SYMBOL AND INTERPRETATION

SYMBOL
AND
INTERPRETATION
by
DAVID M. RASMUSSEN

m
~
MAR TINUS NIJHOFF / THE HAGUE / 1974

 1974 by Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands

All rights reserved, including the right to translate or
to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form
lSBN-13: 978-90-247-1579-4
e-1SBN-13: 978-94-010-1594-3
DOT: 10.1007/978-94-010-1594-3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
Chapter I: SYMBOL AND LANGUAGE
Introduction
On Multiple Realities
Potentiality, Givenness, Heritage, Memory
Actualization and Meaning
Multiple Realities
Language and the Symbol
Language and Consciousness
Language as Isomorphic to Consciousness
Conclusion
Chapter II: MIRCEA ELIADE: STRUCTURAL HERMENEUTICS
AND PHILOSOPHY

Introduction
The Symbol as a Dimension of Consciousness
The Method for Establishing the Symbol as a Valid Form
Conclusion
Chapter III: PAUL RICOEUR: THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL
NECESSITY OF A SPECIAL LANGUAGE

Introduction
The Question
Philosophy of the will
Freedom and Nature
Fallible Man
The Symbolism of Evil
An Answer
Conclusion
Chapter IV: MYTH, STRUCTURE AND INTERPRETATION
Introduction

1
7
7
7
7
10
12
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17
19
24
25
25
25
33
37
38
38
38
39
41
42
45
47
50
52
52

VI

TABLE OF CONTENTS

From Evolution to Structure

Structural Hermeneutics
Archaic Ontology
Conclusion
Chapter V: TOWARD A THEORETICAL FOUNDATION FOR A
CORRELATION BETWEEN LITERARY AND RELIGIOUS
DISCOURSE

Introduction
Background
Theory of Language: The Possibility of a Phenomenological
Model
Hermeneutics: the Interpretation of Special Languages
Conclusion
Chapter VI: SOCIQ-POLITICAL SYMBOLISM AND THE
TRANSFORMATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Introduction
The Conflict of Rationality: Operational and Dialectical
Utopian Symbolism
Symbol, Seriality, and the Group Resolve
Symbol, Structure and Philosophical Anthropology
Conclusion
Index

52
55
64
68
70
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71
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79
80
80
81
85
89
92
.96
99

INTRODUCTION

For the past four or five years much of my thinking has centered upon the relationship of symbolic forms to philosophic imagination and
interpretation. As one whose own philosophic speculations began at.
the end of a cultural epoch under methodologies dominated either by
neo-Kantianism or schools of logical empiricism the symbol as a product of a cultural imagination has been diminished; it has been necessary for those who wanted to preserve the symbol to find appropriate
philosophical methodologies to do so. In the following chapters we
shall attempt to show, through a consideration of a series of recent
interpretations of the symbol, as well as through constructive argument, that the symbol ought to be considered as a linguistic form in
the sense that it constitutes a special language with its own rubrics
and properties. There are two special considerations to be taken account of in this argument; first, the definition of the symbol, and second, the interpretation of the symbol. Although we shall refrain from
defining the symbol explicitly at this point let it suffice to state that
our definition of the symbol is more aesthetic than logical (in the
technical sense of formal logic ), more cultural than individual, more
imaginative than scientific. The symbol in our view is somewhere at
the center of culture, the well-spring which testifies to the human
imagination in its poetic, psychic, religious, social and political forms.
Yet we shall attempt to avoid the tendency of the early phenomenologists and neo-Kantians to see the symbol as constituted by an act of
consciousness. Rather our tendency is to conceive the symbol as a
given, something to be interpreted.
To be sure, the symbol is a rather curious phenomenon. It literally
abolishes clarity and it confounds one's common sense understanding
of self and world. Neither the positive nor the negative meaning of a
flag can be contained in the material that allows for us to have a visu-

