiry memory retains the construc-
tivism of the individualizing living being as an organic bio-memory that the
human being discovers partly through intellective acts of consciousness, partly
through simple natural experience. It serves as an inventory to be propitiously
recalled to provide links in the constructive continuity of becoming.
The striking function of memory in its first vital occurrence appears, in
the simplest reactions of living agent on the way to its unfolding toward
consciousness. Memory is active at all levels of individualizing life.
But in all its expansion the unique significance of memory is in its part
in installing human existence within its changeable circumference and main-
taining it in vigor. Memory truly blossoms within the operations of the fully
developed human mind.
In sum, from the living agents recording of its elementary vital moves,
through the evolutive progress of the minds conscious direction of its pro-
ficiencies, to the appearance of the human apparatus, in which memory plays
the crucial role in numerous registers, conscious, specifically human becoming
has developed its existence through memory.
Since our emphasis so far has fallen on memorys maintenance of and
allowing for the constructive continuity of the ontopoietic development of indi-
vidualizing life, it is time now to turn attention to the creative inventiveness,
that characterizes human life and lifts it to its stature. We will focus here on
the varied roles that memory plays in this inventiveness on the functions of
memory allowing for the inventive creative nature of human existence.
5
A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana CII, 511.

6 ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA
T H E W O R K O F T H E H U M A N M I N D A N D M E M O RY I N T H E RO L E
OF TRANSMITTING INTELLIGIBILITY
We may generalize that memory is the major element in the transmission of

intelligibility not only in the organic succession of lifes self-individualizing
development but also in the transmission that conveys coalesces, connects,
links, analogizes, communicates, informs, impacts, influences within the cir-
cumference of the human realm of existence, within the reach of the human
mind as it extends its probes ever beyond. The entire project of human exis-
tences stretching its tentacles beyond is suspended upon the understanding of
meaning, its differentiation, and its transmission in communication, upon all
that is accomplished owing to the functional power (force) of memory differen-
tiated into universal objective as well as individual subjective perspectives
(the intentional universal significance of meaning vs. subjective, differentiating
understanding).
To return to a matter covered in the first part of our discussion, bio/organic
memory within its generative horizon sustains the generative sphere of life.
Upon memory is passing into the double unfolding of individual existence
within the sphere of subjective experience and its simultaneous integration
with the circumambient world, what the individual learns is transmitted and
communicated along two lines that of universal, i.e., objectivied meaning and
that of experiential singular understanding. Meaning and understanding draw
their mutually determined sense in the existential functioning of language, the
existential vehicle of human life. In their mutual growth memory unfolds the
full potential of the creative human mind, to which we now turn.
In the evolution of living beings in which the living agent comes to acquire
prerogatives of the human mind, a new platform emerges, that of the Human
Condition. This embraces the entire spread of individualizing life in all its sec-
tors and phases of becoming, but it is prompted and orchestrated specifically
by the human creative mind with all its sentient/intellective/imaginative power.
All the creative elements are received by the subject conveying an intelligi-
ble content in a ciphered presentation of reality having a specifically human
guise: language. The full-fledged minds differentiation of reality as it is trans-
mitted in Imaginatio Creatrix with all its perspectives on becoming accounts
for the orbit of human existence. The innermost timing involved in lifes main-
tenance of an intelligible, ontopoietic outline is based on the concrete arsenal
of the creative mind.
a. Language and Memory. Language, as the medium of a dramatic, dizzying,
dynamic initiative of the logos in the communication of meaning among liv-
ing beings about their reality draws on the complete register of the constitutive
junctions of life. Sounds and signs differentiate in function of lifes unfolding
M E M O RY S S U S T E NA N C E O F T H E H U M A N O R B I T 7
in complexity feeling, sensing, pulsating, incorporating meanings in so far

as they conform to the objective reality operated by the living agent and coin-
cide in all the functional circuits of the subjects involved. It is by scrutinizing
our past that we attempt to understand our tendencies, hidden drives and the
unclear situations in which we have sought to find a right move, solution, etc.
We scrutinize the past employing the imaginative aspects of our experience
and circumstances.
Reception experiences that are seemingly blind (or mute) are
ciphered by the full-fledged intellective outlay of the powers of the mind
indispensible for the linguistic expression of both the universal human mean-
ings of constitutive reality on the one hand, and experiential subjective reality,
and experiential subjective receptivity, on the other. Owing to the inner power
of memory to retain the past and reactivate its facsimile in the actual present,
memory seems to be subsidiary to the progress of timing, and yet it is a basic
function; it plays the role in life of enabling the transmission of lifes significant
intelligible steps.
We owe to its sustainable recurrence the progress of growth of the human
mind, its ever expanding horizons, the widening of the orbit of human
existence.
b. The Conscious Agent and Self as well as Communal Existence. Scrutiniz-
ing the meaning-fullness of the escaping past retained in memory, we find that
this meaning-fullness acquires transformative twists with respect to the ongo-
ing changes in circumstances and shifts in our present interests and tendencies.
It accounts for the transformations in our view of past experience, of our own
personality, and ultimately of the meaning of life.
Transmission of the inventory of the past creates/constitutes our self in
as much as we constitute fabulated histories of our human groups pregnant
with deposited convictions and values that then form us. History is far from
being a deposit of present moments on the contrary, its transmission of the
logos of human collective experience in a fabulated story, the fruit of selective
intellective memory, on the one hand, and its interpretation, on the other.
c. To return to a matter covered in the first part of our discussion, bio/organic
memory within its generative horizon sustains the generative sphere of life.
Upon memory is passing into the double unfolding of individual existence
within the sphere of subjective experience and its simultaneous integration
with the circumambient world, what the individual learns is transmitted and
communicated along two lines that of universal, i.e., objectivied meaning and
that of experiential singular understanding. We move with the vibrant force of
human mind upon the rails of the intellective logos as it gathers all its forces
and virtualities in the creative/constitutive progress ahead in unfolding our self-
hood in our unique self-awareness in our personality within the social world.
Our selfhood and self-awareness are the most intimate center of our existence.
In it our most intimate understanding of ourselves is nourished by our quest
for the meaning of existence. This self-creative existence advances by con-
stant recourse to our actual experience of flashes of the past in our personal
and communal transmission of beliefs, customs, rituals, convictions, values,
taboos, principles, etc.
T H E C R U C I A L F U N C T I O N O F M E M O R Y I N T H E C R E AT I V I T Y
OF THE MIND
As we have indicated taking various perspectives, it is the human mind that

basically guides human existence in all phases vital, psychic, communal,
spiritual, and sacral, from the primal living agent through to its conscious
unfolding, to the fully creative phase of humanness. The human creative mind,
with its horizons encompasses them all. It carries specifically human existence
in an ongoing flux.
The human creative mind is far from being a stationary apparatus of inten-
tional acts of consciousness regulated in their flux by the phases outlined
by evolutionary mutations. Its very indentifying feature/core is the versatile
progress flowing from its inventive/creative propensities. Its creative logos
engaged in a vertiginous activity calls for a plurisided continuity. Here there
is recognition of similar or contrasting elements, the discovery of issues, and
the search for new solutions, learning from experience, etc. In the mind to
be manifested is the continuity of the logos of innumerable perspectives, in
these pursuits, in all the steps of the inventive/creative endeavor, in the turning
over of possibilities, their selection, their selection, their adjustment, etc. And
these operations, refer for their support to the active force that is informed and
stimulated by memory.
The Creative Imagination galvanizing the mind propels it on a quest that
transforms the already being constituted reality. It activates the minds radius
of propensities and a fulgurating variation of virtualities. Imagination is served
by memory as its crucial tool in its selective creative role. It finds in mem-
ory an essential reservoir of elements to be imaginatively configured and
reconfigured.
a. Memory as the Engine of the Human Creative Mind. Our rememoriz-
ing of past events from our own life, of past events reported to us with a
request to understand their meaning, an of far in the past events not even
recollected by presently living people but just recorded and transmitted from
generation to generation gives the experienced past a vast array of transforma-
tory virtualities. Not only does the rememorizing that involves the imagination
reconstruction of experience which is essentially interpretative references to all

the horizons of living experiences, but this rememorizing also refers to the net-
work of experiences subjectively established within the conscious individual,
and this reference to all the transcendental horizons of life involves trans-
formatory virtualities in numerous categories of reality which means there
are various divergent modes of endowing of the past. But while the recorded
traces go through subjective filters in the revival of the sense of the past events,
together with their transformation, a transformation of the understanding of our
own experience of them occurs. In brief, the transformatory nature of memory
of the past in its experiential sense can transform our understanding of own
sense of life. The great question then occurs: What guarantees the identity of
the past over against the transformatory virtualities involved in retrieving it in
memory? What guarantees their identity of past events in cognition/recognition
of our experiential sense and what guarantees their identity as past, as real, con-
cretely events that may be believed to have happened in reality, that is, within
the ontopoietic orbit? What actually remains unconditioned when it comes to
the enormous radius of metamorphic variations operative in the retrieval of the
past?
b. Memory manifests itself as an essential mediating factor of life. or we
may say, as crucial device of the logos of life, a device that carries not forward
not only the constructive continuity of the progress/regress of the ontopoietic
projections providing the transformatory coincidences and throwing bridges
and links among the traces being retrieved (surmised) allowing for a fluent
but, changeable, yet coherent, flow that we call history. There it is that imag-
ination enters into crucial play. Not only is it imagination that lifts conjectural
inferences from the factual status quo to the level of virtualities available on
different horizons correlative, analogical or possible that may appear but its
variations also allow for the adjustment of appropriate compossible virtuali-
ties with the already established status quo. Above that status quo imagination,
operating among and between the variations available on multiple existential
horizons, allows for the identification, approximation, association, familiar-
ity, etc. by which are found surmised, and eventually established fragments of
sense and the notes of innumberable logoic threads.
Memory also provides associative channels for the waves of the flux of
disjointed imaginative promptings.
Memory serves as a crucial schema of reference for fragmented and dis-
placed experiences. Most of all, as the creative imagination comes into contact
with constituted reality on any of the minds horizons, it proceeds on a
continuous line with constitutive intelligence itself.
Memorys transmission of cogency through all the phases of becoming, sus-

tains creativitys selection of pertinent becoming, and so advances existence
toward all its human horizons.
In brief, imagination activates memory in its swing first, through its sentient
intentionality of vis viva, then through its psychic and intellective intentional
networks; lastly, imagination leads the logos of life through its labyrinths of
existence and lived reality with its horizons toward their ultimate sense that
we, human beings seek. That is toward the sacral horizon of life.
At last, we encounter the most striking challenge of memory the sacral
metamorphosis of life!
c. Memory and the sacral transition of the logos. We have seen how, imag-
ination activates memory in its swing first, through the sentient intentionality
of vis viva, then through human psychic and intellective intentional networks.
Lastly, imagination leads the logos of life through the labyrinths of existence
within the horizons of lived reality toward the ultimate meaning that we human
beings seek, that is, toward the sacral horizon of life.
The horizon of the sacral logos does not issue from sheer inspiration. On
the contrary, it proceeds part and parcel from the entire logoic life project; it
belongs to the entire plan of the logos of life as it reveals itself through life. It
is along the continuous thread of the logos of life that we move that the logos
moves from the concrete vital realm of living beings advancing in their com-
plexity and becoming conscious to lower and then higher degrees of awareness
that proceeds the thread of the logos most intimate connection between heaven
and earth, the divine and the human, two realms presumably distinct through-
out human temporal evolution. The passage from one realm to another, that
has been witnessed by numerous concrete individuals individuals, of whom
we have recorded as historical traces, which have been re-memorized and
understood as revelations of the divine realm in human reality. The signifi-
cant point, however, is that the passage from one presumably distinct realm to
another is carried to us by various categories of personifying beings some-
where on the scale between ordinary living human beings and the divine,
namely, angels, messengers, prophets. They assume bodily, human form and
human modes of expression as well as when they appear in life-world situ-
ations. Their appearances are situated in the temporal and spatial coordinates
of the known to us world and are interwoven within it, bearing, however a
differently significant message a sacral message.
It is upon the canvas of the logos of life that this sacral message is being
limned, or rather intimately emerges from and the bodily link between the
seemingly two realms is privy to both. It is the continuity of the fragmentary
occurrences in the reality that is plotted by the human mind as the outline of
salvation. Or, to put it otherwise, here is the history through which the human
progress in enlightenment, the revelation of the divine, the manifestation of
the sacral logos subtending life as its deeper, final sense is being made. It is
out of fleeting fragmentary experiences that the sacral meaning of life and
human salvation may be ciphered as we excavate the sense of the traces left
in reality by these experiences, one advancing. Over another in our continuing
anamnesis.
O N T O P O I E T I C S O U R C E S O F M E M O RY
We have many times over the opportunity to observe memorys ever recurring
function in the temporal becoming of life. Although it crystallizes essentially
the past, the phases of becoming already gone, memory lies at the core of the
present and is immeasurably active as it informs the future looming ahead. Is,
therefore, its function in becoming as fleeting as becoming is? Immersed in
becomings, does it emerge from and vanishes into the unknown? Are mem-
orys fragmentary contributions like pinpoints on a blind path of a labyrinth
that even the Sphinx could not cipher the itinerary of?
Yet, as is readily manifest, memory performs some existentially significant
functions without which life human life could not go on. It is enough to
mention its role in promulgating the run of temporal becoming in all its reg-
isters, beginning with the natural organic phase, and then in communal and
subjective existence as well as in personal self-unfolding, finally in the appre-
hension of ones personal intimate meaning of life. Most significantly, we have
pinpointed the crucial function of meaning in its bridging and bringing together
the realms of creative imagination and constitutive reality.
Even human history and the transcendent horizons of our mind refer to
the relics of memory. It appears that the work of memory, seemingly just
subsidiary, in fact unifies the main thread of life and of human existence. Seem-
ingly proceeding on its own, this work of memory is in fact enmeshed in the
entire fabric of life, which could not proceed without it.
And when we consider that the creative work of the human mind embraces
all the registers of becoming and crowns it in a crucial novum, could we
possibly seek sources of each of its elements in isolation from the others?
Where else can we find the common ground upon which all registers of
life emerge in tandem, differentiate, and forthwith unfold if not upon the pri-
mogenital, ontopoietic platform of life? And is it not memory that provides a
system of references that unifies lifes entire dynamic network?
NOTE
1
ANALECTA HUSSERLIANA, Volume CI, MEMORY IN THE ONTOPOIESIS OF LIFE, Book
One. Springer, 2009.
T O P I C A L S T U DY
R O B E RT O V E R O L I N I A N D FA B I O P E T R E L L I
ONTOPOIETIC VESTIGE: MEMORIES OF

ONTOGENESIS IN BIOLOGY AND IN HUMAN
C U LT U R E
ABSTRACT
Thanks to some examples of the always more effective research on vestigial

structures in the field of biology, this work puts in evidence as the evolutionis-
tic paradigm, on the contrary of what is still believed by some opposite currents
of thought, can extend its valence to spheres usually seen in incompatible
opposition with the evolutionistic vision.
At first we show how molecular analysis of modern proteins and DNA,
which are considered as evolutive vestiges, can solve some of the hard ques-
tions of systematics biology. Then we analyse the results of an interesting
research which allows to propose a pro-evolutionistic conception of the first
Genesis passages (Gn 1,3) defining a new evolutionistic theosophy. The
abovementioned interpretation is based on anthropological evidences about a
sociocultural transformation, dated back to the Neolithic age, that gave rise to
new religious models.
Such a new scenario leads to different philosophic evaluations concerning
the conceptions of anthropology and cosmology strongly coherent with the
modern scientific branches; it also provide a prove of the strong degeneration
of such transformation from a cognitive and psychosocial point of view.
Since its formulation the theory of evolution underwent very strong debates:
in particular this has happened in relation to the philosophical implications of
the evolutionistic paradigm. The evolutionistic vision seems to have touched
the raw nerve of institutions and currents of thought firmly rooted in the west-
ern culture, giving place to a comparison often extended to the white heat. In
reality the theory of evolution, like any other scientific theory, doesnt contain
in itself such an element to invade the correct areas of theological specu-
lation and the connected philosophical aspects. Yet the evolutionistic vision,
proposing a totally uncommon acceptation of reality, relativized and confuted
contingent and inadequate metaphysical, anthropological and cosmologist con-
ceptions, implicitly adopted in the theologicalphilosophical reflection most
rooted in western society: therefore it wasnt the metaphysical theme of theism
15

16 R O B E RT O V E R O L I N I A N D FA B I O P E T R E L L I
in itself that clashed with the evolutionistic paradigm, but rather theological
speculations and fideistic groundless superstructures, built around and above
this thematic on purpose.
Even today, a strong cultural element typical of fundamentalistic envi-
ronments hostile to the evolutionism persists in opposition to the theory of
evolution on the basis of the presumed lack of scientific elements as a support.
In general, they try to oppose to the evolutionistic ideas a series of excep-
tions aimed at emphasizing how, in front of the complexity of the living, the
a-teleonomical and stochastic valence of some key processes of the evolutive
mechanism is absolutely inadequate and strongly reductive. The idea of Dar-
win neutralistic evolution, however accepted and daily applied by all the
existing scientific community seems to disturb the sleep of many consciences
and, often beyond solemn proclaims, of the hierarchies of confessions that
obviously cannot see any objective agreement between their faith positions
expressions of a real and proper philosophical perspective and this paradigm.
Unfortunately for these people, compared to any other theory, the episte-
mological superiority of the new-darwinian paradigm is incessantly confirmed,
even required by the correct application of the scientific epistemological
method, for which the scientist must rely on that theory which, compared to
possible alternative theories, allows the greater degree of description/forecast
of the experimental facts obviously until (scientific) evidence otherwise.
To this day, the evidences in favour of the evolutionistic conception are
growing to a more and more tumultuous rhythm and, decisive fact, turn out
to be epistemologically more and more refined and pertinent. That derives
from the fact that science got rich of techniques of investigation which were
unthinkable in the past, and these techniques are supporting the darwinian orig-
inal intuitions in absolutely inedited areas, spacing from the molecular level to
the psycho-neural one. So we watch a quantitative and qualitative spread of
these experimental validations without precedents; a trend that cannot post-
pone proposing, at last in a constructive propositional way, the evolutionistic
thought in areas that are incompatible to it. The example of the evolutionistic
theory of knowledge (ETK) and of the evolutionistic todays tendencies of the
neurosciences, which revolutionized the secular philosophical acceptations of
man, of the nature of the mind, of the human conscience etc., is remarkable.
In such perspective we will refer to validations of evolutionism really con-
cerning the theme of the ontogenetic and phylogenetic memories found in
the living world. Moving from the molecular level to the organic one a particu-
lar memory of psycho cultural nature which will reveal an inusual approach
to the heart of the theologicphilosophical problem of evolutionism will be
finally reached: the supposed contrast between evolutionism and the tradition
of the doctrines of biblical stock. As provided by the study of the vestigial
ONTOPOIETIC VESTIGE 17
forms, a pro-evolutionistic interpretation concealed in the text of genesis able

to propose an inedited interpretation of memories of fundamental aspects of
our socio-cultural reality will turn up. A result that would sanction the good-
ness, and to this point an intrinsic superiority, of the evolutionistic paradigm in
defining not only an inedited and pertinent evolutionistic metaphysical frame
of the scientific research and of todays philosophical speculation, but also an
as well peculiar evolutionistic theosophy.
The importance of the vestigial forms, historical memory of the evolu-
tionary processes, was already caught by Darwin himself.1 The comparative
anatomy proposes cases by now classical, concerning the conservation of
corresponding structures in distinct living forms. It goes from the skeletal
analogies of the birds and bats wings, from the fins and atrophied pelvic
bones of the cetaceans to the human limbs, from the nails, residual forms of
ancient limbs, which still stick out along the body of snakes, to the opening
of branchial cracks during the embryonic development in the superior mam-
mals, man included, to the caecal appendix, with all the pathologies connected
to it, etc.
This type of investigations, carried out in the past only at anatomic and pale-
ontological level, knew a period of big ferment starting from the second half of
the last century with the development of sophisticated techniques of molecular
investigation. The testimonies present in the cellular plasma and in the molec-
ular structures light up the darkness of the ancient evolutionary dynamics in an
absolutely unexpected way, often solving important scientific controversies.
Molecular vestige have emerged from the analysis of proteins and nucleic
acids. A pioneer study consisted in the analysis of a protein present in all the
superior organisms, called eukaryote: the cytochrome c.2
About 2 billion of years ago a deep transformation in a few unicellular
organisms which were populating the earth developed a metabolic process
able to effectively use the chemical energy of the food: the modern cel-
lular respiration. One of the most important members of the new process
was an ancestral form of cytochrome c: a protein whose molecular descen-
dants are the cytochromes c of the cells of today ours included. As every
anatomic member eye, skeleton etc. a protein represents a biological
realization in which similarities and interspecific differences which can be
considered as phenotypical3 expressions of processes of evolution and/or
divergence are expressed. The current molecules, which descend from com-
mon ancestral molecules, can reveal vestige of the evolutionary processes
which separate us from the first cells able to respire. A pioneer analysis of
the cytochrome c of the horse was carried out in 1963. If extracted in purified
form, this protein forms true and real proteinic crystals made up of proteins
tidily arranged along the various axis (a protein is a long filament of molecules,
called amino acid, folded on itself). X rays directed on these crystals are
deflected with different corners according to the distribution of the electric
charges in the proteins. Analysing tens of thousands of these trajectories of
diffraction at the computer true and real maps of the protein were obtained: the
three-dimensional structure of the cytochrome c.
The complete sequence of the amino acids of the cytochrome c was rebuilt
in several kinds. Comparing the different cytochromes c, their analogies and
differences, it was possible to rebuild the past evolutionary events. For example
it was possible to quantify the speed with which the protein changed (evolved)
from the moment in which plants and animals separated themselves in distinct
kingdoms. With this datum it has gone back to the approximate date of this
event: about 1,2 billion of years ago.
Really interesting data emerged from the study. The cytochrome c is identi-
cal in man and in the chimpanzee: in both the species the molecule consists of
104 amino acids having an identical sequence and the same three-dimensional
structure. On the other hand, the human cytochrome c differs from the
cytochrome c of the mould of the bread (Neurospora crassa) only in 44 of
104 sites, although the space structure of the two molecules is essentially the
same. It should be noticed that in an incomparable way the darwinian theory
explains, with respect to every other theory or interpretative model of the
evolutive fact, both the reason why such a big number of 104 amino acids
of the cytochrome c is interchangeable in such a measure, and why certain
amino acids cannot be replaced without the protein losing its activity; and
above all why the molecular differences between cytrochromes c of species
are proportional to their phylogenetic distance.
These studies allowed to rebuild detailed family trees in a way indepen-
dent from the traditional morphological and paleontological methods. The
remarkable aspect is that these results are in agreement with those of the
classical systematics, based on geology studies, on paleontology, on compara-
tive anatomy, on the dating with radionuclides etc. So in their complex these
transversal researches represent an experimental confirmation of fundamental
epistemological value of the evolutionism. The probability this agreement is
purely accidental is totally derisory: so the coherence between these evidences,
drawn independently one from the others, is a qualitative and quantitative
expression of a very high truthfulness of the evolutionistic paradigm on the
bases of the single checks. This confirmation is surprisingly ignored by many
opponents of the evolutionary paradigm.
Other important contributions arrived from the studies of the nucleic
acids: the DNA and the RNA. In the late 1980s, the biologist Lynn
Margulis4 suggested that the modern cells originated from a process of fusion,
endosymbiosis,5 between the more elementary protoplasms of ancient cells
without nucleos: the prokaryotes. Now, a typical character of the procarioti

is just the presence of DNA rings in their internal. In the same years a particular
type of DNA of the modern cells was started to be studied: the mithocondrial
DNA. This DNA, made up of a ring of nucleic acids, is present in the mito-
chondrions that constitute the cellular cytoplasm seats of important stages of
the respiration. The structure of these DNA rings and their method of dupli-
cation constitute true and real vestige of the prokaryote DNA, a molecular
memory, able to support the thesis of the endosymbiotic origin of the modern
cells: an event that seemed to happen about 1,5 billion of years ago.6
But the mithocondrial DNA has more surprises in store, being able to testify
another remarkable evolutionary moment: from the 1980s the human mitho-
condrial DNA has been studied.7 In man, the cell produced by the union of the
sexual gametes inherits the cytoplasm8 only from the female egg cell, while
the spermatozoon contributes with the nuclear material, the paternal chro-
mosomes, that came abreast of the maternal ones. This makes sure that the
cytoplasm of all our cells, both in males and females, descends from mater-
nal cells: from the cytoplasmatic point of view we are identical to the mother.
So the mithocondrial DNA, which duplicates independently from the nuclear
DNA but in synchrony with the same, exclusively derives from an only parent
in the same way as we all inherit the paternal surname in our culture.
The study of the differences of a wide sample of men found in the mitho-
condrial DNA allowed to define, in evolutionary optics, the so-called process
of coalescence, by which it is possible to determine with a molecular
clock9 the necessary time to cancel the differences present in the mithocon-
drial DNA of two individuals of the same kind. With this study it was built the
phylogenetic sequence of the mithocondrial DNA of modern men, who seem
to have all inheredited this DNA from a single female who lived in Africa about
200,000 to 140,000 years ago: the so-called mithocondrial Eve.10
Another important molecular trace of the biological emersion seems to be
contained in the RNA and in a few processes connected to the synthesis of
the proteins. A precise biological mechanism gathers the proteins in the cells
according to instructions contained in the RNA. As already mentioned, the pro-
teins are made up of long filaments, like a multicoloured bead necklace,. The
RNA too is a filamentous molecule, obtained by the repetition of four distinct
elements, called ribonucleotides. The RNA filaments precisely describe,
through a true and real biochemical code of translation, the long sequences
with which the 20 different elementary constituents of the single proteins
are repeated: the amino acids (the beads of 20 different colours of the above-
mentioned necklace). It is thought that in the processes of the origin of life
there was a slow biochemical evolution with which, in a crescendo of com-
plexity, the living plasma emerged from simple (primeval) early biochemical
substances. But how all this happened? Was there an evolution phenomenon,
like the one of the living forms, also dependent on the pre-biotic molecules?
Are there any traces of these very ancient processes in the actual amino acids
and in the RNA?
Nowadays the genetic code translates the sequence of ribonucleotidic
symbols in a sequence of amino acids in a ratio of 3 ribonucleotides = 1
amino acid.
Why a code of codons? Why this ratio 3:1 and not other more simple
ratios?
This molecular process is assimilable to a real and true linguistic translation:
there is the need to give univocal names to 20 different objects writing the 20
distinct names with an alphabet of only 4 letters. The only possible way is
given by the combination of the available symbols/elements/letters (four
in the case of the RNA) in sequences of opportune length (words/names)
also repeating the single letters of the alphabet. By doing so the possible
combinations grow according to the nk formula, where n is the number of
the available symbols/elements/alphabetical letters and k the length of the
words/names.
The existing genetic code, founded on codons, turns out to be oversized
compared to the necessities: from the combination of 4 ribonucleotides to
groups of 3 we obtain 43 = 64 codons. The 64 codons are redundant in view of
the need to identify the 20 amino acids: why this redundance? Why 64 words
in the RNA language in order to identify the 20 objects in the proteinic
language?
Also nature has found itself in front of a semantic and mathematical prob-
lem. It could have recoursed to a code in pairs: 2 ribonucleotides = 1 amino
acid. Though that way there would only have 16 combinations (4 = 16), abso-
lutely insufficient to codify 20 amino acids (included special codes for the
beginning and the end of the translation process). So would the coding in
codons be forced? No, it wouldnt. In fact there is a further, intriguing facet of
the problem.
We are more and more convincing ourselves that the available number of
the amino acids in the present world is greater than in the initial phases of life.
After the early evolutive processes we have watched an increase of the amino
acids at disposal to form proteins. This background would seem realistic also
taking into account how the existing code of codons is too refined to come from
a single evolutive step. But proposing early phases with proteins made up of a
less variety of amino acids also involves the existence of a process of parallel
evolution between proteins and RNA: from a primitive code of a more simple
translation, founded on couples of ribonucleotides, would we have therefore
reached the existing one, based on codons? Has nature effectively organized
an original and more elementary code of translation in order to shift (change)

to a more refined and powerful one or not?
Also here the answer seems to be a not. The hypothesis of an evolution
from the coding in pairs to that in codons strikes against an insurmountable
semantic or informational obstacle. Its impossible to change from a code
in pairs to a code in codons: changing from a binary interpretation of the
genetic message, of the CGGGAUUUGGUA type etc., to one based on
codons of the CGGGAUUUGGUA type all the pre-existing codes of
translation would dramatically lose sense. This would biologically involve an
unbearable short circuit in the coding of every protein, an insuperable obsta-
cle: every form of life would die out. Insofar as at present the genetic code is
founded on codons from the beginning it must be therefore based on an iden-
tical structure of codons:11 it was still more redundant, because of the inferior
variety of amino acids to identify compared to today! Still more redundance?
Why? Have we traces, any memory of these very remote phases, such clues
to propose a well grounded reason?
The attempt of an answer of another important problem stems from the stud-
ies concerning the origin of life. Which was the original system of assembly of
the proteins? The RNA, like the DNA from which it comes from, is a molecule
which for its existence implies the presence of proteins that catalyze its for-
mation. But, in their turn, proteins require the presence of DNA and RNA. In
biological field, this reciprocal dependence exemplifies the classical dilemma
of first the egg or the hen or of the functional bootstrap: which of them
first developed: the RNA or the proteins?
Many elements indicate the concept of auto-replication/auto-duplication of
the RNA as a solution of the problem of the molecular bootstrap. Sim-
ple RNA molecules can develop in a spontaneous way, and even act as
enzymes/catalysts12 of processes of auto-duplication, a precious event of the
complex mechanisms which are present in the living world nowadays.
In other terms, in appropriate conditions, short RNA filaments sponta-
neously produce, through auto-catalytic processes, complementary filaments
of RNA, in which the father filament acts as cast to produce a structurally
complementary son filament. Everything is due to the spontaneous capacity
of specific ties between ribonucleotides CG and AU: through random move-
ments filaments of opportune RNA dimensions can on themselves, with the
result than the ribonucleotides can face and bind between themselves. In this
case the ribonucleotide C joins G in a specific way, and the ribonucleotide A
joins U and vice versa. But even more these filaments can drive, as true and real
casts, the synthesis of a filament of complementary sequence: a GGCAAU
filament can act as cast to produce the complementary filament CCGUUA.
This last one, in its turn, can reproduce the GGCAAU original filament and so
on, slowly beginning a process of molecular selection.13
In 1976 several scholars of the Medical Research Council Laboratory of
Cambridge proposed that the necessary direction of reading and the necessary
punctuation of the RNA for scanning/encoding in codons of the informa-
tional message of the RNA from the beginning were founded on a mechanism
of translation in codons having the RRY sequence. In these sequences the two
Rs represent ribonucleotides G or A (Guanine or Adenine) put one next to the
other and Y a ribonucleotide C or U (Citosina or Uracile). Also RNY type
sequences (where N represents any ribonucleotide) seem to give the same
results.
Are there elements in the genetic code of the system of current translation
which allow to establish if it had origin from this archaic structure of RRY
or RNY type? Computerized researches of possible relationships between bio-
logical polymers drew phylogenetic trees in which the correlations between
proteins and corresponding nucleic acids are highlighted in various kinds. The
RNA of transport (RNA transfer, tRNA) lend themselves particularly well to
these analyses.
The tRNA matches only amino acids to the RNA codons: a crucial role.
Their structure, rigidly submitted to ties that obstructed every molecular
change, would reflect the way in which the correspondence between amino
acids and RNA was established. Computerized rebuildings of the optimum
phylogenetic structures and of the most probable primitive sequences of bio-
logical polymers applied to well known tRNA sequences confirmed such
studies leading to interesting conclusions. In all the examined species the
sequences of specific tRNA seem to give origin to a tree structure that shows
a reduced evolutionary divergence in comparison to that of other biologi-
cal molecules: a sign that this very ancient particular type of information,
relatively remained unchanged during all the next biological evolution. The
sequences of different tRNA of a same kind reflect a divergence from a com-
mon ancestor through a distribution of mutants similar to a quasi-species.
A quasi-species is a particular type of accidental distribution of molecular
mutants that is observed during spontaneous processes of auto biochemical
duplication.14 These analysis have identified the possible ancestors of mod-
ern tRNA: they were indeed very rich in G and C and their prototype-sequence
(which was rebuilt giving to any position inside the filament the most com-
mon base of the examined sequences) would show a clear reminiscence of a
primitive structure in codons of the RNY type.
Genetic memories of the RNY structure are present also in virus in DNA,
bacterial genes and superior organism, a sign that such structure is very
widespread in the living world. The strong stability of the chemical coupling
GC strengthens the hypothesis that the RNY initial code had limited to 4
codons of the GNC type. The fact that in the modern genetic code there are pre-
cisely the following associations: GGC = glycine, GCC = alanine, GAC =
aspartic acid and GUC = valine is extremely suggestive.
At this point it is not possible to ignore the pioneer simulations of the early
chemical environment realized by Stanley L. Miller of the University of Cali-
fornia in San Diego. In the pulp that resulted from his experiments these amino
acids were present in greater amount.15 Also here, the fact that this constitutes
a pure and fortuitous coincidence is rather risible. As disquieting, in consid-
eration of this evidence, it is the analysis of some meteorites (carbonaceous
chondrities).16 They contain significant traces of amino acids of extraterres-
trial origin present with a percentage of abundance similar to that obtained by
Miller: a mute echo, but solemn, of the possible pre-biotic processes to which
we all owe our present existence.
Other important remains are present in the psycho-cognitive field, both at
anatomic and functional physiological level: it would be enough to observe
how our brain traces out the structure and the working of the brains of other
primates. The analogies of social affective manifestations, in the parenteral
behaviours, in the intellective cognitive performances of supremacies (records)
closer to man (chimpanzee, bonobo etc.) are as important.17 It would be possi-
ble to add the genetic and ethological similitudes about the evolution and the
structuring of language,18 some symbolisms etc.,19 to not talk about the evi-
dences on the evolution of the single languages in the specific historical and
geographic areas: a field of studies that often confirms how often staggering
mnestic traces of the past evolutionary processes are present in the various
levels of reality.20 Furthermore these evidences add to the endless theory of ver-
ifications that supports with greater foundation in case it was still seriously
necessary the goodness of the evolutionistic paradigm in numerous areas of
the scientific research.21
However, as we were saying, our main subject is the existence of very
original vestiges of evolutionary processes in a precise socio cultural area: in
particular the presence of an important memory of psycho-cultural evolution
concealed in the most ancient text of the Old Will for millenniums: the three
first chapters of Genesis (Gn 13).
This purpose appears staggering or maybe striking, if we think of how
and when evolutionism was ferociously opposed by the same supporters of the
theological tradition founded on the biblical texts. Yet in Genesis 13 it is pos-
sible to identify the memory of an important socio cultural transformation
that involved the anthropic sphere both in the psycho-sociologic and cultural
spheres: a decisive aspect in the comprehension of todays reality. These chap-
ters of Genesis, already fundamental in the definition of the theological and
eschatological positions of todays confessions of faith of biblical stock, in

reality constitute a deep testimony of a different and absolutely ignored his-
torical event, able to damage our theological, philosophical, cosmological and
anthropological conceptions.
Our interpretation defines a definitevely antithetic background to the one
supported as a rule in the philosophical debate between atheism and theism.
From one side this dichotomy sees the laic, atheist pole, supporter of a scien-
tific and philosophical analytical materialistic, rigid method; from the other the
canonical theistic acceptation expressed in our culture by the foundations of
the doctrines of biblical stock, which postulate the existence of particular meta-
physical entities (God, soul, hereafter, redeeming eschatological plans and so
on), placed in cosmogonical and cosmological frames and theatre of natural
and supernatural alternate events.
This canonicity is daughter both of the secular diffusion of such doctrines
in the western world both from the fact that, in the world of the history of the
religions, the confessions of the biblical stock have been univocally seen as
among the most refined theological systems, especially in relation to theolo-
gies of less advanced or more ancient cultures. Actually such systems show
characteristics which place them on levels of extreme prominence in the group
of the well-known worldwide confessions in an undeniable way: they develop
first-rate traditions and have marked important pages also and above all of
the modern philosophical thought.
Under the social political profile the history of western culture is marked
in depth by the prominence of these institutions, and that takes place today
as well. Yet none of these considerations objectively allows to attribute any
prototype status, of canon of the theistic options to such doctrines. A radi-
cal scientific and philosophical confutation of this role, centred on an inedited
interpretation which can also have a theological but principally historical,
scientifical and philosophical importance from their origin and from their
wider socio cultural meaning is possible.
This interpretation, duly exposed in the work Il Dio laico: caos e libert,
is characterized by two fundamental points.22
The first consists in an analysis of the cosmological and theological models
and of the essential characters of the position of man in the dimension of the
sacred; in other terms, of the most universal nature of the man-divinity rela-
tionship. The second aspect is that the distinction between two large classes,
theoethotomies this is a neologism and religions,23 due to an analysis
originally independent from Genesis, can be proposed as the most approprieted
reading of the first chapter of the Bible. Lets see how.
The analysis of the various religious models allows to place them in two
classes: in the first those where the divinity expresses an explicit moral author-
ity, an evident ethical sovereignity towards man and his acting. In other terms,
systems that envisage a knowledge of the Good and the Evil from which the
idea of sin derives, that is to say to disobey or not, during earthly existence,
precepts given by the divinity are placed in it.
In these systems the theological system, the cosmological and ontological
frame of reference are all expression of an ethical personal relationship
between a personal being/creature and a personal being/creator God.
These theologies must necessarily define a series of dynamics and of redeem-
ing and eschatological principles regarding the manifestation of sin itself,
and even more contemplate the origin of this onthologic condition in the area
of the original creation a fact that ends up in giving a hint of corruption
and degrade in the social modern reality. The possibility to commit a sin
makes man slip into an ontological condition of impurity: a true and real
natural degeneration, but not less supernatural, able to deeply influence the
ontological personal relationship between the creature man and God. For
these theological models, and the relative class, a neologism has been coined:
theo-etho-tomies (from the greek thos (God) ethos (custom of life) o
(caesura).24
The theoethotomies express peculiar theological characteristics, origins
and evolutions absolutely distinguished compared to the systems which will
be included in the second class. In this last one religious systems in which the
divinity does not affirm any ethical authority and moral sovereignty towards
man will be placed; in other terms, systems in which there is no knowledge of
the Good and the Evil and the concept of sin is not affirmed. These systems
will be pointed out with the usual term of religions written in italics.25
The distinction theoethotomies/religions reformulates both the idea of the-
ism in itself and the contrast between atheism/theism. Instead of the two
classical positions it is necessary to understand the comparison between three
philosophical poles, each of them deeply distinguished: atheism, theoetho-
tomies and religions where these last ones share and in a peculiar way express
aspects and philosphical approaches typical of the laic critic to theoetotomies.
That allows inedited evaluations of the theistical pole tout court, contextu-
ally freeing the comparison theism/atheism from the distortions due to the
recognition in the theoethotomies of the canonical form of theistic expression.
This formal distinction between theoethotomies and religions is perfectly
verifiable on the basis of remarkable ethnographical confirmations.26 The
unequivocal differences between the two models are such to present origins,
theological contents, evolution and socio-cultural, political and economical,
but above all psycho sociological, implications absolutely different between
them. This will also allow to propose an interesting historical cultural rebuild-
ing of their coming in the history of man, their authentic psycho-cultural
emphasis.
It is well known how the social political nature, the class structure, the nature
of the social economical and interpersonal relationships, the forms of familiar
institute and of course the religious sphere of a culture are deeply connected
between them, as several authors show, from Marx to Weber etc. The cul-
tural anthropology shows how the hierarchic structure of a society is specularly
represented in the hierarchic structure of its cult modality.
An interesting scheme of Marvin Harris quote the association divin-
ity/cultural form here proposed as an example:27
Active divinities on the Society

sphere of morality
With social classes Without social classes
Presents 25 2
Absents 8 12
The religions are therefore associated to a-class cultures, while the moral
divinities, typical of the theoethotomies, are typically affirmed in class-
societies. These confirmations show how the authentic valence of these social
cultural elements of the sacred has been so far evaluated in a partial and
superficial way.
The cultural anthropology and the history of religions highlighted how the
original urban societies, stratified and hierarchic from which the social arrange-
ment of the modern historical societies will proceed, rose as theocracies in
which the power and the institutionalized management of the sphere of the
sacred were expressed and managed by sacerdotal classes which were show-
ing narrow ties, if not true and real identifications with the government lite.28
These datas show how the theoethotomies appear in the human history only
starting from late epochs and exclusively in association with well defined forms
of social aggregation. Even if they constitute the almost totality of the doctrinal
forms spread on our planet at present, these models have started to appear in a
recent phase of the true and real history; so they do not represent the modality
of the original religious demonstration of man.29 They cant do it, because
of obvious reasons: they are too young!.
But this decisive aspect has not obviously been fully caught: without any
concrete ground, the theoethotomistic models have inevitably been consid-
ered as terms of an evolutive process substantially monotonous starting from
elementary original systems. But the History of Religions also shows how
any monotonous teleonomy of the religious evolution that assumes modern
theoethotomies as inevitable evolutive terms of arrival doesnt exists: this is
only the fruit of an ethnocentric ideology, of mere cultural influences. Nor one
can objectively claim that the typical petitions of todays theoethotomistic sys-
tems derive from the inevitable extrapolation of the original expressions of an
atavic, universal gasp of man to the sacred and even more of previous religious
modality.
Several ethnological datas, that concern the most ancient forms of religious
belief and that go as far as the paleolithic, until maybe the man of Neanderthal
and other coeval kinds,30 instead support the conviction that the models that
are most able to represent the original forms of supernatural beliefs of man
are to be searched in the class of religions. This derives both from intrinsic
characters of religious models immediately recognizable in the primitive cult
forms currently known to the cultural anthropology, both from the fact that the
religions are typically associated to the egalitarian cultures of hunter-gatherers,
of thousands of years more ancient than those class based theoethotomostic
ones.
The theoetothomisitic systems havent been always and however present in
the history of humanity as fundamental form of expression of faith and this is
a decisive element. Their origin is very recent, ever so late compared to the
vertiginous hiatus that stretches beyond the modern history of human species,
where religious beliefs were already in force.
The theocratical societies of high demographic density and strong division
of the work, deeply divided into social classes, where some minorities were
imposing a centralized social power, supported and sanctioned by theoetho-
tomistic ideologies, overlook human history only from the Neolithic onwards;
indicatively from 7,000 to 5,000 years ago. And in the times when the farmers
of the fertile crescent started to bow at the feet of the first ziggurat trem-
bling raising their eyes towards the top of those immeasurable monuments, to
scan nebulous sacerdotal rites, a big part of humanity lived in clans and tribes
in which these inedited social cultural structures, and obviously the relative
theoethomistic models had to still arrive. It was estimated, supposing a period
of intergeneration of twenty years, how man lived for 250,000 generations as
hunter-gatherer, and only for 400 generations as farmer in hierarchic societies:
from about 12 generations the modern industrial society appeared, and not in
all the lands of the Earth.31
That is to say, when we turn to the current religious models that almost
monopolize todays religious panorama, we cannot ignore the fact that these
realities, so recurring and radically affirmed, in reality have a very recent ori-
gin. An origin that forcedly had to move from a world in which their most
characteristic petitions were absent, perfectly unknown, if not repudiated by

a different socio cultural reality and even more an affectivity, a sociabil-
ity, a politics, a cosmology, a philosophy and still more, included perfectly
alien religious beliefs from the theoethotomistic paradigm. And this problem
is absolutely unsolvable in every interpretation in which a painless, unnoticed
and unavoidable possible transformation is assumed, as implicitly assumed so
far, by unusual a-class/religious societies to those class-based/theoethomistic.
The historical and ethnological evidences disavow this picture without escape.
Society always expresses a tenacious resistance to such innovations! As our
society would express its ostracism to an upheaval of its most exclusive values,
in the same way societies would react to those who would inadvertently
replace a model of the sacred opposite to the popular one.
And the resistance that the anthropologists repeatedly observe in todays
culture in their attempts of modernization, solemnly testifies this fact. When
the anthropologist Richard Lee asked Kalahari Bushmen hunter-gatherers why
they did not till the soil, they answered: Why should we sow them when there
are a lot of mogongo walnuts in the world?
So it is possible to recognize in the history of man a cultural, concrete,
decisive transition, which maybe happened in the most general complete
unconsciousness, maybe bloody, however of extreme prominence. A real cul-
tural watershed, a dizzy interruption that we will use in an interpretation
of Gn 13, which is perfectly antithetic to the preceding exegetic traditions
and finally congruous under the historical scientific aspect. The new key of
reading gives a pro evolutionistic, polygenistic and socio cultural inter-
pretation of the manducation of fruits of the tree of the knowledge of the
Good and the Evil known as Original Sin: these metaphoric and mythical
images would express the grievous socio cultural transposition with which the
modern theoethotomistic societies took origin at the expense of the previous
religious societies. And please notice well: the implicit critic, the degeneration
mentioned here is not addressed to the mere theoethotomistic philosophical,
psychological and anthropological process but to the degeneration caused by
that theoethotomistic ideal in psychological, philosophical and anthropological
world; that is to say, in all those areas that define the existential and ontological
reality in which man inevitably has to see himself!
In this way humanity is seen, before the fall, like humbly submitted to
the divine law, a condition represented from the implicit observance of the
garnishment of not feeding himself with the fruits of the tree of knowledge
of Good and Evil: thanks to this obedience, man would enjoy immortality
gifts, immunity from pain and spiritual holiness. This interpretation, necessar-
ily, places man in a condition of ethical subordination to the Creator and
implies an obedience state as a conditio sine qua non of his happy preter-
natural existence in the Garden of Eden. As a result of the original sin,
expressed in feeding himself with the fruit of the tree of knowledge of Good
and Evil and consisted, according to the traditional exegesis, in the choice
of our ethical autonomy, in wanting independently determine the categories
of Good and Evil, humanity lost these gifts, falling in the corruptibility, in the
concupiscence, prey of the pain and the physical death.32
An exegesis indeed . . . which is evidently bizarre and ingenuous.
Our concrete and verifiable alternative does not resort to some supernatural
condition: since the origins until today, the humanity is seen as finite and mor-
tal. This approach associates the H. sapiens sapiens populations to the term
dm term meant as a singular collective33 seen in a historical and cultural
horizon which requires the concomitance of the following elements:
1) process of the entire hominization;
2) cosmopolitan spread;
3) important and homogeneous cultural development;
4) wide spread of animistic religious conceptions.
These conditions seem satisfied beginning from approximately 50,000 years
ago, in the Paleolithic era. Once stabilized the biological evolutions process,
the human species underwent a significant process of cultural evolution: in the
Euro-Asian continent the Paleolithic societies, based on hunting, fishing and
harvesting of food, showed an innocuous hierarchical development and social
egalitarian relationships far from the affirmation of any authoritarian idea of
repression and exploitation.34
The dm, would represent the human society before the fall, therefore
a humanity reached the presence of the supernatural, of the divinity, inte-
grally safeguarding its own ethical autonomy towards the latter. The mythical
figures of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden would represent a totally real-
ized man, in harmony with nature and aware, thanks to religious hypotheses,
of his eventual valence of image and likeness of God. It is interesting to
notice that such an interpretation underlines contents of the religious expe-
rience directly assimilable to the concepts of communion with God and
immortality. Thanks to a religious conception of Self and the Creation,
these concepts are meant as tangible trascendence of the heartly limits of
existence.
Therefore, there are no supernatural elements able to preserve humans from
corruption, pains and corporal death.
The proposal consists in:
a) identifying the experience of enjoying the fruit of the life tree with the
religious option; and:
b) identifying the experience of eating the fruit of the tree of knowl-
edge of Good and Evil, corruption and death, to the theoethotomistical
option.
It is interesting to observe as these associations show an immediate corre-

spondence with the most significant and peculiar philosophical contents of the
different classes. In the religions the more important aspect is given from the
extension of the individual sphere beyond the ambits of the heartly existence:
a philosophical glimmer towards immortality. Here it is clear the connec-
tion with the immortality that the life tree would have guaranteed to man.
(Gn 3, 22)
In theoethotomies, the dualism Good/Evil and Light/Darkness assumes
enormous importance. The heavy censorial irruption of the divinity in the ethi-
cal moral sphere of the individual is directly combinable to the knowledge of
Good and Evil with which the hagiographer indicated the Tree of Discord
between Man and God. The vagueness of interpretations of the tree of knowl-
edge of Good and Evil and the authentic contents of the disobedience of
man puts in evidence the excessively metaphysical difficulties of the canonical
exegetic positions. The interpretation of the disobedient fruits eating of the
tree of knowledge of Good and Evil, starts from the . . . claim of a moral
autonomy, for which man repudiates his state of creature and subverts the order
established by God. . .,35 as rebellion to the supreme principle of ethics36 and
reaches the violation of sexual restrictions or abuses of the sexual sphere!37
What does it mean in Genesis the concepts of Good and Evil? What is
Good and what is Evil? What does it mean to know the Good and the
Evil? The good term is commonly used as synonym of well, affection
and satisfactory or propitious situations, as expression of economic and moral
profit, etc. On the other side, the evil term denotes generic actions or nega-
tive events and it is synonym of hostile attitude. Broadly speaking it considers
the attitudes, conducted in positive or negative way compared to an original
attempt or goal, like synonyms of right or wrong, appreciate or not appre-
ciate/welcome or not welcome; that has evidently deceived who wanted to
see in the fruit eating of the Knowledge Tree the man approach to the moral
discernment, to the conscience.
As a matter of fact, the Good, Evil and knowledge of Good and
Evil meanings of Genesis appear referred to a dichotomy of theological-
cosmological nature; and particularly to the polarization that invests every
individual set in a theological constellation, where the opposition between a
supernatural principle of the Good and a supernatural principle of the Evil
is established. The Good is all that emanates, leads and involves the natu-
ral and supernatural affirmation of such divine principles and the Evil is all
that is opposed to them. To know the Good and the Evil points out, there-
fore, the involvement of individuals in the humane opposition between the
God of the Good and its antagonist, the God of the Evil, between Light
and Darkness. Therefore, which alternative can be proposed? The distinc-

tion between religions and theoethotomy allows to perceive the experience of
knowing the Good and the Evil in a new way. This knowledge is an expe-
rience exclusively conceivable in the theological context of theoethotomies.
Indeed, they define a law of God that theologically distinguishes the licit
from the illicit, what the man must do or abhor in order to participate to the
Good affirmation and to remain faithful to the God of the Good, his cre-
ator. A sequence of ethical prescriptions with divine origin, protected by the
clergy and handed on from generation to generation as they are included in the
whole tradition and culture of every theoethotomistic society.
To know the Good and the Evil is equivalent, therefore, to experienc-
ing in the ethical space (of man) the clash between Good and Evil; such
an experience is possible only within a theoethotomistic conception: a per-
ception of the ontological, worldly and metaphysical reality, in which every
aware creature is ineluctably crushed. This theological horizon actually pro-
vokes a deep internalization, often unconscious, of a whole casuistry that,
on a psycho-cognitive level, will irreparably upset here is the fundamen-
tal root of Freuds Superego the existence of the conscious Being, ethically
independent, emerged on the Earth, sanctioning the ineluctable ontological
death.
And here is a further interesting faceting of our interpretation: the death
following the Adam and Eve Fall. The classic exegesis considers the death
of Gn 2, 17 and Gn 3, 34 as physical death, besides the spiritual one, due to
the loss of the original immortality and holiness. Instead, this death would
be understood as a passing, ontological death of a man which is able to see
him-self as a religious creature, perfect image and likeness of God, due to
the affirmation of a theoethotomistic ideal. This represents a radical exegetic
revolution in the interpretation of the Original Sin event: Gn 3, 124 would
not narrate any mysterious and supernatural ontological transformation, hardly
sustainable and dense of theological contradictions, but it is rather seen as an
atavistic and concrete psycho-cognitive and socio-cultural fallen of human-
ity, whose deleterious and concrete consequences would have then perpetuated
in the whole mankind through cultural transmission.
Thus, another intriguing aspect of Genesis is related to the sexual sphere:
one of the first reactions of the two ancestors is to realize their own naked-
ness and to cover themselves since they were shamed by the sight of their
sexual organs (Gn 3,7). Here we can consider such a reference as a mytholog-
ical composition of the ethical topic of the sexual control in social sphere; but
the delicacy, immediacy and perspicacity of the reference stimulate an inter-
pretation immediately leading to the Freudian psychoanalysis, in particular in
connection with the structuring of the psyche (Id, Ego and Super-Ego) and with
the valence of Oedipus sexual dynamics in the psychopathology emergence.

From this point of view, the psychoanalytic theory seems to be an interest-
ing interpretative instrument confirming the socio-cultural and psychological
differences between religions and theoethotomies.38
Nevertheless, this interpretation literally bewitches in outlining a new pro-
file of both the psychoanalysis founders thought and that of other authors
commonly seen as the diamond point of the laical opposition. Here, in par-
ticular, we would like to mention Wilhelm Reichs thought in relation to the
connection between social and sexual sphere39 as well as other important
authors.40
Therefore, these cues suggest the possibility to catch in real terms the
nature of the psycho-cognitive, social and philosophical degeneration due
to the appearance of the theoethotomistic cultures, even transposing the
philosophicalanalytical foundations of the psychoanalysis, one of the most
canonical atheistic perspectives, in an unusual valid psycho-sociological and
theological interpretation: a really puzzling result!
The human condition preceding this event is, therefore, characterized by:
1) harmonious existence in nature;
2) close communion with divinity;
3) absolute absence of ethic prescription inherent in sexuality;
4) perfect perception of a supernatural valence connected with a religious
conception of immortality;
5) absolute inability to experience the knowledge of moral categories con-
nected with the theological concepts of good and evil and the associated
effects, from which it derives:
6) a total ethical autonomy.
The existential human reality following this event is characterized by:
1) an existence which is no longer in harmony but it is corrupt in nature;
2) loss of the spiritual communion with divinity;
3) conditioning and ethical aberration of the sexual sphere;
4) decline of the presumed supernatural valence consequent to the subjuga-
tion to;
5) experiencing the knowledge of moral categories connected with the theo-
logical concepts of good and evil and the associated effects, typical of a
theoethotomistic theology, from which it derives;
6) the loss of the ethical autonomy.
Therefore, here is revealed the mystery of the Original Sin: a trans-
formation of cognitive, cultural and existential reality of man due to the
passage from cultures founded on religious paradigms to societies centred
on theoethotomistic models. This caused strong degenerations of the indi-
viduals existential sphere and his relationship with divinity, a psycho-social
and theological degeneration developed in the Man planet through the socio
economic spread of these cultures, altogether more violent and with a strong
expansionistic vocation.
The most immediate test for this interpretation of the biblical fall would con-
sist in evidences concerning the affirmation of the first class systems, in other
words the first modern societies of the human history. Do we have empirical
data for this?
Starting from 40,000 to 50,000 years ago, to the beginning of the Neolithic
era, it does not emerge any data of socio-economic and socio-cultural trans-
formations able to suggest the spiritual revolution we propose.41 Instead, the
Neolithic era represents a crucial period in the human history: the socio-
cultural and technological progress of the Neolithic era seems to testify
unexpected, deep and often bloody innovations of the socio-cultural structure
in different human societies.42
Between 7,000 and 5,000 years BC, in the east part of the Mediterranean
there was a deep socio-economic transformation in some societies, which
passed from an existence based on hunting and harvesting of food to a system
founded on agriculture and breeding.43
Matured for thousands and thousands of years during Paleolithic eras, in few
hundreds of years biology, sociality, spirituality and self-consciousness had to
be adapted to new existential conditions and cultural contexts produced by this
transformation.44
This transition did not happen suddenly: indeed, there was a progressive
mediation from the first hunter-gatherer societies through proto-breeding and
proto-agriculture forms.45 However, something new overwhelmed instanta-
neously in the man universe: psycho-existential modalities and situations never
experienced began to deeply damage the individual and social sphere of the
human being, acting as a self-conscious creature in his own ontological reality.
Therefore, the present interpretation proposes this event like a sudden
psycho-social mutation that, according to the Genesis description of the
consequences of such event, would lead man to an extremely degenerate
reality.
Contributions in favour of these interpretations derive from several disci-
plines: from cultural anthropology, psychology, psychoanalysis and particu-
larly from cosmology, neuroscience, biology and evolutionistic psychology.
These new perspectives lead to a radical revision of the cosmological, onto-
logical and anthropological foundations of the concept of Ego, meant as
psychical individual and skeptical philosopher, steeped in perceptions and
intellectuality, usually assumed by classical philosophy. The individual is no
longer meant as a monadic entity to interface through perceptions with a
reality placed outside. The individual is considered as a perceptive, psycho-

cognitive, active and thermodynamically open46 entity/phenomenon, which
overflows from its perceptive threshold, from the mere biological interi-
ority, assuming psycho-cognitive characters both from the social and natural
sphere, according to the extensive phenotype concept proposed by Richard
Dawkins.47
These interpretations put in evidence the socio-cultural and cognitive
requests, enabling to understand the authentic conditioning of individual man-
ifestations due to the opposing religious paradigms. The most interesting ele-
ments of this influence seem connected to the redefinition of the Superego,
Ideal of Ego and dissolution of the pneumatic-monadic meaning of individ-
ual, which leads to a perception of the Self deeply pervaded by an existential
reality free from corruption and degradation.
The lack of crystallization and sacralization of divine norms, typical of the
religious experience, triggers psychological dynamics leading to a psychic
development immune from the psychopathologies related to the hypertro-
phies of the Superego proposed by modern psychology.48 In religions, the
ethical sphere, reduced to mere anthropic norms, does not escape from the
self-determination of the individual and this prevents every hypertrophy of
Superego and the related psychopathology.
In this way the subject develops his own existence as a pure and full
expression of intrinsic and ethical freedom.49
From this new perspective, steeped in freedom and awareness, man sees
the disclosure of ethical horizons previously precluded, where it is possible
to act on a religious basis rather than on an atheistic one: a pragmatic and
new expression of an intentionality convergent at last with the methodological
basis of modern philosophy and epistemology and no longer steeped in irra-
tional and fideistic bewitchments. At this point, it is inevitable the reference to
all the schools of thought that proposed a deep critical reflection on episodes
and serious problems inherent in the human condition and human approach to
modern hierarchical societies; and also to Sigmund Freud Civilization and Its
Discontent.50
Indeed, all the previous exegesis are in evident contrast to natural sci-
ences because of a reading in which Genesis is seen as a poetical narration
of creations origin and present mankind. The orthodox exegesis emphasized
explicitly historical contents of the narration, as much as possible,51 and in
particular an origin of humanity starting from a pair of ancestors to place
approximately 6,000 or 10,000 years ago in the area between the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers.52
Actually, the event of the Original Sin would date back to 7,000 or
9,000 years ago probably in the area of the fertile crescent, as estab-
lished by scholarly calculations about generations of patriarchs and other
researches activities that aroused interest in many theologians, included
Darwins contemporaries.53 Even if using poetic images, Genesis actually
narrates an authentic historical fact, providing lots of appreciable chrono-
logical and geographical connections.
The problem is that we were looking for the wrong thing in the wrong
place and time: the Genesis nucleus is not based on a monogenistic origin of
mankind from a single pair of ancestors, conception which is absolutely in con-
trast with the evolutionistic paradigm, neither on an epochal supernatural event
from which will derive pain, death and ontological corruption subsequently
spread through propagatione in all human race.54
Genesis does not deal with the ontological and biological nature of the entire
human species and mankind, neither it is inherent in the human origin. Genesis
does not narrate all of that, but it is about a precise cultural event, that was
then effectively transmitted to humanity through propagatione. This concrete
propagation occurred with Lamarckian rather than Darwinian modalities, and
for this it was able to quickly extend itself in the ecumene: once again resorting
to Dawkins terms,55 a sinister and theologically upsetting memes.
In conclusion, we want to emphasize an important aspect: contrary to what
one can imagine, this review can provide an eschatological and soteriological
frame theologically pertinent to all the subsequent testamentary literature,
included Gospels, without any theological decline. This re-examination rad-
ically differs from the traditional positions56 in its interpretative approach,
philosophical foundations and exegetical results.
The real root of relativism can be identified as another reality, whose
understanding seems to be failed because of an interpretative vice, once again
due to evident obscurantisms.
The only, real and authentic relativism.
Dipartimento di Medicina Sperimentale e Sanit Pubblica, UNICAM,

Camerino Italy, Italy
NOTES
1
Pievani Telmo, Creazione senza Dio, Einaudi, Turin, 2006, p. 29.
2
Dicherson E. Richard, Struttura e storia di unantica proteina, Le Scienze, July, n 47, Milan,
1972.
3
In genetics the phenotype is the ensamble of the visibile manifest characters of an organism:
for example red hair represents the phenotype red hair which explicitly expresses a precise
genetic structure chains of DNA which represent the genotype.
4
Campbell Neil A., Biologia, Zanichelli, Bologna, 1995, p. 604.
5
Rizzotti Martino, Prime tappe dellevoluzione cellulare. Dalla comparsa della prima cellula
agli organismi di tipo moderno, Zanichelli, Bologna, 1998.
6
The existing mithocondrions are supposed to be the descendants of one of the original sym-
biotic protoplasm, which had indipendently developed the processes of the aerobic respiration.
Therefore these cells, interacting with other protoplasms, led to the modern eukaryote cell, which
is much bigger and more complex than the original organisms, through a real and true process of
modular assembling.
7
Olson Steve, Mappe della storia delluomo. Il passato che nei nostri geni, Einaudi, Turin,
2003.
8
In the eukaryote cells there is a central part called nucleos that essentially contains the nucleic
acids, surrounded by a part called cytoplasm where all the vital phenomenons, feeding, secretion
etc. essentially take place.
9
The molecular clock measures the time of misura il time of mutation of the biological
moleculars. Its ticking roughly corresponds to the necessary time to have an avarage change
of 1% in the sequences of the amino acids of the same protein of two differing lines; the so
called evolutive unitary period (EUP). Starting from the real molecular differences present in a
population, it is possible to establish the time of coalescence (Tc), that is to say the necessary
time to cancel the differences between two forms of life stored up during a continuous volutive
transformation through the rule Tc = n/2 EUP (where n=number of variation between two taxa).
See Biondi Gianfranco, Rickards Olga, Il codice Darwin, Codice Ediz., Turin, 2005, p. 62.
10
The expression mithocondrial Eve, that has stimulated the interest of some anti-evolutionsts
looking for confirmations of their beliefs, must be caught with discernment: the risulting date of
di coalescenc is relative only to the mithocondrial genes. In other terms, analysis charged to other
genes would lead to different conclusions. Therefore this hypothesis doesnt confirm any idea of
monogenism, that is to say todays mankind might descend from from a single native couple.
For example, a similar study of the coalescence of the human chromosome Y, inherited by the
line of male descendence, dates back to an Adam of the chromosome Y lived about 150,000
to 60,000 years ago. So much later than mithocondrial Eva! See Dawkins Richard, Il racconto
dellantenato, Mondatori, Milan, 2006, pp. 4749.
11
This doesnt exclude, during the early pre-biotic processes, the possibility of prebiotic pro-
cesses founded on codings of couple of ribonucleotides afterwards replaced, for unknow reasons,
by processes of codons coding.
12
A catalyzer is any chemical substance able to favour, without undergoing any transformation,
the progress of a chemical transformation. It goes from simple atoms to the enzymes present in
the living organisms, able to favour the cell biochemistry in an extremely effective and selective
way. In the existing organisms the enzymatic function is execised by proteins, while the RNA (and
the DNA) has only the function of transmission and custody of the genetic information. However
short filaments of RNA are thought to have been able to give place to primitive catalyzations. In
view of their ability to keep the genetic information, the possibility to propose the RNA also in
the role of enzymatic molecule is of great interest in the studies of the origin of life.
13
Possibile mistakes of association can in fact give origin to changeable filaments, also in these
areas beginning a random process of copy and mistake similar to that at the base of the evolutive
darwinian mechanism.
14
Eigen Manfred, Gradini verso la vita. Levoluzione prebiotica alla luce della biologia
molecolare, Adelphi, Turin, 1992.
15
Campbell Neil, Quoted work, 1995, p. 507.
16
Schopf William J ., la culla della vita, Adelphi, Turin, 2003, p. 187.
17
De waal Frans, La scimmia che siamo. Il passato e il futuro della mente umana, Garzanti,
Milan, 2006.
18
Lieberman Philip, Lorigine delle parole, Boringhieri, Turin, 1982.
19
Deacon W. Terrence, La specie simbolica, Coevoluzione di linguaggio e cervello. Giovanni
Fiorini Ed., Rome, 2001.
20
A simple example of the esplicative deep meaning of the vestigial structures is given by the
modern keyboards of the computer because of the strange arrangement, at first sight inappre-
hensible of the keys on these keyboards. Why havent the letters been arranged, for example,
in alphabetic order? Are there ergonomic reasons? No, there arent. The modern electronic key-
boards are the fruit of technologic evolution that has stemmed from mechanical typewriters based
on levers that correspond to the keys. During the speed of typing by an expert operator the levers
banged into each other, expecially when pressing nearby levers. In the attempt to minimize the
problem the pennyroyals corresponding to the levers that more often follow one another in the
words of the different languages had to be spaced out. The result was the strange disposition of
the keys that we observe. When the modern electronic keyboards, without levers, replaced the old
typewriters, the arrangement of the keys, no more necessary at that point, had to be maintained to
avoid that the operators lost the achieved manual skill. That is how and when a vestigial structure
can reveal the single events of an evolutive historical process.
21
Merlin Donald, Levoluzione della mente. Per una teoria darwiniana della coscienza,
Garzanti, Milan, 2004.
22
Verolini Roberto, Il Dio laico: caos e libert, Armando Armando, Rome, 1999.
23
See page 35.
24
Verolini Roberto, Work quoted, 1999, p. 78 and next pages.
25
Any nouns, adjectives etc. referred to the same etymological root of the term religion, when
not written in italics, will be used to point out concepts regarding the sphere of the sacred tout
court, aside from the distinction between teototomie and religions.
26
Verolini Roberto, Quoted work, 1999, p. 235 and next pages.
27
Harris Marvin, Antropologia Culturale, Bologna, Zanichelli, 1990, p. 269.
28
Ehrlich Paul, Le nature umane. Geni, culture e prospettive, Codice Ediz., Turin, 2005,
pp. 316318.
29
This could also make us think in an implicit but also evident manifestation of their real
superiority or inevitability. But it is enough to reflect on how even the virus of the common
cold, of AIDS, and other events and phenomenons, even inauspicoius, are verywhere widespread
on earth: none of that is in favour of their superiority at all, necessary or intrinsic biofilia
quality, as E. Fromm would say. These realities, biological or not, feed themselves like mere phe-
nomenons able of autoreplication and they perpetuate, maybe as a consequence of less obvious
and immediate aspects, regardless of their role or value, that is all.
30
Leroi-Gouham Andr, Le religioni della preistoria, Rizzoli, Milan, 1970.
31
Respectively 5,000,000, 8,000 and 240 years. See Ehrlich Paul, Quoted work, 2005, p. 205.
32
Nuovissima versione della Bibbia. Genesi, Ed. Paoline, Rome, 1976, p. 80. See also New
American Standard Bible, by The Lockman Foundation, A. J. Holman Compani, division of
J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia and New York, 1973.
33
Testa Bappenehim, Italo Lampugnani Francesco, Bibbia ed antropologia, Sardini F., Brescia,
1976, pp. 8889.
34
Le Scienze. Quaderni. Il Paleolitico, Le Scienze, Milan, 1986.
35
Rolla A., Corso completo di studi biblici. Il messaggio della salvezza, ELLE DI CI, Turin,
1965, p. 93.
36
Ed. Paoline, Rome, Quoted work, 1976, p. 86.
37
Rolla A., 1965, Quoted work, 1965, p. 120.
38
Verolini Roberto, Quoted work, 1999, p. 201.
39
Reich Wilhelm, La rivoluzione sessuale, Feltrinelli, Bologna, 1980.
40
Zaretsky Eli, I misteri dellanima. Una storia sociale e culturale della psicoanalisi, Feltrinelli,
Milan, 2006.
41
Leroi-Gourhan Andr, Il gesto e la parola. Tecnica e linguaggio, Einaudi, Turin, 1977.
42
Ruffi Jacques, Dalla biologia alla Cultura, Armando Armando, Rome, 1978.
43
Diamond Jared, Armi, acciaio e malattie. Breve storia del mondo negli ultimi tredicimila anni,
Einaudi, Turin, 2000.
44
Pasquarelli Gianni, Preistoria del potere, Rusconi, Milan, 1983.
45
Leakey E. F. Richard, Lewin Roger, Origini. Nascita e possibile futuro delluomo, Laterza,
Bari, 1979.
46
See our previous article, The concept of human soul/mind in the light of the evolutionist
theory of knowledge: scientific epistemological aspects and metaphysical implications, for The
Fifty-Fifth International Phenomenology Congress From the Animal Soul to the Human Mind
Nijmegen, The Netherlands August 1720, 2005, in course of publication in Analecta Husserliana.
47
Dawkins Richard, Il Fenotipo esteso, Zanichelli, Bologna, 1986.
48
See our previous article, Cognitive value of philosophical-scientific models (with reference
to the evolutionary paradigm) from to psychoanalytic and associate-educational perspective, for
The Fifty-Sixth International Phenomenology Congress, Rethinking education in the perspective
of life, Daugavpils, Latvia, also it in course of publication in Analecta Husserliana.
49
Lecaldano Eugenio, Unetica senza Dio, Laterza, Bari, 2006.
50
Freud Sigmund, Il disagio della civilt. Il disagio della civilt ed altri saggi, Boringhieri,
Turin, 1971.
51
This shows what was expressly asserted until 1941. See Acta Apostolicae Sedis 43, Vati-
can City, 1941, p. 506. Afterwards, the exegetic positions inherent in the historical authenticity
of this narration definitely vanished, in evident connection with a strong difficulty to confirm
such characters of historicity in the sight of scientific data always more in contrast with such
reconstructions.
52
Vedi Verolini Roberto, Quoted work, 1999, pp. 144146.
53
Gould J. Stephen, Il millennio che non c, Il Saggiatore, Milan, 1999, p. 96.
54
Delumeau Jean, Il peccato e la paura. Lidea di colpa in occidente dal XIII al XVIII secolo, Il
Mulino, Bologna, 1987.
55
Dawkins Richard, Il gene egoista, Zanichelli, Bologna, 1979.
56
Detailed analyses of this successive phase of the search are available on the site:
www.diolaico.it
SECTION I
T H E S E L F I N C R E AT I V E M E M O RY
T H O M A S RY BA
A . - T. T Y M I E N I E C K A , T H E W O R K O F T H E A N A L E C TA
HUSSERLIANA AND CONVERSION
ABSTRACT
In this addressoriginally given to conferees at the Lateran University in

November of 2006Ryba identifies one of the causes of the success of the
phenomenological movement connected with the Analecta Husserliana: mem-
bership in this movement is accompanied by a conversion (understood in the
phenomenological sense). Following the ideas of Husserl, Stein, Lonergan,
and Tymieniecka, Ryba explains in what sense commitment to the project
of the Analecta Husserliana may be construed as a philosophic conversion.
He concludes that this conversion is tantamount to the re-education of the
esemplastic sense, a re-education which takes place both through a conscious
understanding of Tymienieckas phenomenological project and though a lim-
inal, alchemical transformation that the style of her philosophical writings
effects in the readers imagination.
T H E T H E M E O F M Y P R E S E N TAT I O N
When I asked Professor Tymieniecka for suggestions about what she might
like me to include in this addresshow I might contribute to this august
gatheringshe responded that she would like me to bring my expertise in the
phenomenology of religion to bear on the later work of the Analecta Husser-
liana, specifically the most recent five volumes in the series. Anyone who has
looked at these five volumes recognizes that their richness and ingenuity make
a cursory treatment of their themes and argumentswhich is the only kind
of treatment really feasible in 20 minutesimpossible. A cursory treatment
would be a travesty.
In the limited time allotted me, what I shall try to do, instead, is to fulfill
Professor Tymienieckas request, not by attempting a capacious summary of
these new and important volumes but by speaking about what I think is one of
the most important features about the work of Professor Tymieniecka and the
Analecta Husserliana as has come to fruition in these five volumes. In other
words, what I shall attempt, here, is to provide a brief description ofwhat
I believe to have beenone of the most important effects that Tymienieckas
43

44 T H O M A S RY BA
thought (and the writings of the Analecta) have had on associated intellectu-
als. This is the first time that I have expressed these thoughts publicly, so I
apologize for the their unpolished form; this form is a function both of my
unpracticed presentation of them as well as the slight trepidation I feel in
bringing them, for the first time, into the light of day.
Let me begin my description of this work with a brief anecdote.
When I was a newly minted professor teaching at Michigan State Univer-
sity in the USA, one of my first papersspring of 1988, I think it waswas
delivered before an annual meeting of the Society for Phenomenology and Lit-
erature sponsored by the World Phenomenological Institute (then the World
Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning). As a result
of this first meeting, I began to attend the spring conferences on phenomenol-
ogy and literature in Boston and became friends with Professor Tymieniecka.
At one of these meetingsI forget exactly the yearI was invited back to
Professors house in Belmont, Massachusetts, which doubled as the Institute
headquarters in those days. At dinner were Professor Marlies Kronegger, Pro-
fessor Tymienieckas husband, and two or three more guests. As a young
professor, I felt especially honored to be able to share supper with the peo-
ple at the center of the work I so much admired, so I was more than usually
attentive to the various group conversations and sub-conversations that went
on that night.
But the reason that evening especially stands out is because of a subdued
conversation not directed to me but upon which I eavesdropped, anyway. It
was between Professor Tymieniecka, Professor Marlies Kronegger and one
other woman present (whose name I dont remember). The context of the con-
versation was the large influx of new members and their excitement about
the various sessions, especially about finally having found an academic home
where they felt intellectually comfortable. In response to the recognition that
some of the younger scholars had caught fire with the spirit of this phe-
nomenology done in a new key, Professor Tymieniecka responded, Yes, a real
conversion has begun to take place among the new members of the group.
As I recount this sentence, aloud, to you all today, I recalland indeed still
feelthe perplexed excitement I felt to hear that specific sentence spoken by
Professor Tymieniecka. I say perplexed excitement becauseI confessI
had no idea what kind of conversion she might have been talking about. I was
sure that she was not speaking religiously, because Professor Tymieniecka
following classical practicehad always been very careful to distinguish the
project of philosophy from that of theology, on the few occasions that it had
arisen. Had I been a bit more quick-witted, I might have immediately related it
to similar statements by Edmund Husserl himself. But later, even after I made
T H E W O R K O F T H E A NA L E C TA H U S S E R L I A NA 45
the connection with Edmund Husserl, I came to realize that this single state-
ment by Professor Tymieniecka stands out as singularly emblematic of her
work, the work of the Institute and the work of the Analecta Husserliana.
Let me tell you why I think this is so.
THE ETYMOLOGY OF CONVERSION
A glance at the etymology of the English word conversion immediately leads

us to the semantic fields of its Latin predecessors and to its Greek cognates:
conversio, epistroph and metanoia.
The Oxford English dictionary provides no less than sixteen connotations
for the word conversion, clustered into three categories, including special-
ized technical meanings related to theology, mathematics and law. I will spare
you a recitation of the majority of these because they have little relevance to
the context in which Professor Tymieniecka spoke those words nearly 20 years
ago. However, two of the English meanings stand out as especially relevant:
The first meaning is the notion that a conversion is a turning in position, direc-
tion and destination, especially the act of turning to a particular direction;
the second meaning is that conversion is a change [or alteration] in character,
nature, form, [properties] or function, especially the bringing [of] one over to
a specified . . . profession or party, regarded as true or as an act of converting
or fact of being converted to some opinion, belief or party.1
In light of the connotations of both the Greek words metanoia and
epistroph, I dont think it is much of a stretch to suggest that there is a third
connotation of conversion that builds on the two preceding meanings but
which also possesses the philosophical connotation of a change in mind which
is tantamount to either a trans-valuation of values or a revolution in think-
ing. Perhaps, it can mean both at the same time. Conversion can be transitive
or reflexive: it can be the effect of ones working change on another or it can
be the effect of ones working change on ones self. It may also be that the
former leads to the latter or that the latter leads to the former so that transitive
conversions fan out into the world in a brush-fire movement that effects the
transformation of society.
PHILOSOPHICAL CONVERSION
It is well known that Husserl thought that the serious commitment to and the
doing of phenomenology might be likened to a philosophical conversion, a
conversion in ones orientation toward the world. Edith Stein and Emmanuel
Levinas, among others, report it. In an article written in 1931, Levinas
describes the way philosophy students in Husserls Freiburg expressed their

excitement about phenomenology, unanimously agreeing that phenomenology
was more than a new theory: it is a new ideal for life, a new page in his-
tory, almost a new religion.2 One might dismiss this as youthful exuberance
except that, in places, Husserl explicitly describes the phenomenological atti-
tude conditioned by the epoch as equivalent to a personal transformation.
Let me remind you of what he said, by quoting a portion of the most famous
passage where Husserl makes this claim:
Perhaps it will become apparent that the total phenomenological attitude and the corresponding
epoch is called upon to bring about a complete personal transformation (Wandlung) which might
be compared to religious conversion, but which even beyond [this personal transformation] it has
the significance of the greatest existential conversion that is expected of [hu]mankind.3
My purpose in citing this passage is not to argue that Husserl was right
in thinking that the epoch might be applied to everything which exists.
Subsequent philosophers (including Professor Tymieniecka) have argued this
question in different ways. Rather, my purpose is simply to affirm that Husserl
thought the phenomenological attitude could be likened to a conversion and
even expected that it would have this effect. It may be that this is simply what
Professor Tymieniecka meant on that spring evening nearly 20 years ago.
But let me suggest yet another supplement.
Worthy of mention, in this connection, is Bernard Lonergan, not only
because his theological and philosophical discoveries pace those of Profes-
sor Tymieniecka at points, but because Lonergans view of the relationship
between conversion and the philosophical enterprise was more extensively
worked out than that of Husserl. Lonergan applied the phenomenological
method to the study of knowledge processes with the purposeful intent of
making conversion a technical, descriptive term in his epistemology. His
brilliance was to grasp the analogy between the transformative effects of sci-
entific, ethical and religious knowing and then to describe their common term
or overarching structure.
Lonergan describes conversion as twofold: First, it is the reconciliation
between the speculative and the practical in terms of withdrawal-and-return,
and thus it is like the Neo-Platonic notion of epistroph. But it is more. Sec-
ond, it is a reorientation, [a] reorganization of ones mind and living, . . . [a]
reorganization, reorientation, [and] transformation of ones self.4 And third,
conversion ultimately gives rise to the consciousness of the authentic knower,
that is a knower who realizes that [his]/her identity . . . is to be replaced con-
tinually by a still to be achieved and realized knower.5 Conversion can be
likened to a quantum leap from a lower level to a higher level of understanding
with the lower-level understanding being reorganized so that new, unimagined

insights are possible. Lonergan describes this radical re-orientation as follows:
When a person has ones living organized on a lower level, the movement to a higher level involves
something like [the] apparent eruption of a latent power, the possibility of a radical discovery,
where the discovered has been present all along but where there has been a hiding of what has
been discovered. These notions of obnubilation, dis-covery, uncovering [of] what has been there
all along, [and] conversion, transformation of ones living[:] all . . . lead to the most fundamental
questions that can be raised with regard to the philosophic enterprise.6
For Lonergan, conversion operates at all levels of knowing. There can be

intellectual conversion, moral conversion, religious conversion and perhaps
even psychic or symbolic conversion. Just as intellectual conversion effects
a restoration of fidelity to the transcendental notions of the intelligible, the true
and the real, as moral conversion effects a restoration of fidelity to the tran-
scendental notion of the good, and as religious conversion effects a restoration
of fidelity to the transcendent exigency through an inchoate experience of its
satisfaction in the gift of Gods love, so too psychic or symbolic conversion
effects a fidelity to the sphere of the ulterior unknown, of the unexplored and
strange, of the undefined surplus of significance and momentousness, which
constitute the primary field of what Lonergan calls mystery and myth.7
According to Robert Doran:
Psychic conversion is a transformation of the censorship [the mind exercises] . . . with respect to
the entire field of what is received in empirical consciousness. [This] . . . censorship is exercised by
dramatically patterned intentional consciousness, by the collaboration of ones habitual accumula-
tion of insights, judgments, and moral spontaneities with ones imagination, by ones mentality
or mindset . . . . [P]sychic [/symbolic] conversion is a transformation of that censorship from a
repressive to a constructive exercise as one engages in the delicate artistry of producing the first
and only edition of oneself.8
A.-T. Tymieniecka has described a similar process of creative transformation

in a number of places in her writings. In the Tractatus Brevis, she describes the
subliminal zone, as the realm of primordial passions that function as the
motors of all creative achievement in a way that bears a marked similarity to
Lonergans sphere of the ulterior unknown (or in Dorans terms the psychic
or symbolic field).9 The strength of Tymienieckas treatment, in contrast to
Lonergans, is that she is able to specify what takes place in this transformation
of censorship, and its relationship to creativity and its role in individuation (or
authentic self-creation).
For Tymieniecka, it is the Imaginatio Creatrix that operates instrumentally
to harness these subliminal passions by association and by dissociation, so
that pre-established coalescences are broken apart and reformed according
to new possibilities.10 Among the subliminal passions are certain elemental
passionslife promoters she calls themwhich ingress into life, quicken

it and give it meaning.11 Corresponding to these passions are elemental forms
which are the great logotypes emblematic of these passions and which func-
tion in great literature to evoke them.12 For Tymieniecka, great literature
is a means by which an alchemical conversion is effected upon the reader
because the writerthe creative genius or alchemistuses his/her imagination
to transform the reader by exposing him/her to the elemental forms.13
T H E T R A N S F O R M AT I V E W O R K A N D P E R S O N
O F A . - T. T Y M I E N I E C K A
With the preceding points as background, I would like to suggest that the obser-
vation that Tymieniecka made so many years ago might be said to have been a
reflexive judgment about a general feature of her presence on the philosophical
scene, both in terms of her personal influence and her works. To put it directly:
hers is a presence that effects conversion. Again, here we are not talking about
religious transformation. (Such a suggestion made here in the Eternal City, near
the original seat of the Bishop of Rome, would probably buy me passage to a
special circle in hell for the blasphemous.) Rather, the conversion I mean is the
way her personal influence has effected in her fellow travelers a transformation
in the way they understand the world.
The kind of conversion that Tymieniecka has been responsible for, I would
suggest, operates according to both externalities and inner virtualities. These I
would like to describe.
Most obviously, as the editor and muse of the Analecta Husserliana, and
in her organization of conferences and meetings, Professor Tymieniecka has
labored as the Imaginatio Creatrix (or foundress) of a movement, a libera-
tion movement bent on the freeing of the spirit of Husserlian phenomenology
from the straight-jacket of a monotonic rationality. In a most material way,
the Analecta has provided a venue both for fellow-travelers and mere sympa-
thizers of this liberation to express themselves, a venue which except for her
labors would not have been. In this way, she has participated in the conversion
of philosophic culture in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Also, as the architect of phenomenology in a new key, she has contributed
substantively to the conversion of the phenomenological project, itself. A mea-
sure of the far-reaching scope of that conversion is evidenced in the new
volumes entitled Logos of Phenomenology and Phenomenology of Logos.
There, the disciplinary broadening of phenomenology that Husserl had divined
has come to fruition, each volume treating a significant application of her
project: first, to criticism and interpretation, second, to personhood and its
problems, third, to history and human culture, fourth, to fine arts, literature and
aesthetics, and fifth, and finally, to scientific inquiry. Each of these volumes is
shaped by Tymienieckas central discovery, the expansion of phenomenologi-
cal reason which acknowledges the priority of the human creative function as
the interplay of both human consciousness and the elemental forces of human
sensibility and emotionality.14
Having read many texts written by Professor Tymieniecka over the last
twenty years, I would like, tentatively, to suggest that this reading can be tan-
tamount to a kind of conversion in yet a third, and generally unrecognized,
sense. When, I initially began to read her philosophy, after emerging from
each protracted struggle with a text, I found myself curiously buoyant and
aware of connections between ideas, emotions and things that I had never
before noticed. I found myselfin shortexperiencing a re-education of the
esemplastic faculty. At first, I attributed this change to my struggle with the dif-
ficulty of her prose, but I quickly realized that previous struggles with difficult
philosophical prose had never before produced just this effect. In the past, such
struggle might have produced greater insight into the text at hand, or it might
have yielded a new theoretical frame within which I could drop the world, but
in all previous cases, there was very little affective change.
On the other hand, when I read Tymieniecka, my mind, emotions and sensi-
bility all seemedalmost imperceptiblytransformed. After some reflection,
I have come to the conclusion that in a real sense, Professor Tymienieckas
prose exemplifies Marshall McLuhans precept: here, the medium truly is the
message. It is my experience that her style of writing works a direct effect on
the imagination apart from the ideas it conveys. It is no longer very difficult
for me to imagine that this is an intentional and controlled effect. Just as great
literature is supposed to be transformative of the reader, so too a phenomenol-
ogist who claims to understand how this is possible, might, in her very mode of
expression, achieve a similar conversion. In other words, I think it is possible
that Tymienieckas prose can work on its reader in such a way to bring about a
psychic conversion of the subliminal passions.
Finally, and let me say this in closing, anyone who has had the pleasure of
attending a meeting such as this also knows the converting power of Professor
Tymienieckas charming personality.
On this auspicious occasion, let me conclude by congratulating herand all
the contributors to these volumesfor this magnificent common work.
Thank you.
St. Thomas Aquinas Center, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
NOTES
1
OED, 1:943a 1:943b.
2
Emmanuel Levinas, Fribourg, Husserl and la phnomnologie, Revue dAllemagne et des
pays de langue allemande 5, 43 (May 1931), pp. 403404; Cited in Samuel Moyn, Origin of
the Other: Emmanuel Levinas between Revelation and Ethics, Ithaca: Cornell, 2005, p. 1. I have
Prof. Ann Astell to thank for leading me to this citation.
3
Herbert Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement, p. 160, Note 106, Husserliana 6,
p. 140, lines 256261.
4
Bernard Lonergan, On Being Oneself in The Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, Volume
18: Phenomenology and Logic, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 19, p. 244.
5
Joseph Flanagan, Quest for Self-Knowledge: An Essay in Lonergans Philosophy, p. 265.
6
Ibid., p. 245.
7
Robert M. Doran, What Is Systematic Theology? Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005,
p. 111.
8
Ibid.
9
Thomas Ryba, Elemental Forms, Creativity and the Transformative Power of Literature in
A.-T. Tymienieckas Tractatus Brevis, Analecta Husserliana, Volume 38, Kluwer, 1992, p. 6.
10
Ibid., p. 7.
11
Ibid., pp. 1516.
12
Ibid., p. 16.
13
Ibid., p. 17.
14
A.-T. Tymieniecka, The Logos of Phenomenology and the Phenomenology of Logos, Logos
of Phenomenology and the Phenomenology of Logos, Analecta Husserlian, Volume 88, Springer,
2005, p. xxxvii.
K I Y M E T S E LV I
L I F E L O N G L E A R N I N G A N D S E L F - A C T U A L I Z AT I O N
ABSTRACT
Life is a process for self-actualization of an individual. We know that self-

actualization never ends in the phases of life process. An individual may not
satisfy his/her continuous needs of self-actualization. The self-actualization
process is related to human activities that include human experience such as
feeling, thinking, sensing, knowing and acting. It is based on learning which
develops personal intuitions, perceptions, intentions, knowledge and skills. It
is also said that lifelong learning process constructs and changes personality
continuously. Learning is the main instrument which carries out and delivers
all the changes in the life process. It can be described as the process to construct
meanings depending on a personal perspective and self experiences. Most of
the human experience is related to ability of learning. Learning is the combi-
nation of old and new experience. Thus, learning is the accumulative process
for an individual and supports creation of new directions for his/her life. The
individual simultaneously searches the perfect environment to live. Lifelong
learning is the way to make the perfect environment possible. It is one of the
most powerful tools for the individual to create new life conditions for him/her.
If the individual is aware of this powerful tool, he/she will improve his/her life
conditions by means of the lifelong learning.
Learning ability is influenced by many factors such as biological, socio-
logical, cultural, emotional, spiritual, and moral developments. These factors
have positive or negative effects on our learning abilities. Learning ability is
the will to search for the meaning of life and a dynamic force that prompts
development of an individuals capability. Searching for the meaning of life is
an unconscious behavior, that is, a kind of intuitive will for self-actualization.
Phenomenology of self-perception leads to learning and self-actualization of
an individual.
Lifelong learning and self-actualization are the life projects for an individ-
ual. At the same time, they are plans for the future generations. In this paper,
the relationship between self-actualization of and ability of lifelong learning is
discussed.
51