INTRODUCTION

al perception of it, nor can the meaning of a cross be explicated in

terms of the pieces of wood that make it up. The symbols that are
visualized in a dream are never clear, for the price for the disclosure
of the story they tell is in one sense the understanding of the meaning of one's life. Equally, the poet transforms the ordinary words of
our common sense world into a symbolic haven which is both opaque
and rich, beyond the ordinary sense of clarity.
The symbol is indeed a curious phenomenon and that is why it
continues to baffle its interpreters. In one sense we may say that the
most obvious error associated with the interpretation of the symbol
has been the identification of it with the ordinary linguistic sign. Our
common sense world is a world of assumptions which although they
are inherited and perhaps unproven, we take to be true and real. Hence
the words we have for the objects we perceive are taken to designate
precisely those objects. Trees are trees, tables are tables, lamps are
lamps, automobiles are automobiles and a street light on red designates literally that the pedestrian should stop. We may say that in
our ordinary common sense world of meaning the sign signifies but
it signifies literally. Strangely, the tendency of some modern interpretation of the symbol has been to take the common sense view of
the world as primary with the consequence that the symbol is taken
to be false. The argument may be stated like this: those who have used
symbols, pre-modern peoples for example, really didn't understand
the world they sought to communicate with so they resorted to a series of symbolic transformations which, although false, gave a functional interpretation of the world. Hence, myths and symbols, to follow the argument, were created by those peoples primarily for purposes of social organization, or for purposes of primitive scientific investigation and analysis. On the same basis it is possible to argue for
the falsity of the poetic symbol on the ground that it communicates
only emotively and not cognitively. In such cases of interpretation
the symbol is taken, as the ordinary sign, to signify literally. The symbol may make exorbitant claims about the sky, about vegetation,
about the self, etc., but if we are to understand it, so the argument
goes, then it is necessary to translate symbols back into signs in order
to get at their common sense meaning, or at a minimum, that which
the interpreter may think the meaning is.
We wish to point out simply that interpretation has become a problem in a twofold sense. On the one hand it is impossible to divorce
oneself from the common sense world of ordinary meaning. Strange-

INTRODUCTION

ly, there is no uninterpreted point from which interpretation may

begin. In most cases interpretation involves typing or categorizing in
the sense that that which is perceived is thematized in terms of types
which are familiar to us. The world which is meaningful to us is a
world which we can re-cognize in terms of a certain stock of knowledge which is the content of our experience. That which is unfamiliar
to us we tend either to dismiss or to thematize in terms of the stock
of knowledge we already possess. Hence, when one turns to the interpretation of symbols whose temporal (historical) location is prior to
our own, our tendency is to typify in terms of our own experience.
The case is the same when one interprets data from a culture other
than one's own. Sadly, one lives in a world of probabilities and it is
always possible that the dual hiatus created by history and culture is
sufficient to create a chasm in interpretation which allows for the
possibility that the interpreter has missed the point. This is particularly true when we allow that finite world of meaning which we call
our common-sense world to dictate our definition of meaning, or if
we allow for ordinary usages of language to predominate over symbolic usages.
The second problem which interpretation points to is that of verification. How does one determine whether or not one's interpretation
of the symbol is valid? In the natural sciences modes of verification
are, in general, standardized. One constructs an hypothesis, conducts
experiments on the basis of the hypothesis, and verifies the hypothesis on the basis of the successful or unsuccessful completion of the
experiments. But in the human sciences, the sciences which rely on
the interpretation of human activity and the products of that activity,
the problems presented by verification are quite different and in some
ways more difficult primarily because one is forced to deal with what
can be called the anthropological factor. Although a symbol is simply a given for interpretation, in order to account for its presence it
is necessary to account for the peculiar set of meanings and intentions which went into its production. The process would be greatly
simplified if it was possible to interrogate the producers of the symbol. For several reasons this is almost universally impossible. First,
symbols are generally the products of cultures and only indirectly
can they be said to be products of individual minds existing within
cultures. There are ways of interrogating individual minds within a
culture but it is almost impossible to question the culture as a whole.
Second, in the case of archaic symbolism, the cultures which pro-