52 K I Y M E T S E LV I
INTRODUCTION
An individual has the potentiality to develop himself/herself during each period

of his/her life. This potential for development can be affected by many differ-
ent factors. These factors are divided into two main areas as internal factors
and external factors. The common assumption is that internal factors are more
effective than external factors. This is the dilemma about learning which pro-
cess of lifelong learning is related to self-actualization. In this paper, discussion
is limited to concept of lifelong learning and self actualization.
LIFELONG LEARNING
An individual can take proper support form many components such as family,
education system, media and peers. However, they may not provide proper sup-
port for the individual. Thus, the individual needs more pedagogical support to
solve problems of life, develop his/her skills and capabilities. The pedagogical
support should be given by educational system. Teaching and learning in some
areas such as math, science, drawing, social studies and so on were defined
as pedagogical support in the past. But, this approach is weakening in today.
During teaching and learning processes teacher and learner should focus on
the learning rather than the teaching.
The concept of learning is likely to be argued in many dimensions. The con-
cepts of teaching and learning tend to be redefined based on the latest changes.
One of these redefinitions of the concepts of teaching and learning is related to
phenomenological approach in education and it is called as phenomenological
pedagogy. It is argued that how pedagogical supports can be given in formal
learning system by means of phenomenological approach in education (Selvi,
2008). This approach focuses on the individuals perceptions, intuitions, inten-
tions and experiences rather than individuals teaching and learning by subject
matters. That is, the concept of learning is defined based on individualistic cre-
ative actions. Learning abilities can help the individual to develop. Learning
is creative abilities for the individual and it is a guide to improve the individ-
uals life. Cecilia (2002, 696) stated that human life needs on orientation, a
guideline to help individuals in their task of dealing with the world.
Learning refers to a change in behavior potentiality; and performance refers
to the translation of this potentiality into behavior (Hergenhahn, 1988, 4).
Seng and Hwee (1997, 132) defines learning a lifelong process, one that
extends throughout the life spans. The other definition focuses on investi-
gation of individualistic ground. A learning based on temporal experience
consisting of at least two events . . .. These events constitute the necessary
material basis of our personal temporal experience . . . (Pineau, 1996, 99).
L I F E L O N G L E A R N I N G A N D S E L F - A C T U A L I Z AT I O N 53
If we analyze these definitions of the concept of learning, we can clearly see

that learning promotes better choices for development of personal situations.
Most of definition focuses on that process and production of knowledge are
more individualistic ways of learning. Learning critically, creatively, and inde-
pendently is a vital need for the individual. These definitions also indicate the
concepts of lifelong learning and self-actualization.
Learning can continue in whole life process. Thus, we have to ask the ques-
tion of What can be mentors in lifelong learning processes?. Mentors create
motivations for lifelong learning and they can be a person, a thing or inner
senses of self such as thoughts, feelings or perceptions. The mentors should
provide guidance to encourage lifelong learning abilities. Learner needs to use
different skills, aptitudes, abilities and preferences for development through
the agency of the mentors.
In the educational system, the mentors have the role of leading an individ-
ual to acquire of knowledge. They provide technical support for an individual
to reach, gain and use the knowledge. It is known that a teacher as a mentor
tries to guide a students learning in the formal learning system. The teacher, as
a mentor, does not follow proper ways to create motivation of lifelong learn-
ing for the students. The teacher is always busy to teach subject-matter and
he/she does not spend his/her time to improve lifelong learning abilities of
the student. In the informal and non formal systems, parents, peers, family,
book, TV., internet, cinema, social cases, scientific results can be mentors of
human learning. Inner processes such as motivation, love, creativity, pleasure,
intuitions, intentions, will, desire, curiosity, self-critics and values can also be
mentors of lifelong learning.
If a person can be a mentor of another individuals lifelong learning, the
mentor may lead the individual, the mentor should be capable to creating
desire of lifelong learning for the individual. In these situations, the individ-
ual needs someone to guide his/her learning. However, this is not the effective
way of learning for the individual. The individual needs more effective ways
than being led by a mentor.
Wojnar stated that Intellectual education has dual nature: it represents both
an accumulation of knowledge and an acquisition of mechanisms of knowl-
edge (1996, 154). Accumulation of knowledge has two meanings; one of
them is related to the new knowledge added to the present knowledge of the
individual by means of new scientific developments. The other meaning is
related to the individual accumulation of knowledge, that is the knowledge
the individual gains depending on his/her own experiences by means of life-
long learning process. This is the main way of accumulation of the knowledge
for the individual. The acquisition of mechanisms of knowledge is related to
lifelong learning abilities of individual. Actually, the question of what is the

meaning of lifelong learning? should asked and answered.
According to Bennetts, Lifelong learning is seen as not merely a valuable
tool for living, but one of its purposes. In as much as it is in the service of
aching optimal human potential (2001, 271). Lifelong learning is a self-being
process that plays important roles in self-actualizations. Harlacher (1992)
stated that individual and communities are now beginning to truly internal-
ize what the meaning of lifelong learning is. The concept of lifelong learning
becomes clear than. But, at the same time it becomes complex if we think about
the acquisition of mechanisms of knowledge. Knowledge about lifelong learn-
ing abilities is related to philosophy, physiology, pedagogy, sociology, biology,
chemistry and medication.
Lifelong learning is not limited to economic and sociological bases in this
paper. It is also not limited to adult learning. In terms of the economic and
sociological bases, people can learn from one an other, firm scan learn from
one an other and their performances, countries can learn from one an other as
living organisms. For these reasons, the concept of lifelong learning is gain-
ing importance in the economic and sociological grounds. The formal learning
system is very important for maintenance of economic and sociological sys-
tems to educate people. The main characteristic of the formal learning system
is the resistance to change. Moreover, the formal learning system is resistant to
encounter the individuals needs which will develop his/her potentiality freely.
The individuals autonomy does not have any place in the formal learning sys-
tem. Therefore, the individuals needs for development are not satisfied in the
formal system.
Economy has been particularly interested in the role of lifelong learning
in economic growth of society. The economy demands more effective ways to
improve capital. The latest studies about the lifelong learning focus on individ-
uals development on the economic ground. However, the lifelong learning is
not limited to economic ground. For this reason, with regard to the economic
and sociological bases, we should use the concept of lifelong education. On
the other hand, with regard of to the individual base we can use the concept of
lifelong learning.
According to Field (2003, 2), the concept of lifelong learning has become an
important metaphor for the processes of self-actualization of an individual in a
market oriented society. The concept of lifelong learning should be discussed
in different perspectives and models such as an adult learning model or a learn-
ing system for an individual. In this paper, the lifelong learning is argued on
an individual basis. On the individual basis the concept of lifelong learning is
used in a way similar to the comprehension of the concept of learning. Accord-

ing to Lengrand (1996, 248), the notion of lifelong learning illuminates the
meaning of life . . . which built up a personality . . .
Learning oriented individuals potentiality gives way to improvement of
his/her behaviors or performances. This means that the learning provides the
individual the chance to improve his/her potentialities. Human life should
be seen in terms of changes realized by lifelong learning process. In this
sense, learning abilities affect individuals self-actualization. Therefore, the
individual needs to improve his/her lifelong learning abilities to support his/her
self-actualization. Nevertheless, I do not discuss how to improve lifelong learn-
ing abilities, because this was discussed in the paper of phenomenology of
lifelong learning (Selvi, 2006a) before.
It is becoming clear that the capacity of an individual is unlimited in scope
and diversity at the levels of the body, the spirit, the intelligence, and the learn-
ing abilities (Lengrand, 1996). Learning does not stop at some periods of life
process. It never ends but from time to time, learning capabilities can weaken
or strengthen at certain periods of life. So, some external situations or internal
situations may support or block the learning abilities.
Kurenkova et al. (2000, 197) stated that the development of individuality
is not programmed in our genetic structure. Some internal situations that is
inner individual bases such as intuitions, intentions, perceptions, inner critics,
motivation, needs and creativity, can help creation of a program with contri-
butions of external situations, which is cultural bases such as cultural world,
social world and physical world. Lifelong learning abilities can help to create
programs for development of the individuality.
T H E PAT H WAY S O F S E L F - A C T U A L I Z AT I O N
Self-actualization is based on lifelong learning abilities of one self. Different

factors affect the individuals lifelong learning abilities. Firstly, these factors
should be divided into two main pathways and then these two pathways create
the third pathway. Thus, during the development of individual personality and
character, the person follows three different pathways. These pathways can be
presented in graphics as shown in Figure 1. The first pathway is related to
internal situations of one self and the second pathway is related to external
situations of one self. Interaction between the first pathway and the second
pathway creates the third pathway which is more creative than the first two
pathways. These three pathways are tried to be explained as means of self-
actualizations in this paper.
Inner Critics
Motivation Social-Cultural
world
Need
Physical World
Creativity
The First The Second

Pathway Pathway
The Third
Pathway
Figure 1. The Pathways of Self-Actualization
T H E F I R S T PA T H WAY
The first pathway uses the more creative, imaginative, autonomous, self-
promoted and self directed methods in human beings life. During the process
of becoming an individual, the individual with the sense of autonomy begins
to create boundaries for interaction with others (Saltz, 2004). In other words,
the individual creates boundaries to hide and protect the first pathway. This is
the self directed system the individual constitutes and conducts. The first path-
way can be visible or seen by others if the individual explains his/hers own
feelings, thoughts, senses, experiences and perceptions. This system can be
created by inner situations of self such as will, intuitions, intentions, and per-
ceptions. Internal situations of the individual are supported by Inner Critics,
Motivation, Need and Creativity that are related to the first pathway.
In this paper, the terms of inner critics or self critics are used synonymously
and I prefer to use inner critics. The first pathway includes the inner critics
that create new ways for development of an individual. The inner critics are
concerned with what the individual does, feels, thinks, senses and sees and so
on (Stone and Stone, 1993). If the inner critics recall the individuals pains or
stresses related to his/her own experiences, he/she tries to get rid off or avoid
the painful, uncomfortable and stressful situations and there are many ways to
cope with the results of the inner critics. One of the best ways to cope with
this kind of inner critics is analyzing the situations and creating solutions to
the problems at the individual level.
The inner critics means a kind of own inner talk of an individual with
him/herself. They support the individuals physical, mental, emotional and
spiritual improvements. They are the treatments for the individual. They deal
with the improvement of the individuals creativity, intelligence, intuitions and
perceptions. However, they create some undesirable personal situations such
as shame, depression and low self-esteem.
According to Stone and Stone (1993, 171) our inner critics are deeply
concerned about our relationship with others. Inner critics indicate whether
individuals relationships with others are adequate or inadequate. If the rela-
tionships are adequate for the individual, he/she will feel comfortable; if the
relationships are inadequate, he/she will feel uncomfortable in his/her life.
When the uncomfortable situations appear, creativity and problem solving
skills become active. The uncomfortable situations charge human energy to
get ride of them. Depending on the individual base human energy is charged
in many ways. That is, the individual ignores, handles and focuses on the
results of inner critics. Learning is one of the fundamental ways to straggle
with problems or uncomfortable situations in the individuals life.
Inner critics do not attack lifelong learning abilities. In contrast, the inner
critics activate a kind of an alarming system for learning and improving self-
actualization. Individual learns to cope with his/her problems and take into
account the inner critics in a new way that develops his/her powers for self
actualization.
Inner critics become an important part of the individuals inner support
system. They support and protect the individuals creativity. They turn into
motivation and create awareness of one need. The needs alert the individuals
intentions to satisfy his/her needs. The, individual must have new experiences
to encounter his/her needs.
Processes of the inner critics, individual always analyze things in different
dimensions. At the end of the analyzing processes, the individual reaches pos-
itive or negative results. Both results end with learning. The negative results
seem to block the individuals personal growth but this is not the case. The indi-
vidual learns many things from his/her painful experiences or negative results.
This also creates new problems in the individuals life. The problems need
to be solved to end the painful experiences. The problems can alert abilities
of learning. The individuals attention focuses on finding ways to handle the
problems.
Inner critics provide feedback for the individual, making his/her learn weak
sides of his/her personal growth. Following the feedback, the individual learns
his/her weakness and want to deal with his/her weaknesses. If teacher teaches
students ways of doing inner critics, the student will become a successful
lifelong learner and improve his/her self-actualization.
At this point, I want to explain my personal example related to learning
new things. I saw a new concept that I call as X in this paper, related to
my topic while reading a paper. This concept made me feel in discomfort. I
found myself in a different emotional mood. I wanted to learn the details of
the new concept, but I felt anxious and I delayed my learning. If my position
is analyzed, it is seen that I did not want to fell uncomfortable but also I did
not do anything to avoid this situation that resulted in the feeling of stress in
my life. Something delayed my search for learning but I have not been able
to explain what blocked me. I have been waiting for three weeks and I have
searched for learning the new concept and I felt very well after this. Why did I
delay my search for three weeks? I really do not know what happened in this
period. I felt uncomfortable because I delayed searching for new concepts. My
body might be in the need of charging my alarming system. At the beginning
of uncomfortable situation, my alarming system was not sufficient to alert my
learning system. After the postponing period, I have learnt new concepts in a
widely and deeply perspective.
When I felt uncomfortable, I criticized my situation and got feedback from
my inner critics. I could not stop my inner critics. They worked while I was
studying with my students, eating my meal, walking on the street, watching
TV., reading documents, doing housework. My other activities could not block
my inner critics system working. Many factors affected my inner system.
One of the most important activator of inner critics is the motivation. Moti-
vation creates some internal or external situations such as having problems or
feeling uncomfortable, happy, curios, need and so on. Motivation, leading the
individuals acts, is the self regulated inner system of the individual. It works
in a way similar to the inner critics. Motivation is subjective experience that
cannot be observed directly . . .. and similar behavior patterns can result from
quite different underlying motivational patterns (Good and Brophy, 2003,
207). Behavior may need adequate motivation levels that activate the move-
ment of the body. The adequate level of motivation creates energy for action.
The motivation directs the individuals lifelong learning abilities.
There are two types of motivation: External and internal (intrinsic). External
motivation can result from external stimulants such as sound, colors, physical
environment and other things. Sources of external motivation can be organized
by external factors to increase effectiveness of it.
Intrinsic motivation is related to emotional processes of individual. It refers
to being engaged in activity primarily in order to meet intuitions and intentions
of one self. It is defined as the motivation to engage in on activity primarily
for its own sake, because the individual perceives the activity as interesting,
involving, satisfying or personally challenging (Collins and Amabile, 1999,

299). According to Collins and Amabiles definition of the intrinsic motivation
helps creation of the motivation for lifelong learning and self-actualization.
Intrinsic motivation is bound to the creative process as well as the creative
personality (Runco and Sakamoto, 1999, 75). It contributes to creative efforts
of individual. It increases the individuals inner processes that solve problems,
organize learning environment and make plans for his/her developments. If my
example is mentioned again, curiosity supports my motivation for catching the
meaning of the concept of X. I wondered what the meaning of the concept X
was. I asked myself this question many times and I found out that my curiosity
led my attention to search for the meaning of concept X.
Thus, individuals needs, the other important activator of inner system, is
related to the first pathway. The individuals learning is so forced by his/her
needs that he/she searches to encounter his/her own needs. Some physical
needs are vital for being alive. This type of needs is accrued automatically by
inner process and they have similar patterns for the individual. They promote
lifelong learning of the individual by managing his/her life. The individual
learns from his/her experiences in different ways to protect his/her life.
Some needs are very complex and tend to be interpreted and acquired in
individualistic ways. These types of needs are based on individualistic back-
ground. For example, individuals lifelong learning needs are very complex
and how to satisfy of every individual these not clear. If my example related
to learning the concept X is remembered this can be defined as a need for me,
and it created lifelong learning motivation for me. But, learning the meaning
of concept X may not interest another person and it is not defined as a learning
need for him/her. Thus, the same need is interpreted and satisfied in different
ways by individuals.
Since needs are unlimited in the life process, they force individual to be in
endless search. The individuals actions are self-intentional and self-directed
by his/her own needs. Need are variable and endless, that is once a need is
satisfied, then a new need emerges and immediate new action starts.
Feldman (1999) stated that individuals creative abilities to meet his/her
needs are connected with cognitive, social and emotional processes, family
context, education, domain and field, historical, societal and cultural influ-
ences. Creativity is based on intelligence, unconventionality, the ability to
think in a particular manner, perseverance and all these elements affect instinct
motivation (Martindale, 1999). The intrinsic motivation can be activated by
imaginations, practical experiences, learning and observations. All of these
activators support creative abilities of the individual Self-actualization is also
a creative potentiality for the individual.
According to Kurenkova et al. (2000), the contemporary philosophy of edu-

cation is concentrated on the issues of human creativity. The creativity needs
to seek unclear and unknown situations. It is the main vehicle for individuals
learning abilities. Since learning and creativity were discussed in one of my
earlier studies (Selvi, 2006a) they are not discussed in this paper.
Each individual is born as a unique being and this reality affects the first
pathway. The first pathway is developed by inner processes. These processes
are based on totally individualistic grounds such as individualistic sensa-
tions, intuitions, perceptions and preferences. The first pathway is defined as a
secret garden mostly no one intervenes in. The individual carries out his/her
own inner process depending on his/her feelings, sensations, thoughts and
perceptions. Spiritual sides of the individual develop the first pathway.
T H E S E C O N D PA T H WAY
The second pathway is based on common sense of others. It is related to the fact
that individual becomes both a cultural and social being. It frames others intu-
itions, perceptions; intentions and the individual learn to behave according to
the common senses of others. This process aims at control of the individual by
means of common values, thoughts, beliefs and intentions. The individualistic
side, which is the first pathway, is rasped in the second pathway.
The second pathway refers to cultural world, social world and physical
world that shape the meaning of development process of a human being. The
cultural and social worlds reflect meaning sharing in life and are not limited to
individual level. The relationship between the individual level and the group
level creates the socio-cultural world. As mentioned above, inner critics are
deeply related to the relationship with others. The second pathway can help
the individual to encounter the first pathway needs for development of self.
There is cooperation between the two pathways and they feed each other.
The cultural and social worlds organize meaning making system of indi-
vidual and he/she engages in daily life. The individual makes his/her own
meaning within the cultural and social worlds. The cultural and social worlds
guarantee that the individual becomes a social and cultural being. The second
pathway provides new criteria for development of self. These criteria tend to
change according to development of societies. It is known that a society has
subsystems such as family, peers, vocational groups, hobby groups, religious
groups, neighborhood, city members and citizens. Each subsystem creates its
own criteria for its members. Sometimes, criteria of these subsystems con-
flict with each other. The individual might prefer certain criteria and contacts
by means of them. Some criteria include spiritual dimensions, some crite-

ria include materialistic dimensions and some include objective or subjective
dimensions.
Educational studies in society can be placed in the second pathway. The
second pathway includes formal, informal and non-formal educational studies.
It is known that education is the best way for development of the individual
for the society. Educational system has two aims; the first one is related to
individualistic development, the second one is related to social development.
It carries out plans to develop the society by developing the individual.
Jarvis stated that (cited in Martin, 2001, 2);
Education is frequently regarded as a humanistic process . . . in which individual students learn and
grow and develop. It is regarded as a major element of being-as a process through which the human
essence emerges from existence in active participative relationship with others. Yet the very nature
of society in which education occurs emphasizes the having mode and expects repetitive action and
non-reflective learning so that it can produce people who can rehearse what they have acquired.
As a result education has been forced to adopt the characteristics of contemporary society.
The second pathway is an attempt to protect the self. For example, I want
to frankly reflect my feelings, thoughts and experiences if something comes
into my mind in any situation. But, if I behave frankly, I create problems in my
life and others lives and following this, I learn to control my reflections. As a
result of experiences, I gain humors about how to manage reflections. I reflect
common senses and common ideas instead of my own senses and ideas.
Individuals perceptions, needs, intuitions, intentions and experiences are
not similar to other individuals. These differences are related to individualis-
tic bases. In contrast to this, the second pathway aims at decreasing all these
individualistic differences through common sense and understanding.
T H E T H I R D PA T H WAY
The third pathway results from interaction of the first and the second path-
way. Conflicts and agreement between the two pathways can be seen during
the interaction. Both pathways contribute to constitution of the third pathway.
Individual creates a new way reflecting his/her own meaning of his/her life.
In the third pathway appears as a harmonization of the first and the second
pathway. It is totally unique creation of the individuals own meanings.
The third pathway, just as other pathways, can occur depending on lifelong
learning abilities of an individual. The individual can create new pathways
based on his/her own perceptions, experiences, capabilities and potentialities
and this is described as self-actualization process. The lifelong learning abil-
ities can improve the individuals perception of life. This perception occurs
depending on the individuals personal experiences in the world. Personal

experiences compose a life history. They turn to ontological knowledge try-
ing to describe the world by the individual perceptions of things. Perceptions
improve the meaning of life and capabilities of the individual. Barbaras (2003)
stated that life is shaped in contact with perceptions and linked to the capability
of the individuals perceptions.
Lifelong learning ability constitutes choices for an individual in his/her
life. The lifelong learning creates the third pathways between the first and
the second pathway of the individuals own self-actualization process. Com-
munications or conflicts between the first and the second pathways may be
characterized as the third pathway. The conflicts between young generations
and old generations can be described as the conflicts between the first path-
way and the second pathway. The conflicts between the younger and the older
generations may end by creation of the third pathway by them.
Development is not restricted to an aniline pathway. Interactive relationships
continue between the three pathways. All these pathways have no prede-
termined patterns. Individuals features and environmental conditions affect
his/her pathways. The individuals creative force supports the third pathway
and self-actualization process. The first pathway is an individualistic way being
more creative, imaginative and emotional than the second pathway.
Individual tends to improve his/her learning. Therefore, the individual needs
to learn different ways of learning to become a successful lifelong learner.
According to Martin Learning is a fundamental process in the human beings
journey to fulfill their potential through continually becoming, but learning
also underpinned by different concepts of purpose which, in formal systems
related to ideas of control and inculcation and empowerment (2001, 3).
Individual needs to give meaning to his/her own perceptions. He/she must
build meanings of things depending on his/her perceptions and experiences.
He/she usually learns common meaning of things. Common or society val-
ues and beliefs can block the individuals ability to transform his/her own
understanding of the world in which he/she lives in. Thus, the individual needs
autonomy and freedom during his/her learning and self-directed learning expe-
riences. Otherwise, the individual may not be able to create the third pathway
related to self-actualization.
DISCUSSION
Understanding belief system, developing life principles, establishing intuitions

and intentions, improving life system and self-actualization are related to
life project for the individual. Self-actualization is based on learning abili-
ties, imagination capabilities, creativity, and self-criticism. It is defined as the
Inner Critics Social World

Motivation Individuals Individuals Cultural World
Need internal External Physical World
Creativity World World
Self-Actualization
Figure 2. The Components Self-Actualization
project of life for the individual. Self-actualization is the life purpose of the
individual.
The bases of the first pathway, the second pathway and the third pathway and
their relationships with self-actualization can be summarized as in Figure 2.
It is seen that the three pathways are explained in different view points in
Figure 2. Individual Basis is related to the first pathway, Cultural Basis related
to the second pathway and Self-Actualization is related to the third pathway.
Pathways describe components of self-actualization.
Self-actualization is as a project for future development of the self. It covers
past and present but, it aims at future development. Self-actualization, like an
arrow, begins in the past and goes to the future by internal and external pro-
cesses of human. The individual thinks about future and makes plans to apply
in the future. This provides the possibility of action for the individual in his/her
life. Future is the unknown dimension but includes various potentialities and
possibilities of changes, developments and improvements. This idea provokes
lifelong learning abilities to manage future possibilities. Futuristic ideas should
increase the self-actualization process.
Self-actualization can be defined as the formations and constitutions of self.
Individual as a living being always tries to re-form himself/herself and simul-
taneously acts to develop as a whole. Life is determined by the fact that
coming to grips with the anthropological problem calls for an inquiry into
the constitution of the human person as a living being . . . (Bello, 2000, 43).
Formation of the self is a complex system affected by many worlds. Some fac-
tors come from inner system of the self and some come from external worlds.
Self-interpretations of the meaning made by the individual are based on these
worlds. Self-interpretations are related to phenomena and their significance in
individual basis.
Self-actualization can be achieved in the life process. Self carries out his/her
life project by means of lifelong learning abilities. The self-actualization move-
ment is a kind of evolutionary development in life. Development impels that
there is no finished form which could be imposed on us from the outside.
This always unfinished form depends on own action . . .. Development is thus

seen as a function of human evolution (Pineau, 1996, 114). According to
Tymieniecka (2000, 67),
The human beings not only enacts his own life route like all other terrestrial living being, but he
inventively transform it according to his own specific aims, in attunement with his circumambient
conditions, of course. This amounts to saying that instead of following the line of the ontopoietic
design of Nature-life only, he on the ground of that life project invents according to his own will
specifically human shapes and significance for his life.
Self gains a gradually increasing awareness to develop himself/herself by

means of lifelong learning ability. Learning gives feedback to the self for
choosing his/her directions of individual growth. Self-actualization never ends
Why? How? The self-actualizing person is eager to learn and experience curi-
ously. He/she wants to live new experiences to improve his/her performance,
potentialities and skills. According to Bello, The lived body experiences itself
as moving in the progressive sense . . .. (2002, 44).
Individual is capable, at least to a certain extent, of mastering his life in the
sense that he can accept it, deny it, promote or destroy it . . .. (Bello, 2000, 50).
Individuals perceptions, needs, intuitions, intentions and experiences are
discussed by phenomenology. Application of lifelong learning should take
phenomenological philosophy into consideration. Thus, phenomenological
method should be learnt by the individual during the school studies in formal
education system.
Phenomenology is based on an humanistic approach that is, interested in
individual perceptions, intuitions, intentions and experiences. Phenomenol-
ogy is defined as a scientific research method which is applied to humanistic
approaches to understand the meaning of individuals life. It explains the
methods that the individual constructs to guide his/her actions in his/her life.
Phenomenological methods are very suitable for improvement of the first
pathway. It is also suitable for the second pathway and constitutes the third
pathway.
Lifelong learning is the best way of generating the sustainable learning and
development of individual. The results of Fields (2003) research show that the
lifelong learning can foster changes, developments and personal growth. This
result can be interpreted in a way that the lifelong learning abilities promote
self-actualization process. But, we need more information about the lifelong
learning and the self-actualization to understand the relationship between
them. Self-actualization of individual can give way to sustainable development
of individual and society. The relationship between lifelong learning and the
self-actualization needs to be discussed deeply in many dimensions.
Anadolu University, Esksehr, Turkey

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GRZEGORZ GRUCA
FA C E S O F M E M O R Y T H E W O R K O F F R A N Z K A F K A
AS A RECORD OF CONSCIOUNESS LOST IN THE
L A B I RY N T H O F B E I N G I N T H E C O N T E X T
OF EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY
ABSTRACT
The literary achievements of Franz Kafka make the reader think and force
him to repeat the questions about existing and the purpose and end of exis-
tence. Novels as well as Kafkas shorter works shocked the 20th century reader,
aroused his fears and anxieties, they also influenced the present day culture and
its understanding by the Western societies; apart from that, they formally and
qualitatively enriched the symbolism and possibilities of creating new worlds
of novels. These are only a few arguments that can be quoted and which incline
to take up and recall the topic of literary work of one of the masters of 20th
century prose and the author of unforgettable The Trial.
The work of Franz Kafka despite the passing of time has been the source of
interest for readers from various countries, among whom there have been not
only specialists in the field but also, above all, the lovers of great literature that
is universal due to its message. It is this message, seemingly ambiguous and
difficult to pin down, that is going to be the object of my investigation.
In my article I would like to conduct an analysis of the key and elementary
features of Kafkas prose that constitute of the universal character of his novels
and stories and impose on the mind of every reader who has ever had contact
with his works. Therefore, one of the essential themes of the article is the
problem of consciousness lost in the world of meanings and moving in intricate
corridors of being which often leads to nowhere.
In his novels Kafka very carefully records human existence. It can even be
stated that each of his works constitute a sort of memory of human being which
is under constant attack by the domain of the non-being. This is another aspect
of Kafkas writing I am very interested in. Owing to that it will be possible to
identify the elements of the writers prose which constitute the faces of memory
mentioned in the title of this summary.
The themes of non-being and memory are relevant also because, contrary
to what may seem, their presence can be found not only in Kafkas work but,
67

68 GRZEGORZ GRUCA
above all, in the surrounding reality. At the same time, the aforementioned
categories can be recognised as an important indicator of human existence.
To sum up, the following notions and at the same time words-categories that
will constitute the indicators in my project will be non-being and memory as
well as consciousness and being.
Each encounter with a literary or philosophical work or, speaking from a
broader perspective, with a work of culture, makes it alive. It becomes, then,
a part of our present. What is more, in the case of Kafkas literary output, it is
the work not only alive but still relevant due to its versatility. The texts of the
author deserve to be remembered but, above all, they constitute a memory of
human fate, which carries the risk of ambiguity, indeterminacy and mystery.
Nevertheless, the risk is more fascinating than frightening, which attracts the
attention a possible reader despite the gloomy and debatable decisions. It is
then a risk worth undertaking; it is a challenge facing the human thought. The
works of Franz Kafka are a record of an encounter with the unspecified his
work is going to be treated as a form of memory. On the other hand, I will try
to show the relation in Kafkas works between the unspecified and inhuman
and the human memory.
Literature and philosophy meet always where intellectual anxiety arises.
Philosophy in its deepest nature is nothing but asking questions. Among so
many questions it is important to be able to find and ask the right ones. In
his works Franz Kafka challenges this act of questioning. In one of his stories
Kafka makes a statement through the agency of his animal character:
Everyone has a tendency to ask questions. [. . .] And apart from that, who in his youth doesnt like
to ask questions and in what way am I to find among so many questions the right ones? Every
questions sound the same, what matters is the intention, however, this intention is often hidden
also for the one who is asking questions.1
There are works which combine the corporality of literature and the magic
of asking questions these are rare exceptions linking art with philosophi-
cal consideration. Literature is the mirror of life; hence, it is not as abstract
as philosophy. Nevertheless, for the aforementioned reason it loses some of
its accuracy; the accuracy seems to be an indisputable asset of philosophical
enquiries. These in turn often lose momentum following the complexities and
details of being, in such a situation they then lack the emotional element insep-
arable in the case of literature, this undeniable passion of life. It seems that
Franz Kafka managed to combine literature with philosophical enquiry about
human existence. However following the narrative of Franz Kafkas works we
may have the impression that there exists something greater and more power-
ful that has taken control of the life, time and space surrounding the fictitious
characters of The Trial, The Castle and some shorter works. These works are
FA C E S O F M E M O R Y 69
examples of literature which contains the voice of transcendence, it is unde-

niably pervaded with it the reader is here led in the direction of a hidden
source of reality. The problem is that while reading Kafkas texts we are under
the irresistible impression that we are being led and nothing more than that. In
spite of the logical course of events in the presented stories, abundant in real-
ism and likelihood as well as formal and content coherence all in all, despite
their logicality, we experience the lack of aim of these intellectual journeys.
We feel as lost as the intra-literary subjective representations. Adequate articu-
lation of the aforementioned sensations which recalls desirable associations is
a term taken from existential philosophy namely, while reading Kafka we are
under the impression that we have been thrown into a groundless world or one
which has been founded on the principles hard to identify. This is one of the
causes that condemn us to feel lost in an encounter with Kafkas prose. This is
also the reason why it is so hard to follow Kafkas works.
In Kafkas novels, the narrative structure is more conditional than absolutely
certain. We will not find an omniscient narrator there. On the contrary, there
is more opinion, uncertain predictions and changeability of judgment of a per-
son insecure of his rights or arguments rather than a thorough imperturbable
description of facts. It is important to recognize that from the point of view of
epistemology a fact is stable. A fact is something obvious and indisputable, at
the same time it is something that has already happened and on the timeline
continuum it is situated in the space occupied by the past. A fact is a cer-
tainty which concerns what is past, finished and closed. Following this line
of reasoning, certainty is the domain of what is past, finished and marked
from the perspective of the flowing time. The issues of the past are inseparably
accompanied with the theme of memory. Yet, in Franz Kafkas works time gets
reduced however paradoxically it may sound to the present, which has no
relations with the past. Therefore, the status of memory becomes exceptionally
dubious. In Kafkas concept the perception of reality is not based on the cer-
tainty of facts, but only on speculations and guesses. In other words, nothing is
certain or fixed here, and cannot be certain and fixed because in Kafkas works
indeterminacy is the essence of being. Kafkas characters are doomed to make
incessant and hopeless quests for the nature and sense of the surrounding real-
ity. In order to emphasize the aspect of unsteadiness in the sphere of episteme
the author of The Trial uses specific means of linguistic expression, such as the
words: it seems, probably, could, if and the like. It is certain that Kafka con-
sciously and deliberately uses phrases that have the hallmarks of conditionality.
It can be seen then that already at this level of literary transmission deficiencies
and limitations of human cognitive abilities and memory dependent on them
are signalled. A scene from The Trial serves as an interesting example of using
70 GRZEGORZ GRUCA
the conditional; in this scene the narrator describes the reactions of the public
gathered at the questioning of Josef K., the proxy:
The people in the left faction were not only fewer in number than the right and were probably not
more important than them, though their behaviour was calmer and that made it seem as if they had
more authority. When K. now began to speak he was convinced he was doing it in accordance with
their line of thinking.2
Moreover, it can be observed that the author uses such expressions both
referring to the subject and object which make a considerable extension of
the possible field of designation, for example: someone and something. This is
possible due to their content indeterminacy, someone meaning everyone and
something meaning everything: everyone or almost everyone, everything or
almost everything these are introductory generalizations characteristic for
Kafkas writing, experiencing elusiveness, obscurity or vagueness. The first
words of the novel The Trial are full of indeterminacy and constitute the signal
of the manner of conducting a dialogue with the reader: Someone must have
denounced Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he
was arrested.3 We dont know who denounced Josef K. and why he had done
this; what is more, we dont even find out when Josef K. was arrested, the only
thing we are told is that the arresting took place one morning. Consequently,
a problem arises in Kafkas works human cognitive activity faces a defeat:
how to mark and determine something which is based on the assumption of
its indeterminacy. A consequence of this line of thinking is the statement that
there is no knowledge and what is most important there is no memory without
cognition. However, lets go back to the character of Josef K. almost every-
thing surrounding this character is shrouded in the unclear and unsaid as well
as mystery. From the outset he experiences cognitive powerlessness, hard to
specify epistemological deficiency in relation to the surrounding reality he
doesnt know why he is charged and how he is to defend himself against being
sentenced, he has no idea who to turn to for advice and whether there is any
point in doing that. The above-mentioned examples refer to an important ele-
ment of Kafkas work, which can be named narrative content indeterminacy.
Most frequently it is concerned with narrators statements and as we could see
it greatly influences the reception of the content of a text; it is also significant
for the issues concerning memory and its status in which we take interest.
It is worth noting that the narrative content indeterminacy sends us back
towards decisions of ontological character. Franz Kafkas works contain
unique ontology; we can find it presently, that means from the perspective
of their reception. The texts of the author of Metamorphosis have been inter-
preted very differently depending on the leading philosophical, psychological
and sociological conceptions at that time. Nevertheless, there is one thing we
can be sure about the author of Amerika had a strong premonition of the being
hidden in its phenomenal manifestations; it was a premonition the expression
of which constitutes the uniqueness of his literary achievements.
In a short story The Burrow the animal character experiences a threat from
something, some other unknown animal and despite strenuous efforts to define
it more precisely, it is condemned to constant speculation concerning the kind
and distinctive features of the danger lurking somewhere near. The inhabitant
of the burrow is considering various ways of protection against the intruder.
Subject to the constant torment of the search for the unwanted guest, it suf-
fers from a continuously reappearing sense of danger. In this case the state of
danger becomes a part of everyday life of this fearful creature. The following
excerpt is particularly meaningful when it comes to this issue:
However, maybe and this thought also comes to my mind it is about an animal that I do not
know yet. It could be possible; indeed I have been meticulously observing the life down for long
enough, but the world is diverse and always full of unfavourable surprises.4
In this case we are dealing with indeterminacy realized by introducing an

anti-hero whose existence is sensed by the main character of the story. We
can call it subject-object indeterminacy, which is more concrete in compari-
son with the above-mentioned one as it contains instances of pointing not to
anything or everything but to the presumed subjective or objective reality.
In this way it is loaded with content characterized by greater cognitive charge,
gets meaning while taking not yet fully determined form. However, it does not
change the status of being of the above-mentioned animal subject; its limited
memory only suggests and warns against a variety of unfavourable surprises
that can come out.
The lack of surname in the case of the novels characters is another example
of this type of narrowing of cognitive perspective. Both Josef K., a proxy from
The Trial and K., a land surveyor from The Castle are people without surname,
to some extent deprived of their identity because of that they are individuals
marked by a lack of memory of some sort, shrouded in the mist of what is
unsaid, unclear and open to speculation. This becomes especially visible in the
case of the character of The Castle the last and who knows if not the most
important novel by Franz Kafka who in his indeterminacy got deprived even
of his name, only an initial K. was preserved. In this way the character gets
deprived of his own personal history and his past indispensable to establish his
own place in the surrounding world. K.s indeterminacy has got an impact on
the disappearance of his identity at the same time not letting him assimilate in
the new social and cultural conditions. A character deprived of his memory is
doomed to feel strange and to be a stranger. A lack of memory is one of the
reasons why the character cannot realize his goals, hence in turn condemns him
72 GRZEGORZ GRUCA
to the disappearance of the future. K. becomes a prisoner of his present from

which he cannot free himself. Even when he tries an escape in the direction
of the seemingly possible future it does not change his position whatsoever.
The indeterminate plays a significant part in disturbing the time structure
basically, for the hero of The Castle time ceases to exist.
The world in Franz Kafkas texts subjects, objects, places is marked
with some incomprehensible lack of penetration, a barrier impenetrable for
the senses and mind. His characters are burdened with cognitive impotence
which can be spotted not only in individual words that can be found in certain
passages of the texts, or in introducing enigmatic objects, but also by making
references to symbolism enhancing the impression of narrowing the horizon of
knowledge that is available to gain. Darkness, fog or smoke as well as stuffy
air and cramped space constitute this type of symbols. These are exemplified
in the descriptions of court offices in The Trial which are filled with stuffy air
having negative impact on Josef K.s physical and mental state. Narrow court
corridors are constructed in a sort of labyrinth dominated by darkness scarcely
lit by rays of light coming through very few smoky windows. Proxy K. after
walking a dozen or so metres in the court corridor is unable to find the way
back, the way to the exit the darkness, claustrophobic cramped space and
stuffy air prevailing in that place make him forget the way back. Presenting
this type of symbolism shows a degrading influence of reality on the main
character of The Trial in contact with the indeterminate the senses fail, and
finally the disintegration of mental faculties takes place including the ability
to recognize and orientate in space. In an encounter with what is indeterminate
and inhuman in its nature, memory becomes indeterminacy indifferent to the
information that is being gathered.
In the novel The Castle the presence of fog is inseparably attributed to the
building structure from the title. The castle is the desire and goal of K.s jour-
ney. Everything connected with it is invariably deprived of concretum. The
castle is and theres no exaggeration in saying this fog. The inhabitants of
the village submitted to the castle are unfavourable to the main character. It
seems that their homesteads are marked by the air of the castle the interiors
of their dwellings are full of smoke and filled with the above-mentioned stuffi-
ness. What is more, the region where the land surveyor arrives is in almost
constant rule of the night in this work the day has been reduced to just a few
moments. This seems to be caused by the fact that the novel is set in winter.
However, the juxtaposition of darkness and freezing atmosphere of the snow-
covered place enhances even more the charge of indeterminacy and alienation.
Quickly falling darkness and them night limit perception and all chances of
the main character. We can use the opportunity and point at the connection
between the symbols in Kafkas works and the way of creating time and space
in them. Lets quote a short excerpt from the novel The Castle:
He was also very much surprised that the village stretched so far as if it didnt have an end. There
were small houses all the time, with frozen windows, all the time snow and backwoods. [. . .]
He was swallowed up by a narrow backstreet. Snow was even thicker there. Pulling out the feet
sinking deep into the snow was a great effort. Beads of sweat dropped down his body. Suddenly
K. stopped and couldnt move. After all, he wasnt in the wilds as there were peasant cottages to
the right and to the left.5
While analysing this short excerpt we have an opportunity to see how rel-
evant in Kafkas prose are the elements of indeterminacy, indefiniteness or
the feeling of freezing emptiness of the surrounding reality that is connected
with them. The cold of ice, snowbanks all the time snow and backwoods.
Snow covers everything in view; it can be assumed that snow covers some-
thing important, some mysterious infinity, which the human eye is trying to
track down. It seems to the land surveyor that the village has no end. The
effort required to walk through such a space frozen, deep and snowy is
beyond the characters capabilities. It is worth noting that K. was still in the
village he wasnt in the wilderness. It is characteristic that K. is not surprised
at it this reality is not surprising, he acts as if it was the only known and
available reality for him. We can assume that the surrounding world deprives
the character of his ability to make reference to what is considered as normal.
The supernatural nature of the reality of the castle makes it impossible to make
reference to the past the land surveyor is as if frozen in beyond-time space.
As we have already said, not only is Kafkas character not conscious of the
past; what is more, he seems to lack consciousness of time as such.
The above-mentioned excerpt of Kafkas prose reveals that the symbols
are supposed to lead us in the direction of hard to express and often even
elusive meanings of reality. In Kafkas prose symbolic representations are
an element inseparably connected with the issues of space, time and their
indeterminacy achieved by emphasizing indefiniteness, lifelessness and frozen
being. In his works various types of locations such as buildings, flats, cot-
tages, are filled with symbolic excess which has got impact on enhancing the
feeling of limbo in epistemological vacuum. All this constitutes the symbol
indeterminacy presented in Kafkas works.
In Franz Kafkas works the reader can clearly notice a cry of consciousness
marked with strangeness and fear in the face of the incomprehensible being. A
lack of response to a silent cry is a permanent feature of his workshop which
brings his literary output closer to the solutions of the philosophy of absurd.
However, there is a difference between these similar concepts which lies in the
fact that the absurdum man becomes conscious of his historic nature, acquires
74 GRZEGORZ GRUCA
the awareness of absurdity of existence and revolts against it, whereas the ter-
rifying space in the works of Franz Kafka absorbs his literary creations and
despite their tragedy nothing comes out of it neither for the present nor for the
future. It can be said that time has no influence on the consciousness of Kafkas
characters.
The whole which is composed of the afore-mentioned examples of inde-
terminacy creates an atmosphere of peculiarity and hiding something which
governs the represented world. It is something that exceeds the knowledge
available to the characters and the readers. Indeterminacy is the opposite of
calm experiencing certainty what is known, defined and safe. Indeterminacy
in Franz Kafkas prose is a threat which creates the feeling of time stopping
and losing cognitive capabilities of the literary characters. It can be assumed
that for Kafka it was obvious to equate cognition with a sphere of asylum and
with what is safe. By describing something, either by way of verbalization,
or by means of rational mental constructs, it becomes possible to escape from
indeterminacy. Through cognition the act of appropriation and familiarization
of the threat hidden behind the curtain of ignorance takes place. To acquire
knowledge is to reduce uncertainty toward the surrounding being. In Franz
Kafkas literature we can suspect the presence of the following line of reason-
ing if I get to the unknown, if I tear down the curtain of ignorance, then there
is nothing left to be afraid what will be left is certainty. This is depicted,
though indirectly, in the following excerpt:
Usually on such occasions I am tempted by a technical problem, I imagine, for example, on the
basis of a whisper, in distinguishing which in all its subtleties my ear is skilled, with absolute
precision, in a way enabling drawing the cause of it, and presently I feel the need to test if the
reality corresponds to it. Very rightly so, since I cannot feel safe until some establishments are
made, even if it were merely to know where a grain of sand falling from the wall is going to roll.6
To know even if it is a whisper, even if this seemingly insignificant grain

of sand leads to a whisper coming into existence we want to get to know
the cause of it. Just to know, just to liberate ourselves from trembling with
what is indefinite. Striving to eliminate shortages and deficiencies, to cross the
barrier of indefiniteness is an element accompanying Kafkas work. What is
indefinite is the basis of the constructions presented by Kafka. However, the
discourse conducted by means of the conditional, introducing subject-object
items, and also symbols conceal an aspiration in the discussed texts to cross the
limits of the unspoken and to obtain information necessary to recreate memory
and fill mental blanks. Here, Albert Camuss statement comes to mind, who is
saying in The Myth of Sisyphus: I want either everything to be explained to
me or nothing. The mind is powerless to this cry of heart. This is where the
undertaken attempt at epistemological interpretation of Kafkas works ends. It
seems that the works of this author make do with showing that it is impossible
to cross the line of that indeterminacy. The short story Investigations of a dog
as a characteristic treaty on cognition raises this interesting question:
Thats hunger I repeated this to myself an unlimited number of times as if I wanted to convince
myself that me and the hunger are still two different things and I can free from it [. . .] today I
consider starving to be the final and most powerful weapon of enquiry. There is a path leading
through starvation; the highest goal, if it is still attainable, can be reached only by undertaking the
greatest effort which is voluntary starvation for us.7
Cognitive hunger provides a motivation to search for the truth of being and
to search for knowledge. It is this hunger that forms the worlds of Josef K. and
to the same extent Franz Kafka. The hunger has dominated the life, time and
space in Kafkas works. Literature has provided a way to express the debat-
able status of human being and its problems with the question about Being.
Nevertheless, in the aforementioned excerpt there is some worrying hesitation
concerning the ultimate goal, namely, whether it is attainable or not. The ques-
tion is also whether it is possible to fill the memory of individual consciousness
in the face of the indeterminacy of being. Cognitive hunger expresses the striv-
ing of intra-literary subjects to get the answer, and consequently, knowledge
and its memory. The opposite of hunger is insatiability which is represented in
Kafkas works by the indeterminacy which has been described earlier in this
work. Basically, indeterminacy is insatiable because in every point it appropri-
ates the opportunities of getting beyond it and blocks the chances of obtaining
information necessary to acquire knowledge. Kafkas characters are therefore
deprived of knowledge about being and its governing principles; hence, they
cannot solve their problems being stuck in the indeterminate now. Ontology
in Kafkas works is the ontology of what is indeterminate. It is this ontology
that determines the cognitive horizon of intra-literary fictions it has the deci-
sive voice in finding solutions in such important matters for human existence
as time and memory.
Franz Kafkas conception is overwhelming. It is a vision filled with deep
pessimism about the place, chances and role of a human in the world. It is
also a sort of memento for future generations. Internal organization of Kafkas
works indicates the deprivation of the subject of his ability to remember. This
stems from the reduction of time in the novel to the present and forming char-
acteristic ontology. Disregarding the content of Kafkas works, it can be said
that his masterpiece constitutes a form of human memory; its an account from
a journey into the depths of uniquely understood being. It is a record which
helps to remember and, if such a need arises, to recall the threats that reality
brings. Thanks to that it becomes possible to counteract the flood of what is
indeterminate, which already at the level of social or historical life can take
various forms.
76 GRZEGORZ GRUCA
In the end let me quote an excerpt which is very much relevant to the prob-
lem of memory and seems to provide an ideal summing up of the conducted
analyses:
The only thing I can see is downfall, nevertheless, by this I dont mean to say that earlier genera-
tions were better in their nature; they were only younger and their great advantage stems from that
fact; their memory wasnt as overloaded as ours, it was easier to encourage them to speak [. . .]
From time to time we hear a word sounding unfamiliar and we would probably leap to our feet if
it wasnt for the fact that we feel overwhelmed with the weight of the previous centuries.8
This is another occasion when Kafka sketches for the reader a gloomy vision
of reality the society, epoch and its generation are exhausted. Over the cen-
turies mankind accumulated experiences, created culture it can be said that it
got richer by the facts of their memory. However, the overtone of this excerpt
implies that this richness is ostensible and it forces the individual to make
constant effort which in the end always ends in a defeat. The burden of cen-
turies is overwhelming memory accumulates knowledge repeated in failures.
Maybe this is the fragment which contains the premise explaining why the
conception of memory and time in Kafkas works is of this kind and not the
other. Everything repeats itself; under the influence of gained experience and
its memory the mankind does not lead a happier life. Knowledge does not
result in improving the quality of living of individual people and societies.
Each epoch has its own history, characteristic features, events and emblems
distinctive only to itself and often elusive details of sense and meaning that
is the usual statement of the facts of memory, both the one which is close to
my now, and slightly distant one and also the one which is much more distant
and faded due to the passing of time. The very close dependency between time
and memory is an irremovable indicator of dynamically developing existence.
Looking at the seemingly ossified being in the form of Franz Kafkas work
and at the exceptional and unique record of human quest extraordinary in its
ordinariness and truth we ought to ask a question: can we delight in the view
of our times? It is essential to put a question mark as far as the present moment
is concerned and to return to the present time as set by the works of Kafka
in order to recall and open the minds on the question of shape of human being,
accompanying conditions, and finally to come close to the truth of being.
Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland
NOTES
1
Franz Kafka, Dociekania psa, trans. Lech Czyzewski (Cracow: Wydawnictwo Literackie,
1988), p. 26, 32
2
Franz Kafka, Proces, trans. Bruno Schulz (Cracow: Wydawnictwo Zielona Sowa, 2003), p. 27
3
Ibid., p. 3
4
Franz Kafka, Cztery opowiadania. List do ojca, trans. Jarosaw Zikowski (Warsaw:
Panstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 2003)
5
Franz Kafka, Zamek, trans. K. Radziwi, K. Truchanowski (Cracow: Wydawnictwo Zielona
Sowa, 2004), p. 12
6
Franz Kafka, Cztery opowiadania. List do ojca, trans. Jarosaw Zikowski (Warsaw:
Panstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 2003), p. 159
7
Franz Kafka, Dociekania psa, trans. Lech Czyzewski (Cracow: Wydawnictwo Literackie,
1988), p. 48
8
Ibid., p. 35
BIBLIOGRAPHY
K A F K A S WO R K S
Kafka, Franz, Ameryka, trans. J. Kydrynski (Cracow: Wydawnictwo Zielona Sowa, 2003)
Kafka, Franz, Cztery opowiadania. List do ojca, trans. J. Zikowski (Warsaw: Panstwowy Instytut
Wydawniczy, 2003)
Kafka, Franz, Dociekania psa, trans. L. Czyzewski (Cracow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1988)
Kafka, Franz, Proces, trans. B. Schulz (Cracow: Wydawnictwo Zielona Sowa, 2003)
Kafka, Franz, Zamek, trans. K. Radziwi, K. Truchanowski (Cracow: Wydawnictwo Zielona Sowa,
2004)
S E C O N DA RY L I T E R AT U R E
Anderson, Mark M., Kafkas Clothes. Ornament and Aestheticism in the Habsburg Fin de Sicle
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992)
Bataille, Georges, Literatura a zo: Emily Bront-Baudelaire-Michelet-Blake-Sade-Proust-Kafka-
Genet, trans. M. Wodzynska-Walicka (Cracow: Oficyna Literacka, 1992)
Blanchot, Maurice, Wok Kafki, trans. K. Kocjan (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo KR, 1996)
Camus, Albert, Mit Syzyfa I inne eseje, trans. J. Guze (Warsaw: MUZA S. A., 2004)
Eilitt, Leena, Approaches to Personal Identity In Kafkas Short Fiction: Freud, Darwin,
Kierkegaard (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1999)
Ernst, Pawel, The Nightmare of Reason: A Life of Franz Kafka (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux,
1984)
Eco, Umberto, Dzieo otwarte. Forma i nieokreslonosc w poetykach wspczesnych, trans.
J. Gauszka (Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1994)
Garaudy, Roger, Realizm bez granic: PicassoSaint-John PerseKafka, trans. R. Matuszewski
(Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1967)
Kossak, Jerzy, Egzystencjalizm w filozofii i literaturze (Warsaw: Ksiazka
i Wiedza, 1976)
Safranski, Rdiger, Zo dramat wolnosci, trans. I. Kania (Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1999)
Warnock, Mary, Egzystencjalizm, trans. M. Michowicz (Warsaw: Prszynski i S-ka, 2005)
Whitrow, G. J., Czas w dziejach, trans. B. Orowski (Warsaw: Prszynski i S-ka, 2004)
E WA L AT E C K A
W H I C H S E L F ? O R W H AT I S I T L I K E T O S P E A K
OR LISTEN AN EXISTENTIAL
P H E N O M E N O L O G I C A L A P P ROAC H
This paper is the second of a series of papers introducing the psychologi-

cal concept of ego states into language studies, and presenting both against
the philosophical background of existential phenomenology. The series, when
complete, will have covered introducing language ego states, discussing the
perception of speech and its production, and, finally, seeking explanation for
language acquisition within the same philosophical frame of reference.
Why would one, in the first place, put the three, seemingly unrelated
concepts and fields of knowledge together? As other disciplines of science,
language studies, too, have become embedded within the Cartesian frame-
work of the mental versus the physical (Thompson, 2004, 382). In order
to break away from this embedding, the discipline needs the back and
forth circulation between scientific research on the mind and disciplined phe-
nomenologies of lived experience (Thompson, 2004, 382) accommodating
human experience of language. In all functionalistic accounts, what is miss-
ing is not the coherent nature of the explanation but its alienation from
human life. Only putting human life back in will erase that absence; not
some extra ingredient or profound theoretical fix (Varela, 1996, 345).
Let me answer with a quotation from the World Phenomenology Institutes
website:
The philosopher working in a phenomenological mode ought to thus aspire to join that which is
falsely and arbitrarily disjoined, and in so doing demonstrate the unity of human knowledge and
the possibility of deep communication and higher philosophical understanding.
The need for such a unity has been apparent to me for a long time, dating
back to my linguistics background.
Traditionally, western philosophy and, in fact, western science alike, has
based its understanding of the world and relationships within it on the assump-
tion that thought prevails over experience. Experience has been considered
superficial and prone to errors and thus unscientific. The ultimate perspective
has therefore been that of a thinker.
79

80 E WA L AT E C K A
We have become accustomed, through the influence of the Cartesian tradition, to disengage from
the object: the reflective attitude simultaneously purifies the common notions of body and soul by
defining the body as the sum of its parts with no interior, and the soul as a being wholly present to
itself without distance (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, 198).
This attitude has lead to the now widespread acceptance of the scientific
or reason-based worldview as the basis of all disciplines of human knowl-
edge. The fear of being called unscientific is such that few risk going against
the mainstream. Thought, in its Cartesian understanding of doubting every-
thing but thought itself, and thus being pure and disciplined, is the basis for
both many philosophical systems and modern science alike. Therefore, any
experience that cannot be represented in scientific thought will be rejected as
subjective or illusory. Similarly, philosophical systems that diverge from Carte-
sianism will be viewed with suspicion. Thus, philosophy is often rejected by
people who in other respects are very intelligent; they are experts in a par-
ticular branch of positive science who, precisely because of the success of
their science, are tempted to absolutize the value of a special type of scientific
knowledge, particularly physical science (Luijpen and Koren, 2003, 9).
The adoption of Cartesian view across the scientific board, so to speak,
has, however, been met with opposition. Phenomenology, in particular, has
been philosophys way of dealing with the Cartesian inheritance: The intelli-
gibility which phenomenology takes as fundamental is thus of the experiential
order. It is a meaning embedded in and inextricable from the concrete expe-
rience (Wait, 1989, 15). The response from science has come largely from
neuroscience, a discipline combining the findings of neurology with studies
of human experience of neurological disorders. The assumptions neuroscience
bases itself upon are best summarised by this quotation from Antonio Damasio:
What, then, was Descartes error? Or better still, which error of Descartes do I mean to single
out, unkindly and ungratefully? One might begin with a complaint, and reproach him for having
persuaded biologists to adopt, to this day, clockwork mechanics as a model for life processes.
But perhaps that would not be quite fair and so one might continue with I think therefore I am.
(. . .) Taken literally, the statement illustrates precisely the opposite of what I believe to be true
about the origins of mind and about the relation between mind and body. It suggests that thinking,
and awareness of thinking, are the real substrates of being. And since we know that Descartes
imagined thinking as an activity quite separate from the body, it does celebrate the separation of
mind, the thinking thing (res cogitans) from the nonthinking body, that which has extension and
mechanical parts (res extensa). (. . .) For us, then, in the beginning it was being, and only later was
it thinking. And for us now, as we come into the world and develop, we still begin with being, and
only later do we think. We are, and then we think, and we think only inasmuch as we are, since
thinking is indeed caused by the structures and operations of being (Damasio, 2005, 248249).
Eventually, Damasio (2005, 5) points to the abyssal separation between

body and mind as what he understands as the main error of Descartes, still
pervading science and research.
W H I C H S E L F ? O R W H AT I S I T L I K E T O S P E A K O R L I S T E N 81
Luijpens authentic philosopher understands philosophy as a constant

search, a dynamic system and in that regard, I think, philosophy in his under-
standing resembles the world in which we live, which also is a dynamic system,
incessantly changing and moving. Authentic philosophy is an attempt to give
a personal answer to a personal question through a personal struggle to remove
obstacles preventing understanding. (Luijpen and Koren, 2003, 11). In the
same vein, philosophy should not be learnt as a closed system because then
its questions are not relevant to the one who is learning. For if the questions
and answers of a system do not become my questions and answers, I never
become myself as a philosopher. (. . .) the aspirant philosopher learns to talk
as one talks in a certain tradition, and the object ultimately is the talk itself,
rather than the understanding of reality (Luijpen and Koren, 2003, 11).
If philosophy is a personal affair, a speaking word, it can find its starting
point only in my personal presence as a philosopher to reality. This presence
is called experience (Luijpen and Koren, 2003, 12). Thus it follows that the
philosopher must start from experience (Luijpen and Koren, 2003, 13). My
experiencing the world of language, with switching between languages, two
languages mainly, but not necessarily only two, has started me off on a journey
to discover how exactly languages operate as well as on the path to incorporate
the psychological theory of ego states into both linguistic and philosophical
understanding of language. It is through this personal experience, and through
posing my own, personal questions how is it that I arrived at a link between my
linguistic questions and existential phenomenology, which is the perfect tool
for explaining these issues because of its stressing the importance of authen-
ticity, experience, the lived world and being-in-the-world. It also relates
perfectly in the sense of M-Ps understanding of how speech is both under-
stood and produced. As a philosopher, I am a person, and my philosophical
thought is only authentic if it is my thinking (Luijpen and Koren, 2003, 13).
In line with the statement of the role of a phenomenologist as well as the
compulsion to pose my own, personal questions, the main objective of the
paper is to reflect upon the relationship between present day linguistics, the
psychotherapeutic concept of ego states, and Merleau-Pontean existential phe-
nomenology. Both linguistics and psychology have, in ways particular to the
respective disciplines, shown interest in providing explanations for language
production and perception. Much as linguistic and psychological theories
explain the mechanics of the two processes on a sui generis micro level of
sounds, words, and sentences, they lack the capability to render explanations
for phenomena happening on a macro scale, in the realm of the authentic
experience of the speaker/hearer. This is exactly the area where existential
phenomenology, with its focus on experience, offers a solution.
The psychological concept of ego states and its origins needs a brief
explanation.
The general feeling that more than one person in you exists is often con-
firmed in life. Part of me wants to buy the house and part of me says, no
way! A normal person would go about making decisions in such a way. The
two ego states at work are independent but form part of the same person and
are mutually permeable. Each part has its reasons for supporting a different
point of view (Hogan, n.d.) Abnormality arises when the various parts do not
communicate this is, however, not an issue discussed here.
The concept of ego states as personality components has been introduced
and developed by several psychologists and psychotherapists, including Freud,
Federn, Hilgard, (Hogan, n.d.) Berne and Watkins (Berne, 1964; Watkins and
Watkins, 1997).
One needs to clarify that while Freud was the first to develop the concept
of the Ego, many followers took the concept further. The original Freudian
concept of an Ego has been developed into the concept of ego states, multiple
modes of being (predictable but flexible) within one personality.
The two main concepts of ego states differ slightly. The most commonly
known concept is Eric Bernes (1964) according to which an individual will
reveal a Parent, Adult, or Child ego states between which a person can freely
move. Bernes model has been widely applied in a psychotherapeutic technique
called Transactional Analysis (Berne, 1964).
A model that assumes the existence of unlimited ego states has been advo-
cated by Watkins and Watkins (1997). According to the authors, an ego state
can be defined as an organized system of behavior and experience whose ele-
ments are bound together by some common principle, and which is separated
from other such states by a boundary that is more or less permeable (Watkins
and Watkins, 1997, 25). Ego states are generally experienced in normal people
as normal mood changes.
States are simply states of consciousness that everyone experiences on a daily basis. Ego states
occur when a state becomes developed enough to have a sense of identity associated with it (e.g.,
thats my teenage part) (Ego State Therapy, n.d.).
The broader, more flexible model of Watkins and Watkins (1997) renders
itself a better tool for me to develop a concept of linguistic ego states, capa-
ble of encompassing, within a phenomenological framework, both mono- and
multilingual experience. In their book, Watkins and Watkins (1997) quote the
experience of Helen Watkins, originally German, but in the US since the age
of ten, of two distinctly different linguistic ego states. While in Germany for
a conference, Mrs Watkins spoke German when shopping or talking to other
German participants but she found it difficult to provide direct language-to-

language translation. She also felt unable to deliver her paper in German. She
said: I cant. All my scientific vocabulary and graduate training have been in
English (Watkins and Watkins, 1997, 79). My own experience is of the same
kind. While I can switch with seeming ease between Polish and English, areas
of knowledge, or even life experience, exist which only function in one of the
languages. Like Helen Watkins, I would be unable to deliver either a philo-
sophical or linguistic paper in Polish, let alone provide immediate language
interpretation of such. I would find difficulty talking to Polish riders about
horses and riding since all my riding experience is based in English. I even
find that I act differently depending on the language used. My experiences are
confirmed in conversations with other speakers of two or more languages.
A claim is made that, like the general various ego states, so are language
ego states created at various stages of an individuals life and depending on his
linguistic experience.
I see a relation between the concept as defined above and the way we per-
ceive speech. I would liken our perception of speech to the way in which we
perceive a Gestalt figure:
Multistability
Multistability (or Multistable perception) is the tendency of ambiguous per-

ceptual experiences to pop back and forth unstably between two or more
alternative interpretations. This is seen for example in the Necker cube, and
in Rubins Figure/Vase illusion shown to the right.
Gestalt psychology is a theory of mind and brain that views the operational
principle of the brain as holistic, parallel, and analogue, with self-organizing
tendencies. The classic Gestalt example is a soap bubble, whose spherical
shape (its Gestalt) is not defined by a rigid template, or a mathematical for-
mula, but rather it emerges spontaneously by the parallel action of surface
tension acting at all points in the surface simultaneously. This is in contrast
to the atomistic principle of operation of the digital computer, where every
computation is broken down into a sequence of simple steps, each of which is
computed independently of the problem as a whole. The Gestalt effect refers

to the form-forming capability of our senses, particularly with respect to the
visual recognition of figures and whole forms instead of just a collection of
simple lines and curves (Lehar, 2003).
In the same manner the reactions of an organism are not edifices con-
structed from elementary movements, but gestures gifted with an internal
unity (Merleau-Ponty, 1998, 130). If one transposes that view to the percep-
tion of speech, one sees this as the unity in multiplicity which I am talking
about in relation to ego states and shifting between modes of being and
through this, grasping the meaning carried by speech not as the meaning of the
component parts (bricks in the edifices) but that of a whole, the gestures
gifted with an internal unity.
A parallel exists between the way we view Gestalt figures and the recog-
nition/perception of speech. We do not see different figures because we think
differently but because the mode of scanning of the presented picture changes.
Once the goal is established, we see one thing or another, depending on
that goal. So with words we glide from one language to another or one variety
to another thus employing our linguistic ego states.
My recent experience presents a good example. I am sitting at Frankfurt
airport, an international airport. A murmur of many voices can be heard in the
background. The voices go up and down, merge with one another, fluctuate
in clarity, pitch and volume. I am not making an effort to listen in, not really
listening. The voices just glide past me, giving an impression of, at the same
time, unity and multiplicity. The language texture presents itself like that of a
glimmering piece of cloth, now grey, now silver, now purple, now green. . . and
grey again. Likewise, the languages apparently shift from German, to English,
to French, to Polish, to Russian, to another, vaguely recognisable variety. I do
not recognise a particular language yet. It is only when I aim at a particular
string of words, a phrase, that I start recognising the language in particular.
My oneness as a multilingual results from the multiplicity itself. Like in
the ego state theory of personality (I talk more about it in my introductory
paper/chapter), in which, in a healthy individual, multiple ego states form a
uniform whole personality capable, however, of fluctuating between various,
mutually permeable ego states, drawing from them depending on the experi-
ence the individual is confronted with and, at the same time, being constantly
in the process of creation exactly because of new experiences in life.
Merleau-Ponty (1962) claims that it is the word that bears meaning. He
refers to our common experience that we do not know really what we are
saying until we have actually uttered the words. We often feel that the most
familiar thing appears indeterminate as long as we have not recalled its name
(Merleau-Ponty, 1962, 177). In other words, an unspoken thought is bound for
oblivion; it would no sooner appear than it would sink into the unconscious
(Merleau-Ponty, 1962, 177). Even for a child, the thing is not known until it
is named (Merleau-Ponty, 196, 177). All pre-scientific thinking has always
relied upon naming as the coming of the object to existence. This would have
been impossible if speech were to rely on the existence of the concept first.
Thus, speech accomplishes (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, 178) thought. One must
bear in mind that this, of course, applies to authentic speech. We do not, in
authentic speech, mull over the sense of what we are saying or picture the
pronounced words (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, 180).
While the chapter on speech in Merleau-Pontys Phenomenology of Per-
ception is relatively brief, what is said about seeing, or even on the body in
general, can easily be transposed to explain the understanding/perception of
speech. Like the object-horizon (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, 68) structure, so the
word-content structure both provides for the distinguishing of words and for
their disclosure or understanding.
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
(Carroll, 1906, 21)
It seems very pretty, she said when she had finished it, but its rather hard
to understand ! (You see she didnt like to confess, even to herself, that she
couldnt make it out at all.) Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas only
I dont exactly know what they are! However, somebody killed something:
thats clear, at any rate (Carroll, 1906, 24).
Alice did know the meaning the poem somehow filled her head with ideas,
it carried meaning, the meaning was pregnant in the sound.
University of Zululand, KwaDlangezwa, South Africa
REFERENCES
Berne, E. (1964). Games people play. New York: Grove Press.

Carroll, L. (1906). Through the looking-glass and what Alice found there. London: Macmillan.
Damasio, A. (2005). Descartes error. London: Penguin Books Ltd.
Ego State Therapy. (n.d.). The Ottawa Anxiety & Trauma Clinic. Retrieved June 15, 2006, from
http://www.anxietyandtraumaclinic.com/treatments/egostate.html
Hogan, K. (n.d.). Miracles of hypnosis. Retrieved June 15, 2006, from http://www.
kevinhogan.com/hypnosis-works-heal.htm
Lehar, S. (2003). The world in your head: A gestalt view of the mechanism of conscious experience.
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Luijpen, W. A., and Koren, H. J. (2003). A first introduction to existential phenomenology.

Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press. (Original work published 1969).
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). Phenomenology of perception. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1998). The structure of Behavior. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.
Thompson, E. (2004). Life and Mind: From autopoiesis to neurophenomenology. A tribute to
Francisco Varela. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. 3, 381398.
Varela, F. J. (1996). Neurophenomenology: A methodological remedy for the hard problem.
Journal of Consciousness Studies 3, 330350.
Wait, E. C. (1989). The structure of linguistic behaviour: Using evidence from aphasiology to cor-
roborate and develop Merleau-Pontys theory of language and intersubjectivity. Unpublished
doctoral dissertation, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.
Watkins, J. G. and Watkins, H. H. (1997). Ego states. Theory and therapy. New York, London:
W.W. Norton and Company.
ALI ZTRK
A RT E D U C AT I O N A S A N E X P R E S S I O N
OF PHENOMENON
ABSTRACT
EXPRESSION
Expression is often defined as a showing of feelings that come from the inner
world. Expression,
is the natural or intentional reaction in which emotional processes are made
and reflected as a concrete phenomenon.
is the product of commenting tools which are activating the feelings such as
music.
is the self-reflection towards values of art, literature and technology
products.
Expression is the situation which paves the way for our inner feelings
to explore their internal reflections. It is a phenomenon such as art. This
phenomenon is on awaking process of our inner feelings to find a way out.
The peculiarity and quality of the things we express out are also the ones
that define our own life styles. Hence, this should be questioned whether the
things we often express out are fury, curiosity, positive or negative, love or
happiness. The fact is that our expressions can catch more attention as they
reach a high level of quality. Otherwise, expression of inner feelings wouldnt
be more than a relief in existence. All the things that we do to relief our inner
world or the things having meaning themselves- can also be considered as
expressions. This case also requires the sharing of inner feelings with other
people as this phenomenon is an expression of ones feelings through senses.
It can be argued that a true expression of inner feelings make us sensitive to
things that surround our social environment.
A R T E D U C AT I O N A N D E X P R E S S I O N
The things that are happening in the outside world are felt through our senses.
They gain emotional and comprehensive meaning in our minds. It means that
we express our feeling out to define ourselves. This expression comes out with
creativity. In terms of art education, expression is not only a way to express
ones inner feelings arbitrarily, rather it is a creative reflection in an artistic
87

88 ALI ZTRK
form. Thus there is no need other than voice, gestures, roles and body in the
making of reflection. In other situations, available tools which support this
emotional expression can also be used. This situation will be the tools for
artists in their reflection and definition. For example, words, movement, music,
instrument or colors, pencil, paper, stone; each of which can be used as one of
artistic tools.
Following these things, we understand that we need things that have been
carried out in a high quality performance. The quality of these things that are
connected with our expressions, can be regarded as forms of our reflections.
The most important forms of expressions are;
The personal and proactive expressions of feelings
Artistic expression
Artistic expression can be considered as an aesthetic expression. For this
reason, process of teaching should include rich but not over-intensive stimulus.
If we use the materials in an artistic way, we help students for activating their
feelings as this converts their experience into reflection.
RESULT
Reflections in an artistic expression can change our feelings. They make our
life more meaningful and help us see the world in a different way. For this rea-
son, we should pay special attention to the basic elements (emotional, physical
and constructive development) of reflection.
We need artistic feelings or elements to have improved personal develop-
ment, so as to get insight into inner feelings. Through music, dance, word,
picture, graphic, statue, we learn more about the quality of life. The reflection
of the art-works helps producing more empathy between the creator and the
art-work. The more we develop our understanding skills, the more desire for
reflection comes out. Because,
In a more constructive environment, we are more likely to expect the
reflections to come out.
If the techniques are used efficiently, creativity is expected to develop.
Availability of supportive environment develops the courage of artistic
creativity.
If there is a positive reception of reflection in society, we can expect to get
higher creativity.
INTRODUCTION
Right from the beginning of the human kind, human being has been a creature
who has been trying to express himself and tries to understand the things that
are going on around him. Living contradictions sometimes with himself, the
A R T E D U C AT I O N A S A N E X P R E S S I O N O F P H E N O M E N O N 89
nature and the society has led him find new ways of expression on every occa-
sion. The things that are going on around him in his near environment and the
nature are the first means of imitation of the human being. At first, he repeated
what he saw, then developed peculiar means of expression which are related to
the developments in information and technology since human beings live the
phenomenon of to be or not to be in the level of to be able to express or
not to be able to express himself. In other words, as much as he can express
his feelings and thoughts, he can find a place for himself in the life. In this
study, the concepts of expression and artistic expression are studied, and it
was argued that this is necessary for art education. The judgements obtained
from the review of the literature are thought to be helpful for the following
discussions.
EXPRESSION
Expression is the condition in which our senses are put into work when our
internal reactions cannot be stopped. It is a phenomenon just like art. This
phenomenon is the process of arising of our feelings that are existing in
our inner side, that are developing and that sometimes want to run out of our
inner side. Expression is the reflection of feelings that arise as a result of the
perception by senses. This condition can happen all of a sudden, or can require
a quiet process as well. Internal and external processes lead us to expression
by putting us in a process of action-reaction in every condition.
Expression, in general, can be defined as the expression of felt or known
from the inner world to the outside. When its main titles are considered,
expression can be defined as:
a natural or intentional reaction in which an emotional process is concretized
and reflected.
the products of intangible means of interpretation like music which is
expressed through thoughts and stir the senses.
reflecting the values that the products of art, literature and technology carry
in themselves.
Russian painter Wassilly Kandinsky, who is thought to be the creator of
abstract, painting, defined expression briefly as a form is the explanation of
essence. Here if the form reflects expression, then the essence reflects the
information and feeling. The quality of essence that is expressed is the deter-
minant of our life style too. For that reason, the things that are expressed can be
in the form of anger, rage, curiosity, positive or negative love, and joy because
the things that we express, take interest from the environment according to
their meanings from the quality point of view.
90 ALI ZTRK
Otherwise, our expressions cannot be more than a discharge or relief. The

things that we do in order to take out of our inner side and in order to relax
are a form of expressions too. The whole conscious actions that contain cer-
tain messages and by which the individual reflects and realizes himself are
all expressions. The second condition requires sharing with the other people
because this phenomenon is the expression of our feelings through senses and
necessitates us to be sensitive to the things that are going around us, in our
environment and in our age.
Types of expression can be put forward in the following way:
Firstly impressions that we have gained through the things that are going
around us and the relationships among the people are perceived by our senses.
We process these impressions through an emotional and informational process-
ing and form a peculiar reaction. This reaction can be reflected in two ways:
the first one is the physical reactions that are spontaneous and that we use to
express ourselves by our feelings. The changes on our facial expressions, in
our voice or in our posture can be the examples of this reaction. The second
type of reaction is the expressions that aim artistic creativity by using not only
our physical build but also the other instruments.
A R T E D U C AT I O N A S A M E A N S O F E X P R E S S I O N
The things that are going around in the external world are perceived by the
senses. They gain an emotional and informational meaning inside us. Then
they are manifested in order to express ourselves. If this action is an artistic
expression, it develops with creativity. From the art education point of view,
expression is not merely doing how to feel like but it can be manifested by
using the whole body as a planned type of showing oneself. In this way, there is
no need for an additional instrument except for voice, posture, facial expression
and our body. In other conditions, existing instruments that can support this
emotional reflection can be used additionally. For artists, this condition will be
a means of expressing themselves and reflecting their abilities. These instru-
ments can be voice, word, action, music, musical instrument, colors, pencil,
paint, paper, stone and other artistic materials.
The necessity of art as one of the requirements of contemporary human kind
is indispensable. This requirement can be sometimes met in the level of artis-
tic production and sometimes as a consumer of art. Through symbols, it can
transfer feelings, thoughts, images and values. Symbol is a thing that can be
used instead of another thing. Some symbols and expressions are clear while
the others have cultural and social meanings.
The environment in which the people are in is not limited with the area
that he himself formed and in which he will live by himself. This environment
can be meaningful with the others. In the environment which is defined by

Hesserl as a place that the man shares with the others, the man himself does
not mean anything. According to him, the man owes his existence to someone
else (Hanerlioglu, 1978, 309313). In other words, he himself does not have
a meaning at all.
In accordance with this idea, it can be said that art is a phenomenon too
because art can have a meaning when it is interpreted by the others and it is
a creative expression. However, it should not be forgotten that every type of
artistic expression can not exist together with a creative feature and every type
of creativity cannot be in an artistic form. For example, while in science the
process in creativity is important, the creativity in art can sometimes include
the coincidental and spontaneous one as well.
Although sometimes it is harsh, creative power is directly distinctive in the
formation and expression of critical thinking. Creative power in art appears by
setting relationships that have never been set. The feature of its being unique
and original differentiates artistic creativity from scientific creativity. Forming
peculiar aesthetic care and new means of expression by taking the historical
and social conditions into consideration shows its inciting side. On the other
hand, in the process of transforming the inciting one into an idea or a work of
art, there seems to be the requirement of art education.
Developed countries where the necessity of art education have long been
realized, the training of creativity has been placed in the whole education and
programmes beginning from the family to the preschool and primary education
institutions. The idea that art is necessary like various branches of science in
order to understand the world consciously constitutes the main foundations of
these programmes.
Art provides us with a basic lens of understanding by which we can analyse
and interpret the world we live in. The children who do not take a proper art
education are in fact deprived of a balanced and comprehensive general educa-
tion, and are excluded from several educational speeches and researches. Until
now a lot of art educators from all over the world have shown the conditions of
education and art and have contributed the development of education and art
(Alakus, 2003, 2).
Art is a fact that addresses the feelings of people and leads them to deeper
thoughts by giving some messages. It doesnt make people good or bad, but it
makes them ask questions and look for answers in themselves.
In order to understand the invisible, an artist has to comprehend the visi-
ble. It means that an artists expression is a challenge to social and cultural
existence.
Art as a means to go beyond reality or to create another reality is a bridge
between the dream and the reality. It is an activity to establish a connection
92 ALI ZTRK
between rational and irrational, imaginary and real, and images and objects.
In other words, art is the adventure of the man to know himself. The artist,
on the other hand, is the person who can reflect the secrets and mysteries and
importance and value of both life and human. As long as mans necessity to
know himself lasts, art will last as well (Fischer, 1995, 151154).
Art education begins with play and provides an environment for the man
to discover his own tendencies, abilities, and inclinations. It aims to provide
a power of expressing ones feelings and thoughts through art. The aim of
general art education is not training artists. Art education starts with the indi-
vidual. His past experiences, feelings and thoughts can be a starting point. Art
education contributes to forming the feelings of people who have very differ-
ent psychologies. It helps the individual realise himself and be free in order to
be really happy.
Although in a work of art, nature, external world and external reality are
described, this is a world which was changed by the artists feelings, and the
important thing is not describing the reality correctly, but depicting the feelings
that the reality evokes in the artist (San, 1985, s.49).
However, it cannot be said that art education has not yet found an exact
equivalent as a term, concept and extent as it is usually tried to be described as
painting, art training, education through art, aesthetics education, fine arts edu-
cation, plastic arts education, education to art, basic art education, etc. Thus,
this causes a confusion.
Another problem is the question of whether the process or the result is
important in art education. The discussions made on that subject have focused
on either one of the concepts at different times. However, both of them are
important in the world of art. If art education prerequisites all aspects of
individuals progress, the process becomes more important than the product.
Because the important thing here is the individuals using the art as a means of
expressing himself. In fact, there is not a care for an artistic form. It is impor-
tant to apply aesthetic liking and various means of expressions. Yet, when it
has a focus of training artists, the effort beginning with a good idea results in a
process in which a good mastery is displayed.
Art education generally includes two meanings and aims: the first one is the
art education that aims to train artists and necessitates a special education. It is
the education in which individual creativity and ability are taken into consid-
eration. Obtaining a speciality and a profession is a priority. The other one is
the general art education which aims to train individuals who are sensitive and
have critical thinking in the conditions of the age. The role of art education is
enormous in forming the aesthetic care and finding solutions.
In addition to its being the education of pleasure and feeling and aiming to
create good forms today, it is seen as a process of activities of new, original,
rash, suggesting to create contemporary ideas. Today art education stands on

scientific and rational bases. The aim is gaining people who trust themselves,
who are free and can use all his skills forever, who can prepare himself not
only for today but also for tomorrow, who can lead his environment in addition
to himself, who feel respect and responsibility for the environment and the
society, who are enthusiastic but balanced, who are clever and sensitive (San,
1984, s.178).
Another misunderstanding about the art education is that because when art
is considered, plastic arts come to the mind; art education is thought to be the
education of plastic arts. However, when art is considered, not only plastic arts
but also a wide area of arts such as phonetic, rhythmic and dramatic arts should
be taken into consideration. If so, the extent of educational activities about arts
should contain not only merely plastic arts, but also the other branches of art
mentioned above.
Art contains contemporary ideas that are the products of accumulation in the
study of education, individuals understanding and learning the art as a whole,
having communication and interaction and having creative activity, and thus
the area of art education gains a new and contemporary quality. Therefore, we
can define the place of art education in formal and mass education: all of the
educational activities in order to be able to express ones feelings, thoughts and
impressions and to make his ability and creativity reach to an aesthetic level.
While art education aims to help individuals in the subject of having aes-
thetic judgements, it teaches them how to feel new forms, enjoy themselves
and guide their emotions correctly. So art education should not be for train-
ing artists, but guiding everybody who should be trained, and meeting their
informational, informative, sensorial and emotional needs. Art education is
necessary for all individuals in all age and has an important place in humans
life. Art education is necessary for training the individuals creative power
and potentials and organising aesthetic thought and consciousness. Art is nec-
essary, for it provides with arranging the individuals social relationships,
cooperation and collaboration, choosing the right and expressing it, tasting the
happiness of beginning and completing a job, and being creative. Art education
supports observation, original findings and personal approaches and practi-
cal thoughts. It increases the power of realising the things when they have
not happened yet. It increases the individuals hand skill and helps him reach
synthesis.
Dealing with art just by producing, or watching or listening or reading not
only activates feelings and thoughts but also makes all of the mental processes
active by its informational emotional sides. The ability to imagine and present
the ideas by means of several instruments contributes to the educational suc-
cess of the people both in the artistic and scientific professions. Art education
94 ALI ZTRK
is necessary for guiding the creative effort which will develop the skills that
activate the imagination by dramatising and animating.
The child who has an opportunity to have art education at home and
preschool institutions can gradually utilize the artistic events and forming in
his environment and understand the beautiful and look for it as he progresses
through the classes in primary school. Although art education can coinciden-
tally bring out some inclinations, skills and abilities, the mere basic aim of art
education is not those per se, but to make the life worthy and to gain plea-
sure from it. In other words, art education focuses on human and aims to train
generations that are suitable for the concept of human for his happiness. Art
education aims to create an aesthetic care among the spectators, listeners and
readers targeted by each work of arts, to feed and develop the artistic intel-
ligence which is a dimension of mind and in addition to this, to convey the
values that are relevant to human. The person who uses the artistic expression
and its special language can reach the previous and contemporary works of
arts, using his judgements by the help of this language. He can become aware
of the quality of the works that he comes across. Another function of art educa-
tion is to provide to reach at the environment and every kind of visual objects
as well as the works of arts with aesthetic criteria.
The aesthetic look and views of a person who learns to think with values
and be aware of the qualities expand. Instead of the people whose views are
shallow and who thinks that only the things that they like are beautiful, train-
ing people who value their environment and the works of arts by their own
qualities, artistic languages and cultural experiences are among the aims of art
education. It tries to train the creative power and potentials and organise the
aesthetic thought and consciousness.
Art education is an in-school and out of school creative education that con-
tains all areas and forms of fine arts. The aim of art education is to train people
who are not repeating the things that have already been done, but who have the
ability to do new things. It is to make the child and the adult used to seeing,
looking for, asking, trying and concluding. However, it should not be forgot-
ten that the origin of art education technically depends on folk arts and the
education of mastery. Art which previously focused on specific areas, diverted
concentration into child focused education, and as a result of this concept, the
terms free expression and expressing oneself have become distinctive in
art education.
Art education in the extent of general education is an area of education that
aims to make the individual gain an aesthetic personality by using the rules and
techniques of arts. In the process of art education, the behaviours of percep-
tion, obtaining information, thinking, planning, interpreting, expressing and
criticizing can be gained by using the languages of arts in the way of aesthetic
principles. The individual in the area of art education can find the opportunity
to express himself by having a chance of choosing the appropriate language for
his own in the limitless world of arts such as painting, music, theatre, dance,
poetry, story, novel, sculpture, ceramic, photography, creative drama, film and
video.
When the nature of the action of artistic creation is analysed, it is seen
that it consists of three basic stages. These stages are the basic stages of art
education as well. The art lessons in education system should be taken into
consideration with this thought. Art, both as a source of information and as an
experience, should be there in schools to realise its aims like the other subject
areas. While setting the aims of art education, the contribution of real values
of art to the individuals artistic and cultural needs should be taken into con-
sideration. From that point of view, the stages in the structure of arts are valid
for the art lessons as well. They are,
1. the stage of obtaining information
2. the level of creative thinking
3. the level of artistic expression
Art education, with its three levels, covers the individual with his all men-
tal, sensory, emotional, psychological, social and physical features. While the
individual who has gone through these stages can gain several important and
positive behaviours, he can develop an aesthetic personality at the same time.
Art education is necessary for the people in all ages and levels. It does not
require a special ability. The human is the whole with his mind and feelings,
subjectivity and objectivity, and reality and imagination. In order to protect and
develop this wholeness, the lessons such as literature, painting, music, theater,
and dance should be well balanced with the lessons that depend on science
such as maths, science, history and language.
Today arts education has replaced art education. Arts all together (painting,
sculpture, architecture, music, literature, theatre, drama, cinema, dance, etc.)
should be understood by the term arts education. According to this, it is the
art education that completes one another and should be given in integration.
Arts education can be defined as the activities for the individual that is thought
to be educated in a constructive and creative understanding to percieve and
interpret the human, nature and life, and convey his feelings and thoughts with
different artistic ways.
Art education is a reliable way of education in which creativity is first
in importance, critical thinking is developed and each student is tried to be
guided in parallel with his own development and tendencies. The activities to
be followed in every stage should be in the ways that will bring out the stu-
dents creative thinking power, will not stereotype them, and let them express
themselves freely.
96 ALI ZTRK
A RT I S T I C E X P R E S S I O N
Expression can appear by means of body (voice, facial expression, posture,

movement), spontaneous objects and several art instruments. In this case,
in order for an individual to be realised by means of his own experiences,
every kind of expression should be accepted. For artistic expression, a secure
environment is formed by respecting all kinds of creative efforts.
Art education has a wide range of responsibilities in reflecting diverse feel-
ings of the human beings. Because art education is a part of human education.
For that reason, we need stimuli that have aesthetic care and require quality.
The quality of the stimuli around our environment is directly related to those
we reflect. In art education, the most important ways of expression that we
distinguish are as followings:
Personal and spontaneous expression of feelings
created artistic expression
Artistic expression can be regarded as aesthetic expression. Thus, the pro-
cess of expression should contain rich but not very intensive stimuli. If we
present a variety of materials that attract the students attention in a realistic
and artistic way, we can help their perception develop, their senses activate
and treat them in an informational process. A consciously formed artistic
expression can have different forms in different periods. There can be different
examples in arts history. According to the aesthetic understanding of a period,
artistic expression can show itself as an objective reflection of a subjective
perception, or it can consciously turn to a neutral performance (Haselbach,
2000).
The theoreticians who analyse artistic expression stress the importance of
emotional and symbolic feature of a work of art. According to them, viewers
approach to a work of art by the feelings they taste in the vivid colors or the use
of lines they see. Some works of art are carried out with excessive nostalgic or
exaggerated elements in order to provoke feelings. However, one of the aims of
art education is to develop aesthetic taste. This condition will also help critical
thinking.
In order to be integrated with the work of art and in order to understand it
better, there should be some accumulation of aesthetic perception. We learn
more as a result of each living and experience with different types of art. The
empathy we set with the work of art becomes deeper. The more the ability we
understand, the greater the desire to reflect the things in our inner side com-
pletely. This can only be realised if there are supportive abilities and techniques
we use. The need for expression creates the motive of obtaining a technique.
However, obtaining a technique itself is not a solution at all. It can only be
helpful to clear and diversify the message we want to send. Technical informa-
tion enriches artistic creation, but it should not be confused with the creation
and expression.
DISCUSSION
Today, education should be based on the cooperation of science and art. The
common aim of science and art is to serve human and discover the new. In
school or education systems that give importance to the education of art and
feelings, while feelings are trained, it is seen that mental abilities, thoughts
and intelligence develop as well. While art stresses the interrelation between
feelings and thoughts, it is an active helper of the learning and development
process.
In order to enrich personal and social development, we need some aes-
thetic perceptions to be more different, to investigate the deeper side of what is
expressed, to be integrated with the work of art, and to understand better. After
each experience related to the arts of music, dance, word, painting, sculpture,
and graphic, we learn a bit more. The empathy we set between the work of art
and us becomes deeper. Expressions change our perceptions. They make the
life more meaningful. They help us see the world more different. For that rea-
son, an equal importance should be given to sensory, informative and physical
developments, which are the main components of expression. Instead of under-
standing them as features of being a human, we should consider them as the
systems that are supporting and affecting each other. Expression that is formed
by a direct reaction should be accepted, while artistically created expression
should be supported. The evaluations to be done should be innovative and
leading.
In education process, rich but not intensive stimuli should be used. Provok-
ing and attractive tools will take the childrens attention. The arrangements
that create opportunity to make relationships that have never been made before
will support their creative expressions directly. The necessity for the individu-
als who can express themselves instead of the ones who are always watching
what they see are becoming more and more important. When we look around,
we see that the people whose expressions in their childhood were taken into
consideration do not have any difficulty at all when they can react directly and
spontaneously.
The more the ability we understand, the greater the desire to express the
things in our inner side completely because:
When the secure environments are provided, expressions increase.
When the necessary techniques are used consciously, the products are of
good quality.
98 ALI ZTRK
The helps in need can bring out more different artistic creations.
Being supportive in the process of evaluation increases the courage.
Anadolu University, Eskisehir, Turkey
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alakus, A.O. (2003). In View Of Individuals Primary Age The Necessity Problematic Of Art
Education, www.e-sosder.com
Etike, S. (1995). Sanat Egitimi Yazlar, Ankara: Ilke Kitabevi Yaynlar.
Fischer, E. (1995). Sanatn Gerekliligi, ev. Cevat apan, Istanbul: Payel Yaynevi.
Genaydn, Z. (1990). Sanat Egitiminin Dsnsel Temelleri, Ortagretim Kurumlarnda Resim-
Is gretimi ve Sorunlar, Ankara: TED Yaynlar.
Hanerlioglu, O. (1978). Felsefe Ansiklopedisi (4.Cilt, L-O) Istanbul: Remzi Kitabevi.
Haselbach, B. (2000). The Phenomenon of Expression in Aesthetic Education, International Orff-
Schulwerk Symposium: Expression in Music and Dance Education, Orivesi: 2426 March 2000.
Krsoglu, O.T. (1991). Sanatta Egitim (Grmek, Anlamak, Yaratmak), Ankara: Demircioglu
Matbaaclk.
San, I. (1979). Sanatsal Yaratma ve ocukta Yaratclk, Ankara: T. Is. BankasKltr Yaynlar.
San, I. (1984). agdas Sanat Egitimi, gretmen Dnyas Dergisi, Say 49. Ankara.
San, I. (1985). Sanat ve Egitim, Ankara niversitesi, Egitim Bilimleri Fakltesi Yaynlar: Say
51, Ankara.
S E C T I O N II
CIPHERING REMEMBRANCE: SIGNS, SYMBOLS,
SPIRIT
MARIA-CHIARA TELONI
T H E F U N C T I O N S O F M E M O RY I N E D I T H S T E I N
A N D I N A N N A - T E R E S A T Y M I E N I E C K A S
PHENOMENOLOGY OF LIFE
ABSTRACT
This study aims mainly at showing the functions of memory coming out of
Edith Steins phenomenological route, passing on to the innovative ontopoietic
context of the Anna-Teresa Tymienieckas phenomenology of life, both feed on
the common source of phenomenological research.
In Edith Stein, the theme of memory emerges as a basically anthropological
matter, that is concerning the specific human condition of the flowing of life.
The man in his wholeness, indeed, that is in his multiple dimensions, physical,
psychical, spiritual and intersubjective, is the starting point and the main thread
of the entire philosophical research carried out by Stein since her dissertation,
On The Problem Of Empathy.
On the other side, in Anna-Teresa Tymienieckas treatment memory has a
wider range, owing especially to the fact that it is still anchored to the extended
background of the ontopoiesis of life. Tymieniecka, indeed, presents memory
as an essential element of the ontopoiesis since its dawning, not only as it is
subject to this process itself, but as it constitutes and plays an active role in the
progressive positive self-individualizing deployment of the logos-of-life.
An interesting possibility of integration between the two positions appears,
that would need, however, further specific analyses.
INTRODUCTION1
The theme of memory is tightly connected to the dimension of temporality,

which pertains the overall complex varied world-of-life, as one of its essential
dimensions. Time scansion, rhythm, indeed, involves all real life, as it appears
to us, starting from the lowest rung consisting in the so called inert matter, to
reach the process peak that Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka indicates with the preg-
nant words of ontopoiesis-of-life, marked, in turn, by self-individualization.
This peak consists in the specific human condition. Consequently, the issues
concerning the role of memory within this process, where there is a gap
103