INTRODUCTION

duced the symbols have disintegrated to such an extent that one is

left with a few scraps of information which, when put together, do
little to give one evidence of the culture that once existed. Even sophisticated techniques of historiography are of little avail in those
situations. Third, the possibilities for interrogation of the producers
of symbols is severely limited, even discounting the other factors, by
their availability. Since most authors refrain from interpreting their
works, and because in many cases the producers and users of symbols
are dead, the ideal of interrogation is impossible.
Inasmuch as, in the case of the interpretation of the symbol, direct
methods of empirical investigation are excluded, it will be necessary,
if interpretation is to be exercised at all, to develop a theoretical foundation sufficient to account for not only the definition of the symbol and its interpretation, but for ways of establishing its validity.
Instead of empirical verification the requirement of the symbol is for
an anthropological verification. In other words human intentionalities must be correlated with symbolic forms. The construction of
philosophical foundations for interpretation becomes critical at this
juncture initially because the theoretical foundations for interpretation will influence the manner in which interpretation occurs. One
can find no better negative example of this than the late nineteenth
and early twentieth century interpretations of the symbol which tended to eliminate the symbol on the basis of a philosophical commitment to an evolutionary scheme. Such interpreters directly or indirectly were influenced by the overwhelming success of the natural
sciences in the modern world,and they were willing to apply to the
data of the human sciences conclusions that had been successfully
applied in the natural sciences. They were also committed to a view
of man which envisioned the emergence of a total scientific rationality which would no longer require non-scientific expressions.
Our own commitments are somewhat different. We wish to construct a philosophical foundation which will grant authenticity to the
symbol conceiving of it as a legitimate and necessary expression of
human consciousness. Indeed, our initial judgment is somewhat different than that cited above. We wish to work out a philosophical
framework which will capture the intentionality of the symbol at its
own level. In order to do this, to refer to comments made a moment
~go, it is necessary to consider the symbol as a linguistic form. There
are those who would object to this position. First, there is the argument that the symbolic form is something other than a linguistic mo-

INTRODUCTION

dality. To be sure this judgment is correct. For us it is a principle of

paramount importance that the symbol be considered as something
more than the interpretative vehicles employed for its communication. Second, most contemporary interpreters of symbols would argue that almost anything is capable of becoming a symbol, and further, that in the history of mankind almost everything in the sphere
of human experience has been symbolized. Hence to restrict the symbol to the realm of language alone is to limit the multiple modalities
of symbolic expression and present a false view of the symbol. Again
we agree. However, we disagree with those who would claim that the
symbol has nothing to do with language. The somewhat paradoxical
problem is this: the symbol is not simply a linguistic phenomenon
but it is conveyed through language. This fact creates a situation that
is enormously complex defying any word-object correlation in the
definition of language on the one hand and any simple identification
of ordinary language with the symbol on the other. In order to clarify this, let us go back to a proposition made earlier, namely, the sign
signifies literally. As we stated, the confusion resulting from a consideration of the symbol as language often arises from attempts to place
the symbol under that broad canopy which identifies the symbol as
a sign. This offends those who wish to defend the independence of
the symbol while it allows for the false reductionism of symbol to
signs, a reductionism which breaks or destroys the symbol. But it
does not seem necessary, in order to avoid this identification of the
symbol and sign, to overreact by disassociating the symbol and language completely. There are good reasons for considering symbols as
linguistic modalities. First, symbols are communicated and they do
communicate. Whether symbols are as complex and visual as an Eisenstein montage (the symbolic creations of the famous Russian cinematographer) or as opaque and difficult as a Dylan Thomas poem,
symbols communicate. But symbols communicate in a complex way.
We may state that symbols communicate not monodimensionally, to
only one level of human experience, but multidimensionally, to severallevels of human experience. Symbols are both affective and cognitive, both existential and ontological; in essence they combine the
world of human feeling with that which is cognitively or ontologically
most significant in the lives of human beings. Symbols communicate
effectively to the totalities of human experience. An aspect of that
communication is linguistic in the sense that symbols are publically
communicated and not simply associated with a private experience.

INTRODUCTION

To be able to be universalized and therefore publicized the symbol

requires a linguistic component. Certainly, language is not the only
medium for communication, but it seems rather obvious that it is
the primary medium for communication. Second, symbols are given
or donated for understanding. To claim that a symbol can be communicated implies that symbols have to be understood by their creators and receivers. Again one is involved in a linguistic problem, inasmuch as the ability to understand involves the ability to convey with
the tools of language. Third, symbols donate themselves for thought.
From the manifestation of the symbol one moves to reflection on
the symbol. Such reflection entails an association between language
and thought. On the pre-reflective level, that is the level wherein the
symbol is simply given, the symbol simply manifests itself. But when
the symbol becomes a phenomenon for philosophical reflection the
correlation between language and thought is brought into play. That
which constitutes itself meaningfully is linguistic.
The philosophical foundation which will establish the interpretative framework for the symbol will have to account for the role of
the symbol as linguistic without confusing it with the linguistic sign.
It will have to account for the multivalence of the symbol as opposed
to the monovalence of signs. It is our view that the symbol constitutes a unique moment within language consisting of the manifestation of a phenomenon with its own unique rubrics and properties.
The projected task consists of the following:
(1) to establish a theory of language which will allow for the distinction of the symbol from other modalities of linguistic expression;
(2) to arrive at an adequate definition of the symbol which will
allow it to be considered as a distinctive and unique phenomenon;
(3) to derive an interpretative or hermeneutic framework which
will yield a full understanding of the symbol;
(4) to show how the symbol expresses itself as a unique and distinctive phenomenon within culture.
First, an attempt has been made to provide a theoretical framework
which will account for the richness of the symbol conceived in the
context of language (chapter one). Second, in order to achieve this
end we consider hermeneutic frameworks which we think have begun
to account for the points made above (chapters two, three and four).
Finally, we have tried to account for the expression of the symbol in
its various modalities: religious, philosophical, socio-political, and literary (chapters five and six).

CHAPTER I

SYMBOL AND LANGUAGE

INTRODUCTION

The task of this chapter is to construct a theory of language in which

it will be possible to place the symbol. The symbol requires a context
and it is precisely this context that language provides. Because the
study oflanguage can avoid neither the problematic of intended meanings implicit in the usage of language, nor the issue of the concretization of language articulated by a human subject, we shall examine the
manner in which a phenomenological theory of consciousness may influence a theory of language. Finally, as we have already pointed out,
the symbol ought to be considered as a distinctive phenomenon with
its own rubrics and properties, but within a linguistic context.
ON MULTIPLE REALITIES

Potentiality, Givenness, Heritage, Memoryl

Whether one chooses to speak oflanguage, the social world, consciousness or action, one must face the problem of the origin of these phenomena if one is to come to terms with the way in which meaning is
constituted. Because of this one is driven back to describe the prereflexive lived world of meaning. This is the world of potentiality inasmuch as it provides the foundation for any actual achievement of
meaning in any present context. An inquiry into this dimension of

I This discussion draws upon the work of Alfred Schutz whose contribution to the discussion and interpretation of the symbol is threefold. First, he conceived of the social world as
one which was differentiated into multiple levels of reality, each level being distinguished as
a constitutive realm of meaning. Second, he conceived of language as the key factor in ordering the social world. And third, for Schutz the symbol was fundamental for the grounding of
the social order.
Although the conclusions regarding the relationship of the symbol to language are my
own, I believe Schutz has made a lasting and creative contribution to the discussion of symbol and language.
For further information see: Schutz, Alfred, The Phenomenology of the Social World.
Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1967 and Schutz, Alfred, Collected Papers Vols.
I & II. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1964, 1967.

SYMBOL AND LANGUAGE

experience will account for its unity and also its possible differentiations. This investigation will provide the basis for the kind of theory
of language in which one can begin to account for the symbol.
The social world in which we live is a world of potential meanings,
most of which we are not aware of at any particular "present," but
whose function is to carryon the process of daily life. One of the curious facts of social existence is that most of the meanings we have
are unexamined, part of the heritage of each person within that social
world. Most of the meanings given are pre-reflexive; meanings are habitual structures of action of which we are not conscious. Equally,
the social world is a world of given relationships, relationships characterized primarily as associations with other people and only secondarily as relationships with objects. When anyone of us relates to other
people emotionally in terms of love or hate, intellectually in terms of
discussion or debate, or actively in terms of common achievement we
simply assume that the other person's experience is like our own, that
his experience is indubitably real, and that he will behave in a way
similar to the manner in which we expect him to behave.
To be sure, much of human behavior is determined by the set of
inherited social roles assumed by each of us. If the "other" person
happens to be a parent we communicate in a way considerably different than if that person happens to be a friend. Similarly, we expect
that "other" to behave in a manner in accord with the particular role
which he assumes for us. For example, it would be expected that the
attempt to communicate the meaning of a drug experience would be
considerably different in the case of communication with a friend and
then with a parent. In the first instance one might expect a sympathetic ear while in the second, stern disapproval. Equally, the role of
the "other" would be determined in the sense that the friend may
consider his role to be that of one who is to empathize with the experience, while the parent, even if he has experienced drugs himself,
would probably feel that it was necessary to act with disapproval.
The latter may wish he could dispense with the issue altogether, but
he is aware that that is impossible inasmuch as he is expected to fulfill his "biographically determined" role. The role that one is given to
play in the particular contexts of social experience determines the
manner in which that experience will be interpreted. For instance, let
us assume that our individual's drug experience was not only communicated to friend and parent but was also discovered by the police,
becoming thereby a matter for legal prosecution. The function of the