104 MARIA-CHIARA TELONI
between cosmos and mankind, consisting in the common background of life

in its onto-metaphysical basic-level,2 emerge as a matter of double impor-
tance: cosmological and anthropological. The use of these terms is not meant
to recover the stereotyped classification of philosophical issues in their scopes
split by the research,3 that Anna-Teresa Tymienieckas phenomenology of life
proposes to abandon, instead, through an intuitive incursion in the level of
the primitive logos-of-life, as a common ground for all philosophical and sci-
entific issues. The help of this language is just considered necessary for the
research itinerary arranged in this study.
In Edith Stein, indeed, as it will be checked and explained below, the theme
of memory emerges as a basically anthropological matter, that is concerning
the specific human condition of the flowing of life. The man in his wholeness,
indeed, that is in his multiple dimensions, physical (in connection with the rest
of creation meant as nature), psychical and spiritual and, then, intersubjec-
tive (with reference to God and the other human beings) is the starting point
and the main thread of the entire philosophical research carried out not only
by Stein but also, before her still in the field of phenomenology by Husserl
and his first followers, among whom Max Scheler, Steins favorite interlocutor
and term of comparison since her dissertation, On The Problem Of Empathy
(1917).4
The purely anthropological value of memory in Steins considerations
already represents a divergence with Anna-Teresa Tymienieckas treatment,
where memory has a wider range, owing especially to the fact that it is still
anchored to the extended background of the ontopoiesis of life, and that it rep-
resents the novelty and undoubted originality of the phenomenology of life
proposed by Tymieniecka.
Tymieniecka, indeed, presents memory as an essential element of the pro-
cess of ontopoiesis of life since its dawning, not only as it is subject to this
process itself, but as it constitutes and plays an active role in the progressive
positive self-individualizing deployment of the logos-of-life. Therefore, we are
once more in front of the essential gain of the phenomenology of life, that
is the news field of phenomenological research ushered in by Anna-Teresa
Tymieniecka: the recapture of the world of life. Thus, in this sense, every
philosophical matter receives a new light.
This enlargement of the phenomenological research field, as well high-
lighted by Daniela Verducci,5 had already been wished and, someway, under-
taken by Husserl himself, who was ensnared, anyway, by the transcendental
consciousness, which he eventually considers absolute.
It is necessary to explain and check the difference between Steins approach
and Anna-Teresa Tymienieckas, even if they both feed on the common source
of phenomenological research.
T H E F U N C T I O N S O F M E M O RY 105
M E M O R Y A S P R E S E N T I F I C AT I O N : R E C O L L E C T I O N
The main difficulty in the research of Steins conception of the essence, consti-
tution and functions of memory lies in the fact that this theme is not specifically
and systematically treated by her at least in the first works that will be ana-
lyzed, On The Problem Of Empathy and Psychology And The Sciences Of The
Spirit.6 This does not mean that it is not possible to trace some significant
contributions for the issue considered. We just have to patiently follow Steins
philosophical itinerary present in her works, in an attempt to catch some cues
for our considerations and dig deeper into the themes at issue, maybe overcom-
ing Steins very intentions; which means, starting from what has been already
cleared about it to catch someway the unsaid, that is the possible devel-
opments of her studies in connection precisely to memory. This operation is
certainly very delicate from a philosophical point of view, and its risks have
already been highlighted by Plato one of the sources from which Stein draws
(also through the meditation by Augustine from Hippo) to draw up Finite And
Eternal Being7 who, through the Theuth myth told in Phedrus,8 warns the
reader against the dangers of writing, especially if compared to the oral tra-
dition based on memory. In short, according to Plato through whom we get
to the heart of the treatment on memory the success of writing, as principal
means of thought expression, memorization and transmission, will lead to a
substantial weakening of the memorative faculty. But most of all, true knowl-
edge will cease, that knowledge which, according to Plato who draws this
teaching from his master Socrates is linked to dialectics, that is to the pos-
sibility of oral confrontation between the pupil and the teacher, which is the
heart of the philosophical method. Finally, another risk is for the writer him-
self to be misunderstood and to be unable to defend himself after his death.
Therefore, whatever he thought and stated during his life and his philosophical
work is, someway, entrusted to posterity, who, in his absence, are free to inter-
pret him, to the point that they will misrepresent the authors real intent. From
this point the necessity also arises for our philosopher to shelter from such
drawbacks the essence of his philosophical doctrine, usually known as unwrit-
ten doctrine. This theme was already cherished a lot by Socrates, who, unlike
Plato, put none of his teachings in writing. On the other hand, the very theme
of memory, beyond these considerations, is a central one in Platos reflection,
where the very process of knowledge, expressed with the famous myth of the
cave,9 is described precisely as reminiscence. This datum should be kept in
mind for our later considerations, in the hope to avoid the misrepresentation
feared by Plato, while presenting Steins writings. I think that the phenomeno-
logical method itself may help us to do this, as well as the support of those
who have undertook such a delicate enterprise before me.
For obvious reasons, due to the vastness of the topic, we will confine our-
selves to some of Steins works that seem to provide more starting points for a
discussion; then we will compare the results of our analysis with the novelties
emerging from Anna-Teresa Tymienieckas phenomenology of life.
Let us start, therefore, from the above mentioned Steins dissertation enti-
tled On The Problem Of Empathy. As the title suggests, the main goal of
the study is investigating the peculiar experience of consciousness of empa-
thy (Einfhlung) through which we know the foreign experiences catching
them intuitively as alter ego and the identification of the differences between
the definitions given by Theodor Lipps and Edmund Husserl. Even if mem-
ory is not the main topic of the treatment, however it receives, as recollection,
an early clarification of its essence in connection to the description of the act
and of the empathic experience, with which it shares some essential features.
Therefore, here Stein, rather than memory, meant as mnemonic ability, that is
the ability to collect and record the data coming from the different experiences
(egologic and non-egologic), refers to recollection. Stein does not express
clearly this distinction, at least in her early writings. Different is the case of
Finite And Eternal Being and The Science Of The Cross.10 However, the sim-
ple comparison with the observation of daily experience shows that they are
two distinct concepts. Common speaking, indeed, generally refers to both with
the univocal term of memory.
The recollection, according to Stein, pertains to the genre of presentifica-
tion, which also include expectation and fantasy, and which has analogies and
differences with the recollection. First of all, memory shares with the presen-
tifications and with the empathic act the characteristic of non-originarity. With
originarity (Originaritt) Stein means that aspect of the act which is the expe-
rience lived (BBP 131). Or better, we can state that original is a production
which is realized for the first time, while non-original is a repeated production:
the original production is that on the strength of which an evidence enlight-
ens me for the first time, or for the first time a categorical objects comes to
actuality to me. This is contrasted by repetition [Wiederholung], as reproduc-
tion where, for example, I am clarified again a theorem that I have already
had the opportunity to meet (BBP 131). This feature needs a further distinc-
tion. Indeed, it can refer both to the content (received in the conscience) and
to the living (the being grasped in the conscience) of an experience itself. In
the first case, recollection and, therefore, expectation and fantasy (and empa-
thy), can be defined as non-original. Indeed, Stein states: original are said all
our present experiences meant as such: what, indeed, could be more original
than the very experience lived? But not all our experiences are originally offer-
ing themselves, are original for their content: the recollection, the expectation,
the fantasy have not their object in front of them, present in flesh and blood,
but only if they make it present; and the characteristic of presentification is an

essential moment immanent in these acts, not a determination obtained from
the objects (PE 74, our italic). On this point, Stein gives the example of joy:
the recollection of a joy brings along all the characteristics of joy, which is
non-original, however, as it is not present in flesh and blood, but therefore as
it had been previously lived. Thus, the non-originarity of now sends back to
the originarity of then: then has the trait of a now which has been (PE 75).
For this, the recollection has the trait of position, while what is recollected
has the trait of being (PE 75, o.i.). Indeed: the very recollecting can have
the trait of doubt, of conjecture, of likelihood, but never the trait of being
(PE 76, o.i.). And, still referring to the experience of joy, that she cherishes
a lot (like Augustine), she states: The recollection of a joy is original as an
act of presentification accomplished now, whereas the content of the recollec-
tion the joy is non-original (PE 74). Finally, the recollection emerges as
original compared to the experience, but non-original compared to the content,
presenting a remarkable analogy with the acts of empathy, expectation and fan-
tasy. Stein continues, stressing another characteristic of recollection, that is the
difference between the original Self that recollects and the non-original Self
that is recollected. It can be noticed, indeed, like the Self, the Subject of the
act of recollecting, in this act of presentification can look back to the past joy
(PE 75), having in it and with it its Subject, too, that is the Self of the past.
Therefore, the Self of the present and the Self of the past face each other in
the relationship between Subject and Object, and it is excluded that one can
coincide with the other, even if the consciousness of identity is present (PE
75,o.i.). Indeed, the recollection still remains just a presentification where the
Subject is non-original in contrast with the Subject which makes the act of
recollecting (PE 7576). Consequently the act of recollecting occurs inside a
precise process of development peculiar of the human being as a living being.
This consideration also helps to understand the precise meaning to give to the
issue of the identity of the human person and the role that memory plays in
his construction that, as stated by Tymieniecka, in his prominent specific
features, is not an entity established once for all. On the contrary, it is first of
all, as a genre, the result of a long line of development in the scope of the nat-
ural flowing of life.11 Not only the genre, however, but also the single human
individual, in its vital execution made of growth and contractions, reveals his
dependence from its natural environment, its rules and laws. Therefore, Tymie-
niecka continues, he cannot be defined from his specific nature, but from the
entire whole of life that individualizes, of which he is an integral part.12 This
is why, previously, we also chose to talk about human condition, rather than
of human nature, following these observations, just to stress the unity of the
human being with every-living-thing. However, even inside this unity and the
existential dependences that it outlines, the human being stands out in an

exceptionally autonomous way, not so much in virtue of the cognitive act, but
rather for the creative act, that connotes the specific human condition, where
memory plays a basic role, as explained in the last paragraph of this treatment.
Let us go on with Steins studies. She underlines how the process of devel-
opment proper of the act of recalling, which through the reproduction of the
past experiences aims at achieving a filling clarification of them, at first con-
fusedly intended, may be carried out both actively and passively. That is to
say, it is possible for me to carry out the succession of recollections moment by
moment, namely that I deliberately bring back myself to that specific moment
of the uninterrupted flow of my past experiences, and that I let the sequence
of my past experiences awaken, living in the experience remembered and not
turning to it as an Object (PE 75); or rather, it can unfold without my reflec-
tion, without considering the Self-of-the-present, of the Subject fulfilling the
act of recollection. In the first case, as I move to the experience lived in the
past, that had previously emerged in front of me as a whole, I perform a
decomposition, and afterwards a recomposition on the basis of a appercep-
tive taking, achieving, at the end of the process, a new objectivation. I think
that the analyzed process of decomposition-recomposition two terms that, I
think, remind those of destructuring and reconstruction usually used to indi-
cate the current culture generally denoted as culture of the fragment13 is very
similar to the process occurring through the hermeneutic circle, intervening
in the comprehension of the historical events, where memory clearly plays a
core role, and where the action of the specifically human virtualities can be
undeniably recognized.
M E M O RY A S R E C O N S T RU C T I O N I N H I S T O R I C A L
COMPREHENSION
Between the Self-of-the-present and the Self-of-the-past which are not a sin-
gle Self, but should however be considered separately a hiatus is inevitably
created, due to the temporal distance between the two Selves, taking shape
both as extraneousness (Entfremdung) and as co-belonging (Zugehrigkeit),
achieving, in the end, that fusion of horizons (Horizontverschmelzung) fore-
shadowed by Gadamer,14 and in which the process of interpretation consists.
The recollection, indeed, usually leads to a critical rereading of that particular
situation of the past life which is remembered, thus reaching a sort of recon-
struction it is not an accident that the terms used are decomposition and
recomposition that cannot set aside either the vital process where events and
words are located or the precomprehension of the Self-of-the-present, implied
in every interpretative act. However, the awareness of this distance goes with
as much aware perception of the cobelonging to that very unitary flow of events
that history is, and, in this case, the history of personal life: we all belong to
history. It is right on the basis of this awareness that a communication, even
if difficult, between the two vital worlds, one of the present and one of the
past, is possible, achieving, in the end, a comprehension of meanings. Not
only: the even more productive possibility also emerges that the past, caught
in the opening up of its potentialities, offers an adequate incentive to change
the present, structuring it broadly: thus memory becomes able to give rise to
new future, impressing a precise direction to the action. Therefore, we reckon
it possible to affirm that memory enters with full rights the properly human
dimension of life of ethics, intended as world of praxis, as motor and guide of
action itself intellective, practical (in the proper sense of the word), or poi-
etic. The following paragraph clarifies how this happens. We can just mention
that it is something tightly connected to the essential phenomenon of moti-
vation (Motivation). It represents, indeed, the thrust, aware or not, to action,
aiming at achieving a desired target, that can be determined by several factors
(biological, psychological and social). It gives aim and sense to our behaviour,
as suggested by the very etymology of the word, that refers to the Latin motus,
which means precisely motion.15
It can also be noticed, from the considerations above, that the cognitive
act itself, fulfilled through the historical comprehension, connected both to
personal life and to the life of mankind, emerges as relatively creative. This
imaginative creativity also emerges where Stein states: nonetheless the recol-
lection (in its different ways of fulfilment) can prove incomplete in more than
one part [. . .]. Whereas, going back with my thought, I try to recall the same
situation, I find myself in front of a substitute instead of the recollections faded,
that, however, is not a presentification of the situation of the past, but comes to
my aid to give completeness to what is remembered and that is requested by
the sense of the whole (PE 76). A creativity, therefore, not free of sense.
M E M O RY I N T H E L I F E S T O R I E S
It is interesting, in my opinion, to refer, on this point on the basis of inter-

disciplinarity that the phenomenological research allows to the contributions
offered by the latest studies in the pedagogical and sociological field about
the life stories a more and more frequent research method among the field
specialists and particularly in the psychological dynamics that arise and that
affect directly the field of memory, with regard to the phenomenon of learning.
The life story does not coincide with autobiography, but rather with the recon-
struction of an experience, which may be more or less complex, restricted to
a limited period of time, and prefers to recur to the evidence offered by the
so called oral sources, with a particular attention to the history from below,
concerning above all daily life and the subordinate social movements. More-
over, it is founded in Deweys assumption that every communication (and
then every genuine social life) is educative.16 To be recipient of a commu-
nication is, indeed, to have an enlarged and changed experience. One shares
in what another has thought and felt, and in so far, meagrely or amply, has his
own attitude modified. Nor is the one who communicates left unaffected.17
This participation to the others life occurring in communication, is similar to
Steins conception of empathy, and intervenes especially in the stories of life,
usually obtained in the form of interview, where different levels of relations
are established (the one between the two Selves-of-the-present, of the inter-
viewer and of the interviewee, the one between the Self-of-the-present and
Self-of-the-past of the interviewee, the one between the Self-of-the-present of
the interviewer and the Self-of-the-past of the interviewee, and the one between
the two respective Selves-of-the-past), and where memory plays a fundamental
role. The narrative flow of the story from the interviewee in founded, indeed,
in the flow of recollections, namely in the presentification of a particular seg-
ment of his past life. On the other hand, the ability to empathize, both from the
interviewee and of the interviewer, increases the positive results of the research
itself.
In order to better understand the foregoing, it is enough to rely on every-
ones personal experience, as the dynamics of the story of life is experienced
by everybody even several times during our life, both consciously and uncon-
sciously. Or better, it is actuated in the very act of remembering, without even
making it explicit to others. The interview, or anyway the presence of an inter-
locutor, just provides the occasion for a more aware expression of this process.
What happens, indeed, is a substantial change in the attitude towards our expe-
rience, every time we are requested to recall it to our mind, and to communicate
it completely and accurately. The wording of the experience forces me, some-
way, to bring myself outside it, say to objectivate it, seeing it as another would
see it, considering what points of contact it has with the life of another so that
he may be got into such form that he can appreciate its meaning. One has to
assimilate, imaginatively, something on anothers experience in order to tell
him intelligently of ones own experience.18 At this point we can refer back to
what Stein defines analogic interpretation of the stranger through ones proper
and of ones proper through the stranger, so a part of what is we perceive in
ourselves and of ourselves is determined by virtue of the analogy with what
we catch in our external experience as similar to us, and what is stranger is
interpreted through the analysis of what is proper to us.19 Hard to establish to
what extent.
Moreover, we could observe how during some stories-interviews the inter-

viewers recollections often emerge in a confused, selective, incomplete way,
that is to say limited to some details, often indifferent or incoherent compared
to the historical context, and on the basis of free associations of the subject
that bear a weak or no relation at all with the real course of the historical
events, but that represent instead some important elements for the subjects
personal experience. A sort of process of recollections selection thus takes
place, more or less aware and intentional, performed by the subject, right on
the basis of the phenomena of the psychic causality and of motivation, analyzed
by Stein in Psychology And The Sciences Of The Spirit. This selective process
will be better treated in the last paragraph, in connection to Tymienieckas
phenomenology of life.
The presentifying act of recollection, therefore, appears not only as a purely
mechanical process, but tightly connected to intentionality and will, even
though unconsciously, as it occurs with removal (more connected to forget-
ting than to remembering, but that here is useful for the comprehension of
some psychic dynamics), a phenomenon so cherished by traditional psychol-
ogy. Indeed, as seen in the analysis of the life stories, it happens that of a
particular event I can remember only some special elements, or better those
which have mainly stricken my attention, either for their intrinsic value or for
the subjective value that they have for me. For example, if in this moment I
am interested in carrying out a research on the faculty of memory, it is obvious
that my interior eye will be looking mainly at whatever around me refers to
these specific theme, and that this arises a special interest in me and, therefore,
that it leaves more easily a lasting impression in my memory. Likewise, the
opposite may occur: namely that the subject proves to be closed to a specific
value, or better, to what he happened to perceive as a dis-value in that moment
or, generally, in his life. In that case he will refuse, more or less consciously, to
accept this dis-value, and whatever is associated to it, in the flow of his experi-
ences, holding it through a spontaneous position statement (Stellungnahmen)
towards it, or also following a precise free act (frei Akt) of reflection, unim-
portant, undeserving, if not harmful for a productive continuation of his life,
that is to say for his growth, meant as a constructive progress. Namely, it is
caught as not answering to the logos, not attuned to the sense: a in short, a
note out of tune. However, there is also a third possibility: namely, that what
has been memorized in the flow of the experiences of my consciousness in
a totally unintentional and unwilling way (that is without the Subject turning
consciously to a particular object) continues to act in me latently on the back-
ground of my experiences (both positively and negatively, as it happens for
removal), and that, either by simple association or by express will of the sub-
ject, through a presentifying act, they re-emerge from the bottom with different
degrees of clarity and plainness, to the point that they determine vigorously my
acting: the link between memory and praxis has already been highlighted. On
this point Stein states that what is inside the flow of the psychic experiences
is considered dead, has actually not become an absolute nothing, but has
still a way of existence, remaining in its place in the established flow. Indeed,
even if it remains on the background of the living flow there is the possibility
for it to re-emerge another time, and re-emergence which is nothing but a
presentification it is assumed consciously as something that has remained
in the flow after its death(BBP 46).
In my opinion, from this description an extremely important weave between
memory, will and motivation emerges (and, therefore, also desire, love), that
can be found also in On The Problem Of Empathy, where Stein refers to the
presentification of recollection, and to the very succession of recollections, as
a process that can be performed in the human subject passively or actively.
Precisely this being active or passive can slightly show an anticipation of the
relation between memory and will, and their link with constructive and self-
individualizing creativity which is specifically human.
Therefore, towards a recollection I can express a critical judgment, as, even
if I am aware of the identity of the two Selves, however the Self of now is
not actually the Self of then, because in time and with time, and therefore
owing to the passing of time and, then, of the process of becoming that con-
notes the finite being of the man and of the universe around, it is enriched by
several experiences either direct or indirect (that is stranger, like with empa-
thy): perceptions, sensations, recognitions, spontaneous position statements or
free and reflexive acts. The universe of the humans interior life is so var-
ied that it emerges from the weave of psychic and spiritual sphere, and that
Stein describes rigorously and in detail, following Husserls analyses, and the
pressing and rather critical confrontation, on an eminently phenomenological
basis, with the psychology of her times (especially the naturalistic one). All
the experiences lived should, then, be placed, according to different criteria
that are deeply analyzed in Psychology And The Sciences Of The Spirit, inside
that continuum of the flow of psychic experiences that, together with spirit,
corporeity and the individuals specific personality, build the human persons
identity an identity that, as stated by Tymieniecka too (see above), appears
to us in a vital way, and, then in embryo, under construction offering the
Subject the suitable instruments to form a unitary evaluation of his life, as his
personal history, and a new vision of the world, that is to find a new logos,
as sense, of all things, or simply find a confirmation of the logos that he had
previously caught. Indeed, the different components of that psycho-physical
individual that man is interact and intervene, influencing him, and, sometimes,
even causing him, or better motivating him, even in the very act of remember-
ing. I think it also possible to catch some evidence of the foregoing where Stein
states: the unitary act of presentification, during which the recollected events
emerge as a whole to me, implies some tendencies that developed show the
traits contained in their temporal process, namely how the recollected totality
of the experiences originally sprang up (PE 75, o.i.). The important element
to be focused here is the reference to the development, linked to the temporal
process that, as already hinted, is the distinctive characteristic of life, as an ori-
ented becoming, included between the two essential moments of potency and
act, as well stressed by Thomas Aquinas following Aristotle, and as Stein her-
self explains in Finite And Eternal Being, especially in connection with Martin
Heideggers existentialistic philosophy.
In this sense memory serves as a witness of the phenomenon of realization
carried out on the basis of the human beings vital and spiritual strength, and
gives this process of development and progressive growth the feature of uni-
tariness, included in the sense of the totality recollected. Indeed, it is the faculty
of memory which lets us sum up years and years of events in few minutes,
therefore, as Stein affirms, going over the past experiences mostly represents
an abrg of the original process of experiences (PE 75, n. 3).
The logos, an expression of the unitariness of the vital process, is tightly
connected with the questions concerning psychic causality and motivation,
which are a specific object of Steins following work, often mentioned above:
Psychology And The Sciences Of The Spirit.
M E M O RY B E T W E E N P S Y C H I C C AU S A L I T Y A N D M OT I VAT I O N
Here Stein investigates the foregoing theme in On The Problem Of Empathy,

continuing it. There, starting from the study of empathy, she had outlines the
constitution of the human being, made of body, soul and spirit, considering,
however, only the level of sensitivity, or corporeity. In Psychology And The
Sciences Of The Spirit Stein goes further, and analyses specifically the psy-
chic causality (concerning right the psyche and its internal connections) and
the spiritual motivation (concerning the sphere of spirit), also involved, even
tough in a different degree from the empathic cognitive process. Therefore,
we are again in the purely anthropological field, although the very psychic
causality is first studied in comparison with the physical causality proper of
nature. One of the central cruxes of this reflection, indeed, is demonstrating
how unreliable a certain deterministic conception of the psychic typical of the
experimental naturalistic psychology of those times with which Stein starts
a pressing confrontation in her work which reckons it possible to understand
the complexity of the human being merely on the basis of the laws typical
of the natural and, therefore, necessitating causality, is. Then, the complicated
relation between man, nature, freedom and necessity is disputed. Stein won-
ders, indeed, if the mans physical life, meant in its wholeness or just in a part
of it, is included or not in the great causal connection of nature (BBP 39).
To answer this question, in her work she highlights how the basic mistake of
this deterministic, positivistic-style, psychological conception lies in the con-
fusion between consciousness and psyche, according to which consciousness
would be overwhelmed by psyche itself. Hence, the division between psychol-
ogy, which studies the psyche, and the so called sciences of the spirit (among
which phenomenology), which study the conscience and its correlates, the
philosophical foundation of which is the main aim of the work.
Let us start from the essential distinction between causality and motiva-
tion, as presented by Stein, to later understand the role of memory in both
phenomena.
As for the psychic causality, it is essentially anchored to the subjects vital
strength (Lebenskraft), concerning particularly the sphere of the pure experi-
ences. The vital strength is the very source of causality. Indeed, Stein states:
living is the point where causality starts (BBP 58). And causing events are
the conditions of the vital strength that are shown in vital feelings. The vital
strength is the necessary precondition for life itself. It is a persistent quality
that is revealed in the change of the vital states of ones own Self. However,
it proves to be not quantitatively measurable, although it can be determined
qualitatively. Indeed, Stein states: The vital feelings that are communicated
to us are something qualitatively multiform and cannot be brought back to a
common denominator, that cannot be thought as a compound of equal unities.
Moreover, the vital strength can run out, in correspondence to a vital feeling
of a high degree of tension. When the living becomes more intense, the vital
strength tends to decline and tiredness takes its place, affecting, in its turn, the
degree of tension of living, which results softer. In these junctures every expe-
rience of ours happens to take softer profiles, almost faded, it seems to lose
its colour. Indeed, every transformation in the sphere of feeling or of the vital
feelings determines a change in the course of current experience. However, a
period of rest is enough to acquire again the original freshness. At this level
we can say that the psychic causality does not diverge much from the natural
one, that is from the mechanical happening. The difference, however, lies in
the impossibility to determine quantitatively, that it to measure, the strength
itself. Every prediction, then, seems fallacious and the role of memory seems
to vanish.
It seems evident, however, that the vanishing of the vital strength is often
overwhelmed by another source to draw from all the energies necessary for
action, namely the spiritual strength, that springs from motivation. Indeed, as
Stein states, the more a sensible vital strength is lost, the more it is spiri-
tually fostered (BBP 113). Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish, in the
vital sphere, between a sensible and a spiritual degree and at the same time a
sensible and a spiritual vital strength as different roots of the psyche (BBP
112), that increase each other, through a mechanism that allows to build a
capability depending on the other and diminishes it if the other capabilities
are increased by a greater strength (BBP 114). Indeed, Stein talks right of a
weave of causality and motivation.
The spiritual strength seems to draw new impulses and incentives for its
increase, coming from outside. But, in my opinion, we can affirm that the spir-
itual strength, and therefore, the motivation connected to it, draw their source
form memory too. Indeed, in order for the experiences to be perceived as
lasting, we must imply in the individual the ability to preserve them, that is
memory. Then, the functions of memory are the material foundations of the
psychic and spiritual life. The stream of consciousness, indeed, as presented
by Stein, is a pure becoming where the original whence remains in the dark-
ness. The new adds to it in a continuous production, where the phases flow
into one another, without ever being a sequence of uninterrupted phases, but
just an undivided and indivisible continuum. Therefore, it would seem impos-
sible even to talk about connection. But observing close to the very modality
of the flow becoming, we realize that if on one hand it is true that there is not
between the phases such a division that, with the becoming of the new one, the
old one dissolves every time, vanishes into thin air, it is also true that even
what is produced every time does not stiffen in the becoming and remaining in
that point persists dead, fixed and unchangeable, while the new becomes and
adds to it, as in a linear development (BBP 45). Instead, a living persisting
of the past occurs. Indeed, there is no death for the experiences, intended as
a sinking in full sense: the past is there in its liveliness, but leaves behind a
knowledge more or less empty and the past life, remaining preserved in this
change and being followed by a new one, increases the unity of a flow of expe-
riences (BBP 46). Indeed, it can also be said that the flow is one, as it comes
from a self. Then the self is what persists in the future of the past, what feels a
new life spring from it in every moment and that brings along the whole after-
math of the past (BBP 49). This passage is essential for the role of memory
in the constitution of the personal identity, above explained. With the acts and
their motivations the reign of sense and of reason starts: here are the
right and the wrong, the evidence and the non evidence, in ways that cannot
be found in the conscience devoid of acts. Therefore in a sphere there is a
blind happening, in the other, instead, a conscious doing or, at least, in the case
of implicit motivation, a happening that can pass to a conscious doing (BBP
78). In motivation, indeed, a happening is carried out on the foundation of the
other. Therefore, for causality we can speak about necessity of happenings,

while for motivation of fulfilling of the awareness originally obtained. Just
think, for example, of the deductive process or of a wilful action. However,
even in the lower degrees (as in perception) there is still a veiled rational
activity, where the motivations are carried out in the darkness and must be
brought to the light through an accurate reflexive analysis (BBP 79). Motiva-
tion is founded on a connection of sense between the motive and the motivated.
Indeed, during the motivation what really motivates is not so much the fulfil-
ment of the starting, but rather the content of sense of this act. And as seen
above, this unity of living given by the sense is proper of memory. It is through
memory, indeed, that I can give a unitary sense to the whole because by means
of it I can collect more acts, or experiences, in few moments. The duration of
the experiences is necessary for the progression of the flow, and this duration
is founded on memory. Indeed, Stein states, the experiences do not simply pass
one in the other, but it is possible that many of them are contemporary or that
they remain hidden for a certain length of their duration and that accordingly to
the experience may always be at hand (BBP 47). With the succession, indeed,
it is necessary to pay attention to what in the time of the experiences is con-
temporary. This contemporaneity is at the root of the so called association by
contiguity, for which all that has arisen in the same moment or, more generally,
that has been together for a certain moment, is reunited also in the past and in
all the transformations of its being, thus forming a whole.
Moreover, what has past (and is not dead, which is different, as seen above),
and then is closed and does not receive any further enriched, can also newly
grow in the unity of an experience with a subsequent phase that continues
living, that is that lasts. That is, it can come up again through presentification.
Besides, whereas causality has its analogous in physical nature, motivation
has none. This is why, with reference to causality we can speak of reproduction
of the experiences, whereas about motivation this is impossible and this is an
irreconcilable difference, that cannot be overcome in any way.
Memory, therefore, on one hand offers the material, say, the substratum, of
the pure becoming of the flow, right because as a becoming and, then, con-
tinuously actuating itself in time, and of its incessant progressive enrichment,
through the preservation of what has been actuated or lived in the very liv-
ing, both resumption, through repetition, reproduction or presentification of
remembering. On the other hand, giving an immediate unitary image of the
flow, it allows to catch the relationship between cause and effect in the acts,
and to extrapolate the sense.
M E M O RY A N D T E M P O R A L I T Y
The link between the functions of memory and the temporality of being, espe-
cially of man, receives another and clearer definition in Finite And Eternal
Being, where we can read: the past being and the future being are not simply
equivalent to non-being. This does not only mean that the past and the future
have a being identifiable in recollection and expectation, an esse in intellectu
(sive in memoria) (EES 75). Indeed, the real [actual] present being of the
moment is not thinkable as existing only for itself (EES 75, o.i.), as, even
being a being with a duration, it is not actual through the whole duration.
Indeed, in what I am in this moment, something hides that I am not cur-
rently, but that I will become actually in the future and what I am actually
in this moment, I already was, but not actually (EES 75). And this is just
because my being comes out as a being that is together actual a potential
being, real (wirkliches) and possible (EES 75, o.i.). It is clear that Stein draws
this teaching from Thomas. The aim of her work is, indeed, the research of both
Thomass categories, got in turn from Aristotelian metaphysics, of potency
and act, that define the temporal finite being, as living and, then, becoming,
incessantly realizing. Stein continues: my past being and my future being as
such are totally nothing: I exist in this moment, not before and not after. Only
because in recollection and in expectation I spiritually keep my past and future
being within a certain field, not rigidly delimited, the image of a past and of
a future full of permanent being is outlined to me, namely of an extension of
existence or being (Daseinsbreite), whereas my being is in fact on a knifes
edge (EES 7576, o.i.). We can notice that what Stein affirms seems to agree
with what was previously deduced, even if only mentioned, in On The Prob-
lem Of Empathy, and in Psychology And The Sciences Of The Spirit, where
these conclusions were already present, even though in embryo. Instead, here
is the full metaphysical development of the questions concerning memory, and
all the previous considerations receive a new light on the metaphysical back-
ground. Thus, Steins very philosophical progress also comes out in the form
of progressive advancing. Here opens all the problematic nature of time and
temporal being as such (EES 77), so our Self appears temporal, or like a
dot-like actuality, that continuously comes out to the light in an ever new way
(EES 78, o.i.). This has already been found in Psychology And The Sciences
Of The Spirit, where the flow of experiences was defined as a pure becoming.
This theme is taken up again in the section of Finite And Eternal Being dedi-
cated to the analysis of the innermost part of the soul, where it is written: the
sensible perception as the knowledge of the intellect is a unity of experiences
of longer or shorter duration. It proceeds and breeds vital motions. But if it dis-
appears its content is not lost, but kept in the innermost part of the soul, for a
more or less long time, or possibly also forever (EES 451, o.i.). The first type
of this acceptance and preservation, Stein states, is memory. Here Stein refers
essentially to the Augustinian conception of memory, more that to the Thomist
one, as according to Thomas, it should not be considered an essential fac-
ulty with the intellect and the will, but a spiritual sensible faculty subject to
the inferior and superior cognitive powers (EES 451, n. 92). Augustine, on
the contrary, well highlights that without the conscious action of memory no
knowledge would be possible. This reference to Augustine is not unusual. It is
due not only to the rediscovery of the Christian philosophical thought by the
Author, after her conversion, but also to the reference to it made by Husserl
in The Phenomenology Of Internal Time Consciousness, where he writes in
1905: The analysis of time consciousness in is an old cross of descriptive
psychology and of the theory of knowledge. The first to face thoroughly the
great difficulties of this field and to work hard around this theme almost to
desperation was Augustine. Chapters 1428 of the eleventh book of Confes-
siones should be accurately read by those interested in the problem of time.
Indeed, the modern age gave no better and more important contribution than
that offered by this great thinker, seriously engaged in the research. Today
we can still affirm with Augustine: si nemo a me quaerat, scio, si quaerenti
esplicare velim, nescio.20 The reference to Augustine cannot be renounced, it
seems. As Stein stresses, he prefers the triad memory-intellect-will, analysed
in De Trinitate (books VIIIXII), as he considers it more significant than that
of spirit-love-knowledge to understand the presence of the Triune-God in the
mans soul, namely as a sign of the analogia Trinitatis. It is derived from a
thorough examination of the relationship between love and knowledge: no one
can love something completely unknown (EES 462). That is, love implies a
precedent knowledge. But knowledge operated by the intellect would not be
possible without the help of memory. And with memory Augustine means sev-
eral things. With reference to spiritual life it is necessary to speak about the
action of memory, in different senses, or as: being in, proper of every spiri-
tual life, through which it is aware before it is known in a special act directed
towards that sense (EES 465); holding what has been known; and recollect-
ing, that is giving new life to what has been held. Memory, then, in its triple
activity is a Trinitarian unity in itself (EES 468). Likewise, it is essential to
the will, as without memory there would not be any flow of spiritual life,
and then, there would not be any spiritual being (EES 465). It is clear, then,
that in Augustine, like in Stein, memory, far from being subordinate, holds a
leading position in the spiritual life of that finite-temporal being that man is.
Indeed, in the Trinity, it is attributed to the person of the Father, Creator of the
universe, and, therefore, the beginning and origin of all. This, memory is also
the foundation of love in its highest degree, brought by knowledge and by will
(or wilful action), that is as a gift of oneself. This love, indeed, is possible only
thanks to memory, as without memory the spiritual person could not possess
itself and then give itself, either, that is love. However memory, in turn, has
its surer foundation in love (EES 467), just as knowledge and will result to
be conditioned by it, showing a reciprocal action between all of these compo-
nents. Indeed, how long [a unity if experiences] remains in memory depends
not solely but mainly on its degree of original penetration (EES 451). Is
this depth of penetration not linked someway to the love towards something
that we recognize the value of? In my opinion, this can be perfectly associ-
ated once more to the foregoing statements about the stories of life. Indeed,
life and the spiritual patrimony are possessed and kept the more firmly, the
more deeply they occurred in experience or learning (EES 467). This hap-
pens, Stein continues, when we think with the heart, which is the true centre
of life, is the organ of the body to the activity of which the life of the body
is linked. This way the contents absorbed from outside and penetrated do
not remain only as a patrimony of memory, but can be transformed into flesh
and blood. Thus, they can become a source of strength dispensing life (EES
452). Personal-spiritual life, indeed, is inserted in a great meaningful whole,
that in turn is also cohesion and action: every sense, once understood, needs a
behaviour corresponding to it, and has also the strength to move and stimulate
the latter to the action requested to indicate (EES 453). To indicate this set-
ting the soul in motion by a sensible element and towards a behaviour full
of sense and strength, Stein uses the original word of motivation, that, as seen
above, had been one of the basic themes of treatment in Psychology And The
Sciences Of The Spirit. Therefore, intellect, will and memory have their foun-
dation and end in love although indicating different directions of spiritual life
(EES 467). Whereas, indeed, with knowledge and will spirit gets out of itself,
with the activities of memory it remains in itself, as keeping and remembering,
namely being in, proper of spiritual life, show themselves in the innermost part
of the soul. In its innermost part, the soul opens towards the interior, and, if the
personal Self lives from here, it lives a full life and reaches the peak of its own
being, having all the strength of the soul and being able to use it freely. The
interior being, however, is not exhausted with memory. Indeed, we have a
triple interior life: a being-in, that knows its own being in the essential form of
memory, that in the same time is the first form of knowledge, a feeling-oneself
and an adhering wilfully to ones own being (EES 468, o.i.). But what can
the life of the soul consist of when it does not receive any further impression
from the outer world, and is not interested in how much it keeps in it in mem-
ory (EES 455)? When, indeed the Self withdraws in itself and closes itself to
the outer world, it obviously does not find much, because not only it closes the
doors of sense, but it also sets aside what its memory remembers.
M E M O RY I N T H E D A R K N I G H T O F FA I T H
This sort of interior life is described by Stein more in detail in The Science Of
The Cross, where she speaks of the mystical grace granted by God to those
who seek Him where he dwells, namely in the innermost room of the interior
castle, in the innermost part of the soul, where they strip themselves of the
senses and the images of memory, of the natural practical activity of intellect
and will to withdraw in the desert interior solitude, and remain there in the
dark faith, in a simple lovely look of the spirit towards the hidden God, who is
temporarily veiled (EES 457). We are exactly in the second chapter of Scientia
Crucis, where Stein describes the stripping of the spiritual powers of the soul,
made necessary by the transforming supernatural union of the soul itself with
God, and carried out in the intellect with faith, in the memory with hope, in
the will with love. Therefore, Stein states we must free memory from all the
natural obstacles that interrupt the course, and then raising it upon itself. It
must be stripped from every knowledge and image acquired by means of the
sensible sense (KW 91), in order to understand God and rest totally immersed
in the supreme good in total oblivion, without the least memory of anything.
God, indeed, is knowable more from what He is than from what He is not. To
reach Him, therefore, al perceptions, natural and supernatural, must be given
in, so that memory and, then, the soul, may result disposed to the reception
and ability to immerse in the abyss of faith, where all the rest is swallowed
(KW 94).
The reference to The Science Of The Cross, despite its mainly mystical-
theological character, came from a need to treat the theme of memory exhaus-
tively and comprehensively, in Steins philosophical-existential course, and I
think that it can also meet the interdisciplinary character herein. Therefore,
with it we have reached the end of this route, highlighting the crucial points.
M E M O RY A N D P H E N O M E N O L O G Y O F L I F E
Therefore, we can proceed to analyse memory in Anna-Teresa Tymienieckas

phenomenology of life. With this respect we found it appropriate to refer to the
treatment present in Phenomenological Inquiry, volume 13, entitled Vindicat-
ing Reason,21 where she refers to her chief treatise Logos and Life, Book 1.22
Here Tymieniecka highlights the basic link between memory and reason, in the
constructive progress of life, as it shows itself in the specifically human condi-
tion. However, her study starts from far, tracing the basic function of memory,
present since the beginning of the self-individualizing development of life in
its different phases, preceding the appearance of the crystallizing human cre-
ative act, which constitutes its peak of fulfilment. Indeed, Tymieniecka states
that if in the lucid human consciousness, and so in the conscious processes

of memory, the meaning-acquiring processes of life reaches its peak, never-
theless this highest degree is preceded by and prepared for several stages of
the self-individualization of life, beginning with the primogenital condition
(p. 99), on the basis of significant data at hand. Indeed, memory stretches
its activity throughout all spheres of unfolding individual life (p. 98) and is
present in the work of onto-poiesis of life from the start (p. 95), performing
a crucial life role, as well shown by cognitive processes: it saves significant
life accomplishments from being haphazardly dismembered and annihilated
in the rushing, recklessly advancing currents of life (p. 99). So we can find
the three basic features of memory throughout all the phases of lifes con-
structive progress. They are three: the deposition of a datum of significance
which emerged in an event, process, act, etc., and which would vanish with
this act were it not in some way recorded (p. 96); the preservation of this
significant datum, as a step forward of the process; and finally and this con-
stitutes the main point , the retrival of the significant datum from the passive
state in which it was lying in waiting (p. 96). These functions of memory,
I think, are strictly connected to those set out by Stein, and accurately quoted
here, in Finite And Eternal Being, and that she herself drew from Augustine.
This is, therefore, an initial contact with the two phenomenologists. Moreover,
the essential role of these three features is contributing to the connectedness
of process and acts, to the continuity of life, creating a consistent pattern of
continuity of experience and the world. Indeed, memory is the guarantee for
the succession of appropriate significant steps, and thus for the continuity of
lifes unfolding, for the constructive progress of life as such. The role of guar-
antor of the continuity of the self-individualizing process of life is similar to
what was declared above about the function of memory in historical compre-
hension and in the stories of life, where we spoke of memory as a witness
of the unity of the sense of life and of reality, stating that it is right thanks to
memory that we can speak of logos of life, as becoming. Here comes to the sur-
face again the deep link between memory and intellect, that is reason, proper
of the creative human condition, also stated by Stein in Finite And Eternal
Being, following Augustines triad memory-intellect-will. Indeed, as Tymie-
niecka states, the full register of human functioning unfolds under the aegis
of Imaginatio Creatrix and the three other faculties which emerge: will, intel-
lect, and memory; and of these, as they work in tandem, memory is not the
least important (p. 100). But, while will, imagination and intellect are the
new products of the specifically human individualization of life, memory
has been at its work from lifes first bursting forth (p. 108). So in the creative
act the human being transmutes the vital forces into the specific functions
and faculties of the creative orchestration (p. 101): will, imagination, intel-
lect and memory. These are indispensable to each other as each assumes its
respective role within the creative orchestration of the emerging human type
of self-individualized being (or self-interpretation-in-existence) (p. 101), and
together conduct the course of the expanding Logos of Life, Universal Rea-
son (p. 108). Indeed, memorizing is an active effort to bring together an
entire segment of data and by conscious effort to deposit it and record it so
firmly that it can be re-called into the active field of consciousness at will and
in its integrity. So we can also connect the re-called significant data of experi-
ence with the present. Stein also speaks in Psychology And The Sciences Of The
Spirit, as seen above, of the role of memory in the flow of experiences, namely
that of preserving their data, and assuring their duration for the reflexive activ-
ity of the intellect, and recalling, wherever necessary, also the data which are
apparently dead, in order to readmit them in the flow of events. In my opinion,
Tymieniecka seems to confirm this position, stating that the depositary role of
memory is essentially related to the proficiency of deposition as such which
allows this in waiting passive, static, existential status of data which can be
readmitted into the active flux of life (p. 98).
Moreover, as regard imagination, the role of memory is indispensable to sus-
tain the energy by capturing the host of imaginings that appear in the focus of
consciousness, and by keeping them in focus throughout successive experien-
tial processes more or less vividly, but sharply enough so that the deliberative
functions of the intellect can dwell upon them (p. 102). Here also comes out
an explicit reference to the deliberative activity proper of human intellect, that
cannot set aside, in turn, the contribution of will, and, then, motivation. There-
fore, the problematic weave between the different faculties of the human soul,
treated in Psychology And The Sciences Of The Spirit, and reasserted more
vividly in Finite And Eternal Being, comes up again, showing then another
confluence of the two point of view expressed, respectively Steins and Tymie-
nieckas. In the quotation, moreover, there is an allusion to the vividness of
imagination. In my opinion, there can be found another affinity about this with
Steins statements on the original penetration of data in the conscience which
occurs by the act of remembering, so that imagination appears more vivid,
when the similar images offered by memory are accepted deeper in the con-
science. Furthermore memory is involved in the valuation process, preserving
significant data and giving a basic register of items to choose from. Then signif-
icant data must be retrieved and reactivated to be combined with additional
relevant data. So in the valuation-selection process, significant data recorded
and retrieved by memory become the foothold for a succeeding step. It is pos-
sible to notice a coincidence with the previous assertions about the connection
between memory and action. The process of assessment and selection based
on memory is, in the final analysis, oriented to the action, by which the con-
structive progress of the world of life is realized, that is the passage analysed
in Finite And Eternal Being, from potency to act, proper of the becoming, as a
finite and temporalized being.
So, with the advent of the lucidity of the human consciousness in the world
of life we watch the appearance of both flexibility (of the selecting process) and
a self-projecting capacity. Moreover, while memory in pre-human spheres of
functioning operates on the basis of satisfaction, within the prototypic creative
act of the human being acquires the translucent expansiveness of experience
in the temporal horizons of the lived present, the past, and the future (p. 103).
Finally, but it is of primary significance, it is memory which establishes
and maintains the lived world for us, through instantaneous acts within the
objective sequences of experiential patterns (p. 107). And this is in contrast
with Husserl and traditional phenomenology, which attributed to the intel-
lect the constitutive role of the time sequence of present, past and future.
The protophenomenology of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, instead, avoids the
anthropocentrism which takes consciousness and the role of the intellect as its
starting point (p. 105).
Although, as Tymieniecka herself states, the moment of the individual
transition from the vital/psychic functional stage to the actualized Human Con-
dition remains to be envisaged with any acuity, we can assert from the analysis
carried out so far, that there are several analogies between Steins reflection
and Anna-Teresa Tymienieckas phenomenology of life, that we have focused
on. However, whereas the ontopoiesis of life allows us to investigate an infe-
rior level of action of memory, that is to say the prototypal one, Stein offers the
possibility with her following reflections23 to enlarge the horizon of research
to a superior level to the human subject, that is the community, that however,
does not provide any precise and thorough explanations about the theme of
memory. Consequently an interesting possibility of integration between the
two positions appears, that would need, however, further specific analyses.
NOTES
1
All English translations from Italian editions hereinafter are by the Author.
2
As suggested by Tymieniecka in her intervention in Falconara (Italy), in November 2006,
entitled: Human development between imaginative freedom and vital conditionings, during the
philosophical conference promoted by the Universit degli Studi di Macerata, on development in
its multiple aspects.
3
Ibidem.
4
Zum problem der Einflung, Buchdruckerei des Waisenhauses, Halle 1917. It. tr., Il problema
dellempatia, edited by E. ed E. S. Costantini, Edizioni Studium, Roma 1998. Hereinafter PE
with the number of pages in the Italian translation.
5
D. Verducci, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka. La trama vivente dellessere, in Il filosofare di
Arianna, AA. VV.
6
E. Stein, Beitrge zur philosophischen Begrndung der Psychologie und der Geisteswis-
senschaften: (1) Psychische Kausalitt; (2) Individuum und Gemeinschaft, in Jahrbuch fr
Philosophie und phnomenologische Forschung, Band V, Halle 1922. Published with the essay
Eine Unterschung ber den Staat, by the editor M. Niemeyer, Tbingen 1970. It. tr. Psicologia e
scienze dello spirito. Contributi per una fondazione filosofica, edited by A. M. Pezzella, presen-
tation by A. Ales Bello, Citt Nuova Editrice, Roma 1996. Hereinafter BBP with the number of
pages in the Italian translation.
7
E. Stein, Endliches und ewiges Sein. Versuch eines Austiegs zum Sinn des Seins, in Edith Steins
Werke, Band II, Herder, Louvain-Freiburg i. Br. 1959. It. tr. edited by L. Vigone, Essere finito e
essere eterno. Per unelevazione al senso dellessere, revision and presentation by A. Ales Bello,
Citt Nuova, III edizione, Roma 1999. Hereinafter EES with the number of pages in the Italian
translation.
8
Platone, o . It. tr. Fedro, 274c276a.
9
Platone, o . It. tr. La repubblica, Book VII, 514a518b.
10
E. Stein, Kreuzeswissenschaft. Studie ber Joannes a Cruce, in Edith Steins Werke, Band
I, Ed. Nauwelaerts, Louvain 1950. It. tr. edited by C. Dobner, Scientia Crucis, Edizioni OCD,
Roma-Morena 2002. Hereinafter KW with the number of pages in the Italian translation.
11
Tymieniecka, Human Development, Falconara 2006.
12
Ibidem.
13
Cf. A. Danese- A. Rossi, Educare comunicare, Effat Editrice, Torino 2001, pp. 20 and
following.
14
Cf. H.G. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode: Grundzuge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik,
Tubingen, Mohr, 1965. It. tr. Verit e metodo, Milano 1985.
15
L. Genovese, Insegnare e apprendere. Temi e problemi della didattica, Monolite Editrice,
Roma 2006, p. 77.
16
J. Dewey, Democracy And Education, see http://books.google.it/books?. It. tr. Democrazia e
educazione, 1916, p. 5.
17
Ibidem.
18
Ivi, p. 7.
19
Cf. E. Stein, Der Aufbau der menschlichen Person, in Edith Steins Werke, Band XVI, Herder,
Freiburg i. Br.-Basel-Wien 1994. It. tr. edited by M. DAmbra, La struttura della persona umana,
Citt Nuova Editrice, Roma 2000, pp. 121122.
20
E. Husserl, Zur Phnomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins (18931917), Husserliana Bd.
X, M. Nijhoff, Den Haag 1966, p. 3.
21
Cf. A.-T. Tymieniecka, Memory and rationality in the onto-poiesis of beingness, in
Phenomenological Inquiry, Volume 13 (October 1989), pp. 92108.
22
Cf. A.-T. Tymieniecka, Logos and Life. Book One, in Analecta Husserliana,
23
Cf. E. Stein, Eine Unterschung ber den Staat, in Jahrbuch fr Philosophie und phnome-
nologische Forschung, Band VII, Halle 1925. It. tr. Una ricerca sullo Stato, edited by A. Ales
Bello, Citt Nuova Editrice, Roma 1993.
J O A N N A H A N D E R E K
T H E S Y M B O L C O D E O F T H E PA S T, R E C O R D
OF HUMAN (EXISTENCE) LIFE, AND ONTOPOIESIS
OF LIFE
ABSTRACT
The article focuses on the analysis of the memory in the aspect of its func-
tioning in culture as a symbol. Starting from Ernst Cassirer, the author shows,
that the symbolical consciousness is the basis of cultural world of man. In
Cassiress philosophy the man, as a animal symbolicum cannot free himself
from symbolizing. Ipso facto, the reality is given to us in an intermediary,
symbolical from. The symbolical forms constitute background for language,
thinking and what is the most important, the memory in historical and psycho-
logical aspect. Going further to the concept of Paul Ricoeur, one can grasp
the complex structure of the symbol and its importance for mans culture.
The symbol is, above all, the space of human communication, reciprocation,
myth, consciousness and memory. The memory is understood as a cultural phe-
nomenon, which unifies with tradition and creates the identity of man. As Paul
Ricoeur wrote, The symbol gives rise to the thought, which means engagement
of man in culture and its various contents. Such engaging symbol doesnt
allow indifference to appear, making from memorys ambiguous contents the
foundation of existential development.
Paul Ricoeur, in his already classic dissertation about the symbol proposed
his understanding of symbol which approached a hermeneutical interpretation.
Symbol gives rise to thought is the opening line of the French philosophers
said text.
Looking closer at this expression, we instantly see its ambiguity. This ambi-
guity leads us to a certain understanding of the multifarious meanings of the
object described; that is symbol.
Lets ask then, after Ricoeur, what does it mean that the symbol gives rise to
the thought?
First of all, the symbol, giving rise to the thought describes symbol as or,
in the nature of representation. In the act of giving, something is passed on,
visualized, emphasized. Something is given here, and as a gift it cannot be
ignored.
125

126 J O A N N A H A N D E R E K
The symbol that is given makes, in this moment, a stimulating, or even

engaging claim towards the recipient. This way the symbol forces upon the
man an activity and an engagement. This is a stimulation to go deeper into the
represented layers of meaning.
On the other hand, the symbol, as given gives rise to the thought in the
sense that we are presented with the act of thinking itself. The activity, to
which we are motivated in the presence of the symbol is of an intellectual
character. This act of thinking opens us up to a whole hermeneutical process, in
which the engaged subject searches for a sense of represented content. This act,
primarily understood as a way of searching for the truth, will constitute the
way in this philosophy, which going from one sense or meaning to another,
leads the thinking subject to an ever deeper meaning which is enclosed in the
symbol. The symbol turns out not only to be a stimulating structure, but also an
ambiguous, or even a multi-layered sense construct, which, crucially, cannot
be left without being rethought. This way, the presented symbol becomes a
provocation.
Such a provocation of the symbol is linked with its multi-layered ontic
structure1 . Each ontic layer of the symbol presents us with a new sense, a
deepened and deepening meaning of itself. In every layer of the symbol, a new
level of the representation is given, sequentially improving understanding of
the essence of the analysed problem.
The first ontic layer of the symbol is always a layer of literal understand-
ing, but the symbol in its representation quickly enters the next levels thereby
revealing a higher generality.
Lets consider an example of a rose. Its first ontic level will be the appear-
ance and shape of the flower and its direct, that is sensual expression of beauty
and pain (thorns). In medieval symbolism, a red rose represented Christ (here
we reach the second ontic level of a symbol) a blood droplet from the dying
Christ, fell on the earth and fertilised it, causing such a flower to flourish. A
white rose symbolised the Holy Mother the white colour emphasized inno-
cence and attributes of divinity. In the same period of time, this symbol starts
to evolve in complexity. One could say its new ontic levels start to appear.
And so, the rose, together with holiness, divinity, sacrifice and humility of the
Holy Mother, starts to signify innocence and purity as such. This way, new
ontic levels of this specific symbol started to emerge. And so, the13th century
brings Roman de la rose altogether with a secular interpretation of this symbol.
Hence, another ontic level of the symbol appears, in which a rose stands for a
young woman, a virgin, an innocent person in concreto.
Coming back to Ricoeur and his interpretation of the symbol, the many ontic
levels of the symbol demands of us a reconsideration, the process of which can
THE SYMBOL 127
only have the strongest of influences on us. Ricoeur clearly shows that the sym-
bol doesnt lead us to understanding the problem; instead it opens before us a
whole road of reflection. Cognition in the hermeneutical tradition means a con-
stitution of a certain knowledge whereby an act of defining gives an apparent
closure to the problem. This way understanding implies the satisfaction of a
finished cognitive act. The act of thinking as interpretation on the contrary,
is an infinite, unceasing effort. The discovery of one meaning cannot set us
free from any such thinking. New meanings and contents constantly reveal
themselves as consecutive levels of the ontic structure of symbol.
Ricoeur himself finds two levels of meaning in a symbol: primary and sec-
ondary. The primary level is a direct one, having some kind of literalness.
The second is derivative of the first, but is in contrast non-direct, that is
metaphorical. In The Symbolism of Evil, a great study of evil and its symbol-
ism, he shows in practice what it means for the symbol to give rise to thought.
Since the primary sense is constituted through physical stimulation, and the
second level is derivative of the first, its physicality is what continues to endow
the symbol and those who contemplate it with meaning. This is the moment of
inspiration for human act of thinking. The symbol transfers our acts of thinking
to the area of questions about humanity, culture or eventually transcendence.
Of course at this point in the exposition, the reader has the right to ask,
what for is this whole theory of the symbol? After all, the problem as it was
first given here pertains to memory? The answer here is, that the symbol,
understood as a source of anxiety, an irritation of and to thought, challenges
human consciousness. However, this challenge is best understood against
the important fact that symbol is perhaps first and foremost a repository of
memory; that is a mechanism of reproduction. It is a special kind of car-
rier or repository of course, similarly, it is a special kind of memory we
speak about here. The symbol keeps in its content a trace of what is past,
stores for us memories of a world of not-quite-lost meanings, evoking in the
present what has been important and embedded in culture. The symbol is
Cultures memory, a record of meanings, which can always be obtained
and to which we can always come back. Undoubtedly though, what takes
place in the relation between the symbol and consciousness is a fundamental
event.
Ricoeur himself will suggest this dimension of symbol as memory, pointing
out how interpretation of the symbol is above all based upon a fundamental
feature of human existence.2 For the symbol opens before us the experience of
existence and that which is essential to it. Let us look at two philosophies and
their consequences to our deliberations, as an illustration to the above thesis.
Firstly, Sren Kierkegard, analyzing the problem of Abraham points out
two phenomenons: the necessity of coming back to the issue of Abraham and
silence. In the problem of Abraham, according to Kierkegard, an unsolvable

problem is hidden. It makes manifest a mystery of human existence, its clash
with transcendence and the inability of embracing faith with reason as the
individual comes face to face with the terror of Gods transcendence.
Abraham can be treated as a symbol, because in Kierkegaards interpre-
tation, he gives rise to thought. Therefore, as the philosopher concludes, he
cannot stop thinking about Abraham, he cannot divert his thoughts. The issue
of Abraham constantly comes back to the thinker, demanding, what we have
been calling, rethought. One cannot pass by undisturbed or unperturbed.
As for silence, it becomes, for the Danish philosopher, a form of symbolic
action. Silence says here the most, not only about suffering, experienced by
Abraham while going to Moira mountain with his son, but above all, about
faith itself. What could the story of Abraham explain in a rational discourse?
That God wants to test him; that such an act is required by faith itself? As
the Danish philosopher rightly presumes, such an explication would lead the
whole case to nothing more than a clich. The silence allows us for reflection,
enabling us to reach what disappears in simple unambiguous statement.
The symbol in its ambiguity and diversified interpretation allows man to
explain reality, in the moment in particular when the usual methods of com-
munication and being in the world fail. The symbol in this way responds to
the anxiety, transcendence or even absurdity of existence. To grasp something
in a symbolic form would thereby mean to get in touch with the truth, which
had remained hidden to human cognition.
This is why professor Strzweski will point out that the true nature of the
symbol belongs to the domain of the sacrum, or stating this differently, sacrum
is revealed in symbol.
Paul Ricoeur will write about the symbol in this context in The Symbolism
of evil.
The interpretation of the symbolism of evil leads to the question of guilt,
sin, metaphysical evil. Ipso facto he shows the bond between human existence
and the domain of the sacrum. Mans actions and its consequences lead to the
creation of values, the world of culture, demanding of him in turn a rigorous
interpretative praxis. Mans actions can often guide us to the sacrum and the
transcendent. For Ricoeur, the question about the nature of evil is thereby an
ambiguous question (as is every question about the symbolic); a question about
that which in mans action and thought binds the dimensions of existence and
transcendence. In this sense we say that an investigation of and into symbol is
in fact an investigation of and into the problem of man.
The second philosopher, whose tale about the grand myth as the biblical
parable in Kiergegaards analysis likewise becomes in similar way a contri-
bution to the investigation of human nature, is Herbert Marcuse. Writing about
THE SYMBOL 129
the myth of Prometheus versus the myth of Narcissus and Orpheus, Marcuse
points out two symbolic groups, which in mans action are transposed into two
methods of cultural behaviour.
The myth of Prometheus depicts strength, courage and dedication. With
these elements, betrayal, mutiny, guilt and punishment can also be seen. Guilt
and punishment are consequences of mutiny, Prometheuss oppositions to the
Gods sentences. This rebel becomes the symbol of sacrifice and obstinacy.
For Marcuse, he represents negative values however, coding into the world
of human nature values of mutiny, objection, even deception in the service
of labour as the superior value. Prometheus is stimultaneously the symbol of
change, leading the human condition out of a primary helplessness in con-
frontation with experiential reality into a state of culture and progress of
civilization.
Orpheus and Narcissus belong to the myth representing contemplation, art
and love for beauty itself. In mans thought these two myths, which run in
parallel according to Marcuse, work towards producing the symbology of pure
contemplation which is an act of creation heading towards the truth, the domain
of the sacrum. Above all, these myths allow man to realise his primal unity
with nature, his natural ground. In contrast to Prometheus, neither Orpheus
nor Narcissus possesses the power to change reality; they are not capable of
creating a civilization. The only thing they can do is describe the world and
human experience and eventually lose what they sought, but lose in the name
of Value.
In his book, Eros and civilization, Marcuse values, or shall we say reval-
ues the two myths. For him understanding they represent above all archetypes
of human attitude and behaviour. The myth of Prometheus brings with it a
series of normatively negative symbols which promotes an attitude of active
appropriation and reorganisation of the world. It builds in man not only the
desire for change but, above all, making him believe that every change, even
the most brutal, is a positive act. Gods can be opposed, and if so, there are no
values, restraining man from building his Civilization. The situation is differ-
ent with Orpheus and Narcissus. Marcuse values positively these two myths,
finding inside them the innocence and lack of self-interest in action, lost by
man. These values are represented by Narcissus especially since he doesnt in
actual fact know that he has fallen in love with his own reflection. This means
he contemplates the beauty which he sees for the beauty itself and in this way
builds a model of pure love grounded in emotion, which lasts independently of
any measurable benefits.
The myths and symbols created by them constitute a space in which human
culture realises itself. They are models of human functioning in the world, so
ipso facto, symbols according to the philosopher determine the man in his exis-
tential attitude towards reality. The symbols build the space, in which the man
not only expresses himself, but simultaneously creates himself in his searches
for identity, that is his specificity as a mode of being in the world.
Examples found on the one hand in the obsession of asking about Abraham
in Kierkegaards philosophy and the analysis of Orpheus and Prometheus
myths in Marcuses thought on the other, exemplify what Ricoeur called giv-
ing rise to the thought in the multilayered ontic structure of the symbol. Above
all, they allow us to realise, that by asking about the symbol, we are asking
about something more than just an element of art, science, language or human
culture. In fact, we are asking about ourselves; the possibility of expressing
the human condition, its shaping in confrontation with the world into which
(as Heidegger would state it) we are thrown. These examples show at the
same time, that a group of supertemporal symbols exists which functions as a
permanent carrier of supergenerational memory. However, these as best under-
stood as functioning as references or scripts for the inter-generational dynamic
process of interpretation. This process of interpretation is a process of cul-
tural and social change. Therefore it is impossible to understand Man without
referencing that process.
Coming back to the interpretation of the symbol as a carrier of a specific
type of memory, we can now say: since symbol brings with itself the content
or meaning of shared culture and history, it gives rise to the thought con-
cerning, above all, our collective cultural identity. This way we are confronted
with the question about who we are becoming over time and in the presence of
our history. Undoubtedly, the content stored in symbol influences us; the layers
of meanings, growing in time, give us a medium through which to understand
reality as well as the human condition persisting throughout history.
Ricoeurs formula refers to one more important aspect. The fact that the
symbol gives rise to the thought means that we are dealing with the interpreta-
tive effort as an imperative. That is, symbol presents itself as a mystery to be
solved. As we have seen, it is this imperative that is responsible for the creation
of new meanings. From this perspective the structure of symbol is revealed as
dialogical. The symbol is a space between you and me, between the one who
gives the symbol and the other who takes it to himself and in so doing inter-
prets it. The symbol by its nature is a task for somebody. If we treat the symbol
as a sign of the past, which in its representation gives itself to us regardless
of the flow of time, we can then say that this is a sign left by past generations
for the people of today. Stating it differently, in the symbol the memory of
that which is past is expressed. In this aspect the dialogical structure of the
symbol is above all a relation which appears between an unseen subject and a
searching interpreter. The symbol hides in itself a task, left for us a long time
THE SYMBOL 131
ago. It gives rise to the thought, building a new dimension to our memory,
which reaches over the dimension of individual experiences, drawing from the
cultural endowment of man.
As dialogical, the symbol will not only guide us to a multilayered structure
of its senses and meanings, but also to the one who sent the symbol to us.
The question about the content of the symbol points to the question about the
one who created this content. The imperative of interpretation presents to us
the existence of another or other human being(s), thereby enriching our own
existence, making the world of human relations expanded by the experiences
presented by the past and its symbols.
Ernst Cassirer deepens such an understanding of the symbol in his grand
concept of the human being as animal symbolicum, and culture as the realm of
realisation of symbolic forms. Cassirer takes us however to some other regions
of thinking about the symbol and human memory.
For Cassirer the symbol is not only an ambiguous structure, a multilay-
ered ontic space. The symbol is a transcendental category, and therefore,
an important dimension of human ways of perceiving reality and the world.
Symbolizing is an ability of mans mind, being in fact a specific necessity.
The human being, according to this philosopher cannot cut himself off from
symbolizing; it is inherent to his nature. Man brings symbol and symbolizing
to the world as an element of perception and organisation of empirical data.
The spirit of kantian philosophy pervades Cassirers conceptualizing.
Because of that, symbolising has a transcendental character, becoming a com-
mon human activity, a typically human method of organising sensually given
reality. Above all, the act of symbolising bonds the contents of the human
spirit with material signs, uniting the sensual with the intellectual. The find-
ing of unity in affinity between the sign and its meaning, between, that is the
material and spiritual is accomplished in this vision of world. In this sense, the
material, becoming the exponent of spiritual contents and their carrier moves
on to a different level of being.
Culture is for Cassirer the world of symbols, which are made by man and
in which man lives. As in kantian thought, where the senses cannot reach the
thing-in-itself, in Cassirers philosophy it is impossible to reach the culture in-
itself. What we are given are, above all, its creations, artifacts through which
we can eventually analyze culture itself. Culture is given to us through what
is created, called by Cassirer monuments of human culture. Although made
of different materials and from different attitudes of the creators, they all
constitute a trace, a symbolical recording of human presence. That is they all
bring with them memory of the creator, and with it the possibility of interpret-
ing human existence. Pointing at the language, myth, history and art as the
world of symbolical forms the German philosopher creates a net of cultural
symbols in which the memory of our existence and the possibility to interpret
knowledge about cultural existence of man is woven.
The symbol reveals itself in this light as common to all human forms
of perception of the world, a typically human reality, through which the
man not only can express himself, but, above all, can create culture. The
world of symbols belongs to the order of culture, which in Cassirers inter-
pretation is different from the order of the world of nature. Analyzing Man
from the point of view of his anthropological endowments, Cassirer points
to symbolizing as the characteristic feature, distinguishing Man from other
species. In other words, for Cassirer, the man, along with other animals,
inherits some features of instincts and the like; however, all these common
features do not determine the specificity of the human being which is of
primary importance to the philosopher. Man can only be understood and dis-
tinguished by his ability for and uses of symbol. This ability creates a unique
quality, unprecedented in the animal world, not only separating Man from
reality as it is given biologically, but above all determining his fundamental
character.
The ability to symbolize is the condition of being a man. With such an
assumption we will not be surprised that the author of this theory sees the
spectrum of human knowledge as given and as found in the symbol. This
knowledge because of its specific character its ambiguity, intermediation and
the necessity of interpreting it will not be given directly. Ricoeurs formula,
stating that the symbol gives rise to thought, also in this case preserves its vital-
ity. It will relate though to a broader spectrum of problems and is therefore
expressive of more. Briefly stated, language, myth, history and art will give
rise to thought, as a sign, trace, in which the interpreting man has a possibility
of finding himself and his past.
It is my presumption that the paths as laid down in these philosophies lead
inevitably towards reaching the historicity of man historicity, which as we
know, can only be ambiguously understood. (But what isnt, we may ask,
ambiguous, especially, if we treat philosophy and philosophical anthropology
the same: as the manifestations of symbolic forms?)
For Martin Heidegger, Man was a temporal being and it was only through
his temporality that he was possible to understand. Time for Heidegger was
firstly inner time, a time of consciousness or rather a consciousness of time.
However, this consciousness leads us to a second time, the perspective of
historical time. Likewise Wilhelm Dilthey analyses man as an historical being.
However, not only is man incomprehensible if viewed outside of time and his-
tory, he is also non-existent. In Cassirers philosophy this thought takes on both
existential and historical dimensions. The man, building around himself the
world of culture thus a world of symbols builds simultaneously the world
THE SYMBOL 133
of his own historicity. Here the reference to history then takes on a special sig-
nificance. The problem of history, as a symbolic form of human culture, reveals
the meaning of memory and its foundation in symbols. This understanding and
this meaning is incorrigible. Let us consider, in detail, why this is so.
Writing about historical material, analyzable by the historian, Cassirer inter-
prets it in the following way: the historical material belongs to the domain
of the past, irretrievably lost. What the researcher analyses belongs to the
domain of memory, not contemporary facts memory, which presents itself,
like symbol, to us in an indirect way, through traces, left by the past in the
present.
His facto belong to the past, and the past is gone forever. We cannot reconstruct it; we cannot
waken it to a new life in a mere physical objective sense. All we can do is to remember it give it
a new ideal existence. Ideal reconstruction, not empirical observation is the first step in historical
knowledge.3
The past which is worth repeating belongs to the domain of memory. It

is in consciousness and through consciousness that the possibility of reaching
the past is given to us. The memory preserves, but, as we know, it doesnt act
in an unambiguous way. The memory preserves in creative way, we could
say it reconstructs the past. Therefore recognition of the past, referring to the
domain of memory requires a special kind of interpretation.
Once again, the hermeneutical understanding may come to mind here. Start-
ing from Droysen, through Dilthey and finishing with Gadamers grand work,
we can clearly see that a special cognitive power is used in interpretation. It can
not only reveal what remains hidden (in the symbol), but above all it can help
make clear the tangled meanings, which at first might seem incomprehensible.
Interpretation, according to hermeneutics, acts indirectly. As a way of thinking
about an issue, interpretation constantly searches and asks questions. We could
say it is an art of asking questions, tracking step by step the answers. Often
the act of interpretation makes if not constitutes meanings for together with
the posed questions it broadens the possibilities of understanding and of reach-
ing meaning. That is why interpretation as it is understood here is so effective
for reading a symbol; it fully responds to its engaging character, harmonizes
with its multilayered construction, incessantly searching for new meanings and
new content layers.
For Cassirer history as the domain of memory is exposed to interpretation,
an art of reading that which is enclosed in the record of symbolical forms. That
is why we can find the following statement in the German authors work:
But to what can the historian direct this question? He cannot confront the events themselves, and
he cannot enter into the forms of a former life. He has only an indirect approach to his subject
matter. He must consult his sources. But these sources are not physical things in the usual sense
of the term. The historian finds at the very beginning of his research is not the world of physical
objects but a symbolic universe a world of symbols.4
A comparison of the work of a historian and a physicist brings out clearly the
nature of the two worlds: natural, where the laws exist on a different basis than
events ruled by the laws of human memory and consciousness; and the world
of culture, where the specifically human ability to symbolise comes to the fore.
The physicist, writes Cassirer, also interprets the world indirectly, employing
the world of symbolic forms of language and all notional constructs. In exact
sciences, attempts at reaching the world as it is, and not as it appears to be, are
made. No matter how unsuccessful he is, or even impossible his task proves
to be, the physicist continues to assume in the face of the fact of Mans inces-
sant symbolizing that the object and the properties of his cognition could be
defined as objective.
The historian cannot make such an assumption. Never will he be given an
event of the past, as a physical phenomenon. He will always have to extract
facts from memory, reconstruct them from traces left for him by past genera-
tions. Cassirer points out all types of documents and artifacts are symbols as
we have rendered them, through which the past comes to us and indeed, the
fact of intermediation, performed by the historian and his work seems obvious
to us in this situation.
What is most interesting, and at the same time the most important for
Cassirers statement is his comments concerning the turn, performed by the
historian. To start analysing his matter, he has to refer to the source, come
back to the roots or the essence of thinking, the fundaments of interpretative
possibilities. The question about history and its possibility becomes the ques-
tion about the historian himself. The foundation or possibility of interpretation
and also what provides for historical consciousness is in fact the foundation or
the condition of the possibility of the human being and its specificity. Mem-
ory draws forth the past for us, but with this past it extracts the knowledge
we have or come to have about ourselves. That is that the past provides us
with knowledge about ourselves. The historian, referring to what is essential to
him, encounters consciousness. What is more he is presented with the chance
of obtaining self-consciousness. Thus, similar to the hermeneutic circle rule,
the domain of generality refers to existence, and existence evokes generality.
Evoking the past in interpretation, it broadens the meaning spectrum of today.
As I have already mentioned, the meaning of the symbol can have a dialogi-
cal dimension the symbol by its essence refers to another man its creator or
its interpreter. This way the symbol creates a space of interpersonal relation, as
a specific communication which exists in culture. It is connected with the pri-
mal meaning of the Greek word symbol, which meant an object (it could have
THE SYMBOL 135
been a coin, a tablet), breakable into two parts. One half was kept by the orig-
inal owner, the second, another. Such another with such a symbolon received
a certain message and in so doing became contracted with the giver into a
demanding relationship. This other had to answer the call, that is give
back the incurred debt while showing his grattitude to the one who endowed
him with the second half of the symbolon. In this way we see that from the
very beginning this concept was related to meaning and its communication,
the identification and dependencies which occur between people.
The dialogical aspect of the symbol is thus a fact and as fact has the power
to start a communicative act, bind people together and impose a relation of
mutuality. This leads us straight to the role of the language. For Cassirer this
latter fact is pointed to by what becomes the obvious fact that language, above
all, belongs to the world of symbolic forms, and does so as one of the most
important dimensions of human symbolizing. Understood in this way, lan-
guage doesnt only provide communication, but more importantly, it creates
a space for community, that is dependency between participants of a culture.
Without speech there would be no community of men.5 Language in its
twofold dimension (of the recorded and the spoken word) creates a cultural
space, and in its presence people concentrate together, finding a possibility not
only to communicate, but above all to coexist. In this way language as a sym-
bolic form unites us in meaning. It unites us in relation to certain vision(s) of
the world and reality. Hence, according to Cassirer, language closely correlates
with myth, fulfilling as it does a similar task in regard to man they both serve
as carriers of the laws of reality and ways of functioning in the world. Ana-
lyzing this unifying, culture making function of language, Cassirer presents
us with a series of concepts concerning language. He engages in polemics
especially with the researchers who are looking for Lingua Adamica.
Lingua Adamica was an idea of language, sought for throughout the ages
by many philosophers, and in XVIII century, still vital amongst thinkers, it
shaped the means of thinking about language. Its adherents strived to find the
primal language, which would not only be the pre-language of human-
ity, but also the fundament for all languages existing in the world. The search
for this primal, Adamica lingua can of course be related to the myth of the
tower of Babel which graphically shows the consequences of unlimited com-
munication between people. Pride is the fundamental sin of an unfettered use
of language. Language is a precious, yet dangerous gift. Philosophers, start-
ing from Platos warnings, through to contemporary analyses of language and
myth, have cautioned against the incorrigible ambiguity of the language.
The finding of lingua Adamica would mean the discovery of the very
foundations, common to all cultures and all language forms. Cassirer rejects
this quest, perceiving in it, as he states, a search for a rule of substantial
unity6 which can be nothing but a fools-gold. For Cassirer basic and of
prime importance to language is its functionality. In other words, when we
deal with language we deal with the primary symbolic form which as such
performs a crucial and specific function: providing the possibility of commu-
nication, description of the world, expression of ones emotions, experiences,
knowledges is the basis, according to the philosopher, of the universality
of language. Language is a powerful tool in the hands of every man a
tool, which can be used to gain knowledge and maintain an attitude towards
the world. Therefore it can arrange and systematize what emerges before us
vaguely and non-specifically in pre-reflectivity. That is why the patent diver-
sity of languages, words and possibilities of generating statements, as well
as a not infrequent incommensurability of grammatical forms is of secondary
importance to the fundamental function, which is its utility as a tool. It is this
that unifies since it is this through which and in view of which people can
construct their relations.
In such an interpretation, language has, then, its symbolic meaning. Firstly,
the world is given to man through language. The description and understanding
of the world and its phenomenons creates the symbolic space of mediation.
A similar formulation of this issue can be found in Roland Barthes thought
where we find this forthright statement: The myth is the word. In the light of
this assertion we can see an interesting illustration of Cassirers thought.
For Barthes The myth is the word in a specific way. Above all, it is the
word that constitutes reality. It appears as a response to the world of culture,
human actions, history, and events that take place in mans surroundings. Pro-
cessing this material, man can more completely express what appeared
and what happened. The world has then the power of stimulation, or as
Barthes would state it, it is by nature mythogenic, it causes a reaction of human
consciousness. Being in the world and experiencing reality, man creates myth-
words through which he can understand what surrounds him. But, at the same
time, in this understanding a preservation of what is past is effected. The
myth-word is a trace of the past, a record in our collective memory of events,
norms and values.
Because the world is mythogenic everything can become a myth, every ele-
ment of reality can be processed by man in this way can be symbolised.
This way a tree may stop being a tree and instead become a symbol of an
element rooted to the earth, reaching for the sky; that which is stretched
between earthly and cosmic order. The tree of life, axis mundi these are all
symbols created by the clash of man and his perception with his surroundings.
In this understanding, the symbol evolves from experience and the attempt of
understanding reality.
THE SYMBOL 137
Myth as speech is a multifarious record for Barthes, the myth-speech can be:
speech as such as well as literature, photography, reportage, advertisement and
the like. In Mythologies he shows us in a practical way what this might mean.
He shows us attempts to grasp beauty, the dependence of eternality on tempo-
rality and the relationships between perfection and imperfection in human life.
The philosopher speaks about different elements of everyday life and events.
These man tries to understand, and in the process periodically moves them
to another dimension, thus conferring significance on this everydayness.
In a series of short myth-stories, in which all these elements of culture arise, as
medieval transcendentals, Barthes shows what is the foundation for the most
important symbols of culture. What is essential in Mythology is to show that
myths (of everydayness) are the exhibition of mans entanglement in ideals
where the action of a Man is situated between or entangled in two borders
the first representing the limits of our possibilities, the second, our ideals as
manifest in our utopian projects. Being in relation to the world in this context
is being in relation to ideals and individual projects whose realisation can guar-
antee man his constitution. But, as we know from the existential commentary,
this constitution is never to be finished. The myths of everydayness shown
by Barthes point to one more very important rule. Its description was also
attempted by Cassirer. Man is neither directly in his world, nor does he under-
stand his reality in an unambiguous way. In human existence there is always
the inherent activity of consciousness. That activity has the power to change
human existence, taking it into another mythological dimension. Mythol-
ogising, or, as Cassirer would state it, symbolising points to the situation in
which reality, on one hand is never privy to man from an extracultural perspec-
tive, and on the other allows man to transcend the biological foundations and
mechanisms of nature. Symbolising places tasks in front of the man thereby
building culture as a mediatory space.
However, the difference between Barthes and Cassirer is a fundamental one.
For the French thinker, word-myth is what appears in Mans clash with reality
and is conditioned by that same mythogenic reality. For the German philoso-
pher symbolising, effected by man is possible because we possess, as Kant
would state it, the apriori structures of symbolical thinking. In other words
man can only always perceive the world through symbols. However, Cassirer
shares with Barthes a belief about the adaptation of speech to the human world
and the relation which appears between our surroundings and our descriptions
of it. The world given in language is still the subject of our anxiety; it calls us
to reconsider, and it inspires us. It is impossible to escape from this anxiety-
inspiration. Yet for Cassirer it is not that reality is mythogenic, but instead that
our symbolising imposes upon the world additional meanings. Language has a
special function, for through it the world itself is given to us.
Analyzing this phenomenon, Cassirer shows how, in different languages,

the slow process of the creation of abstract notions takes place. This process
is related to the change in human perception and our reactions to the world.
The primal attitude of man towards reality is the most direct one since
then culture was embryonic and as such relatively uninfluential. Then, exis-
tence was proportionately more concrete: hot, cold, big, small, useful or
distant. Every notion related directly to the described phenomenon. Abstrac-
tion appeared with time, and it allowed us to not only perceive, but also to
describe whole classes of objects, thereby overcoming the individual percep-
tion of the world. That is why Cassirer calls it the process of raising towards
notions and universal categories which are at the same time developments of
speech,7 developing consequently our knowledge of the world.
The language as a symbolic form is therefore a specific space where human
consciousness and knowledge express themselves. Language has on the one
hand the ability to preserve for us certain stories, becoming, in record, a
form of memory. On the other hand, language, as a description leading to
abstract notions so also to broad issues concerning reality preserves for
us the over-individual, which our individual experience could have never
grasped. Memory here the reader will recall is of a specific kind. It relates,
as in Barthes word-myth to archetypes, general symbols of reality. For Cas-
sirer it provides the possibility of expressing our vision of the world, providing
then a certain way of cognition and with it formation of our vision of the world.
Repeatedly, memory plays tricks on us. Sometimes it covers more than we
think it does. Sometimes it unveils something out-of-date, causing surprise
or renewed fascination. Memory, we could say, doesnt act directly, and its
functioning cannot be narrowed down to simple associations. When we say that
there is a correlation of memory to symbol, we mean that symbol is a specific
kind of culture-memory. This idea posits yet another definition of symbol. The
symbol often doesnt act directly. But frequently symbol covers that which is
given to us directly and because of this we may say symbol acts in a negative
way and paradoxically in so doing reaches a deeper level of meaning, hidden
to our first perception.
Writing of language, I deliberately didnt make a distinction between the
written word and speech. Cassirer himself pointed out this duality. It is difficult
to forget it, for in philosophy a certain division along this line is entrenched.
Let us go back to Plato for a moment, for in this philosophers thought, as in
most cases, a suggestion solving this problem is hidden. Discussing speech
and the written word both in Phaidros and in the 7th letter, Plato marks the
qualitative difference between writing and speech. Writing preserves, it closes
off meaning into a record that cannot be developed or revitalised. These mean-
ings lend themselves to manifold interpretation and misunderstanding. They
THE SYMBOL 139
become defenseless to the indiscreet intrusions of the reader. Moreover, writ-

ing, as Plato emphasizes, relieves memory, that is, what is written may be
forgotten a piece of paper may contain all the necessary information, a book
will present us its knowledge, to which we may return at our leisure. Ipso facto,
writing is connected to forgetting, and as such is a negative process, in which
man distances himself from the essential.
The situation with speech is different. It demands engagement and memory.
It is alive. In speech we most effectively develop our thoughts. But speech
is open. It provokes. It allows us to ask questions and reconstitute meanings.
Speech searches for truth. It does not provide for us a closed text. Above all,
the speech is dialogical, so it opens us to cooperation with another man.
Valuation which was made at the beginning by Plato emphasizes the role
of memory which involves man in the process of thinking. Concentration,
and the effort of memory which is required in speech is simultaneously an
effort serving the purpose of cognition. Writing which as we have seen closes
and disorganizes memory entails a degeneration of human thought. Although
symbol is a record of meaning, a closure in a specific representation, it has,
unlike writing, a provocative character. Rather, symbol is like speech: it acts
indirectly, asks a question, provokes, gives rise to thought. Symbolic record
is not an unambiguous record. It is an interpretative statement. It demands
from man discussion, engagement. In symbol memory becomes stimulated.
Through concealment, the symbol forces us to see things in a completely dif-
ferent light. It makes us bring back from memory details which surpass our
direct or simple sensation of the world. By concealing, the symbol shows us
the activity of memory and thus engages the man with his world the world of
culture-reality into which his being was thrown.
To close this story about symbol and about memory as it was encoded into it,
we must here emphasize an important, if not the paramount issue time. Time
and memory are linked inseparably together. Since Bergson and his Matter
and memory, it is difficult to add here anything new. What we can do though,
is to emphasize this dependence. Cassirer refers to Bergsons concept, paying
him homage and suggesting at the same time, that his ambition is to outline
the problem from a different perspective the perspective of phenomenology
of culture8 .
Time and memory are symbolic forms and as such mediatory. In this case
the mediation stretches between our experiences and that which is past, and
is recorded in our memory and, due to the flow of time, partially taken away
from us. The past is always given to us in a symbolic representation, intro-
duced to us by our memory. In Cassirers analysis we can see not only elements
of Bergsons concept, but, above all, a husserlian inspiration. The concept of
retention and protention, understood as a consciousness of the passage
of time, is a concept which points to the many levels of our experience or

imagining of the future and past. This concept is helpful in reading Cassirers
thought.
Symbolic memory is the process by which man not only repeats his
past experience but also reconstructs this experience. Imagination becomes a
necessary element of true recollections.9 The human consciousness collects
individual data, stores and organizes it. This motion of organization develops
into constituted meaning. This moment refers to the concept of Sartre, who
in his glorification of human freedom emphasized that even the past does not
have a determining influence. This is because consciousness not only has the
ability to decide which moment of the past to bring forward, but also it can
change this past in its process of reevaluation and reconstitution of meaning.
Ipso facto it is the man that decides his vision of the past, in memory. In this
way we may say that it rules over the past.
In opposition to Sartre, Cassirer does not here see Mans freedom in
operation, instead he emphasizes the creativity of memory itself. Memory
operates on the representations given it. That is why not only the past, but
also the present reflects in it. In other words, memory presents past events in
an unclean way, applying new interpretations, desires and aspirations to them.
Subordinated to the activity of consciousness, memory nonetheless co-operates
and together they present us the past.
The past has a symbolical aspect for Cassirer. Indeed, it cannot have any
other since only through symbolic memory can we reach the past. This does
not imply, however, that it is completely fixed. Nor can we say it is a process
of falsification. In symbolic memory the activity of consciousness is revealed.
It acts indirectly. It constantly forces us to interpret and reinterpret as it estab-
lishes new ground for new premises and outlines a new area of meaning. In
an evident way, the interpretation of hermeneutics returns here since it is there
that it is emphasized that it is impossible to experience the past in an objec-
tive and uncommitted way. Always we are engaged in the past in the present.
This engagement is of an inquiring attitude which presents us facts from the
past in the light of the present. Not without significance, while analyzing the
matter of symbolic memory, Cassirer draws his examples from culture. Firstly,
he points to Goethe and his biography with its telling title Truth and fiction.
Here the past undergoes the rigorous processes of reconstruction. What is past
is subjected to interpretation. This means that this past takes place, once again,
but this time through the prism of contemporary re-reading. Cassirer concludes
with a characteristic statement: Goethe wanted to discover and describe the
truth about his life, but this truth could only be found by giving to the isolated
and dispersed facts of his life a poetical, that is a symbolic shape.10
THE SYMBOL 141
Cassirer also quotes Henrik Ibsen, with his remark that the poet becomes
the most severe judge for himself. This judgment, elicited by poetry, is the
judgment of symbolic memory and consciousness, which, analyzing the past,
makes it the object of its inquiry. The man, thanks to this analysis, can,
once again, understand these past events, and ultimately himself. This
analysis of the past leads to a deeper understanding of human existence.
We can now see clearly that the adventure of symbolical consciousness con-
fronted with time can guide our thinking about symbol and the understanding
of the world in new directions. Its not a question of grasping the meaning
of poesis of life and the relationship between man and reality. Neither is it
an issue of the visualization of cultural relations taking place between people
thanks to the symbolic record, and through this record, developing more and
more complex structures. This whole reality can become, through memorys
reconstruction, a mirror not only of the world itself, but also of the individ-
uals being. In this way, symbolic memory can lead to an understanding of the
complex relations in the world and between self and the world.
Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland
NOTES
1
W. Strzewski, Sens i istnienie, Znak, Krakw, 1998, p. 238.
2
P. Ricoeur, The Interpretation Theory. Discourse and the superplus of the meaning, Christian
University Press, 1976, p. 45/55.
3
E. Cassirer, An Essay on Man. An introduction to a philosophy of human culture, Yale
University Press, 1963, p. 174.
4
Ibid., p. 174/175.
5
Ibid., p. 221.
6
Ibid., p. 221.
7
Ibid., 230.
8
Ibid., p. 51.
9
Ibid., p. 52.
10
Ibid., p. 52.
SEMIHA AKINCI
O N K N OW I N G : W H E T H E R O N E K N OW S
ABSTRACT
I will start with a poem, which I intend to tie up to this poem firstly in response
to one of my frequent lamentations concerning the lack of imagination com-
mon to most of us and secondly of Kant for the lead he gave the Romantic
Idealist by refusing the possibility of knowing the realm of physical noumena.
I have since regretted that, I do not do a good job of defending my criticism
of the transcendental philosophy, confining myself rather to pointing out some
of the unfortunate consequences of that approach, as rendered explicit in the
evil of Hegels teaching. I would take the opportunity offered by this article
to amend this failing by offering an internal criticism of the conception of
knowledge on which the transcendental philosophy apparently rests. I will try
to bring out the connection with the poem.
INTRODUCTION
The words of the Persian poem translate roughly to the following effect:
Applaud and adore the one who knows, and also knows that he knows, for
he has undoubtedly attained Gods blessing;
Alert and make aware the one who knows, but does not know that he knows,
for he is missing the pleasure the most valuable treasure can give;
Do not despise or deride the one who does not know, but at least knows that
he does not know, for he can conduct his lame as whither he will;
But beware and feared of the one who does not know, and also does not
know that he does not know, for he is verily the worst curse of God.
Kants theoretical philosophy seems to be based on the following two main
premises: (1)The consciousness processes the data which reaches it directly
from the realm of physical noumena1 and transforms this data into a product
which is empirical knowledge. What is known is this product, not the source of
the raw data; the realm of noumena is not knowable at all. (2)We know the truth
of synthetic a-priori propositions because these are true in virtue of the way in
which the processing consciousness is constituted; at least some of us, includ-
ing Kant himself, can attain detailed knowledge concerning the structure of the
consciousness, as a consequence of which it transforms the data from the realm
of noumena into phenomena2 in the particular way it does. Oizerman argues
143