SYMBOL AND LANGUAGE

particular policeman involved in the arrest is determined by the particular social role he has chosen to play. At this moment in time the
use of drugs for pleasure is illegal. His function is to protect and enforce the law. Consequently, when he discovered the particular user
of drugs it was necessary for him to arrest that individual. Later, when
the act of prosecution of the individual is made a judge will be forced
to render a decision, not on the basis of his personal opinion of drugs,
but on the basis of the legality or the illegality of the offense.
One of the predominant aspects of the social world is the function
of the social role as an institutionalized modality within which the
experience of the social world occurs. In a sense this habitual role
designation, this habitual institutionalization of the "other ," enables
us to survive in the social world with a modicum of intelligibility. It
orders our experience. The larger context into which this approach
to experience fits may be called typification. One typifies experience
in order to relate to and understand the "other" in the social world.
To return to the above example for a moment, we may state that the
father chooses to reprimand the son because that is an institutionalized mode of fatherly action, while the friend's activity was equally
prescribed. If a person is found to be acting in a particular way we
tend to typify the person's action in terms of prior experiences of a
similar type, past experiences of institutionalized roles, etc. Hence, to
type is to place within memory a fixed impression of a particular person which may be recalled for future reference when similar encounters are made. It is on the basis of this typification that, within the
unity of experience, I can find a basis for differentiation of experience.
Typification provides the basis for the intelligible experience of any
"now," any present experience. In this context I am able to differentiate type A from type B, etc.; thereby, I am able to, as it were, program my experience of others. However, there are certain limitations
to this approach, namely, the tendency to understand the other not
as unique, but through a typified model which may be shared in part
by the particular other. Hence, one's past experience is always modified by the present, but in many ways the past typified experience
makes any particular present possible.
The temporal category into which institutionalized role, typification, and, in general, the stock of knowledge at hand fit is that of past
time, time retained in memory. Memory functions as a given for any
present, creative act of consciousness; the memory which is composed
of a series of retentions is the basis for any protention, any projected

10

SYMBOL AND LANGUAGE

act. Equally, memory may function in different ways in accord with

the manner in which one wishes to construe time. If one assumes a
concept of objective time, memory may be construed as an objective
and static phenomenon which consists of an unchanging storehouse
of past experiences, events, etc. From this "objective" point of view
any action is simply an activation of memory conceived as static and
unchanging. However, time may be considered from the perspective
of its internal unity as that which is the dynamic center of any projected act sufficiently fluid to appropriate itself to the changes that occur in the alterations of present (as contrasted with past) temporality.
In other words, the constitution of memory changes as one's choices
or projects change. Within the flow of time - past, present and future - are coordinates which mutually affect one another as the events
occur which experience both makes and constitutes. For example, one
may have the experience of fear of a certain object in childhood which,
although remembered in adult life, is completely changed because of
a series of subsequent events which caused one to experience similar
phenomena in a totally different light. In this sense the future has a
fundamental influence on the past so that one's interpretation of the
past is altered continuously by an experienced present and a projected future. This is not to depreciate the role of memory. Memory
plays a unique role in experience when considered from the perspective of human potentiality. Every act of consciousness presupposes
the reality of a past in which sedimentations of meaning are available
which supply both interpretative schemes for our understanding of
any present experience and the foundations for any future project.
Therefore, memory functions as that sphere of potentiality for any
actual experiental occasion.
Actualization and Meaning
Something is meaningful when it is recorded in individual memory or
in group consciousness in such a way that it has sustaining significance.
The assassination of a political figure, the occurrence of a national crisis, the creation of a political symbol are all instances of meaning on
a group level. On the individual level the things that are attended to
in the course of daily events are meaningful as opposed to those occurrences which register no trace in consciousness. Habitual processes,
such as the routine work of the day which is not attended to, may be
dismissed or forgotten as experiences which are not meaningful. In