144 SEMIHA AKINCI
that while Kant did often relate the noumena to things in themselves, noumena
are objects of pure reason, and have no relation to our sense perceptions. As
such they lie outside the realm of knowledge and are unable to be proved.
Things in themselves, however are not objects of pure reason, they affect our
sensibilities through phenomena, or the world of appearances.3 Because we
perceive these appearances, there must be something that is appearing. Since
they are linked to the world of appearances, things in themselves are subject to
categories of unity, plurality, causality, community, possibility, actuality and
necessity. This assertion is exactly why many people object to the idea of
things in themselves. Kant states that we can have no knowledge of them,
yet Oizerman says that we can think of them in terms of those categories.
Shaper discusses the thing in itself as a philosophical fiction. By this she means
that Kant was not advancing the thing in itself as a truth that is evident from
what he had proven in his theories, but a useful tool to understand phenomena.
The thing in itself is a theoretical limit on noumena.4 The thing in itself, or
the object, as opposed the phenomenon, the subjective effect produced in our
consciousness.
These two assertions are not immediately compatible, since while (1) says
only phenomena, the products of the consciousness, can be known, (2) quite
transparently implies that the consciousness, and the way it transforms data
from noumena, can also be known, although knowledge concerning the struc-
ture of the consciousness is not itself among the items of knowledge produced
by consciousness. One way of reconciling this tension is to introduce a dis-
tinction between directly phenomenal knowledge, which consists exclusively
of the immediate deliverances of the consciousness, and obliquely phenomenal
knowledge, which is attained through investigation of the pervasive rele-
vant features of such immediate deliverances. Once some such distinction
is introduced, it may consistently be maintained that (1) and (2) are about
directly phenomenal knowledge, while they are themselves prima examples
of obliquely phenomenal knowledge. While admitting such meta-empirical
knowledge, as it were, may well go against the grain of radical empiricism,
such an admission seems to be an unavoidable premises of the transcen-
dental philosophy, and may be the most satisfactory way of harmonizing
the claim that some synthetic truths may be known a-priori with the basic
empiricist tenet that all knowledge is ultimately based upon experience of
phenomena. Once the possibility of obliquely empirical knowledge is admit-
ted, there seems to be little sense in restricting the knowledge obtainable by
its means to the structure of the consciousness, for continuing to hold that
the realm of noumena is not accessible to knowledge. For if knowledge of a
processor is obtainable at all, say through investigation of its products, there
ON KNOWING: WHETHER ONE KNOWS 145
would seem to be no reason why such knowledge is limited to the struc-

ture of the processor, to the exclusion of the general features of the data
that structure is suited to process. In fact one of the most important fea-
tures there is to be known about a processor is the sort of data it accepts as
input.
Knowing the structure of a processor, then, involves knowing the peculiar-
ities of its input. But according to the analogy between a processor and the
transcendent consciousness on which the present discussion draws, the out-
put of the processor is directly empirical knowledge, whereas the hardware
configuration is what gives rise to synthetic a-priori propositions; pursuing
the analogy on the same lines, the input is some sort of message received
immediately from noumena. Oblique knowledge should, therefore, be capa-
ble of showing not only that the consciousness processes data received from
noumena, but also what these messages are, and how their content is trans-
formed, by means of the processor in question, to the deliverances of direct
experience, To say that one is totally ignorant of what it is that a processor
processes does not seem to be compatible with a claim to know how the proces-
sor structure operates upon these mysterious messages to transform them into
knowable items; the first thing to be known about a processor is what it does
to what. Hence on the processor analogy those messages which are received
from the realm of noumena and are transformed into empirical knowledge
need themselves to be knowable, as the input of the processor whose struc-
ture is assumed to be knowable. For instance, it is clear that knowledge can
only be generated when the understanding and the sensibility are employed
in conjunction and can never operate independently of one another.5 On this
account Kant is to be construed as asserting not that the realm of noumena
is absolutely unknowable but that it is knowable only via an examination of
the features of direct experience; so directly empirical knowledge does in fact
convey information concerning noumena, although not by means of immedi-
ately passing on the messages they broadcast, but rather after processing and
transforming those messages according to the way the processor is made to
transform them. Recognizing that it (the understanding) cannot know these
noumena (i.e., noumenal objects) through any of the categories (since they
apply only to objects of possible experience), and that it must therefore think
them only under the title of an unknown something.6 The relevant point is
that given knowledge of the output, and of the rules according to which data
is transformed by the processor in order to yield some output, a backward
analysis of the output can, in principle, always be conducted so as to yield
reliable information concerning the input data which was transformed into
that output. On the processor model of consciousness which Kant was to all
appearances endorsing, the messages from the noumena to the consciousness
146 SEMIHA AKINCI
should themselves be known, howbeit in a roundabout way, involving the anal-

ysis of the experimental data into which they were perforce transformed in the
process of becoming objects of consciousness. One notes that, on the model
in question, this is also the way in which synthetic a-priori propositions are
known.
It appears that the same indirectly empirical process by means of which we
learn how the consciousness functions should, at least in principle, be capa-
ble of informing us about the pervasive features of the noumenal messages
which are transformed into experiences as a result of that functioning. So if
most of the way of thinking behind the transcendental philosophy is plausible,
the contention that the realm of noumena is not plausible; more specifi-
cally, the contention that synthetic a-priori propositions, and their source, are
knowable is not compatible with the contention that the immediate messages
from the noumena are entirely inaccessible to knowledge. The former sort
of knowledge can not itself be among the direct deliverances of the con-
sciousness, and if some sort of secondary, oblique knowledge is assumed
as the source of contentions concerning the structure and rules of the con-
sciousness, it can no longer be plausibly maintained that access to messages
from noumena is not possible for this oblique manner of knowing also.
This is emphatically so on the processor analogy of the transcendental phi-
losophy, and I am not aware of any other analogy which would fit quite
as well.
This distinction, suggested by but not made in Kants philosophy, of directly
empirical versus obliquely empirical knowledge, the latter of which is capa-
ble of attaining to knowledge concerning noumena, suggests itself as a good
way of distinguishing scientific from philosophical knowledge, while not sev-
ering their mutual interdependence, and also retaining a robust, if obliquified,
connection between experience and philosophy, in that philosophical knowl-
edge is construed as ultimately depending upon experience, although on an
interpretation rather than systematization of experience.
Not the least repugnant aspect of Kants original theoretic philosophy is
the difficulties it puts in the way of attempts to account for the distinction
between knowing and not quite knowing, but, say, merely supposing.7 A claim
to know is a claim have cognitive access to the structure of a realm which
may be accessed but not created or modified by mental activity; in fact, error
results from failing to distinguish between the objective structure confronting
cognition and the subjective, mind-dependent contortions imposed upon data
through which such confrontation is achieved. To assert that all minds con-
tort data in the same way is to assert that all minds make the same errors,
not that all minds equally veridical. Thus asserting that all knowledge is pro-
duced by the mind is to deny the distinction between fact and fiction, between
ON KNOWING: WHETHER ONE KNOWS 147
knowledge and error; if output items cannot be checked against the initial
data they are supposed to be transformations of the distinction between good
and bad output, between knowledge and error, can no longer be made, as
the romantic lovers of creation were quick to note. One would think that
the primary motivation for discovering the structure of some processor would
be the intention of discovering the standard distortions it imposes upon all
input alike, with a view towards subsequently eliminating them in order to
retrieve the original input data; this is the whole point to noise elimination. So
if the original input is irretrievable, not only is the distinction between mes-
sage and noise lost, but so is the distinction between a data processor and
a noise generator. In terms of knowledge, it is not possible, on Kants orig-
inal position, either to know that one knows, or to know that one does not
know.
Coming back to our Persian poem, Kants original position apparently
prohibits anybodys enjoying the supreme pleasures only the most valuable
treasure can effort. Much, much worse, it bars the most vital distinction
between those who can drive their lame asses to their modest destinations and
the worst curses of God. The world would be a very much worse place if that
distinction were not very real.
Anadolu University, Eskisehir-Turkiye
NOTES
1
For Kant we can have no noumenal (objects of reason) knowledge. The word noumena has
two senses, the positive sense which states the any knowledge of noumena is nonsensible, and
a negative sense in which there can not be any knowledge of noumena through sensible means.
Things in themselves can be thought about as noumena in the negative sense, but have no relation
to the positive sense of the world.
2
Objects of empirical knowledge. Phenomena, much like appearance, is a much simpler
term, and means that which is evident to the senses. Appearance then, can be understood as a
phenomenon.
3
T. I Oizerman., Kants Doctrine of the Things in Themselves and Noumena, Philosophy
Phenomenological Research and, vol. 41, No. 3, Mar., 1981, pp. 333350.
4
Eva Shaper., The Kantian Thing in Itself as a Philosophical Fiction, Philosophical Quarterly,
Vol. 16, No. 64, History of Philosophy Number. Jul., 1966, pp. 233243.
5
Immanuel Kant., Critique of Pure Reason, (B 314).
6
Ibid., (B 312).
7
Ewing does this by pointing out Kants distinction between determinate knowledge and inde-
terminate thought. We have no knowledge of things in themselves, but it is useful to have thoughts
about them. These thoughts are not based on any positive assumptions but rather on a lack of any
features, spatial or temporal, that make up knowledge. Ewing, A. C., A Short Commentary on
Kants Critique of Pure Reason. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1938.
148 SEMIHA AKINCI
REFERENCES
Ewing, A.C., A Short Commentary on Kants Critique of Pure Reason. Chicago: Chicago
University Press, 1938.
Kant, I., Critigue of Pure Reason, 1781. (B edition). translated by Norman Kemp-Smith.
New York: Macmillan and Company, 1929.
Oizerman, T.I., Kants Doctrine of the Things in Themselves and Noumena, Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, Vol. 41, No. 3, Mar., 1981, pp. 333350.
Shaper, E., The Kantian Thing-in-Itself as a Philosophical Fiction, Philosophical Quarterly,
Vol. 16, No. 64, History of Philosophy Number. Jul., 1966, pp. 233243.
J.C. COUCEIRO-BUENO
W I T H O U T B E AU T Y T H E R E I S N O T R U T H
ABSTRACT
This paper aims to renew the questions that examine the being of beauty as
a truth experience that can be studied and perceived (it must be remembered
that in Greek the verb to be t kaln evokes the concept of beauty, as only
that which is whole, balanced and complete may be beautiful).
Any experience of art and beauty contains an intrinsic call for an alternative
truth which is more complete and on a higher plane to scientific truth.
The aim is to demonstrate that beauty and works of art are capable of
revealing themselves as a probable and alternative means of existence.
To this end, we initially turn to Husserl, who considers that aesthetic expe-
rience perceived through aesthetic intuition is comparable to the essential
characteristic of philosophical thought.
It is also necessary to consider Kants belief that beauty is related to thought.
In this sense the perception of beauty is removed from intellectual activity as it
takes place within the complete freedom of the faculty of knowledge. In other
words, according to Kant the perception of beauty, which aims for universality,
represents a realm of freedom achieved through aesthetic and reflective judge-
ment. The German philosopher therefore considers that beauty is something
new and innovative (which in turn is a way of understanding freedom).
Having presented the historical background and supporting arguments, I go
on to draw attention to the fact that art and beauty enable religion to be seen as
an inhabitable and ontologically real world.
Unlike scientific truth, aesthetic truth (beauty), religious truth, the truth of
myth are not accessible to man through methods and demonstrations. This type
of truth would be simply too naive and internally secure; quite the opposite in
fact, aesthetic truth (beauty, religion, myth, play, etc) must be seen as a truth
experience that leads us to form a global theory of the world, without which
the individual simply cannot live.
As far as the concept of play is concerned, it must be said that play adds
a sense of order to our existence, in the same way that the play on beauty, on
religion, adds sense to the darkness of our existence.
Play is therefore a representation of the truth. The play on beauty in sacred
forms leads to the conviction that life is lived out on a plane that is superior to
our everyday existence.
149

150 J.C. COUCEIRO-BUENO
In the light of these reflections, the paper concludes with two assertions:
a) Literature and religion are manifestations of beauty which, regardless of
issues of history and faith, enable us to see the world from an integral per-
spective, conferring upon it a greater sense of dignity. All this is dependent
on the experience of truth transmitted by beauty.
b) Beauty which manifests itself in art and religion represents an authentic
truth experience, as they add a depth or dimension to life that is not apparent
through mere observation or method.
T H E R E N E WA L O F T H E Q U E S T I O N T H AT E X A M I N E S
T H E B E I N G ( O F B E AU T Y )
I am convinced that we are currently at the perfect time (kairs) to, in Heideg-
gerian terminology, renew the issue that examines the being; in this instance,
the being of beauty, taken as an experience of truth that can be both
perceived and experienced.
It is clear that the starting point is the romantic idea/force, once again rel-
evant as a result of phenomenological hermeneutics, which leads us to the
conviction that art and beauty are an endless source of experiences of truth
and knowledge. Or, to put it another way, the work of art and beauty are
capable of demonstrating the probability of alternative forms of existence. The
work of art also provides us with the experience of our own awareness that
helps us to become at home with ourselves (Heimischwerden) and with the
world and which is the real task of existence.
On the other hand, it is worth remembering at this point that in Ancient
Times the arts were a way of spreading religious truth. Music in particular
played a decisive role in acts of worship.1
Consequently, an initial claim may be made that the work of art, the expe-
rience of beauty, is a means of examining ourselves, albeit in a different
manner from the historiographical document which appears to make a state-
ment about the historian. The work of art makes a statement to each individual
in what can be considered as a highly personalised manner, yet in a present and
simultaneous way.
Our starting point is thus the aesthetic supposition that makes a claim to the
nature of truth and beauty of the work of art.
Several modern aesthetic theories insist that aesthetic experience is in fact a
cognitive experience of truth.
Husserl2 believed that aesthetic experience perceived through aesthetic intu-
ition is comparable to the essential characteristic of philosophical thought,
which, in turn, contrasts the knowledge associated with natural science and
psychology.
W I T H O U T B E AU T Y T H E R E I S N O T RU T H 151
It is important to emphasise the fact that for Husserl, philosophy repre-

sented a kind of rigorous Wissenchafft, the result of the phenomenological
epoch, which would have no need whatsoever for worldly items. Conse-
quently, according to the founder of phenomenology, it is possible to capture
the essence of things thanks to an eidetic intuition, which relegates the exis-
tence of the world to a secondary level. In order to achieve this, it is essential
to exclude all psychological considerations.
Such a perspective allows for the observation of similarities between the
Husserlian theory of knowledge and the properties assigned to aesthetic expe-
rience by modernity. In other words, the Husserlian epoch is similar to the
concept of disinterest that Kant assigns to aesthetic judgement.
Yet in order to position the question of aesthetics within our modern day
context, recourse must also be made to Polish thinker Roman Ingarden,3 one
of the precursors of the Rezeptionstheorie (reader-response theory) and author
of the magnificent work entitled Das listerarische Kuntswerk (1972).
This Polish thinker believed that the essence of the work of art is transmuted
into a metaphysical characteristic of experience. It is precisely in art and beauty
that rather than realising these metaphysical characteristics, they are instead
determined and revealed. The truth behind art and beauty lies in the essential
concatenation of intuitive self-presentation.
In this sense, Ingarden claims that the heteronymous and intentional nature
of the work of art (and specifically the literary work of art), consists of four
heterogeneous levels: (a) vocal linguistic productions; (b) units of meaning;
(c) multiple schematic visions; and (d) represented objectivity. From there,
Ingarden determines the ontological nature of art, which he sees as acting as
an intermediary between reality and ideality.
Ingardens intention is to differentiate art from psychologistic naturalism,
as he believes that the aesthetic experience, the experience of the work of art
represents a distancing from facts.
We could say that he does not intend to associate art with the essence; instead
his vision is that of the work of art that focuses on apparently extrinsic and
external phenomena, such as vocal-linguistic stratum. Phenomena which will
be seen as essential to the work of art and which will prevent its projection
towards ideal and unintentional contexts.
In terms of the issue that concerns us, it is also worth considering the think-
ing of Baumgarten,4 who claims that the internal logic of sensorial (aesthetic)
knowledge is completely removed from the internal logic of science. He
considers that this concept, which he terms analogon rationis, implies that
generalities are to be found within the specific. This analogon rationis points
directly to a criterion of internal coherence. This concept of internal coherence
obviously bears no relation to the classical truth concept of adequatio in res

(adaptation to reality).
In this sense, Kants5 Critique of Judgement represents the culmination of
his thought to the extent that he puts forward the reconciliation between the
worlds of nature and freedom, which are clearly divided in the two previous
Critiques.
In the light of these discussions, Kant clearly associates beauty with free
thinking. According to the Kantian approach, it appears within the context of
the finality. Beauty is associated with the object, and may therefore not be
perceived through the limited concepts of understanding.
Consequently, beauty as a non-determined finality must be perceived
through cognitive activity. An activity which Kant associated with taste.
In this sense, the perception of beauty implies the total autonomy of intel-
lectual activity and involves the free reign of our knowledge faculties; it is a
question of making a judgement (namely taste) in which two cognitive facul-
ties are involved (imagination and understanding), although it is a judgement
of taste that will assert its own autonomy within the intellectual order.
For Kant, aesthetic judgements are those that judge beauty within nature or
art based on a sense of pleasure or liking. Yet it is important to emphasise that
this German philosopher established a connection between judgements made
specifically about nature and those made about beauty.
Kantian thinking on beauty could be summarised by stating that it (judging
beauty is a representation of the kingdom of freedom through reflective aes-
thetic considerations) will serve as an organic introduction to nature (reflective
theological judgement) compared with the mechanicistic consideration of the
determining judgement. In other words, Kant saw beauty not as perfection but
as novelty or innovation (which in turn is a vision of freedom).
In addition, Kant finds in beauty an aspiration to universal validity. This is
due to the fact that the grund of aesthetic judgement represents the aspiration
of the sense of taste to universal validity. Perceiving and judging something
with pleasure is limited strictly to the scope of sensation; yet by claiming that
something is beautiful, it not only generates a sensation of pleasure, but also
the imperious need for others to experience that same sensation. Perceiving
beauty within the judgement of taste therefore implies an attempt to establish
its universal validity.
As it is widely known, Hegel, Hlderlin and Schelling the founders of
German idealism came up with the project that was echoed in their famous
work entitled Das ltete Systemprogramm des deutschen Idealismos. For them,
art (and specifically poetry) represents a preparatory stage for the realisation
of the kingdom of freedom. Shiller, in his series of letters entitled On the Aes-
thetic Education of Man (1975), follows a similar line of thought: like Shelling,
Hlderlin and Hegel, he believed that the kingdom of freedom could be built
up on the basis of a sensitive religion that should be set up as a monotheism
of reason and the heart, a polytheism of imagination and art, which takes the
form of a new mythology of reason. His writings are in line with the Kantian
aim of understanding beauty as a symbol of morality.
We can therefore claim that the Systemprogramm, the Aesthetic Education
of Man and the Critique of Judgement all draw particular attention to the close
link between art and religion.
At all events, it is important to highlight the fact that art provides religion
with the ability to portray itself as an inhabitable and ontologically real world,
as well as a major historical testimony that impacts on those undergoing those
aesthetic experiences.
In Truth and Method, Gadamer6 determinedly re-raises the issue regarding
the truth of art. Distancing himself from Kantian subjectivity, he raises the
question that art is quite possibly totally unrelated to knowledge. He firmly
believes that all experiences of art and all experiences of beauty contain an
inherent call for truth that is different from the truth of science and cannot be
subordinated to it.
Gadamer believes that aesthetic experience, the experience of beauty will
reveal the endless interpretations of any work of art. The experience of art
is never-ending; indeed, it is renewed at each new encounter and impacts on
anyone who experiences it.
It must therefore be claimed that aesthetic experience is essentially a
hermeneutic experience, a happening (Ereignis) of truth: as Heidegger7 tells
us, art is the setting into work of truth.
He goes on to state that art is not an objective that lies before us and whose
horizon must be drawn up and its laws established. It is instead a poetic work
that will educationally direct our existence and which is based on the being
and therefore names it.
In the light of these claims, it is clear that both Heidegger and Gadamer see
art as giving truth a location to become, a work-place.
In this sense, they claim that it is not up to philosophy to define what is or is
not art, but it is art itself that will reveal the nature of philosophy to us.
Along these lines, Gadamer believes that the sense and meaning of human
reality, the life-world (Lebenswelt), is made up of types of consolidations or
transmutations that the poets exert on the life experiences of a community in
order to be able to preserve them, celebrate them and update them as references
indicating identity and sense.
They therefore represent the fundamental essence of the life-world. Con-
sequently, it is the artists, the poets, who are constantly seeking a form
of expression and the words capable of accurately describing a communal

experience that we wish to preserve on a permanent basis.
In the light of these findings, and to bring this section to a close, we may
claim that the revaluation of aesthetic considerations brings us closer to the
truth of religion.
Likewise, it also involves a certain distancing from the objectivist imposi-
tion of a scientificist concept of truth. The critique of the scientificist truth, the
truth of the scientific method, contrasts with the essentially aesthetic (beauti-
ful) nature of religious truth and the implications of rejecting all reductionism
of the myth, the metaphor and the symbol, etc.
Going beyond the objectivities of science, the aim is to establish the truth,
without the need for futile and redundant recourse to examining aesthetic,
religious, mythological and poetical discourses that the rational-objectivist
discourses of scientificist truth attempt to reduce and isolate.
An attempt is therefore made to liberate the plural nature of discourse, nar-
rative and life experiences. We are unable to reach aesthetic truth, religious
truth, the truth of the myth by methods and demonstrations; indeed, such a
truth would be far too naive and internally insecure. It would instead constitute
a kind of truth experience as an internal global theory of the world that
is essential to the individual and that is only no longer experienced under the
categories of aesthetics and art. Or in other words, of beauty.
T H E C L A S S I C A L E D U C AT I O N O F B E A U T Y
This nature of this essay requires a brief mention of Greek culture (paideia)
and its basic aesthetic categories.
As in all Greek education, in Plato aesthetics plays a fundamental role.
Consequently, concepts such as rhythm, harmony, symmetry, consonance,
equilibrium, etc., all make a major contribution to education (we must not lose
sight of the fact that the majority of Greek transpositions come from medicine,
a field of vital importance in both philosophy and paideia). It is also a period
in which no conceptual distinction was made between philosophy, religion and
poetry. Nor must it be forgotten that this was a period in which the poets mis-
sion was a religious one, as he acted as a mediator between the gods and the
people.
The aesthetic element eventually pervaded the essential concept of nomos
(as opposed to physis). In this sense we must remember that in Greek nomos
can mean song as well as law. This is due to the fact that in the Platonic
educational system, songs and poems were considered to be laws.
As far as Aristotle is concerned, we must go back to that excerpt from Meta-

physics that invites us to create a philosophical basis for education: All men
by nature desire to know (I, 1, 980 to 21).
Aristotle refers to the mans uncontrollable desire for sophia (knowledge),
which is an inherent part of his being. Seen from this perspective, knowl-
edge possesses the intellectual truth of things, and even today this remains
a universal desire.
On the other hand, it is also an age in which education is seen from the
aesthetic autonomy of the form and of training (Bildung), which refers to mans
needs in order to model man, seen from the perspective of a specific type of
man.
This view of education has much in common with the ideal of art, as it
tries to compensate for the deficiencies of nature through beauty (the aims of
education).
In turn, W. Jaeger,8 in his colossal work Paideia, boldly claims that Greek
education could not be understood with poetry and rhetoric. Such as statement
succinctly sums up in just a few words much of our intention in this work.
Greek tradition has taught us that highlighting rhetoric and poetry is simply
the other side of the coin that considers language as the centre of all reflection
and action. Naturally, the language that it refers to is not the propositional
language of the logos apofntico, which, incidentally, is as irrefutable as it is
dispensable, but instead to the type of language that consistently goes beyond
the narrow limits of logic (rhetorical and poetical language).
The language of rhetoric and poetry is not predetermined: on the contrary,
its mission is essentially practical and always implies the realisation of some
form of action.
Aristotle sees rhetoric9 as a techne, as well as a system of rules that are
obtained from experience, which allows us to show how an action should be
carried out in a way that leans towards perfectionism.
What is absolutely clear is that for the Stagirite, rhetoric is a paideia seen as
an authentic reasoning of conjecturable issues. Rhetoric lies between the poetic
and the ethos without forgetting that due to its practical truth, it impacts
directly on the scope of the polis.
As far as poetry is concerned we must once again reiterate the fact that the
Greek poets were the first educators of the people; their poems contain a wide
range of knowledge and teachings that met the citizens needs.
As a result, poetry was responsible for the spread of culture and art amongst
the people, turning it into a quest for a sense of articulation that would act as a
Paideia, and with sufficient powers to guide our conduct.
As Aristotle10 solemnly claimed in Poetics, poetry is more philosophical

and elevated than history, since poetry relates more of the universal, and history
relates the particular.
In short, the aim of Greek culture was to convert mans education and
training into a work of art, one in which poetry occupied a central role.
Seen thus, aesthetics can be considered as a form of philosophy that impacts
on beauty and on the teaching of the concept of good taste.
T H E G A M E O F B E AU T Y
The concept of play is an elemental function of human life. From this basis,
Gadamer11 claims that the being of art will not be determined as the object
of an aesthetic experience taking the subject as a reference, but instead that
aesthetic knowledge forms part of the process of representation and belongs
essentially to the game as play.
Inspired by Nietzsche, Gadamer sees the concept of play as a provocative
element that examines us and introduces us into the game, the game of the
work of art, whose dynamics control and eventually change us. In this sense,
he claims that rather than interpreting a work of art, what we actually do is to
play its game and act it out. The pull of this game, the irresistible fascination
it exerts, lies in the fact that it manages to take control of its players, causing
them to forget themselves, for the duration of the game. He did not consider
this subjection of the player to the game as a loss of self-control or an inability
to dominate the situation; quite the contrary it was seen as an experience of
freedom that would create a sense of plenitude in the player.
In all artistic experiences, in all experiences of beauty, Gadamer would
emphasise the active participation of the spectator, indicating that all works
of art leave a space which the spectator would be expected to fill. Accord-
ing to R. Ingarden, in literary works these play spaces correspond to the
indeterminate schematic structures that require the concretisation of the reader
(Konkretisation). A concept which, according to the thinking of Ingarden, has a
clear ontological character and represents a key element in the reader-response
theory. Concretisation is successful when the reader is capable of filling the
indeterminate moments (Unbstimmtheitssllen).
Play is a key concept in phenomenological and hermeneutic aesthetics.
Unlike Kant, Gadamer, the founder of contemporary hermeneutics, instead of
questioning the subject, considers the way of being of play. Play is therefore
considered independently from the players subjectivity.
This means that the subject of play is not the player, but the actual game
itself. It is therefore the game that is in play.
Play is what matters. It is a question of sacred seriousness. And the player

of this game, in order to play, needs to give himself up to the concept of play.
Seen from this perspective, the players are the necessary requirement in
order to enable the game to achieve its state of self-representation. This is
because the essence of play is the game itself, and not the players who are
absorbed and carried along by it.
Play is a statement of movement seen as a constant to and fro.
Play consists of renewed movements (like those of a living being) yet which
have no specific objective. According to Gadamer, it could even be argued that
the game could continue without the players.
We therefore can conclude that play is an ordered to and fro structure
which lacks a predetermined object that therefore frees the player from taking
initiatives or making an effort, just like everyday life.
Consequently, this German philosopher sees play as an enclosed world
that lies outside the objectives of our existence.
It is clear that he is thinking of the ontological nature of play, and that it
is an essential component of cultural life that pervades to myth and religious
worship.
It must be emphasised here that play represents a breakaway from everyday
life, from the world of work and daily existence. It is also important to highlight
the fact that in play, the player acts as if what is taking place in the game is
really happening.
Play is therefore essential, as it completes the life of each one of us.
The order and rules of play (the order of experiencing beauty, religious
order, for our interests) help to clarify the confusion that exists in our daily
lives. Play adds a sense of order to our existence, in much the same way that
the game of beauty, the game of religion, contributes meaning to the obscurity
of our existence.
Play represents a breakaway from the everyday world, due to the fact that
it always provides us with the possibility of being different from the way we
really are, of assuming a form other than that we use in our daily lives.
In this context, Gadamer associates the game with the sacred. This is because
the sacred ritual (seen as a celebration) implies a pause in everyday life and
work.
The game is therefore also a true representation. Just like the religious rep-
resentation in which the individual is convinced that he is on a higher plane
than in his everyday life. This means that the work of art has the nature of
a highly complex game, an ontological game that establishes the world and
which provides us with a vision of the world.
Gadamers concept of play as the self-representation of a game is based on
the idea that the game achieves this self-representation due to the fact that its
task is to represent itself merely as play, and avoiding all references to everyday
objectives.
Play is self-representation because the self-representation of the game is the
universal aspect of the being of nature.
A final point here is that the player experiences the game as an extension
of himself, a transformation of the individual that gives us the opportunity of
acting as another person.
All these Gadamerian reflections reveal the way in which the importance
of subjectivity is lessened within the context of play, the sacred game of the
celebration: indeed, the individual and personal manifestations of belief and
non belief are reduced to mere meaningless voices.12
T H E R E L I G I O N O F B E AU T Y AG A I N S T T H E B E AU T Y O F
RELIGION
As an initial consideration, it is important to bear in mind the fact that in

Classical Greece no distinction was made between religion and poetry. Poesis
was understood as doing things with words and an act based on a pretension of
truth.
Beyond the issues of history and faith, religion as literature represents the
possibility of a sense of integrity for the world, a sense of dignity on a higher
plane than a merely factual one. And this is attributable to the experience of
truth transmitted by beauty.
Religious culture (Paideia/bildung) is a mythical culture. Indeed, no-one
would ever be capable of understanding any form of culture, including
religious culture, other than from a mythical perspective.
The difficulties begin to appear when certain religions (and Christianity
in particular) start to take themselves seriously, creating a common place
of thought: the shift from myth to logos. At all events, this is just another
historical fact, and as such is susceptible to a chain of interpretations and
reinterpretations.
The shift from myth to logos is merely a trivial matter that certain philoso-
phies throughout history have turned into an unquestionable truth (which, it
must be said, is neither true nor unquestionable), as a result of the direct
influence of positivist scientificism and historicism.
But let us return to the question of myth. What exactly do we mean when we
refer to myth? Myth is the need to experience a higher truth seen as a mixture of
what is true and what is constructed, converted into an experience that contains
so much truth that there is no need for verification and allows us the freedom
to play the game of interpretation/reinterpretation.
Myth is made up of literatured voices from a past that is symbolically

richer than our own. This was clearly acknowledged by Romanticism with
its new sensitivity for mythical (or religious) and symbolic (or metaphysical)
forms.
Indeed, myth is a narrative that transmits its truth through emotion and com-
motion, through the motion of feelings. They represent a truth that needs
no verification (obviously, because for all human beings, their feelings always
hold more truth than their thoughts).
Myth is essentially anything that can be told or narrated without anybody
being able to wonder whether it is actually true. Myth is anything that is out
of the reach of scientific procedure. In Platonic terms, myth is the experience
of truth when someone narrates something to us and we realise that what we
understand has sufficient dignity to be considered as the truth. Or to put it
another way, truth is comprehension. And this truth is the truth of myth and
of religion.
The significance of myth and its relation with religion has come up against
a major obstacle in the form of monotheist religions (book religions) which,
officially at least, renounce myth, although they are actually unable to prevent
myth from forming the original source of their truth.
An abysm has appeared between myth and monotheist religions. And the
seriousness of this situation lies in the fact that this distancing from myth
has led to a confrontation between their truth (of mythical origin) and that
other secularised truth, which is the truth of science.
In the light of this situation, the pretended truth of religion, distanced from
myth, clashes with the truth of modern science. The result is the endoge-
nous secularisation that monotheist religions (and Christianity in particular)
are currently experiencing. This endogenous secularisation has brought about
a process of decline and delegitimisation in the Christian religion which, con-
trary to the beliefs of its official exegetes, is not the result of the progressive
disenchantment of the world or the process of secularisation which has spread
throughout the West since the Age of Enlightenment. The real reason behind
this process of secularisation is the result of Christianitys insistence on con-
fronting its religious truth (of mythical origin) with the truth of science,
which is a truth consisting of mere resignation to fate. Somewhat sur-
prisingly, religions seem to be unaware of the fact that all areas of science
(following the harsh criticism of phenomenological hermeneutics of truth as
an adaptation, as a verifiable conformity to intention) display a tremendous
fragility and lack of security in their supposedly true evidence. They are trans-
mitted to the mass media as unquestionable truths, as modern-day science
(and especially scientificism) is more an ideology (in the style of a naturalised
religion) than a programme and method of research. Religions possess their
own truth experiences that are free to break the shackles of the scientific
ideal of objective truth, which is simply an underlying civil and mundane
totalitarianism and a means of tentatively negotiating our way through our
fear of finitude.
It was Heidegger who invalidated the closed and metaphysical ideal of truth
as adequatio, thereby providing religions (and myth) with a second opportu-
nity to give up on their confrontation with scientific truth. It is obvious that the
censorship of the phenomenological hermeneutics of scientificist objectivism
is deeply rooted in the writings of Heidegger, Gadamer and Wittgenstein, who
have revealed the metaphorical nature of all forms of language. This has dis-
credited the supposedly true language of science, which in reality is merely
lexicalised metaphorical language.13
A review of objectivist truth from the perspective of phenomenological
hermeneutics reveals that while it may distance itself from Kants aesthetic
subjectivism, it will willingly accept the universality of truth based on the
Critique of Judgement discussed earlier.
In the light of the above, it can be claimed that religions need to grasp the
fact that art is the only way of spreading the innocence of the religious mes-
sage. Religion cannot spread its message by asking experts and technicians to
verify whether their scientific truth agrees with the religious truth. As I
have said earlier, religious truth has its own truth, the truth of myth, which is
so overwhelming that instead of controlling it, it controls us. The truth that pro-
vides us with the only means of picking our way gingerly through the obscurity
of our lives. Naturally, this is also the truth of love, of falling in love, of the
religiousness of love: seen in terms of the experience of both religion and love,
we discover the tide of passion that sweeps us along, leading us to forget our-
selves. Such is the strength of this truth, that any attempts to verify it would
arouse deep suspicion.
Unfortunately, all the major religions (and Christianity in particular) have
their own endogenous secularisation that leads them to cast aside the tremen-
dous force of the truth of art and of beauty, in an attempt to hypocritically keep
up with the times. What these religions should really do is to try to keep and
live up to their origins and history. Perhaps they are unaware of the value of
the work of art, of beauty as a substratum of religious truth which, imbued with
mythical truth, is a plural experience, unlike the truth of science.
Of interest here is Gadamers concept of the festival.14 He sees the festival
as a break from daily chores and routine and a time when men may encounter
the gods.
According to Hegel,15 religion and art are forms in which the spirit is already
present, but which is manifest in an inappropriate, representative and sensitive
manner.
For Hegel, the festival is a living work of art which man makes in his own
honour. In his Theological Writings, Hegel16 describes the festival by invok-
ing the nostalgia of Greece, whereby all those participating constituted the
aesthetic representation of freedom.
Festivals are not for attending, they are for taking part in. According to
Gadamer, the most important aspect of the festival is that it is an event in which
active participation is required, from the theoros. Greek philosophy conserves
the characteristic of the religious background to reason. Theoros is the person
that takes part in a festive mission, as a spectator in the truest sense of the
word. Theoros represents true participation, a sense of feeling possessed and
pulled along by active observation. The attendance of the theoros17 implies a
sense of self-oblivion, as the spectator must give himself up to contemplation
or celebration, putting his own individuality aside. It is therefore a participative
extroversion, which in Greek is termed enthousiasms (like Platos superior
power).
F I NA L C O DA
Art and the manifestation of beauty are a form of understanding life. Between
knowledge and action, life opens up to a dimension or depth that is inaccessible
to both observation and method. Art and beauty are the closest we can aspire to.
They speak to us with a familiarity that takes over our whole being, reducing
all sense of distance. Any encounter with a work of art is a reencounter with
our own being. It must be remembered here that Hegel positioned art amongst
the figures of the absolute spirit. This means that he saw art as one of the means
to knowledge and the education of the spirit, free from any foreign beings and
all lack of comprehension. It must therefore be claimed that the experience of
art enables us to identify ourselves, to recognise the world we belong to and its
meaning.
When the great religions are finally able to find a space for the authentic
experiences of truth in our lives, in art and beauty, then they may well manage
to recapture their real essence and fundamentals.
When monotheist religions finally become aware that science is merely a
fundamentalist and lay monotheism, then they will probably lose all interest in
the reports that come from the fields of science and technology.
When religions finally discover that science is a space that limits freedom,
in which there is only one possible form of expression, namely the monologue,
then they will finally be able to invoke their mythical past without fear, thereby
creating the spiritual experiences that are also those of art, the experience of
beauty and literature, whereby things are expressed in one way, but they may
well be another way, without altering the essence of spirituality, but increasing
the spaces of liberty and interpretation that in science are simply non-existent
(especially in scientificism).
When religions finally recognise the sacred function of art and beauty, then
they will once again find the path of true religiousness. It is clear that our
broken, fragmented and dangerous world is a serious threat, and that the only
way of creating a full and meaningful life is through art or religion. Yet my
point throughout this paper has been that in order to catch even the slightest
glimpse of an integral and full world we must recognise religion as a form of
art and art as a form of religion.
In truth, a work of art is already in itself a sacred object. Religion should
learn from the experience of art how it manages to transform a strange object
into something reassuring and familiar. It is unquestionable that it is the expe-
rience of beauty that will provide us with a privileged access to truth. Religions
should take good heed of this message if they wish to survive in a constantly
shifting world.
La Coruna University, Spain
NOTES
1
The disappearance of manifestations of beauty, as is occurring in Catholic churches, is
pathetic. It is devastating to visit a modern-day place of worship and observe a complete absence
of beauty, which rids them of all sense of an invitation to religious experience. How sad and
embarrassing it is to listen to a priest struggling to keep in tune whilst singing vulgar tunes in
front of a shrill-sounding microphone! What an image of decadence and above all of spiritual
abandon!
I believe that Cioran has captured the essence of this problem when he states that beauty
(especially musical beauty) is the only thing capable of convincing you that the Universe is not a
complete failure. It is easy to see what this Rumanian philosopher meant.
2
E. Husserl, Lettera a Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1907).
3
R. Ingarden, Das listerarische Kuntswerk. Eine Untersuchung aus dem Grenzgebiet der
Ontologie, Logik und Literaturwissenschaft, Niemeyer, Tubinga (1972).
4
H. Baumgarten, LEstetica, Palermo, Aesthetica Edizione (2000).
5
Kant, Kritik Urteilskraft, 1970 (Crtica del Juicio, Madrid, Austral, 2001).
6
H. G. Gadamer, Verdad y Mtodo I. Fundamentos de una hermenetica filosfica. (Salamanca:
Sigueme, 1977), 121142.
7
M. Heidegger, Der Ursrung der Kunstwerkes, en Holzwege (Frankfurt, 1950).
8
W. Jaeger, Paideia. Los ideales de la cultura griega (Mxico: F.C.E, 1967).
9
Aristteles, Retrica (Madrid: Gredos, 1974).
10
Aristteles, Potica (Madrid: C.E.C).
11
H. G. Gadamer, op. cit., La ontologa de la obra de arte y su significado hermenutico/El
juego como hilo conductor de la explicacin ontolgica, 143181.
12
Religiousness, transcendence, the need for personal continuity, literature, poetry and myth do
not depend on our opinions. In contrast, they are subjected to linguistic structures that speak to us
and transmit their experiences in order to create our Weltchaunntaungen.
In order to confirm my theoretical suppositions, I must say that I have always been highly
amused by public manifestations of fervent belief or of recalcitrant agnosticism or atheism:
I never fail to feel surprise at the religiousness of the words and writings of the most eminent
atheists or agnostics. Similarly, I am also always dumbfounded by the worrying secularised
doubts and conduct of those individuals that publicly manifest a belief beyond question.
In other words, in the face of original religiousness, in the face of the myth and the existential
possibilities of literature, in the face of the opening up of the world of poetry, the human being
is of very little significance indeed. He is trapped within linguistic structures that are actually far
more important than he is.
It is not so much a question of a personal decision of whether to believe or disbelieve. It
is definitely more a matter of the need for the linguistic structure of the myth.
13
J. C. Couceiro-Bueno, Ontofiction: the altered comprehension of the world Analecta
Husserliana: The Yearbook of Phenomenology (Boston: Kluwer Academic, 2000), vol. LX.
14
H. G. Gadamer, Die Aktualitt des Schnen (Stuttgart, 1977).
15
Hegel, Vorlesungen ubre die sthetik (Berln, 18351838). (Lecciones de Esttica, Akal,
Madrid, 1989).
16
Hegel, Theologische Jugendschriften (Tubinga, 1907).
17
H. G. Gadamer, Lob der Theorie (Frankfurt del Main: Suhrkamp, V., 1983).
ANTONIO DOMNGUEZ REY
E L A P R I O R I C O R R E L AT I V O Y O N T O L G I C O
D E L L E N G UA J E N G E L A M O R RU I BA L ( 1 8 6 9 1 9 3 0 )
ABSTRACT IN ENGLISH
At the beginning of the 20th century, the linguist, philosopher and Galician
theologian . Amor Ruibal outlines a theory of language based originally in
L. Hervs y Panduro, G. de Humboldt., M. Bral and the Indian, Hebrew,
Greco-Roman, Patristic, hermeneutic, positivist and comparatist traditions.
From them he infers a synthetic historical method that combines both mor-
phology and syntax while discovering a relational and translative principle
that concerns also the pre-logical or notional foundation of knowledge. The
nominal act happens, as the cognitive one, fusing in a nucleus of entitative
assignment the qualities proceeding from the object. Such a nucleus is also
a designation of the entities that it includes as its own ontological extension
and as radical projection, in language, of the morfo-syntactic basis assisted by
infixes, metaphony and other modes of the lexical and syntactic course. This is
made possible because the nominal and cognitive act re-flow on the pre-logical
qualities taking now as their predicate the reality thus perceived, processed and
judged. The idea postcedes the judgment and contains already, as the word, a
basis of underlying predication instituted by the notional a priori, so that there
is a predicative process previous to the constitution of the nuclearized subject.
Reality predicates from the entitative nucleus formed on the sensitives that
proceed from it. Amor Ruibal establishes thus a principle of real entitative rel-
ativity that affects language and objective thought of things. The syntactic form
turns into ontological link. The object is processed discursively in its qualities
and these are attached in a nominal thematic synthesis: the objet of the subject
cognoscens, subject of attributions whose inherent relation is the ontological
entity, in a pre-propositional relation. The implicit response to the Hegelian
dialectics runs parallel with the system of Amor Ruibal while agreeing with
Husserl, since both philosophers discover, each one on his own, as they never
knew each other, the ontological conditions of signification, the structure of
language and conscience. Once produced, the word re-flows on the cognitive
act and assists with its own modality to the constitution of meaning and the
expression of the objective essence. It assumes the mental space in which
this happens as genetic tension of knowledge. Amor Ruibal thus precedes
165

166 ANTONIO DOMNGUEZ REY
in several aspects F. de Saussure, both from common readings and personal

reflections. He creates a linguistic gnoseology of philosophical scope that is
still challenging, after being marginalised for one century, isolated. The struc-
tural, generative and cognitive linguistics already find an appealing precedent
in this gnoseological system.
A B S T R A C T I N S PA N I S H
A comienzos del siglo XX, el lingista, filsofo y telogo gallego . Amor

Ruibal esboza una teora del lenguaje basada originalmente en L. Hervs y
Panduro, G. de Humboldt, M. Bral y las tradiciones india, hebrea, grecolatina,
patrstica, hermenutica, positivista y comparatista. Infiere de ello un mtodo
sinttico-histrico que conjunta morfologa y sintaxis al tiempo que descubre
un principio relacional traslativo que afecta tambin al fundamento prelgico o
nocional del conocimiento. El acto nominal acontece, como el cognitivo, fun-
diendo en un ncleo de asignacin entitativa las cualidades procedentes del
objeto. Tal ncleo resulta asimismo designacin de los entes que comprende
como extensin ontolgica suya y, en el lenguaje, como proyeccin radical de
la base morfosintctica asistida por los adlteres, infijos, metafona y otros
modos del decurso lxico y sintctico. Esto resulta posible porque el acto
nominal y cognitivo refluyen sobre las cualidades prelgicas teniendo ahora
por predicado suyo la realidad as percibida, procesada y enjuiciada. La idea
poscede al juicio y ya contiene, como la palabra, un fondo de predicacin
subyacente instituido por el a priori nocional, de tal modo que hay un pro-
ceso predicativo anterior a la constitucin del sujeto nuclearizado. La realidad
predica a su vez del ncleo entitativo configurado sobre los sensibles que de
ella proceden. Amor Ruibal establece as un principio de relatividad real enti-
tativa que atae al lenguaje y al pensamiento objetivo de las cosas. La forma
sintctica se convierte en vnculo ontolgico. El objeto se procesa discursivo
en sus cualidades y stas se adjuntan en sntesis nominal temtica: sujeto de
atribuciones cuya relacin inherente es la entidad ontolgica, el objeto del
sujeto cognoscens, relacin prepropositiva. La respuesta implcita a la dialc-
tica hegeliana corre paralela con el sistema de Amor Ruibal y sus consonancias
con Husserl son varias, pues ambos filsofos descubren, cada uno por su
parte, pues no se conocieron, las condiciones ontolgicas de la significacin
y estructura del lenguaje y la conciencia. Una vez producida, la palabra refluye
sobre el acto cognitivo y asiste con modalidad propia a la constitucin del
sentido y a la expresin de la esencia objetiva. Subsume el espacio mental
en que acontece como tensin gentica del conocimiento. Amor Ruibal pre-
cede en varios aspectos a F. de Saussure desde lecturas comunes y reflexiones
propias. Crea una lingstica gnoseolgica de alcance filosfico prcticamente
A P R I O R I C O R R E L AT I V O Y O N T O L G I C O D E L L E N G U A J E 167
an hoy, despus de un siglo, marginada. La lingstica estructural, generativa

y cognitiva ya encuentran antecedente notable y diferenciado en su sistema
gnoseolgico.
A comienzos del siglo XX, justo en el ao 1900, publica el fillogo y
lingista espaol ngel Amor Ruibal un breve ensayo titulado Ciencia del
Lenguaje en el que expone las tesis principales de lo que ser, primero, su sis-
tema lingstico y, ms tarde, la base del filosfico y teolgico. Es en tal sentido
el autor ms moderno que estudia el lenguaje como antesala de la Filosofa. Y
lo hace a la edad temprana de treinta y un aos de edad.
El ensayo aludido consiste realmente en una Introduccin a la obra Prin-
cipios Generales de Lingstica Indo-Europea del lingista francs Pierre
Regnaud, que Amor Ruibal tradujo sirvindose de ella ms bien para exponer
los fundamentos del sistema que estaba esbozando. Dos aos ms tarde,
en 1904 y 1905, retoma y contina este ensayo en dos volmenes impor-
tantes que asientan los cimientos epistemolgicos de la Ciencia del Lenguaje.
Son Los Principios Fundamentales de la Filologa Comparada.1 Amor
Ruibal elabora esta obra en paralelo con otras publicaciones concernientes a
teologa, derecho cannico, lenguas bblicas, gramtica comparada, indoeu-
ropeo y siraco-arameo, cuyo estudio le vali en 1892 un premio de la
Altorientalische Gesellschaft de Leipzig, siendo an estudiante. Fue pro-
fesor de estas materias en la entonces Universidad Pontificia de Santiago
de Compostela.
A partir de 1914 y hasta 1921 inicia la publicacin de los seis primeros
tomos de Los Principios Fundamentales de la Filosofa y del Dogma, a los
que seguirn, ya pstumos, otros cuatro entre 1933 y 1936. Posteriormente
se recogen algunos textos ms en 1964 con el ttulo de Cuatro Manuscritos
Inditos.2
La obra filolgica es un resumen eclctico de numerosa y sorprendente
atencin bibliogrfica al fenmeno de las lenguas, su cultura y pensamiento
desde las primeras tradiciones sagradas, hind (Rig-Veda), hebrea (Biblia),
sirio-aramea (cdigo de Hammurabi), persa, egipcia, china, greco-romana,
patrstica y la tradicin tanto filosfica como cientfica -del positivismo al
evolucionismo y fenomenismo- hasta la revolucin intelectual provocada
por el descubrimiento del tomo y la teora de la relatividad de Einstein.
Es el primer pensador que atiende a esta fuente en la fundamentacin del
lenguaje.
El enfoque humanista de la ciencia es propio del Modernismo, movimiento
intelectual que sigue nuestro autor desde una posicin cristiana y catlica
renovadora. Podemos decir que Amor Ruibal impulsa la transformacin del
pensamiento eclesistico en la frontera de los siglos XIX y XX. Para ello
emprende un anlisis crtico de la mentalidad, historia de las ideas y sistemas
ms notables que las fundamentan. Esta crtica afecta sobre todo al platonismo,
aristotelismo, racionalismo, empirismo, escepticismo, idealismo fenomnico
y dialctico, cientificismo y, en particular, al sistema tradicional escolstico,
cuyas fuentes, especialmente el trasfondo platnico y aristotlico, tesis y
conclusiones hallan en l particular controversia.
El estilo de su escritura es an, no obstante, y en cierto modo, neoescols-
tico, pero ceido al fundamento moderno de ciencia en consideracin
filosfica. Una ciencia cuya exposicin parte de los principios generales y
ontolgicos del conocimiento y que, por tanto, atae al pensamiento en su
dimensin gnoseolgica, positivo o especulativo. En ello coinciden filosofa y
ciencia: Descubrir los elementos que dan la virtud primaria del ser en s como
fuente de toda su actividad y cualidades.3
IDEAL CIENTFICO
El estudio de la tradicin filolgica y del sistema del lenguaje le descubre desde

muy joven un ejemplo vivo de confirmacin activa del ser humano a travs de
las cualidades que la naturaleza opera en su entendimiento. El lenguaje refleja
las operaciones de la mente al conocer el hombre algo con los sentidos e inter-
pretarlo desde el juicio mediante conceptos e ideas. La gramtica contiene,
como en W. von Humboldt, Hegel y el lingista A. Sayce, un modelo implcito
de la relacin de elementos en un sistema segn principios y categoras que
la inteligencia descubre en los hechos verbales. La realidad del lenguaje no
coincide con la conceptual del pensamiento, que es quien determina la forma
de aqul, pero, al hacerlo, se proyecta de modo particular en su estructura y
organismo. La constitucin y evolucin de las palabras, el estudio comparado
de lenguas en una misma poca o perodos histricamente diversos, permiten
acceder a la actuacin cognoscitiva del entendimiento. La investigacin del
lenguaje se constituye tambin como ciencia. Sus principios son tan gnose-
olgicos como los de la ciencia crtica al sistematizar objetos de la naturaleza
y sus relaciones. El lenguaje resulta adems un objeto especial por reunir en
sus formas y conexiones los componentes objetivo y sujetivo de todo acto de
conocimiento y en las dimensiones esttica y dinmica de su proceso histrico.
Es un ente externo que encierra una actividad del espritu y, por tanto, un objeto
inexplicable sin esta relacin mutua, algo nuevo en el entorno de los seres
naturales.
El anlisis del lenguaje precisa bajo tal consideracin un ejemplo de la inma-
nencia y trascendencia del ideal humano cientfico al poder obtener el plan
interno que preside al ser y obrar de la realidad csica. Ese plan es la forma
que lo integra y determina, la forma interior y procesual que Humboldt y
Hegel observan tambin en la gramtica y actuacin de la naturaleza. Amor

Ruibal reflexiona sobre ella analizando el principio activo de las races de las
palabras, cuyo tema remonta a una larga tradicin filolgica de importantes
consecuencias para la filosofa, al gramtico espaol Francisco Snchez de las
Brozas, del siglo XVI; a san Isidoro de Sevilla, cuya vida transcurre entre los
siglos VI y VII; a los grmenes primitivos de la palabra y del pensamiento en
Filn de Alejandra; a los estoicos, Platn, las culturas bblica e india, etc. El
renuevo evolucionista del siglo XIX incrementa la comparacin de las races
filolgicas con la tradicin seminal del pensamiento (estoicos y san Agustn)
y las clulas vivas del principio vital, expresin muy frecuente entre los
tericos del lenguaje que investigan en esta centuria una razn tambin uni-
versal de la gramtica. Pervive en este tema el debate de los siglos X y XII,
XIII y XIV, en torno a las relaciones lgicas del lenguaje y del pensamiento
(G. de Aurillac, san Anselmo, P. Abelardo; los modistas, G. de Ockham), que
en el XVII sistematiza la escuela de Port-Royal, contina en el cartesianismo,
culmina luego en Humboldt y an resuena hoy en la Gramtica Universal de
N. Chomsky.
La constitucin gnoseolgica del lenguaje evidencia el nexo ontolgico de
objeto y sujeto, del que Amor Ruibal infiere una relacin prelgica indis-
pensable en todo conocimiento crtico y objetivo de la realidad. La ciencia
se presenta bajo este aspecto como el conocimiento de las cosas a travs de
las nociones que su presencia induce en la mente y de las ideas que expli-
can la realidad mediante principios y categoras desarrolladas en el proceso
as elaborado. Es por ello algo ideal que envuelve y entraa un estado de lo
real.4 El concepto conecta la formalidad de la mente con la sensibilidad que
las cosas imprimen en nuestros sentidos. Su nocin es lo comn de la reali-
dad a la que pertenecemos. Lingsticamente hablando corresponde al hecho
de tener nocin o noticia de algo, aquello que presenta algo a la percep-
cin y despierta su principio operativo. El entramado cientfico depende del
modo como expliquemos esta relacin prelgica. Y el lenguaje lo hace efec-
tivo al establecer una instancia comn de entendimiento entre los hombres y la
realidad que los envuelve. No hay ciencia sin dilogo. Su objetivo comprende
tambin la comunicacin a los dems interlocutores del resultado verificable,
sin cuya ratificacin no existe ciencia propiamente dicha. Amor Ruibal observa
adems que los fundamentos de las ciencias histricas, y hasta de las positivas,
dependen de una razn tropolgica en sus principios, como el lenguaje, segn
veremos.
La orientacin epistemolgica procede de anlisis y reflexiones en torno
a la gramtica comparada y el mnimo de reduccin activa de un elemento
que, siendo acto de habla, encierra una virtualidad operativa confirmada luego
histricamente. Son las races. Los gramticos indios observaban en la consti-

tucin del snscrito que las palabras giran en torno a un centro mental comn
por reas de designacin de objetos, acciones y cualidades primarias de la
vida. Sus atributos presentan una conexin fundamental con las creencias y
tradiciones antropolgicas de su cultura. Son comunes en varios aspectos al
dinamismo de la realidad y el correlato imaginario de adjetivos concernientes
a representaciones de la divinidad y su culto enraizado en las costumbres ordi-
narias. La sntesis mental de tales actos refleja el conocimiento del pueblo
y civilizacin india. La raz de las palabras sintetiza a su vez este proceso.
Al designar una cualidad, incorporar nuevos elementos o desarrollar otros
mediante adjuncin, yuxtaposicin, metafona, derivacin y composicin,
como se observa tambin en distintas culturas e idiomas, hebreo, egipcio y
turco, por ejemplo, la raz muestra una sustancia dinmica, un cuerpo vivo que
contrasta con su aparente fijeza. Observamos en ella que un elemento constante
acta en el entorno y se desarrolla segn el medio, circunstancia y actividad
de los hablantes. Tiene carcter plstico y efectividad doblemente refleja, pues
incide en la realidad denominando las acciones humanas y es determinada por
ella a la par de su dinamismo y desarrollo. Existe una razn mediada en su
constitucin, un logos del medio y circunstancia que la rodean e incetivan: una
mesologa.
La hiptesis centrada en este dinamismo interno y de entorno deja entrever
que las races ms antiguas responden a un impulso o mocin locutiva centrada
en breves emisiones de voz que fijan el contorno voclico as constituido. Es la
conocida hiptesis del monosilabismo en torno a una, dos o tres consonantes
en slaba originaria. La energa en ella impresa sigue actuando conforme al
reflejo antes indicado, de flujo y reflujo, y genera la unidad que denominamos
palabra. De su constitucin podemos deducir que el tacto inicial articulatorio
comprende ndices de variacin posible en consonancia con el entorno objetivo
y sujetivo del habla. Su potencia abre una explicacin posible del lenguaje.
Es obvio que no alcanzamos el origen histrico de las races iniciales, pero
observamos el desarrollo de las constatadas como ms antiguas y el nacimiento
de otras en su medio vital. La accin que integra a alguna de ellas o elemento
suyo, tanto la fsica que el objeto designado implica como la mocin sujetiva
que la impulsa, dejan reflejos en casos an hoy activos de ciertas lenguas, como
las onomatopeyas. Se une a ello el efecto semitico de ciertos pictogramas y
escrituras primitivas donde la imagen simblica del objeto, el grafo y el fono
tienden a fundirse en una sinergia de funciones. A medida que las lenguas
se desarrollan, esta funcin deja paso a otras ms complejas en su formacin
histrica.
El estado incierto de muchas de estas hiptesis elaboradas sobre el con-

cepto de raz no permite fundar un criterio de reflexin fiable y atribuir sin
ms fundamento carcter de ciencia al anlisis filolgico e histrico. El grado,
norma de evolucin y parentesco de algunas races en diferentes lenguas dejan
establecer, sin embargo, otras hiptesis que s fundamentan una razn cient-
fica al organizar los datos y ver que se repite en ellos un principio constante de
formacin en todas o gran parte de las lenguas conocidas. Pasamos entonces
del concepto de raz al de Etimologa.
ETIMOLOGA Y PRINCIPIO D E RELACIN
El mtodo comparativo, basado en semejanzas y diferencias opositivas de dis-

tribucin de elementos a partir de un tronco comn, avala como criterio la con-
statacin de que toda palabra tiene una etimologa aunque no podamos recono-
cerla como su raz originaria. Es el mtodo aplicado por la escuela comparatista
en la reconstitucin hipottica del indoeuropeo. Amor Ruibal observa que en su
complejo epistemolgico intervienen factores hermenuticos de interpretacin
sobre las nociones de los elementos considerados, sus relaciones, esferas y
orbes de integracin gradativa en niveles y estructuras siguiendo operaciones
mentales de asociacin, yuxtaposicin, agrupamiento, nexos, tipos, series,
clases, dependencias, subsunciones, oposiciones, principios subyacentes, orga-
nizativos, y categoras que forman y explican el sistema as formado. Este
mtodo nos revela actividades y actos del pensamiento. La peculiaridad es tan
especfica que, aunque observemos sus factores en otras ciencias, nos remite a
su fundamento conceptivo.
La etimologa resume aquel ideal objetivo y sujetivo de ciencia o plan
interno del ser y actividad del lenguaje. Tiene una base aparentemente fija
y elementos adjuntos o caracteres desarrollados en consonancia con la desig-
nacin y accin mental en que aparece inmersa. Esttica y al mismo tiempo
dinmica, no slo es objeto de conocimiento, sino que muestra una formalidad
suya precisa. Y ello al margen de que la designacin sea arbitraria o natural,
pues siempre resulta adecuada a la circunstancia segn mesologa del hecho
acontecido. E esto no presupone identidad de lenguaje y pensamiento. La
raz comporta un campo previo inabarcable, perdido en un tiempo inmemo-
rial que, sin embargo, nos afecta de algn modo en sus restos compositivos
ya registrables en un momento hipottico, plausible o preciso de su historia.
Nos permite concebir un esquema suyo de operaciones concertadas y
correlativas:
Idea
Raz Relacin (F)
(Palabra)
Decamos, no obstante, que, una vez establecida la palabra, resulta ms

apropiado hablar de etimologa en cuanto su forma permite desgranar un cen-
tro y entorno de relaciones compactas segn los conceptos ya lingsticos
en ella implicados, tales como la significacin y su estudio metodolgico,
la Semntica; el sonido y la ciencia que lo registra descubriendo en l y sus
conexiones las leyes que lo conforman segn la elacin procesada en el acto
de habla, la Fontica y, a su vez, Fonologa, pues las unidades bsicas parten
de una configuracin mnima en torno al acento; y todo ello presupone una
relacin interna funcionalmente objetivada, la Morfologa, que se expande por
despliegue hacia otras unidades homlogas o apresentadas en funcin de un
nuevo lazo comprehensivo, la Sintaxis. Tenemos, entonces:
Significacin (Semntica)
Etimologa Morfologa (F): Sintaxis
Sonido (Fontica)
Si consideramos adems el proceso subyacente entre un mnimo y un

mximo de ocurrencia posible de unidades, es decir, la polaridad que la
relacin establece entre un principio y un fin, una posicin ttica, fnica o
lexemtica, y su clausura articulatoria, la Etimologa resulta siempre Relacin
de la correspondencia adecuada de sonido y sentido segn una funcin dada
en un eje () . . . . . .. N (Fx) . . . . . ..(). Es lo que luego se denomin Morfo-
Sintaxis. Este esquema ser entonces parmetro general de conocimiento
lingstico:
S
Etm ------ R
Sn
Ahora bien, dado que el proceso filolgico desentraado del estudio com-
parado de lenguas y de la Gramtica histrica de algunas de ellas favorece una
hiptesis temtica inicial (Humboldt, M. Bral, . Benveniste, Agustn Garca
Calvo en nuestros das, etc.), de carcter dectico, asociada con desinencias
que seran otros elementos demostrativos, cabe concebir un campo pronomi-
nal bsico, entendido como potencia tensional (ditasis) que asocia unidades
separando al mismo tiempo el nexo as formado (distasis) y distribuyendo
sus partes conforme a un organigrama interno de significacin o acto nomi-
nal (Sinngebung fenomenolgica): la ditaxis que engrana unidades sucesivas
nuclearizando una de ellas respecto de otras. Se configura as lo que enten-
demos por relacin proposicional originada desde la asociacin primera de
elementos, sus implicaciones paulatinas en nexos y los ncleos. Son los tres
rdenes que Husserl escalona en la semiognesis de las formas lgicas desde
la pasividad constitutiva hasta los recubrimientos nodulares de las formas
ontolgicas. Amor Ruibal ya preconiza esta configuracin de algn modo.
Cabe proponer entonces el esquema etimolgico como parmetro cognitivo
del lenguaje:
(Acto nominal)
N (V)
Etm ---------- R
Pro
El Pro-Nombre figura en realidad el campo expansivo de la nominacin

mostrativa a la que acompaa un de procesivo tanto interno cuanto sintag-
mtico: la de-signacin, el factor intencional y decticamente fenomenolgico
del signo lingstico. A l pertenece incluso la surgencia antepredicativa del
nombre y el campo correlativo de designaciones pronominales que lo circun-
dan designando una accin, el objeto envuelto en ella, la circunstancia o estado
mesolgico de su eventualidad e incluso, ya desarrollado el proceso en fun-
cin sintagmtica segn el despliegue intersubjetivo del dilogo entre sujetos
intervenientes, el dinamismo resultante: el verbo. As interpretamos nosotros
la razn fundadora del lenguaje segn Amor Ruibal.
La activacin del fondo esttico y el dinamismo consecuente de la eti-
mologa resume tambin el ideal cientfico al considerar su forma como un
objeto que contiene la mocin psquica que lo comprende, de donde se deriva
un nexo real-ideal u objetividad gnoseolgica. Ejemplifica la designacin
segn se manifiesta la realidad ambiente o mundo vivido en el conocimiento.
Es el valor objetivo de la significacin que fundamenta el estudio del
lenguaje como ciencia propia. Amor Ruibal se sita de este modo a la par
de Humboldt entre los fundadores cientficos de la Lingstica.
El anlisis de la etimologa nos muestra adems que su reduccin tiene
lmites, mximos y mnimos, de los que depende la organizacin y expan-
sin lxica. En orden mnimo aparece el fonema como unidad irreductible y
en el mximo la slaba y la palabra. Son los tipos elementales de organizacin
y constitucin del lenguaje, el paralelo lingstico de la teora atmica de la
realidad segn la fsica moderna.
Amor Ruibal comprueba en la formacin de la unidad bsica fonoacs-
tica el modelo expresivo de actuacin concreta de relaciones adunadas segn
un principio de abstraccin que las integra y tipifica: el tipo o categora
fontica. Hay en ello operaciones de seleccin de rasgos articulatorios, de fil-
tro acstico, de elaboracin e interpretacin configurativa, pues el fonema,
al establecerse, depende de otras unidades homlogas que lo posibilitan y
cuyo funcionamiento repite las relaciones que lo constituyen al tiempo que
revela otras ms complejas. Se puede definir en funcin de otra unidad que
lo engloba. Pero lo importante aqu resulta de su realidad objetiva concreta al
agruparse con otros fonemas en tipos segn principios de organizacin propia
y que sirven de paradigma comn a diferentes actos de habla. Existe, entonces,
una unidad mnima concreta predicable por extenso de otras unidades como
su principio abstracto. Hallamos una concretud totalizable. El sonido [b]
se realizar siempre en espaol con los rasgos oclusivo, bilabial y sonoro.
Esta capacidad de replicacin efectiva integrada en grupos ms complejos y
siguiendo una actitud intencional de significar algo en la realidad viva nos
sita ante un proceso de conocimiento diferenciado. Los fonemas organi-
zados en slabas exponen el comportamiento de las unidades respecto del
principio que las forma y les asigna funciones. Actan como las clulas en
el organismo vivo (grmenes vivientes) o los tomos en la realidad fsica y
manteniendo su propio dinamismo como constante de accin determinada y
constitutiva. El acento anima y modula la uniformidad de la frase y de la pal-
abra. Amor Ruibal mantiene esta explicacin precisa como modelo explicativo
y cita en concreto la imagen celular y el relativismo atmico al exponer el tipo
fonmico y ejemplificar la organizacin lxica y conceptual de una palabra y
su significado.
Lo decisivo para el caso es la unidad de idea y sentido surgida en la agru-
pacin tipolgica. Todas las expresiones fonticas, como originariamente
reflejas y recibidas de los sentidos, pueden considerarse como imitacin de
un sonido expresin de una sensacin, y tambin como significacin del
objeto que produce aquel sonido aquella sensacin. La reunin de muchas
expresiones fonticas de la misma naturaleza forman un todo que da origen
una idea comn todas ellas: de este modo, por un procedimiento natural-
racional, que consiste en fijar algunas expresiones generales entre las infinitas
posibles, se forma un patrimonio relativamente pequeo de tipos fonticos,
manifestacin y sntesis de aquellas cosas ms necesarias la vida humana.
Estos tipos fonticos son los puntos centrales y fundamentales del lenguaje, y
lo que constituye el objeto y el resultado de la ciencia del lenguaje, ms all de
los cuales la Filologa no puede pasar.5 La actividad fonoacstica revela un
caso singular de conocimiento en el que se juntan el mtodo positivo, basado en
la experiencia verificable, y el racional, la induccin y abstraccin. Constituye
adems un objeto que contiene en su naturaleza los dos principios gnoseolgi-
cos. Al lenguaje lo asiste el fundamento que lo explica. Contiene el principio
que determina la idea abstracta y la realidad concreta de su categora. Es
objeto nico y paradigmtico.
Y esto se confirma por el hecho de que las palabras expresan adems de
la idea una relacin no contenida en ella y por eso son las races los to-
mos indivisibles de la lengua y los elementos primitivos de las palabras.6 La
relacin funda el lenguaje y la concepcin de la materia. Comprobamos tam-
bin su accin constitutiva en el lxico, semntica y fsica terica. As como
los conceptos de jardn y rbol se relacionan entre s a travs de los de tierra
y rosas, y estos mediante los de tronco, raz, ramas, hojas, lo mismo acon-
tece con los tomos y el concepto de fuerza en la materia. La relacin da ser
al conocimiento, resume Amor Ruibal,7 quien adelanta con estas reflexiones
fundamentos que, con otros establecidos por Friedrich M. Mller y Bral, a
quien por veces sigue de cerca, dieron lugar ms tarde a la institucin de la
Lingstica como ciencia moderna a partir de F. de Saussure. L. Bloomfield y
L. Hjelmslev. La fundamentacin cientfica del lenguaje es uno de los objetivos
intelectuales del siglo XIX. Amor Ruibal parte del proceso filolgico e invierte
su perspectiva. Hasta entonces la relacin era algo significado por el lenguaje
mediante la flexin, casos, preposiciones, recursos derivativos, composicin,
concordancia, etc. A partir de ahora es ella quien lo funda y sistematiza.
As pues, las unidades bsicas o tipos fundamentales ya exponen el plan
interno y organizacin compositiva, sistemtica y orgnica, del lenguaje. Una
unidad funciona como parte respecto de otra en el conjunto y su relacin mutua
evidencia el todo que las engloba sin igualarse con ellas como resultado de
suma. Y este fenmeno descubre a su vez una gradacin intensiva y extensiva.
Al formalizarse el conjunto observamos un proceso orgnico de implicacin
creciente. La unidad general se concentra sobre los particulares y estos conver-
gen en ella como en ncleo que explica su fundamento, con lo cual adquieren
una funcin determinada.
La Etimologa no se confunde con la Fontica, que es slo un medio suyo. Al

unir un sentido con un sonido en forma de palabra, su proceso comprende cam-
bios respectivos cuyas causas y transformaciones nos sitan mediante anlisis
en su fondo real y cientfico.8 Los correspondientes al sonido constituyen las
leyes fonticas y los del sentido la semntica, tambin denominada semasi-
ologa y sematologa.9 Estudia sta adems los valores significativos de las
palabras y la base tropolgica del lenguaje, que evidencia a su vez los princi-
pales mecanismos de constitucin (sincdoque), correspondencia (metonimia)
y semejanza de sentido o sonido. A ello aade Amor Ruibal otras operaciones
que exponen de nuevo su implicacin gnoseolgica: ampliacin, restriccin,
transformacin, polisemia, analoga, categorizacin gramatical, relaciones lgi
cas, psicolgicas, etc. La semntica agrupa de este modo la Retrica y Sintaxis,
en cuyos lmites se sita como divisin cientfica del lenguaje. La combi-
nacin de los cambios as correlatados de sonido y sentido aporta adems el
concepto fundamental de valor lingstico, que Amor Ruibal extiende al estu-
dio filosfico y teolgico a veces con el nombre de grador y de intensidad
conceptiva.
Bajo tal aspecto, la Etimologa representa en principio la unidad paradig-
mtica del lenguaje. Comprende como base material la Fontica y Semntica,
es decir, las ciencias subsidiarias del sonido y sentido representadas en el
lexema, mientras que la parte formal corresponde a la Sintaxis. El estudio
histrico de las funciones sintcticas revela el valor apofntico de la parte y
del todo, la lexis y el logos, de las categoras y de la proposicin.10 Su estu-
dio corresponde a la Morfologa, con lo que entramos en la morfosintaxis o
aspecto tensional combinatorio, expansivo y distributivo del lenguaje, de cuyas
relaciones y funciones depende que su mtodo cientfico alcance un perodo
prehistrico y asista la creacin misma de las formas lingsticas. La sin-
taxis queda entonces definida como la razn formal de los idiomas y su valor
ideolgico, que es, en resumen, el valor nico que las caracteriza.11 Atae
tambin, por tanto, a la conexin de las formas semnticas.
La relacin interna de lexis y logos da cuenta, pues, del valor que en este
perodo prehistrico corresponde al enlace de sufijos y races antiguas, del
que depende la categora inicial de las palabras, que sean, por ejemplo, verbo
nombre, sustantivo adjetivo. Alude el autor con ello a la hiptesis de aque-
lla base radical primitiva funcionalmente indiferenciada, monoltera, biltera o
triltera, con los fonemas o huecos suyos, por ejemplo las vocales, a cuya
mocin mnima corresponde su expansin interna y externa, segn los tipos
bsicos de organizacin etimolgica en snscrito, hebreo, copto, egipcio y
turco.
Esta observacin resulta importante en perspectiva fenomenolgica. Antes
aludimos a la posibilidad cientfica de entrar en la creacin misma de las
formas lingsticas, es decir, en la formacin de la forma, peculiaridad exclu-

siva de esta ciencia, pues en otra no asistimos al proceso formativo del objeto
estudiado. No estamos dentro de l.
Habra, pues, una tensin fnica cuyo acto es nominal o, como dice luego
Husserl, donacin de sentido (Sinngebung), y cuya mocin determina un
enlace con otros actos semejantes. Y segn sea el resultado de tales acciones
tendremos en esta unidad mnima de carcter energtico un verbo, sustan-
tivo o adjetivo. El nombre nombra bien una accin que implica un objeto
corpreo o incorpreo, bien una accin en s, pero no de modo exclusivo,
o el acto mismo. El verbo viene a ser un accidente gramatical determinativo
de la raz, que de suyo no lo representa, o de la actividad comprendida
como objeto ontolgico, es decir, una determinacin o ejercicio suyo: el hecho
nominal, su actuacin efectiva.
El verbo depende, por tanto, de una actuacin gramatical correlativa al ejer-
cicio de llevar a trmino la tensin de la raz y de la accin lgica que esto
supone, la cual puede ser objeto designativo de un verbo determinado. La dita-
sis expansiva comprende el campo pro-nominal y dialgico implcito. Al verbo
lo prelata tambin el medio demostrativo y pronominalizante. Amor Ruibal
critica la definicin que Aristteles da de verbo asociada al tiempo que implica
en tanto conexin interna de la sucesin del movimiento. El predicado extiende
su dinamismo al sujeto considerado como parte del conjunto as subsumido
y significado: la proposicin, el discurso. El acto predicativo de Aristteles
implicara entonces un tropo. Incluye al sujeto en el movimiento compositivo
del tiempo. Lo yuxtapone, coordina y subordina segn el recubrimiento de
actos implicados. Para Amor Ruibal el lexema del verbo ya presupone tiempo
y algo objetivo. Prima la razn nominal, el acto nombre, sobre sus variaciones
adjuntas o accidentes gramaticales, discursivos, pronominales. La predicacin
aristotlica avanza una consecuencia del tiempo como fundamento suyo. Es
un caso, podramos decir, de hysteron proton. El tiempo, pues, como tal, no
necesita palabra, y, sin embargo, la tiene siempre.12
La palabra es tiempo porque remite al instante articulatorio y en forma actual
de presente, el del habla, que implica una afirmacin o negacin lgica y, por
tanto, una conveniencia entre al menos dos entes, actos, situaciones, etc. Hay,
pues, una prelacin lgica deducida a posteriori que responde, no obstante,
a otra ontolgica: la diferencia instantnea de objeto y sujeto en posicin de
conocimiento y de habla. El acto nominal incide sobre una relacin prelgica
cualificando como nombre un acto sustantivo de referencia objetivo-sujetiva.
Ya acota una predicacin. Contiene verbo, el verbo, el verbum mentis, y es
verbum oris.
Amor Ruibal retoma la denominacin de san Agustn y otros tericos del
lenguaje para cifrar el momento de posicin articulatoria, la primera forma
denominativa a la que dirigir otras subsecuentes como morfemas suyos o

adjuntos procesuales del discurso y del orden ontolgico de las cosas. La
articulacin fnica pone tambin una marca en ese instante denominativo. Es
ndice cualitativo de un proceso cuyo resultado remite a un concepto y al nom-
bre, sea sustantivo o verbo. La primera posicin nocional y articulada sustancia
algo en el fondo relacional, no esttico, sino procedente. Es el sustantivo ser,
el dinamismo interno de toda posicin originaria, lgica y lingstica; lgica
porque circunscribe un presente nocional designativo al que se refiere cualquier
otra consideracin posible y que se cierra afirmndolo o negndolo; lingstica,
porque, designando, el nombre ya contiene una propuesta de posible sancin
tambin judicativa. El punto nocional abre o acontece en proceso. De ah
que todo otro verbo resulte adjetivo en relacin con esta base sustantiva. Es
energeia, y el nombre, es ergon, denominaciones heredadas de Humboldt, pero
que la tradicin ya usaba, sobre todo la primera, desde tiempo antiguo. Ahora
bien, el producto o ergon del nombre expresa asimismo el proceso mental de
las cualidades que determinan sucesivamente el concepto de algo, mientras
que en el verbo no sucede lo mismo.13 El verbo indica la conveniencia o dis-
crepancia del concepto en relacin con las cualidades que integra, lo cual ya lo
convierte en sujeto suyo preverbal o predicado de una relacin ontolgica, pues
va implicada en ello la referencia de donde proceden aquellas cualificaciones.
El nombre contiene verbo.
Entiende Amor Ruibal con Santo Toms de Aquino, pero la idea proviene
de Aristteles, que en la frase Pedro vive se da un proceso implcito igual a
Pedro es viviente. La forma verbal se desglosa en verbo sustantivo (es) ms
nombre. Quiere ello decir que las notas o cualidades de Pedro ya realizan la
accin viviente y que la forma verbal ratifica aquel juicio previo de adecuacin
o discrepancia entre sujeto y predicado implcito. Presupone adems que la
presencia espontnea de la nocin implcita ser se da en todo acto percep-
tivo de cualidad, es decir, aquel aspecto nocional antes resaltado como marca
simple de existencia mental o de fonacin articulada. Y por eso distingue entre
orden lgico, nocional y judicativo, y gramatical.14 En el primero se da siempre
verbo ser y est inmerso en cualquier otro verbo, pues representa el acento
perceptivo de lo inteligible. Puede encontrase equivalencia suya en toda
proposicin, pero esto no presupone que haya un verbo nico matriz de los
dems o que todos se reduzcan gramaticalmente al verbo ser.15 Una cosa es el
lazo lgico y otra el gramatical, que pueden coincidir o no en las expresiones
verbales.
Un ejemplo del contenido verbal cualitativo del nombre y de desplazamiento
del sonido de la raz a otra forma fnica que, no obstante, mantiene el sentido
verbal es la palabra ente. El autor recurre aqu de nuevo a observaciones de
Bral.16 Tal sustantivo procede de la forma primitiva del verbo eim cuyo
participio presente es-on elide la s, fenmeno frecuente en griego, y de e-on,

e-ontos pasa a ente, desinencia que adquiere valor nominal de sustantivo rete-
niendo en su forma el proceso que la constituye. He aqu un ejemplo de aquella
entrada en la formacin de la forma.
La unidad morfolgica contiene el principio de organizacin de la materia
elemental. Su forma posibilita la unin de la energa incursa en la raz y el
logos del medio, en el que entra tambin como entorno suyo la articulacin
fonolgica del sonido natural segn una intencin significativa, el acento, el
cual refleja el culmen de organizacin y la tendencia relativa hacia otra unidad
adjunta. Reencontramos as de nuevo el principio formal de la palabra y la ten-
sin traslativa en orden a la accin psicolgica que la potencia y el medio por
ella designado. Se crea un flujo reversible de interrelaciones objetivas y suje-
tivas, pues el dinamismo atae tanto a la accin en que se muestra el objeto
como al decurso intencional del proceso. La Sinnesartikulation es el modelo
formal del lenguaje. Si descubrimos los principios fundamentales subyacentes
en ella y las categoras a que ha lugar, obtendremos su plan organizativo
y un paradigma a su vez de cmo funciona en el sistema la estructura del
conocimiento. Amor Ruibal indaga el fundamento gnoseolgico de la con-
ciencia crtica al determinar sus actos mentales. Obtiene as una lingstica
verdaderamente fundada en el conocimiento. Y a su vez, en orden reverso, la
filosofa descubre en el lenguaje un cauce hermenutico de la mocin intelec-
tual de los actos cognitivos. Desarrolla de este modo el giro lingstico operado
por Humboldt, pero desde una fuente comn a ambos, la obra de L. Hervs y
Panduro, en la que ve el comienzo de la lingstica en sentido moderno.
El estudio comparado de lenguas orientales, indoeuropeas y americanas, el
gran aporte de la gramtica histrica, dejaba entrever dos o tres paradigmas
de articulacin que, en el fondo, se resumen en uno solo. En el estudio gra-
matical indio atiende al proceso de anlisis etimolgico; en el hebraico, chino
y egipcio, al especial modo de incremento morfolgico a partir de la slaba;
del griego cifra la intuicin sinttica de la palabra y frase; del turco y nhu-
atle, el proceso de inflexin incorporada y la funcin de ciertos elementos al
determinar el sentido general de la frase. A su vez, el anlisis histrico del
comparatismo descubre relaciones profundas en la evolucin y desarrollo de
las lenguas, tanto en la vertiente paleogramtica, con F. Bopp a la cabeza, como
en la denominada joven gramtica alemana. El jesuita Hervs y Panduro ofrece
listas taxonmicas de vocablos de lenguas diferentes referidas a un mismo
objeto o accin, por ejemplo las del Padrenuestro, y en ellas se observa la
razn comprensiva del medio vital y la concepcin del mundo. Humboldt se
inspir en este aporte antropolgico y lo mismo hizo por la misma poca, un
poco antes, el fraile gallego Martn Sarmiento, cuyo Onomstico Etimolgico
de la Lengua Gallega17 es ya un antecedente lexicosemntico de estructuracin
lingstica. Amor Ruibal examina desde este enfoque la contribucin de un sis-

tema a otro y suple sus deficiencias con argumentos complementarios y nuevas
reflexiones. El anlisis del lenguaje manifiesta una razn objetiva y un mtodo
propio, segn veamos anteriormente. Y ello no implica que la palabra haya
de objetivarse de un modo preciso y segn una concepcin determinada de
realidad, sino que ms bien lo hace en todas las lenguas siguiendo un proceso
objetivo de fundamentacin. Y sta es la vertiente filosfica del estudio lings-
tico, que no se confunde con lo que hoy entendemos por filosofa del lenguaje,
y que propone una lingstica del pensamiento.
MTODO SINTTICO-HISTRICO
El anlisis filolgico o paso de la etimologa a la idea, cuyo modelo es para

Amor Ruibal la lengua india; el proceso sinttico de la idea en las partes
y conjunto de la frase griega; la evolucin contrastada de lenguas indoeuro-
peas o la exclusiva de una concreta, como la latina respecto de las lenguas
romances, o an cualquiera de stas referida al latn, tales modelos, analtico,
sinttico e histrico, es decir, el anlisis filolgico de la gramtica comparada,
histrica, y el mtodo crtico y hermenutico de la ciencia en sentido filos-
fico -bsqueda de la razn objetiva-, concluyen en una propuesta de mtodo
sinttico-histrico, pues no hay anlisis que no proceda por sntesis ni real-
izacin concreta sin decurso histrico. En el anlisis prima la induccin o pro-
ceso ascendente de efectos a causas; en la sntesis, la deduccin, que baja
las causas a efectos;18 y la historia, cuyo concepto comparte con Hegel, es,
objetivamente y en general, la evolucin de todo sr en el tiempo y en el espa-
cio. Sin esta razn evolutiva, inconstancia presente de todo lo sucesivamente
actuado, no existe realidad histrica.19 El lenguaje sirve de vivo ejemplo.
Amor Ruibal sintetiza una larga tradicin cultural, filosfica y filolgica
partiendo del Rig-Veda, la Biblia, otras escrituras histricas -copta, egipcia,
persa, china, turca-, Platn (principio fonolgico e ideal cientfico), Aristteles
(categoras), la patrstica (verbum mentis de san Agustn, gramtica hermenu-
tica), Locke (formacin de palabras y conceptos), Descartes (valor conceptual
innato), Leibniz (caracterstica universal), Kant (a priori nocional de las cate-
goras), Hervs y Panduro (antropologa lingstica), Humboldt (forma interna
energtica), Hegel (dialctica), etc. Nace as una lingstica filosfica de
carcter gnoseolgico. Figura en ella una fundamentacin cientfica inten-
cionada antes de los aportes de E. Cassirer, Saussure, Hjelmslev, R. Jakobson,
Chomsky, Benveniste, y en paralelo con Ch. S. Peirce, Husserl, antes tambin
que E. Sapir, el primer Bloomfield, pero en lnea y a la zaga de Humboldt,
G. Gerber, H. Steinthal, F. Mller, W. D. Whitney, Bral, otros pensadores,
analistas del lenguaje y cientficos. Y a pesar de ello, esta teora del lenguaje
sigue an hoy prcticamente sin crdito ni presencia en la historiografa

lingstica. Amor Ruibal introduce en Espaa la escuela de Leipzig y funda
una lingstica gnoseolgica que sirve de claro antecedente a la denominada
cognitiva, pero con implicaciones muy diferenciadas. Y esto sin ms estancia
en el extranjero que un ao de estudio, en Roma, de lenguas orientales.
La Ciencia del Lenguaje se constituye, pues, con criterio propio y particu-
laridad especfica a partir de tales precedentes y la reflexin que la Filologa
general, la Gramtica histrica y la Glotologa aportan con registro e investi-
gacin de datos ms que suficientes. No es ciencia como la exacta y metafsica,
sino de carcter histrico, pero bajo los principios generales y ontolgicos del
conocimiento, educidos de la realidad misma del lenguaje. En principio, el
concepto de Ciencia del Lenguaje coincide con el de Gramtica comparada al
establecer sta una teora racional, sistemtica y activa sobre aquellos datos
filolgicos y articulatorios, de los que se infieren procesos que evidencian
una relacin con el espritu y permiten indagar el por qu [sic] de sus aser-
ciones; los principios fsicos que ataen a la naturaleza del sonido articulado;
los filosficos que intervienen en las relaciones del signo y la idea; los fsicos,
morales y sociales correspondientes a las causas de igual ndole intervinientes
en la vida real de las lenguas.20 Este planteamiento y justificacin responde
al de la ciencia en general considerada como demostratio rei per causas, pues
su mtodo y estudio analtico sigue la naturaleza y propiedades de su objeto
dentro de una teora racional que d la razn del sistema, y constituya por lo
mismo la demostracin conveniente del objeto una vez conocida la forma de su
existencia.21 Queda as patente el ideal filosfico de ciencia, que Amor Ruibal
resume en consonancia con la aplicacin de Locke a las relaciones entre la idea
y las cosas, por una parte, y el nombre con la Idea, por otra. Segn el filsofo
ingls, la palabra designa los objetos oblicuamente a travs de las ideas que los
representan y Amor Ruibal dice que la ciencia se refiere de una manera directa
y primaria, los principios de la teora que trata de explicar el sr objetivo de
la cosa, y slo indirectamente la cosa misma, cuyo es el sr objetivo.22 Se
trata, en el fondo, de un replanteamiento de la significacin segn la concibe
Aristteles al comienzo del Peri Hermeneias.
En el concepto de Ciencia del Lenguaje queda integrado entonces el de
Gramtica comparada, pero tambin la Gramtica General aludida constante-
mente en el siglo XIX. La naturaleza histrica del lenguaje muestra el concepto
objetivo o acciones, los actos y hechos de habla, al tiempo que el sujetivo, sus
razones y causas, y la razn terica del sistema: las leyes generales de la his-
toria, esto en consonancia con Humboldt y Hegel. Ahora bien, creemos que el
eclecticismo de Amor Ruibal une a la causalidad de energa latente, inspirada
en la fsica y biologa modernas, la finalidad implcita del proceso en cuanto
todo desarrollo se dirige a un fin slo conocido a posteriori, una vez que se han
analizado los datos, el proceso que los engloba y los principios que lo asisten.
Pero esta causalidad es ms bien tipolgica y arquetpica, el resultado que las
relaciones de elementos, partes y todo evidencian en el doble movimiento de
flujo y reflujo, como si el lenguaje poseyera un carcter intuitivo especial. De
hecho, el siglo XIX tiene una imagen arquitectnica de las lenguas. Eduardo
Benot, lingista valenciano tambin presente en la reflexin de Amor Ruibal,
public un libro con este ttulo, Arquitectura de las Lenguas, y una Gramtica
Filosfica de la Lengua Castellana en la que se observan reflexiones comunes
sobre la determinacin de los valores semnticos universales, en consonacia
ambos autores con Bral.23
Todo ello nos remite al intellectus ectypus o imagen mental que va deter-
minando en el proceso el prototipo de un todo capaz de explicar la razn y
funciones de las partes en l consideradas. Se genera as un modo intelectual
de razonamiento basado en aplicar a la naturaleza el conocimiento que de sus
datos obtenemos por reflexin, pero que en s mismos resultan insuficientes
para comprenderla. Quien vea labrar una piedra a un cantero aislado del lugar
donde se construye el edificio no comprender el porqu de su accin hasta
que no observe el plano general o la parte ya construida donde encajar el
bloque cincelado. Es el intellectus archetypus de Kant. Amor Ruibal pretende
la sntesis del conocimiento discursivo e intuitivo, de lo analtico-universal y
lo sinttico-universal, que en Kant proceden diferenciados, pero se implican
en orden a una razn suficiente del Juicio que explique el conocimiento de la
naturaleza y la reflexin que ste suscita ms all de los datos verificables24 .
El habla procede entonces teleolgicamente, hacia un sentido de las cosas.
Y su resultado es el perodo, la frase, proposicin, dilogo: el discurso. Une
as la base inductiva e intuitiva del lenguaje con la especulativa de la razn
y responde a Bacon, Descartes y Locke, a Kant y Hegel, a la polmica de
F. Mller y W. Withney, al tiempo que contina en el plano filosfico las
intuiciones de Humboldt. Los hechos priman sobre las reglas, pero unos y
otras dependen de principios fundamentales internos que los y las explican25
y no conocemos directamente, sino despus del anlisis y tras la deduccin de
categoras que la sntesis as obtenida permite establecer. El lenguaje configura
adems las bases crticas que rehacen los supuestos platnicos y aristotlicos
de la tradicin escolstica. De este modo, Amor Ruibal cree ofrecer al pen-
samiento universal de la ciencia y de la filosofa un modelo verdaderamente
nuevo, lingstico.
EL SIGNO LINGSTICO
La Etimologa comprende, decamos, las tres unidades bsicas, tipo fontico

o slaba, palabra y, por extensin o implicacin, la frase, ms el principio
formal sintctico que la expande mediante la determinacin predicativa en

proposicin. Una sola unidad funde, pues, la estructura del signo lingstico
y cognitivo con diferencia de funciones y entidades. Dijimos que la concep-
cin general del pensamiento de Amor Ruibal es trifsica y aadimos ahora
que su modelo de teora lingstica ya configura los principales y ms notables
del siglo XX. As sucede con el tringulo semitico y perceptivo que pode-
mos educir como fondo dialctico y arquitectnico, al tiempo que germinativo
y energtico, del lenguaje. A una primera triangulacin del signo cognitivo
como:
Facultad cognitiva
Potencia activa
Cosa u objeto Sensacin (Sujeto)
le corresponde otra psicolgicamente dinmica que representa la accin del

pensamiento y comprende en sus vrtices respectivos el acto de palabra
para el superior, el psquico en la representacin de la cosa y el fontico
correspondiente a la sensacin sonora. La ntima relacin establecida entre
ellos procede de la potencia activa. Resulta as un signo intermedio entre cosa
representada como idea, que es la significacin incursa en el lenguaje, y acto
fnico ya conceptualizado, pues el sonido experimenta una elacin ideolgica
en el proceso. Ahora bien, el signo as elaborado responde a un hecho espon-
tneo de intuicin locutiva, de habla. La distincin de partes y conceptos es
refleja, deductiva. Por eso cabe concebir en la base intuitiva del signo la misma
nocin que Amor Ruibal considera espontnea en todo acto de conocimiento
por el simple hecho de situarse uno en actitud perceptiva ante las cosas y la nat-
uraleza. Es la procesualidad propia del hombre como ser cognoscente, el darse
cuenta de, tener noticia de, sentir algo, etc. El algo acontece en una pelcula o
retina intelectual comn a lo conocido y cognoscente. Es la nocin general de
ser antes de analizarla, aquello que precisamente nos mueve a conocerlo por
hallarse dentro de nosotros sin que lo sepamos. La actitud natural del lenguaje
acontece del mismo modo. La palabra impulsa a conocer cuanto expresamos,
decimos y manifestamos a otros. Es el trasfondo intenso de la formacin ttica
prelgica, el cursor intuitivo del pensamiento. Resulta entonces, y con ella
el signo lingstico, proyeccin refleja del proceso gnoseolgico, por lo que
debemos considerarla como mbito resonante, expresivo, del volumen e inten-

sidad engendrada por la rotacin del pensamiento al conocer la realidad y sus
implicaciones:
Idea
Objeto Nocin Sensacin (fono)