SYMBOL AND LANGUAGE

11

contrast those things deliberately selected, determined by interest and

attended to may be defined as meaningful. The actualization of meaning then involves a process of interpretation and selection. However,
in order that this process of interpretation and selection may occur,
a sphere of latent meaning must be presupposed, namely, the sphere
of potentiality. In terms of the prior discussion the sphere oflatent
meaning may be divided into two categories: meanings which are already constituted and are therefore part of one's integrated past, and
meanings which are inherited and are individually and socially determinative of one's historical being. The categories of social role, nationality, birth, sex, etc., are characteristic of the latter type of latent
meaning which we shall call determinative latent meaning as opposed
to integrated latent meaning of which the factor of memory is a constituent part. It is on the basis of these latent modalities of meaning
that the actualization of meaning occurs. Latent categories of meaning provide the foundation for the actualization of meaning.
It is commonplace in Bergsonian and to some extent Jamesian, as
well as phenomenological, analysis and thinking to say that meaning
is constituted in a process of attending to or becoming interested. We
all live in a world of happenings, occurrences, events, encounters, etc.
- a stream of time which flows in continuous plasticity. This stream
functions on a pre-cognitive, pre-reflexive level; it is a sphere of latent
meaning which is not meaningful in itself. The possibility for anything
within that flow becoming meaningful involves our attending to it. To
attend to a phenomenon within the stream of events of daily life is to
interpret. Further, interpretation involves constitution.
Without interpretation there is no constitution of time, time is only flow and duration, a continuous coming to be and passing away.
An act of reflection is a movement which momentarily halts the stream
of consciousness by establishing a priority among the occurrences, selecting some as significant and rejecting others as irrelevant. I may be
in a room where there are a number of sounds: a radio playing music,
the sound of auto traffic in the street, the noise of a typewriter and
the noise of others moving about the building. At any moment I may
select one of those sounds as important. For example, I may become
suddenly interested in the music being played on the radio, or the
noise of an auto accident in the street. In the case of the latter incident, I may momentarily halt my work to observe the accident, choosing to investigate the incident further. At the end of the day perhaps
I will have dismissed all the other sounds within the stream of con-

12

SYMBOL AND LANGUAGE

sciousness as unimportant. I may only recall the auto accident or the

particular piece of music I happened to hear on the radio. Actualized
meaning, meaning which is selected by the particular individual, is
constituted by an act of attention.
The act of attention which begins to make something meaningful
brings with it an act of interpretation or understanding. For something to be meaningful in a fully actualized sense it must be interpreted by a particular subject or group of people to whom it occurs
as meaningful. If, for example, the series of noises, crashing noises,
that were heard a moment ago as I was writing in my study, were dismissed, they could not be designated as meaningful. Because an individual is capable of putting the series of noises together (there was an
accident) into an intelligible pattern the phenomenon can be designated as meaningful. Significantly, at the moment of reflection latent
meaning and actualized meaning are correlated as potentiality and actuality. In the case of the accident by simply auditory perception I
was provided with an interpretative scheme which allowed me to constitute a present experience as meaningful. Hence, it was because I
had experienced a series of occurrences in the past, a past with its attendant series of perceptions, that this similar series of perceptions in
the present were rendered meaningful to me. Equally, if that interpretative scheme had not been available to me, the experience would
not have been rendered meaningful, instead it would have been dismissed as part of that flux which is part of the stream of consciousness. It is possible to conclude that the sphere of latent meanings, as
the realm of potentiality, becomes actualized as one attends to the
occurrences within the stream of consciousness. In this way meaning
is constituted.

Multiple Realities
The process of concretization or actualization is a process of differentiation. Actual meaning is differentiated meaning, whereas latent
meaning is undifferentiated meaning. Latent meaning may be conceived as a totality of lived experiences, occurrences, interpretative
schemes, etc. which form the foundation for each actual occurrence
of meaning. However, latent meaning is not differentiated, for, when
conceived as a separate entity, there is no occasion for differentiation.
It is only by an act of reflection that one is able to differentiate latent meanings. However, in the process of reflection one has already

SYMBOL AND LANGUAGE

13

made latent meanings actual. For example, I may have a multitude of

experiences to draw upon in any moment of reflection, but it is only
the moment of reflection that provides the possibility for drawing upon any prior experience. It was because of the crash that occurred
outside my window that I was able to draw upon an interpretative
scheme derived from my memory of prior incidents of a similar nature. Equally, the present circumstance provides the basis for selection from that totality of past experiences. Without the present instance, not only would there be no criteria for selection, there would
be no necessity for making the selection in the first place. In this sense
the present rules the past; even if the past interprets the present.
Consciousness is both passive and active. For meaning to become
actualized an act of consciousness is required. Such an act is intentional. By intentionality we mean not only that consciousness has an
object, but also that the human subject is creatively engaged with the
world in such a way that meaning, when actualized, is the product of
that creativity. In other words, meaning when actualized is constructed by the human subject. Latent meaning in many ways is not constructed, rather it is part of one's historicity, the heritage of any individual and social existence. Latent meaning is the passively given,
that which is the deterministic or behavioristic aspect of human activity, governed in a sense by historical necessity. At any moment in
time one cannot alter the body of latent meaning which is the heritage of every individual and every group. But in the process of the
actualization of meaning the human subject is the free constructing
agent. It is the human subject who selects; it is he who interprets; it
is he who reflects. In this process the freedom of human creativity is
achieved. So, in every actualization of meaning we have the reconciliation of freedom and necessity in the sense that the body of potentiality, that which is given, is freely acted upon.
In this process of actualization differentiation is achieved through
the intentional constructs of human consciousness. Theories of consciousness and meaning often fail to account for the multidimensional
character of both. The tendency is to take one sphere of actualized
meaning and to make it apply universally and generally. Hence, arguments are presented for the priority of technological rationality over
common sense rationality or the priority of cognitive rationality over
aesthetic rationality. The problem with such schemes is their failure
to account for the manifold achievements of human thought and activity. Instead, the worlds of actualized meaning are constructed on

14

SYMBOL AND LANGUAGE

several levels simultaneously without hierarchical arrangement. We

shall refer to three such modalities of differentiation to which we
shall apply the term "finite world of meaning," namely, the world
of science, the world of common sense, and the symbolic universe
of meaning.
The differentiation of consciousness that occurs in and through
the actualization of meaning may be characterized initially by a mode
of attention. To become aware of something is to become interested
in it in such a way that the flow of ordinary experience is interrupted.
Let us assume that I am part of a discussion among a group of friends.
A friend of mine has just made a statement of particular relevance to
a set of events that I participated in in the recent past. I intervene in
the conversation to comment on the point my friend just made from
the perspective of the events that recently happened to me. The instance may be characterized as an actualization of consciousness in
terms of the common sense world of meaning. In this very simple and
mundane instance of the manner in which the common sense world
is constructed I have first interrupted the continuous flow of occurrences by an act of reflection, that is, I attend to or become interested
in something that was said. At this point something becomes immediately relevant to one. Secondly, I, so to speak, projected myself into the conversation by establishing a minimal and mundane project,
namely the communication of my particular experience. Thirdly, in
the act of recollection I developed an interpretative scheme, I assumed
that my experience would be relevant to the general conversation, and,
having had similar experiences in the past, I felt free to interject myself into the conversation at that particular moment.
But one may inquire as to why that particular experience should
be regarded as germane to the common sense world of meaning as
opposed to some other finite world of meaning. The reply is that a
number of assumptions were made which were peculiar to that world
as opposed to the finite constructs of other worlds. I assumed the
primordial facticity of basic mutual relationship. I.assumed that the
"others" within this particular group have had experiences similar to
my own and therefore when communication was attempted on my
part I anticipated a behavioral response. There was no anticipation of
a need to question the simultaneity of experience shared by the others within the group and myself. I assumed my attempt to communicate would be successful. Questions were not raised with regard to
the legitimacy of these assumptions.