(Designacin)
signo
Palabra
Indudablemente, el modelo de figuracin geomtrica formalizado despus

por C. K. Ogden e I. A. Richards, S. Ullmann, K. Baldinger, y ampliado
en forma de trapecio por G. Hilty y K. Heger,26 ya se perfila aqu con slo
considerar la imagen fnica de la palabra y del objeto representado, al que cor-
responde la significacin mediada por la idea. Caben diversas posibilidades de
representacin. Amor Ruibal cita a este respecto y el del valor simblico del
lenguaje, en consonancia con la Enciclopedia y Esttica de Hegel, la figura
de la pirmide.27 No olvidemos, sin embargo, que el aire de la fonacin forma
volumen y perodos de onda, y que, por tanto, toda figura ha de entenderse aqu
como el espacio-tiempo inscrito en su esquema.28
Lo importante es sensibilizar el cdigo mental del signo en funcin del
acto de habla, que se complica an ms si tenemos en cuenta la intersec-
cin producida al comunicarse los hablantes entre s. Su relacin es inversa,
asimtrica, y supone, como el dilogo en Humboldt, una serie de actos y distin-
ciones superpuestas que patentizan el efecto reflejo y reflexivo del lenguaje.29
La locucin comprende aquel nexo real e ideal del habla o valor objetivo de
las intenciones de hablante y oyente. En el primero supone: entender la cosa
(objeto); entender la palabra; conocer el enlace entre entendimiento y palabra
y entre sta y la cosa. Y por parte del oyente: entender la significacin de la
palabra; conocer la relacin ideal-real que permite atribuir a la significacin

el valor objetivo que intenta el que habla; pero no requiere, en cambio, el
conocimiento de la cosa, aunque se dirige a ella oblicuamente por el concepto
o idea. Ya conocemos este tipo de relacin mediada.30
El signo se constituye en el mbito de irradiacin ms comprehensivo de la
palabra y como interseccin locutiva de las intenciones de hablante y oyente.
Implica dilogo. Es el cdigo. Amor Ruibal lo caracteriza bajo diferentes
aspectos y del modo ms preciso posible respecto de las aporas tradicionales
y alternas entre naturaleza y convencin social, motivacin y arbitrariedad,
respondiendo as a cada una de las propuestas histricas que se hicieron.
Por eso lo situamos en el esquema piramidal dentro del reflejo de la palabra
como cdigo suyo. Es uno de los anlisis ms exhaustivos realizados hasta el
momento. El autor lo describe atendiendo a las relaciones internas y externas
en orden a sus componentes, la realidad designada y el intersticio de comu-
nicacin indicado, as como la razn ontolgica, causal, que en el aspecto
cientfico le corresponde.
En cuanto al ncleo, referido a la potencia cognoscitiva que lo produce, se
divide en formal e instrumental; en cuanto a la designacin o referencia hacia
la cosa u objeto, en natural y arbitrario. Esta diferencia corresponde al instante
interno de constitucin de la idea y elacin del sonido al formar unidad nueva
e independiente. Segn el primer aspecto es verbum mentis, denominacin
que hereda un trasfondo filosfico conocido desde Platn y san Agustn hasta
Ockham. El segundo se refiere al verbum oris o palabra hablada. Habr que
determinar el engarce entre los dos orbes de conocimiento, conceptivo y expre-
sivo. Es la interseccin de intenciones antes sealada o valor objetivo de la idea
incursa instintivamente en el sonido fnico, el cual experimenta, as lo inter-
pretamos nosotros al menos, una elacin significativa, y en ese instante aparece
la palabra significando la cosa, cuando en realidad representa la idea.31 Esta
aparicin resulta esencial, pues concibe formalmente el sonido en funcin de
las nociones y conceptos que confluyen en la idea, la cual presenta, a su vez,
una cosa y con ello induce una atribucin inmediata en los interlocutores. Tal
atributo es realmente la palabra, el efecto o acto de la potencia cognoscitiva
que hace expresivo el concepto. Y la expresin ya resulta ontolgica. Atae a
la facultad natural de conocer y hablar, una misma en dos vertientes, la segunda
por efecto expansivo del conocimiento al representar y decir a otro hablante el
valor objetivo de lo as creado. Se trata de una creacin ex aliquo, ms bien
de una produccin creadora: algo que conduce (ducere) algo en razn (pro) del
valor adquirido en su proceso: acto creativo.
La funcin elativa acta la potencia de la facultad confiriendo un valor
intencionalmente objetivo a lo representado para conocerlo y, por ello, comu-
nicarlo. La palabra refleja su constitucin conservando la capacidad facultativa
con carcter doblemente plstico segn atienda al impulso ideolgico o a su

expansin fnica. Una vez producida, conserva esta actitud de significacin y
determinacin, cuyo acto es el lenguaje efectivo, formalizado. Amor Ruibal
matiza entonces las correspondencias que ataen a cada plano del lenguaje. La
idea inviste el sonido con la significacin del objeto que representa. Y segn
consideremos la relacin del objeto con la idea y la palabra, el diverso modo de
conocerlo o de expresarlo, as observamos respectivamente que sus divisiones
se reflejan comunes en ambas. En el segundo caso, el del conocimiento, ataen
slo a la idea y en el tercero, el expresivo, a la palabra.32
La consecuencia inmediata de todo esto es que el signo del lenguaje se
muestra, por una parte, formal y natural, pero, por otra, una vez creado, su
valor es instrumental y convencionalmente arbitrario. La determinacin for-
malmente activa acontece en libre albedro y segn aquella razn del medio o
mesologa, que alcanza incluso al orden creativo de la expansin etimolgica
y de la palabra en la oracin. De esto resulta que el acto intelectualmente
nominal de la palabra se produce ocasionado por un objeto singular. La inten-
cin es ya denominativa porque se refiere al objeto y segn una equivalencia
semntica abstracta (. . .) que se concreta en cada caso.33 Ya sabemos que este
modo de concrecin se produce con el dinamismo del discurso al limitar una
palabra el sentido universal y genrico de otra. Amor Ruibal admite adems
que originariamente los sonidos fnicos contaron con fundamento real y
una razn no enteramente arbitraria o convencional, pero, una vez formado
el lenguaje, el hombre se mantiene en principio indiferente respecto del uso
de cualquier idioma y despus, ya adquirido uno determinado, se subordina
a l convencionalmente.34 As se explica la diferencia de idiomas y el apego
entraado de las lenguas al medio cultural y etnogrfico donde se generan,
aunque esto no suprime, como vemos, su carcter independiente.
Volviendo entonces al fondo cientfico y ontolgico del lenguaje, a su valor
entitativo, la doble relacin plstica del verbum entre la mente (mentis) y la
oralidad (oris) se manifiesta como causa eficiente (razn de su existencia y de
su significacin); ejemplar (norma de su significacin); y final: la razn del
vocablo es la intencin significativa.
Ahora bien, tanto la ocasin intencionalmente denominativa del lenguaje
como la causalidad ideolgica del verbum mentis respecto de la fonacin tiene
consecuencias notables. En primer lugar, al ser la significacin una equivalen-
cia abstracta y producida libremente en la naturaleza del concepto con ocasin
de algo singularmente objetivo, los nombres son adjetivos que expresan una
cualidad. No existe palabra propia y, por ello, todo lenguaje es en orden
a las individualidades un conjunto de pseudnimos combinados.35 El nom-
bre no contiene todo lo que evoca y de algn modo intuye mentalmente. Va
ms all de lo designado. Abre espacio mltiple de interpretacin radiada en
el que convoca a otros nombres ya creados o posibles. Amor Ruibal incluye

tambin la Retrica en la Ciencia del Lenguaje siguiendo a K. Brugmann y
J. Darmesteter. El signo resulta convencionalmente libre, pero adecuado a la
situacin en que se produce.
El objeto apropiado de la inteligencia es la inmediatez de sus valores univer-
sal y singular, no reflejos, sino espontneos, aunque cada uno produce efectos
diferentes cognoscitivos. Amor Ruibal concibe como Kant y Hegel un solo
rayo intelectivo bifurcado en dos direcciones de conocimiento, el concepto
originado por la sensacin singular del objeto y la idea producida al considerar
la razn que asiste verdaderamente a esa relacin original. Y de aqu procede
su teora relativa del conocimiento y del lenguaje. La propiedad, el carcter de
propio, de suyo, como dir luego X. Zubiri, pertenece a lo producido cono-
ciendo. De ah que la palabra sea a su vez un universal individualizado.36 Es
el nuevo objeto, la transicin elativa y traslativa del singular a la mente como
algo propio que significa conociendo en reciprocidad inmediata, alterna, cor-
relacionada. El autor se refiere de continuo a un ejercicio de traduccin entre
los niveles del conocimiento, indicando con ello que la inteligencia tiene una
funcin traslativa. La traduccin pertenece tambin al complejo hermenutico
del lenguaje.
El constitutivo diferenciado del signo es finalmente la inconstante y mutable
relacin permanente de sus elementos, en correlacin con aquella definicin
ya expuesta de la razn evolutiva de la historia: inconstancia presente de
todo lo sucesivamente actuado. Por eso el signo resulta tambin smbolo o,
ms bien, la palabra contiene, en su relacin simblica, al signo como cdigo
suyo de actuacin cognitiva. El lenguaje significa el trnsito objetivo de la
realidad en el conocimiento. Y lo que sigue son slo detalles derivados como
consecuencia del universal concreto.
La limitacin mutua del significado de las palabras en el orden procesivo,
sintagmtico, y en virtud del valor objetivo ocasionado por la realidad cono-
cida anticipa el orden compositivo de los conceptos -el juicio- y las palabras
en la oracin. Las unidades se determinan y limitan mutuamente en funcin
del conjunto que forman y las engloba, es decir, del contexto as creado. Amor
Ruibal anticipa de algn modo el referencialismo contextual de R. Carnap y
constata el principio de composicionalidad de B. Bolzano y G. Frege.37 La
potencia incursa en la Etimologa como aptitud significante, en principio inde-
terminada respecto de la individualidad del referente, favorece la expansin
predicativa y luego revierte sobre lo as determinado como contexto suyo inter-
pretativo. El significado general de la palabra se concreta segn Carnap en el
marco que la circunscribe. Asimismo, el contexto interviene como medio entre
la idea, la cosa y la palabra en el referencialismo contextual de Frege, por lo
que diferencia entre funcin y objeto, referencia, significado y sentido. Como
el conjunto oracional no es suma lgica de los significados de las partes y sus

puestos funcionales en el sintagma, el sentido determinado tampoco responde
unvocamente a cada una de ellas. Para determinar lo concreto de la referen-
cia hay que situarlo en el contexto as obtenido y expansionado, pero ya nada
garantiza que su significado sea la realidad del objeto. La extensin y distasis
predicativa incrementa la perspectiva del objeto en el horizonte que la posi-
bilita. Es otro modo de escepticismo y consecuencia de la ruptura del vnculo
que el juicio an garantiza para Amor Ruibal al comprender en su afirmacin
y como criterio de verdad el reflujo de las cosas y estados suyos objetivos
como predicamento real de la atribucin lgica de sentido. La proposicin de
la lingstica relacional incluye en su proceso el contexto que interpreta sus
partes y funciones.
Los procesos determinativos evolucionan tambin en el contexto histrico y
contribuyen a establecer la categora de las palabras y sus funciones posibles.
Amor Ruibal acepta la descripcin gentica de Bral. El primer elemento com-
positivo en orden a limitar el valor universal de la palabra es el demostrativo,
an generalizante, pero con ndices decticos al referirse a algo. El pronom-
bre abre campo de designacin aludiendo a algo ya previo y el acto mismo
de alusin resulta concreto. Vienen luego las denominaciones abstractas de
cualidades genricas, instrumentos comunes de la vida, y en forma de adje-
tivos. Le siguen los gneros sustancias segn se va manifestando el objeto.
Ms tarde se recurre al compuesto en funcin del lugar, la filiacin o algn
acontecimiento notable en el que particip una persona, los apellidos. Incluso
una frase completa puede equivaler a una designacin particular.38 Lo impor-
tante de la gnesis designativa es el intermedio pronominal de las unidades
lingsticas, la completud que una palabra determina en otra en virtud del espa-
cio demostrativo, referencial. Por eso lo individual no tiene nombre propio y
singular en ninguna lengua.39
Amor Ruibal salva el determinismo y escepticismo semntico con la cor-
relacin gnoseolgica o vnculo espontneo, nocional, prelgico, del objeto
y sujeto, en el que la ciencia descubre principios bsicos de funcionamiento
como el de identidad, no contradiccin, el derivado de tercero excluido entre
ser y no-ser y el de causalidad. Son los fundamentos de la lgica, que el
lenguaje refleja en el fondo ideal y especulativo de la significacin.
Tampoco es determinista el lenguaje considerado social y etnogrficamente,
a pesar de que se constituye y evoluciona segn el medio de la realidad que
lo motiva. El lenguaje procede como en Bonnot de Condillac, Humboldt y A.
Comte social e individualmente. Aunque depende para su existencia y desar-
rollo del individuo y de la sociedad, en contacto, no obstante, con la naturaleza
y el medio humano, no guarda relacin necesaria ni con el individuo ni con
la sociedad que le dio ser y forma determinada, por lo que tampoco ninguna
lengua caracteriza a un pueblo o su capacidad intelectual. El hombre tiene por

naturaleza facultad lingstica, pero su desarrollo no depende de una lengua
determinada, sino que lo favorece cualquier idioma. El lenguaje se adquiere y
una vez asimilado resulta individualmente propio. Se establece entonces una
influencia mutua con el medio social y cultural y entre todos los individuos se
genera un substractum de fuerzas conservadoras y fuerzas modificadoras de
las lenguas, tal como testimonia su estudio comparado.40
Amor Ruibal concreta como Humboldt la sustancia social y diacrnica,
democrtica, del lenguaje, convertida luego por Saussure y Hjelmslev en
fundamento estructural suyo y, con Chomsky, en fondo de competencia y
actuacin, el lenguaje adquirido y apropiado que posibilita comprender y
realizar ms lenguaje. El lingista y filsofo gallego diferencia ya el sus-
trato socialmente histrico del lenguaje, la lengua comn y social, y la
apropiacin que el individuo hace de ella dndole existencia real y modi-
ficndola poco a poco, nunca del todo ni a su entero capricho, pues su esencia
y entidad, el ser y forma determinada, le viene del modo social y de la con-
vivencia. He aqu el carcter langue y parole del lenguaje definidos luego por
Saussure en el Cours de Linguistique Gnrale,41 publicado en 1916, once
aos despus de los volmenes filolgicos de Amor Ruibal y dos respecto del
primer tomo de Los Principios Fundamentales de la Filosofa y del Dogma,
de 1914. Aqu expone el concepto ideal de ciencia y esboza la teora de la
relatividad partiendo de los elementos esttico y dinmico, el concepto de
valor y la prelacin del predicado sobre el sujeto en el orden gnoseolgico
del conocimiento y del lenguaje.
ONTOLINGSTICA
Nos referamos antes al doble valor plstico de la palabra en orden a la idea

o a su propia expresin, el significado objetivo, valor que procede a su vez
de la relacin sgnica del objeto con los planos significante expresivo e ide-
olgico. Amor Ruibal sostiene un equilibrio esquemtico o correlacin entre
la constitucin de la idea y de la palabra respecto de las cualidades del objeto
y sujeto que traslapan a una y otra, respectivamente, pero ambas referidas a su
capacidad designativa y significante de sujetos atribuibles o designables con
tales esquemas. La aprehensin de cualidades del ser culmina en algo concreto
que las unifica en el sujeto y esta unidad, ya objetiva, sirve de esquema para
posibles atribuciones a otros sujetos, es decir, a nuevos entes susceptibles de
aplicarles las mismas cualidades: De modo, que el esquema de cualidades
del objeto, convirtese en esquema de sujetos de aquellas cualidades, desde el
momento en que la aprehensin intelectual se une a la aprehensin sensible,
o ms bien sta origina aqulla.42 En la designacin, como en el decir, los
objetos resultan predicables: sujetos de predicamento. De ah que la palabra
sea tambin, a su vez, un esquema de cualidades del sujeto, y un esquema de

sujetos de tales cualidades, respondiendo as bajo la forma de unidad fontica,
a la dualidad psquica que la produce.43
Existe un flujo y reflujo de concreciones sensibles cuya unidad ya catego-
riza con predicamento y en algn punto del proceso entra o se constituye el
nombre, que Amor Ruibal entiende como traduccin de uno a otro fenmeno.
Ese punto es, a nuestro entender, e infiriendo del mismo sistema ruibaliano,
el de relacin activa y atmica que correlata al objeto, la idea y su expre-
sin fnica en orden al conocimiento en tanto invariable equilibrio permanente
de constante mutacin ontolingstica. Son los elementos bsicos de rotacin
continua del pensamiento en unidad relativa de cognicin, lo cual no configura
un relativismo mecnico ni psicolgico, pues el ndice de inconstancia rela-
tiva es permanente. Tiene entidad propia. Se efecta en espacio y tiempo o
unidad fnica de accin mental concretada histricamente, como demuestra la
evolucin lingstica de los idiomas y conceptual de las ideas. Cada elemento
refluye hacia los otros una vez constituida la conexin de relatividad real o
relatividad real entitativa. Los principios de relacin son los lgicos bsicos y
elementales y las categoras descubren el proceso que las forma segn el fun-
damento objetivo que designan y a la vez las predica, es decir, en correlacin
con el ente por ellas designado. La designacin categorial implica nombre, por
lo que palabra e idea estn imbuidas de la relacin prelgica y nocional ser, el
punto de inherencia del hombre en la realidad por el simple hecho de existir.
La conclusin ontolingstica del proceso ruibaliano permite concibir lo
sujeto de las cualidades como la rotacin predicativa del esquema nominal
sobre el ontolgico en orden a la reversin predicamental del ente sobre las
categoras que lo definen designndolo. Y entonces el sujeto figura como
ndice de inherencia y adherencia propositiva. La proposicin es el reflejo
proyectivo, flujo y reflujo, del nombre sobre el proceso que lo constituye. Tal es
el aporte del mtodo sinttico-histrico de la lingstica y del correlacionismo
ontolgico de Amor Ruibal al conocimiento.
Universidad Nacional de Educacin a Oistancia, Madrid
N O TA S
1
ngel Amor Ruibal, Introduccin a P. Regnaud, Principios Generales de Lingstica Indo-
Europea. Versin espaola, precedida de un estudio sobre la Ciencia del Lenguaje, Tipografa
Galaica, Santiago, 1900. Edic. facsmil del Consello da Cultura Galega, Santiago de Compostela,
2005, p. 35. Citaremos como CL sealando a continuacin la pgina o pginas correspondientes
y, en el resto de las obras, segn indicamos a continuacin de cada una de ellas. Los Problemas
Fundamentales de la Filologa Comparada. Su Historia, su Naturaleza y sus Diversas Relaciones
Cientficas. Primera Parte, Tipologa Galaica, Santiago (de Compostela), 1904; Ibid.: Segunda
Parte, Imprenta y Encuadernacin de la Universidad Pontificia, Santiago (de Compostela), 1905.
Edic. facsmil de idem (PFFC, I, II). Los Problemas Fundamentales de la Filosofa y el Dogma. El
conocer Humano. Tomo Octavo, Tipografa del Seminario Conciliar, Santiago (de Compostela),
1934 (PFFD, VIII). Los Problemas Fundamentales de la Filosofa y el Dogma. El Conocer
Humano (Funcin de Deduccin). Tomo Noveno, Tipografa del Seminario Conciliar, Santiago,
1934 (PFFD, IX). Estos dos volmenes estn incluidos en uno solo, el V, de la reedicin crtica
efectuada por C. Moreno Robles (Xunta de Galicia, Santiago de Compostela, 1999, pp. 13287
el octavo y 289488 el noveno). Al referirnos a alguno de estos volmenes de nueva edicin,
incluimos adems las siglas (XG).
2
Ibid., Cuatro Manuscritos Inditos, Edic. de Saturnino Casas Blanco, Edit. Gredos, Madrid,
1964.
3
PFFD, IX, 56.
4
PFFD, I (XG), 158.
5
CL, 75 nota 1. (Respetamos en todas las citas la acentuacin del original).
6
Ibid., 76.
7
PFFD, VIII, 163.
8
PFFC, II, 349350.
9
Ibid., 352.
10
Ibid., 355356.
11
Ibid., 356, nota 1.
12
Ibid., 363.
13
Ibid., 367.
14
Ibid., 369.
15
Amor Ruibal evita de este modo el posible reproche de recurrir an al mtodo escolstico
del silogismo, al que Bral atribuye el retraso cientfico de la gramtica fundada en criterios lgi-
cos desde los griegos. En el caso del autor gallego sera ms notorio por cuanto su sistema se
opone precisamente a la tradicin escolstica, pero parte del fundamento real que la nocin de ser
implica en todo acto cognitivo. Ahora bien, la perfila desde el aporte filolgico de la atribucin
y recurriendo al semantismo de Bral, quien reconoce, de acuerdo con la tradicin comparatista,
que el sustantivo encierra una raz atributiva. Tal movimiento de relacin es para Amor Ruibal el
verbo ser. (Cf. Michel Bral: La forme et la foction des mots, conferencia dada en el Collge de
France en 1866 y recogida en Mlanges de Mythologie et de Linguistique, Hachette, Paris, 1882
(2a ), p. 245. Esta obra y el Essai de Smantique. (Science des Significations), publicada en 1890,
estn muy presentes en la base filolgica del autor gallego.
16
Michel Bral, Mlanges de Mythologie et de Linguistique, op. cit., p. 254.
17
Publicado hoy en dos volmenes por la Fundacin Pedro Barri de la Maza (A Corua, 1999,
1998) con edicin y estudio de Jos L. Pensado.
18
PFFC, I, 64.
19
Ibid., 66. El anlisis muestra en la raz una representacin universal si partimos de un con-
cepto idealizado de lengua perfecta, que era el objetivo de muchos pensadores en la tradicin
filolgica, por ejemplo la determinacin de una caracterstica universal del lenguaje por parte de
Leibniz. Es una pretensin del ideal cientfico an vigente hoy da en el neopositivismo lgico y en
el generativismo chomskiano. Amor Ruibal es consciente de que se trata de una pura abstraccin
de contenido general indeterminado, que, como tal, no aparece en ninguna lengua acabada.
La sntesis y la evolucin histrica perfila, a su vez, las races como palabras primitivas que
existan al formarse los idiomas, y como grmenes vivientes que en virtud de propia actividad
van atrayendo los trminos de relacin y asimilndolos hasta fundirlos en las palabras actuales
(CL, 76, nota). Este funcionamiento ambico de la raz deja entrever el evolucionismo histrico
y adems la potencia inherente de la energa incursa en la palabra, pues ha de entenderse el resto
del lenguaje a modo del paradigma morfolgico, por ejemplo la fase inmediata de transicin a
la frase y al texto. Son movimientos de atraccin, asimilacin y fusin, lo cual implica otros que
separan y distribuyen -ditaxis- expandiendo. Amor Ruibal resume en la palabra intususcepcin,
ya presente en Hegel, este doble proceso racional y evolutivo. Se aprecia en ello la concepcin
biolgica y atmica del lenguaje a partir de un ncleo mnimo energtico, la vida como principio
activo de existencia. Responde as indirectamente a Hegel, Darwin y Einstein, autores tambin
objeto de su reflexin filosfica y lingstica.
20
PFFC, I, 61.
21
Ibid., 60.
22
Ibid. Cf. J. Locke, An essay Concerning Human Understanding, B. II., ch. XXXII, Clarendon
Press, Oxford, 1985, p. 386.
23
Ya hemos advertido que la determinacin concreta de la significacin se obtiene en el proceso
del discurso o, como decimos hoy, en el recubrimiento de las relaciones paradigmticas y sintag-
mticas. El principio formal comprende el dinamismo interno y atae tanto al Lexicn como a la
Sintaxis ya prefigurada en la Etimologa. Benot alude a este ncleo dinmico sealando el efecto
reductivo, de recorte o acotamiento, de epoj lingstica, podramos decir, que una palabra ejerce
respecto de otra en orden a determinar el concepto intuitivo de las cosas concretas: El arte de
hablar consiste indudablemente en limitar lo general por lo general para dar nombre lo indi-
vidual (Eduardo Benot, Arquitectura de las Lenguas. Nez Samper, Madrid, 1889, p. 40. Cf.
adems, Arte de Hablar. Gramtica Filosfica de la Lengua Castellana, Anthropos, Barcelona,
1991 (1910), pp. 5559. PFFC, II, 344.
24
I. Kant, Kritik der Urteilskraft. Suhrkamp, Franfurt am Main, 1978, pp. 360362.
25
El autor recoge aqu otra observacin de Bral en el artculo La forme et la fonction des mots
(op. cit., p. 265), del que parte asimismo, con otras fuentes, para el resumen de la orientacin
gramatical de fillogos hindes y pensadores griegos.
26
Cf. C. K. Ogden e I. A. Richards, The Meaning of Meaning, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London,
1960, (1923), p. 11. Kurt Baldinger, Teora Semntica. Hacia una Semntica Moderna, Ediciones
Alcal, Madrid, 1970, pp. 2427, 155159. Klaus Heger, Teora Semntica. Hacia una Semntica
Moderna, II, Ediciones Alcal, Madrid, 1974, pp. 3132, 155171.
27
PFFD, VIII, 141. Cf. G. W. F. Hegel, Enzyklopdie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im
Grundrisse (1830). Dritter Teil. Die Philosophie des Geistes. Mit den mndlichen Zustzen.
Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1979, pp. 270271, 283284.; Ibid.: Vorlesungen ber die
sthetik, I, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1979, pp. 459460. En un estudio precedente figuramos
la intensidad de la concepcin expresiva del signo por la altura de una pirmide trapezoidal. Son
modos de aproximacin intuitiva a cuanto acontece mientras tratamos de explicarlo y el ejemplo
comprende menos que el alcance de la realidad implicada.
28
El poeta y filsofo William Oxley entiende que incluso la verdad del ser es volumtrica y que
su medida requiere una base cnica, pues tambin lo es la perspectiva de conocimiento. (Cf. The
Idea and its Imminence a poets philosophy-, Institut fr Anglistik und Americanistik, Universitt
Salzburg, 1982, pp. 64, 67).
29
Humboldt analiza las implicaciones lgicas contenidas en las tres direcciones del dilogo,
yo-t-l (realidad). El yo locutivo de hablante y oyente supone una serie de juicios traslapados que
evidencian el fondo prelgico del lenguaje y su prelacin crtica. Cf. W. von Humboldt, Ueber
den Dualis, en Schriften zur Sprachphilosophie, W. III. J. G. Cottasche Buchhandlung, Stuttgart,
1988 (6a ), p. 139.
30
PFFC, II, 340, 341.
31
Ibid., 340.
32
Ibid., 337.
33
Ibid., 343.
34
Ibid., 348.
35
Ibid., 343.
36
Ibid., 344.
37
Observamos ciertas connotaciones de los conceptos de Mathesis universal, Formenlehre y
Grssenlehre o teora de los gradores de Bolzano en otros de Amor Ruibal como el de sintaxis y
procesos gradativos aplicados al valor, ahora bien, desde fundamento muy diferente en uno y otro
filsofo. Bolzano entrev el principio de composicionalidad o combinacin semntica -en el fondo
una variante del arte combinatorio medieval-, por el que a cada representacin le corresponde una
proposicin en la que aparece como constituyente suyo, pero esta propiedad es externa a la repre-
sentacin misma (en s), mientras que en Amor Ruibal resulta inherente y procesiva. (Cf. Bernhard
Bolzano, Wissenschaftslehre, 52-1, Bd. I, Sulzbach, 1837, p. 228). Estos y otros posibles ref-
erentes, como, por ejemplo, la distincin de Rudolf H. Lotze entre juicio de existencia y juicio
lgico, aqu tambin implicada, debemos anotarlos con prudencia, pues Amor Ruibal remite tales
connotaciones a precedentes ms antiguos y dialoga con sus presupuestos e implicaciones sin
citarlas siempre de modo expreso.
38
PFFC, II, 345346.
39
Ibid., 344.
40
Ibid., 349.
41
F. de Saussure, Cours de Linguistique Gnrale, Payot, Paris, 1983, pp. 2526, 3031, 112.
42
PFFD, VIII, 400. Cf. El esquema ontolingstico, en Antonio Domnguez Rey, Cien-
cia, Conocimiento y Lenguaje. ngel Amor Ruibal (1869-1930), Prlogo de Jos Luis Abelln,
UNED- Espiral Maior, A Corua, 2007, pp. 106-111. (Este libro expone y desarrolla el pen-
samiento lingstico de este autor gallego situndolo como uno de los autores pioneros en la
fundamentacin cientfica del lenguaje).
43
Ibid., 401. Es oportuno recordar aqu otro concepto de Bolzano, las representaciones mutuas
o Wechselvorstellungen inducidas por un mismo objeto y cuyas propiedades se correlacionan
en ellas (Wissenschaftslehre, 644, B. I, op. cit., p. 272). La palabra sera entonces una rep-
resentacin ms para Amor Ruibal, y lo es de hecho una vez constituida, pero la forma -
Formenlehre bolzaniana?- que confiere unidad al conjunto fontico est considerando el esquema
ya ontolgico de cualidades del sujeto atribuibles o predicables a su vez de nuevos sujetos, desde
la palabra misma. Algn punto habr, pues, de coincidencia relacional en la remisin que ya
podemos nombrar ontolngstica. La correferencia implica un enlace interno correlacionante y
categrico en atencin a la etimologa de este ltimo trmino, pues enuncia anunciando, es decir,
hace pblico lo acontecido en la fusin y fisin atmica del ncleo nominal, el nombre.
MARIA TERESA DE NORONHA
S AU D A D E A N D M E M O RY I N T H E O N T O P O I E S I S
OF LIFE
ABSTRACT
The aim of this paper is to confirm how the categories saudade and memory
express themselves differently within ones consciousness through the philoso-
phy of Saudade. The explanation of Saudade as a liberator of memory records
is implied in the function of a Poetic Reason and a Poetic Logos achievable
through the phenomenal movement of existence in its ontological and ethical
sphere.
S O M E N OT I O N S O N T H E C O N C E P T S AU DA D E
The expression of the consciousness category we name Saudade has not yet
been properly widened within the universe of philosophy. Nevertheless, we
are aware that given its ontological importance, in a near future it will be
understood with the appropriate value for the knowledge of Man in the world.
In fact, the Saudade that has been handled for the past five hundred years
by Portuguese theorists and literates has never reached its true philosophical
status. Having been understood as an element independent from immediate
emotions, it has been able to maintain a certain amount of mystery, deriv-
ing not only from its abnormal etymological and philological formation but
also from the semiologic contents it closed. Having been discussed since the
early 20th century by numerous philologists, there seems to be a consensual
majority regarding the fact that Saudade derives from the Latin feminine plu-
ral etymon solitates, having developed into soedade a formula that remained
until the 15th century in Galicia, although the form soidade was already
contemporaneous to the south in the 12th century Cantigas de Sta. Maria.
In A Saudade Portuguesa, it becomes exemplarily evident that in the nor-
mal movement, so-e-dade, a primitive form that lasted in Galicia until the 15th
century, to so-i-dade, documented in the Cantigas de Amigo by King D. Dinis,
to the suydade of the Leal Conselheiro, by the philosopher King D. Duarte, the
word Saudade appears independent in the evolutionary causal chain. The phe-
nomenon witnessing this abnormality in the evolution of soedade soidade
suidade Saudade disrespecting the phenomenal causality and not abiding
195

196 MARIA TERESA DE NORONHA
by the laws of phonic evolution is best explained by Carolina de Michelis

Vasconcelos1 :
Seja como for, certo que Saudade de soidade ou suidade no evoluo fnica. O ditongo oi,
como equivalente de ou, e representante de au normal. Coisa, cousa provm de causa; oiro ouro
de auro; loiro louro de lauru; etc. Anormal o oposto: au de oi. De mais a mais, num perodo onde
todos pronunciavam ainda so-i-dade.2
Defying all phonetic laws, this time oddity certainly has its share of respon-
sibility in the previously mentioned riddles of Saudade and its mysterious
character.
In effect, many studies have already approached the linguistic and chrono-
logical and philological history.
This was how Carolina de Michelis de Vasconcelos presented a probable
perspective or hypothesis regarding the morphic variation of the word by refer-
ring the value of the concept significance as an indication, as Bedeutung as per
Freege, Husserl, and Derrida.3
However, this study that achieves one of the highest moments in interpreting
the Portuguese Saudade is to be set among the line of a long tradition, which
translates the history of research on the issue of the mysteries of Saudade.
Also it would seem that Saudade as an emotion was a feature transported
and generated within the travels of the Portuguese Descobrimentos.4
This is the reason why in Portugal, following the presence of this semiotic
entity, not only was Saudade deeply felt, as a national feeling, but it was also
the basis for the creation of the Portuguese saudosismo movement.
The first mentor of a philosophy of Saudade who had not yet found log-
ical and ontological support was Teixeira de Pascoaes. In 1912, he created
the group of the Renascena Portuguesa5 having been joined by the great-
est personalities of Portuguese literature, science and arts. The saudosismo
was created in Portugal and in Portuguese, and it had the aim of becoming a
broad spiritual regeneration movement. Brazil and other Portuguese language
countries also joined the movement, which would soon be surpassed by the
Positivism trends of the beginning of the century.
L O G O S A N D S AU DA D E
In the construction of the Saudade philosophy, to know is the status of the

Being that recognises itself in the participation with the given and origi-
nal Whole under the principle that Saber e Ser o mesmo,6 i.e. Knowing
and Being are the same. This participation of the Knowing in the Being and
vice-versa understands Man in his totalizing and integrative dimension. Conse-
quently, at the various levels of existence, the consciousness of the given Being
S AU DA D E A N D M E M O RY I N T H E O N T O P O I E S I S O F L I F E 197
(es Gibts) remains through the exclusive feeling of the Saudade of Being,
which in its excellence function is still the quest for knowledge. The man who
knows his ontological dimension is thus a man prepared for a creative exis-
tence (because he encompasses saudade, thus being saudoso), and the creative
condition becomes his sole vital constraint.7
Mans authenticity that recognises himself in his own self where he will
meet the possibility of recognition of being part of a universal entity, as ulti-
mate awareness of his humanity. O ser a sntese das coisas, onde elas se
convertem em sensaes recebidas e estudadas luz da conscincia, i.e. the
being if the synthesis of things, where they become sensations received and
studied under the light of awareness.8 This is the reason why the distance
between ethics and gnoseology is eradicated in the philosophy of Saudade, and
knowledge becomes an essential part of the moral conduct. It is possible to say
that the Cartesian emphasis of error conception seems to soar over this matter.
Evil results from mistakes, lack of knowledge and philosophical absence; not
as much from Aristotles agnoein (not-seeing), as this is the starting point for
knowledge, but mostly from mistakes as effective detour from the approach to
truth. It should thus be noted that understanding this or solving the mistake as
evil does not rely solely on the orientation of Reason or the rational method;
knowledge does not rely exclusively on reason, as the latter will only become
operational through the category(ies) of sensitivity, understanding and imag-
ination while considered supra-individual categories, agents of the dynamics
moving through the Universal Law of Love.
Ver ver amorosamente, i.e. to see is to see amorously, and Reason as the
reason presenting irrational results, as per Pascoaes,9 is to be kept away
from this matter: and on the limits of reason:
S tem profundo olhar o nosso sentimento. Para se descobrir a origem de uma flor, No basta o
raciocnio, o humano pensamento, preciso sentir por ela um grande amor.10
P O E T I C S O F S AU DA D E
Reason in itself is not capable of being understood or considered within a syn-

tactics referring to intuitive levels, nor may it be considered within a random
grammar emerging from the deepest level of knowledge makes it possible to
acknowledge the principle that s se conhece o que se ama, i.e. one only
knows that which one loves (ibid).
In the philosophy of Saudade, the entire circuit of cognitive elements to
apprehend the world of phenomena and of the internal life of the Being
depends not only on the generating principle of Love, but also on the prin-
ciple of its Universal Law (a field of original and combination forces), as well
as, and mostly, on the use of intuition, which alongside inspiration is capa-
ble of interpreting the representation of that same force. One can thus better
understand Pascoaes11 when stating:
A Intuio, a inspirao, foi e continua sendo a primeira forma de saber.12
Entre o real e o potico, o mediato e o imediato, h um trao de separao e unio. Separa
ou liga separando, um conhecimento racional apoiado em irracionais, um conhecimento teolgico
supra-racional porque excede o racional em que se afirma, como o telescpio excede o olho.13
The functional character of knowledge, understood as noesis, succeeds in

becoming a propeller of real desire and affection through the emotion of love.
The role of the emotion expressed in this gnoseological combination can
obviously not be detached from the role of the feeling of Saudade as an
original feeling capable of creating the sense of the absences(s) in Being,
nor does it restrict the understanding of the phenomenon of knowing in the
noema-noematic relationship and the fulfilment role.
Nevertheless, it is important to recognise that the priority given to the feel-
ing as essential device for knowledge must not be confused with that of the
sensation and, in a different way, from the remains of a certain empiricism that
the feeling-knowledge thesis may convey.
What is hereby stated is that in the thought of Saudade and in the founder of
the Portuguese saudosismo, the feeling emerges from the deepest levels of our
consciousness, which is why it is closest to the original intuitions.
Such a position may authorize the feeling in phenomenological terms, not
only through the rule of familiar proximity but also as an understanding device.
It is stated in S. Paulo14 that:
o pensamento sentimento definido, e a inteligncia a definio do pensamento.15
For these reasons feelings are resistant to rational explanations or logical

representations, but it is the poetic metaphor that provides them with better
shelter, which is to say through art and poetry.
Feelings thus have greater responsibility than thoughts, as they are also con-
sidered to be the means through which the phenomenological context of the
Being relates to its own solitude and Saudade16 :
Sentindo que nos sentimos como entidade original que principia, em si, mas no acaba, um
ncleo incandescente e radiante. Pensando podemos passar por qualquer outro aos nossos prprios
olhos.17
Or also:
amando a rvore conheo-a, possuindo-a. Surge na minha memria fazendo parte de mim mesmo;
e alcana um valor humano.18
Therefore, the theory of Saudade does not comprise knowledge with-

out affections; and since affections are captive of desire, they represent the
link between the element that involves knowledge and the consciousness of
Saudade.
Consequently, gnoseology gains consistency and is better understood as a
kind of meeting point of idealistic and realistic trends.
Simultaneously though, the resulting gnoseology is a logical immanentism
which is poetic a priori and transcendental, and it represents itself in its state of
crystalline purity (Kantian), combining acaso e natureza ou energia e matria,
alma e corpo, i.e., randomness and nature or energy and matter, soul and
body. This immanentism19 was founded based in proximity with Bergsons
intuitionism, which, if necessary, would complete the awareness that all of this
takes place in a time defined as the period peripheral to the extension.20
Entre o intelectual e o emotivo h uma diferena de nitidez,21 i.e. there is
a difference in accuracy between the intellect and the emotional. The Being is
then perceived as a traveller of images and at the same time a transcender of
the fragmentary and virtual reality.
If reality is a reflection of a nexus between the whole and the sole, under
the experience of a time with no known direction, the consciousness of
Saudade is left with the possibility of understanding it, by its intuition, and that
of perceiving it by recreation through its categories: Remembrance, Desire,
Evocation.
In this seeming paradox, it would be possible for reality to result from poten-
tialities coming closer, and in this context the memories of consciousness are
what the future may bring; following this line of thought, the axiology capable
of supporting such a concept of reality would necessarily have to be related
to the decisive importance of affections and their direction. That which could
have been read in Calderon, Shakespeare, Unamuno, Yourcenar, and many oth-
ers as: la vida es sueo, i.e. life is a dream, may be forced to surpass this logic
of Saudade, as well as surpassing what Ortega y Gassett state regarding this
matter22 :
Hagamos una fsica lo ms rigurosa que podamos: experimentemos, midamos, cortemos los teji-
dos con el microtomo, distendamos los poros de la matria para ver bien su estructura. Pero no
gastemos en eso toda nuestra energa mental; reservemos buena parte de nuestra seriedad para el
cultivo del amor, de la amistad, de la metfora, de todo lo que es virtual.23
Considering the context of knowledge, the role of saudade which is neither

reminiscence (of platonic character) nor memory, sets itself within a type of
evocative creationist experience, resulting from the active reasoning within
consciousness, in its dialectic and intervening dimension for the regions of
pre-category, ante-predicative consciousness, i.e., as return to the expressive

contents, those inhabiting the area where representation is forbidden.
In any case, what becomes clear is the autonomy of the Saudade memory
regarding the platonic reminiscence or the memory function. As for the world
of the platonic eikasia (imagining), the philosophy of Saudade merged it with
the understanding that reality results from a complex relationship with con-
sciousness which is not to be subject to any of the terms in the traditional
subject-object dichotomy, which is understood as apparent. A realidade um
transitrio aspecto de iluso,24 i.e. reality is a transitory feature of illusion,
Pascoaes wrote regarding this matter. That is why it is the creating subjects
responsibility to decide on the reality to experience. In this context the memory
function as sheer record of consciousness does not grant it this freedom.
Reality thus becomes a continuous act of will and desire of consciousness, a
participation, but one involving the creationist act; the role of evocation does
thus have an essential role regarding the conception of reality or realities to be
experienced.
Against this background it becomes relevant to present the idea that reality,
in the figuration of Saudade, is an evoked event and as evocation it is solely
the responsibility of the subject and the transcendental consciousness.
However, what is suggested in this perspective of Saudade on the knowledge
of reality is not the denial of cardinal points for certain realities, be it social or
economical and cultural, as well as ethical or aesthetical consequences; it is
instead the attention to be drawn to the fact that consciousness is something to
be experienced in various ways, and the possibilities to appeal to the evocation
of Saudade touch the core of its dynamics.
For the thought of the philosophy of Saudade, reality is thus a set of real
potentialities, and if it is possible to experience it in various ways, that is the
result of the time inference(s) that in the intentional consciousness evoke and
recall what affection is through desire.
This is why there is no knowledge without affection.
Although some believe the knowledge of reality in the philosophy of
Saudade may seem surrounded by a certain amount of relativism or scepti-
cism, it is necessary to verify that the multiplicity of the intentional realities of
consciousness is born from the principle of the One. This principle is the basis
for pre-matricial categories, under original grounds, a Unform, as per Husserl.
The One of the world diversity points the finger at itself over this perception
of diversity of the hilectic data, precisely for the capacity of consciousness of
Saudade. Therefore, any way of relativism incompatible with the rest of the
Gnoseology to be pointed out in the philosophy of Saudade would fail on the
first levels of its metaphysics.
On the whole, what becomes peculiar in this conception of the knowledge

of reality is the fact that, above all, it is the fusion of intuition, sensitivity,
understanding and reason. As (Kantian) categories, all of these are capable
of organising a cognitive construction around affections, or that which is
called Poetic Logos, which has been properly explained by Maria Zambrano
or Antnio Machado as paradigm for a Hispanic and Iberian expression.
The phenomenal experience as reality of the intentional consciousness thus
results from the power of evocation. One evokes what one thinks as a wanting-
thinking-living process. To evoke is then to call upon a certain degree of reality,
and to materialise it in experience is to manipulate the sense of memory in its
own action, which is why, in the words of Pascoaes a imaginao prolonga-
nos os sentidos, i.e. imagination extends our sensesthus becoming a part of
the reality as much as it manipulates them.25
When considering the issue of reality in terms of what may and may not be
known about it, evocation as action of remembering and desiring takes on a
main role and within this dynamics where knowing is also creating, it is not
possible to leave out the role of the figuration of love, as an Aristotelian Uni-
versal Law, revising and supporting the principle of the philosophy of Saudade
according to which it recognised that apenas se conhece quando se ama,26 i.e.
one only knows when one loves.
Knowledge is thus generated by affections, degrees of amiability suppress-
ing and integrating the differences and absences; to know applies to a dynamic
character, a sense of knowing, and that is the last touch of truth of its own
foundation.
M E M O RY A N D S AU DA D E
Considering all elements referred to in the sphere of knowledge, unlike

Saudade, memory appears as deposit and device of the activity of times that
have been experienced, without depending on or being under the direct pro-
portion of desire. Nevertheless, as primal memory, when placed to the level
of original intuitions (Husserl), like Saudade, memory would then receive a
supra-individual character. When shown upon the identity of races, peoples
and languages, this type of saved memory is better defined in what Jung calls
the collective unconscious or as genetic deposit whose symbolic ideal presents
itself through archetypes and others as symbols. However, it is important to
state that under the light of the philosophy of Saudade, having the responsi-
bility of saving records experienced in the consciousness, memory does so not
considering weight and value regarding the ethical or aesthetical axiological
scale. Following this line of thought, it is possible to bear bad memories but it
is not possible to hold bad Saudades. At first glance, this is exactly where it
becomes possible to distinguish the function of memory from that of Saudade.

In fact, when realising that Saudade is a sweet remembrance of something,
either experienced or underway, it reflects the involvement with a Poetic Logos,
with the poetic order of the world, with the universal law of love.
In this context and under the light of the philosophy of Saudade, memory as
a concept of records is to be understood as an ulterior result of perception and
complementary to the deductive activity of reasoning. This statement makes it
clear that through desire and evocation, Saudade creates once more the expe-
rience in the consciousness of the time it exchanged with the Beautiful, Good,
Truth, thus leading to the idea of Sublime.
POETIC LOGOS
As a Universal law responsible for then dynamics of all knowledge, love is

what may convey the recurrent idea of the emergence of a new man. However,
that which will make it possible for that new man, who will be creator and
participant in the work in the universe, to appear or to be developed is the
emergence of another logos. The Poetic Logos will be implemented through
a poetic reason of the quest for truth and beauty and combines apprehension
of a Whole which is harmoniously One and diverse, because a imensido
sempre harmoniosa, i.e. vastness is always harmonious.27
tudo tende a permanecer e a mudar, (. . .) o mundo sonhado belo; pensado massa ou energia
bastante confundidas ou indistintas ou conversveis uma na outra, mistura de relaes insubstanci-
ais, voos sem pssaros, jogos e jogos sem jogadores, tudo marcado com algarismos rabes e letras
gregas.28
The assumption of a cosmic order submerged in all of these issues, makes it

clear to see that primal arithmetic of an intelligent universe (Fred Hoyle, 1984).
This is how science is solely in the network of a vital formula, which is latent
and manifest, for example, na cincia de uma aranha diante de um insecto,29
i.e. in the science of a spider before an insect.
Furthermore, when speaking of limits of knowledge as representation it
is important to think of Poetic Logos by its power to attract borders, places
where that universe of the Ineffable remains, and where it is granted contact,
some control even over that consciousness volitional formation. It thus brings
it closer to the intermingling with speech, to the language Network, through
the work of metaphors, which conveys meaning to those forms-unforms,
imagining elements that touch unknown roots.
In the philosophy of Saudade, the knowledge inherent to the Poetic Logos is
the one true religion, because it brings the Being closer to the self, elevating it
to creating man as the former believes that he can make of man the only being
capable of revealing the mystery from himself to himself.
Still, knowledge thus understood may not become fulfilled without the rea-
son that understands the source of inspiration and the means of liberation from
the condition of existence as ek-sistente, the Spirit which is capable of moving
forward over the unknown treads where he will satisfy his thirst from igno-
rance . . . That which will truly compose the new man is a new reasoning, a
new logos that is poetic and that feeds through Strength, Spiritus, Pneuna,
Geist.
The truth is that the non-represented reality of areas of consciousness
where, as per Husserl, words are but an immediate experience, shapeless,
bodiless, insignificant, only an imagining mass, Phantasievorstellung with
no figuration and no access to the dominium of expression, Kundgabe has
been gaining shape30 inhabiting places31 however, it should be stated in and
through the poetic word the one that meets the desire to combine the essen-
tial Being with its existence as truth based on the most obscure areas of
consciousness.
The existence of ontological regions escaping the intention of the objective
consciousness, regions cohabiting in an area not available for representation as
Kundgabe/Kundnahme,32 seems to stand from Kant to Husserl, from Freud to
Jung; however, if their absence is felt, one is bound to miss their figurations
with Saudade.
Poetry is thus the logical order on which the unadvised, understood precisely
at its Kantian valoration,33 may come to the representation and so better under-
stand the sphere of essential meaning, in the original event of existence and of
the Being towards the reality of the Happening , just as it was presented by
Heidegger: the Ereignis.34
That which flows in the poetics and the language of poetics is then a
kind of precedent knowledge whose subjective organisation, the Poetic Logos,
made or worked through by the consciousness categories work, must be
understood in the phenomenal relationship (as noema-noematic) and in the
effort of the organisation of phenomenal data, which determine the reunion
between the pre-logic matter, matricial, pre-reflexive, and the data evident in
the need for construction and representative edification of the feeling from
absences-presences and its improvement.
In fact, the access to all of this will be the responsibility of a sole Poetic
Logos.
Universidade Aberta, Lisboa

NOTES
1
Cf. Carolina Micaelis de Vascocelos. A saudade Portuguesa, 1914, Porto.
2
Regardless of how it happened, the truth is that Saudade developing from soidade or suidade
does not mean undergoing the phonic evolution. It is normal for the diphthong oi to act as the
equivalent of ou and representative of au. Coisa, cousa (thing) comes from causa (cause); oiro,
ouro (gold) from auro (golden); loiro, louro (blonde) from lauru (lovage); etc. Abnormal is the
opposite situation: au coming from oi. Especially in a time when so-i-dade was still widely
pronounced.
3
Cf.Pascoaes, 1996:29.
4
Translators Note: The Descobrimentos were the period of the Portuguese expansion in the
15th century.
5
Translators Note: The Renascena Portuguesa, or Portuguese Renaissance, was a cultural
movement that took place in the early 20th century, which promoted Saudade as the defining
feature of the Portuguese soul.
6
7
Cf.Coimbra, 1915.
8
9
Ibid., 1993:28.
10
Only our feeling possesses a deep look/To discover the origin of a flower/Reasoning and the
human thought is not enough/One needs to feel great love for it.
11
Idem. 92.
12
Intuition, inspiration was and still remains the first form of knowledge.
13
Between the real and the poetic, the indirect and the immediate, there is a separating and a
uniting line. It separates or unites separating a rational knowledge supported by irrational knowl-
edge, a theological supra-rational knowledge as it exceeds the rational knowledge it states itself
in, just as the telescope exceeds the eye.
14
Cf. Pascoaes, 1984:217.
15
Thought is the defined feeling and intelligence the definition of thought.
16
17
It is by feeling that we feel as original entities that begin in themselves but do not end, a
luminescent and radiant nucleus. By thinking we can be perceived as any other being before our
own eyes.
18
By loving the tree I know it, possessing it. It appears in my memory as a part of myself; thus
gaining human value.
19
20
cf. Bergson, 1988.
21
22
Cf. Ortega y Gassett, 1988:65.
23
Let us create a theory as accurate as possible: let us experiment, measure, cut the substance
with the microtome, let us expand the pores of matter to properly see its structure. But let us
not waste all our mental energy on it; let us save a good part of our seriousness to nurture love,
friendship, the metaphor, all things virtual.
24
25
Ibid., p. 24.
26
Cf. Pascoaes, 1993.
27
Ibid., pp. 39, 1112.
28
All things tend to remain and change (. . .) the dreamed world is beautiful; when thought of it is
mass or energy fairly confused or similar or convertible into one another, a mixture of insubstantial
relationships, flights with no birds, games and games with no players, all of which marked with
Arabic numbers and Greek letters.
29
30
Cf. Merleau-Ponty, 1996.
31
Cf. Heidegger, 1995.
32
Cf. Derrida, 1995:53.
33
Cf. Enes, 1990:11.
34
Heidegger, 1989.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Coimbra, L. (1915) O Pensamento Criacionista. Porto. Nova Renascena.

Derrida, J. (1996) A Voz e o Fenmeno. Lisboa, Edies Setenta.
Enes, J. (1990) Porta do Ser. Lisboa, INIC.
Heidegger, M. (1989) Beitrage zur Philosophie. Von Ereignis.Frankfurt, V. Klostermann.
Heidegger, M. (1995) Sobre a Essncia da Verdade. Porto, Porto-Editora.
Hoyle, F. (1984) O Universo Inteligente. Lisboa, Presena.
Merleau-Ponty (1996) Fenomenologia da Percepo. S.Paulo, Martins Fonseca.
Gassett y. G. (1988) Para la Cultura del Amor. Madrid. Ediciones El Arquero.
Pascoaes, T. (1993) O Homem Universal e outros escritos. Lisboa Assrio & Alvim.
Pascoaes, T. (1984) S. Paulo. Lisboa, Assrio Alvim.
Vasconcelos C. M. (1912) A Saudade Portuguesa. Porto,Renascena Portuguesa.
D AV I D A . R O S S
M E TA - A N A LY S I S A N D T H E Q U E S T I O N O F B E I N G
ABSTRACT
Prepared for the phenomenological conference on the ontopoiesis of mem-

ory, the paper recalls the difference between freedom and its shadow, namely,
promiscuity in order to delineate the logic of Being. Being (ta on) is always
at the point of being forgotten, moreover, and to recall its essence means lib-
erating it from its shadow appearances. This inquiry has implications for the
dialectical-fractal form developed at greater length in Being in Time for the
Music (see Cambridge Scholars Press). Freedom, I argue, is subsumed to the
value of Being, freedom being what is needed in order to play the musical com-
position that is ones own life. In scaling freedom, the paper renders audible
the resonances belonging to its being, freeing freedom from its shadow image.
The poetic quality of this ontopoiesis refers to the making out both music
and love of the on-going wave-like resonances with which the dancer flows
as, indeed, the resonance that is that makings voice.
INTRODUCTION
I am an unknown and I know this here, at the Conference: Memory in

the Ontopoiesis of Life. Is memory implied? Have I remembered that I am
unknown in order to know this? Ontopoiesis ta on being, what is, ousia
substance, poiein to make: making being. What is the substance of making
being? Life la vie la survivance a plethora of languages (reduced to three)
resonates within the text that becomes uttered outered made apparent and
so visible being there in the Now that is the Title. What do we know about
being (is being an object, subject to a grammatical lexis?) What, then, is the
relationship between memory, being, and making? Poetically, Heidegger said,
man dwells. Do we have ears to hear? asked Nietzsche.
That we hear being, that we remember what it is reveals a complicity
between being and memory. What is the relationship of memory to mind?
Memory, the word, derives from the Latin memoria, from memor mindful;
akin to Old English gemimor well-known, Greek mermEra care, Sanskrit
smarati he remembers. To remember is to be reminded of something, mem-
ory being the second mind. In a thing being remembered it comes to mind;
it becomes present and so represented. The memory of a thing being what it
207

208 D AV I D A . R O S S
is being becomes remembered through mind the being mindful of. Does
being remind us that we have a mind? Or do we remind ourselves that we have
a life when we mind being?
To mind: to be irritated by and to take care of. We mind that which irritates
us, that which troubles us. In being so troubled, we mind and come to have a
mind. That is, the mind cannot exist out of the act of minding. Or a mind with-
out minding is mindless, a pale phantom of itself. Would not that be a strange
phenomenon? What would that represent? What is the strange phenomenon of
representation (at a conference yet) at which, an unknown, would present?
In giving mind to the phenomenon of memory in the ontopoiesis of life,
this unknown presenter would raise the question of the conferences possibility.
How is it possible to even speak of this phenomenon? Is there a noumenal
essence in the shadows? What is the mind (nous) of memory? Of what is the
mind mindful when it reminds itself of being? Does being come to mind? Or
is the very reminding the being? Would being then cease to be an object?
In that case would there be any point to talking at all? That precisely is what
needs to be recalled in the form of my presentation.
I begin with a timely reminder from Heidegger, from Being and Time that
appears in my own work, Being in Time to the Music:
If the question of Being is to have its own history made transparent, then this hardened tradition
must be loosened up, and the concealment with it has brought about must be dissolved.1
What is this hardening which this paper aims to recall? The opposite of hard
is soft, and to convert the first into the second state requires loosening. Heideg-
ger wants to loosen up the question of Being, most immediately its hardened
(Hegelian) dialectical form whose analysis lies outside the scope of this paper. I
want to analyse nevertheless the phenomenon of analysis, performing a meta-
analysis, if you like, the memory of Being being the onto-poetic object at
hand for Being is the life. The purpose of its analysis will be to remember
what the life of Being is.
I begin with the question of an analytic treatment. The word analysis derives
from the Greek luein to loosen, and it is a loosening that Heidegger aims to
induce in regard to the history of Being. Analysis is a double negation: a nega-
tion of alysis, which is itself a negation of lysis. That has lost its looseness
has become hard. Looseness also implies freedom, meaning the absence of lim-
its or barriers. Chains have been left behind. A loose body has been loosened
from its former bounds. However, looseness could also imply promiscuity.
Is freedom promiscuity? Promiscuity is a free for all. A loose woman is a
promiscuous woman, a woman freed, or having made herself free from con-
straints to which she has been subject. Curiously enough, the woman here is
Sophia. Is wisdom promiscuous, that is, free for all? How is freedom free?
M E TA - A N A LY S I S A N D T H E Q U E S T I O N O F B E I N G 209
That which is not free for all is restricted. Restriction would exclude some
from enjoying or having possession of something, whose name is the
forbidden fruit associated with the tree of knowledge.
In the above, Heidegger also makes use of the image of light: history made
transparent. That which lacks transparency is not light, but heavy or opaque.
Opacity is heavy light; transparency is light enlightened of its heaviness. What
is this enlightening movement? In the light becoming lighter spacing out of
the matter at hand occurs, and in this spacing what is dense becomes less so.
If to be dense is to not display intelligence, then the movement of enlighten-
ment, which means the reduction of density, is the movement of intelligence.
In this movement, then, Daseins being-there is less dense, or there is more
space between its parts. Intelligence, the word, to space out the idea here fur-
ther, derives from the Greek verb legein to pick out, and, secondly, to speak.
Heidegger cites zoon logon echon, his translation of that living thing whose
Being is. To draw the second back from the first: the ability to speak relies
upon the ability to pick out. What is the picking out action? To pick out is
to select one thing from another, selection (and election) stemming from this
common root. In this selection the picker orients to something that is there. To
be there means to not be somewhere else or to not be something else. The pick-
ing out, in other words, points us towards an identity or a means of identifying
what is there such that what is there is other than what it is not.
To illustrate this point, consider more closely the issue of freedom. If to be
free is not to be promiscuous, we had established, then, to be free is not to be
free for all or to be free for some. Freedom in its freedom-ness, because it is
for some and not all, requires selection; a free person elects to do some things
or be with some people but not to do other things or to be with other people.
Being-free, then, is a matter of choice, it would seem, because of the linguistic
associations between selection and choice; to select is to choose one thing over
another. However, because freedom is an elective action, it cannot be it cannot
be for all things, and this must include choice if choice or choosing is
something we do. Or, for freedom, however odd this may sound to freedom
lovers, choice is not all. This implies that choice is limited, and that a free per-
son is choosey. What, however, makes freedom free? Or, language borrowed
from the European Enlightenment, what is freedoms necessity? To paraphrase
a famous student of Hegels, namely, Karl Marx, men are free to make history,
but not under conditions of their choosing.2 If freedom of choice exists then so
must the necessity corresponding to it, and which must be other to choice. That
difference implies necessity, the explication of which is now useful. I do so in
order to make transparent the history of Being recommended by Heidegger.
NECESSITY OF FREEDOM
I shall dwell with Parmenides, one of the first to systemically raise the question
of Being. Heidegger cites echon having from of zoon logon echon. The infini-
tive form means to have, hold, possess, and is also found in Parmenides
Way of Truth (line 30): o o . . . .3
Extrapolating and re-stating: necessity ( ) holds fast ( ) the One (
) in chains ( o ) at the limits ( o ). Freedom is chained
by the necessity of not being other than itself, and what is other to freedom
is promiscuity, this referring to the logic of the concept. How so? What limits
freedom?
To be free is to be able to choose. Choice is defined by picking one or the
other; to pick all is to choose none. Choice then would have no logic. The logic
of choice points us necessarily to limits: the not having all. To choose means to
exclude some and exclude others, and that is hard. Necessity is hard, and that
is its logic. The logic of hard necessity is what holds fast choice to choice-
ness. It is hard to choose but choice would have no real necessity in absence
of that hardness. The hardness of choice is this: some possibilities are better
than others. That is the basis of choosing well. To choose well is to choose
from possibilities. What, however, is good? That choice cannot tell us because
choice is not knowledge. To choose one thing from many does not necessarily
mean that we have chosen rightly. Indeed, if we did know what is right, there
would be no need to choose. There would only be one which is good and
others which are not. Choice is only necessary when one is presented with
alternatives that possess some individual validity. Logically, the one which we
choose is the best possibility, which implies that the best is not obvious or there
is no one which is the One. Or, the One is lost among possibilities with varying
degrees of goodness. Or no one or none is the Perfect One which means that
the one which we actually choose will be imperfect. Our actual choice will be
imperfectly good. The logic of choice, and choosing is the exercise of freedom,
is the selection of the imperfectly good. If this was not the case then the One
chose would be perfectly good, and this implies that all the other possibilities
were not good at all, which means they were not really alternatives. That is
absurd.
The necessity of choice compels us to realize that what are actually will
have, when we choose will be imperfectly good. This result shows us that
choice and goodness are inversely related. To the degree that we have choice
then to that degree we cannot have what is perfectly good, and to the degree that
perfect goodness exists, to that degree choice is unnecessary. Goodness does
not exist in varying degrees among all parts. That some parts are better than
others means that none is perfectly good or bad; inequality then is the neces-
sary condition for choice alongside the imperfect goodness that we necessarily
chose if we have to choose at all. Promiscuity violates the condition of equal-
ity because it would be open to all because, presumably, all are equally good.
But if equally good then equally bad, which means that choice is impossible or
absurd. It is impossible to choose one thing whose goodness is perfectly equal
to another because that would deny the individuality of a thing, assuming that
things are good in different ways because they are different things. If things
are different then they are be good in different ways, and this can give rise to
inequality. Without difference, inequality cannot exist.
Freedom which is truly free must exist among different goods. The indi-
vidual quality of the differences makes possible inequality in relation to the
choicer. Depending upon what he seeks, some differences will be more valued
than others. To choose well is to pick an imperfect good if only because indi-
vidual differences each possess a part of what is good. Therefore, to be free is
not to be open equally to all but to be open to what is imperfectly present in the
form of actual choices, with the belief or hope that the actual choice would be
better than the alternatives not selected. The logic of freedom is to choose what
is good, and this requires concern about the individual alternatives in terms of
their goodness. That is necessary if the actor would choose well. Otherwise,
in absence of that necessity the actor is closed to the question of the good or
the good is only this passing sensation or excitement, that being the basis
of novelty.
Promiscuity, best defined, is the excitement produced by passing sensation,
and thus is good only in this passing way. It is open to all because it regards all
equally, which means that it is indifferent to the individual goodness of each.
Given this indifference, the promiscuous actor is choosing really nothing at
all, or nothing which would make any difference to him. Moreover, if promis-
cuity is essentially indifferent to the individual quality of the alternatives it is
equally indifferent to whether any of them, because each any is individually
distinct, are any good, which further implies an indifference to the question of
goodness. That invalidates the reason for choice in the first place or choice log-
ically conceived of, namely, to select what is good among many. Promiscuity,
thus, is not actuated by goodness but by other matters, for example, boredom of
which the promiscuous actor relieves the self by experiencing the momentary
excitement of something or someone new. Excitement, then, is the highest
good for promiscuity. But if that is promiscuity, then we can observe how the
promiscuous actor is not free at all but enslaved to sensation. Starkly revealed,
promiscuity is the slavishness to sensation that wears the mask of freedom. The
source of the deception was the existence of various others which, in the case
of free have individual significance and in the case of promiscuity, have no

significance whatsoever.
In summary: freedom is the being open to the quality of goodness present
in individuated alternatives while promiscuity is the being closed to the qual-
ity of goodness. This means that promiscuity is indifferent to real differences,
and this indifference is the basis of its being open to all, which means that
promiscuity is open to none. Its choices, therefore, will have very little or acci-
dental relationship to the actual and real goodness of any one alternative and be
based, rather, on passing sensation and novelty. Freedom qua freedom, to con-
clude, is not determined by multiplicity but by an appreciation of the individual
goodness residing in each, which are unequally distributed in each; that is its
logic. Freedom that is not purely itself is determined by the sensation of multi-
plicity and this impure if not horribly polluted form of freedom is promiscuity.
In short, freedom is rooted is selecting out the logic implied by the many and
thereby overcoming multiplicity on the basis of gathering the unity of good-
ness, even if imperfectly realized; promiscuity is rooted in the sensation of
multiplicity and the indifference to the whole question of goodness, which is
why promiscuity becomes and is the slave to sensation and hence not really
free at all. Freedom qua freedom is logical; freedom that is not at all free (and
hence self-contradictory) is slavishness to sensation. That is the logic of its
ill-logic, the freedom that is not free at all or in a word, promiscuity.
The above has implications for the discussion of the ontological and dialecti-
cal aspects of the question of Being. To show this, first consider the meaning of
the word ontological, that being the logic or giving an account of being (ontos).
We have given an account of the Being of freedom. To generalize this, we note
that freedom is not itself when lacking the necessity implied by choice, called
the unity of goodness. Freedom, moreover, realizes an imperfect goodness
in the form of an actual choice. Therefore, unity of goodness is an imperfect
goodness, if this is the result of freedoms exercise (choice). In its goodness,
nevertheless, freedom aims to pick out what is good, and goodness is dispersed
throughout the many choices possible. This picking out displays freedoms
logic or necessity. Freedom is necessary in order to choose what is good. This
choosing is a picking out or selecting. The other to freedom is, to introduce new
terms, non-freedom, which is not by any means slavery. Non-freedom refers to
freedom becoming free, meaning the movement of picking out. In more tradi-
tional metaphysical language, non-being is becoming. Freedom becomes itself
by way of non-freedom. This is not slavery because slavery belongs to promis-
cuity which is not freedom. Non-being is not not-being; freedom becoming
freedom is not promiscuity. This non-being is, in regard to Hegels dialectic,
the Other.
I shall now relate this middle term to the two other traditional terms of
the triad. In itself freedom is the possibility for choosing what is good lying
immanent within the plurality of alternatives which appear more or less good.
However, freedom needs to choose itself from out of itself, meaning that part
of freedom becoming freedom is freedom separating itself from what it is not.
Freedom is not promiscuity. Freedom being for Other is freedom then suffer-
ing the process of this election. Freedom must elect to be free by forsaking
its slavishness to sensation. Freedom becomes choosing what is good then in
the same measure that it turns towards its own being or Being, in Heideggers
terms. The Being of Freedom or freedom qua freedom refers to the quality,
that is, the degree of goodness present. Promiscuity is freedom in the least
degree, meaning that state which is hardly freedom at all because it denotes
enslavement to sensation. The movement from itself to for Other to for itself
marks, in the case of freedom, freedom struggling to be free of its enslavement
to sensation, meaning to end that ill state in which it finds itself in order for it
to recover its health. Its health is its Being and its recovery depends upon its
Becoming. Or, more precisely, the recovery is its Becoming.
To consider the above more closely, I retrace our steps, beginning with loose-
ness. Looseness is associated with freedom: to be free is loose from restraint.
However, freedom is restrained by the Other its Becoming which moves it
away from what it is not, this being unbecoming or inappropriate. That freedom
which is most inappropriate is promiscuity, which is also called looseness.
Freedom qua freedom is not bound by sensation but by the logic of choice:
the quality of its being. Moreover, to the degree that a thing possesses quality,
it is good. If good, the thing in question is appropriate and becoming. To the
degree that freedom is appropriate, it is becoming to itself, and thus approaches
the state of being for itself. However, it undergoes the state of for Other: the
motion of non-being which appears to be not being. This is the point of anal-
ysis. Freedom appears to be promiscuity to the degree that its proper sphere
is Being remains unclear and thus loose. This looseness becomes negated in
two steps, signified by the for Other and the for Itself. Freedom is loose in
the form of non-being; it is not clear what freedom is because it appears to be
promiscuity. That state requires negation alysis which is the state of non-
being; however, this, too, requires negation in turn the an-alysis or analysis.
The analysis of freedom brings out the Being of freedom through clarifying
the state of non-being in which freedom found out: the state of spontaneous
looseness. More clearly now, the looseness associated with freedom is not that
associated with promiscuity. Paradoxically, freedom loses its looseness or
loose character by making apparent its limits ( o). Freedom loosens
itself from its enslavement to sensation by cleaving more tightly to the logic of
choice.
The logic of choice bounds freedom to freedom and hence defines its neces-
sity. Freedom is necessarily freedom only when tightly bound by that logic.
When that logic is loose, then freedom becomes loose, that is, veers towards
promiscuity. More theoretically, this concerns the clarifying of the state of non-
being or becoming. Freedom becomes freedom (for Itself) to the degree that
it can clarify and so bring into view its necessary limit; to the degree that it
cannot or, worse, refuses to do so, then it has in effect turned its back upon
itself. Its face remains faceless, that is, devoid of features. This blank face of
freedom, the features remaining naught, is promiscuity. Promiscuity is free-
dom carte blanche, the face of freedom without distinguishable features and
hence the mere surface appearance of freedom. Freedom comes into its own
through the removing of this blankness, through the action of facing itself. In
facing itself, freedom loosens the grip of sensation upon itself. Cleaving more
clearly to its limit, what it is comes more clearly into view. This is the work
of analysis. This logical limit I call necessity, the explication of which now
follows.
N E C E S S I T Y H O L D S FA S T T H E O N E
Necessity (A ) holds fast ( ) the One ( ). Freedoms necessity

is the limit which binds it fast. However, onto that freedom must cleave if it
is to be itself, and freedom is cleaved from that to the degree that it does not.
Here I note the double meaning of cleave: to separate and to join. A meat
cleaver separates meat from meat and yet loves cleave onto each other, mean-
ing join in heated and passionate embrace. Cleaving is one yet it appears to
two, and the two become more-than-two with the multiplications of instances
in which these terms become employed. In clarifying what freedom is, it is
necessary to separate freedom from promiscuity, and the cleavage defines the
space between the two, a space that becomes evident in the course of analysis.
Necessity then becomes obvious. That necessity needs to become obvious is
other than the necessity, moreover. More precisely, that the necessity of the
thing in question needs to become obvious is the work of analysis.
Freedom is One but it appears to be Other than itself and thus two. Freedom
could be both becoming (non-being) and unbecoming (not being) to Itself.
Both the possibility for becoming and unbecoming, are found in the state of
being for Other. Apart from an analysis, the two states remain merged with
each other, and the role of analysis is to allow the thing being for Itself to
emerge. This emergence requires that the thing break the surface and appear
and so be seen for what it is. The thing being for itself is thus the thing break-
ing through to the surface, the restoring of the features of the face otherwise
lost. This restoring of the faces features is the facing by the self of itself. Free-
dom faces freedom through restoring the necessity which limits itself to being
itself. This facing is the self being for itself from out of its non-self. Non-self
and not-self cleave to each other such that the identity of the thing-in-question
remains unclear. It is only through analysis the work of the mind that clar-
ity becomes achieved and that the proper identity emerges. Indeed, the steps
of this dance-like motion resonate with other similar Greek grammatical con-
structions, for example, anamnesis. That too is a double negation. The triad,
brought into prominence by Hegel, was an expansion and exposition of basic
Greek grammatical structures, generalized and translated into German.
The impulse of dialectical thought is to restore the identity of the phe-
nomenon in question that finds itself lost in the state of non-being. The
phenomenon, to clarify is what appears to be. This appearance manifests some-
thing being there. However the identity of the something-being-there remains
unclear in absence of analysis. Analysis drives out identity through the two-
steps of the dance called dialectic: splitting non-being from not-being. Identity,
moreover, is what is the same from the Latin idem same. That which is the
same appears to be other than itself. The identity of freedom, for example, is
other than promiscuity, but appears to be the same in absence of analysis which
would restore that identitys proper state.
Is identity stored up in the thing? Is freedom the story of freedom? Can
freedom be free to be other than itself?
Freedom can appear to be other than itself. Its being (ontos) conceals itself
in the state of non-being. This concealment is the phenomenon of duality. We
have observed this duality in a thing being itself and other to itself. Being itself
is itself a duality, however. If a thing could not be itself, it could not appear.
Its being is necessarily there in its appearance; a thing cannot appear and be
without being. That is its phenomenal reality, what its being-there shows. A
phenomenon is a thing being itself, and this is necessarily dual (without being
dualistic). This duality, however, can fall into dualism if the lack of clarity is
not taken in hand; thus freedom can fall into decadent freedom or promiscuity.
The phenomenon of freedom is the showing and thus putting into the light
what the freedom is for.4
A things identity is its sameness, which necessarily appears to be other to
it in the act of a thing being itself. Being itself, a thing cannot escape duality
if it is to have phenomenal reality. If identity refers to the same, and the same
thing is being itself when it is itself, and its being is its unity, its unity is other
than its identity. Or, conversely, its unity can be its identity only if its being is
not its unity. In either case, duality intervenes; or, more precisely, duality is the
distance between being and itself. Moreover, if dialectical thought is pri-
marily concerned with a thing both being and not being itself (the non-identity
of identity in Hegels terms) then any ontological based inquiry, whose ratio-
nal essence is the giving account of being, must be dialectically based. Now,
Heidegger says in the above that: This is why the ancient ontology, developed
by Plato, turns into dialectic. The dialectical turn revolves upon the differ-
ence/distance between being and itself, the play of its identity or sameness.
While the thing is inevitably the thing that it is, for logically it cannot be oth-
erwise, it is never the thing that it is in the same way. It is always at a distance
from itself in the very being itself.
Dialectical thought points to the distance between being and itself. The
ontological clue is logic of the thing being itself which becomes worked out
through analysis, an analysis based upon that difference. All form of inquiry
then is implicitly dialectical, meaning all forms of inquiry must avail them-
selves of the basic insight of dialectical thought: the changing identity of
the difference which is the thing being itself. In the hermeneutic of the
logos it becomes increasingly possible to grasp the problem of Being in a
radical fashion. Hermeneutic means interpretation, from the Greek God Her-
mes, the messenger. The messenger-interpreter is the go-between, and what
goes between being and itself is the identity enjoining the two-as-one. That
which holds a thing to its being is not its identity, which is, logically speak-
ing, an artefact, but the limits of its necessity. Identity is a necessary artefact
that spans the gap between being and itself, and which, because it is a
spanning, is difference/distance. Also, it should be clear that identity is nei-
ther unity nor difference. Dialectically expressed, identity is the difference of
unity. The roots of identity therefore lie in this differentiated unity, whose pres-
ence emerges through analysis. We have seen already one example of this: the
looseness associated with freedom/promiscuity. Freedom in its necessary is
loosened from its enslavement to sensation and thus binds with the logic of
choice. Freedom differentiates itself for itself out of itself by breaking with the
lack of clarity defined by its merging with not-Freedom.
This state of non-being is the site for and of Becoming. A thing becomes
for itself through the emergence of its appropriate state by way of its neces-
sity. That is the binding force of its logic. This site is the place where the
thing in question comes in the movement of Becoming. For a thing to become
itself means that it comes out of the vague state where, loosely speaking, it
both is and is not itself. Another name, to draw from Heidegger, would be the
pre-ontological state, the Hegelian equivalent being the in itself. In itself, the
thing in question is the being not yet appropriate for itself; equally, it is ready-
ing itself to become itself. Becoming is the thing coming over to itself by way
of gaining clarity about the difference/distance between being and itself. For
a thing to be itself is for it to cross that distance, the crossing being its identity.
Thereby, the being in question assumes sameness, which is predicated upon
that differentiation. Becoming, moreover, is the distance the thing travels by

way of being itself. By way of implies being on the way, and possibly com-
ing upon what stands in the way. These are obstacles. Dialectical thought
would remove standing obstacles by clarifying rendering transparent the
manner of traveling which has made that way appear. The distance/difference
is the non-being/not-being. The non- is merged in the not by way of the com-
mon denotation of negation. We have observed this in the case of looseness
and the implied absence non-/not- of limits. Freedom, qua freedom, however,
is not a slave to sensation because it cleaves onto the logic of choice. The logic
of choice cleaves freedom from promiscuity, they cleaving onto each other
otherwise in their merged state.
The One is the thing-in-question being for Itself: the point at which it has
surmounted the difficulties and so overcome the distance signified by Becom-
ing. However, such straight line thinking presumes that the distance has not
changed. Indeed, dialectically, that is precisely the case or rather what dialec-
tical thought brings out in relation to the ontological demands of inquiry. How
so? Exposed systemically by Heidegger, the ontological demand of inquiry is
the question of Being (Sein). This question however is merged in the Being-
there (Dasein). Heidegger states, the problematic of Greek ontology, like that
of any other, must take its clues from Dasein itself. Being is merged with the
being-there, and the emergence of the Being question is thus possible only
with the there becoming articulate, the function of discourse. To articulate,
from the Latin ars joint, is to show how things are joined together. In the state
of mergence, Being and the being-there are joined in an un-free state. Really,
they are one. Their emergence in dual form is the dialectical articulation of the
ontological issues at stake. This stake, to sharpen the point, is the character
of discourse, the word character deriving from the Greek charassein to scratch
out. Charaz is a sharpened stick or stake. Ontology necessarily (must) take its
clues from Dasein because the being-there implicitly stakes out the ground of
Being. Being becomes there in the form of Dasein. This is Heideggers overall
point and the basis of the dialectic in which his ontologically primal form of
inquiry is grounded.
This is also why Heidegger criticizes Hegel: Hegels end point of Abso-
lute Knowledge is pointed in the wrong direction: that dialectical form is
not dialectical at all because it fails to notice how the being-there (human
essence) stakes out the ground of Being (transcendent reality). Thus, the role
of inquiry, dialectically grasped, is to uncover that already staked out ground.
It becomes increasingly possible to grasp the problem of Being in a radical
fashion negates one dialectical form (Hegels) while preparing the ground for
a renewed formulation (Heideggerian) even if this last is not that inquirers
avowed intention. That is the logical cleaver employed here by the present
inquirer to both separate and join two dialectical forms while preserving the
unity of dialectical thought.
THE GROUND OF THOUGHT
The ground of thought, to be clear, is neither ontological nor dialectical. To

cite Parmenides, a line that Heidegger himself cites in Being and Time:
o .5 It is the same thing to think and to
be. But the sameness is not a thing, even if this appears to be the case. Or is
not the very thing, the thing being itself, two? Here the thing is thinking, and
thinking being itself has given rise to (at least two things): the ontological and
dialectical. However, ontological and/or dialectical are concerns that Dasein
brings to bear in facing the question of what it is. To think (o ) is not
to think, this last referring to the inquiring mind disabusing itself of various
language habits (Wittgenstein would say), the first habit of which inquiry needs
to divest itself of being that its concerns are thought itself. These concerns
become stated in the form of themes. The word concern is from Latin com- +
cernere to sift. Thought is a sifting operation, its theme being the statement of
the logical possibility permitting the thing in question to appear, that is, assume
the form of phenomenological reality. Thought becomes thought only by way
of its Other, that non-being, which is language. We think through language,
and the thinking-through brings out the logical possibility for the thing being-
there, which is the linguistic place it now occupies in the mind. By way of
ontology, mind, however, is really nothing other than language and language
is nothing other than the minding of Being. That was and is the primordial
concern powerfully expressed by Parmenides: it is the same thing to think
and to be.
In the way of minding, words denoting obstacle if not impediment, stands
the question of Being. An obstacle, the question stands in front of the inquirer;
yet only upon that way can the mind think. An obstacle is, moreover, an object.
Being becomes the object of inquiry, this becoming the mind. The object of
inquiry, Being becomes the minded for inquiry, Being becomes the mate-
rial, more precisely, the material theme; that which matters means that which
recurs. Here ontology and dialectical thought meet. Dialectical thought points
to the recurrence of the same, a recurrence, however, grounded in the thing
being itself, which, strictly speaking, is an ontological concern.
But the differences between them should not conceal from us the unity
of the doubling which their phenomenal reality manifests. What thinking
is, becomes doubled, in the context of Heideggers text; thought-substance
appears to be ontological and dialectical. It is true, however, in fidelity to the
authors intentions that Heidegger would want to posit an unfolding of a stage

that thought proceeds in stages (which is itself a highly dialectical notion): the
ancient ontology, for which Parmenides was a prime exponent, as developed
by Plato turns into dialectic (see above). The ancient ontology is thought in
itself and turns intodialectic, thought becoming for Other. Dialectical form, in
a highly ironically reversed way, becomes the icon of the very alienation (but
also abstraction) which, in the Hegelian (and Marxian) form, it was designed
to eliminate. As the ontological clue gets progressively worked out namely,
in the hermeneutic of the logos it becomes increasingly possible to grasp
the problem of Being in a radical fashion (see above) This increasingly radi-
cal fashion is the negation of the alienated for Other stage of thinking, which
Hegel would call for itself. But Heidegger is not Hegel.
The difference between the two is this: Heidegger remembers and Hegel
forgets, an error which is Absolute Knowledge in Hegels own text and his-
toricism, the shadow that will haunt Marxism, that the being-there already has
staked out the ground of Being. So it is necessary to turn over that ground,
that overturning being the basis of the revolution in thought by which Heideg-
ger has overcome Hegel. But this overcoming is a destruction not of the thing
itself but the form which the thing has taken when in the state of non-being. The
non-being of thought is, in a word, language. In the language of thought, onto-
logical inquiry can only in a more rooted fashion draw out the Being of thought
through minding, upon a renewed and energetic basis pointed out by Heideg-
gers work, the dialectical re-conception of reality which exists alongside of
it. The dialectic, which has been a genuine philosophical embarrassment,
becomes superfluous flows once more over the land, watering the new seeds
of thought. There spring returns.
THE POINTLESS QUESTION
We would spring the question of Being from the Heideggerian text, turning the
same into the different. In raising the question of Being, we are marking and
re-marking upon the statement, what is, stating that it is a question that has
been answered. Is there an answer to what is? Can Being ever Be answered?
If there is no answer, what is the point of the question? Why ask? This is what
the otherwise unperturbed countenance would answer, would it not? Questions
that have no answers are pointless, and being so, they point to nothing. Having
no answer, the question of Being is pointless; or it points to nothing. How can a
question point to nothing? Another pointless question? One pointless question
follows another, and yet are we not pointing to something? What would that
be? Because the question of Being is pointless, it points to nothing. What, then,
is nothing and what is something?
That something is refers to some standing in Being. An action, standing

requires a ground against which standing stands. Without the ground standing
is groundless. Ground then stands for solidity, what holds the feet. However,
there is a force here, namely, gravity. Preventing us from flying away from the
earth, gravity holds us to the ground. To stand is to resist gravity, and thus to
rise up, in being upon the feet. The word resistance means to stand again, and
in resisting gravity, a word akin to grave, we would rise to our feet and stand.
Thereupon we would gain our full stature. Stature denotes the standing we have
within a community and what by implication we stand for, being members of
that community. It is our social position.
What, however, is standing for? What is the point of this standing-out or
existence? What does existence stand for?
That something is is means that something exists. It is present, that word
deriving from the Latin prae- before and esse to be. In standing before the
question of Being we take up certain ground, that ground that holds us by the
force of its gravity, and is where we face what is gravest, namely, the end of
our existence. For there, at the end, we enter the grave. To be present is to be
before the question of Being, the question of the grave which awaits us, and
the standing ground which is our existence. To stand out, moreover, is to exist.
The question of Being stands out for us, for those who would stand upon this
ground: the gravest question. It holds us there, and we yet we would resist
the gravity of the question in attempting to stand. What, however, is standing?
Here, in standing the ground, we would make out what Being is. This is the
standing question. The question of Being stands out for us in our being before
the grave, holding the end of our existence. It stands out there. The there
where it stands out, is the something which holds us. There something is, and
it is the grave. Is this the meaning of something? What of nothing? We stand
before something, and this is the grave we are about to enter. At the point of
the grave we become nothing. So standing before something is to stand before
nothing? What difference is there?
Question and answer: the question of Being comes before us and the answer
is grave. That is the measure, the graveyard, upon which we stand. But do we
stand there? Or is that not precisely the struggle, to stand, to ex-ist? The space
between ex- and ist is a gap, lacunae, and it is the distance that stands-between
question and answer, ground and standing. A standing question, Being presents
us with the gravity of our existence, that it is the grave-yard upon which we
stand in walking to our grave. That is the distance. What, however, is that? Is
the distance to be measured according to a yardstick? If so, what is that? We
say that there is a gap between ex- and ist, and this is the distance between
the ground and what would rise out of it. It is none other than ourselves that
would stand, if we would walk upon the earth, and exhibit our human status.
Human beings stand upon the earth. What of that? What is standing such that
our status is that?
The standing question of Being reveals to us a gap between existence, to
be more precise, and ex-istence. In standing before Being, we stand before
this open question, for Being does not appear to be anything if Being persists.
Being persists; the question has no answer and thus, by the criteria which we
would apply to other questions, is pointless. Being is the question that points
nowhere, except back to the ground of our existence. There the question is:
what are we? For what do we stand? To ask the question of Being is to point to
what, for the unperturbed countenance, is pointless and of no account, namely,
the ground of existence. To such a face, the question is nothing, and nothing
comes out of nothing. Such a face does not countenance the question of Being
because for it the question, because it does not point to anything, is pointless.
The point, then, is that Being is a thing: that is the question of Being for the
one for whom Being is not a question, but merely a statement. Being is this.
Caught by the phrase, what is, there is no question marking the statement of
Being. Because the question of Being does not point to that or this or anything,
it is pointless and thus not worth asking. But if Being were a thing, would there
be any point to asking the question? A simple formula would do and Being, a
problem to be solved, would no longer a question to be posed and would be
resolved. One could give the answer and go on ones way.
Resolution means what is solved. The question becomes dissolved in the
answer, and loses its solid force. That is the fluid solution, which washes away.
In hearing Being in this questioning way, no solution exists for it, if Being is a
problem. Being is irresolvable; the question will not wash away. That is the
force of its grounds that it remains what resists all solutions. Science, inferior
philosophy, can only have problems to solve; philosophy, superior science, has
only issues to explore. This resistance movement to converting Being into a
problem (called philosophy) gives the question its standing. To resist means
to stand again. This standing again is how the question takes the stand, in
standing its ground. This taking the stand, moreover, is associated with giving
testimony in a trial: the witness takes the stand. What is the stand here?
In the courtroom, the witness takes the judge and testifies, this attesting
to the truth. Testimony, I may add, comes from the Latin testes, the male
sex organ, commonly called balls. Having balls is the vernacular for hav-
ing courage, meaning, here, the ability to stand ones ground. The courageous
stand their ground in refusing to have their being dissolve before either pain
or pleasure. To attest to the standing power of Being is to pose the question,
in risking the ridicule of the unperturbed countenance that would make faces,
deriding the very asking of the question. To stand ones ground is to persist
in being-there. Opposed to those who would make faces, the courageous one
would make out his face, to glimpse more clearly the features of his own being.
That is the point of asking this most pointless question: that the features of the
face belonging to the self do not yet stand out. They lie submerged in the
ground and require being raised from out of it.
In taking the stand for Being, those would attest to its power, make a stand
for having a face. They would face the question of what it is they are in
stating their existence in this questionable way. Existence is the questionable
statement for Being. To exist is both to be and not to be, and thus it is a question
whether, indeed, what exists is at all. Am I? The ground of Being is a question
mark, which makes it a statement. Am I what I am? Being the statement of
the question, Being cannot have any set formula or solution. To answer Being
in this way, which can only disturb the unperturbed countenance, is to pose
questions in order to make that ground stand out. That is the point: To ground
Being back into the existence that would otherwise take it to be a thing. In other
words, the existence of the unperturbed countenance is groundless, precisely
because it refuses to ask the question, and would without question state what
Being is. What are the grounds here? They are the graveyard upon which we
would stand and out of which we are, in this standing out action. There is
no ground to our existence except through the struggle to make the question
of Being stand out, we who would be other than unperturbed countenances
taking Being to be a thing. That Being is a thing grounds the existence of
the unperturbed countenance and yet, however, we others would call such an
existence groundless. Why?
To take Being to be a thing is to take it to be this, say, rather than that. But this
is something and that, something else. Both something and something other to
that must possess being if it is possible to say that this is and that is not. Within
the that is not is is. It is impossible to say that is not without saying is.
The former phrase lacks standing and so falls to the ground. It cannot support
itself, for which falling to the ground is the consequence. Consequently, then,
we must say that it is groundless to take Being to be a thing, which is either
this or that. So Being is a thing that is neither, because it is present in both. All
things attest to the presence of Being without anyone thing being Being. By
being attested to by all things, and hence by being not any one of them, Being
is nothing, if something is the presence of a thing and nothing the absence of.
By contrast, Being is some-thing and no-thing. It is the break between, the gap
between ex- and ist. Would this not convert Being into a break? Being is a
break is the statement. What, however, marks the question of the statement
Let us understand this ground more closely.
GROUND BREAKING
We push our way from out of the ground, the ground that breaks open with the
question of Being. Heideggers Being and Time is a ground-breaking work in
its raising of this question. This pushing our way out is the struggle to stand,
if not to understand what is there. Being is there before us, the presence that
persists and resists, is present in any and everything, but which itself is none of
them. That Being is there, and not there, if what is there is something or noth-
ing, makes the there to be neither. That is the being-there, which Heidegger
will call Dasein. Before coming upon Dasein, for which a transformation is
necessary for our purposes, the question of the possible standing that this being
has requires addressing.
The breaking question of Being opens the ground. How? To break could
mean to shatter. If we shatter an object such as a vase we do not open it. We
open a thing only by preserving its integrity, for example, a bottle, by remov-
ing its cork. To break open the bottle of wine is to present and offer it to the
assembled. The ground-breaking question of Being is breaking because it pre-
serves the grounds integrity, making way for something to emerge through the
opening. Out of this opening the question grows. Here I note that the Sanskrit
word bhu to grow is the root of the English word, to be. Being is a growing
thing, which is no-thing and some-thing. In understanding this question, it is
necessary to keep in touch with the growth; the question opens up the ground
out of which it grew. The question of Being grows from the inability to state,
without question, that Being is a thing. If Being is not a thing, or a thing which
is both some-thing and no-thing, then there are no grounds for saying that it is
this and not that. Or, in other words, Being both is this and that. But, if Being
is not only this and that, then it could be something else. It is everything and
not any one of those things. So Being both is and is not this and that.
To understand the ground of Being is to state that the question itself is irre-
solvable if by solution, the one who is there intends the identification of Being
with an actual thing, that is, something which exists and becomes, when it
ceases to exist, nothing. The question thus grows from out of the distance
between things that exist, and what ex-ists. What ex-ists is Being. Its growth
is indicated by the space between ex- and ists; equally, this is the distance sep-
arating the two. Distance is marked by and. The distance from the ground
to where the growing things stands and exists, is its growth. In the context of
Being, growth is becoming, equally, be-ing. A growing and hence living thing,
Being becomes what it is. In so doing, it puts a distance between itself and
its grounds, marked here by the difference between the Sanskrit bhu and the
English to be.
To further elucidate I return to the space between ex- and ist, whose root is
the Latin stare. Here I inquire about the crossing of this opening, the distance
between different languages. To what does this question of translation, to use
this Latin based work or metaphor, its Greek counterpart, point? Both words
reference the verbs of carrying (the Latin ferre and the Greek pherein) and
across, through (the Latin trans- and Greek meta-). The crossing of the distance
between ex- and ist, is a matter of translation, a metaphorical negating of
the separation. This is the bridge that connects two otherwise wholly different
sides. Being, moreover, is the question of ex-istence, namely, the break-up of
existence. Existence breaks up into ex-istence at the point where Being cannot
be identified only with this or that. Referring to the break-up of existence into
ex-istence, difference belongs to the question of Being. It is ground-breaking
and so releases Being from the identity given to it by the otherwise unperturbed
face. However, this face is faceless, since it is precisely the question of the
grounds of its existence it would flee from.
To review that strand of the argument in binding more tightly the parts to the
whole: those who would stand their ground are courageous, and their ground
refers to the identity of their existence, that which they are. However, their
identity is not clear, and I employ the metaphor of face to refer to the identity
of a person, the entity in question, whose being-there is the statement. The
face of the person, which I shall use in place of Heideggers Dasein, for reasons
that will become clearer with the texts further expansion, is highly individual,
bringing out the singular character of the person concerned. The question of
Being is highly singular and personal; it refers to the question of a persons
existence. What does a person stand for? What grounds the existence belonging
to that individual? On what grounds does a person qua person stand?
The answer to that question is the personal response to the question of Being.
Because Being has no stated identity, it not being a thing, the person in ques-
tion is forever struggling with what Being is. In face of the question of Being,
a person can only respond in terms of that individuals character. That is the
character of the question of Being, that it forces us to respond personally,
in ways that are highly individual and singular, because Being has no stated
identity. Being is forever a question that can only invoke a response and so
not elicit an answer. This was the implication, touched upon earlier, that the
question of Being is incapable of resolution. It is impossible simply, on the
grounds that Being is not a thing, to give an answer and walk away. Now we
can say more clearly why. The grounds that the person-as-a-person walks upon
are the grounds upon which the person stands. They are none other than that
individuals graveyard.
CONCLUSION
To conclude, in presenting this paper I walk upon my graveyard. This walk-

ing upon the grave side in this merry way being the making-being that is my
existence: the difference between existence and ex-istence. The active person,
grave and merry by turns, seeks out and explores the play between existence
and ex-istence, crossing over from one side to another. In this crossing over
there is a crossing out; the actor negates the faceless character of existence,
thereby bringing out his face. The motion of crossing over and out is the bring-
ing out of the face from its faceless state, the unearthing of the ground of that
actors character. That is, to return to the beginning, the great Unknown what
ones proper self is the Being projected from out of the being-there. There I
walk walking, if not dancing upon my grave.
Istanbul, Turkey
NOTES
1
Heidegger, 1962, p. 44.
2
See www.memorablequotations.com/marx.htm.
3
http://philoctetes.free.fr/parmenidesunicode.htm
4
Organized democracys refusal to do this is symtomatic of its decadenct conception of reality,
particularized by the freedom which is promiscuity prevalent under such a regime, the basis of
Platos criticism of organized democracy as the worst form of government in the last section of the
Republic.
5
http://philoctetes.free.fr/parmenidesunicode.htm
S E C T I O N III
M E M O RY S N E T W O R K O F T H E H U M A N H O R I Z O N S
K O N R A D R O K S TA D
M E M O RY A N D T H E H I S T O R I C I T Y O F H U M A N
EXISTENCE
ABSTRACT
In this paper we shall first look into the phenomena of memory as they are
functioning quite naturally, life-worldly and then, on that foundation, ask
questions into the depth of the phenomena reflecting descriptively on the func-
tions and structures that constitute the phenomena in a phenomenological
manner, in its essence. The core of memory thus has to be decided, but then,
as this is to be constituted, the context and the inter-related other functions
in which the phenomena are interwoven, have to be taken into consideration
as well. The whole field of relevant phenomena eventually leads to the ques-
tion of human existence, now examined as a question of historicity founded
in the life-world. Memory thus, closely connecting historicity, yields clues
for examining (inner) time-consciousness in its various aspects. The point,
then, is to dismantle the phenomena of memory so that both its obvious-
ness and its radically transcendental significance can be further examined.
Thus the solidity (and existence) of actuality proves interdependent on the
functioning subjectivity living in a historical world, always transcending and
(re)creating oneself/ourselves yet keeping the identity of both ourselves and
the things of the world relatively constant in the genuine sense of historical
human existence.
Memory is, of course, a quite common phenomenon in the course of human

life. It might function in the manner of consciously and specifically recall-
ing past experiences, but mostly, perhaps, memory functions only implicitly,
providing continuity in our experiencing both our selves and the surrounding
world with happenings, actions, things1 etc. Without the functioning of mem-
ory we would not be able to orient ourselves in our lives as individuals Why
is it so and what is it about memory being an obvious phenomena in our
life that we commonly dont think much about that explains this important
function?
In this paper we shall first look into the phenomena of memory as they are
functioning quite naturally, life-worldly and then, on that foundation, ask
questions into the depth of the phenomena reflecting descriptively on the func-
tions and the structures that constitute the phenomena in a phenomenological
231

232 K O N R A D R O K S TA D
manner, in its essence. The core of memory thus has to be decided, but then,
as this is to be constituted, the context and the inter-related other functions in
which the phenomena are interwoven, have to be taken into consideration as
well. The whole field of relevant phenomena eventually leads to the question
of human existence, now examined as a question of historicity founded in the
life-world. And this again might provide clues for examining the total field of
issues in a transcendental manner.
Lets start by looking into one pretty obvious aspect of memory. Memory
brings back, it re-calls experiences, happenings etc. What I did and expe-
rienced yesterday I can remember, and some times I had better do so as well.
Thus yesterday is not plainly passed, a no-thing to day; pretty often what is
and happens to day is even directly dependent on what happened yesterday and
what I (or others) can remember from it. The meaning of to days experiences
can often be inconceivable if I dont remember what happened yesterday, and
this might be the case even if I dont remember exactly what happened and
specifically think about it. And perhaps this might be stated even stronger
since identifying and speaking of the meaning of something quite generally
seems to imply some transcending in regard to the actual now. Maybe even the
meaning of the actual now presupposes something that has passed and some-
thing that is coming, because how could I identify the actual now if I did not
identify it within its context, as a moment in a, so to speak, flowing stream? Of
course, commonly I dont think about and reflect on this, but my experiencing
actual nows would have been pretty odd if I plainly did not do it. (They would
have appeared as totally isolated points with no kind of connection not even
some horizontal background between them, which is impossible and does
not make sense.) In my actual experiencing I commonly have expectations
related to it, and in the identification there is some living recognition (always
some living pre-) expanding the actual situation, settling it within the con-
text of both past and future. All this is commonly functioning automatically (or
anonymously), but also sometimes calling for an explicit remembering of rel-
evant past experiences. And perhaps this might function the other way around,
starting by fairly unmotivatedly remembering something, and then this remem-
bering sheds light into the actual experienced situation, even constituting the
decisive moment in the meaning of the whole situation.
Memory is thus a special kind of functioning intentionality that is embed-
ded in various contexts, related to different kinds of intentionalities thus also
constituting depth into our whole experiential life. Perception is perhaps the
most closely (or frequently) related other kind of intentionality, and it might be
instructive to compare the two first. How is memory interrelated with percep-
tion and how do they constitute different intentionalities? Perception directly
presents objects to us, and one object is always given in a mixture of presences
M E M O RY A N D T H E H I S T O R I C I T Y O F H U M A N E X I S T E N C E 233
and absences: I see the thing, e.g. a cube before me, and it is given as an object
presented with its identity. But strictly speaking, what I directly see are some
of the cubes sides; I dont see all its sides in one view some of them are
concealed, and I dont either see its inside even though I reasonably assume
there is some inside. However, I can easily turn the cubed around or move
myself and see it from another, different angle, and then those sides first being
absent present themselves at the expense of those first being present, now only
presenting themselves in their absence. This is plain description and anyone
being able to observe how such objects are given to us, would probably at once
subscribe to it. Throughout this dynamic blending of presence and absence, this
manifold of presentation, one and the same object continues to present itself
for us, and its identity is not plainly (some of) its sides, aspects or profiles, but
it is given as continuously existing in a dimension different from these. Thus,
since this identity is constituted through the above indicated process, this, at
the same time, indicates some continuous linking ability in my mind, which is
closely related to if not plainly is memory.2
The identity provided by perception might further on as well be provided by
memory itself, but now it is present as remembered, and belonging to the past.
There are different kinds of appearances and manifolds involved in the consti-
tution of its identity, and its presentation involves another kind of absence that
is more definite than the one characterizing perception. You cannot actually
( although with the sc. time-machine we imagine we can) move yourself into
the real past, as you can in regard to the perceived thing, getting a grip on
what was first absent. In this regard the past incorporate a more radical absence,
which, however, you can bring back by remembering; what you then bring
back is not a mental picture of what was once experienced, but the experienced
itself as something belonging to the past. In a way we live through experiences
we previously have had, reactivating them making them alive once more, as
belonging to the past. And in this sense and manner, as the past embodies
multitudes of more or less continuous happenings etc., it might be part of our
actual life. Thus, the horizon of past and history comes into our lives in a very
elementary sense by the ability for memory.
This also applies to the other pole-side in the memory-intentionality; you
might not only remember what was experienced, but also the how and yourself
as the subject and agent of the experience you remember. I, so to speak, place
myself in the past situation in which the experience took place. And I might
recall other aspects which at first did not cross my mind. Thus there is depth
in the subject-pole-side, too and this again, since it is me, my actual self,
remembering having had that experience (in the past), might also call for a
question in regard to the identity of my self throughout the span of time covered
by the remembering: Is it me, my actual self, now remembering, or is it the
self of the past having the experience now remembered, that constitute the
identity of my real authentic self? The most plausible answer seems to be
that they both are; the self I remember is not only a mental picture rather it is
a real part of my actual self, and therefore it seems more proper to say that
the identity of my self is constituted in-between the two: My self is constituted
in the interplay between (actual) perceiving and remembering; thus I am not
limited to my here and now, but I have a history too, that I by remembering
might reactivate and actually attend to.
And further on to make this descriptive reflection more complete we
better also mention imagination and anticipation, which are closely connected
with perception and remembering. Actually all those are more or less directly
interwoven into each other with, however, perception as some kind of pri-
mary, founding intentionality. As memory interplays with perception, so does
imagination. The major difference, then, between memory and imagination
lies in the doxic modality proper to each: Whereas memory operates belief
we commonly believe what we remember actually happened, imagination does
not do so; it is pervaded by a kind of suspension of belief. What we identify
imagining has the modality of as if it is not real and the imagining subject
in a manner displaces itself in an imaginary world, even though the real world
around it remains as the believed-in, constituting the founding context for it
all, also providing material for the imaginary life.
And finally we have the anticipating intentionality; how can we describe
anticipation and its major features? It is very similar to imagination, but is not
quite the same. Anticipation involves some kind of displacement and imag-
ination, but now this has to get realistic thus moving back into the mode
of belief. If we are planning something, then we are imagining ourselves in a
future situation, but now we have belief in what we anticipate about the coming
situation we normally want to act in a realistic manner, to have expectations
that are realistic. If we are planning, we normally want to reach some goal, and
the means we use have to be both realistic and efficient; this involves actual
choices and considerations that partly, or perhaps mostly, have to be made at
the actual moment but, then, explicitly in anticipation of the possible future
situation. Given our actual situation in which we now act, choose etc., we will,
of course, always meet with limitations; we do not have unlimited means, and
the choices we make have to be grounded in our perception and understanding
of the actual situation. And then again, that ability for anticipating in a sense
enables us to look into the future, and to distinguish different possible ways
of development, as possible choices are made etc. But, memory might again
become highly relevant what is it that enables us to perceive and regard the
situation in a realistic manner, and, not least, what is it that enables prediction
and makes the probable, realistic anticipation of some future situation possi-
ble, if it is not memory: We have previously experienced similar situations (we
might, of course, also have read or heard about them in one way or another
and now we remember this), and then, that happened. I remember this and
might therefore foresee whats coming this time too. Thus, we so to speak
make rules for our expectations patterns for association are made up in
our minds and they are made habitual, and become constitutive both for our
personalities and for how we conduct our lives.
Even though perception might be considered one primary and founding
intentionality, it is probably never functioning purely as perception without
being blended with and interwoven into these other intentionalities. In natural
human life we are, of course, settled in an actual situation, are living here and
now, but this is never totally isolated not in some way or another connected
with past and future. The horizons of past and future are, as the horizon of our
surrounding world is, always present ap-presenting, thus providing depth into
our lives. And this depth is due to the living interplay between perception,
memory and imagination that always takes place, these (living) functions pre-
senting them selves by living at one time primarily as perception, another as
memory, and the third, as imagination/anticipation. And the subject being, of
course, localized in her/his body might, nevertheless, displace its self and
live in places not being the place in which s/he actually lives.
There are, however, other dimensions and modes of intentionality that have
to be taken into consideration in regard to what provides depth, continuity and
firmness into our lives, and those which I will now only mention, are what is
called signitive and categorical intentionality. These provide ability for using
words and formulating sentences, thoughts etc. and eventually enable logical
thinking and reason. But at the same time they are, of course, the most obvious
phenomena in our natural, common human lives. As humans we naturally use
words and communicate by using language and this provides quite an enor-
mous expansion of the depth (and breadth) in our lives and it enables a new
kind of firmness. It is not only what we perceive, remember or imagine that
enriches our lives, but language certainly also does. And then, interwoven and
in interplay we might mention the dimension of tradition, history and social-
ity. We shall not now, however, expose more details in the same way it has
been done in this rather wide picture that is indicated by this only say that in
human life, in our life-world, sociality, for example, embody language, mem-
ory, imagining and perception. And likewise, we might perhaps quite generally
say that all these capacities and dimensions are embedded in and involve each
other: History and tradition do, of course, involve and relate to memory, and
memory both to perception, tradition and history etc. And in the continuation
of this paper we shall now change our perspective and try to examine what
might prove to constitute an explicit phenomenological or transcendental per-

spective on the whole issue, then making history in the sense of the historicity
of human existence the key-concept of it all. Our analysis and argument will
mainly be based on an analysis provided by Ludwig Landgrebe [L. L.], but we
will not either forget the results of our own analysis so far.
First, then, what has been exposed so far in regard to memory, perception
etc. in what perspective have these analyses been provided? A proper answer
might well be they have been provided in a philosophical perspective. But
then, what does this mean? One answer might again be that this implies some
conception of a subject involved in the different kinds of (intentional) experi-
ences. But again is this necessarily philosophical, could not this have been
achieved in a natural reflection as well? Perhaps the most proper would be then
to describe the whole perspective as some mixture of natural and philosophical
reflection, not explicitly distinguishing the one from the other: People might,
of course, reflect quite naturally, and thus also experience aspects making up
themselves as subjects of their (intentional) experiential lives. Regarding for
example the perception of a cube (seeing it as a solid six-sided identical thing),
it presents no problem to realize in natural reflection on what is strictly speak-
ing seen in one view, that it is only some of its sides and, at least implicitly,
one also knows that this is due to my specific perspective again embedded in
my body and in my self as the proper subject of the whole perception.
But if you are really to examine and expose all that might be contained in
and implied by this fact, you probably have to enter into some philosophical
reflection that in its manner transcends the natural. The point I am trying to
establish is, however, that in regard to content at least, the two kinds of reflec-
tion contain the same material. The philosophical does, of course, operate more
in the depth and is far more systematic and extensive and especially maybe
has a far more consistent methodical grip on the whole issue. But this might as
well be considered as differences in degree more than in principle.
It is, however, one difference in principle that is of decisive importance,
and it pertains to what could be described as ontological aspects or under-
tones contained in those different attitudes. Commonly the reflection and
the experience quite generally within the natural attitude, implies (belief
in) the existence of what is experienced and this is, of course, quite nat-
ural. But the point now is that it might appear a decisive difference in regard
to the conception of this existence: On the one hand it is viewed as some
in-it-self being quite independent of any experiencing it by some subject cor-
related with it; on the other it is in so far as it can meaningfully be described
as something identical, with its identifiable in-it-self, necessarily correlated
with some subject which essentially constitute the meaning of this existent.3
These two alternatives roughly describe a major difference between what

is called the naturalistic- (realistic- or objectivistic-) and the transcendental-
phenomenological attitude, and this is a difference that belongs in philosophy.
Thus, neither of them belongs to what is properly called the (pure) natural
attitude, but of course they might intermingle, something which historically
also has happened. And since this is how our situation both as philosophers
and humans has become, what is strictly natural, what is naturalistic and what
is the pure transcendental, are not (therefore) easy to decide at least not
objectively. In phenomenology, however, there is provided a methodological
device for distinguishing, not then pretending any metaphysical or ontological
foundations for these different kinds of attitude.4
Philosophically it is, thus, strictly methodical as it essentially also involves
the historical embedded in the life-world and the historicity of human exis-
tence. And this carries us into what will constitute the next, main and final
move in our analysis, namely an examination of the argument Ludwig Land-
grebe presents in his article The Life-world and The Historicity of Human
Existence (hereafter: LHHE).5
Landgrebe starts6 by examining the concepts of life-world and horizon,
and says that the world does not exist as an entity, an object; rather every such
presupposes the world-horizon and [i]n the determination of the life-world
as a horizon, a transcendental point of view guides us. And this is because
[. . .] the concept of the horizon already originates from a reflection on the
correlation between life-world and the experiencing of the life-world.7 In
regard to what we just discussed above concerning the natural vs. the natu-
ralistic/ontological and the transcendental, the concept of the life-world would
be an ontological-transcendental concept of hybrid character, and Landgrebe
characterizes the conception of the world as a totality of things, as a philo-
sophical abstraction. He would rather then insist on the way in which the
world exists for the natural understanding, because it is more appropriate to
describe the world as a horizon providing access to a constantly moving open-
ness that also encompasses limitedness, which nevertheless might provide an
access to this structure of the horizon on the basis of which our claim about
it can be repeated with evidence. This does, however, require the transition
to the transcendental-phenomenological reflection which would transform the
concept of horizon into a genuine transcendental concept.8
Landgrebe further elaborates his point of view on the issue, and now explic-
itly means by horizon the way in which we are already conscious of the
world in pre-scientific life so that the life-world meant would be concrete
universality (which Husserl also spoke of as a socio-historical-cultural world).
And then, this universality of the horizon could not be understood in the sense
of a totality of all existing things, which according to Landgrebe excludes

the possibility of ontology of this universality.9
This obviously constitutes an important aspect in his argument, because
now he also mentions the regional ontologies in the Ideas II and in a way
relativizes them, saying that the outline of them orients itself toward the orga-
nization of the larger groupings of science into the physical and biological
natural sciences and the human sciences, constituting an organization of fields
of scientifically experienceable things which always originates from a unique
historical constellation. And it is in this sense that such ontology cannot claim
an unconditioned and general validity.10
And thereafter Landgrebe points at what he calls another aporia:
[. . .] the theme of the philosophic science of the life-world should be the invariant style of world-
life which govern all worlds, that is, a common basic structure of all ways of living in the
world, [which should embody] concrete universality [interpreted as] a universeof principal
intuitability as a realm of original evidence where we have our world before philosophy or
science.11
This generates various challenges and problems in regard to comparability

(between cultures) and compatibility in regard to characterizing the life-world
in all these ways at the same time. Besides, natural life is a life of interests,
interested in its own (particular) goals, how things can help/hinder its aims,
others also having (their) goals, situations, possible collisions or unions etc.
One may realize one has a limited perspective on the world others having
perspectives beyond my horizon, but this it seems might be changed and
widened through understanding one another and learning from this.12
Further on, there are, of course, many and different environments and dif-
fering roles of life. But this fact does not change the fact that the life I am
living exactly now takes place on the basis of the world in which I am living
at this particular time. And then, what about the substance of concrete uni-
versality interpreted as the sense of the horizon of a totality in which one
lives? As changes, both in regard to roles and environments, take place, then
the world in which one performs these changes of roles (and environments)
is connected with ones own identity. Thus, one has the world (as part of
ones identity) as the horizon of totality which encompasses all special hori-
zons determined by ones specific life-interests, which again may concretize
universally the meaning of the way in which everyone has their world.13
Given this, how then compare life-worlds? This will be the next ques-
tion. What is invariant in all worlds and allows comparison is, according to
Landgrebe, nothing other than having the world as horizon. In this sense and
manner, also people living in (quite) different cultures, may have a common
world, and be able to communicate with one another (which historically actu-
ally has happened, too). This invariant in all conceivable worlds must therefore
be present as something shared before all different worlds; it must be that to

which the beginning of communication is related. But what can this be, asks
Landgrebe. He does not answer directly, but suggests that the basic structure
of the world is disclosed in sensuous-bodily-kinaesthetic self-movement as the
condition for having perception at all.14
Now, Landgrebe concretizes what all this entails, first saying that
[c]ommunication requires the possibility of exchanging information about
ones impressions which further on implies that [t]he ability to think, the
ability to speak, and kinaesthetically functioning bodiliness all belong insep-
arably together. And on the basis of this, the universe of intuitability is
what all comparative transition from one world to another rests upon, and this
means:
[. . .] upon those structures which are common in all these life-worlds and which make reference
to their relationship to the sensuously kinaesthetic bodiliness. Intuition must be freely understood
in the wider sense as intercourse with that which is given in our world through sensuous-bodily
functions. All communication does not only start with Look there, but also with Grasp that,
Move in this or that way. In this elementary way, communication is already pre-linguistically
rooted. Words with deitic occasional meaning, in turn, are the first elements in the transition to
the linguistic exchange of information.15
Having concretized in this way, it is in this sense that the compatibility of

both determinations of the life-world, respectively, as concrete universality,
and as universe of intuitability, can be made intelligible as well. According to
Landgrebe, any life-world is, in itself, concrete universality; but with respect
to that which makes it compatible to other life-worlds, it is the universe of
intuitability. And it is upon the basis of having a world that all comparison of
life-worlds takes place. This applies also to the sciences which make compara-
tive sociological studies even though they normally do not question this most
general condition for their activity but take them as unimportant or obvious.
Transcendental phenomenology does, however, effect this questioning.16
After having established this horizontal character of the life-world, with
its core in the body, centred in (or around) sensous-bodily-kinaestetic self-
movement, new aspects concerning the total project of Landgrebe are coming
into play. The life-world still has essential importance, but now the analysis
moves more towards what might be characterized as a vertical dimension,
thus examining another kind of depth. It is the historical and what Landgrebe
calls the a priori of history that comes into focus, and he will connect the con-
cept of life-world to the problem of history, then, following Husserls demand
to take account of the universal historicity of the correlative manners of being
of humanity and the cultural world.17
The argument starts from what previously has been established, namely a
common life-world constituted by something which is invariant in all the dif-
ferences of individually concrete universality. But this not only applies for
people living at the same time it is also valid for the worlds in the past of
which we have gained knowledge. In so far people in the past have left us signs
and traces of their lives (buildings, texts etc.), we can place ourselves in their
situation, and understand how it has been the result of activities like ours,
presupposing an active bodiliness guided by purposes and goals. They have
had their lifes fate between birth and death, and they have been determined
by some interests common to ours, within a life-world which is common to all
people as a universe of principal intuitability.18 According to Landgrebe, this
[. . .] is the basis to which all individual life-worlds are related and on which
they have developed in their respective individual concrete universality.19
Thus, this universe is the ground of the becoming of the life-world, i.e. the
a priory of history. And it is also added that Husserls demand that we consider
the entire historicity of the life-world is satisfied only when this characteriza-
tion of the life-world as the universe of principal intuitability is understood,
thereby understanding the meaning of the statement that History is the grand
fact of absolute being, too.
To develop and concretize this further, Landgrebe first critically states that
the field of observation for science is a well-founded substruction, and con-
trary to this, the life-world is a realm of original evidence.20 And he says,
it is the task of phenomenology to traverse the path back to this evidence
through which the world is constantly pre-given, not, however, in some onto-
logical manner where concepts like material thing or constant nature will
be the primal. It has to be done in another way realizing that perception always
is guided by life-worldly interests. Thus, the original sense-qualities are the
favourable or unfavourable qualities [embodying also values, secondary
qualities etc.] which encompass all sensual fields. Only in this way we may
say that the universe of intuitability is the stratum of sensible presence with
original evidence. But in relation to what develops here, as upon a ground,
this stratum is not, Landgrebe insists, a fixed stability, but rather an acquisition
(Erwerb). And given this, he will fully acknowledge that it is in intuition that
the first and original confrontation with what is given occurs, and we thereby
become first acquainted with the world.21
The next move is now to concretize the impact of this, and it is interesting to
notice that Landgrebe does not try to dig back into some first historical (in
the factual sense) acquisition. Rather he concretizes by speaking of childhood
and says,
[. . .] in childhood an acquaintance with the world begins genetically as we learn controlled move-
ments guided by the individual [and that] ones first acquisitions begins in a reflexive self-relation.
At the beginning this self-relation is not yet an explicit consciousness of itself as an ego, but is,
rather, a pre-reflective self-relation. Even for the smallest child, as a living organism, the world
is one.22
The childs horizon will, of course, then, appear rather limited, and all
actions are results of very elementary needs and emotions. Nevertheless, as
a horizon, the world is related to the (childs) body as a null point of orienta-
tion, and within the borders of this limited horizon the world is also concrete
universality. From the perspective of the adult, however, this world is a univer-
sality in becoming, a promise for the future and there is actually something
shared with both, such as craving, pain, disappointment, satisfaction, joy, fear
and hope. And as this makes space for interaction, there develops a personal
character (firstly the childs, but probably also the adults further develops in
her caring for the child), and then the affective character of this sphere of
behaviour always forms the horizon to which all higher actions stand in a
living relationship. It is in relation to this horizon that all higher actions are
situated. If this is not a fixed stability, then we can, according to Landgrebe, in
principle, only speak of the life-world as a world in becoming, in which even
the functioning of the senses is not a fixed dimension.23
Landgrebe continues the development of his argument by further examin-
ing what has been laid down as the a priori of the life-world, and it is now
to be examined as a universal problem of the history of experiencing con-
sciousness, which eventually, then, will be grounding a distinction between
transcendental and empirical history.
The first step is to clarify the double meaning entailed within the talk of
the universe of intuitability; this is about: (1) that which is ubiquitously avail-
able and immediately accessible, and (2) the a priori whose concept can be
arrived at only through universal comparison. And how is, then, this universe
given and how is it laid claim to? Evidently, says Landgrebe, only through the
performance of kinaesthetic functions within seeing, hearing, and grasping
which are the sources of original evidence. We become acquainted with the
world as the world that exists for us, and then, these functions are also guided
by interests, and in their performance they are controlled and guided, usually
in a pre-reflective way, through a projection of their effects.24 Commonly those
performances remain anonymous, but they might become thematic even in
everyday life, if one says you could have done it differently, better . . ..25 This
indicates a possibility which is compared with other possibilities, so that they
now are taken out of anonymity, and a reflection in which these performances
might be recognized as a priori will always be the result of a comparative
method explicitly or implicitly. However, in their anonymity yet being
familiar, they build up the horizon in personal life, providing the living in the
world which is characteristic of the natural attitude.26 But even in everyday
life we might be thrown into the following reflection can you do this too?
This, then, indicates that reflection is never a return to isolated states of con-
sciousness, for states of consciousness as such are the results of performance.
Rather reflection is always a reflection upon these performances themselves
and their possibilities, on that which one is capable of, and the limits and the
obstacles which stand against carrying out tasks.27
And given what is now revealed in Landgrepes descriptive reflection mov-
ing in the in-between-the-natural-and-the-transcendental, a new question
arises: what then motivates the universal philosophical reflection upon the
life-world as ground? According to Landgrebe, it is a universal comparison
that motivates and is presupposed, which at least potentially involves a his-
torical review of all possible ways of having a life-world. He further says
that this reflection presupposes everything which has been achieved by the
comparative sciences also informing us that Husserl had undertaken broad
ethnological studies so that phenomenology did not spin (Habermas) these
possibilities out of itself.28 Thus, such scientific knowledge belongs to the
concrete universality of our modern life-world and has flowed into it and
determines its horizon, available to everyone in books etc. And Landgrebe then
repeats a statement previously presented, namely that the being of the world
is presupposed as a steady becoming, in which nothing is (totally) fixed. But
this likewise presupposes a history of this world in which the becoming of
humanity is only a short and late moment in a great cosmic becoming. Thus, it
presupposes that there is such a history which encompasses this short moment.
But where and how is there such a larger history, and how can we be
justified in speaking of it? This is the next question to be examined. Land-
grebes answer is, then, that History is only there for those who themselves
stand within it and who remember what happened earlier in their lives, or who
can be taught about still earlier times through some sort of tradition. One can
even theoretically reconstruct, as cosmic history, much earlier times before the
beginning of mankind and, in view of this, natural understanding will say that
this cosmic occurrence of nature is both earlier and older than man.
Transcendentally, however, this could not appear in the same way, and now
Landgrebe recurs to something Husserl has said: In a meditation on Tem-
poralization and the Monad, Husserl asked, [. . .] whether all of humanity
with its cosmos (to which also the worlds of the stars belong) is accidental?
And he answered, That is a speech dependent on time. We stand within tran-
scendentality. I am and time is only constituted by me!29 This has to be
further explained because natural understanding makes the obvious presuppo-
sition that there simply is this becoming of the world and that there simply is its
time into which everything falls. According to Landgrebe, this presupposition
is precisely the general thesis of the natural attitude, and transcendental-

phenomenological reflection begins with the bracketing of this standpoint
so that we might stand within transcendentality. But who are we? It is
the reflecting philosophers who can communicate, and still have their place
and their time. And can they regard this becoming otherwise than the affirma-
tion of the fact that this reflection, too, takes place on the basis of the world?
In accordance with Husserl, Landgrebe suggests a different result: one stands
within transcendentality. But what and how is this?30
The well known first step of transcendental reduction results in the apodictic
self-certainty of I am. This has, however, mostly been misunderstood, saying
it lands in subjective idealism. According to Landgrebe, the reduction is rather
nothing other than a meditation upon reflection as a recursive relationship, and
this cannot be arbitrarily fixed at some point, but the person who is reflecting
must also be viewed as belonging to this reflection. And this implies that it is
only for oneself that reflection can be carried out, though one may re-perform
the reflection of another, if this reflection has been linguistically expressed.
Given this, this co-performance and re-performance is my possibility, but with
this possibility my singularity and isolation also come into view. Thus, the
meditation upon apodictic self-certainty which expresses itself in the I am,
is a meditation upon an absolute fact. And why is that? It is a meditation
upon an absolute fact because its that it is first gives a point of reference
with regard to which the (my) world itself is given (to me) as horizon.31
The reduction, thus, points out that one can never simply talk about the world
in general, but that one always has to keep in mind exactly for whom it is a
world. One implication is then, that when we speak today of the one world, we
have to remember that, as such, this world was not the horizon for those who
lived in the past. If the world as a steadily changing horizon is fundamentally
a world in becoming, then when we regard it as one world it is always as a
result of this becoming. It is one world for us, for modern society. But that
we can speak of a for us [within the transcendental standpoint] means that
it is [in our actuality] for everyone. This common character of a world as
horizon does not, however, float above single individuals who have this horizon
in common; rather it is the result of a constitutive history of this horizon. And
such a constitutive history does again presuppose the many individuals who
from the common horizon by means of their being together, being opposed to
one another, in their self-movements and in their respective life histories live
their lives.32
This explication of the impact of the reduction which Landgrebe now has
provided, carry us back into the question regarding the a priori of this consti-
tution being the universe of intuitability, which can only be conceptualized
by being formed through reflection upon sensuous-kinaesthetic performances.
And as this can only be self-reflection, what is unveiled cannot be observed

anywhere in the world as a visible state of affairs. The visible are common
types of behaviour and regularities of behaviour guided by traditions and
norms. And since the perspective of comparative sciences is limited to this,
i.e. the observable things in the world, they cannot answer the question of the
legitimacy of a general comprehensibility which is presupposed in their activ-
ity. Nevertheless, the self which performs, itself unobservable and invisible
[to the sciences], being only for itself in reflection, yet it is this which is the
last source of all possible evidence. Thus, and this constitutes the conclusion
of Landgrebe so far: the forgetting of the life-world is simultaneously a for-
getting of the self33 which, plainly speaking, means that the self, if it is not
to be constructed abstractly, has first to occur in its essential correlation with
the life-world.
This is not, however, the final result of Landgrebes argument; on the con-
trary, it motivates further investigation that will dig deeper into this essential
interconnection (between life-world and transcendental self) indicated by the
concluding statement so far. The argument continues explicating in this man-
ner: In order to overcome this forgetting of the self, one attempts a reduction
to the original fact of the I am. But because this I am means an I-am-
there, and being-there means having the world as a horizon, my world is
included within the original fact of the I am. Thus, we have one of the deci-
sive premises explicitly stated. And, then, one more: Bracketing the thesis of
the world means realizing that this original fact is an absolute fact because it
is only from the world horizon of this fact that everything is revealed which
we can understand as a human life-world. And a third: I am - and it is by
me that time is constituted. [Quoting Husserl] This means that it is only the
self-reflection upon and disclosure of this original fact which legitimates the
right to speak of the structuring of a common world and its becoming and his-
tory. And finally (so far): It is only this reflection which discloses the formerly
anonymous a priori of the functions of this subjectivity.34
What we, then, have got, is an original, but not completed (fixed) fact, say-
ing that these functions of the subjectivity in question are the conditions for
the possibility of having a common world as a unity in becoming. And such
functions are not fixed stabilities, but are them selves unfolding and devel-
oping. And Landgrebe now in a way turns the whole thing around (against
both unhistorical understanding of the transcendental and ordinary naturalistic-
ontological thinking), and states: Because they are not themselves facts [fixed
stabilities] which can be found in a finished world, such functions are rather
conditions for the possibility of being able to find facts and being able to look
back on a world which has already become. These functions are transcendental
conditions and the review of their becoming is a transcendental history of the
experience of consciousness insofar as every experience of things in the world
gained by consciousness is at the same time an experience of itself. Thus, by

reflecting on this transcendental history (historicity) consciousness becomes
acquainted with its abilities.35
The argument, having regained the I am in its essential inter-relation
with the life-world so that the functions of subjectivity are the conditions
for the possibility of having a common world as a unity in becoming, thus
grounding a concept of transcendental history or historicity, is the result so
far. But as this, even though being pure and transcendental (in a strictly
historical-methodological sense), will appear highly concrete too, then a
factual-empirical history has to be distinguished as well. And Landgrebe now
says that the transcendental history so to speak mirrors itself within the
world in a factual, empirical way. It appears as that which can be experienced
as it self in my own self-reflection upon my performances, and it also man-
ifests itself within the world of determinable facts of human behaviour that
everyone might experience. Our performances are the a priori of the becoming
of the life-world and of the histories of life-worlds.36
Given this, questions arise. One first question might be: where and what are
such performances before discovery? That they are anonymous is not suffi-
cient. Some pregivenness has to be discovered, and, if discovered, how then
is that related to anonymity? Here we must, says Landgrebe, remember how
thematic reflection already knows itself:
[. . .] it knows itself related to that which just happened in performance and within this performance
it knows itself as a post discovery in the sense that it, so to speak, rushes after that which already
has happened and tries to catch it. In this post-discovering it is treated as an entity: we can say, it
is or it was this or that. It is only in such a reflection upon a performed act that it acquires the
character of pre. But what we reflect upon is not in this way ordered into a flow of time already
present; rather this flowing itself occurs within the lively there of the performance, that is in the
living present.37
Pretty similar to how the a priori fact of everyone having her/his or rather
The life-world (common as horizon in spite of all differences that might occur)
in the horizontal dimension, the living present now gets some kind of a
priori functions in the vertical dimension, in regard to history and time: it
becomes an absolute there to which all determinations of time are related. It
even constitutes the deepest conceivable level which always is functioning
(naturally) in its anonymity. But within reflection, these functions which can be
described as syntheses of temporalization and on the basis of which time
is given to us, might be taken out of their anonymous, passive occurrence
and even be treated as entities to which we can refer in propositions. We refer
to them as retention, protention, etc., and as indicators, they point to what can
fulfil the intention, which is perceptive selfgivenness which again only occurs
within another performance. That is Landgrebes point, and he further points
to this:
[. . .] it is only in a relationship between the original lively anonymous performance and the
reflection which re-grasps it, that the basic temporal relationships first are structured. We can-
not say that we are treating an occurrence which falls into a presupposed flowing of time; we
must rather say that this flowing forms itself within the there of the original performance and its
relationship to the reflective performance.38
Strictly transcendentally there is, thus, no flowing taken as a form to be

filled in with changing contents. But yet, in order to say that there is such
a flowing, and in general, the occurrence which we call history, we still must
presuppose that there is one person there, surrounded by others, who wants
to hold onto his self-present existence in such a way that he can communicate
about it make it into a subject or a predicate by use of words intelligible to
others. Thus, the existence of a person who reflects in such a manner is even
the final presupposition that there is a flowing, and, with this, that there is
time and history. According to Landgrebe, it is a meaningless question to ask
what this steam would be like independent of any relation to this being-there.
From the point of view of existence we must say that there is a flowing only as
long as it is correlative to those who do not only co-perform this flowing, but,
within their co-performance, also have a pre-reflective acquaintance with the
performance.39
Thus, a self as a performing agent is presupposed, and Landgrebe now
quotes Husserl to sustain his point: The flow has to be temporalized in an
a priori way starting from the (final functioning) ego. This temporalization
is itself flowing; the flowing is always a before; but the I is also a before.
And the point further is that there can be no proper talk of I here, because the
I-consciousness is also the result of a transcendental-genetic becoming. Before
such a result there is a pre-reflective self-relation which is within the control
of the performing agent as capable of kinaesthetic movement.40
The major consequence of this is that transcendentally there are not two
different things first the flowing of time and (then) the experience of the
flowing. But the whole experience is self-experience (of the historically living
subject), since a flowing can only exist by being centred around the existence
of the experiencing subject. Thus,
[. . .] with regard to the functions and performance of the self of these performances, flowing as
the history of the experience of consciousness, is transcendental genesis. This is the case because
flowing can only be discovered through transcendental reflection. Consciousness is itself this his-
tory, it is not consciousness of history, but the point of the formation of history. This means that
history is only there when it is remembered or reconstituted as ones own prehistory, which implies
the history sedimented into it, one in which the experience of others has become an aspect of
the formation of the horizon of the concrete life-world, where the mediating subject finds itself
in its there. Transcendental history of consciousness and empirical history are not two different
things, but rather the same; it is only that history is examined from different stages of reflection in
the two.41
Even though these two different conceptions of history is the same

(viewed from different stages of reflection), they appear quite different in
regard to consequences: Empirical history accepts the relativity of becoming
as final and leads to scepticism and relativism. Transcendental history, on the
other hand, leads to the absolute in all relativities. It leads to the existence of
the subject for whom it is history and for whom it forms its historical world.
In this way, says Landgrebe, transcendental history understands history as the
grand fact of absolute being.42
And finally now, some short concluding remarks: We might agree or dis-
agree with Landgrebe, but the a priori interconnection and historically always
living correlation between the life-world and the transcendental ego having
now obtained its essential transcendental character as Landgrebes argument
tries to demonstrate, is inspiring and interesting in more than one way: It is
interesting, of course, in regard to the understanding of the phenomenology
of Husserl and phenomenology quite generally (M. Heidegger, M. Merleau-
Ponty, A.-T. Tymieniecka etc.); further, it is interesting in regard to the engaged
relationship and concern philosophy should have towards the existence of
humanity in a historical world, on the one hand, respecting this existence as
the ultimate and final foundation for both rational understanding and for living
civilized lives; and, on the other, for providing a thoroughly and to rock-
bottom radical reflection on some of the most basic issues that philosophy
has engaged in almost since its birth. And in our specific context in this paper,
it is also interesting in the way it makes space for incorporating the everyday
phenomena of memory from which we started, into this highly transcen-
dental field of investigation. Memory (and the other modes of intentionality
examined in the first part of this paper) is not quite the same as those functions
of inner time-consciousness (especially retention) which transcendentally (in
the most basic manner) constitute identifiable identities with continuity and
firmness into our experiential life. But similar to how the difference between
transcendental and empirical history primarily is a matter of different stages
of reflection for examining it, so it might also be said in regard to memory
and those deepest transcendental functions of temporality. The life-world and
the transcendental ego are inseparable in the manner of historicity now exam-
ined, and Landgrebe does also bring the whole issue down to earth in an
ethical sense ending by saying, [. . .] the earth (a transcendental determina-
tion) is the absolute limit of our world horizon reminding us how this fact
is founding demands toward which it is our existential and perhaps even
transcendental duty to comply.43
University of Bergen, Norway

NOTES
1
The phrasing that it is memory that provides continuity etc. might call for some explanation,
because most people will probably say it is things, happenings etc. which in themselves have
permanence, stability, existence etc. thus providing continuity in our experiencing them, not that
highly subjective, more or less arbitrary ability called memory. To this I will now only comment
that this is not quite as simple as indicated above, and to demonstrate this is a major issue in this
paper.
2
At this point it is pertinent to mention what in phenomenology will appear a difference or
maybe rather a distinction between memory and what is called retention. In a way they cover
each other and have similar functions. But as the concept of memory is primarily used to cover
what happens in the natural attitude, likewise the concept of retention is used within the tran-
scendental phenomenological. Retention is together with protention and original impression
(Uhr-impression), those inescapable functions of internal time-consciousness always sponta-
neously expanding the original impression making it the living flowing present that always is
related with past (history) and future; it is what makes any pre- possible, and it is provided out
of the present now, and is in a way some wake following each actual experience, expanding
it and ending it in a non-punctual manner, also describable as fresh memory. Memory, then,
in the plain ordinary sense of the natural attitude is this ability for bringing back again after this
wake or fresh memory has fainted away. Then you in one way or another presuppose that there
is some objective time and history, and through memory you (dis)place yourself in this context.
As we are speaking of retention we operate at a far deeper level constitutively providing the pre-
conditions (only) presupposed in the natural attitude. But memory and retention are very closely
inter-related. Husserl has examined especially internal time-consciousness in manuscripts now
published as:
Husserl, Edmund:
Zur Phnomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins (18931917). Husserliana X published by
Rudolf Boehm.
Haag: Martinus Nijhoff 1966.
Analysen zur passiven Synthesis. Aus Vorlesungs- und Forschungsmanuskripten 19181926.
Husserliana XI, published by Margot Fleischer. Den HaagMartinus Nijhoff 1966.
Die Bernauer Manuskripte ber das Zeitbewusstsein (1917/18). Husserliana XXXIII, published
by Rudolf Bernet and Dieter Lohmar. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publisher 2001.
3
In one of the volumes published concerning Husserls analyses on intersubjectivity: Edmund
Husserl: Zur Phnomenologie der Intersubjectivitt, Zweiter Teil: 19211928, published by Iso
Kern, Den Haag Martinus Nijhoff 1973, p. 248, Husserl states something which is very instruc-
tive in regard to this difference. In my translation he says: [. . .] to hypostasize this idea [of the
existent] to something which is separated from and independent of the constituting subjectivity
and has an An-sich, such as in the purely objective way of looking (which does not reflect on
the constituting I, and therefore takes as absolute what can only be constituted in and by the I) as
if this was an incidental relation instead of an essential one, is nonsense. (Now quoted from
Konrad Rokstad: Meditations on Intersubjectivity and Historicity (p. 510) in Phenomenol-
ogy World Wide, edited by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Analecta Husserliana vol 80, Kluwer
Academic Publisher 2002.)
4
What we are hinting at by these remarks are, of course, the reduction-procedures embedded
in the substance of transcendental phenomenology itself, which perhaps is most systemat-
ically examined and exposed in Husserls Ideas I (1913). Edmund Husserl: Ideen zu einer
reinen Phnomenologie und phnomenologischen Philosophie, Husserliana Band III, ed. Walter
Biemel, Martinus Nijhoff, Haag 1950. But there are very many expositions and the reduction
is always at work in the analyses of Husserl. The reduction as such is, however, not our
issue now.
5
We will refer to the version of Landgrebes article published in Research in Phenomenology XI
1981. This is an abridged and revised version of (Landgrebes) Lebenswelt und Geschictlickeit
des menschlichen Daseins, published in Phnomenologie und Marxismus, Vol. 2, Praktis-
che Philosophie, ed. By Waldenfels, Brockman and Pazanin, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,
1977. Landgrebes article is based especially on these two works by E. Husserl: Die Krisis der
europischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phnomenologie, ed. By Walter Biemel,
Husserliana, Vol. VI (The Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1954), and E. Husserl: Zur Phnomenologie
der Intersubjektivitt: Texte aus dem Nachlass, Part III: 19291935, ed. By Iso Kern Husserliana,
Vol XV (The Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973). And as I now read Landgrebe, I view the article as
rather programmatic and slightly critical in regard to both Husserl himself and some main-
stream reception of him in the 70s (and before). My main concern in this context is, however, to
examine and rethink (reflect on) the argument which is exposed in it.
6
This is on LHHE, p. 120 in the middle of a fairly extensive exposition of Husserls Crisis;
the total program for his article is by Landgrebe described as follows: I want to argue for a
transcendental theory of the life-world and of historicity, and I want to do so by suggesting that
a phenomenological reflection upon the transcendental ego once correctly understood is the
proper procedure for constructing such a theory. p. 112
7
LHHE, p. 120
8
Op.cit. Paraphrazing p. 121
9
Op.cit. p. 122
10
Even in regard to Husserl Landgrebe might here seem critical, but this is really not against
Husserl, because he never meant Ideas II (Edmund Husserl: Ideen zu einer reinen Phnomenolo-
gie und phnomenologischen Philosophie, Husserliana Band IV, ed. Marly Biemel, Martinus
Nijhoff, Haag 1952) to be ontological, at least not in any naturalistic sense. Rather, if you read
Ideas II in a perspective provided by the Crisis which is quite possible, then you will land
on the position Landgrebe here seems to take underscoring the profound historical character of
the whole scientific project. In Analecta Husserliana, Volume XC and in Volume XCIII I have
published articles respectively called The Historicity of Nature and The Historicity of Body
and Soul examining how the Crisis and Ideas II might be read comparatively so that the rather
concrete analyses of Ideas might be reflecting historicity.
11
LHHE p. 122
12
Op.cit. p. 123
13
Op.cit. p. 124
14
Op.cit.
15
Op.cit. p. 124125
16
Op.cit. p. 125
17
Op.cit. p. 127; here Landgrebe also quotes Husserl, Crisis.
18
Op.cit. paraphrazing pp. 127128
19
Op.cit. p. 128
20
Op.cit. p. 129
21
Op.cit. p. 130
22
Op.cit.
23
Op.cit. p. 131
24
Op.cit.
25
Op.cit. p. 132
26
At this point Landgrebe poses a question that might seem quite natural, namely: why was the
life-world as horizon if it has always been familiar (and the most obvious), discovered so late?
To this I will for my part say the answer is pretty obvious, namely: the obvious is not considered to
be of any philosophical interest worthy of serious philosophical interrogation it is only obvious
and thats it! This is what changes radically with Husserls phenomenology, and Landgrebe too is
very well aware of it so his question, I would say, is clearly rhetorical in kind.
27
Op.cit. p. 132
28
Op.cit. p. 133
29
Op.cit. Landgrebe here quotes Husserl from the last supplement in Intersubjektivitt III,
written in 1934.
30
Op.cit. p. 134
31
In my understanding of Landgrebe here it is important to note now how the/my world
are distinguishable, but strictly transcendentally not separable. In the natural understanding, my
world is, of course, not right away identical with the world, but transcendentally in this sense of
historicity that Landgrebes argument now develops, they are not either separable.
32
Op.cit. p. 134135
33
Op.cit. p. 135
34
Op.cit. p. 135136
35
Op.cit. p. 136
36
Op.cit.
37
Op.cit. p. 136137
38
Op.cit. p. 137
39
Op.cit.
40
Op.cit. p. 137138. Landgrebe here quotes Husserl from something written in 1931, and this is
also quite consistent with what he previously has stated in regard to the child and its development,
in the beginning not being explicitly conscious of itself as an ego, only having a pre-reflective
self-relation. But it might also be interesting to notice that Husserl provides clues for saying this
already in his Ideas II (19121913), then specifically in regard to the development of the personal
ego, saying it develops primarily by living in interaction with . . . and on that ground also (in a
way secondarily) by reflecting. I have written about this in my article The Historicity of Body
and Soul (pp. 130132) published in Analecta Husserliana XCIII.
41
Op.cit p. 138
42
Op.cit.
43
Op.cit. p. 138139
PIOTR MRZ
S T RU C T U R E A S A C O L L E C T I V E M E M O RY
O F C U LT U R A L S Y S T E M S
ABSTRACT
The main assumption of the paper centers around the notion of memory as an
apriori mechanism of culture formation. According to the founders of the struc-
turalist movement all phenomena are based on differentiation that is, binary
structuring. The latter is unconsciously carried on and passed on to follow-
ing stages of human development of various sections of human culture and
civilization.
The main goal of this paper is to present a non-psychological, non-egological

understanding of the phenomenon of memory. Among many notions, concepts
as well as interpretations of memory (treated mainly as an individual faculty
of mind) the idea of memory worked out by the philosophers of the struc-
turalist persuasion seems to have been an incontrovertible breakthrough in
our thinking of it. The widely-known, generally approved of in late 50s and
early 60s philosophical model of memory1 both as a store of vital informa-
tion and a solid basis of human future projects which must take advantage
of that which has previously been experienced in different ways on individ-
ual and/or collective level has been overcome by works of such structuralist
philosophers as Lvi-Strauss, Foucault, Derrida, Barthes, Deleuze, Kristeva
and Todorov to mention but the most prominent members of this very influ-
ential French movement. What is proposed in the present paper is an attempt
at explaining the concept of memory as a kind of underlying structure, a force
of non-personal, non-individual nature which can be discerned and is visible
behind almost all of human endeavours constituting the sphere and domain of
culture. To our mind it was structuralism (influenced by the Freudian version of
psychoanalysis, the Jungian theory of archetypes, the science of geology and
Marxism)2 that during the heyday of existentialism and phenomenology (incar-
nated by Sartre) put forward (in a strong polemic with all idealistic approaches)
a new understanding of memory freed from the shackles of the Husserlian
retention, the memoire of Bergson and the notion of memory-traces advanced
by experimental psychologists. The prevalent thought idiom of Lvi-Strauss
(the philosopher of our main concern here) boiled down to saying that mem-
ory is not only an individual affair, being a direct expression of our conscious
251

252 PIOTR MRZ
acceptance of a set of rules, codes making up the only true essence of cul-
tural phenomena marking off human life as it were from that of nature.
As this concept of memory is part and parcel of the more general views of
structuralism one must analyze it within the context of the movement itself.
It goes without saying that any precise, adequate definition of structuralism
seems simply impossible, in spite of the unquestionable fact that this set of
more or less coherent doctrines belongs to the history of 20th century Ideas.3
Among many reasons explaining this uncomfortable (mostly for a historian
of philosophical ideas) state of affairs there is one which appears very con-
vincing. Structuralism is a unique, inimitable cluster of doctrines for its area
of interest covers such disparate theoretical as well as empirical discourses as
ethnography, ethnology, sociology, anthropology, cognitivism, the arts and of
course the main branches of philosophical reflection. However the presence or
still better co-presence of such a multitude of so many diverse ideas and con-
cepts, proposals and solutions, analyses and descriptions does not preclude a
distinct possibility of putting them all under a common denominator. Histori-
cally speaking the very movement to wit this concrete style of thinking
was initiated by the Swiss linguist de Saussure, author of the decisive works4
(Cours de la linguistique . . .) and Mmoire de le systme belonging as might
have been noticed rather to a non-philosophical domain. As it soon turned
out, it was the very field of theoretical linguistics which was to become the
main source of inspiration for all subsequent structuralist theories. Ironically
enough, de Saussure himself was hardly aware of the role he was to play in
the birth of this movement, as well as of the enormous influence exerted by
his ideas on human language and its semiologic functions. Due to theoreti-
cal activities of such scholars as Jacobson, Trubeckoj and Mukarowski the de
Saussurian approach to language revolutionized the way (manner) in which
we had hitherto thought of the nature and construction of human language.
One of the main characteristics of the structuralist approach to the world of
human culture is that it applies this newly-acquired structuralist experience
(knowledge) of language to investigations into various fields of social (cultural)
life. To put it differently: the structuralist thinkers were ready to discern (and
describe in their works) an unquestionable similarity, if not analogy, between
language as such and the human world. This crucial discovery was formulated
by them in the form of the categorical declaration that our world the world
of social behaviour can be reduced and explained away in terms of language.
This methodological dictum amounted to saying that human beings use certain
items5 exactly in the same way that they use words (signs) in their linguistic
exchange. Thus one is fully justified at this moment in raising the vital question
concerning the nature of this similarity, as well as the nature of those elements
along with the set of rules governing this exchange or communication act. The
C O L L E C T I V E M E M O R Y O F C U LT U R A L S Y S T E M S 253
latter aspect leads us straight to a new understanding of memory as propounded

by the structuralist.
During his instructive lectures in Geneva, de Saussure pointed to the fact
that throughout almost twenty centuries since the teachings of the
Sophists, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, The Bible tradition (teachings of the
Prophets) through the Middle Ages (the realist persuasion) the Enlightenment
(Renaissance, Valla, Poliziano, Pico de la Mirandola) and the Romantic Period
(Humbold) language was regarded in terms of a necessary creation whose
nature was aprioristically determined. Moreover, it was the creation of God
or of same metaphysical factor, hence its nature must have been predestined
in such a way that the relation of language (containing signs plus the rules how
to use them) with the transcendent reality, was explicable and clear. Signs stood
for things, represented them. In other words, there was a logical (did not our
forefather Adam create this affinity?) link, tie between this particular item and
the corresponding term. This idealistic theory which led to the dissemination of
the belief in language, enabling human beings any acts of communication, dis-
crimination, eventually leading to some kind of knowledge, was flatly refused,
rejected by the Swiss linguist. The common point shared by all those theories
of language and its relation to reality was geared up with the unsubstantiated
tenet that due to some mysterious events, circumstances or causes those two
entities were tightly interlocked. Contrary to those beliefs, de Saussure pro-
posed to view language in terms of an organized whole by which he meant
that this system comprising sign elements is something quantitatively more
than and qualitatively different from the mere sum-total of its elements. The
crucial thing, of course, was the way the system was organized and poised for
functioning. The elements which are embraced, incorporated in by such a
system as language are signs (strictly speaking their physical, acoustic matter
treated by de Saussure as something of much greater importance in compari-
son with writing).6 De Saussure did not question the fact that the essential role
of signs was to refer to something ontologicaly different from themselves by
way of naming, describing, defining, denoting and meaning. But what was of
the utmost importance underlined time and again the Swiss linguist was
this disputable link, relation with the transcendent world. On what grounds are
we to accept the allegedly necessary relation between a table, st, la table
and the wooden handy object found in our study? According to de Saussure
this semantic relation was of a purely arbitrary nature. In other words, signs
displayed no natural, metaphysical or logical that is rational link
with the multifarious (material or immaterial) entities they referred to. But
it was the way the Swiss linguist interpreted once a unified, compact as
it were body of a language as such that made him a true revolutionary in
the field of the 20th century humanities. The author of Cours introduced the
254 PIOTR MRZ
concept of a dualistic nature of language, both as the very system containing

signs (elements) and the dualistic nature of the latter themselves made up of
twofold layer. Let us note that this methodological innovation seems to have
resolved age-long, apparently insurmountable aporias concerning the ontology
and semiology (functioning) of this communication tool. For one thing, lan-
guage (as an organized, structured phenomenon) was divided by de Saussure
into two planes. The first one was called la langue while the other la parole (In
the first plane in question one finds the elements which are of particular interest
in so far as the notion, idea of memory is concerned). La langue was inter-
preted by de Saussure in terms of an abstract, universal and model-like system
of signs. The latter was subject to strict rules governing the proper, adequate
usage and application of the signs. In specific linguistic terminology the rules
constitute the domain of grammar and syntax. The sphere of la langue is not
limited to a particular space and time, any more than it is limited to a particular,
individualized group of users of language. One might say that la langue func-
tions on an unconscious level we resort to it, take advantage of its resources
collectively without being aware of doing so. As a well-known, prominent
structuralist remarked on one occasion, we are rather spoken by it, than actively
speaking it.7 Thus la langue displays under thorough scrutiny the properties
characteristic of an unconscious, deeply rooted in the collective mind regula-
tive mechanism both a mechanism of control and a basis for all linguistic
(language) exchange. The most crucial point here is that this layer of language
provides us with ready-made elements accompanied as it were by strict rules
to be followed. It seems that those elements have always been there and will
probably be in store the moment we turn to them in order to perform varied acts
of communication. Now to the second part (layer) of language. De Saussure
calls it la parole trying to bring out all the differences between the first and
the second plane of the language system. In contradistinction to la langue
la parole is not immaterial, abstract or universal. It is something whose onto-
logical status is somewhat paradoxical: la parole exists only after having been
activated by individual speakers, actual users of language. What is meant here
by de Sausseure is the fact that abstract elements are revealed in the process of
realization of some parts (e.g. signs plus rules) of the system. Briefly speaking,
the actual act of linguistic communication, the act of speech (resp. writing)
takes place in a given space and time pertaining to a concrete group of users
of a human language. There is an abstract model of English or Polish, a model
of traffic language, Morse code and a concrete materialized realization of them
all a kind of specific, highly individualized speech. However, it must be kept
in mind that those two planes, layers of the language system are closely related
with one another for as the structuralist thinkers are prone to often repeat
language is an organic whole a whole possessing a highly complex, refined,
or even sophisticated type of organization. Due to this twofold nature of lan-

guage, one can employ two methodological approaches of investigation into
its nature and functioning. The first, bequeathed by 19th century researchers,
mostly German philologists was concerned with historical changes, transfor-
mations of rules and elements hence its name: diachronical, while the second
approach is referred to as a synchronic one. The latter proposes to analyze
both planes of language system at the stage of its actual existence so to speak.
The structuralists of late 50s and early 60s depended heavily on this approach
as better equipped to reveal the genuine nature of linguistic communication,
regardless of any historical transformations. But it was in the domain of the
analysis and description of signs their ontological and semantic status within
and outside of the system that the Swiss linguist showed his incontestable acu-
men as the initiator of a new way of thinking, not only about language itself but
about the latters relation to almost all spheres of cultural reality the genuine
phenomenon of the human world (This will be the current motif in the works
of Lvi-Strauss, Barthes and Greimes).8 Signs, as will have been remembered,
are vital elements of the language. Since they belong to the system their task
is to take part in all functions the language is supposed to perform. But for
de Saussure those elements (similarly to language itself) were also of a dual
nature. Each sign is made up of two layers, two parts: the signifiant (signify-
ing) and the signifi (signified). The first layer the physical sound, its matter
like quality is the ontological basis of the second one: the notion, idea, concept
meant by the sign itself. The Swiss linguist did not intend to enter the slippery
ground of semiology to wit the branch of the philosophy of language that
deals with the difficult, complicated sign-referring-to-the-transcendent-reality
(world) problem. In other words the problem of symbols referring (denoting)
to real or purely intentional objects (entities). What was so innovative in the de
Saussarian solution was the notion of the very difference in so for as the mean-
ing of signs is concerned. Being part and parcel of the linguistic system, signs
are grouped in a certain way (within the system itself). It is the very grouping
or ordering which counts the most. To put it differently, the meaning (sense)
of one sign is necessarily different from that of another sign-sense sequence in
the same system. As signs are in certain positions, in certain relations to each
other it is the position itself which makes their meaning visible. De Saussure
understood this issue in terms of an internal differentiating mechanism. Let us
consider the pair closely related to one another: pot pod occupying a very
close position in the system. Pot, a sequence of certain sound cluster means
exactly something opposite to the cluster pod. As might be easily seen the dif-
ference is due to a certain quality (appearing on the primordial, fundamental
level: voiced versus voiceless consonants). This enabled the Swiss linguist to
develop a theory of signs as negatively, oppositionally related to each other
256 PIOTR MRZ
with language itself being nothing else but the system of differences. As the
popular de Saussurian dictum ran there was not a single, positive element in
the language.
So far we have presented a general outline of structuralist linguistics, its
methodology which in turn was to exert an enormous influence on the
movement itself. Structuralism turned to the de Saussurian theory of lan-
guage (semiology) intending to base (ground) its analyses of almost all social,
cultural phenomena on the view (and that was the current thought idiom in
structuralism) that the vital domains (areas) of human life could be treated in
terms of language to wit in terms of organized system containing elements
and governed by certain rules (an inner grammar and syntax). In other words,
the structuralist thinker in his attempt to precisely describe the human world
along with its creations, intended to carry out a kind of translation which meant
that a part of reality (the human world) was to be rendered, mapped-out or pic-
tured in a system-like model. Both Lvi-Strauss and Foucault wanted to get rid
of all those elements which made such an analysis impossible in the past. Thus
a strict as they thought scientific approach was offered by de Saussurian
linguistics: the surrounding world could be treated in terms of language and its
elements and what is more important rules could be allocated in on the other
side: the studied, analyzed and investigated phenomena. What constituted the
starting, initial moment in their theoretical (and empirical) endeavours was the
most vulnerable, shaky aspect of the theory, or rather group of theories of
age long standing, propounding the idea that we, human beings were and still
are heavily indebted to our allegedly conscious nature. In other words, cultural
development, the so-called progress we had made since the mythical epoch
of the caves was made possible because human beings refined, improved the
mind, the conscious Ego this unique faculty at their disposal: the free, cre-
ative, spontaneous and invaluable faculty. The mind was at the very most
capable of predicting, projecting transcending the given milieu, the given sit-
uation while resorting to its stored knowledge consisting of all facts, all rules
and immutable laws the individual did manage to gather.9
The structuralist movement rejected the highly personalized view of the
Cartesian model of transparent consciousness. Mind we find Lvi-Strauss
saying is an element of Nature, displaying certain universal qualities it
is more of a collective character. Although neither Lvi-Strauss nor Barthes
or even Foucault devoted separate studies to the problem of memory this
phenomenon has been analyzed by them in more a general context, that of
consciousness itself. As has already been mentioned the author of The sav-
age mind rejects categorically the classical, subjectivist understanding of the
Ego the human psyche so different from the natural world. Instead of
consciousness understood in terms of phenomenological retentions and pro-

tentions intentional acts constituting the meaning and sense of the transcendent
world Lvi-Strauss as a faithful follower of de Saussure is critical even of
the indiscriminate usage of the personal pronoun I univocally invoking the
idea of a personal, individual mind. Structural analyses of social phenomena
constituting so-called cultural, civilized life, that is, life sharply opposed to
crude Nature point to one fact: such creations of human activities like sys-
tems of taboos, totems, taxonomies, myths, regulations governing the system
of marriages, kinship come from the deep, unconscious layer of the mind.
They have nothing to do with egological consciousness. Although, according
to Lvi-Strauss mind being a part of nature must at one stage of its history
have broken out of this unanimous continuity to wit a mass of total Being.
Human cognitive apparatus through the sensual activities (knowledge, claims
Lvi-Strauss, is based mostly on perceptions) introduced an endless series of
discriminations. Nature due to this human activity has irretrievably lost
its pristine unity. This series of discriminations is nothing else but a set of
binary categories. Similarly to the language system human mind employs neg-
ative categories, applying them to multifarious parts, domains of Nature. This
is done, we find Lvi-Strauss saying, by a kind of collective and unconscious
activity. Instead of this once sanctified by the rational tradition usage of I
the centre of the human universe the structuralist thinkers prefer to talk of
us/we as members of a given ethnic group, the latter associating itself
with another group thus forming a still larger social unit.10 Two facts here seem
to be of unquestionable significance. The first one concerns a set of traits,
features common to all of us. They pertain to some in-born, genetically and
culturally transmitted structures of the human mind irrespective of the stage of
development or the level of civilization. The famous savage mind so dramat-
ically described by Lvi-Strauss does not differ structurally even from the
most advanced, refined, sophisticated apparatus of a man of 20th century.
Both of them the so-called primitive and the civilized use a system like
a set of binary discriminations, introducing a human type of ordering into the
hitherto undifferentiated mass of Nature (Being). Although they may differ in
so far as the applied means are concerned (the primitive is fond of tinkerinig
fr. bricoler with all available tools he has at his disposal) they participate
so to speak in the One, Universal Mind. The second fact is even of greater
importance. Contrary to the Cartesian tradition all these activities are mainly
unconscious. As Lvi-Strauss wanted to introduce the structuralist methodol-
ogy into investigations of social, cultural phenomena he automatically as it
were had to refer to the fundamental concepts of de Saussure, namely that of
la langue and la parole. The main tenet here hinged on the assumption that all
elements occupying in the domain of culture could be treated as signs in the
258 PIOTR MRZ
language system. The operational, universal Mind and its activities imposes
its order, its structure on continuous domain, sphere of Nature. Thus, cultural
phenomena are defined in terms of relations binding (similarly to negative,
opposition like ones in the language system) real or virtual discriminatory
categories. One can discern endless series of analogical (either metonymical
or metaphorical) series of cultural, social events while such a series would be
impossible in continuous Nature, in unindifferantiated mass of Being. More-
over, the series occurs in various societies, in many different epochs of the
history of mankind.
In his search for the essence of human thinking, human mind, Lvi-Strauss
claims he has came upon something constant, universal a structure or a set of
structures constantly appearing behind disparate, diverse cultural phenomena.
Time and again Lvi-Strauss underscores the fact that the mind is common
to all of us at all historical stages, hence its products or creations display
similarities. The la langue part of culture is a kind of immutable structure
a set of rules memorized in the collective mind. What is more, this collective
memory sets in motion (although we are hardly aware of it) all this differentiat-
ing mechanism a chain of binary oppositions, visible, discernible behind the
actual realization of human activities. So, any anthropologist of the structuralist
persuasion while analyzing human creations of such abundance like myths,
magic formulas (the mana type of communication), ancient tales, images of
animal or human totems may obtain (and on many occasion has obtained)
incontrovertible evidence that what he has submitted to scrutiny during a field
work or study in his room is nothing else but a series, a sequence of modu-
lations or transformations of identical material. Hence there is a strong, close
affinity between apparently distant and inimitable cultures as behind all those
myths or fables. One experiences, feels as it were the evident presence
of an immutable structure in all of them. The unifying structure works in the
area of discriminating the chaotic material flowing from Nature according
to Lvi-Strauss, Leach and Greimas, the very structure is grounded in more
primordial, fundamental patterns e.g. triangles of oppositions (Analogically to
basic traits, qualities of consonants and vowels). Thus the unconscious mind
is not an individual, egological affair, its creations and the material or imma-
terial results of its activities reveal this great impact of strict rules of syntaxt
(all phenomena may be treated in language-like terms say the structuralists
while inner grammar is being imposed upon all we create, upon all the ways
and manners characteristic of our various dealings with Nature. Fascinated by
the seminal theories of Jacobson and Trubeckoy (who found out the atomic
elements constituting the differences in the language system on the phonologi-
cal level) Lvi-Strauss adopted the view of primary differences and transferred
this theoretical stance to all domains of human culture. The surface of it, its
la parole is not a proper domain of the analysis undertaken by the structuralist

thinker aiming at precision and scientific strictness. Therefore the structuralist
would like to go deeper: to the very core of human thinking, to the struc-
ture stored in there, the very syntax and grammar present in the algebra
of the mind, memorized and repeated, reproduced in endless, continuous acts
of human creations throughout space and time, throughout so many epochs
and historical formations. Be it a primitive Bora tribe or a refined group of
French cole Normale youths, the hot (advanced, fast developing societies)
or cold ahistorical, immutable and stable in all their activities there is a
visible, underlying structure: an inborn matrix of the universal grammar and
logic shared by all of us. In other words, this unique, unconscious store of
pristine primordial forms of human conduct renders possible all cultural civi-
lization like behaviour. As children for no logical reasons whatsoever are able
instinctively to distinguish between p and b sounds in order to expand on this
ability and graft it on all domains of human activities marked off by dissem-
inations, differentiations and differences (as it happens in a language system)
so all humankind know how to reproduce memorized, in-born structures. The
binary system of oppositions inherent in our nature is genetically preserved
and passed on to other members of the species. Thus such opposite pairs as:
culture nature, male female, edible non-edible, a possible object of sex
interest an impossible one, permissible nonpermissible, belonging to the
totem not belonging to a totem, living dead, organic non-organic will be
always appearing and making themselves felt, experienced in our allegedly
conscious activities. The memory of the structure is ever present even with-
out our being conscious of it. The afore mentioned assumption outlines the
main paradigm of the profuse, vast and prolitic work of Lvi-Strauss. Let us
conclude by presenting the way the author of Tristes Tropiques has tried to
substantiate this tenet. Analyzing such phenomena as systems of kinship mar-
riages, classifications of animals, plants and human beings, myths and fables,
Lvi-Strauss disregards the surface (apparent contents) and concentrates his
efforts on the deep to wit universal structure reflected11 in the algebra of
the brain as he puts it himself. Totally dissatisfied with the functionalist anal-
yses of the problem of kinship (the initial stage of the process of building-up
human society proper) Lvi-Strauss applies his theory of structure as discrim-
inatory mechanism. Each individual as will be remembered is an element
of a system, a group (like signs in language system) so he/she must abide by
certain rules that is a syntax and grammar. In order for a human society
to perform its functions, a system of binary oppositions must be operational.
Thus every individual must function within the sphere of influence of such
primary pairs as good evil, permissible non-permissible etc. These in turn
regulate (inform) individual choices and projects, prompt him/her what should
260 PIOTR MRZ
be done, and what should be avoided. In the sensitive domain of kinship (the
first step leading us to humanity) the exchange of women-partners reminds
one of the exchange of signs-symbols. Some may be used in communication
act while some must not. In the sphere of kinship certain women may go into
the hands of chosen partners provided very strict, even repressive conditions
will be observed. Lvi-Strauss claims to have found contrary to the previous
proposals the real reason of the ban on incest. The latter was excluded in
the mythical past not on moral, or biological grounds but only on social ones.
An individual belonging to a given group must secure the right, adequate
number of the members of the group otherwise it would dwindle in quantinity
thus becoming an easy prey to another group. As might easily be seen incestual
practices would have caused this unwanted undesired phenomenon. Thus the
imposed (ever remembered, ever recalled) rule being part of a longer structure
works as a kind of deterrent, making a given society behave in a predictable
way (By the way, Lvi-Strauss was intending to construct the periodic table
la Mendeleyev predicting most of our social and cultural behaviour). A direct
or indirect system of kinship is then supposed to secure the largest possible
number of individuals belonging to a group (system). It goes without saying
that the incest taboo has been memorized, inscribed as it were into the system,
placed in the universal Mind, which in turn rules our activities. It is this strictly
preserved memory that excludes and accepts at the same time, thus securing
general social and cultural interest. This more often that not difficult, cryptic
algebra of the brain is apparently illogical but by a thorough analysis of the
matrilinear or paternal lines of exchange we get eventually to the very core
of our unconscious thinking there discerning the work of ever present syntax
of such exchanges. The same holds true for other forms of exchange social,
that is cultural parole. Let us mention such forms of social communication
as the way we prepare our meals, tell stories, pass on perennial truths con-
tained in myths, the way we dress and classify objects and animals. As far as
many and various cuisines are concerned Lvi-Strauss puts forward the fol-
lowing set of binary oppositions: exogenic endogenic, interior exterior,
centralised peripheral, spicy insipid all these constitute so-called gustem
which set in motion all discriminatory processes in this domain. Hence as
any language, the couisine is based on differences and the collective memory
of the hidden structure makes all ways of culinary communication meaning-
ful. What is of a great importance is the fact that the code-like rules (fry, not
boil, simmer but not cook etc.) are placed (stored) in deep layers of the col-
lective mind. In order to get our meals ready (and abide by the local standards
at the same time) one must resort to this unconscious know-how, as one must
refer to the English or French syntax in order to speak and write in English or
French. It should by borne in mind that for the structuralist it is the la langue
that really counts, while the surface of it is something changeable and open
to transformations. Hence, the conscious attitude to which people of different
epochs attached such an enormous importance seems of lesser significance. As
the algebra of the brain prompts us, all knowledge, technology, know-how and
what we understand by culture that humankind has been creating for thousands
of years is based on the stored, preserved and memorized structure. The latter
is part and parcel of the Collective Mind to which we turn in order that soci-
ety the users of certain code might function. No matter what kind of society
it is (hot, cold, developed, underdeveloped, primitive, civilized) the surface dif-
ferences are indeed trifles. The set of binary structure of oppositions visible
in myths, totems and classifications is ever present and it appears that we are,
have always been, and will ever be governed by a structure which one day in
the past did lead us out of darkness giving birth to the state of culture and
civilization so sharply opposed to chaotic and unpredictable Nature.
Jagiellonian University, Cracow
NOTES
1
See an invaluable presentation of this subject in Structuralism and since. From Lvi Strauss to
Derrida, Ed. John Sturrock, Oxford University Press, 1979.
2
See Structural Anthropology and Antropologie structurale deux by Claude Lvi-Strauss in
witch the latter recalls all theories that exerted a substantial influence on his works.
3
See Lvi-Strauss, by E. R. Leach, London, 1970.
4
See Conversations with Claude Lvi-Strauss, London and New York, 1969.
5
See La vie familile et sociale des Indiens Nambikwara, Paris, 1948.
6
See Writing and Difference, by Jacques Derrida, Chicago, 1978, esp. Introduction.
7
Ibid.
8
See Structuralism and since, op. cit.
9
See LHomme nu, by Lvi-Strauss, in Mythologiqes IV, Paris, 1971.
10
Ibid.
11
See crits, by Jacques Lacan, Paris, 1966.
N OV I KOV D M I T R I Y
A G R I C U LT U R A L L A N D S C A P E
AS PHILOSOPHICAL-ECOLOGICAL
PHENOMENON
The earth assumes the role of the nurturing soil for our vital existence. We find in it ready-made
treasures present for use, the green grass and water, which allow us to cultivate it for our nurtu-
rance. These natural resources of the soil are infinitely exploited by humanity; there has been a
seemingly limitless expansion of the transformatory applications of their virtualities. Thus the soil
stands in our mind for infinite life resources.
A.-T. Tymieniecka. The Passions of the Earth. Analecta Husserliana LXXI, p. 7.
ABSTRACT
Agricultural landscape in the context of interdisciplinary researches might be

analyzed not only according to the system of diversified (ecological, social,
economic and other) activities, which are traditionally designated for solving
problems of rational land use as applied to the levels of administrative-
territorial subdivision, specific conditions of business arrangement of pro-
duction and use of natural resources, but also as a philosophical-ecological
phenomenon. In addition to the necessity of accounting for physical prop-
erties and natural peculiarities of landscape, sectorial and species suitability
of territories, aimed at satisfaction of key requirements of society, ensur-
ing high efficiency of production and other types of activity, there is an
actual demand for protection and reproduction of fertile, cultural-historical,
landscape-aesthetic and other useful properties of lands. That is why geo-
sciences, first of all, land use planning and control science, should introduce
their own environmental philosophy of land use and consistently saturate (in
proactive reaction to changes in natural environment, development of labor
forces and industrial relations) theoretical and practical knowledge on Mother
Earth with ecological content. Diversity of forms and methods of territorial
planning shall correspond to variety of properties of land, agro-ecosystems
and agro-landscapes.
Land use planning is not only a natural-economic science envisaging sus-
tainable use and protection of land as a natural resource, as the place for life
and economic activities of human being, as the major means of production and
subject matter of other social-economic and property relations (real estate). It
263

264 N OV I KOV D M I T R I Y
is evident that land use planning and control ensures accounting and reorgani-
zation of not only social-economic, but also cultural-ecological properties of
territories. That is why in addition to traditionally applied social-economic jus-
tification of land use planning solutions it is necessary to ensure their objective
and specialized philosophical-environmental analysis based on detailed and
reliable ecological information.
The above is stemming out of rigorous insights of prominent Russian scientists

on the sources and ways of development of national agriculture. More than two
centuries ago the talented scientist and practitioner A.T. Bolotov wrote: . . .
as the firsts object or as a part of arable farming, one may honor the analy-
sis of properties and quality of land or research and cognition, for what and
which land is more capable of (Progress M, 1982). The land use planning
activities such as wisest and best division of lands into fields, resettlement of
villages, application in field and other works, equalizing between arable farm-
ing and stock-breeding he related to improvement of the entire underlying
foundation, highlighting the importance of particular things such as tillage,
fertilizing, grassland improvement, raising of livestock etc. It is pertinent to
note that A.T. Bolotov was known as a refined aesthete in the sphere of natural
landscape and a gentleman of virtue.
In the beginning of last century the classicist of Russian agrarian science
A.S. Ermolov reconfirmed economically and ecologically oriented character
of land use: In order to ensure productivity of land it is necessary to deliver
to the plants everything required for their successful growth . . . The farmer
has to . . . adopt himself in the best way to the conditions in hand and make the
best possible use of them (Zoidze and Ovcharenko, 2000).
A.V. Chayanov viewed the land area from an aesthetic standpoint as a sur-
face exposed to the sunlight; so, this is the area . . . in essence, which serves
the basis for agricultural production (Razumovskiy, 1989). Academicians of
land use planning and control P.N. Pershin and S.A. Oudachin contemplated
the role of land use planning in adapting the territories for economically wise
use of natural forces, in arrangement of efficient functioning of land, labor,
material and technical resources. Perhaps, these forces of nature, are exactly
the Premeval Elements (Tymieniecka, Vol. XXI) in Ontopoesis of Life
theoretically created and introduced by A.T. Tymeiniecka.
Philosophical-ecological directionality of geosciences is quite obvious. At
present the priority in the development of land use is given to ecological-
landscaping constituents. Archetypal status of land may be perceived in form
of natural substance, while the secondary one in form of means of pro-
duction or immovable property. From theoretical point of view the issues of
ecological-landscaping substantiation of agricultural production arrangement
A G R I C U LT U R A L L A N D S C A P E 265
were worked out more thoroughly if compared to practical application of

results of scientific researches. Natural origin and status of landscape, quality
and diversity, sectorial and species suitability of land, predefine the capacity
of territories to perform various economic functions as means of production,
territorial basis, subject matter of social-economic and property relations.
Thematic prioritization of researches on ecological-landscaping substanti-
ation of geosciences does not mean that applicable hierarchic structure of
territories arrangement disregards ecological features of land. It has been
taking shapes for a long period of time and inevitably had to rely (con-
sciously or spontaneously) upon various properties of landscape, zonal and
local conditions and suitability of land.
Categories of lands form on the basis of schemes and projects of microe-
conomic land use planning based on reliable ecological-landscaping substanti-
ation, which denotes sectorial suitability of lands. Macroeconomic land use
planning and control widely apply agro-landscaping indicators, which pri-
marily identify composition and correlation of arable lands in agricultural
enterprises. When planning the territories of crop rotation, fields and work-
ing spaces on the basis of land use planning working projects the priority is
given to agro-ecological parameters for assessment of suitability of lands for
certain types of agricultural crops.
Firstly, ecological quality of lands predefines the structure of their cate-
gories, specifically the proportion of agricultural lands, forestry, water and
nature protection land funds, and forms up landscaping systems. Agricultural
lands should be subdivided into highly valuable, valuable and low value assets,
and then introduce the legal mode of their usage: total immunity and prohibi-
tion for allotment for other purposes, strict protection, justified transforming
and allotment to other category not related to production of agricultural prod-
ucts. Based on landscaping evaluation of territories there is a transition to
agro-landscaping subdivision.
Secondly, accounting for ecological quality of lands is mandatory for
microeconomic division into agricultural and non-agricultural land assets in
improvement of agro-landscapes.
Thirdly, differences in ecological quality of lands are considered in forming
of agro-ecosystems of various purposes. Ecological-landscaping features of
territories are of special significance for solving issues of resettlement, deploy-
ment of production entities and businesses in large production conglomerations
(joint stock companies and associations etc.) and farmsteads. Important is not
only accounting of actual and perspective productivity of lands, but also the
sanitary status of territories and aesthetic landscape attractiveness. Clean up
the environment movement is considered to be quite perspective and actual,
which reconfirms the growing interest to environmental aesthetics. For the pur-
poses of land use planning and control some researchers (M.V. Andriishin and
N.M. Koltunov, N.M. Radchevskiy) propose dividing territories by landscape-
ecological micro-zones: prohibited (national parks, recreational zones, migra-
tion corridors etc.), protection (territories adjacent to ecologically hazardous
objects, water protection zones etc.), agro-ecological (eroded, contaminated
etc.). Terrain elements (cultivated forests, grassing, hydro-technical instal-
lations) establish landscape-ecological framework of geosciences, but never
define agro-ecological system of use and protection of lands.
Production classification of lands extends the sphere of application of mate-
rials for natural-agricultural, landscape-ecological and ecological-economic
zoning in land use planning, which allows for considering the features of
orography, pedogenic and underlying rocks, soils, watering conditions etc. In
the process of land use planning and control, agro-ecologically homogeneous
territories and land plots are transformed into production-territorial objects:
landholdings and land use assets, land plots of separate business entities, crop
rotation, fields, working spaces etc. There is an establishment of integral sys-
tem of scientifically justified territorial arrangement of production, adaptive
to ecological-landscaping conditions of local terrain with more thorough and
comprehensive accounting for ecological-landscaping, ecological-economic,
agro-ecological and ecological-aesthetic conditions of the planned object and
features of land, consumer demand for the results of land use, crop and
livestock products.
Tendencies and achievements of allied sciences at the junction of interdis-
ciplinary researches exert significant influence on defining the directions for
improvement of land use planning and control. It is generally admitted that
land use planning and control establish organizational-territorial structure for
all sectors of arable farming and crop production. The latter are more and
more saturated with ecological-landscaping and agro-ecological content. This,
alongside with other factors, predefines higher priority of ecological require-
ments in arrangement of territories, specifically agricultural enterprises and
farms.
At different historical phases, organizational-territorial structure was formed
through land marking, inter-settlement and intra-settlement, microeconomic
and macroeconomic land use planning and control. In Soviet era collective
farms and state owned farms have been arranging plough lands only. Subse-
quently, perennial horticultural crops and forage land assets were introduced
in the sphere of macroeconomic land use planning and control. Starting from
1960s, agronomists and land surveyors actively developed erosion-preventive
organization of lands in agricultural enterprises and farms. On this background
it was absolutely logical to capitalize on modern microeconomic and macroe-

conomic land use planning and control on ecological-landscaping basis.
Ecological-landscaping land use planning is aimed at mobilization of natu-
ral resources and at sustaining higher yields of agricultural crops, at managing
economically efficient, socially oriented and ecologically safe production, at
preservation of equilibrium of natural environment.
Ecological-landscaping approach is objectively justified in territorial
arrangement of agricultural production. Its application both in the past and
nowadays has been influencing all levels of land use planning and control,
its constituent parts and elements. The task is in infusion of ecological-
landscaping content of land use planning with scientific feasibility, and in
elaboration of appropriate methods and mechanisms of substantiation.
Specific categories of land assets segregated at various levels of land
use planning activities (agricultural, development and construction, pro-
tected lands etc.) are of well-defined ecological-landscaping purposefulness.
Ecological-landscaping content is laid in the notion of land assets if we
consider them from the point of view of systematic use or suitability for
use in specific economic purposes or differences of their natural-historical
attributes. Rationalization of agricultural lands composition is also a press-
ing challenge both at economic and zonal-regional level. Stability of agri-
cultural lands structure may be achieved only with reliable and in-depth
ecological-landscaping substantiation.
The organizational-territorial structure of agricultural enterprises is being
established immediately in microeconomic and, specifically, in macroeco-
nomic land use planning and control. In this connection, it should mentioned,
that for achievement of ecological well-being we are not only utilizing typical
features of landscape, but we do introduce substantial changes in landscape
planning. The principle of adjustment of production and its territorial planning
is applied to peculiarities of landscape, which at the same time is somehow
leading to transformation of natural environment. In the opinion of quite com-
petent scientists and specialists (S.N. Volkov, A.N. Kashtanov et al.), land use
planning and control is a tool for designing landscape systems. This appears
from the definition of landscape as territorial system consisting of mutually
applicable physical or natural and anthropogenic components and complexes
of much lower taxonomic rank.
Macroeconomic land use planning and control exert ultimate reformatory
influence on agro-landscapes being arranged for the purpose of and under
influence of agricultural production. Deep agro-landscaping transformations
determine deployment of production enterprises and centers of economy,
arrangement of agricultural lands and crop rotation, planning of territories
for crop rotation, perennial horticultural crops and forage lands. Accord-
ingly, these constituents of macroeconomic land use planning require detailed
ecological-landscaping substantiation.
Ecological-landscaping land use planning, which has more benefits if com-
pared with traditional methods of land planning, is characterized by higher
complicity due to its omnitude and communion, integrity and comprehensive-
ness of objectives and measures aimed at arrangement of use and protection
of lands, as well as higher costs of implementation. However, it is proactively
reacting to any changes in prerequisites of economic development, in the use
of natural and land resources, it is accounting for anticipated dynamics of the
initial object and conditions of its functioning.
Improvement of land use planning and control in ecological-landscaping
direction, its adaptation to current and future social-economic situation, are
feasible provided that a range of general requirements are duly satisfied.
Their consideration is equally important in development of projects of land
use planning and control at agricultural enterprises. The requirement of com-
prehensiveness contemplates detailed analysis of ecological-landscaping and
agro-ecological features of territories through special zoning and classification
of lands including thorough accounting for various natural, social-economic,
technical, technological and cultural-aesthetic factors, which are presently
actualized through environmental aesthetics.
Equilibrium and coherence of interests express the balanced relations of nat-
ural and economic resources such as agricultural lands, employable population,
technical means, gross and marketable products, financial flows etc. Landscape
conditions and agro-ecological quality of lands define volumes, specialization
and intensity of production, parameters of land use, composition of and cost of
investments to environmental activities.
Ecological-landscaping land use planning and control serves in the best
interests of not only a specific agricultural enterprise or farm, but in the inter-
est of managerial activity of municipal and state authorities in development
of rural districts, increasing the quality of life of population. The require-
ment of differentiation and integration reflects the dialectic communion of
ecological-landscaping substantiation of separate constituents and elements
of land use planning and control for establishment of integral system of sci-
entifically justified arrangement of use and protection of land resources at
various levels of economy and management. Ecological-landscaping, agro-
ecological zoning and classification are oriented at differentiation of lands
against the predefined indicators of their quality. Any object of land use plan-
ning is subdivided into multiple homogeneous territories and land plots in
accordance with the principle of sectorial and species suitability, unification
of ecological situation and environment protective activities. In the process of

designing they are integrating into specific production-territorial objects: land-
holdings (land use plots), production departments of agricultural enterprises,
massifs of agricultural lands and crop rotation, fields and working spaces.
Moreover, ecological-landscaping division of lands for land use planning and
control purposes creates a unified territorial basis for monitoring and cadastral,
environment protective and taxation operations etc.
The ultimate objective of contemporary land use planning and control is
in sustaining the status of land as public ownership. Land and other natural
resources are used and protected in many countries as basis of life and activity
of their nations. This is feasible only with scientifically justified arrangement
of territories, availability of reliable, detailed and regularly updated informa-
tion on the volumes and quality of lands, on prevailing tendencies and rates of
changes. For several thousands of years of society development, there has been
an uninterrupted adaptation in primarily biological, and then economic compo-
nents to natural environment, to the potential of land. In future, accounting for
conditions of habitation may become the only possible strategy of survival and
prevention of ecological adversities, decreasing the rate of use of nonrenew-
able lands and other natural resources. Earth remains our very milieu, realm
of existence as we participate in its changes, transformations, palpitating with
its convulsions, worrying about its fate. In conclusion, earth is the groundwork,
the existential condition, and destiny of life (Tymieniecka, Vol. XXI) writes
A.-T. Tymieniecka. We need to achieve a compromise between the conation to
increased quality of life of present generation with preservation of habitation
environment for our succession.
It is on record that productivity of agricultural labor is directly connected
with rational use of (temporal and spatial) non-uniformity of natural resources,
which, as labor, are the underlying basis of consumer values. Our seemingly
most direct contact and experience of the earth comes from our experience
of living upon the earth. We walk, we build, we establish our dwelling,
whether in a cavern or in a building and surround it with a garden; we plant
crops, trees, and flowers; we cultivate the surface of the soil; we dig up pre-
cious minerals and stones. In one word, upon the earth entails a primordial
sensing, feeling, conviction of the solidity, the indisputable solidity of the earth
upon whish we stand, upon which we may rely in all our ventures. Upon the
earth entails not only a stable and fertile surface but the solidity of our work
with the ground. We may assume to find a ground for our enterprises, the very
ground for our subsistence6 . Plants, the growth and reproduction of which
are regulated by biological laws are used as objects and products of labor.
Our Managing economy en rapport with nature contemplates planning and
deployment of agricultural lands and crops in territories with the best agro-
landscaping features. Moreover, the search for such places shall not be cut
and try method but on the basis of ecological-landscaping and agro-ecological
evaluation of lands.
The State University of Land Use Planning and Control, Moscow
REFERENCES
Protection of Landscapes. Explanatory Dictionary. M: Progress, 1982. page 54.

E.K. Zoidze, L.I. Ovcharenko. Comparative evaluation of agricultural potential of climate in the
territory of Russian Federation and of the degree of utilization of its agro-climatic resources.
St. Petersburg. Gidrometioizdat, 2000, issure 76. page 43.
V.M. Razumovskiy. Ecological-economic zoning (theoretical aspects). L: Nauka, 1989.
A.-T. Tymieniecka. First Principles of the Metaphysics of Life Charting the Human Condition.
Analecta Husserliana, Vol. XXI.
A.-T. Tymieniecka. The Passions of the Earth. Analecta Husserliana, Vol. LXXI, page 1.
VA S I L I Y N I L I P O V S K I Y
T E R R A I N A S S U B J E C T M AT T E R
O F C U LT U R A L - E C O L O G I C A L VA L U E
. . . passions of the earth are, first of all, profoundly ingrained in the vehicles of our elementary
existence, running in a transformatory way through the entire network of its ontopoietic unfolding.
A.-T. Tymieniecka
ABSTRACT
In cultural-ecological aspect the terrain has special value which is shown

through preservation and improvement of separate natural complexes becom-
ing during the certain period of time an example of museification.
Ecological museum, first of all, is a museum in the open air, which enframes
quite a large territory with a variety of separate landscape loci culturally
assimilated by human being. As cultural-social phenomenon such museum is
universally versatile, because it integrates an assemblage of diversified objects:
cultural-ecological, artistic-aesthetical, moral-ethical, socio-economical and
others. The evolvement of interdisciplinary approach here arrives at the utmost
Perfection.
From our standpoint, it would be interesting to try constructing certain the-

oretical model of national ecomuseum, which embraces material attributes
created by human being and surrounding territory as cultural-natural phe-
nomenon. Undoubtedly, in virtue of many reasons, including both traditionally
conservative and complicated socio-economical ones, there might be no solu-
tions, which would pretend to radical conceptualism. Even though democratic
elements started penetrating our museum cause, reorienting it to spectators,
after all, national museum invokes aid in solving a multitude of urgent issues.
Against the background of vulgar bargaining on socio-cultural and moral-
ethical valuables, the downside of museums are, probably, the most painful and
tragic, because no museum collection may recur in any new hypostasis. Monu-
ments perish forever, and museum collections vanish into thin air and disappear
too. Current unstable situation created an entire class of worm grooves endan-
gering museums (which have already done their part): loss of rare pieces of
art, offence of caddish commercial front against museum premises, unenviable
fate of the most of provincial museums, growing prices for entrance tickets
271

272 VA S I L I Y N I L I P O V S K I Y
to museums and exhibitions, blasphemous and splendiferous attitude to illus-

trious palace and garden museums etc. There is a threat of privatization of
state museums with collections of national significance and endowment, which
were gathered for many centuries. Today, the issue of indivisibility of museum
valuables is one of the most acute problems.
Nevertheless, there are certain ecomuseographic methods developed by
western specialists-museologists. Fundamental provisions of ecomuseum
might be potentially projected on the screen of national cultural reality and,
therefore, we may try to save the patrimony that has not been lost yet. There
is a certain paradigm of ecological museum as such, that was changing on any
cultural-social ground with various degree of probability.
Thus, ideational Russian ecomuseum may be created on the basis of famed
manors or historical parks. Having this in mind we hear a chord, which
thematizes its directivity. However, this is only an initial thematicity that char-
acterizes pre-stageness in making any ecomuseum exposition. For instance,
memorial-artistic manors, as a whole, may serve as lucrative and live material
stimuli, which may universalize any future ecomuseum. We may dwell upon
an experience of Scandinavian ecomuseum in the mountains of Lapland, first
created on the basis of national parks and then developed into a museum of
mountains and valleys, cultural and social heritage. The same may be focused
on our national territorial-landscape culture.
Being a kind of foreplay, an introduction to ecomuseum reality, the cul-
tural phenomenon of Russian manor might predefine the genesis of eco-
museum in our current situation. Which way may it happen? Firstly, there
would be a subordinating horizontal notional strain of sensuously perceived
material showpieces, as though keeping on voiceless conversation in a
global contemporaneous space. Secondly, there would be an opportunity (in
associational-imaginative and symbolic plane) to search into spiritual-cultural
and socio-economical essence of the past and future ages, mediated by the
present. Museified could be not only parks as memoria and historical-artistic
relics. The process of museification would embrace an extensive sweep of
social, political, economical, national and other realias, universalized in racial
memory and deeds of the nation. The most essential precondition for function-
ing of ecomuseum would be a direct participation of locals in its work. Let us
trace this dynamics.
Being created of the basis of historical manors, lets say, in the suburbs
of Moscow, Russian ecomuseum as cultural institution would provide the
visitors with integral knowledge on natural environment in Moscow region,
on its history, artistic culture, economy etc. Separate showpieces, such as
remaining natural, architectural and sculptural monuments would be echoing
C U LT U R A L - E C O L O G I C A L VA L U E 273
with still-life exhibited performances, generalized by memory and collec-

tive creativeness. All this, in essence, has found expression in the history of
development of Moscow suburban manor culture. The spectator would receive
a concentrated imaginative and conceptual apprehension of places near to his
heart. Specially organized meetings of museum workers and visitors would
contribute to such comprehension.
Thematically, ecomuseum could be subdivided into several sections.
Household-economic display area, for instance, connected with arrangement
of botanic gardens and menageries in Izmailovo, undoubtedly, would give a
broad insight to regional economy in its historical development. Furthermore,
if they could imitate functioning of at least one or several similar botanic
gardens or menageries, then the spectators activeness, the role of resident
population in museification of collective economic memory would become
obvious and apparent. Let us recall an experiment of Portugal ecomuseum
in Mertula, which organized in its park an open air training workshop that
revived ancient techniques of manufacturing and trade of wool blankets. Such
experimental character could be applied to Russian ecomuseum too.
Further sections, which could become constituent parts of Moscow suburban
ecomuseum exposition, might include: Moscow suburban manor and artistic-
poetical palette of Russia; Theater and Russian park; Park as entertaining
facility; Manor and oeuvres of bonded craftsmen; Art Patronage and Rus-
sian manor culture. I believe that within the exposition zone of Theater and
Russian park (lets take as an example such theatric manors as Kouskovo,
Archangelskoye, Sheremetyevo or Abramtsevo) the performances based on
Old Russian traditions on the spatial background of beautified nature could
become quite pertinent. The visitors there could play a dual role: as theatre-
goers and amateur-elucidators of histrionics, as practitioners introspecting the
history of Russian theater and, at the same time, its worshipers protecting it
in the frameworks of ecomuseum against the intrusion of time, and, therefore,
extending the lifespan of the scenic image of the past.
We may also assume some other thematic zones, which could be incorpo-
rated into ideational composition of Russian ecomuseum. Each of them could
present quite a voluminous package of information on the dear homeland.
The major distinction of ecomuseum from traditional regional museums is in
proposed practical and functional participation of spectators-visitors aimed at
implementation of environment protective activities in various spheres of cul-
tural and social life as indispensable part of museum activities. And, perhaps,
this symptom affords ground for perceiving the ecomuseum as one of the most
appropriate modern mechanisms, which ensures relative equilibrium of spiri-
tual and historical strata, because the very stylistics of it allows people drawing
as close as possible to space and time, to the origins of their own existence.
274 VA S I L I Y N I L I P O V S K I Y
In this context one should draw attention to certain ideological aspects in

the development of ecomuseum. From our point of view, they are as follows:
ecomuseum is trying to startle the human being from the status of egocentric,
ensemble consciousness, which for a long time has been encroaching socio-
cultural and natural environment. Conceptual ensemble dictating obsessional
intents for improvement and adjustment, has been always trying to rearrange
the historically formed natural living space and, in the long run, has driven
social culture to unnatural, rootless existence, thus loosing perceptual unity
of history and memory.
Prescribing of eviscerated notions, confined in any particular hackneyed
phrases, to a greater degree promoted intervention to surrounding environ-
ment, thus introducing a tone of discord between human being and society
in their historical and contemporaneous interaction. In this respect the eco-
museum is capable of drawing the subjective factor under the assemblage
phenomenological perception and comprehension of all vital structures, rather
than under conceptual, providential notional ensemble. Strive for natural plu-
ralistic augmentation of the new to already existing things is thus establishing
spatial-temporal, visional essence of contemporary ecomuseum-assemblage,
which encompasses not only cultural attributes created by human being, but
the terrain too.
It is curious enough that in ancient Russia people used to use two defini-
tions of ekisticians town builders and town restorers. The latter never
built towns from scratch. They just restored the things that already existed.
The same way ecomuseum is capable of stringing, layering, in-building nov-
elty in antiquity by small doses and with separate fragments. Socio-cultural
environment is being explored gradually, thus drawing our minds closer to
comprehension of organic perceptual unity.
In this regard the environmental cultural setting should be formed on the
basis of adaptation to natural self-producing structures of specific locality,
territorial locus, or natural fragment. From our point of view, an assemblage
ecomuseum can maximally satisfy the human nostalgia for naturalness, eradi-
cate abstractive conceptualism, reproduce visional and associational-ideational
broaching of history and memory, allow us feeling the architectonics of time.
Only with such concentration of preconditions, there will be possible fur-
ther advance of human consciousness towards macro-society, small native
land and thereafter to mosaic, multilingual and contextual Motherland. This
is the essence of intercultural dialogue, which is supported in situation of
mass communications by actualized cultural-alternative, expressed in saved
heritage.
The State University of Land Use Planning and Control, Moscow

A.L. SAMIAN
N E W T O N S T H E O L O G Y O F M AT H E M AT I C A L
P RO B L E M S
ABSTRACT
Isaac Newtons contribution to the quantitative aspects of science is well-

known. His Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica has provided the
paradigm for physics and astronomy for more than a century. However, not
much has been written about the qualitative aspects of his creative endeavor.
In this article, the author attempts to examine the relationship between his
theology and mathematical problems that are embedded in his philosophy
of mathematics, particularly in his overall program of mathematizing the
phenomena.
INTRODUCTION
Isaac Newton (16421727) had a multitude of interests as reflected in the vari-

ety of his works. His Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (The
Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), customarily referred to as
the Principia, was received by the Royal Society in April 1686 and con-
sequently published in 5th July 1687.1 Another well known work of his,
Opticks: or a Treatise on Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions, and Colours of
Light was printed in 1704.2 His works continued to be published even after
his death. Notable among his unpublished works are Historical Account of
Two Notable Corruptions of the Scriptures, The Chronology of the Ancient
Kingdoms Amended, Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel and The Apoc-
alypse of St. John.3 In what follows, we will examine his concept of nature and
God, his view of mathematical problems and the manner they are related to his
theology in his philosophy of mathematics.
N AT U R E A N D G O D
Newton believed that nature is created by God. Newton did not believe that
God creates nature continuously. There is an important mechanical aspect of
nature. He furnishes several arguments to show the impossibility of nature to
exist on its own despite its mechanical manifestation. Basically we can classify
277

278 A.L. SAMIAN
these arguments into those that do not employ verses from the Scriptures4 and
those that do. We will first examine his non-scriptural arguments.
In one of his arguments, he appeals to the beauty of the cosmos. He main-
tains that the intricacies of nature necessarily point to the existence of the
Creator. In describing the cosmos, he states:
The six primary planets are revolved about the sun in circles concentric with the sun, and with
motions directed toward the same parts and almost in the same plane. Ten moons are revolved
about the earth, Jupiter, and Saturn, in circles concentric with them, with the same direction of
motion, and nearly in the planes of the orbits of those planets; but it is not to be conceived that
mere mechanical causes could give birth to so many regular motions, since the comets range over
all parts of the heavens in very eccentric orbits; for by that kind of motion they pass easily through
the orbs of the planets, and with great rapidity; and in their aphelions, where they move the slowest
and are detained the longest, they recede to the greatest distance from each other, and hence suffer
the least disturbance from their mutual attractions. This most beautiful system of the sun, planets,
and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful
being.5
We can derive several things that characterize Newtons idea of beauty

from the above passage. Beauty is synonymous with order, system and
regularity and these words do not refer exactly to the rigidity of a purely
mechanical world which is filled with mechanical causes alone.
In addition to appealing to the beauty of nature, Newton argues that if
nature was not created by God, the random behavior of the constituents of
nature would result in their own destruction. And if the fixed stars are the cen-
ters of other like system, says Newton, these being formed by the like wise
counsel, must be all subject to the dominion of one, because he maintains,
the light of the fixed stars is of the same nature with the light of the sun and
from every system light passes into all the other systems. He adds, lest the
systems of the fixed stars should, by their gravity, fall on each other, he hath
placed those systems at immense distance from one another.6
In another argument, Newton appeals to the idea of complexity of the organi-
zation of matter which in his opinion, could not be attributed to natural causes
alone. He writes:
But how the matter should divide itself into two sorts, and that part of it which is fit to compose a
shining body should fall down into one mass and make a sun and the rest which is fit to compose
an opaque body should coalesce, not into one great body, like the shining matter, but into many
little ones; or if the sun at first were an opaque body like the planets or the planet lucid bodies like
the sun, how he alone should be changed into a shining body whilst all they continue opaque, or all
they be changed into opaque ones whilst he remains unchanged, I do not think explicable by mere
natural causes, but am forced to ascribe it to the counsel and contrivance of a voluntary Agent.7
We can see from the above passage that Newton views natural causes as
something different from voluntary causes; at least not all voluntary causes
N E W T O N S T H E O L O G Y O F M AT H E M AT I C A L P R O B L E M S 279
are natural causes. There is a sharp distinction between the natural and
supernatural.
Newton maintains that if nature in the beginning had no Creator, there would
be chaos. There is no order in nature and consequently anarchy will prevail.
There would be no harmony in nature. An example which Newton uses to
demonstrate the existence of harmony in Gods creations is the particular orbits
of the planets Jupiter and Saturn.
. . . considering that the planets of Jupiter and Saturn, as they are rarer than the rest, so they are
vastly greater and contain a far greater quantity of matter, and have many satellites about them;
which qualifications surely arose, not from their being placed at so great a distance from the sun,
but were rather the cause why the Creator placed them at great distance. For, by their gravitating
powers, they disturb one anothers motions very sensibly, as I find by some late observations of
Mr. Flamsteed; and had they been placed much nearer to the sun and to one another, they would,
by the same powers, have caused a considerable disturbance in the whole system.8
Newton argues that the orderliness and harmony which result from the par-
ticular places in the universe occupied by Jupiter and Saturn shows that nature
is created by God.
That nature did not exist out of chance without having a Creator can be
ascertained if we examine the case of the earth and the sun. According to
Newton, the inclination of the earths axis is extraordinary because the inclina-
tion results in a contrivance for winter and summer, and for making the earth
habitable toward the poles. Also the diurnal rotations of the sun and plan-
ets . . . could hardly arise from any cause purely mechanical, that all of these
was the effect of choice rather than chance.9 In response to those who claim
that nature is created out of chance, he asks:
Whence is it that all the eyes of all sorts of living creatures are transparent to the very bottom and
the only transparent members of the body, having on the outside a hard transparent skin and within
transparent layers with a crystalline lens in the middle and a pupil before the lens; all of them so
truly shaped and fitted for vision that no Artist can mend them? Did blind chance know that there
was light and what was its refraction, and fit the eyes of all creatures after the most curious manner
to make use of it?
These and such like considerations, always have, and ever will prevail with mankind, to believe
that there is a being who made all things in his power, and who is therefore to be feared.10
Newton likewise argues that the particular pattern of distribution of matter

will not be possible if God did not create them. Only God can make matter such
that it is distributed homogenously throughout space and that there should be
a central particle so accurately placed in the middle to be equally attracted on
all sides. He continues:
And much harder it is to suppose all the particles in an infinite space should be so accurately poised
one among another as to stand still in perfect equilibrium. For I reckon this as hard as to make,
not one needle only, but an infinite number of them (so many as there are particles in an infinite
280 A.L. SAMIAN
space) stand accurately poised upon their points. Yet I grant it possible, at least by a divine power;
and if they were one to be placed, I agree with you (Bentley, that is) that they would continue in
that posture without motion forever, unless out into new motion by the same power.11
One cannot say from the above passage that Newton is referring to an active
God who is creating continuously. The transition from the view of God as
creating and destroying continuously to that of a clock-maker can be seen in
Newtons argument concerning gravity whereby he believes that gravity also
has some kind of natural power. It is not the case that all natural power rests
upon God alone. Gravity, say Newton, may put the planets into motion, but
without the divine power it could never put them into such a circulating motion
as they have about the sun. Therefore, Newton concludes, I am compelled
to ascribe the frame of this system to an Intelligent Agent.12 One can say from
this passage that Newton indeed paved the way for a mechanical world view
which later dominates the Newtonians.
In his scriptural arguments, which are not well elaborated, Newton quotes
the Ten Commandments, Genesis 7 and 8, Proverbs 8:25 and Psalm 90:2.13
It is only when he attempts to construct the early act of God creating the
earth whereby God creates nature out of chaos that he refers to Moses knowl-
edge. States Newton: A sea I believe was then formed, as Moses expresses,
but not like the sea, but with an even bottom without any precipices or steep
descents.14
The foregoing discussions shows that Newton believes in the divine creation
of nature. God creates nature in the beginning. As to whether nature is created
ex nihilo or not, Newton asserts: Creation in scripture signifies formation but
of something: as where God created man out of dust or the earth. Gen. 2.7.15
In Newtons cosmology, nature as a work of God has several characteristics
besides harmony and beauty that I have mentioned earlier. One of those is
uniformity; that there are standard features for each species of Gods creation
which differentiate them from others. Newton cites the case of bird, beast and
men to support his claim:
Can it be by accident that all birds, beasts and men have their right side and left side alike shaped
(except in their bowels); and just two eyes and no more, on either side of the face; and just two
ears on either side (of) the head; and a nose with two holes; and either two forelegs or two wings
or two arms on the shoulders, and two legs on the hips, and no more? Whence arise this uniformity
in all their outward shapes but from the counsel and contrivance of an Author?16
In addition to the uniformity of nature, Newton believes that there is nothing

in nature that is an excess. It is in this sense that nature is simple, that Nature
does nothing in vain, and that Nature is pleased with simplicity and affects
not the pomp of superfluous causes.17 It is due to simplicity of nature that
according to Newton, we are to admit no more causes of natural things than
such as are true and sufficient to explain their appearances.18 An example that
he gives is the sun. In response to the question of Why there is one body in
our system qualified to give light and heat to all the rest, he says: I know no
reason but because one was sufficient to warm and enlighten all the rest.19
In order to elaborate his concept of simplicity further, he says that since
nature is simple, we are certainly not to relinquish the evidence of exper-
iments for the sake of dreams and vain fictions of our own devising.20
Therefore Newtons concept of simplicity does not mean that the structure of
the universe is not complex because a conglomerate of simples is certainly a
complicated object. What he means is that we should not make our examina-
tion of nature unnecessarily difficult by employing extra-sensible stories of our
own.21
Newton maintains that the understanding of simplicity and the unveiling of
truth about nature are deeply connected. There is an organic synthesis between
truth and simplicity. Truth, he declares, is ever to be found in simplicity,
and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.22
The content of a simple, harmonious, orderly, and beautiful nature is far
from homogenous. In fact, Newtons nature is definitely not a material plenum.
There are levels of beings, spiritual and material, each having particular
responsibilities given by God. Says Newton:
As all regions below are replenished with living creatures (not only the Earth with Beasts, and Sea
with Fishes and the Air with Fowls and Insects, but also standing waters, vinegar, the bodies and
blood of Animals and other juices with innumerable living creatures to small to be seen without the
help of magnifying Glasses) so may the heavens above be replenished with beings whose nature
we do not understand. He that shall well consider the strange and wonderful nature of life and
frame of Animals, will think nothing beyond the possibility of nature, nothing too hard for the
omnipotent power of God. And as the planets remain in their orbs, so may any other bodies subsist
at any distance from the earth, and much more may beings, who have a sufficient power of self
motion, move whether they will, place themselves where they will and continue in any regions of
the heavens whatever, there to enjoy the society of one another, and by their messenger or Angels
to rule the earth and converse with the remotest regions. Thus may the whole heavens or any part
thereof whatever be the habitation of the Blessed, and at the same time the earth be subject to their
dominion.23
According to Newton, one of the responsibilities given by God to some of

these invisible and intelligent beings is to manage the motions of heavenly
bodies. Conduit reported that in one of his conversations with Newton, the
latter seemed to doubt whether there were not intelligent beings superior to
us who superintend these revolutions of heavenly bodies by the direction of the
supreme being.24 Elsewhere, Newton writes:
God made and governs the world invisibly . . . . For in Gods house (which is the universe) are
many mansions, and he governs them by agents which can pass through the heavens from one
mansion to another. For if all places to which we have access are filled with living creatures, why
should all these immense spaces of the heavens above the clouds be incapable of inhabitants?25
282 A.L. SAMIAN
Apart from the fact that Newton believes in the existence of angles and other
invisible beings, interestingly Newton did not embrace the view that Nature is
governed by God through a process which he called emanation. Thus:
From this opinion came the metaphysical philosophy of the heathens about the origin of the world,
the generation and nature of the Gods & the transmigration of Souls. And this doctrine of Dae-
mons was as old as the Idolatory of the heathens. For their Idolatory was grounded upon it. And
therefore Moses to prevent the spreading of this sort of Philosophy among the Israelites wrote
the history of the creation of the world in a very different manner from the Cosmogenies of the
heathens, attributing the production of all things to the immediate will of the supreme God. Yet
the Israelites by conversing with the heathens frequently lapsed into the worship of their Gods &
by consequence received their theology, until there were captivated for these transgressions. And
afterwards by conversing with the Chaldeans, Egyptians and Greeks they imbibed their Metaphys-
ical Theology as is manifest by the Cabala of the Jews which consists chiefly in describing how the
first Being, whom they called Aen-Soph the infinite emitted ten gradual subordinate emanations
which they called Sephiroths or Splendours, the first immediately from himself, the second from
the first, the third from the first or second & so on. And these ten emanations they name after Gods
attributes and powers, calling the first Kether the Crown, the second Cochmah Wisdom, the third
Binah Prudence, the fourth Gedulah magnificence, the fifth Geburah strength, the sixth Tipherah
Beauty . . ..26
In this discussion on the theory of emanation related to the creation of

Nature, he also claims that the theory is very closely allied to the view that
the cosmos is divided into three worlds; the world of separate intelligence, the
world of Angels and the corporeal world.
And after these ten which they call mundus azaluthicus the emanative world, they make three
lower worlds which they call Briah the throne or glory, & the world of separate intelligences,
Jezirah the world of Angles, & Asiah the corporeal world, that is the world in which we live. And
they say that the influence and power of the first cause which they call Aen-Soph & the Aensophic
world reaches through all things below them & that by means of the superior powers the Azaluthic
kingdom formed the world Jezirah & the Jezirathic kingdom formed the lowest world Asiah: &
that the souls of men from above revolve & pass into several bodies & after death return to the
internal light of the Shekinah.27
Newton rejects the theory of emanation and the theory of the three worlds in
the creation of nature because he maintains that both theories are products of
heathens worshipping their Kings, idolizing them after death. Newton explains
in detail, canvassing the history of creation adopted by various nations and
races.28
This opinion seems to have had its rise from the worshipping and deifying of dead kings & exalt-
ing them in the opinion of the people till they made them the highest celestial Gods & took the
oldest for the supreme God or for a God descended immediately from him & his successors for
a series of Gods descended successively from the oldest, & making this race of Gods as ancient
as the world. For the Chaldeans placed a race of ten successive Gods reigning from the beginning
of the world to the time of the flood, as is recited in the fragment of Berosus preserved by Euse-
bius. The Egyptians represented Gods creation of the world by a spiders weaving a web out of
her own bowels & began their history with a race of Gods & heroes the last of which was Orus.
The Phoenicians began their history with the creation of the world & a race of above ten suc-
cessive pairs of Gods as is recited by Sanchoniatho. And from Egypt & Phoenicia came the like
Theology into Greece as you may see in Hesiods Theogony. And the Jews by conversing with
the heathens fell into Idolatory before the captivity, so conversing with the Chaldeans in the time
of the Babylonian Captivity they seem to have learnt the theology of those nations & refined it.
For they derived mystical Cabbala by tradition from the days of Ezra & supposed that it came to
Ezra from Moses & this Kabbala consists chiefly in describing how the first cause whom they call
Aen-Soph the infinite emitted gradually ten subordinate emanations which they call Sephiroths;
formed the lowest world Asiah. Each of the ten Sephiroths they called Adam a man & the first
of them they called Adam Kadmon the first man & make him the son of God as Adam is called
in Scripture. Which confirms the opinion that the ten Sephiroths were originally ten men deified,
namely the antediluvian patriarchs mentioned by Manetho the first of which was called Alorus by
the Chaldeans & Adam by the Jews.29
From the above passage we can also derive that Newtons cosmological
view is certainly influenced by this belief that truth lies in Christianity since
he rejects their explanations about the creation of nature chiefly because the
theories originate from the heathens. Embracing their theories of emanation is
synonymous with deifying their dead Kings and will results in worshipping
the creation instead of the creator.30
God creates the world and governs it in his own way. God made the world
and governs it invisibly, and hath commanded us to love, honor and worship
him and no other God but him, and to do it without making any image of
him,31 says Newton, and that We can know him only by his most wise and
excellent contrivances and final causes.32
So far we have elaborated Newtons perspective concerning the link between
nature and God. Since God plays such a dominant and pervasive role in his
conception of nature, Newtons conception of God certainly warrants further
examination. Does his God have particular Names and Attributes? Is his God
transcendent? Is his God God-of-the-Gaps, so to speak?
Concerning Newtons theology, he has been described as a Judaic monothe-
ist of the school of Maimonides,33 an Arian who sometimes expressed
himself like a Socinian,34 a Unitarian, anti-trinitarian,35 and that his religion
was historical and scriptural.36 What is common under these themes is that
his belief was considered heretical in his time and certainly in so far as theol-
ogy (as opposed to religion) is concerned, Newtons belief did not conform to
the Christian tenets of his days.37 If his peculiar belief were to be made public
during his lifetime, it would at least have cost him his career.38
By and large, Newtons concept of the Names and Attributes of God is sum-
marized in the General Scholium.39 According to him, God governs all things,
not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all.40 He is eternal, infinite,
absolutely perfect,41 and that He is omnipotent and omniscient.42 Newton
284 A.L. SAMIAN
believes that not only God governs all things but He also knows all things that
are or can be done. Newton adds further that God is not eternity and infin-
ity, but eternal and infinite; He is not duration of space, but He endures and is
present.43
Furthermore, Newton claims that there are Aspects of God which are
absolutely unknowable. Says Newton:
Whence also he is all similar, all eye, all ear, all brain, all arm, all power to perceive, to understand
and to act; but in a manner not at all human, in a manner not at all corporeal, in a manner utterly
unknown to us. As a blind man has no idea of colors, so we have no idea of the manner by which
the all wise God perceives and understands all things.44
With regard to the Essence of God, Newton states that He is utterly void
of all body and bodily figure, and can therefore neither be seen nor touched.
Consequently God should never be worshipped under the representation of
any corporeal thing, because we have ideas of his attributes, but what the
real substance of anything is we know not.45
Elaborating further on our knowledge on the Essence of God, he draws an
analogy with the manner of our perception.
In bodies we see only their fingers and colors, we hear only the sounds, we touch only their outward
surfaces, we smell only the smells and taste the savors, but their inward substances are not to be
known either by our senses or by any reflex act of our minds; much less, then, have we any idea of
the substance of God.46
If the Essence of God is unknowable, how then do we as human beings know

and consequently worship God? In response to this question, Newton states:
We know him only by his most wise and excellent contrivances of things and final causes; we
admire him for his perfections, but we revere and adore him on account of his dominion, for we
adore him as his servant.47
Newton is clear that anthromorphic phrases about God are nothing more
than metaphor. He understands that the total dependence of the world on God
is beyond literal description although perceiving the dependence lies within
the realm of human knowledge. The activity of the omnipotent Creator has no
human counterpart. Therefore anthromorphic phrases about God should not
be taken literally in the sense used to describe human behavior.
But, by way of allegory, God is said to see, to speak, to laugh, to love, to hate, to desire, to give,
to receive, to rejoice, to be angry, to fight, to frame, to work, to build; for all our notions of God
are taken from the ways of mankind by a certain similitude, which, though not perfect, has some
likeness, however.48
In addition to his comments above, he emphasizes that God is omnipresent

not virtually only but also substantially; for virtue cannot subsist without
substance, and that the Supreme God exists necessarily, and by the same
necessity he exists always and everywhere.49 Thus we say that Newtons God
is not distant but transcendent and immanent.
In Newtons cosmology, God creates the universe but He does not man-
age it continuously; he only intervenes occasionally. There is the mechanical
aspect of nature. Thus Newton uses phrases such as Nature does nothing
in vain,50 Nature is very consonant and conformable to herself,51 nature
performing all the great motions of the heavenly bodies by the attraction of
gravity,52 that is, nature has the disposition to act independently. For example
his discussion on ether leads him to write:
Perhaps the whole frame of nature may be nothing but various contextures of some certain etherial
spirits or vapors, condensed as it were by precipitation, much after the manner that vapors are
condensed into water or exhalations into grosser substances, though not so easily condensable;
and after condensation wrought into various forms, at first by the immediate hand of the Creator,
and ever since by the power of nature, which, by virtue of the command increase and multiply,
became a complete imitator of the copy set her by the protoplast.53
In a similar vein, Newton uses phrases like the power of gravity or the
power of magnetism.54 In presenting a partly mechanical world, Newton is
following the foot steps of Galileo55 in paving the way for a purely mechanical
world which later dominates the West.
M AT H E M AT I C A L P R O B L E M S
In this section, we will discuss the orientation of mathematical problems and

Newtons approach in solving them with respect to his theology. Through
out Newtons mathematical endeavor, it appears that these mathematical
problems56 share some common and interesting traits. The most important
of them all is that Newtons mathematical problems are problems which are
shadowed by arguments about God.
In more specific terms, mathematical problems according to Newton are
problems concerning nature belonging to that part of theology which is demon-
strable. His fervent belief in the connection between God and problems can be
seen in his view about problems and their solutions. God is simple for He is
the One. Accordingly, problems and the manner of solving them should portray
simplicity. Says Newton:
As the world, which to the naked eye exhibits the greatest variety of objects, appears very simple
in its internal constitution when surveyed by a philosophic understanding, and so much the simpler
by how much the better it is understood, so it is in these visions. It is the perfection of Gods works
that they are all done with the greatest simplicity. He is the God of order and not of confusion.
And therefore as they that would understand the frame of the world must endeavor to reduce their
knowledge to all possible simplicity, so it must be in seeking to understand these visions.57
286 A.L. SAMIAN
The above passage is taken from his inquiry into prophetic visions. What we
want to emphasize from the passage is the similarity of finding the solutions to
problems. Solution to problems should be based on the mathematicians belief
in the attributes of God (God of order and not of confusion). The mathemati-
cian should assume that the problem has to be tackled in an orderly fashion in
order to arrive at the simplest solution.
In view of these passages, we claim that Newton construes mathematical
problems as problems that have solutions which enhance the mathematicians
knowledge of the Deity.
Another aspect of Newtons mathematical problems is that they are natu-
ral demonstrable. That they are so is because Newtons mathematical problem
involves phenomena. In order to give an example of what is meant by the
phrase naturally demonstrable and phenomena, we will present his dis-
cussion on gravity which occurs in the Principia, and which leads to his well-
known slogan, Hypothesis non-fingo.
Newton writes that he has explicated the phenomena of the heavens and of
our sea by the power of gravity, but he admits that he has not yet assigned
the cause of this power. Newton argues that gravity:
must proceed from a cause that penetrates to the very centers of the sun and planets, without
suffering the least dimunition of its force; that operates not according to the quantity of surfaces
of the particles upon which it acts (as mechanical causes do), but according to the quantity of
the solid matter which they contain, and propagates its virtue on all sides to immense distances,
decreasing always in the duplicate proportion of the distances.
He goes on to concede that he could not thus far deduce the cause of
those properties of gravity from phenomena. This phrase occurs immediately
preceding his famous remarks, Hypothesis non fingo. Newton continues:
Whatever is not deduced from phenomena is to be called an hypothesis, and
these hypothesis, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult quali-
ties or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy.58 Just exactly
what are phenomena to Newton and how are phenomena related to the
thesis that his mathematical problems are naturally demonstrable?
According to Newton, phenomena are not made up from the world of brute
facts. It is not merely data resulting from sense observations such as the rising
and setting of the sun. Rather phenomena to Newton results from observing
the sensibles while analysing and thinking about nature and God (The exis-
tence of God is deduced from phenomena as Newton has shown and thus
this hypothesis, if we want to call it a hypothesis, certainly belongs to his
experimental philosophy). As a matter of fact, the various planets and the Sun
which Newton mentions in order to support his arguments about the Deity59
constitutes the materials for Phenomena I to IV of his Principia.60
We can likewise find the word phenomena in his Rules of reasoning in

Philosophy. Newton states:
In experimental philosophy we are to look upon propositions inferred by general induction from
phenomena as accurately or very nearly true, not with standing any contrary hypothesis that may
be imagined, till such time as other phenomena occur, by which they may either be made more
accurate, or liable to exceptions.61
That the above passage is to underscore the importance of problems based

on phenomena can be discerned from its draft which is one of Newtons
unpublished statement.
In experimental philosophy one is not to argue from hypothesis against propositions drawn by
induction from phenomena. For if arguments from hypothesis are admitted against inductions, the
arguments of inductions on which all experimental philosophy is founded could always be over-
thrown by contrary hypothesis. If a certain proposition drawn by induction is not yet sufficiently
precise, it must be corrected not by hypothesis but by the phenomena of nature more fully and
more accurately observed.62
Since phenomena involves that part of nature which is demonstrable63

meaning that they must be supported by empirical evidence (thus the term
experimental philosophy), mathematical problems which are founded on
phenomena must likewise be demonstrable too. Specifically, they should
have empirical import. Mathematical problems are problems solved not by
deducing it [in arriving at the answer] only from a confutation of contrary
suppositions, but by deriving it from experiments concluding positively and
directly.64 Thus Newton argues:
For the best and safest method of philosophizing seems to be, first to inquire diligently into the
properties of things, and establishing those properties by experiments and then to proceed more
slowly to hypothesis for the explanation of them. For hypothesis should be subservient only in
explaining the properties of things, but not assumed in determining them; unless so far as they
may furnish experiments.65
Newtons belief that mathematical problems qua mathematical problems

must involve experiments has made him to remark that the Greeks, a peo-
ple more addicted to the study of philology than to Nature, derived their
first, as well as soundest, notions of philosophy (by observing the heaven).66
Surely Newton knew about the Greek contributions to the development of
mathematics. What I want is to direct the readers attention to the signifi-
cance of experiments to Newton. According to Newton, in spite of the Greek
well known involvement in the development of mathematical sciences, their
awareness of the importance of experiments is still insufficient.
Now that we have established his conception of mathematical problems par-
ticularly on the manner which they are related to arguments about God and the
288 A.L. SAMIAN
characteristic that they must be naturally demonstrable, we will delve deeper

into his creativity in solving them.
M E T H O D O L O G Y O F P R O B L E M S O LV I N G
That he had a methodology we are certain. Some of the words he used such as
induction and inferred point to a methodology. For examples, he states:
. . . we are to look upon propositions inferred by general induction from
phenomena,67 and In this philosophy particular propositions are inferred
from the phenomena, and afterwards rendered general by induction,68 And
elsewhere Newton again expounds on this theme:
This Analysis consists in making Experiments and Observations, and in drawing general Conclu-
sions from them by Induction, and admitting of no objections against the conclusions . . . And
although the arguing from Experiments and Observations by Induction be no Demonstration of
general Conclusions; yet it is the best way of arguing which the Nature of Things admits of, and
may be looked upon as so much the stronger, by how much the Induction is more general.69
Although Newton uses the word induction quite conspicuously, it is incor-

rect for us to classify Newtons methodology as basically that of induction70
because he also uses the word deduction. To cite some examples, in the con-
cluding General Scholium of his Principia, Newton writes: whatever is not
deduced from the phenomena is to be called an hypothesis,71 and elsewhere
in his other work: . . . the main Business of natural Philosophy is to argue
from Phenomena without feigning Hypotheses, and to deduce causes from
Effects . . ..72 In fact, in his letter to Oldenberg of 6th July 1672, he claims
that the proper Method for inquiring after the properties of thing is, to deduce
them from Experiments.73 Therefore it is clear that in his methodology of
mathematical research, he uses both induction and deduction extensively.
What is the strongest connection between his methodology of solving prob-
lems and his philosophy of mathematics? We will argue that the connection is
the particular role of hypotheses as envisaged by him.
Just like Galileo and Descartes who used hypotheses in their mathematical
inquiries, so did Newton. By and large, the latter used the word hypothe-
ses in order to signify only such a Proposition as is not a phenomenon nor
deduced from any Phenomena but assumed or supposed without any experi-
mental proof.74 The following quotation is an example:
HYPOTHESIS I
That the centre of the system of the world is immovable. This is acknowledged
by all, while some contend that the earth, other that the sun, is fixed in that
centre. Let us see what may from hence follow.75
The great difference between Newton and other mathematicians in using

hypotheses is that the former used the word hypotheses pejoratively.
Hypotheses to Newton should be subservient only in explaining the proper-
ties of things, but not assumed in determining them; unless so far as they may
furnish experiments.76 And elsewhere he boldly states: Hypotheses, whether
metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no
place in experimental philosophy.77 As a matter of fact, in the first part of
his Opticks he clearly shows his peculiar attitude to hypotheses. My Design
in this Book is not to explain the Properties of Light by Hypotheses, but to
propose and probe them by Reasons and Experiments,78 says Newton.
We submit that the main reason he exhibits such a cautious approach to
hypotheses is because of his historical finding on the abuse of hypotheses,
so to speak. This so-called abuse of hypotheses is diametrically opposed to
his intense belief in the dominant role of God. Newtons conception of the
historical development of hypotheses can be ascertained from a draft of his
works which in the polished form, is presented as Query 28 in his Opticks.
Thus:
Later Philosophers banish the Consideration of such a Cause out of natural Philosophy, feigning
Hypotheses for explaining all things mechanically, and referring other Causes to Metaphysics:
Whereas the main Business of natural Philosophy is to argue from Phenomena without feigning
Hypotheses, and to deduce Causes from Effects, till we come to the very first Cause.79
And in the draft for the above passage, Newton unequivocally qualifies what
he means by a Cause and what the usage of hypotheses has done to it:
Later Philosophers banish the consideration of the supreme cause out of natural Philosophy fram-
ing Hypotheses for explaining all things without it & referring it to Metaphysicks (that is to abstract
reasoning without the help of Phaenomena or reasoning in the dark): Whereas the main business
of natural Philosophy is to argue from effects to causes till we come to ye very first cause.80
Here we have a natural philosopher who believes that its not possible to do
natural philosophy without God, who spent more time in studying the scrip-
tures than in writing the Principia,81 who was an active participant in ensuring
the success of Boyles lecture,82 who was prepared not to take orders from the
Catholic church83 and who wrote passionately about Him, and yet, the usage of
hypotheses will do nothing save banishing Him from natural philosophy. Cer-
tainly he would take proper measures to avoid this intellectual idolatory from
happening. Thus his unique attitude to hypotheses.84
So far we have sketched some aspects of Newtons methodology of solving
mathematical problems. It consists basically of experiments and observation,
hypotheses, induction and deduction85 of phenomena.
In solving problems, Newton always mentions observations and experiments
together. That relationship does not always hold with induction or deduction.
290 A.L. SAMIAN
In addition to the above passage quoted, the affinity between observations and
experiments is also stated in the following passage:
Natural philosophy consists in discovering the frame and operations of nature, and reducing
them, as far as may be, to general rules or laws; establishing these rules by observations and
experiments . . .86
and likewise in Cotes preface to the second edition of the Principia:

Without all doubt this world . . . could arise from nothing but the perfectly free will of God . . .
From this fountain . . . the laws of nature have flowed, in which there appear many traces indeed
of the most wise contrivance, but not the least shadow of necessity. These therefore we must not
seek from uncertain conjectures, but learn them from observations and experiments.87
Since the crucial link between the mathematician and his experiment
in Newtons philosophy of mathematics is observation, we will examine
Newtons position on observation. In particular, we want to know whether he
believes that observation is objective or subjective, in order for us to have a
clearer insight into his conception of mathematical problems.
Observations involve vision and Newton makes several statements pertinent
to this issue in his Opticks. He believes that seeing, is a complicated process.
According to him:
. . . . When a man views any object . . . the light which comes from the several points of the object
is refracted by the transparent skins and humors of the eye (that is, by the outward coat . . . called
the tunica cornea, and by the crystalline humor . . . which is beyond the pupil . . .) as to converge
and meet again in so many points in the bottom of the eye, and there to paint the picture of the
object upon the skin (called the tunica retina) with which the bottom of the eye is covered . . . and
these pictures, propagated by motion along the fibers of the optic nerves in the brain, are the cause
of vision. For accordingly, as these pictures are perfect or imperfect, the object is seen perfectly
or imperfectly . . .88
The interesting thing is that Newton believes what is seen is what is. In other
words, the observation of the mathematician is objective. Says Newton:
If when we look but with one eye is be asked why objects appear thus and thus situated one to
another, the answer would be because they are really so situated among themselves and make their
colored pictures in the retina so situated one to another as they are.89
Although the brain plays an integral part in the process, but it is not the brain
that sees; rather it is the soul. Thus:
In like manner when we look with two eyes distorted so as to see the same object double, if it
be asked why whose objects appear in this or that situation and distance one from another, the
answer should be because through the two eyes are transmitted into the sensorium two motional
pictures by whose situation and distance then from one another the soul judges she sees two things
so situate and distant.90
Newtons acknowledgment of the significance of the soul with regard to

observation (in the process of problem solving) points to the importance of the
spiritual aspect in his conception of mathematical problems. Thus any analysis
on his mathematical enterprise should not only deal with the material world.
In more specific terms, to analyse his concept of understanding mathematical
problems merely on the basis of the function of the brain and consequently
neglecting the function of the soul is certainly not conforming to his mathe-
matical credo. There is more to observation than meets the eye; what is copied
by way of observation to the memory is more than a picture of the event, but
the meaning of it, which make creativity possible. Paraphrasing Tymieniecka,
It is the soul that gathers all the life-processing functions and through them
articulates the constructive progress of life.91
Since the soul can attain objectivity in the process of observation, the knowl-
edge thus acquired can be actual knowledge about the properties of things. But
the problem to Newton is that we do not know when we arrive at true knowl-
edge because there is always the possibility of not being able to prove it with
an experiment yet.92 Interestingly this aspect points also to his inclination of
the mechanical view of the world in evaluating truths.
Although experiments are indeed crucial in his methodology, Newton
believes that conclusions drawn from them are not infallible. In writing the
Principia, Newtons awareness of the limitation of his methodology leads him
to say that I hope the principles here laid down will afford some light either to
this or some truer method of philosophy.93 As a matter of fact, Newton shows
the manner wherein his discoveries can be shown to be incorrect:
. . . showing the insufficiency of experiments to determine these queries, or prove any other parts
of my theory, by assigning the flaws and defects in my conclusions drawn from them; or of pro-
ducing other experiments which directly contradict me, if any such may seem to occur. For it the
experiments which I urge be defective, it cannot be difficult to show the defects.94
In addition to the above passage, Newton also states that if at any time
afterward (after the discovery) any exception shall occur from experiments,
it may begin to be pronounced with such exceptions as occur.95 Therefore
Newton concedes that there is always the possibility that knowledge derived
from his methodology can turn out to be inaccurate or incorrect. Although
the possibility is so remote as to seem practically impossible at the time of
discovery, there is still the possibility nevertheless.
Cognizant of the uncertainty of mathematical knowledge at the level of
experimentation, he adopts a cautious attitude with regard to using the Scrip-
ture in mathematical research, paving the way for a secularized view. Newton
declares:
292 A.L. SAMIAN
That religion and Philosophy are to be preserved distinct. We are not to introduce divine revelations
into Philosophy nor philosophical opinions (not truth derived from philosophy!) into religion.96
Furthermore, Newton employs the modus tollen form of arguments in his

approach of problem solving. His discussion on infinities leads him to say:
The falseness of the conclusion shows an error in the premises, and the error lies in the position
that all infinities are equal . . .97
Supposing that Newton is using a divine revelation as a premise for a math-

ematical problem which he is tackling and his conclusion is somehow shown
to be false, accordingly the premise, which is the divine revelation, is false too!
There is, however, a caveat. Although Newton unequivocally states that
divine revelation should not be incorporated into mathematical works, it does
not imply that mathematics should be totally void of the Transcendent. His
works that we have examined thus far certainly include some discussions about
God. What Newton is against is not some discourses on Gods Names and
Attributes in the practice of mathematics; it is the application of verses from the
Scriptures given by mathematicians to support their answers to mathematical
problems.98
Newton believes that Moses possessed the answers to some of the math-
ematical problems and the Scripture provides notional explanations about
these problems. Newtons position on the synthesis between scriptural expla-
nation and mathematical problems leads him to adopt the opinion that the
Bible is written in the language of everyman and thus found justifications in
the Scriptural explanation concerning the creation of the world (not to men-
tion other problems), that the world is created in six days, without the scripture
giving in depth elaboration concerning the nature of the six days. In Newtons
opinion:
To describe them distinctly as they were in themselves would have made narration tedious and
confused, amused the vulgar, and become a philosopher more than a prophet. He [Moses] mentions
them, therefore, only so far as the vulgar had a notion of them, that is, as they were phenomena in
the firmament, and describes their making only so far and at such a time as they were made such
phenomena.99
Newton draws a distinction between the audience of the mathematician and

that of the prophet. The reason that Moses did not relate the answer more rig-
orously as derived from the quotation above, is because Moses was a prophet
rather than a mathematician. Therefore Moses had to adapt a description of
the creation as handsomely as he could to the sense and the capacity of the
vulgar.100 A prophet faces a larger and more heterogeneous social group and
intellectual community than a mathematician.
Thus when he [Moses] speaks of two great lights, I suppose he means their apparent, not real,
greatness. So when he tells us God placed these lights in the firmament, he speaks I suppose
of their apparent, not real, place, his business being, not to correct the vulgar notions in matters
philosophical . . . If it be said that the expression of making and setting two great lights in the
firmament is more poetical then natural, so also are some other expressions of Moses, as when he
tells the windows or floodgates of heavens were opened (Gen. Vii.,) and afterward stopped again
(Gen. Viii,) and yet the things signified by such figurative expressions are not ideal or moral, but
true. For Moses, accommodating his words to the gross conceptions of the vulgar, describes things
much after the manner as one of the vulgar would have been inclined to do had he lived and seen
the whole series of what Moses describes.101
CONCLUSION
According to Newton, the study of nature, religion and mathematics are inter-
connected. All of them are grounded upon the belief in the existence of God.
There is also a notable distinction between the natural and the supernatural
in Newtons philosophy of mathematics. Natural causes such as gravity has
natural power which is independent from the supernatural.
Religion and mathematics, however, have some similarities. What mainly
differentiates religion and mathematics, or a prophet and a mathematician, if
we must make the distinction, is partly the manner in explaining problems as
explicated in the foregoing discussions.
In Newtons mathematical enterprise, he believes that harmony is found not
only in nature but also in the relation between nature, religion and mathematics.
In as much as he tries to harmonize between all of them, one can feel the
tension in Newtons position. It is not surprising that in his assiduous effort to
integrate them in his philosophy of mathematics, he ends up with a suggestion
of differentiating between religion and natural philosophy.
National University of Malaysia, Malaysia
NOTES
1
See D. Gjertsen. The Classics of Science (New York, 1984), p. 211. I.B. Cohen discusses the
history of the Principia in all of its editions in his Introduction to Newtons Principia.
2
See Dictionary of Scientific Biography, p. 56. The first edition of Opticks included sixteen
queries and two mathematical treatises. The second edition which was printed in 1706 in Latin
excluded the mathematical treatises and added seven new queries. The third and the fourth edi-
tions, published in 1717 and 1730 respectively, were in English and included all of the thirty one
queries.
3
Some of his works on religion are reproduced in F.E. Manuel. The Religion of Isaac Newton
(Oxford, 1974), hereafter cited as Religion; H. Mc Lachlan. Sir Isaac Newton Theological
Manuscripts op. cit., and D. Castillejo. The Expanding Force in Newtons Cosmos (Madrid,
1981), hereafter cited as Expanding Force . . .
294 A.L. SAMIAN
4
In so far as Newton is concerned, by the word Scriptures I mean the Torah and the Bible.
5
See Principia, Motte-Cajori, pp. 543544. Any quotation underline in this paper is by the
author unless other wise stated.
6
Ibid., p. 544.
7
See Newtons first letter to Bentley in Isaac Newton, Opera quae exstant Omnia. Commen-
tariis illustrabut Samuel Horsley, 5 vols. (London, 17791985), IV, pp. 429430. Hereafter
referred to as Opera Omnia. See also Ra. Bentley, Sermons Preached at Boyles Lecture: Remarks
upon A Discourse of Free Thinking; Proposals for an Edition of the Greek Testament; etc., edited
with notes by Alexander Dyce (London, 1838). Hereafter cited as Sermons. See p. 204.
8
See Newtons first letter to Bentley in Opera Omnia, IV, pp. 429432. cf., Sermons, p. 206.
9
See Newtons first letter to Bentley in Opera Omnia IV, pp. 429431. See also Sermons,
p. 207.
10
See his unpublished work, A Short Scheme of the True Religion, in Theological
Manuscripts, pp. 4849. Also reproduced in Brewster, Memoirs, Vol. II, pp. 347348.
11
See Newtons second letter to Bentley. In similar vein he writes: The hypotheses of matters
being at first evenly spread through the heavens is, in my opinion, inconsistent with the hypothesis
of innate gravity, without supernatural power to reconcile them,; and therefore it infers a Deity.
See his fourth letter in Sermons, p. 215.
12
See Newtons second letter to Bentley. In his fourth reply to the latter, he says: The diurnal
rotations of the planets could not be derived from gravity, but required a divine arm to impress
them. See his Opera Omnia, IV, pp. 432442; Sermons, p. 215.
13
See his letter to Thomas Burnet reproduced in Brewster, Memoirs, Vol. II, pp. 99100,
447454.
14
See ibid., p. 448.
15
See Newtons statement reproduced in D. Castillejo, Expanding Force, op. cit., p. 59.
16
See Newton, A short Scheme pf the True Religion, reproduced in Brewster, Memoirs . . .,
Vol. II, pp. 347348.
17
See Principia, Motte-Cajori, p. 398.
18
See his Rule I in ibid., p. 398.
19
See his first letter to Richard Bentley in Sermons, p. 204.
20
Ibid.
21
It is important to distinguish between stories from the scripture and stories of our own in
analysing Newtons concept of simplicity because it is very clear that Newton employed the former
in his scientific explanation as we have demonstrated earlier. Therefore what he was referring
to when he used the phrase dreams and vain fictions in my opinion, was man made and not
revealed (from his perspective, that is) extra-sensible explanation.
22
See Yahuda MS. 1.1 Manuel, Religion, op. cit. (Appendix A), p. 120.
23
See Yahuda MS. 9.2, fol. 140r. cf. Manuel, Religion . . ., p. 102.
24
See Conduitt letter reproduced in Castillejo, Expanding Force, p. 96.
25
See the manuscript reproduced in Brewster, Memoirs, Vol. II, p. 354.
26
See Yahuda MS. 15, p. 137. cf., Castillejo, Expanding Force, p. 66.
27
Ibid.
28
In the time of Newton, there was the zeal to proselytize the heathens by the Christian Vir-
tuoso. For an example, Robert Boyle who was a close friend of Newton left this will upon his
death: To settle an annual salary for some divine or preaching minister who shall be enjoined
to perform the offices following: 1. To preach eight Sermons in a year, for proving the Christian
religion against notorious infidels, viz., Atheists, Deists, Pagans, Jews, and Mahometans. See
Sermons, pp. xvxvi.
29
See Yahuda, MS 15, p. 137. cf. Castillejo, Expanding Force, p. 67.
30
See Theological Manuscripts, p. 50.
31
See ibid., p. 54.
32
See Principia, Motte Cajori, pp. 545556 and Principia, Koyr & Cohen, pp. 762763.
33
See Theological Manuscripts, p. 13.
34
See ibid., p. 14.
35
See his A short Scheme of the True Religion in Theological Manuscripts, pp. 4951.
According to one biographer, Newtons letter exposing as false the Trinitarian proof-texts in
John and Timothy had been transmitted through Locke to Le Clerc for anonymous publication in
Holland, but then had been withdrawn in panic. See Manuel, Religion, p. 12. See also G.S. Brett,
Newtons Place in the History of Religion, p. 12. See also G.S. Brett, Newtons Place in the
History of Religios Thought, in Sir Isaac Newton: A Bicentennary Evaluation of His Work
(Baltimore, 1928), pp. 260268 and Newtons Paradoxical Questions Concerning the Morals
and Actions of Athanius and his Followers, in Theological Manuscripts, pp. 61118.
36
See Manuel, Religion, p. 3.
37
I have in mind the tenets advocated by the Council of Nice whereby the Trinity was made the
foundation of Christianity.
38
William Whistons career was a case in point. Although appointed by Newton as his successor
to the Lucasian chair, Whiston was expelled from the post in 1711, a consequence of the Toleration
Act of 1688, because his Arian belief was made public. See The History of Science Society, Sir
Isaac Newton: A Bicentenary Evalution of His Works, op. cit., pp. 260261.
39
See Principia, Motte-Cajori, pp. 544546. See also his A Short Scheme of the True Religion,
in Brewster, Memoirs . . ., Vol. II, pp. 347348.
40
See Principia, Motte Cajori, p. 544.
41
Ibid.
42
Ibid., p. 545.
43
Ibid.
44
Ibid.
45
Ibid., pp. 545546.
46
See ibid., p. 546.
47
Ibid.
48
Ibid.
49
Ibid., p. 545.
50
See ibid., p. 398. cf. Opticks, p. 369.
51
Opticks, p. 376, 397.
52
Ibid., p. 397.
53
See Newtons An Hypothesis Explaining the Properties of Light Discoursed of in My Several
Papers, in a letter to Oldenberg, January 25, 1675/6. Communicated to the Royal Society, 9th
December 1675. Quoted in Brewster, Memoirs . . ., Vol. I, p. 392.
54
See Corollary V to Proposition VI in Principia, Motte-Cajori, Bk. III.
55
Say Galileo, The Holy Ghost teaches how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go. See his
Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina in Stillman Drake, Discoveries and Opinions (New York,
1957), p. 186.
56
We have in mind problems treated in the Principia, Opticks and in his practice of alchemy.
For a sample of Newtons work on alchemy, see Castillejo, Expanding Force, pp. 1729.
57
See Yahuda MS. 1.1. See also Appendix A in Manuel, Religion . . ., p. 120.
58
Principia, Motte-Cajri, p. 547; Principia, Koyr-Cohen, p. 764. The nature of Newtons
hypothesis are the subject of several studies. See for examples Alexander Koyr articles;
296 A.L. SAMIAN
Concept and Experience in Newtons Scientific Thought whereby he argues that what is
meant by Hypothesis non-fingo is I feign no hypothesis and his other article, Newtons
Regulae Philosophandi. Both articles appear in Newtonian Studies (Cambridge, Mass., 1965)
pp. 2552 and pp. 261272 respectively. See also I.B. Cohens Preface in Isaac Newton, Opticks,
op. cit., pp. ixlviii; Hypothesis in Newtons Philosophy, Physis, 8(1966), pp. 163184.
59
See for example, Newtons first letter to Bentley dated 10th December 1692 in Isaac Newton
Papers & Letters on Natural Philosophy, edited by I.B. Cohen, op. cit., pp. 286287. Cf. Sermons,
pp. 203207.
60
See Principia, Motte-Cajori, pp. 401406.
61
See Newtons Rules IV in Principia, Koyr-Cohen, p. 555 and Principia, Motte Cajori, p. 400.
62
This statement is translated by Alexandre Koyr in his Newtons Regulae Philosophandi,
Newtonian Studies, p. 269. The Latin text is given on the same page.
63
There are six phenomena stated in Newtons Book III: The System of the World. For the
purpose of illustration, three of them are as follows:
Phenomenon I. That the circumjovial planets, by radii drawn to Jupiters centre, describe areas
proportional to the times of descriptions; and that their periodic times, the fixed stars being
at rest, are as the 3/2th power of their distances from its centre.
Phenomenon III. That the five primary planers, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, with
their several orbits, encompass the sun.
Phenomenon IV. That the moon, by a radius drawn to the earths centre, describes an area
proportional to the time of description.
See Principia, Motte-Cajori, pp. 401405.
64
See Newtons letter to Oldenberg, July 1672 in Opera Omnia IV, pp. 320321.
65
See his letter to Thomas Burnet, quoted by Brewster in his Memoirs . . ., Vol. II, pp. 450, 453.
66
67
68
Ibid., p. 547.
69
See Opticks, pp. 404405.
70
See R. Palter. Newton and the Inductive Method, Texas Quarterly, Vol. 10 (1967)
pp. 16173.
71
72
See Opticks, Query 28 (which is Query 20 in the Latin edition of 1706.)
73
See Opera Omnia, Vol. IV, pp. 320321.
74
See Newtons letter to Roger Cotes, 28th March 1713 in Correspondence, Vol. V. p. 397.
75
See Principia, Motte-Cajori, p. 419, Koyr-Cohen, p. 586.
76
See Papers and Letters. Cf. Correspondence, Vol. I, p. 164.
77
78
See Opticks, Part I.
79
Ibid., p. 369.
80
University Library, Cambridge; MS Add. 3970.
81
D. Gjertsen. The Classics of Science (New York, 1984), wherein the author argues that Newton
was more interested in religion and history than in science. See pp. 191192.
82
For example, Newton gave as much help as possible to Bentley who was chosen as the first
lecturer.
83
See Manuel, A Portrait . . ., pp. 100103, about Newtons refusal to be ordained. See also
Theological Manuscripts, p. 13 about Archbishop Tenisons offer that Newton rejected.
84
That Laplace relegates the active role of God to that of a hypotheses (which he does not need:
Je navais pas besoin de cette hypothese-la) is an example of the abuse of hypotheses from
Newtons point of view.
85
They are not necessarily in this order because it has been shown that he did use hypotheses
not conforming to the spirit of Hypotheses non-fingo.
86
See Newtons Scheme for Establishing the Royal Society, quoted in Brewster, Memoirs . . .,
vol. I. p. 102.
87
See Principia, Motte-Cajori, p. xxxii.
88
See Opticks, p. 12.
89
See his letter to William Briggs, quoted in Edleston, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and
Professor Cotes (London, 1850), p. 269.
90
Ibid.
91
See Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka Lifes Primogenital Timing, Time Projected by the Dynamic
Articulation of the Onto-genesis of Life, A Fragment in Tymieniecka, A.T. (ed.) Phenomenolog-
ical Inquiry: The Tree of Life-Aesthetic Expression of the Moral Sentiment, vol. XXIX, Oct. 2005,
pp. 514.
92
Instruments are indispensable in devising experiments. That Newton knew experiments are
dependent upon the availability of instruments is clear from his effort in inventing the refracting
telescope. About this philosophical discovery, to use his phrase, he writes: Thus Sir, I have
given you a short account of this small instrument, which though in itself contemptible, may yet
be looked upon as an epitome of what may be done according to this way, See Newtons letter
reproduced in L.T. More, Isaac Newton: A Biography. op. cit., p. 68.
93
Ibid., p. xviii.
94
See his letter to Oldenburg, July 1672. Opera Omnia V, pp. 320321.
95
See Opticks, p. 404.
96
See Theological Manuscripts, p. 58. Therefore Newtons statement should not be interpreted
either as a consequence of a positivist position. Rather, it is because of his intense passion for
safeguarding his scriptural belief.
97
See his second letter to Bentley in Sermons, p. 209.
98
It has been suggested that there are two basic reactions concerning the relationship between
mathematics and religion. The first is to keep them apart and the second is to conjoin them,
yielding an organic synthesis whereby religion and mathematics are amalgamated into a single
worldview. See Manuel, Religion . . ., pp. 2728. In my opinion (contra Manuel), Newton never
belongs to the first. His natural philosophy is always bounded by his scriptural religion. His
natural philosophy is a consequence of his religious belief and not an opposition to it.
99
See Newtons letter to Thomas Burnet, quoted in Brewster, Memoirs, Vol. II, pp. 452453.
100
See Brewster, Memoirs . . ., p. 450. Newton gives another example of an explanation for the
common people. Says Newton: And if at any time I speak of light and rays as colored or endued
with colors, I would be understood to speak, not philosophically and properly, but grossly and
according to such conceptions as vulgar people in seeing all these experiments would be apt to
frame. See Opticks, pp. 108109.
101
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brewster, David. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton, 2 vols.
Edinburgh: Thomas Constable & Co., 1855.
Cohen, I. Bernard. Introduction to Newtons Principia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1971.
Cotes, Roger. Preface to the Second Edition, in Isaac Newton, Principia, Motte-Cajori, p. xx,
First published in 1713.
298 A.L. SAMIAN
Manuel, Frank. E. A Portrait of Isaac Newton. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1968.

Newton, Isaac. On the Day of Judgement and World to come, in Frank E. Manuels The Religion
of Isaac Newton, Oxford, 1974.
Newton, Isaac. The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H.W. Turnbull, J.F. Scott, A.R. Hall and
Laura Tilling (eds.), 5 vols., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 19591975.
Newton, Isaac. Four letters from Sir Isaac Newton to Doctor Bentley: containing some arguments
in proof of a deity, in The Works of Richard Bentley, Rev. Alexander Dyce (ed.), London, 1838.
Newton, Isaac. Sir Isaac Newtons Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System
of the World. Translated into English by Andrew Motte in 1729. The translations revised, and
supplied with an historical appendix, by Florian Cajori, Berkeley, University of California Press,
1934.
Newton, Isaac. Sir Isaac Newton Theological Manuscripts. Selected and Edited with Introduction
by H. McLachlan. Liverpool: Liverpool university Press, 1950.
Newton, Isaac. Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Inflections & Colours of Light. Albert
Einstein (Foreword), Sir Edmund Whittaker (Introduction), I. Bernard Cohen (Preface), Duane
H.D. Roller (Analytical Table). New York: Dover Publications, 1952.
Newton, Isaac. Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton, ed. A.R. Hall & M.B. Hall (eds.),
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962.
Newton, Isaac. Correspondence of Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes with an appendix containing
other unpublished letters and papers by Newton, L.L. Laudan and J. Edleston (eds.), London:
Frank Cass Co. Ltd., 1969.
Newton, Isaac. Isaac Newtons Papers & Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents,
I. Bernard Cohen and Robert E. Schofield (eds.), Mass: Harvard University Press, 1958.
Newton, Isaac. Newtons Philosophy of Nature: Selection from His Writings, H.S. Thayer (ed.),
John Herman Randall (intr.). New York, 1951.
Newton, Isaac. Isaac Newton Opera quae Exstant Omnia, Samuel Horsley (ed.), 5 vols. London,
197985.
S E C T I O N IV
M E M O RY I N T H E C O M M U N A L C I P H E R I N G O F L I F E
I LV I T S K AYA S V E T L A N A VA L E R Y E V N A
O RT H O D O X M O N A S T E R I A L C O M P L E X
I N C O N T E M P O R A RY S O C I O C U LT U R A L
E N V I RO N M E N T
ABSTRACT
Actuality of studying the monasterial culture has been predetermined by the

revival of Orthodox culture and spiritual consciousness of compatriots on the
background of essentially complete loss of experience in monasterial develop-
ment in Russia in 20th century. The revival of spirituality in our society and
impetuous booming of hieratic construction are justified by insufficient knowl-
edge on monasterial ensembles and temples, which simultaneously are the
guardians of spiritual and creative memory in artistic and cultural heritage of
the country in a uniform Ontopoesis of Life, as well as the places of pilgrimage
and informative tourism.
The methods of interdisciplinary exploration of orthodox monasteries in
contemporary cultural situation are connected with deep and extensive working
out of a considerable volume of factual material, part of which for the first time
in history is being introduced to scientific turnover.
Over a period of 1000-year history of Orthodoxy, the monasteries performed

a mission of social self-actualization and development, keeping a dialogue
between the past and the future. They have been centers and disseminators of
cultural values, moral and ethical norms of people, faith and education, which
exerted influence on the level of intellectual and artistic life of the society; they
have been the custodians of unique architectural-artistic monuments.
At present, the monasterial complexes are regaining their strength as
carriers and disseminators of orthodox religion, as well as sociocultural
and educational centers. Their major religious role in mentoring spiritual-
ity and morality of contemporary society is supplemented by secular func-
tions: cultural-educational (tourism and museums), social-philanthropic and
economic activities.
The issues of studying monasteries in the Balkans (Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia
and Rumania), the activities of which were never interrupted in 20th century,
and which successfully adapted to modern environment (for instance, broaden-
ing of pilgrimage and development of tourism), as well as the issue of defining
the practicability of their positive experience for restoration of monasteries in
Russia are of great significance for our country.
301

302 I LV I T S K AYA S V E T L A N A VA L E R Y E V N A
It is necessary to highlight the positive side of interdisciplinary studying of

orthodox monasterial complexes: application of historical-architectural, cul-
turological and other methods of developing modern approaches to organizing
tours on monasterial ensembles taking into consideration their adaptation and
expansion of monasterial functions, as well as inclusion of monasteries into
new traveling routes.
As a result of exploring the contemporary cultural situation in Bulgaria,
Greece, Serbia, Rumania and Russia, the researchers have identified tree
major trends in development of monasterial architectonics, which were laid
in the foundation of creative concept of architectural activities in the field of
reconstruction and monasterial development:
1. Emergence and development of secular directions: in monasterial activities
and their adaptation to modern environment based on a new functional-
typological foundation and architectural-spatial structure (creation of archi-
tectural spaces related to the functions of tourism and museums), tak-
ing into consideration modern architectural-constructional requirements
(new technologies in construction and development along with innovative
materials);
2. Restoration of ensemble structure of functioning monasterial complexes,
based on safeguarding of architectural heritage: creation of an expressive
aesthetic-phenomenological image of a monastery taking into considera-
tion new stylistic impacts and its harmonious amalgamation with terrestrial
environment;
3. When constructing a new monastery: creation of an open system of its activ-
ities with high level of accessibility and comfort, including unrestricted
space for low-mobile groups of population, as well as organization of
social and engineering infrastructure of services, taking into consideration
local occupational levels and development of profitable economy, crafts and
workmanships.
Integrated and comprehensive approach to studying issues related to monas-
terial ensembles is presently based on the concept of a monastery as a
uniform sociocultural, territorial-landscape and architectural-compositional
complex, spiritual core of which is identified by religious, moral-ethical and
philosophic-aesthetic priorities in the whole ontopoetic continuum of Life.
As we analyze the major trends for development of monasterial construc-
tion, the present way of running orthodox monasteries in the Balkans and
Russia presumes certain adaptation and transformation of general monasterial
architecture to the requirements of modern life.
Positive experience of monasterial construction in the Balkans, which never
experienced any sustained interruption in functioning of monasteries (both in
their main sacred and other activities), the process of Russian monasteries
O RT H O D OX M O NA S T E R I A L C O M P L E X 303
revival should be started from rehabilitation of primary monasterial mission,

from functional zoning of their territory, from appropriating the silent zone
for secluded monastic life alongside with separate functional secular spaces or
courtyards for monastery pilgrims and other guests.
The first tendency shows that major, original functions of monasteries were
currently amended by new ones and expanded by traditional types of activities,
which facilitate the creation of diversified typological composition of struc-
tures and buildings and enhance expressiveness of architectural image of a
monasterial ensemble.
Special momentum was applied to the development of secular functions
museum, publishing, traveling and commercial activities. The spiritual pil-
grimage as most venerable form of visiting monasteries is also developing.
Today, the issues of welcoming and supporting the pilgrims and tourists, which
have traditionally been monasterial missions, are not solved yet.
There is an explicit example of aligning traditional and contemporary
functions at Solovetskiy and Preobrazhenskiy Valaamskiy monasteries. Both
monasteries have already designated museum zones, furbished hotels, estab-
lished infrastructure and organized waterway access to priories. Local popula-
tion is engaged in servicing monasteries and their guests.
The rebirth of sociocultural role of monasteries in modern society as
spiritual-ethical and economic centers with high rates of productivity allows
solving the employment problems for local population, which facilitates the
recovery of Russian province. Thus, the experience of Russian monaster-
ies shows that already in XVIII century St. Cyril-Belozerskiy monastery
established profitable enterprise with mechanized farming, icon painting, fish-
ing fleet and smokehouses; the monks built water pipe-lines and a railway
connection to the harbor.
Today we hear news about the resurrected farming and villages on the lands
of Savvino-Storozhevskiy, Pskovo-Pecherskiy and Moscow Sretenskiy monas-
teries, which promotes wellbeing and engrains healthy lifestyle among rural
population.
In modern environment reactivation of production function in a monastery
gains a new implication: organization of construction teams, monastery based
small ventures specializing on servicing tourists etc. Artistic and trade activ-
ities of the monastery is being reactivated on the floors of icon painting
studios and ornamental arts workshops. Restoration of monasterial farming
is being deployed on no-men lands of former soviet collective farms and aban-
doned villages. There are new approaches to organization of sociocultural
functions of monastery holding of religious holidays, opening of ornamental
art studios, Sabbath schools, amateur choirs and publishing houses. Sponsors
resumed charitable, therapeutic and commercial activities of abodes.
Modern experience of Balkan monasteries, which undergone functional

adaptations and transformation of buildings, may allow us forecasting the
architectural development of national monasteries trough more compact explo-
ration of spaces (integration of various functional zones in one courtyard,
increasing of housing density, re-orientation of old buildings functionality etc.)
and through expanding their sociocultural functions. However, when select-
ing modern functions of a monastery, the templar zone must not be exposed
to functional re-orientation, but for ceremonial fraters, which may be used
as concert halls, exhibition spaces or a historic museums. The buildings and
structures of commercial and dwelling zones might be suitable for some new
functions, excluding churches (such as Church Over-the-gates, fraters, hospital
churches or priories).
It should be noted that land planning is an important factor that forms
architectural-spatial environment of any monastery. The author has explored
on rational functional zoning of orthodox monastery and buildings typol-
ogy, and determined interrelationship between zoning and yard structure of
monastery complex.
Based on the analysis and generalization of experience in orthodox monas-
teries construction, we identified that the creation of scenic panorama, spatially
saturated silhouette and polycentric image of monasteries (emergence of
several planning and silhouette centers of the complex in a process of its expan-
sion) demonstrate a positive tendency in the development of architecture and
are considered topical in contemporary Russian environment.
At the same time it is important to ensure consistent pattern of monastery
zoning and its three-dimensional organization, which are based on the princi-
ples of concentricity, compositional hierarchy and scale comparability of main
and background developments.
Expansion of monasterys hieratic and socio-cultural functions leads to a
phenomenon of adaptation and transformation of architectural objects, which
in its turn, predetermines the necessity of their designing and development
on the foundation of forecasts for evolution of functional and typological
processes (infrastructure, new types and modern stylistics).
Therefore, when adapting a monastery to ever-changing modern conditions,
one needs to consider the following: zoning, broadening of space in front
of the monastery entrance and overall growth of the complex area through
reserving territory; partial modernization of monastery image and architecture
of its buildings; application of new materials and technologies; establishment
of infrastructure, engineering utilities, sanitary and hygienic facilities both in
dwelling and public places as well as general land improvement.
The second tendency relates to the monasteries regaining their spiritual-
ethical and sociocultural context in view of the growth of their significance for
O RT H O D OX M O NA S T E R I A L C O M P L E X 305
the society in general and the necessity of solving the problem of preserving
architectural monuments and urban planning in monasteries in particular.
At present the Orthodox Church reestablished its possession of great number
of monasteries for the purpose of resuming their spiritual activities. However,
most of the monasteries experience shortages in funds both in the process of
restoration and in adaptation of monasterial buildings to modern requirements,
organization of public services and amenities and in the entire existence of
monasteries.
In addition to that, the spiritual and sociocultural significance of monaster-
ies in modern society as well as interaction of monastic life with carnal world,
which changed considerably for the last 7080 years, require new solutions.
From the standpoint of secular community the role of monasteries is in safe-
guarding of spiritual traditions, restoration of architectural monuments and, in
many instances, in organization of living of local population, which remains in
critical situation.
Currently there are quite a few unresolved problems:
Restoration of monasteries is hindered by the presence of dwellings,
warehouses, garages and farms on the territory of modern complexes;
Strained relations between monasteries and museums, which have arisen
after the monasteries regained their possession over land plots and buildings
occupied by cultural and public facilities (there is a number of conflict-
ing situations related to withdrawal of museums from St. Cyril-Belozerskiy
Monastery, or closing of travel centers in Suzdal Monastery etc.);
Feasibility of new construction and development on the territory of monas-
teries, which have the status of protected architectural monuments;
Applicable legislation and protection of historical-cultural heritage. The
existing laws were adopted in circumstances, when monasteries were not
used for their intended purpose; most of them were given the status of
protected state property only after their complete ruining. Most of the
architectural ensembles of monasteries suffered irreparable damage.
Contemporary cultural situation requires changes both in protective leg-
islation and public consciousness; it challenges professionalism of design
engineers and wisdom of church officers in understanding the inevitable devel-
opment of conventional spaces and the desired skills in construction of high
quality buildings in such historical environment.
At the same time, the monasterial life must go on and exercise a salu-
tary spiritual and ethical influence over secular community; it shall ensure
protection and development of architectural and landscape environment in par-
allel. With this aim in view we need a consistent regulatory control from the
part of professionals and state authorities supervising protection and use of
historical-architectural monuments of monasteries.
The third modern tendency in the development of monasterial architecture

relates to increasing the comfort of staying in a monastery.
Ensuring higher level of comfort for people and accessibility of monasteries
is imposed by introduction of renewed sociocultural functions of monasteries
and upgrading of their contemporary social and engineering infrastructure.
In this context the territory of monasterial yard should foresee a placid
silent zone for abidance of monk fraternity, with restricted access for the
guests of the monastery. At present the monasteries undergo the process of
modernization of utilities, improvement of their territory and sanitary-hygienic
conditions both in dwelling and public places.
In Russia some monasteries such as Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Laura, Solovet-
skiy and Valaam Monasteries are again included in popular traveling routes.
This is a determinant factor for monasterial construction in modern environ-
ment, which increases the interest in perceiving orthodox monasterial culture
for advanced pilgrimage and cognitive tourism that proved to be a steady
source of profits.
The creation of new religious-public complexes on the basis of function-
ing monasteries is topical for Russia. That is why the concept of revival of
monasteries as spiritual centers with traditional and new sociocultural func-
tions is based on the principle of open-ended system of their evolvement. This
allows perfecting the monasterial architecture through reconstruction of exist-
ing and construction of new orthodox complexes in compliance with up-to-date
requirements, as well as design engineering and construction of new types
of buildings (administrative offices, museums, schools, hotels, motels, camp-
ing facilities, cafes, production floors, garages etc.), which ensure monastery
functioning in synergy.
The issues of preserving the memory of places in monasteries, improving
accessibility to and comfort in Russian monasteries still remain at the stage
of becoming and represent the sphere of theoretical, methodical and practi-
cal solutions for modern architects, the clergy, art historians, philosophers and
other professionals.
Doctor of Architecture, State University on Land Use Planning and Control,

Moscow
BIBLIOGRAPHY
S.V. Ilvitskaya Orthodox Holy Mansions in the Balkans and Russia Architectural News.
Russian Association of Architects. No. 1, 2004, pp. 4954.
S.V. Ilvitskaya Architectural peculiarities of monasteries in the Balkans, Monasteries cultural
and spiritual centers of Russia and Europe. History and Modernity. International collective
monograph. M., 2003, pp. 155162.
S.V. Ilvitskaya Architecture of monasteries in the Balkans and traditions of Byzantine architec-
tonics. Monograph. K., 2000, pp. 330.
E L I F I R A K M A N
T H E A RT O F M E M O RY I N A P L U R A L I S T I C
U N I V E R S E : W I L L I A M JA M E S S R E P U B L I C A N
BA N QU E T
ABSTRACT
The aim of this paper is to conduct an inquiry that would illuminate how a
phenomenological account of memory may govern some basic issues of our
lives: the meaning of our collectivity and spirituality, the cultural embodiment
of our experiences and memories, and their collective status, the question of
intimacy and unity in the universe of our experiences. I shall consider this
account of memory by focusing on William Jamess radically empiricist, plu-
ralist, and pragmatic philosophy. In reading James, my aim is to propose a
notion of collective memory as the cash-value of Jamess spiritualism. This
proposal will inevitably lead us to Jamess confrontation with Hegelian Spirit,
or Absolute, as an alternative hypothesis in understanding the intimacy, the
unity, and the spirituality of the universe. I shall seek to derive some implica-
tions from their profound articulations in order to suggest a more pragmatic
and releasing conception of collective memory as freeing us from the burden
of the past by socially transforming it into prospects for action, and by aes-
thetically deploying it to symbolic expressions embodied in art and cultural
works. The approach that I propose aims to relocate the philosophical concept
of memory in a perspective that acknowledges life or becoming in terms of its
excessive dynamism.
What is the task which philosophers set themselves to perform; and why do they philosophize at
all? Almost everyone will immediately reply: They desire to attain a conception of the frame of
things which shall on the whole be more rational than that somewhat chaotic view which everyone
by nature carries about with him under his hat.1
What is this philosophical desire to attain a conception of the frame of things?

From where does it arise, or what is its source? A reference to William Jamess
words might be useful: It is only when the distress is upon us that we said to
strive, to crave or to aspire.2 We also know this distress as the awe and wonder
we feel in the face of existence, and as the initial impulse of thinking being qua
being. Yet, what we learn from James is that this distress does not take place
307

308 E L I F I R A K M A N
in the face of a deeper reality residing over and beyond what is given, but in
the face of our experience of the dramatic richness, plurality, and thickness
of the concrete world. Our cravings and strivings arise out of the fact that
we are experiencing, sentient beings, and that there are experiences which are
in superabundant continuous flow. In this regard, the task of philosophy is to
inquire into the possibility of making ourselves at home in the face of this
superabundant continuous flow of experiences without falling into a reductive
intellectualist unity. The goal of philosophy is then to seek out and to give an
account of the-unity-of-everything-there-is in terms of a lived intimacy with
a pluralistic, growing, dynamic, continuously becoming universe. Its prospect
is not merely to render the universe in which we live more comprehensible, but
also to transform it practically so as to yield more and more intimacy where
possible by knowing that this possibility is always an experiential matter, and
not something that can be realized only by logical means.
For William James, the lived or experienced world is the ground out of
which our philosophical wonder flourishes, and the term intimacy here
provides the criterion demanding satisfaction and preference as ones best
working attitude in philosophy.3 Philosophies as the expressions of our dif-
fering and pluralistic visions of the world, or ways of life, arise out of our
temperaments, that is, from our deliberately adopted reactions of our total char-
acter upon the course of reality as it is experienced or lived.4 In this regard,
James, with his humanistic and pragmatic temperament, conceives the differ-
ence between living against a background of foreignness and of intimacy as
a social difference, that is, as a habit of wariness and one of trust.5 His com-
mitment to intimacy as our best working attitude leads us to envision the
world after a social analogy in which we are not only interactive partners in
and members of an incurably pluralistic, temporal universe of experiences by
sharing the same one deep concern in its destinies, but also contributors in
its destinies which have no pre-given, singular, pre-established destination.6
James indicates the line of philosophical inquiry with his intimacy criterion by
focusing on the question of where to seek the possibility of holding together
concrete experiences varying differentially across time and space. This ques-
tion is a matter of thinking the relation between the one and the many, and
for James, this issue can be resolved on experiential basis, that is, by taking his
radically empiricist theses as forming the background of the matter questioned.
Jamess later philosophy can be conceived as an attempt to give an answer to
this central question by refining his radically empiricist philosophy through a
spiritualistic and pluralistic outlook satisfying his intimacy criterion without
recourse to any monistic, idealistic, or rationalistic discourse.
T H E A RT O F M E M O RY I N A P L U R A L I S T I C U N I V E R S E 309
Given this brief outline, how can we consider the topic of memory? The
aim of this paper is not to investigate the nature of memory and to find a sim-
ple answer to the complex question of what memory is, but rather to conduct
an inquiry that could illuminate how a phenomenological and a metaphysical
conception of memory may govern some basic issues of our lives: the meaning
of our collectivity and spirituality, the status of the products or works of our
being-together, the cultural embodiment of our experiences and memories, and
their collective status, the question of intimacy and unity in the universe of our
experiences. I consider the significance of the concept of memory by focusing
on William Jamess radically empiricist, pluralist, and pragmatic philosophy.
In reading James, I focus on his intimacy criterion, his radically empiricist
account of the relations and the continuity of experiences, and his spiritualis-
tic approach to a pluralistic universe. By interpreting these themes under the
light of the concept of memory, which is only implicit in Jamess later works,
my aim is to propose a notion of collective memory (collectivity of mem-
ory experiences) as the cash-value of Jamess spiritualism. This proposal will
inevitably lead to Jamess confrontation with Hegelian Spirit, or Absolute a
metaphysical monster as an alternative hypothesis in understanding the inti-
macy, the unity, and the spirituality of the universe. In order to come to terms
with Jamess position against Hegels absolute spirit, I shall articulate the way
they envision the spirituality of universe from different perspectives, which
assume, and at the same time, develop different meanings for collectivity and
memory. I consider these different perspectives according to their pragmatic
consequences, and in this regard, seek to derive some implications from their
profound articulations in order to suggest a more pragmatic and releasing con-
ception of collective memory as freeing us from the burden of the past by
socially transforming it into prospects not only for action, but also for recogni-
tion, and by aesthetically deploying it to symbolic expressions embodied in art
and cultural works assuming practices and their appropriated pre-theoretical
know-how at the background. I entitle this liberating function as one of the
most significant functions of memory, and more specifically, as a melioristic
work of mourning, which is neither obsessed with the irrevocable loss and dis-
persal brought by time and displacement, nor powerful enough to turn absence
into full presence. Rather, the art of memory consists in acknowledging, and
qualifying the continuity of absence (as what is other from, or not in, the instant
field of the present) and presence (as provisional meanings, goals, values, and
works as in view of our selective attending and comportment).
First, in order to render my proposal more comprehensible, I shall engage
with Jamess radical empiricism, that is, the metaphysical and phenomenolog-
ical aspects of what he entitles as pure experience which is characterized
as the undifferentiated unity of the act of experiencing and the content expe-
rienced, and as the immediate flux of life, or the continuous stream of pure
experiences. Reading Essays in Radical Empiricism opens up the significance
of delineating a concept of memory in line with Jamess understanding of the
collectivity, continuity, and the relations of experiences. This reading will lead
us to Jamess vision of a pluralistic universe, in which James first sets the inti-
macy criterion as a task to be satisfied by a philosophical vision, and then,
claims that his philosophy is satisfying this criterion by its sympathetic tem-
per, and by its spiritual outlook, which considers the possibility of a wider
interpersonal, or superhuman field rendering the universe we live intimate. At
this stage, the question will turn out as whether we need to invoke a Jame-
sian panpsychic tendency in order to assert the collectivity and intimacy in a
world of pure experiences, i.e., a possible wider soul, but not an all-embracing
soul. Reading A Pluralistic Universe will suggest the possibility of conceiving
collective memory as the cash-value of Jamess account of spiritualism and
intimacy of a pluralistic universe.
RADICAL EMPIRICISM
James, all through his philosophical works, attaches to the metaphors of

stream, or field. In his early works, these metaphors characterize thought or
consciousness, and in his late works, they qualify the undifferentiated unity and
dynamic flow of experiences or life. By keeping in mind that these metaphors
are mostly spatial and powerful enough to exhibit the temporal flow, we can say
that the stream is neither a completely unified and coherent field, nor a totally
disjointed, fragmentary, granular aggregation. The metaphor suggests the flu-
idity, continuity, transitions, variations among the surface and depth, currents
and undercurrents differing and coalescing, that is, the life of becoming. Jason
Throop redefines it as a stream that ebbs and flows continually forward while
retaining the undercurrents and residues of past experience.7 Moreover, Bruce
W. Wilshire expresses the continuous flow of the stream in phenomenological
terms as follows:
Just as there is no thought or experience which is of a single thing and nothing else (there must
always be relations and a background), so there is no experience which is locked into a discrete
moment of time, a now, and experience only it. What is given is a specious present, a field of
duration or continuity, in which the just past is present as the just past, and the anticipation of the
future is present as the anticipation.8
Therefore the present moment, as indicating the center of selective com-

portment and attention, always refers to its beyond, but does so in a continuous
way. James claims that our fields of experience have no more definite bound-
aries than our fields of vision, since they both are fringed forever by a
more that continuously develops, and that continuously supersedes them as

life proceeds.9 Here, the fringe-like, or marginal aspects of the field are
particularly important not only because these aspects refer to the residual or
anticipatory dimensions of experience, but also because they designate the irre-
ducibility of objective context of experience to the actual contents of a personal
stream of thought, i.e., to the subjective context. David C. Lamberth claims that
there is a wider, ejective realm of contents beyond any particular field, and
he continues as follows:
Given the change of the center of field, whether it be from the intrusion of contents from margins
or a subjective change in the center itself, any field as such must be assumed to point to an eject,
a not yet realized, (which) is continuously connected with the realized. . . . In addition to objective
changes of the subjective field, then, subjective changes can produce objective effects in the field.
Therefore, insofar as there is a change in fields a stream of fields at all there is, on Jamess
view, both potential objectivity and an actual, ejective more beyond any present field.10
In using the metaphor of stream, James intends to oppose and differenti-

ate himself both from the atomistic presuppositions of traditional empiricism,
and from transcendental idealisms view of transcendental synthetic unity. He
intends to propose a different approach accounting the continuity of expe-
riences and the experience of continuity. This is an account that traditional
empiricism could not provide given its recourse to atomistic stance. Moreover,
transcendental idealism could not also provide such an account without the
help of categories, logic, transcendental apperception, or the Absolute, which
are meant to formalize experience as a meaningful coherent unity by struc-
turing and ordering it with what is other than experience. James summarizes
his stance against these approaches by his radical empiricism doctrine which
opens itself up to a phenomenological and metaphysical account of pure
experience. James states his radical empiricism as follows:
To be radical, an empiricism must neither admit into its constructions any element that is not
directly experienced, nor exclude from them any element that is directly experienced. For such a
philosophy, the relations that connect experiences must themselves be experienced relations, and
any kind of relation experienced must be accounted as real as anything else in the system.11
His radical empiricism doctrine consists of a postulate, of a statement of

fact, and of a generalized conclusion:
The postulate is that the only things that shall be debatable among philosophers shall be things
definable in terms drawn from experience . . . The statement of fact is that the relations between
things, conjunctive as well as disjunctive, are just as much matters of direct particular experience,
neither more so nor less so, than the things themselves. The generalized conclusion is that therefore
the parts of experience hold together from next to next by relations that are themselves parts
of experience. The directly apprehended universe needs, in short, no extraneous trans-empirical
connective support, but possesses in its own right a concatenated or continuous structure.12
James, by means of his radical empiricism, proposes a way to construe a

notion of pure experience that is self-supportive. In this regard, he intro-
duces his postulate of pure experience as indicating an undifferentiated field
equated with reality, which is neither mental nor physical, but which is the
pre-reflective ground for differing contexts of experiences as thoughts and
things, or as subjects and objects. James acknowledges that experience is a
double-barreled term, and the distinction between the act (and the agent) of
experience and the content of experience is an affair of relations falling within
the particular experience considered.13 Organization of experience into dis-
tinctive contexts, as subjective and objective, are required for the purposes of
reflection, appropriation, or knowing. Thus in Does Consciousness Exist?
James claims that consciousness is not an entity, but a function in experience
which thoughts perform, indicating the fact that things not only are, but get
reported, are known, and therefore, knowing is nothing but a particular sort
of relation towards one another into which portions of pure experience may
enter.14 This radically different notion of experience is clarified by James as
follows:
Experience, I believe, has no such inner dublicity; and the separation of it into consciousness and
content comes, not by way of subtraction, but by way of addition the addition, to a concrete
piece of it, of other sets of experiences . . . Just so, I maintain, does a given undivided portion
of experience, taken in context of associates, play the part of a knower, of a state of mind, of
consciousness; while in a different context the same undivided bit of experience plays the part of
a thing known, of an objective content. In a word, in one group it figures as a thought, in another
group as a thing. And since it can figure in both groups simultaneously we have every right to
speak of it as subjective and objective both at once.15
James says that the same bit of pure experience is, in one context, my field
of consciousness, that is, my personal biography, where in another context it
is the thing which is the last term of a history of previous physical operations.
Particulars are experienced not just as themselves, but just there as part of
a field. This field, if undifferentiated, is the pure experience which is only
virtually a subjective or an objective field.16 Yet, the differentiation has always
a practical purpose and value in the sense that we need to draw distinctions
in order to transform experience for practical purposes. Hence, James denies
that what is differentiated, as mental or physical, has a substantial ontological
status. Rather, they fall within experience since their status is only functional,
that is, they function as systems of different associates and arrangements in and
of experiences. As Bruce Wilshire says; Human mind is minding (let us not
hypostatize the noun mind).17 Given this characterization, we can say that
human mind is nothing but a collective name for specific functions in and of
pure experience, such as remembering, attending, thinking, reflecting, striving,
desiring, etc. Therefore, the self is nothing, but the experienced continuity of
these experiences. All this ends up well if we can say that the self is a history,
or in other terms, memory in this specific sense.
After this brief statement of radical empiricism, I shall raise the following
interrelated and guiding questions that may expose the status of memory in this
picture:
1. Should we interpret pure experience as a postulate that refers to an indi-
vidual level phenomenon, or a collective level? Should we take it as a
phenomenological or as a metaphysical postulate?
2. In what way could we entitle Jamess notion of experience: a coherent or
a granular collectivity? How can we understand experience both as a flow
or a stream, and as involving discrete parts in transition? How can James
move beyond the dichotomous thinking which qualifies collectivity exclu-
sively either as integral cohesive unity or as successive discrete disjoint
parts?
3. Can re-collected experiences collect themselves into a kind of unity? How
should we qualify the collective unity of selves? What does collectivity and
collective memory mean if we try to explain it from a Jamesian perspective?
P H E N O M E N O L O G I C A L A N D M E TA P H Y S I C A L I N T E R P R E TAT I O N S
Referring to David C. Lamberths interpretation, we can read Jamess postulate

of pure experience as signifying both an individual and a collective phe-
nomenon, and it has both phenomenological and metaphysical aspects.18 James
defends his world-view radical empiricism by means of his metaphysics of
pure experience, which is also known as neutral monism. Thus, in its phe-
nomenological interpretation, the world of pure experience is the world that we
are always already in, that is, the experiencing-experienced-experienceable
world, and metaphysically, it is the world, the context of contexts.19 Above
all, interpreted as a metaphysical thesis, the purity of experience designates
the ontologically primary unity and immediacy of experiencing. As Lamberth
claims, at this pure level, or in the first intention, the modality of being is one
of activity and flux.20 If we read the purity of experience metaphysically, we
can say that James equates reality with the purity, or undifferentiated unity of
experience. Moreover Lamberth argues that we can understand the modifier
pure both collectively and discretely at this metaphysical level:
When used as a metaphysical placeholder . . . pure indicates as a collective term, as general
and basic term for use in philosophical constructions. As such pure experience partakes of certain
fundamental characteristics of particular experiences, without ever being as specific or concrete
as any actual experience. In this context James is apt to treat pure experience as an unquantified,
indeterminate noun much as we speak collectively of land . . . James also writes metaphysically
of pure experience in a second way, speaking discretely of bits of pure experience. Qua pure
experience, a bit or piece of pure experience is still rather indeterminate, though it is by definition
discrete in contrast to pure experience taken collectively.21
Lamberths reference to this distinction is significant in order to give an

account for the functions in experience, and here the function we are interested
is memory. Just like the function of knowing, the function of memory is an
affair of experienced relations, that is, it is itself a relation that holds within
pure experience taken collectively, and between bits of pure experience taken
discretely.22
Phenomenological interpretation of pure experience consists in Jamess
assertion that although pure experience is the basic metaphysical unit, there
is no specific nature or stuff of pure experience itself, but there are as many
sensible natures as there are many different experiences. Thus pure experi-
ence is always in the plural, and therefore, a collective name for all these
sensible natures, and save for time and space (and, if you like, for being)
there appears no universal element of which all things are made.23 This is
how Jamess neutral monism, as a metaphysical and general claim, opens
to a pluralism of concrete pure experiences, that is, to a phenomenological
account. Charles A. Hobbs qualifies the phenomenological account of James
as concerned with the so-called existential variety instead of transcenden-
tal variety, and therefore, as providing an account of the lived-experience of
the world at its face value.24 Moreover, the phenomenological interpretation of
Jamess pluralism can be supported by his principle: Nothing shall be admit-
ted as fact . . . except what can be experienced at some definite time by some
experient; and for every feature of fact ever so experienced, a definite place
must be found somewhere in the final system of reality.25 Obviously, this phe-
nomenological aspect in Jamess philosophy, given that it involves first-person
perspective, opens up the questions concerning reality, truth, and the challenge
of solipsism. I will take these issues in the following section. Nevertheless, we
can still clarify the matter at this stage. The above principle indicates the per-
sonally experienced and experienceable character of reality. Moreover, what
James means by the final system of reality is just the provisional collection
of experiences which is additive in constitution. The system of reality is, in
line with empiricist premises, regarded as an additive collectivity. However,
given that Jamess empiricism is radical, the relative coherence and the unity
of reality are accounted by means of the conjunctive and disjunctive relations
experienced and experienceable. By means of his radical account of the rela-
tions of experience, James proposes the continuity of experience, and so the
experienced continuity of the self and the world. James explicates this addi-
tive constitution of reality by using the metaphor of mosaic philosophy, a
philosophy of plural facts26 :
In actual mosaics the pieces are held together by their bedding, for which bedding the Substances,
transcendental Egos, or Absolutes of other philosophies may be taken to stand. In radical Empiri-
cism there is no bedding; it is as if the pieces clung together by their edges, the transitions
experienced between them forming their cement . . . the metaphor serves to symbolize the fact
that Experience itself, taken at large, can grow by its edges . . . one moment of it proliferates into
the next by transitions which, whether conjunctive or disjunctive, continue the experiential tissue
. . . In this line we live prospectively as well as retrospectively. It is of the past, inasmuch as
it comes expressly as the pasts continuation; it is of the future in so far as the future, when it
comes, will have continued it.27
Above all, for James, the existential variety and coherency of experiences
(so personal biographies, and the history of physical operations) do not belong
to different orders, such as empirical disjunctive order and rational cohesive or
unified order. Rather, variety and coherency belong to the world of experiences.
Here the world, or the experiential world as the context of contexts, sustains
not only the unity of Jamess philosophical discourse, but also the ontologi-
cal unit encompassing all the phenomena as the way they are experienced and
experienceable. It is in this context that we cannot qualify Jamess philosophy
of pure experience as depending solely on a granular or a coherent model, and
as referring exclusively to an individual level phenomenon or a collective one.
The world of pure experiences is both a granular and a coherent collectivity,
and its philosophy endorses both a kind of metaphysics and a phenomenol-
ogy of pure experience. Hence, James claims that radical empiricism is fair
to both the unity and the disconnection and treats neither as illusory.28 More-
over, he asserts that the question of how much union or collection the world
of experiences involves is a matter that can only be solved on experiential and
pragmatic grounds. For instance, in his Pragmatism, he claims as follows:
The result is innumerable little hangings-together of the worlds part within the larger hangings-
together, little worlds . . . within the wider universe. Each system exemplifies one type or grade
of union, its parts being strung on that peculiar kind of relation, and the same part may figure
in many different systems, as a man may hold several offices and belong to various clubs. From
this systematic point of view, therefore, the pragmatic value of the worlds unity is that all these
definite networks actually and practically exist. Some are more enveloping and extensive, some
less so; they are superposed upon each other . . .29
James usually conceives the networks that are more enveloping as the con-
tinua of memory or personal consciousness, of time and space.30 For instance,
he treats the question whether the parts of the universe hang together, instead
of being like detached grains of sand as follows: Even grains of sand hang
together through the space in which they are embedded . . . Space and time
are thus vehicles of continuity by which the worlds parts hang together.31
However, he adds that our belief in one time and in one space is meant for
practical purposes. They are abstractions required for us to organize our lives,
to make social arrangements as to meet in the same place, at the right time,
and also for scientific knowledge and measurement. From a phenomenological
perspective, given the continuum of memory or personal consciousness, they
have qualifications other than these purposes. James claims as follows:
Everything that happens to us brings its own duration and extension, and both are vaguely sur-
rounded by a marginal more that runs into the duration and extension of the next thing that comes
. . . Cosmic space and cosmic time . . . are constructions. The great majority of the human race
never use these notions, but live in plural times and spaces, interpenetrant and durcheinander.32
Here, our question is whether these different durations pass into each other,
or how we should think the collectivity of plural times and plural spaces. In
Jamess terms, our question is how, at the phenomenological and epistemolog-
ical level, the conterminousness of different minds, and at the metaphysical
level, the compounding of consciousness could be explained.33 I will refer
these issues in the following sections. Let me first give an account of personal
consciousness in Jamess philosophy of pure experience.
In coming to terms with Jamess notion of pure experience in its phe-
nomenological aspect, we must also keep in mind that any function in
experience, perceptual or non-perceptual such as feeling, perceiving, think-
ing, remembering, reading, talking, walking, etc. is, in its first intention, or
immediacy, counted as a bit of pure experience, which we can never objectify
in the sense of making it an object of our experience. We are here particu-
larly dealing with remembering or recollecting, which is also one of the many
experienced relations. Remembering is a function in experience which, in its
undifferentiated unity, as in its first intention, a mere bit of pure experience. As
James asserts,
If we take conceptual manifolds, or memories, or fancies, they also are in their first intention mere
bits of pure experience, and, as such, are single thats which act in one context as objects, and
in another context as mental states. By taking them in their first intention, I mean ignoring their
relation to possible perceptual experiences with which they may be connected, which they may
lead to and terminate in, and which then they may be supposed to represent.34
Therefore, for James, there is no self-splitting of a pure bit of recollective

experience into what is recollected and what recollects. The differentiation of
this bit of pure experience into a subjective context as the way the recollec-
tive experience belongs to my personal stream of consciousness, that is, the
way it enters into relation with my other experiences and an objective con-
text as the way what is recollected belongs to its history and environment
is a doubling-up of experience into distinct groups of associates, that is, it
is taken by a retrospective experience as a member of diverse processes.35
James exemplifies the issue in other terms as follows:
The room thought-of, namely, has many thought-of couplings with many thought-of things. Some
of these couplings are inconstant, others are stable. In the readers personal history the room occu-
pies a single date he saw it only once perhaps, a year ago. Of the houses history, on the other
hand, it forms a permanent ingredient. Some couplings have the curious stubbornness . . . of fact;
others show the fluidity of fancy we let them come and go as we please. Grouped with the rest
of its house, with the name of its town, of its builder, value, decorative plan, the room maintains a
definite foothold, to which, if we try to loosen it, it tends to return, and to reassert itself with force.
With these associates, in a word, it coheres, while to other houses, other towns, etc., it shows no
tendency to cohere at all. The two collections, first of its cohesive, and, second, of its loose asso-
ciates, inevitably come to be contrasted. We call the first collection the system of external realities,
in the midst of which the room, as real, exists; the other we call the stream of our thinking, in
which, as a mental image, it for a moment floats. The room again gets counted twice over. It
plays two different roles, being Gedanke and Gedachtes, the thought-of-an-object, and the object-
thought-of, both in one; and all this without paradox and mystery, just as the same material thing
may be both low and high, or small and great, or bad and good, because of its relations to opposite
parts of an environing world.36
Thus, the same act of recollective experience, has so many relations to the
rest of experience that it may be taken, on the one hand, as regards to its
relations to other experiences in my mental history, and on the other hand,
as regards to its relations to other experiences in its environing objective and
intersubjective world. For instance, the act of remembering dives into different
relations continuous with other experiences in a personal stream of conscious-
ness. Then, what remembers, i.e., the self, is nothing but the experience of
this continuity along with the consciousness of this continuity, that is, a co-
conscious continuous transition. However, the content of the same act is also
a member of a diverse process of other relations in differing fields of experi-
ences, which renders what is remembered a fact, and mostly a narrated fact.
This may also indicate the qualitative difference between the lived, immediate
state of a pure act of remembering its felt quality undifferentiated and its
narrated, or mediated, state its cognitive quality. The former indicates that
the self is memory (an experienced continuity of relations internal to the col-
lectives of pure experience), where the latter indicates that the self has memory
that is correctable (an experienced continuity of relations external to the dis-
crete experiences related). Thus I argue that to be a self consists in having
memory insofar as it is memory and consists in being memory insofar as it has
memory. The immediate and mediate states require and imply each other. In its
narrative state, we find a kind of reflection and abstraction from the stream of
experience, which is also a differentiation or a particular mediation of differ-
ent pieces of experiences already retained. Hence, recollective experience, in
reflection, relates itself externally to what is already retained, and as such, runs
into both conjunctive and disjunctive relations with retained members. How-
ever, this recollective experience is still additive to the process itself, and it is
in this way that remembering, just like knowing, is a transformative act. Yet,
this transformative activity assumes retention of previous experienced rela-

tions and their lived quality: it is both a re-membering and a dis-membering
of these retained members or associates in experience by creating a difference
or a mediation regarding their lived quality. The complex nature of remember-
ing arises from the fact that remembering always takes place here and now, in
the instant field of the present. Yet, what is remembered is a thing of the past,
or something remote, that is an associate of experiences absent, and moreover,
felt as absent though still kept in the mind, or in the margins of the field of pure
experiences virtually. What I claim is that, in its immediate aspect, the experi-
ence of remembering is a flux, an undifferentiated continuity of the modalities
of time. Yet, in its mediated aspect, the remembered contents and relations can
be variously discriminated and re-collected, and therefore, set into a different
system or collection of associates. Above all, what we remember belongs to
a that which retains itself in the subliminal fringes or margins of the field of
experience, and the doubling of that in retrospection into an act of remember-
ing (a state of mind) and a content of remembering (reality as remembered) is
a transformative act effacing the purity of the act of remembering. I would not
consider this transformation in terms of a mournful impossibility of recovering
and reliving our past experiences as just the way they were. Memory, I believe,
is most valuable not as a record of experience, but as a mode of encountering
and shaping it. Given this character, Jamess humanism could be interpreted as
expressing our transformative contribution to reality. However, we must first
come to terms with the possibility of we in radical empiricism.
JA M E S S H U M A N I S M A S D I S C L O S I N G T H E M E A N I N G O F W E
The above exposition leads us to consider the question of the collectivity of

experiences as yielding knowledge and truth, and in particular, to our question
of historical knowledge and truth. Can we draw from Jamess account of truth
and objective reference implications for the truth of narrated and remembered
events? In both cases, the matter is empirical, and truth consists in pragmatic
verification. James Conant states that against Josiah Royces challenge that
the only way to avoid solipsism is to postulate an absolute knower,37
Jamess response would consist in the following: pragmatism, as much as
absolutism, requires a wide knower but not too wide.38 Moreover, Conant
claims as follows:
James . . . wishes to conceive of pragmatic verification in both holistic and intersubjective terms.
His frequent appeals to experience are now to be interpreted as appeals to the totality of human
experience, including both (diachronic) appeals to the past and future of mankind as well as
(synchronic) appeals to the collectivity of human experience.39
As such, Jamess account of truth is a humanistic conception coupled with

radical empiricism refusing an absolute standard for truth, and yet recognizing
that truth must remain in some way external to the individual experiencing sub-
ject. As Conant argues, James tries to eschew appeal to an absolute standpoint
beyond the experience of all possible thinkers, by locating the source of
truth in the collective experience of finite judging subjects.40 Given all these,
I claim that from a Jamesian perspective we can interpret our humanistic con-
tribution to reality by carving its That into a What, as the art of memory, i.e.,
the re-collection of the collective experience of mankind as a whole over
the historical long run.41 For James, there is only one edition of the universe,
unfinished, growing in all sorts of places, especially in the places where think-
ing beings at work, but not two as one from the standpoint of finite human
experiences and one from the absolute standpoint.42 In order to expose my
statement that this one edition of the universe is the work of memory under-
stood as the collective experiences of the mankind, I shall first deal with the
charge of solipsism.
How could we think Jamess approach to the problem of solipsism in rela-
tion to his humanism? Although, James does not directly address the problem
of solipsism, or the question of the existence of other minds, he addresses
the charge claiming that radical empiricism cannot explain how the notion
of a physical order, as distinguished from a subjectively biographical order, of
experiences, ever arose.43 This charge proceeds to show the problem of objec-
tive reference in Jamess radical empiricism given that he refuses to accept a
static, transcendent realm of truth or objects being wholly independent from
our experiential operations. He gives his response to this charge in an indirect
manner, by referring to his doctrine of the reality of conjunctive relations.44
Do our minds have no object in common, which are nothing but contexts,
or collections of certain conjunctive relations given through the flow of experi-
ences? This is the question of objective reference. As James claims, personal
consciousness is the name for a series of experiences run together by certain
definite transitions, and an objective reality is a series of similar experiences
knit by different transitions.45 The object is nothing but a series of experiences
taken in its multiple conjunctive relations, an object at which we arrive from
different paths. James claims that practically . . . our minds meeting in a world
of objects which they share in common46 is not a problem offering logical
and epistemological difficulties; it stands or falls with the general possibility of
things being in conjunctive relation with other things at all.47 Therefore, if our
multiple experiences terminate in the same object by transforming a that of our
immediate experience into a what of mediate knowledge, it is possible to say
that we know the same object, and have an object in common. The problem
concerning solipsism dissolves here at this point.
There is one more point to be made, which may turn out to be significant
for the following arguments of my paper. James, in his doctrine of the real-
ity of conjunctive relations, claims that relations are of different degrees of
intimacy.48 Among the most intimate of all conjunctive relations is the one
which is to experience ones personal continuum in a living way, i.e., the con-
tinuity of self in the absence of the feeling of break and in a sense of continuity
as passing of one experience into another.49 In other words, James states as
follows: The organization of the Self as a system of memories, purposes, striv-
ings, fulfillments or disappointments, is incidental to this most intimate of all
relations, the terms of which seem in many cases actually to compenetrate and
suffuse each others being.50 There, in the self, the transition from a particular
content to another is experienced as continuous. However, James claims that
when I seek to make the transition from an experience of my own to one of
yours we cannot avoid the break and the discontinuity-experience.51
Above all, we must still show how we arrive at the same object. This is the
problem how truth happens to an idea. However, this pragmatic conception of
truth could dissolve the problem only in an empirical way. It is empirical in the
sense that only by meeting in the same, which happens by pointing, bodily
gestures, leading, guiding, that is, in all these spatial operations, and in multiple
expressive ways, we are authorized to assume other minds knowing the same
object, or an objective reference for multiple streams of consciousnesses.52
What is more interesting in Jamess response to the challenge of solipsism is
that he insists that the object of knowledge does not stand independently as a
thing against multiple subjects. The objective referential framework is a prod-
uct of the relations of experiences. This objective framework is immanent to
experience, but not immanent to our personal consciousnesses. Now, with his
conception of truth, James insists on the difference between subjective and
objective referential frameworks, but it is a difference drawn within experi-
ence. Even if our objects that our minds terminate at are numerically identical,
our lived-experiences could not be numerically identical. The whole issue is to
understand this qualitative difference between our lived-experiences as always
assuming our personal histories. The object of my immediate experience is
not only an object for my consciousness, but also belongs to the conjunc-
tive relations in experience, which I take hold of in a particular series and
appropriate as mine. I take it as withholding a certain dynamic significance
by relating it to other appropriated experiences of mine. This feeling of sig-
nificance, which I can only share with others by using language and bodily
expressions, could not itself be experienced directly by others. This feeling
of significance is irrecoverable in its immediacy. It is a particular significance
standing in an external relation to the thing, but also internal to my experience
of the thing. The source of this significance resides in the plural experiences
that I experience as continuous, and accommodate as indicating the drama of

my mental series. What is the relation between the significance of the thing
from my personal perspective, that is, in relation to my personal subjective
referential framework, and the thing serving as an objective reference of our
knowledge, or the thing we share in remembering or knowing it? In both cases,
James would argue that the thing occupies a place, or a time, that is, it stands
in an external relation to the significance that I give to it. However, given that
it stands in an external relation to the significance I give to it, this does not nec-
essarily indicate that it is something substantial over and above our experience
or that it was there long before we arrive at it.
What seems to be decisive in Jamess approach to the problem is that
although we may not experience the same thing in its qualitative immediacy
there is always a subjective context or a perspective taking our knowledge
has an objective reference, and also our recollective experiences, at least, must
have an intersubjective reference. James has a deep confidence in the possibil-
ity that we can point to the same object and we can meet in the same place.
Does this mean that even if only I have a privileged access (immediate access)
to the contents of my mind, these contents do also have an objective and/or
intersubjective reference? James tries to solve the riddle by claiming that both
the personal subjective, private context and the common, objective, public con-
text are the contexts of experience taken as a whole and, therefore, they are
both empirically real. The reality of the former can only be detected in an indi-
rect fashion, or in different words, others cannot share directly my memories
or experiences. Only by means of an inference from their own cases, they can
understand what and how I feel. This requires sharing, that is, intimacy with the
other as sharing time and place, expressive communication, and interpretation.
Moreover, place is introduced as having this privileged status in dissolving the
problem of solipsism, since the act of pointing assumes pointing to a posi-
tion, pointing to here or there, and now and then. Does this amount
to say that what is there is known as a fact by just being there? If being
there indicates the place taken as an objective reference in which the con-
junctive relations in experience terminate, then James would answer positively
to this question. It is impossible to have knowledge and memory without an
experiential context that involves concrete durations and concrete extensions.
Experience, taken as a whole, forms the ultimate referential framework though
it is never given as such. Can we say that truth, the knowledge of truth, and
the truth of memory happen when we meet in the same place at the right time?
At least, James introduces this meeting as the only motive and ground for
assuming the collectivity of consciousnesses and for their sharing ability. This
will open the discussion in the concluding section of my paper: the place of
memory. Let us refer to Jamess words once more:
In general terms, then, whatever differing contents of our minds may eventually fill a place with,
the place itself is a numerically identical content of two minds a piece of common property in
which, through which and over which they join. The receptacle of certain of our experiences being
thus common, the experiences themselves might some day become common also.53
In one of his earlier works, James uses the metaphor republican banquet
in order to signify the intimacy enjoyed in our world given the continua of
memory or personal consciousness, of which we are, and of time and of
space in which we partake and are at home.54 Moreover, he claims as follows:
Whoso partakes of a thing enjoys his share, and comes into contact with the thing and its other
partakers. His share in no wise negates the thing or their share . . . Why may not the world be a sort
of republican banquet of this sort, where all the qualities of being respect one anothers personal
sacredness, yet sit at the common table of space and time?55
The answer is as follows: it may be and it may not be. James recognizes this
contingency in terms of his moral view, i.e., being open to the contingencies of
the world as irreducible. Besides he argues that conflicts among the elements
mutually contingent and separate arise only when as mutually exclusive pos-
sibilities, they strive to possess themselves of the same parts of time, space, and
ego.56 Finally James asserts that That there are such real conflicts, irreducible
to any intelligence, and giving rise to an excess of possibility over actuality, is
a hypothesis, but a credible one.57
I find it remarkable how Henry James, the younger brother of William
James, in his short novel, The Beast in the Jungle, provides a narrative, which
may in a metaphorical way clarify our point.58 In this short novel, Henry James
perfectly portrays how a possible love affair could not take place because of the
egotism, and probably, the solipsism of the main character, John Marcher, who
could not recognize and share May Bertrams affections for him. The charac-
ters, John Marcher and May Bertram, could not meet in the same place at the
right time, though from the beginning of the novel through the end they were
next to each other. When they seemed to be together, John Marcher was stuck
by his own personal thoughts about his expectation of an extraordinary event
that will inevitably happen to him in a very unique way. He was obsessed with
the thought that this anticipated unique event will distinguish him in a perfect
and unique manner. In other words, he was awaiting the beast in the jungle,
or a unique event that will mark his whole life, and qualify it in a very specific
sense. May Bertram was waiting as well without putting her personal sacred-
ness on their common table, that is, without confessing her affections and love
to Marcher, though she was ready to do if she had seen a sign from Marcher
that he is with her here and now. In the passing years, at some point, May
Bertram gave Marcher the impression that she had known what this unique
extraordinary event awaiting him was. She continued to keep it as a secret till
she died and asked him not to ask. What she knew is never explicitly expressed
in the novel, and yet long after her death, with Marchers illuminative experi-
ence in a day at the cemetery, we learn whatever might have happened or not
happened in a very vague way. He confronted with it in the cemetery just after
he meets the face of a fellow-mortal . . . with an expression like the cut of a
blade, which left him in wonder: What had the man had to make him, by loss
of it, so bleed and yet alive? Marcher, in a sudden illumination, finds out that
the man has something that he himself had not: a life, a sharing in life and shar-
ing of life. The event that might have happened or not happened could be their
love affair, but since the May had already passed away without recognition,
the unique extraordinary event that would mark his life actually turned out to
be the futile character of his own personal history, i.e. the recognized terminus
of all his past was, in fact, a bare nothing. The truth of the event the beast
becomes his shallow personality and a life that is not thoroughly lived, i.e., a
shallow life to which nothing on earth was to have happened.59 The novel
ends by declaring that this is, in fact, the horror of waking the knowledge,
i.e., the terrible awakening from an egotism. The truth that was confessed to
him, full in the face, was she was what he had missed, the awful truth the
answer to all the past, and finally, he saw the Jungle of his life.60 He meets
the event of his existence, the truth, and yet, he had seen outside of his life,
not learned within, the way a woman was mourned when she had been loved
for herself.61 The truth of the event as learned within and through life, could
be interpreted as the truth of memory, and of mourning, which could only take
place if we, each, are a particular life, have a life, and share a life that we can
remember and mourn for each other. As such, this life requires a strenuous and
melioristic effort to render the world of ours a republican banquet. This, I
believe, is the germ of William Jamess humanistic conception of truth.
For James, truth happens to an idea and his humanistic conception of truth
consists in carving the material of experience (the simple that affecting us
immediately) and producing its referential objective framework (by transform-
ing that into a what) according to our purposes, needs, interests, desires,
expectations and previous knowledge. In verification, we return what we take
from experience. Our taking is always private, but our returning must be cor-
rigible and public. This returning back verification is not an act of mere
justification of what was already true. Rather, the whole continuous deal is the
happening of truth. Our ideas lead or guide us to truth not in the sense of tran-
scending to what stands over and beyond us in an indifferent and independent
fashion, but in the sense of producing the result that they aim at. This is the rea-
son why James compares knowing with other practical activities. This carving
of experience excludes some elements and includes others, but it is a contin-
uous dynamic activity. James believes that this carving aims at what is good,
that is, satisfying a demand, and it is always provisional. This is how we build
up world-views, schemes of reference, norms and values in which we operate
and live. This is the human addition signifying the humanism of James. It is
an addition to what we can have no control given its affection. Recall Jamess
metaphor: we receive in short the block of marble, but we carve the statue
ourselves.62 Moreover, he says,
What we say about reality thus depends on the perspective into which we throw it. The that of it
is its own; but the what depends on the which; and the which depends on us. Both the sensational
and relational parts of reality are dumb: they say absolutely nothing about themselves. We it is
who have to speak for them.63
The critical question here is who we are: a position, a collection enjoying

coherency in relative degrees, collective memories, or a wider self serving
as a measure for our public meeting in the same place, without which we would
be lost in the idiosyncrasies of our solipsistic takings or culturally solipsistic
world-views?
William James introduces his radical empiricism as his Weltanschauung.
It is a humanistic world-view that should be measured according to its own
standards, that is, according to its claims and the practical consequences of
these claims. It takes for granted the self-supporting and self-containing char-
acter of experience as a whole. Does James invoke a form of holism? Is
experience as a whole a common medium opening up to pluralism: not only
to a common medium to which we each belong, but also a medium through
which we are distinguished from each other as this-particular-person-having-
these-particular-experiences?
What does James mean by humanism? What could his humanism say about
who we are? James takes for granted that we each, in our distinct ways, run
through a particular course of experiences, appropriate them as mine, reflect
back on the relations given through our particular streams of experiences, and
abstract from them in order to communicate, classify, narrate, and know. If we
want to call ourselves as consciousnesses, we are nothing but a certain func-
tion. Moreover, the cognitive functions that we perform are all seated in the
same place that accommodate different processes that we are running, and
this points to the possibility of true, fallible, shared, common, communicable
world of plural experiences. Experience as a whole is as such a unique unit
that embodies multiple units and layers, which we each experience as our per-
sonal streams of consciousnesses. Is it nothing but the collection or the network
of multiple schemes of reference opening to a plurality of temporal processes,
which are nothing but us?
Experience as a whole is our ultimate reference which requires a con-
stant framing and re-framing, and also collecting and re-collecting, that is, our
human addition. By following the path of experience, we all work through our
way by laying the mosaics on which we stand. This is the sole meaning of
humanism for James, which seems to be at odds with solipsism even though
James wants to reserve a private immediate sphere of affection. As James says,
For pluralistic pragmatism, truth grows up inside of all the finite experiences. They lean on each
other, but the whole of them, if such a whole there be, leans on nothing. All homes are in finite
experience; finite experience as such is homeless. Nothing outside the flux secures the issue of it.
It can hope salvation only from its own intrinsic promises and potencies.64
All our conceptual, mental, linguistic, epistemological operations, and also

our cultural practices and traditions are these homes in experience. For
James, philosophy, which tries to settle or searches for ultimate grounds over
and beyond finite experiences, is homesick, far and away from home, that
is, in estrangement. Does not philosophy, however, consist in the interro-
gation of what seems to be homely or familiar, and in acknowledging
the unacknowledged presumptions of these finite homes? The response to
this question assumes Jamess confrontation with Hegelian Absolute. The
background of this philosophical confrontation is Jamess intimacy criterion.
JA M E S S S P I R I T UA L I S M : I N T I M AC Y I N A P L U R A L I S T I C
UNIVERSE
James, at different times, undertakes the problem of the one and the many. His
approach to the problem eventually leads to his sympathetic consideration of
Gustav Fechners panpsychic philosophy, a pluralistic pantheism, and Henri
Bergsons critique of intellectualism. Under the light of this consideration, in
A Pluralistic Universe, James inquires the way to satisfy his intimacy crite-
rion a philosophy satisfying the existential demand of intimacy by raising
the question of the possibility of compounding of consciousness, collectivity of
experiences, or compounding of experiences in a wider scope without recourse
to any intellectualist trick. His engagement with this question is also motivated
by the fact that religious experiences can be accounted as the outcome of a need
for an ideal order, or hope for a better universe, which is thought to be guar-
anteed by a wider world-soul with which we are continuous, and from which
saving experiences, consolation, or transformations in well-being may come.
Indeed, all these concerns and inquiries about the coherency of plural experi-
ences and their collectivity in a wider scope must be undertaken in experiential
terms. This means that the consciousnesses that may compound themselves
would also remain parts, or do not necessarily loose their identity, or personal
qualitative differences, while compounding. Thus James considers collective
consciousness (human or nonhuman) as a live hypothesis only in so far as the
world is a world of many and one, and the relations of experiences are conjunc-
tive and disjunctive, or internal and external relations. In other words, James
opens up the possibility of spirituality as rendering the universe more intimate
only if the world is not the world of Spirit but a pluralistic universe with a spirit
wider yet still finite, immanent, and temporal than each of our own personal
stream of experiences. Here, Jamess pluralism and empiricism suggests that
in addition to a background of intimacy, we also live against the background of
an unaccomplished, imperfect, and an irreducibly temporal universe in which
we struggle. James claims as follows:
The pluralistic universe is thus more like a federal republic than like an empire or a kingdom.
However much may be collected, however much may report itself as present at any effective centre
of consciousness or action, something else is self-governed and absent and unreduced to unity.65
Jamess use of the metaphor federal republic is quite significant for the
purposes of our inquiry since it characterizes the way in which there will
always and everywhere be some residual resistance to verbalization, formula-
tion, and discursification, some genius of reality that escapes from the pressure
of the logical finger, that says hands off, and claims its privacy, and means to
be left to its own life.66 This is how James stresses on the irreducible otherness,
and the role of many in experience resulting from the plurality of perspec-
tives we take for our particular purposes, and out of our selective comportment
to reality. There is an indeterminacy enjoyed, but also suffered within this uni-
verse owing to the element of chance and novelty in the continuous flow of the
field of experiences given that the centre and the margins of this field run into
each other dynamically. It is, in this way, the whole field of experience retains
and anticipates the unactualized possibilities which are, as in recollection and
expectation, continuous with the actual. In the Jamesian pluralistic world of
experience, there is an inexhaustible haunting sense of futurity and past, which
is responsible for the fact that the world is a world of both many and one.
There is no ultimate interpretation or an exhaustive framework that could log-
ically envelope, and finally account for the experience of possible existential
occurrences and relations. As a conclusion, we may refer to Jamess words
against the ultimate and rational unity of the universe in The Sentiment of
Rationality:
. . . when all things have been unified to the supreme degree, the notion of a possible other than
the actual may still haunt our imagination and prey upon our system. The bottom of being is left
logically opaque to us, as something which we simply come upon and find, and about which (if
we wish to act) we should pause and wonder as little as possible.67
For James, reality gives itself, and its datum is a gift for which are thank-
ful. There is no inherent intelligibility in its giving. This gift, its being given,
exceeds an economy that an absolute intelligence may formulate, and since

its bottom is opaque, we cannot trace its origins. Its gift is the trace that we
can only find. Collection of these traces into networks or systems in different
conjunctive relations is the ground of our cognitive, cultural, and spiritual life
in the widest possible sense. This is the way James finds himself encountering
the metaphysical monster, i.e., the Absolute, in Hegelian jungle.
C O N F R O N T I N G T H E M E TA P H Y S I C A L M O N S T E R :
THE ABSOLUTE
If James and Hegel were contemporaries, how would they encounter each
other? How would Hegel respond to Jamess interpretation in Hegel and his
Method?68 James, in this essay, does not argue for or against Hegel. He also
drops any claim to understand the Hegelian procedure. As he says, he treats it
impressionistically, which may amount to say that he portrays it in a spon-
taneous manner by taking the object, its shadow and background as fused
together, or as blending into one another.69 In other words, what James aims
is to paint what he sees by capturing his impression of light in a scene (the
Hegelian one). The light of Hegelian scene is claimed to be non-empirical, or
it is the light of reason under which the Hegelian scene flourishes.70 Jamess
impression of this light of reason enlightening the plurality of experiences in a
uniform and all-inclusive way leads the main structure of his essay. To further
the metaphorical language here, we could perhaps say that James envisions the
vision of Hegel.
How do these visions and their portraying of reality stand to each other?
Could we describe the relation between them as inclusive or as exclusive? If
it were possible to describe it as inclusive, Hegels vision would be the cham-
pion since it is claimed to be not a personal vision of a particular philosopher,
but the speculative vision of philosophical thinking (sophia), which in order
to prove its wisdom, must also embrace the claims of partial and provisional
perspectives, that is, it must acknowledge the plural perspectives at the heart
of its philosophical vision. This is what Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit (or
The Science of the Experience of Consciousness) tries to accomplish.71 The
philosopher becomes the witness in the whole survey of the shapes or forms of
experience that lean on each other by revealing themselves to the observer as
interdependent, supportive, collective, and corrective only in an all-inclusive
unity. Hegel claims to inspect their togetherness in the way they exhibit an
internal relation that takes place within the self-movement of experience. This
is what James finds at worst as superficial, and at best, as hypothetical. The
whole success of Hegelian vision would depend on showing how what is the
case is envisioned as what must be the case, that is, it will succeed if experience
has an intelligible structure of its own.
In Phenomenology, the plurality captured in its unity, or identity-in-
difference (the essential characterization of Absolute in Hegel) is portrayed
in terms of a gallery of images in which all actualized forms of seeing
are brought together to exhibit their internal relations as constituting the self-
recollection of Spirit.72 For James, these shapes, or images could be in an
exhaustively internal relation to each other only under a specific light assum-
ing a power, an ability, which we could never take hold of: the light of Platonic
Sun, the Idea or the Absolute. Hegel would name this power as speculative
thinking. This light under which Hegel catches and portrays the whole scene
of his vision aims to disclose what proves itself to be rational in the whole
form of existence. This is the meaning of actuality (Wirklichkeit) in Hegel. An
existence, or being, gains a degree of actuality, and so intelligibility, only in so
far as it fully acknowledges its limits by testing and risking itself. This is to
gain further determination in its course of existence.
While speculative vision tries to dig deeper by means of re-visioning, re-
collecting and gradually interiorizing the modes of its knowing, pluralistic
vision expects to make more contribution to its vision by adding new expe-
riences to the older stock of them. As James claims, for the speculative
vision
The true must be essentially the self-reflecting self-contained recurrent, that which secures itself by
including its own other and negating it; that makes a spherical system with no loose ends hanging
out for foreignness to get a hold upon; that is forever rounded in and closed, not strung along
rectilinearly and open at its ends like that universe of simply collective or additive form which
Hegel calls the world of the bad infinite, and which is all that empiricism, starting with simply
posited single parts and elements, is ever able to attain to.73
What James rejects in Hegels philosophy is the devotion attached to the

activity of recollecting the actualized intelligible forms of experience in a
perfectly accomplished fashion. Hegels philosophy takes an all-inclusive nar-
rative form, and James would inevitably be one of the characters in the drama,
but only in its finite edition. Nevertheless James would feel himself at home
since, for him, this is the only edition of the drama. However Hegel would find
him estranged if he viewed Jamess partial perspective from the second edition
of the drama, i.e., the Absolute edition, just as he finds the natural conscious-
ness of Phenomenology who suffers violence at its own hands estranged by
refusing to move beyond itself.74
Against Hegels absolute spirit and intellectualist philosophical discourse,
James defends a philosophical vision friendly to the flux of life, from which
all we can demand is a view of a world of experiences, which is still in the
making, and open to more intimacy by providing a relative collectivity without

a final achievement, or perfection. It is judged to be more intimate because
there is no difference between the standpoints of the finite and the infinite.
Jamess interpretation of universe from a social analogy, and of intimacy as a
task to make the world better and more familiar, invokes a practical agenda for
feeling ourselves more at home in a pluralistic universe. However, this practical
agenda could only be undertaken and accomplished in an imperfect and finite
manner, given that there is always more to come in a world of experiences.
Recall what James claims in Pragmatism: All homes are in finite experi-
ence; finite experience as such is homeless. Nothing outside the flux secures
the issue of it. It can hope salvation only from its own intrinsic promises
and potencies.75 For James, this intimacy requires a philosophical account of
co-conscious experiences and compounding of consciousnesses. I argue that
Jamess notion of intimacy suggests a possible collectivity of memories as
a shared and continuous transition of experiences in the sense of forming a
republican banquet. We, each of us, may partake of this banquet and enjoy
our share by sitting at the common table of space and time. However, this is
a loose ensemble which can be qualified as open to novelty, that is, as retaining
and anticipating the disruptive power of undetermined, or not-yet determined,
fringe-like relations of both past and future experiences that lay at the mar-
gins, or the undercurrents of the flow of differing fields of experience, which
are related both disjunctively and conjunctively. This means that there is no
logical or intelligible security that can protect the coherency of experiences. In
contrast, the Hegelian Spirit, which through the end of Phenomenology gives
its existential shape over to recollection, absolves from the experiences that
it suffers in and through time, by interiorizing and recovering the truth of its
journey the gallery of images (different forms of experiences it undergoes
as forming an intelligible coherency) as the self-knowledge of its own com-
munal, absolute spirituality.76 Hence, this absolute self-knowledge of the spirit
is nothing but an accomplishment of the work of recollection in a perfected
manner, i.e., a perfectly accomplished mourning.
Given their different accounts, the comparison I draw between Jamess and
Hegels visions of collectivity respectively, as a republican banquet, and as a
total spiritual and speculative act of recollection absolving itself from the table
in order to digest the remains of the banquet (the intelligibility of its perfected
life) reflects the tension between living forwards and understanding back-
wards. In this regard, we can refer to two different modes of re-membering:
a recuperative and pragmatic mode full of Jamesian insights, and a sacrifi-
cial and speculative mode full of Hegelian insights. The former is oriented to
action and to future novelty in a melioristic manner by re-membering experi-
ences through different transitions and contextualization made in and through
experiences so as to make finite homes within and through the flux of life.
The latter is oriented to the past and to the acknowledgement of the intelligibil-
ity always already immanent and operative in the past forms of experience in a
speculative manner by acknowledging the unacknowledged presumptions and
the partiality of the homes in finite experiences. What we may draw from
their different visions in the name of a collective memory would indicate a
real, and therefore, a practical difference.
T H E A RT O F C O L L E C T I V E M E M O RY
Finally, I shall end my paper by raising an account of memory (continuity

and collectivity of past experiences) as kept alive, pragmatic, collective, and
dynamic in the direction of the flux of our differing fields of experiences. Col-
lective memories we share with each other as co-experiences are always in
the plural, and related to the context of retention, retrieval and re-membering
of not-yet determined relations within experience. Therefore, the continuity of
past with the present and the future is open to revision and change. Remember-
ing is always transformative.77 Moreover, I regard the work of memory not only
as taking place of the past, but also as an opening to the non-actualized, non-
thought possibilities which enjoy a certain reality in the fringe-like relations of
past and future experiences. I claim that these possibilities have disruptive and
transformative power in producing novelty.
The approach that I propose aims to relocate the philosophical concept of
memory in a perspective that acknowledges life, or becoming, in terms of its
excessive dynamism. In doing this, I regard the question of collectivity of our
experiences and their recollection in pragmatic and empirical terms without
loosing a sense of our being together, i.e., the ground of our sharing this life.
I also argued that meeting in the same place is the way truth happens, and
this event is the work of collective memory through which we find ourselves
at home. The work of collective memory is individualized and embodied in
the artworks, in institutions and their practices, or even in a simple banquet
gathering friends with whom we eat well, and remember well. It is immanent
in the dwellings we inhabit, and therefore, it signifies our world, and in an
empirical manner, qualifies our being-there and being-together.
We could finally incorporate Edward Caseys proposal in Keeping the Past
in Mind, which turns out to be very significant for the prospects of this
inquiry.78 His proposal is against the approaches which consider memory from
an exclusively mental or naturalistic perspective. Casey shows us a way of
leading memory understood as remaining with or abiding by what we
come to be mindful of out of mind into the lived world, where the things
come to us bearing the past manifestly. He claims as follows:
They come to us bearing the past manifestly in monuments, relics, and mementoes, less obviously
but just as forcefully in the dwellings we inhabit (buildings bear memories as much as our bodies
do), and still less obviously but crucially in the collective memories we share with each other as
co-experiences of certain situations.79
In addition, Casey provides an account of how the past is kept in place as

follows:
How then is this possible? Primarily by places active power of holding memories for us. The
hold is held in place. This is not mysterious; it does not require invoking a World Soul. It is a given
particular place that holds significant memories of ours, acting as a veritable gathering place for
them . . . Place furnishes a matrix for mergings of many kinds most obviously of past with present
. . . (Indeed the remembered past does not merely terminate in the present of remembering but can
be said to begin there, and to do so every time we recall it. Keeping in memory is a continual
re-keeping: hence the many variant versions of the same past with which we regale ourselves in
remembering and which lead us naturally to assimilate remembering to story-telling.80
Given Caseys proposal that the past is kept in place, we may consider
the fundamental experience of remembering not as exclusively temporal, ori-
ented to past, and dedicated to personal consciousness or identity, but also
as related to future, to place, and more significantly, dedicated to our meet-
ing and sharing a place with others, human or non-human, i.e., with other
humans, co-experiencing the thing that bears the past manifestly in an active
and transformative way. I believe Casey here thinks in line with James:
Place, then, plain old place, proves to be a liberating factor in matters of memory and mind. An
appreciation of the place of place in our experience helps to free us from the naturalistic and men-
talistic straitjackets within which both mind and memory have for too long been confined. Memory
of place offers a way out of this confinement and back into the lived world, while encouraging us
to rethink mind itself as continuous with this world, coterminous with it, and actively passive (or
passively active) there.81
I believe that this approach to one of our modes of experience remem-

bering that lies at the source of almost all of our capabilities could give a
phenomenological and pragmatic cash-value of the meaning of our spirituality
without a Spirit.82 We would not be in need of invoking Jamess panpsychic
attitude, nor a world-soul, if we give an account of memory in its collec-
tive form. In this regard, this notion of collective memory could also realize
an understanding of social and cultural forms, our practices, and products as
expressions and embodiments of a collectively shared memories and experi-
ences. As James says, to be remembered is to be felt as familiar, and therefore,
as intimate, as sharing time and place. The act of remembering, then, is a
strenuous art and cultivation which operates in and through the republican
banquet that happens around the table of time and place.
Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

NOTES
1
William James, The Sentiment of Rationality, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in
Philosophy, (New York: Dover Publications, 1956), p. 63.
2
Ibid. p. 64.
3
William James, A Pluralistic Universe, (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press,
1996), p. 21. Hereafter, I refer to this work with the abbreviation APU.
4
APU, p. 20.
5
Ibid., p. 31.
6
Ibid., p. 12.
7
C. Jason Throop, Articulating Experience, in Anthropological Theory, vol. 3(2), 2003, pp.
219241. See p. 228.
8
Bruce W. Wilshire, Introduction, William James: The Essential Writings, (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1984), p. xxiv.
9
ERE, p. 71.
10
David C. Lamberth, William James and the Metaphysics of Experience, (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1999), pp. 9495.
11
William James, Essays in Radical Empiricism, (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska
Press, 1996), p. 42. Hereafter, I refer to this work with the abbreviation ERE.
12
William James, Preface, Pragmatism and the Meaning of Truth, (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1981), p. 173.
13
ERE, p. 10.
14
Ibid., pp. 34.
15
Ibid., pp. 910.
16
Ibid., p. 23.
17
Bruce.W. Wilshire, The Breathtaking Intimacy of the Material World: William Jamess
Last Thoughts, in The Cambridge Companion to William James, Ruth Anna Putnam (ed.),
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 109.
18
David C. Lamberth, William James and the Metaphysics of Experience, (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1999).
19
Bruce.W. Wilshire, The Breathtaking Intimacy of the Material World: William Jamess Last
Thoughts in The Cambridge Companion to William James, p. 109.
20
David C. Lamberth, William James and the Metaphysics of Experience, p. 193.
21
Ibid., p. 29.
22
Ibid., p. 30. Lamberth uses this characterization for the function of knowing, but I claim that
we can treat the function of memory in the same way.
23
ERE, p. 27.
24
Charles A Hobbs, Was James a Phenomenologist?, in Streams of William James, vol.5
issue 3, Fall 2003, p. 13.
25
ERE, p. 160.
26
Ibid., p. 42.
27
Ibid., pp. 8687.
28
Ibid., p. 47.
29
William James, Pragmatism and The Meaning of Truth, p. 67.
30
William James, On Some Hegelisms, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Philosophy,
p. 264.
31
32
Ibid., p. 87.
33
See for the first ERE, pp. 7691, and for the latter APU, pp. 181221.
34
ERE, p. 15.
35
Ibid., p. 12.
36
Ibid., pp. 2123.
37
James Conant, The James/Royce Dispute and the Development of Jamess Solution, The
Cambridge Companion to William James, Ruth Anna Putnam (ed.), (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997), p. 194.
38
Ibid., p. 195.
39
Ibid., p. 194.
40
Ibid., p. 196.
41
See Ibid., p. 196. He claims for this collective experience of mankind as the largest possible
community through which James tries to show how the standard of truth precipitates.
42
43
ERE, p. 235.
44
Ibid., p. 236.
45
Ibid., p. 80.
46
Ibid., p. 79.
47
Ibid., pp. 8182.
48
Ibid., p. 44.
49
Ibid., p. 50.
50
Ibid., p. 45.
51
Ibid., p. 49.
52
Ibid., p. 77.
53
Ibid., pp. 8586.
54
William James, On Some Hegelisms, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Philosophy,
p. 264.
55
Ibid., p. 270.
56
Ibid., p. 294.
57
Ibid., p. 294.
58
Henry James, The Beast in the Jungle, Great Short Works of HenryJames (New York: Harper
and Row Publishers, 1966), pp. 447490.
59
Ibid. p. 489.
60
Ibid. pp. 488489.
61
Ibid. p. 488.
62
63
Ibid., p. 118.
64
Ibid., p. 125.
65
APU, pp. 321322.
66
William James, A Pluralistic Mystic, Essays in Philosophy, (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1978), pp. 189, 190.
67
William James, The Sentiment of Rationality, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in
Philosophy, p. 73.
68
APU, pp. 85129.
69
Ibid., p. 92.
70
Ibid., p. 91.
71
G.F.W. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, A.V. Miller (trans.) (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1977) .
72
Ibid., p. 492.
73
APU, pp. 103104.
74
G.F.W. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, p. 51.
75
76
G.F.W. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, p. 492.
77
See John McCumber, Introduction: Transforming Thought, Endings: Questions Of Memory
in Hegel and Heidegger, Rebecca Comay and John McCumber (eds.), (Illinois: Northwestern
University Press, 1999), pp. 125.
78
Edward S. Casey, Keeping the Past in Mind, American Continental Philosophy: A Reader,
Walter Brogan and James Risser (eds.), (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Pres,
2000), pp. 241257.
79
Ibid. p. 248.
80
Ibid. p. 251.
81
Ibid. p. 252.
82
John J. Stuhr raises the possibility of re-location of spiritualism, and the pragmatic meaning of
spirituality in James. He finds meliorism, that is, hope and hard-work in the service of genuine
pluralism and ordinary life as the only valuable contribution that any philosophy might maket to
the ongoing renewal of thought and life (p. 200). See John J. Stuhr, Chapter 10: No Consolation:
Life without Spirituality, Philosophy without Transcendence, Pragmatism, Postmodernism and
the Future of Philosophy, (New York: Routledge, 2003), pp. 189205.
ISMAIL SERIN
C A N R E A S O N R E G U L AT E T H E R E A L I T Y B Y W H I C H
W E E X P E R I E N C E T H E L I F E A S O U R P R I VAT E L I F E ?
ABSTRACT
In this paper I will attempt to show that modern individual as a knowing sub-
ject has been constructed as such that (s)he is incapable of forming a private
life. Since Kants Copernican revolution in philosophy, the regulative capac-
ity of human reason, among other things, is accepted as the primary judge to
know the nature in general and to understand the human beings within their
social context. Though the decisive successes of reason on the side of nature,
and its holy victories over the humanity, it is still far away from generat-
ing a private life for each individual. Modern individuals are not free and/or
autonomous persons, they have to be, more or less, one of the parts of a
whole. The more we become an individual, the less we experience the life
as private.
Despite its complicated nature which is under continuous effects of the social
phenomena, human reason always is accepted as the primary representative
for ourselves. We all aspire to be true to ourselves, to be today what we were
yesterday, to fulfill our promises. says Michael Kochin (Kochin 2002, p. 691).
Since the history of our bodily existence and our personal past are essentially
two different things, the will to have integrity with our body and our personality
produces an inevitable tension. For instance, we may remember that we run fast
while we were young, but now we know that we cannot run fast like in those
years. Our memories create a picture of personality which exists no longer.
Our experiences about life in general is, in my opinion, not only determined
by the physical phenomena but also is shaped by the socio-cultural factors.
In this paper, leaving aside the physical phenomena, I would rather focus on
the socio-cultural factors shaping our individualities. Each one of us ought to
regard his or her life as supremely important and appreciate, through this, that
this is equally true of everyone else. What the classical-individualist position
comes to, then, is a view that guides one to be virtuous in the sense that will
enhance ones life as a human being. Since what it is to be human is to have
the basic capacity to think and act rationally, doing so will be the broadest
imperative of this ethical position.
335

336 ISMAIL SERIN
On the other hand, to deny that society is a substance and a value by itself
is not necessarily to hold that the human group is a logical fiction or to imply
that social harmony is not a good. Individualism is not pluralism, but, if so,
how is the difference to be formulated? We may enlarge Hobbes phrase so
as to say that both extremes of pluralism and organism are states of nature. I
do not doubt that the condition of war by each against all can exist (Hobbes
1994, p. 88). Human beings are free agents who carve out their own destinies
and who may decide to be unsocial. We may define this aspect of the state of
nature as barbarism. Now; barbarism may not only be primitive but civilized
as well, manifesting itself in refined and subtle guises, instances of which are
the social isolationism of the misanthrope, and the aloofness and indifferen-
tism of the pseudo-philosophic attitude with its utter detachment from human
concerns. For if it be a virtue in the Aristotelian God to contemplate himself
alone, absence of goodwill to men is a vice in man.
On the other hand, social organism is also state of nature, to which it is pos-
sible for man to return: for, being free, he can choose to surrender his freedom
and thus fall back into the condition of, the parts of the human body which he
contains, so that individuals become like fingers or lungs, without autonomy or
intrinsic value. This is the condition of slavery, more abhorrent than barbarism.
With the latter, there still exists individuality of a sort, brutish and predatory,
whereas with the former, individuality has been destroyed.
What is the way out, or rather the way between the two extremes? There is
a half-way house of a solution according to which society has an instrumental
value for the realization of the potencies of individuals. By entering into a
society, the individuals are enabled better to provide for their physical needs
such as food, shelter, and protection; even more, they are enabled to provide
for their spiritual wants, society being a teacher who trains the intellect and
the will of men. This is undoubtedly true, but it is not the whole truth about
society. Society is more than a tool, no matter how noble the purposes of the
tool. Standing firmly on the double-peaked doctrine that only individuals think
and act, and that society as such neither thinks nor acts; and that individuals
are the basic values, and that society as something apart from individuals has
no value, how can we dig deeper to reach the conception of a social harmony
which is a good, and of a society which is somehow real?
Individualism is a doctrine with two aspects: the one axiological, the other
ontological. The first asserts that individuals are the supreme (if not the only)
good, the second that individuals are rational and free. The two aspects are not
unconnected, for the worth of the individual is derived from the fact that he is
intelligent and autonomous. Our problem is to show not merely that society is
compatible with these two propositions, but that it is entailed by them.
C A N R E A S O N R E G U L AT E T H E R E A L I T Y 337
The Kantian propositions I have in mind concerning the individualism, are

two: (a) that human persons have intrinsic worth. (b) that goodwill toward
human persons has intrinsic worth (or that human persons ought to be treated as
ends, and not as means only) (Kant 1997, p. 28). I will say that the first asserts
a simple value, and the second a complex value (or a second-order value). I call
the latter a complex value because it contains a simpler value, as a part. But the
contrast between simple and complex values must on no account be confused
with that between intrinsic and instrumental values. Goodwill is a complex
value, it is true, but its worth is intrinsic and exists quite apart from its results.
Doubtless, goodwill has instrumental value as well, for by exercising goodwill
towards you, I promote your happiness. Moreover, a man with goodwill toward
others enhances his own personality, for in some sense he multiplies his own
being by including that of the others in his own.
Any kind of human association, like a business corporation, a club, a college,
or a state, is a union of individuals in which individuals are in pursuit of a com-
mon aim. When there is no aim, the association is natural, not rational, as
when animals are held together by the herd instinct. While human associations
often have a basis in natural instinctive bonds, they are never merely natural.
The instinctive drive does not operate in an uncontrolled way but is subject to
conscious direction. What is naturalimpulse, herd-instinct and environment
as wellis material worked over by deliberation. The fact that individuals
have an identical aim is not by itself sufficient to establish a society. You and I
may both be engaged in the observation of the constellation Andromeda, you
in the West and I in the East; our aim is the same; nevertheless, we do not form
an association, because we are not cooperating in our pursuit. It is essential
that the identical aim be pursued jointly: and this means that the individu-
als concerned are joint causes of the resulting action, namely the pursuing of
the plan. Furthermore, the individuals should be consciously and intentionally
joint causes. No association is established by the mere fact that the results of
your investigation have, by accident, furthered my own activities in the same
direction. Each member must direct his actions with deliberate envisagement
of those of all the others. Thus, membership is a symmetrical relation. It is not
of course essential that members be equal in rank; there are the officers and
there is the rank and file. Yet all alike share the reciprocal relation of envisage-
ment, the officer determining his line of action in view of what the private is
to do, just as surely as the private in view of the officer. In this specific sense,
all members of an association are equal, the weak equal to the strong; in that
all are acknowledged as efficient causes, and in that the decisions of each are
arrived at by the equal taking into account of the expected decisions of all.
Let us now proceed to the derivation of society from the postulates of indi-
vidualism. The latter provides that all human beings should respect the dignity
338 ISMAIL SERIN
of individuals; and so far forth generates the association we have designated as

a society. Human beings form an association because they pursue a common
aim, namely the good of human personality; and they are a society because
their aim embraces the whole of man. Unlike all other associations, we do not
in this case need a special proviso as to cooperation in addition to that as to
identity of aims; for in so far as individuals are said to have goodwill, they are
said to cooperate also. This is possible because goodwill is at once the relation
of pursuer to pursued and the relation of member to member; and because the
aim is also an agent, for individuals are at once pursued and pursuers. You,
who are concerned with my good, are a person and therefore an object for my
goodwill; reciprocity obtains and society is generated.
In society thus constituted, society is no more an agent than it is an objec-
tive; only individuals are agents; indeed individuals are both the efficient and
the final causes of society. Thus, the premises of individualism remain intact.
What is obtained is not a new substance, but a new structure, an interlocking
pattern of relations, with human persons as, the terms and with goodwill as the
relation. It does not follow, however, that society is merely an aggregate from
the fact that it is not a monad; society is a real fact consisting of individuals
bound by the real relation of goodwill. Society may be called a common order,
although not a common good. And since the aim is the good of individuals,
society is achieved incidentally as it were.
Perhaps the best way to think of society is not as a substance, nor as a
class, but in analogy with the universe. Society is a world, rather than an
individuala world of interacting individuals as the universe is a realm of
interacting things. Society is a microcosm; and as the cosmos has laws so
society has codes, manners, and laws. Essentially, society must be thought
of neither in terms of organism nor of mechanism; society embodies a new
category of relationship. Pluralism and organism are patterns of nature, the
one in the inanimate field, the other in the field of animate things. But human
beings are rational as well as natural. Among human patterns, the family rela-
tionship supplies the closest analogue to the organic type, in that the children
are dependent on the parents and so are not autonomous individuals. Hence it
is misleading to conceive of society as one big family with the state playing
a parental role. The members of society are mature and rational individuals.
Equally is it misleading to think of society as a group of particles repelling and
attracting each other?
A difficult task for the individualist is the method of computing and measur-
ing the interests of the members of society. Should I aim to serve the interests of
each individual without limitation, one after the other? That would be impossi-
ble, since the interests of individuals are bound to be in conflict. It may be that
C A N R E A S O N R E G U L AT E T H E R E A L I T Y 339
the interests of angels harmonize spontaneously, but human beings are a differ-
ent matter, on account of their material constitution and location. To will that
all wills be fulfilled unrestrictedly is to will that these wills be destroyed, and
therefore to will a contradiction. Individualism is the doctrine of the reciprocal
limitation of interests. Thus, in order to arrive at an estimate, I must consider
all interests together in their mutual relevance. But can this be done? It is hard
enough to solve the problem of three bodies, let alone when the bodies are
numerous, and intelligent to boot. For instance, to compute the interests of A
properly, I must take into account the modification of As interests by those by
B; and in computing Bs interests I must modify them by reference to those of
A. But then I must go back to revise my estimates of A whose interests are to be
modified by those of B, only as modified in turn by those of A. And so with B;
and so to a further revision. Consider that in this instance we have been dealing
with a society consisting only of two members. There is the further complica-
tion that the members are rational beings making their own computation. B
estimates his own interests in terms of his envisagement of the interests of A.
Thus, A must estimate the situation in terms not only of Bs actual interests
but of Bs interests as modified by Bs reflection.
An easy way out of the dilemma is the theory of organism which answers
the problem by declaring it to be unreal. There are not several interests to be
adjusted; there is only one interest, that of the social organism. But we have
already ruled this theory out. Another solution is that goodwill is best exercised
not by a regard by each for the interests of all, but by a deliberate selfishness
on the part of each. Let each pursue his own interests to the utmost of his
ability, and in the end the best interests of each and all will be served. This
amounts to the paradoxical doctrine that, the jungle spontaneously generates
a society, or rather is a society. In reply, let us grant the point that ruthless
competition would produce the best kind of economic goods and the best type
of individuals. Make note of the words kind and type. It would promote
individuality rather than the interests of actual particular individuals, serving
the species and not the particular. Goodwill is utterly comprehensive, however,
and is directed equally to the weak and to the strong, to the just and the unjust.
This doctrine has no place for minorities (or for majorities either), any more
than nature has, when these are weak or just unfortunate.
The solution to our problem lies in the concept of general rules. We do
not arrive at our estimates by assessing the interests of particular individuals,
but by constructing the hypothesis of a general rule which is then verified by
reference to the interests of individuals. The approach is not enumerative but
constructive, as in all induction. But induction is an insight into a principle
which is not derived from, or built out of, particular insights. The validity of the
rule is intrinsic and not based on the further fact that it promotes satisfactions.
340 ISMAIL SERIN
If the rule is that X is bad, then X must be avoided in all cases, without regard
to its impact on this or that particular instance. Conversely, it is not true that life
anyhow and without limitations is good. The general rule states the necessary,
conditions to which life must conform in order that it is good. Thus, goodwill
is the will to serve interest under the limitation of the general rule.
Of course, it is Kant who, above all other philosophers brought the concep-
tion of general rules to the forefront of ethical theory. As is well known, Kants
principle is that a particular maxim of action is valid if it does not contradict
itself when generalized. Clearly this is a theory of rules as cognized a priori
and analytically. But in what sense general rules would be self-contradictory
or not, is not altogether clear. My own interpretation is that the contradiction
arises whenever the private maxim would assert as valid the fulfillment of self-
interest at the cost of the interests of others. Obviously, when such a maxim
is universalized, self-interest itself is denied because the other individuals in
their turn are granted the right to violate my interest. Thus, should I desire to
steal in order to increase my possessions, and then the general rule would read,
All individuals are justified in stealing in order to increase their possessions.
Yet universal stealing (deprivation of property) means no possessions, either
for me or for anybody else; conversely universal possession means no stealing.
Hence the form of the contradiction is that of all propositions which affirm the
promotion of self-interest at the cost of self-interest. Evil is such that to wish
it is to wish a contradiction.
Finally, it is true that all existing societies are societies imperfectly; society
is a movement toward a goal. Progress consists in the enlargement of the area
of rational personality so that it will comprise all colors, religions, economic
classes, and so on. This is progress in knowledge. But even when I know that
X is a person, I may withhold respect from him because I am inhibited by pas-
sion. Most people are subject to occasional attacks of uncontrolled passion;
passion, then, is a perpetual threat to the goodwill which binds individuals into
a society. And that is precisely the point at which the individual loses his auton-
omy on behalf of the continuance of the society.
Uludag University, Bursa
REFERENCES
Hobbes, Thomas (1994). Leviathan, Ed. Richard Tuck, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kant, Immanuel (1997). Critique of Practical Reason, Trans. Mary Gregor, Cambridge (UK):
Cambridge University Press.
Kochin, Michael S. (2002). Individual Narrative and Political Character, The Review of
Metaphysics, 55:691709.
B A R I S PA R K A N
R E L AT I V E LY C O M P L E T E LY H A P P Y
Happiness is like time; it doesnt move. And people come and go, come and go, come and go . . .
Vasconcelos
ABSTRACT
This paper tries to formulate a link between a phenomenological description

of certain experiences of the co-presence of the past, present and future with
the scientific theory of the block model of the universe that is based on the
Einstein-Minkovski conception of spacetime. The argument that is constructed
to this end utilizes Whiteheads process metaphysics. Using Whiteheads
attack on the bifurcation of nature problem as my springboard, I argue that
even though the passage of time as described in the block model of the uni-
verse transcends our perception of nature (i.e., the 4-dimensional space-time
transcends passage of time as we perceive it), this transcendence need not
introduce an unbridgeable gap between appearance and reality. I then make
use of Reisers application of Whiteheads metaphysics to Gestalt psychology
to provide an explanation of our perception of time from a scientific point of
view that does not conceptualize mental spacetime as bifurcated from physical
spacetime. Finally, I argue, using Whiteheadian concepts, that it is possible to
apprehend the block universe through sensuous experience.
I am standing outside my door at night, taking a break from writing, smok-

ing in front of a tree. I hear the whistle of a train going by in the distance.
The sound of the whistle brings back memories from my childhood while the
thought of the trains motion takes me forward in time. At this moment, I expe-
rience a blissful feeling of completeness, where not only my past and my future
are brought together in one stretching instant, but also the distance between
my countrywhich is across the oceanand this tree in this foreign land is
covered in that one swift motion of the train.
I remember myself as a child, sitting inside and looking out of the window
of a train at night, as the train was passing by villages in the dark. I remember
seeing strange people sitting around by a river in moonlight, smoking some-
thing, and feeling intrigued by this mysterious picnic in the middle of the
night in the middle of nowhere. I had wanted to be there with those people, but
341

342 B A R I S PA R K A N
had refrained from thinking up stories in my mind about why they were there
and what they were doing. I had not wanted to ruin the inexplicableness of that
picture in its complete mystery by filling in all the unexplained details in my
imagination.
Now is a time when the details have been filled in. Now I am standing there,
on the outside, while the child is looking at me from the inside of the train. It
is not another child but I who is there and here at the same time, and she is
looking at me not only from the past but also from the future where the train
has taken her. And looking at now from the future, I know that everyone I have
loved and lost will be with me in the future. Nothing is lost, all is complete in
this moment. Even though the train keeps moving, this eternal moment moves
with it.
A face in the window catches a glimpse of someone outside looking up and
tries to keep looking back while the figure recedes out of sight in no time;
someone outside looks after a waving hand in the trains window and feels left
behind . . . But in fact, the pictures remain. And the rhythm of the train assures
me that as surely as I was waiting for that child here, all my past, and all my
friends with it, are there, waiting for me, in the future. It is a past and a future
filled with joy. We are all completely happy.
In this paper, I will try to make sense of this experience of a completeness
and bliss that somehow keeps up with the passage of time, by using the
Einstein-Minkovski conception of spacetime which states that the relativity
of simultaneity implies a [four-dimensional] block universe. (Kennedy 59)
THE BLOCK UNIVERSE
According to a crude, common-sense understanding of space and time, there

is a significant difference between the existence of space and the existence of
time: while we are ready to grant that different parts of space exist all at once
as a unified whole, we are likely to deny that different slices of time exist all at
once. We think that the past has ceased to exist and the future does not exist yet
and thus that only the present exists (Kennedy 53). For example, I believe
that my friend in the U.S. exists at the moment even though we are separated
by thousands of miles. However, I do not believe that a friend who died 25
years ago exists in this same robust sense. If there is any sense in which we
take my friend to continue to exist, it is through the memory and imagination
of those of us who knew her when she was alive. But is our belief in the co-
existence of different parts of space not also based on extrapolation by memory
and imagination? And could it not be the case that there is something more to
my intuitive feeling, when I go down to the Basilica Cistern for example, of
R E L AT I V E LY C O M P L E T E LY H A P P Y 343
certain people who have been there and the events that brought them there,
centuries ago, than my imagination running wild?
In contrast to the crude common-sense understanding of space and time,
according to many interpretations of Einsteins theory of relativity, the past
and the future . . . are just as real as the present (Kennedy 53). As is
well-known, according to Einsteins theory of relativity, we live, not in a
three-dimensional universe, but in a four-dimensional spacetime (Kennedy 50).
Further, according to this theory, simultaneity is relative. In other words, to
say that event A and event B are simultaneous is, in a certain sense, arbi-
trary, because the perception of what counts as past and what counts as the
future depends on the observers frame of motion. If somebody were to move
past me at the speed of light, what is future for me would already be past for
her. Consequently, what counts as the present is also relative to the frame of
reference of the observer; there is no slice of time that can be objectively, uni-
versally identified as the present and used to identify and synchronize all
events occurring at that moment. There is no such moment. The apparatus we
use to measure time and synchronize events is merely conventional. According
to different measurement apparatus; I could be simultaneous with an event in
the past or in the future (Kennedy 60). Therefore, distances and durations are
not invariant and therefore are not real properties of anything. (Kennedy 56)
Einsteins theory is mainly about relations between different measure-
ments, but as John Kennedy explains in his book Space, Time, and Einstein,
according to a certain interpretation of Einsteins theory, a block universe
view can be deduced from it, which would show that the past, present and
future co-exist. This interpretation, advanced by Hermann Minkovski, adds to
Einsteins theory a premise about what it means to call something real: if
something is invariant, then it is absolute, real (Kennedy 57). Even though
Einsteins theory shows that distance and duration are not absolute, the space-
time interval (which is calculated by treating distance and duration as if they
are two sides of a right triangle and treating the spacetime interval as if it is the
third side) is invariant, and therefore, according to Minkovskis argument, real
(Kennedy 58).
I shall not here present a detailed analysis of the Einstein-Minkovski view
of the 4-dimensional spacetime. In what follows, I will simply assume the
correctness of the block model of the universe without a discussion of the
controversy developed around it, and directly address the question of whether
and how it is possible for me to apprehend that 4-dimensional spacetime, as
I boldly claim that I, on a couple of occasions, have.
T H E R E L AT I O N S H I P B E T W E E N S C I E N C E , P E R S O N A L
E X P E R I E N C E A N D M E TA P H Y S I C S
A fundamental difficulty immediately confronts me: while there is a significant

number of scientists who believe that the block model of the universe is cor-
rect, in scientific thought, the reality of this block universe is presented to us
as something that we can comprehend only with the aid of highly abstract con-
cepts. I, on the other hand, am trying to describe an intuitive experience where
the completeness of my past and my future is momentarily seized by me, not
through a bloodless abstraction but in immediate and concrete albeit fleeting
certainty. Can I be justified in resorting to a scientific theory to shed light on
the intuitive experiences of the sort that I am describing? Or should that bliss-
ful feeling of completeness be dismissed as merely an emotional reaction to a
sensory stimulant that got my memory and imagination working?
This fundamental difficulty is in fact what I want to challenge in this paper:
is there indeed an unbridgeable gap between the world as it really is (say,
a 4-dimensional block) and the way it appears to us (time flowing through
a three-dimensional space)? Are apparent nature and causal nature totally
divorced from each other? These questions can be posed with adjuvant empha-
sis in light of Alfred North Whiteheads formulation of what he called the
bifurcation of nature problem (Tiebout 43). The bifurcation of nature prob-
lem arises because scientists make use of concepts that do not seem to directly
apply to immediate experience. The abstract objects of scientific or philosophic
thought are often taken to be of a radically different sort than the medley of
psychic and sensory elements that constitute immediate experience. Therefore
the data of immediate experience are taken to be in the mind.
The basic intuition which motivates this paperthat I believe that I have
had moments when I experienced the co-existence of past present and future
requires me to overcome the bifurcation of nature problem as it manifests itself
on this specific subject. I would like to redeem that conviction that my past and
my future are fully real and fully there without any loss, that when I remember
the past or anticipate the future, my mind does not reach out to a non-existent
referent, and disappointed, turn back on itself to rummage through its own
dusty and faded layers. I feel that I am firmly though dynamically rooted in
that reality that was, is and will be, no matter how many its number of pages
and how practically impossible it is for me to apprehend all of it at once. I do
not believe that it is metaphysically impossible.
It is this presentiment that provides me with the justification for wishing
to formulate a link between phenomenology and science. Samuel Alexander
addresses this very same issue in his Preface to 1927 Impression of Space,
Time and Deity, and betakes himself to metaphysics as the branch yielding
this link between phenomenology and science. Alexander argues that science
may not feel the need to reveal how the concepts it utilizes are more than mere
postulates of the mind (or a scientist may simply believe that they are in fact
no more than mere postulates of the mind), but that the metaphysician feels
an horror of notions which the mind takes for ultimate and indefinable. For,
argues Alexander, every notion is a notion about something. (xxiv, emphasis
added)
Metaphysics says to the special sciences: by all means use notions, like relation, or identity, or
what not, and call them indefinables; that is perfectly right for you, but not for me; and even I must
admit that they are indefinable; but they are not indescribable nor incapable of identification in
concrete experience. (xxiv, emphasis added)
W H I T E H E A D S M E TA P H Y S I C S
In trying to apply this approach to my specific questionhow to bring together

my concrete experience of this feeling of completeness with the scientific
theory of the block universe modelI will depart from the event ontology,
utilized by Kennedy to explain the block universe, and instead resort to White-
heads process ontology. According to event ontology, the world is made, not
of persistent objects, but of a sequence of events, with each event conceived
of as analogous to a still photograph in a motion picture. According to White-
heads ontology, on the other hand, the world is composed of processes of
concrescence (actual entities).
These primary building blocks of Whiteheads ontology constitute them-
selves through their dynamic connection to other such entities in their environ-
ment, from which they selectively leave out or appropriate various elements.
The term concrescence refers to the emergence of a unified actual entity out
of a diversity of elements in its environment. The relation through which a con-
crescence incorporates an element from another entity is called a prehension.
The inclusion of an element in the concrescence of a becoming entity is called
a positive prehesion; its exclusion is called a negative prehension.
The main challenge to constructing an ontology around processes is the
imputation of definiteness to processes, the framing and putting in order of
recognizable patterns within change. In addition to actual entities, a second
important conceptual tool that Whitehead develops in order to meet this chal-
lenge, is the eternal object. Eternal objects are universals that are realized in
actual entities, enabling the actual entity to attain and exhibit determinacy,
which also makes it possible for other actual entities to prehend it. Whitehead
also refers to eternal objects as potentialities that the actual entities realize.
However, the extensive use that Whitehead makes of the notion of poten-
tiality as a synonym for eternal object portends to an additional difficulty
that will confront me if I try to understand the block model of the universe
in light of Whiteheads ontology: while the block model of the universe states
that the future already exists and should thus be conceived of as already fixed,
in Whiteheads ontology, the future seems to be nascent and inchoate. White-
head speaks of the future as merely a potential, to be realized by the choices
that concrescing actual entities make. I believe that this difficulty can also be
surmounted, but that would be the topic of another paper. Here, I would like to
briefly suggest the ways in which we could embark on tackling this difficulty.
First, Whitehead also speaks of God as a very special kind of actual entity
whose concrescence takes place from the beginning to the end of time. One
could here object that Whitehead makes a distinction between Gods primor-
dial nature and Gods consequent nature. The response to this objection brings
me to my second point: one could arguably support both the block model of
the universe and the existence of possible worlds. In other words, the existence
of a block universe is not necessarily incompatible with the existence of alter-
native block universes. In Whiteheadian terms, this would mean that if one
very complex eternal object has been realized in Gods consequent nature, this
does not mean that other complex eternal objects (residing in Gods primordial
nature) were not possibilities that could have been realized.
Armed with Whiteheadian concepts and the block model of the universe, in
the remainder of this paper, I will proceed as follows. (1) First, I will argue
that, even though the passage of time as described in the block model of the
universe transcends our perception of nature (i.e., the 4-dimensional space-
time transcends passage of time as we perceive it), this transcendence need not
introduce an unbridgeable gap between appearance and reality. (2) To elabo-
rate the relation between the personal experience of time and the 4-dimensional
spacetime framework, I will make use of Oliver Reisers application of White-
heads theory to the problems of time in science, philosophy and Gestalt
psychology in his two articles Time, Space and Gestalt and Problems of
Time in Science and Philosophy. I shall also continue to refer to Alexanders
ideas, as Reiser himself also states that he is for the most part in agreement with
Alexander, following the doctrine of emergent evolution (1 Reiser 249). (3)
Finally, I will use Whitehead to speculate on how it is metaphysically possible
to have an apprehension of 4-dimensional spacetime.
To this end, the first step that needs to be taken is (1) to bridge the gap
between the spacetime of scientific theory and spacetime as experienced by
us. After doing so, we can (2) provide an explanation of our perception of time
from a scientific point of view that does not conceptualize mental spacetime as
bifurcated from physical spacetime.
T H E P R O B L E M O F T H E B I F U R C AT I O N O F N AT U R E
(1) Holding psychic time as experienced by us and time as a dimension of

the block universe to be of radically different sorts, requiring us to appeal to
different faculties of our minds, would in spirit and temperament be no differ-
ent than retaining the Cartesian idea of an indivisible mental substance which
maintains its unity over against the extension of space. Whether it be in the
form of Zenos paradoxes, Cartesian dualism or conceptualism, the creation of
a gap between phenomenological experience and scientific reality can almost
always be traced back to a supposed distinction between appearance and real-
ity. To make this point explicit, let us go back to the bifurcation of nature
problem expounded by Whitehead and how he professes to solve it.
In his article Appearance and Causality in Whiteheads early writings,
Harry M. Tiebout explains what Whitehead calls the bifurcation of nature
problem in three steps. The seeds of the bifurcation of nature lie in the
Greek assumption that there is a permanent reality (substratum) underlying
appearances. But the bifurcation does not become fully manifest until the 17th
century, because until then both primary and secondary qualities are held to
inhere in the objects outside the mind. In the 17th century, with the elabo-
ration of the transmission theory of light and the Cartesian description of res
extensa in purely mathematical terms, secondary qualities are no longer per-
ceived as inhering in the physical world. They thus have to be relegated to a
mental realm. This [is] the first bifurcation theory. (Tiebout 49)
Berkeleys attack on Lockes distinction between primary and secondary
qualities introduces the second, more radical bifurcation theory. Berkeley
argues that primary qualities cannot be separated from secondary qualities
even in thought, as even the perception of space relies on the perception of
secondary qualities (Berkeley 37). Berkeleys conclusion is that the entire per-
ceived world is in the mind. By relegating even the appearance of spatial
relations to the mental realm, Berkeley paves the way for Kants transcendental
idealism.
As the apparent world is pushed into the mental realm, it becomes impos-
sible to directly experience or speak of the real world which is the cause of
the apparent world. It is thus argued that the real world can only be understood
through abstract scientific concepts. Hence, we arrive at the third bifurcation
theory: conceptualism (Tiebout, 50).
Whitehead attempts to solve the bifurcation of nature problem by return-
ing to the first bifurcation theory. In the 17th century, the bifurcation problem
first became apparent when the physical theories of the time could not accom-
modate qualia and qualia thus had to be pushed into the mental realm. Thus,
Whiteheads solution to the bifurcation problem goes through denying the view
that qualia are in the mind. According to Whitehead, qualia are events. For
example, the experience of seeing red is an event involving the interaction of
lightwaves, the eye, the brain, and so on.
Whitehead uses the technical term subjective form to refer to qualia
how an entity prehends another. In other words, the subjective form
qualiais the particular manner in which a quality, which, is an eternal object
is realized in a specific entity.
The difference between eternal object and subjective form is similar to
the traditional distinction between quality and qualia. Even though eternal
objects are in some ways like Platonic forms and are transcendent in so far
as they are possibilities, their realization in a particular occurrence is unlike
the exemplification of Platonic forms. When an eternal object is realized in
a particular entity, resulting in the subjective form of that entity, it is imma-
nent. The process through which an eternal object enters an actual entity
is called ingression. Releasing qualia from their consignment to the mental
realm by 17th century philosophy, Whitehead shows that the data of imme-
diate experience are not in the mind nor physically external, but relational.
(Tiebout 51)
As Tiebout explains in his article, in his early writings Whitehead develops a
theory of knowledge that is based on sense-awareness. According to this view,
even highly abstract concepts like space and time are grounded on sense aware-
ness, derived from interactions with nature, which is experienced as passage,
occurrence. The concepts of space and time are derived from two fundamen-
tal relations that the actual entities which partake of the network of events are
in: cogredience or simultaneity, and extension. (Tiebout 44)
The notion of space is derived from the ingression of an eternal object in
an actual entity. In other words, we learn about space through the forms and
patterns we recognize in actual entities, because forms and patterns themselves
exhibit spatial properties.
The idea of time is based on a certain ordering of a succession of events. For
events to be ordered into a succession, they would first have to be cutsliced
outfrom the whole duration and fixed as snapshots, as in event ontology.
But event ontology takes these snapshots to be the basic constituents of the
universe, thus betraying its unwillingness to abandon traditional metaphysics
fixation on static entities. Whitehead, who takes processes of concrescence as
the basic constituents of the universe, points out that these snapshots are
abstractions from an ongoing process. Thus, these snapshots have a certain
temporal thickness, and as I will re-emphasize later, the thickness of the
slice cut out of the whole process is relative to the observer doing the cut.
Recall that Einsteins theory of relativity implies that the present (simultane-
ity) is ambiguous and depends on the observers frame of reference, unless the
observers are in absolute contact. Whitehead uses the term cogredience in

place of simultaneity. The term cogredience seems intended to highlight
and thus resolve the ambiguity of the term simultaneity, as the term cogre-
dience seems to suggest the co-ingression of an eternal object in two actual
entitiesi.e., it seems intended to emphasize the contact of two actual entities
which are prehending each other through a form of definiteness.
In short, we can say that, in countering the bifurcation of nature, Whitehead
does a reversal of Kant. Kant reifies the supposed dualisms existing between
phenomena and noumena, subject and object, and so on, by stating that we
project space and time onto sensory perceptions. Whitehead, on the other hand,
says that we learn about space and time from sensory experience and thus re-
establishes a connection between sensory experience and the objective world.
S U B J E C T I V E S E N S E O F T H E T E M P O R A L PA S S A G E O F T I M E
(2) I will now try to provide (a) an explanation of our perception of time from
a scientific point of view (b) that does not conceptualize mental spacetime as
bifurcated from physical spacetime. In explaining this position, I will borrow
heavily from a 1934 paper by Oliver Reiser, Time, Space, and Gestalt.
(a) I will first briefly explain how the subjective sense of the temporal pas-
sage of time arises from certain events that occupy a location in the objective
spacetime framework. The events that give rise to a subjective sense of the
passage of time are basically certain physicochemical reactions in our brains,
which occupy certain point-instants in the order of nature.
As Reiser explains in his article, for there to be a sense of time, these
events (physicochemical reactions) must take place within an organism. Reiser
employs the term organism in the Whiteheadian sense: a whole composed of
interacting patterns (2 Reiser 200). Reiser refers to those patterns as Gestalten
and he defines Gestalt as a spatio-temporal organization, or pattern, of matter
in which the relations are internal to each other, i.e., there is an interaction
between the parts and the whole (2 Reiser 200). It is important to note here
that such an organism is characterized by wholeness. In other words, there
is a certain organization that the whole seeks to attain and maintain. This
endeavor of the organism to attain and maintain its own organization affects
the subordinate patterns within it. Thus, in Whiteheads words, an electron
within the living body is different from an electron outside it (Quoted in
Reiser 201). It is this characteristic of the organism that creates the appear-
ance of a bifurcation between the subjective experiences of an organism and
its external environment.
In addition to this first condition for the sense of time to exist (that the events
must take place within an organism that is characterized by wholeness), Reiser
adds that this organism (as defined above) must be in an environment that is
in relative motion with respect to the organism (201). An organism that has
a subjective unity within itself has certain internal rhythms. The passage of
time is felt when the rhythms internal to and integrated by the organism are
related to the external rhythms of its environment (Reiser 201). What consti-
tutes time is an internal sensation that results from observing a certain change
in an environment. That which is externally observed as a movement [is or]
can be internally observed as a passage of time. (2 Reiser 202)
Note that Reiser qualifies the motion that gives rise to the sense of time as
relative motion, because we do not experience motion or change if we are in
the same frame of reference with the other objects in our environment.
That is to say, physical time is a measure of the change of a system as observed from an external
point of view, and varies from one frame of reference to another . . . In certain systems which
undergo change, this change is experienced subjectively as temporal passage. This experience
constitutes physical time. (2 Reiser 200)
(b) Having situated the subjective sense of the passage of time in the objec-
tive spacetime framework, we next need to show that the sensory cogredience
of that situated event with what is happening in its environment and the space-
time that is thus perceived is not bifurcated from the totality of space-time that
the block model of the universe posits.
For this, we must first note that while the observer must needs be an organ-
ism and thus have a subjective unity, this unity is not mental in the traditional
sense of the term. In other words, while the subjective sensation of the passage
of time requires an organism in relation to an environment, the organisms
relation to its environment is not like that of a Cartesian mind looking over
external space. The organism experiencing the passage of time is a percipient
with a distinct perspective embedded in the spacetime network.
While I speak of the events (physicochemical reactions) internal to the
observer as occupying a point-instant in the continuum of spacetime, we should
not forget, as Whitehead emphasizes, that the notion of an instant (or a point)
is an abstraction. It is an abstraction in two senses:
(i)The notion of an instant can only be formed via isolating the dimension of
time from spacetime. Just as there is no instant in time without a point in space,
there is also no point in space without an instant in time . . . There are no such
things as points or instants by themselves. There are only point-instants or pure
events (Alexander 48). Therefore, the fundamental unit of the 4-dimensional
world is an event. Spacetime is a continuum of events or what Whitehead calls
actual entities.
(ii) The abstract notion of nature at an instant is derived from the concrete
relation of cogredience (or simultaneity) between the percipient event and the
totality of spacetime. As mentioned above, what we call an instant is, strictly

speaking, a segment of duration with a certain temporal thickness.
The organism experiencing the passage of time forms a boundary or section
or cut between earlier and later (Alexander 44) and thus forms the notion of
the present.
Hence, while time as a dimension of the block universe is a continuous dura-
tion, it is empirically experienced as successive by the organism who cuts and
fixes its attention upon a slice of that moment as the present, thus also defin-
ing the past and the future in relation to this moment. The abstraction of time
and the ordering into succession of events is made possible by the unity of the
organism and the relation of its internal organization and internal rhythms to
what is outside.
The observer who frames what he/she calls an instant also determines
which events are simultaneous in that instant. Since simultaneity is relative and
ambiguous, we should replace the term simultaneous with the term cogre-
dience. Again, since simultaneity is ambiguous, among the events that an
organism identifies as simultaneous/cogredient with the instant it has framed,
there can be others that have different frames of reference and thus different
now(s) Through sensory cogredience, a percipient entity is connected not
only to what it identifies as here and now but also to the other events that the
events it is cogredient with are cogredient with. Thus, according to White-
head, our immediate, momentary experience discloses a uniform relatedness
or significance that includes not only the specifically discriminated happen-
ings but also the whole undiscriminated remainder (Tiebout 44). We thus see
that cogredience is cogredience with the totality of spacetime.
Since cogredience is cogredience with the totality, we need to say that any
instant is simultaneous with the whole. The ambiguity of simultaneity func-
tions as the gradual adding of layers to an instant formed by an organism, thus
increasing the temporal thickness of the now and revealing what was initially
framed as a point-instant to be simultaneous with the whole duration. But what
does it mean to say that a point-instant is simultaneous with the duration of the
whole process of nature? It means just what I have been trying to argue for:
that in fact we perceive the block. Even though we cannot take in all of it,
what we perceive at the present is a slice of it and not something else. The
four-dimensional block is concrete and real, not abstract.
APPREHENDING THE BLOCK
(3) Finally, I want to question whether it is metaphysically possible to intuit

the whole spacetime framework through sensory perception.
The notion of an instant is ambiguous and relative not only because of the
ambiguity of simultaneity but also because of the ambiguity and relativity of
the temporal thickness of a moment. Exactly what fraction of a second is a
moment? The framing of a moment by a percipient entity requires the recog-
nition by that entity of some of the sensory ingredients of its surroundings.
Therefore I suggest that the temporal thickness of a moment is associated with
the attention span required for a percipient entity to recognize distinctive pat-
terns in its environment. The conventional standards we use to measure time
(such as clocks designed to measure hours, minutes and seconds) are based on
our adapted ability to recognize the patterns of objects we are accustomed to
dealing with in our daily macroscopic lives (as well as the relation between our
internal rhythms and the rhythms of the objects in our environment [such as the
rhythms of the planets and stars, sunrise and sunset, the turning of seasons, and
so on]).
These patterns we recognize are, in Whiteheadian terms, eternal objects.
Whitehead makes a distinction between simple and complex eternal objects.
Simple eternal objects are what we call qualities. Complex eternal
objects are patterns that structure the interrelations between simple eternal
objects. I will suggest that the temporal thickness of the duration identified
in/as a moment may be determined by the degree of complexity of the eternal
object prehended.
To clarify this, we need to understand what Whitehead means by a con-
ceptual prehension. Whitehead characterizes an actual entity as essentially
bipolar: it has a mental pole and a physical pole. Both physical prehensions
and conceptuals prehension are made possible through eternal objects. Like
Plato and Hegel, Whitehead also believes that even the simplest form of per-
ception requires the mediation of universals. But in a physical perception, the
eternal object that mediates the prehension is immanent: it is a realized deter-
minant of an actual entity in the percipient entitys immediate surroundings
(Leclerc 177). The conceptual prehension is the prehension of an eternal object
in abstraction from and independently of its particular instance of realization.
In more detailed analyses of processes of concrescence, Whitehead
describes the actual entity as forming relations and contrasts between eter-
nal objects, trying to synthesize them. The forming of contrasts, with the
addition of diverse eternal objects yield increasingly more complex structures
(Whitehead 250). According to Whitehead, the subject of a process by nature
feels an urge towards the realization of a maximum number of eternal objects.
The more highly developed the organism, the further-reaching its ability to
form higher contrasts and thus prehend more distant potentialities (more
complex eternal objects).
My suggestion is that the temporal thickness of the cut a percipient makes

may be determined by the complexity of the eternal object prehended. There-
fore, with the aid of the extensive abstraction facilitated by the cogredience of
entities with different frames of reference (different now(s) ), it is metaphys-
ically possible for a percipient entity to form an instant that grasps elements
from the distant past and future, thus seizing a moment that spans the past and
the future.
Middle East Technical University, Ankara
REFERENCES
Samuel Alexander, Space, Time, and Deity, 2 vols. (NY: Dover Publications, 1966). Vol. 1.
George Berkeley, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, ed. Robert Merrihew. Adams
(Hackett Publishing Company, 1979).
John B. Kennedy, Space, Time and Einstein: An Introduction (Montreal: McGill-Queens
University Press, 2003).
Leclerc, Ivor. Whiteheads Metaphysics (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1958).
Oliver L. Reiser, The Problem of Time in Science and Philosophy, The Philosophical Review
35:3 (May, 1926) pp. 236252.
Oliver L. Reiser, Time, Space and Gestalt, Philosophy of Science 1:2 (Apr., 1934) pp. 197223.
Harry M. Tiebout, Appearance and Causality in Whiteheads Early Writings, Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research 19:1 (Sep., 1958), pp. 4352.
Alfred N. Whitehead, Process and Reality (New York: MacMillan Company, 1929).
INDEX
Akinci, S., 143147 Collins, M. A., 59

Alakus, A. O., 91 Conant, J., 318, 319,
Alexander, S., 344, 345, 346, 351 333 n.37
Amabile, T. M., 59 Cotes, R., 297 n.89
Andr, L. -G., 37 n.30, 38 n.41 Couceiro-Bueno, J. C., 149163
Andriishin, M.V., 266
Aquinas, T., 113
Damasio, A., 80
De Noronha, M. T., 195205
Barbaras, R., 62 de Saussure, F., 166, 175, 193 n.41, 253, 254,
Barthes, 136, 137, 138, 251, 255, 257
255, 256
Deleuze, 251
Baumgarten, H., 151, 162 n.4
Handerek, J., 125141
Bello, A. A., 63, 64, 124 n.6,
Derrida, J., 196, 251, 261 n.6
124 n.7
Bennetts, C., 54 Descartes, 80, 288
Berkeley, G., 347 Dewey, J., 110, 124 n.16
Berne, E., 82 Dilthey, W., 132, 133
Bertram, M., 322 Dinis, D., 195
Bolotov, A. T., 264 Dmitriy, N., 263270
Bral, M., 165, 191 Donald, M., 37 n.21
Brophy, J. E., 58 Doran, R. M., 47, 50 n.7
Bushmen, K., 28 Duarte, D., 195
Campbell Neil, A., 36 n.4 Eli, Z., 38 n.40

Camus, A., 74 Ermolov, A.S., 264
Carroll, L., 85 Ernst, P., 125, 131
Casey, E. S., 334 n.78 Eugenio, L., 38 n.49
Casey, E., 330
Ewing, A. C., 147 n.7
Cassirer, E., 125, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135,
136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141 n.3
Cecilia, M. A., 52 Fechner, G., 325
Chayanov, A.V., 264 Feldman, D. H., 59
irakman, E., 307334 Field, J., 54, 64
Cohen, I. B., 293 n.1, 296 n.58, 296 n.59 Fischer, E., 92
Coimbra, L., 204 n.7 Flanagan, J., 50 n.5
355
356 INDEX
Foucault, 251, 256 Kant, I., 147 n.5

Freud, S., 34, 82, 203 Kashtanov, A.N., 267
Kennedy, J. B., 342343, 345
Gadamer, H. G., 153, 162 n.6, 162 n.11, Kierkegard, S., 127
163 n.14 Kochin, M. S., 335
Galileo, 288 Kochin, M., 335
Genovese, L., 124 n.15 Koltunov, N.M., 266
Gianni, P., 38 n.44 Koren, H. J., 80, 81
Goethe, 140 Kristeva, 251
Good, T. L. 58 Kronegger, M., 44
Gruca, G., 6776 Kurenkova, R. A., 55
Hanerlioglu, O., 91 Lamberth, D. C., 311, 313, 332 n.10

Harlacher, E. R., 54 Landgrebe, L., 236
Harris, M., 26, 37 n.27 Latecka, E., 7985
Haselbach, B., 96 Leclerc, I., 352
Hegel, G.F.W., 334 n.74 Lee, R., 28
Heidegger, M., 113, 132, 162 n.7, 247 Lehar, S., 84
Hergenhahn, B. R., 52
Lengrand, P. 55
Hervs y Panduro, L., 165
Levinas, E., 45, 50 n.2
Hobbs, C. A., 314
Lvi-Strauss, 251, 255, 256260, 261 n.2, n.3,
Hogan, K., 82
n.4, n.9
Hlderlin, 152, 153
Lipps, T., 106
Hoyle, F., 202
Lonergan, B., 46, 50 n.4
Husserl, E., 45, 106, 124 n.20, 162 n.2
Luijpen, 80, 81
Husserliana, A., 38 n.48, 4350, 248, n.22,
Luijpen, W. A., 80, 81
n.25, n.26, n 35, n.39, 250, n.25
Hwee, L. S., 52
Machado, A., 201
Ibsen, H., 141 McLuhan, M., 49
Ilvitskaya, S.V., 306 Manfred, E., 36 n.14
Immanuel, K., 147 n.5 Manuel, F. E., 293 n.3
Ingarden, R., 151, 162 n.3 Marcher, J., 322
Marcuse, H., 128
Jacobson, 252, 258 Martin, P. R. 61, 62
Jacques, R., 38 n.42 Martindale, C., 59
Jaeger, W., 155, 162 n.8 Martino, R., 36 n.5
James, H., 322 Marvin, H., 26, 37 n.27
James, W., 307, 323, 332 n.1, 332 n.3 Marx, K., 209
Jared, D., 38 n.43 Merleau-Ponty, M., 84, 247
Jarvis, 61 Miller, S. L., 23
Jason Throop, C., 332 n.7 Minkovski, H., 343
Jean, D., 38 n.34 Mukarowski, 252
Josef, K., 70
Narcissus, 129
Kafka, F., 67 Newton, I., 277
Kandinsky, W., 89 Nietzsche, 156
INDEX 357
Oizerman, T. I., 143, 147 n.3 Shelling, 152

Orpheus, 129 Spiegelberg, H., 50 n.3
Oudachin, S.A., 264 Stein, E., 45, 103, 124 n.6, 124 n.23
Ovcharenko, L. I., 264 Stephen, G. J., 38 n.53
ztrk, A., 8798 Steve, O., 36 n.7
Stone, H., 56, 57
Parkan, B., 341352 Stone, S., 5657
Paul, E., 37 n.28, n.31 Strzewski, W., 141 n.1
Pershin, P.N., 264 Stuhr, J. J., 333 n.82
Philip, L., 37 n.18
Pineau, G., 52, 64 Telmo, P., 35 n.1
Teloni, M. -C., 103123
Radchevskiy, N.M., 266 Terrence, D. W., 37 n.19
Razumovskiy, V. M., 264 Thompson, E., 79
Reich, W., 32, 38 n.39 Tiebout, H. M., 347
Reiser, O. L., 341, 346, 349, 350 Todorov, 251
Rey, A. D., 165190 Trubeckoj, 252
Richard, D. E., 35 n.2 Tymieniecka, A.T., 47, 50 n.14, 64, 124 n.21,
Richard, L. E. F., 38 n.45 247, 264, 269
Ricoeur, P., 125, 128, 141 n.2
Roberto, V., 1538 Valeryevna, I. S., 301306
Roger, L., 38 n.45 Varela, F. J., 79
Rolla A., 37 n.35, 38 n.37 Vasconcelos, C. M., 196
Roller, H. D., 298 Verducci, D., 104, 124 n.5
Ross, D. A., 207225 Volkov, S.N., 267
Royce, J., 318
Ruibal, . A., 165, 190 n.1 Wait, E. C., 80
Runco, M. A., 59 Watkins, 82
Ryba, T., 4350 Watkins, H. H., 82, 83
Watkins, H., 82
Sakamoto, S. O., 59 Watkins, J. G., 82, 83
Saltz, G., 56 Whiston, W., 295 n.38
San, I., 92 Whitehead, A. N., 345352
Scheler, M., 104 Wilhelm, R., 32, 38 n.38
Schelling, 152 Wilshire, B. W., 310, 332 n.8
Schopf William J., 36 n.16 Wittgenstein, 160
Selvi, K., 5164 Wojnar, I., 53
Seng, L. W., 52
Serin, I., 335340 Zambrano, M., 201
Shaper, E., 147 n.4 Zoidze, E. K., 264

Memory in The Ontopoesis of Life Book 2

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MEMORY IN THE ONTOPOIESIS OF LIFE

THE YEARBOOK OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Founder and Editor-in-Chief:

For other titles published in this series, go to

Published under the auspices of

ISBN 978-90-481-2318-6 e-ISBN 978-90-481-2319-3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009926801

c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

Printed on acid-free paper

Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)

KIYMET SELVI / Lifelong Learning and Self-Actualization 51

GRZEGORZ GRUCA / Faces of Memory the Work of Franz Kafka

EWA LATECKA / Which Self? Or What is it Like to Speak

ALI ZTRK / Art Education as an Expression of Phenomenon 87

JOANNA HANDEREK / The Symbol Code of the Past, Record

SEMIHA AKINCI / On Knowing: Whether One Knows 143

J. C. COUCEIRO-BUENO / Without Beauty there is No Truth 149

ANTONIO DOMNGUEZ REY / El a Priori Correlativo Y

MARIA TERESA DE NORONHA / Saudade and Memory in the

DAVID A. ROSS / Meta-Analysis and the Question of Being 207

PIOTR MRZ / Structure as a Collective Memory of Cultural Systems 251

NOVIKOV DMITRIY / Agricultural Landscape

VASILIY NILIPOVSKIY / Terrain as Subject Matter

A.L. SAMIAN / Newtons Theology of Mathematical Problems 277

ELIF IRAKMAN / The Art of Memory in a Pluralistic Universe:

ISMAIL SERIN / Can Reason Regulate the Reality by which we

BARIS PARKAN / Relatively Completely Happy 341

This volume, devoted to the ontopoiesis of memory, is the second part of

We may generalize that memory is the major element in the transmission of

in complexity feeling, sensing, pulsating, incorporating meanings in so far

As we have indicated taking various perspectives, it is the human mind that

reconstruction of experience which is essentially interpretative references to all

Memorys transmission of cogency through all the phases of becoming, sus-

ONTOPOIETIC VESTIGE: MEMORIES OF

Thanks to some examples of the always more effective research on vestigial

forms, a pro-evolutionistic interpretation concealed in the text of genesis able

without nucleos: the prokaryotes. Now, a typical character of the procarioti

an original and more elementary code of translation in order to shift (change)

eschatological positions of todays confessions of faith of biblical stock, in

Active divinities on the Society

characteristic petitions were absent, perfectly unknown, if not repudiated by

It is interesting to observe as these associations show an immediate corre-

and Darkness. Therefore, which alternative can be proposed? The distinc-

the valence of Oedipus sexual dynamics in the psychopathology emergence.

reality placed outside. The individual is considered as a perceptive, psycho-

Dipartimento di Medicina Sperimentale e Sanit Pubblica, UNICAM,

In this addressoriginally given to conferees at the Lateran University in

THE ETYMOLOGY OF CONVERSION

A glance at the etymology of the English word conversion immediately leads

describes the way philosophy students in Husserls Freiburg expressed their

with the lower-level understanding being reorganized so that new, unimagined

For Lonergan, conversion operates at all levels of knowing. There can be

A.-T. Tymieniecka has described a similar process of creative transformation

passionslife promoters she calls themwhich ingress into life, quicken

Life is a process for self-actualization of an individual. We know that self-

An individual has the potentiality to develop himself/herself during each period

If we analyze these definitions of the concept of learning, we can clearly see

lifelong learning abilities of individual. Actually, the question of what is the

used in a way similar to the comprehension of the concept of learning. Accord-

Self-actualization is based on lifelong learning abilities of one self. Different

The First The Second

Figure 1. The Pathways of Self-Actualization

involving, satisfying or personally challenging (Collins and Amabile, 1999,