SYMBOL AND LANGUAGE

15

In general, the assumptions made in the common sense world of

meaning are uncritical, but functional; they are reflective, but they
do not raise the question of the foundations for reflection. In contrast, the construction of meaning in the world of science is critical,
it searches for foundations and the kind of generalizations which will
account for more than immediate experience. Hence, the reflective
attitude in the scientific sphere assumes a considerably different perspective than it does in the world of common sense. Attending to
something requires an operation from a refined critical perspective
with understanding as one's primary intention. To return for a moment to the prior example, my response to my friend's comment
would not be my immediate concern. Rather, my interest would be
with the behavior of people in general as illustrated in this particular
example. Further, I would follow a set of procedures which would
enhance my understanding of that particular situation. I would develop hypotheses, construct models, create ideal types, etc. which
would attempt to account not only for my own behavior but also
for the behavior of others within the group. And, above all, in my
concern to understand immediate attitudes and assumptions about
the behavior of myself, the behavior of others and the behavior of
the group in general would be placed in suspension. One would attempt to account for the meaning of the behavior by generalizing it,
discovering thereby the possible similarities between it and other manifestations of behavior taken from similar situations.
It follows that the finite world of meaning which is designated
as scientific differs fundamentally from the common sense world of
meaning in the sense that the mode of attending to the stream of
consciousness is different. In the common sense world my attending
to a particular experience may be characterized as an immediate response to a situation. The interpretative framework that is presupposed in this process is one which is fundamentally disinterested in
the immediacy of response; rather it is basically interested in the fundamental meaning of such a response. Consequently, the project conceived and executed varies considerably in a scientific framework as
contrasted with a common sense framework.
The symbolic universe of meaning differs from the prior two in
the sense that it attempts to probe the ultimate foundations of meaning. The symbolic universe of meaning attempts to relate the world
to the subject in a final and complete sense. It is the character of
good tragedy, for example, to reveal to its audience not only the des-

16

SYMBOL AND LANGUAGE

tiny of the actors in the play, but also a vision of human destiny
which probes beneath the ordinary events of human experience. When
I enter the theater I momentarily suspend my judgment about my
ordinary destiny in order to enter the poetic world of the playwright
in order to be transported beyond the immediacy of my own experience. If the play is successful I am able to empathize with its characters; I also see their vision. I am led to confront the tragic irony
confronting all forms of human experience, and, on occasion I may
even be led to visualize my confrontation with my own death.
To be sure, the symbolic universe of meaning is not confined to
the theater; it extends to all of literature, as well as to the worlds of
the psyche, religion and aspects of the socio-political world. To read
a novel is to enter into another world of meaning. Equally, one's participation in a religious ritual is to prescind momentarily from ordinary experience in order to identify with an archetype which reveals
the ultimate foundation upon which all events of existential significance may be explained. Creation rituals were traditionally practiced
to demonstrate how the universe was related to a particular group of
people. They transcend the immediate experience of the world in order to ground it. By understanding creation it is possible to understand the self in the process of creation. Equally, the psychic universe,
in part the world of dreams, is a symbolic universe of meaning. Consider the process of psychotherapy. The world of dreams is not a
world of vague signification; rather, it is an indication of our own
fears, doubts, anxieties, hopes and aspirations. Hence, to decipher
those experiences is to gain a clue to the meaning of our own heritage
inclusive of its unresolved conflicts, the paramount impressions of infantile sexuality, etc. To decipher the dream is to decipher oneself,
oneself in conflict, and through the process of deciphering, the resolution of conflict. In the socio-political world the symbolic universe
of meaning is manifest in a similar way. The kind of transformation
of consciousness that occurs in that context is one which requires a
transcendence of one's immediate socio-political situation in accordance with a vision of a just society, a utopian construct.
Significantly, the mode of attention differs in the symbolic universe
of meaning through empathy and imagination. Whether it be a religious ritual, affective and intellectual attention in a play, or one's attempt to uncover the ciphers of dreams, the manner in which the individual attends to his experience is by the use of the imagination as
well as through empathetic understanding. The experience is reinter-

SYMBOL AND LANGUAGE

17

preted and thereby it becomes a self-experience. It was Soren Kierkegaard who was perhaps the first to understand the chasm that must
be bridged by imagination in the symbolic universe of meaning. He
coined the phrase "indirect discourse" to account for the fact that
great symbolic experiences of mankind could not be communicated
directly, rather they required the medium of analogy, story, and example for others to understand their meaning. Hence, it is the mode
of attention which requires the imaginative leap in order to invade
the symbolic universe of meaning to make it a personal and individual
experience. Similarly, the project constructed by the subject in the
world of symbolism differs from the other constructions in the sense
that the aim of the subject is both intensely personal and at the same
time universal. The subject desires to understand himself in the context of universal destiny. The measure of meaning is the measure of
one's experience because the conclusion that one reaches with regard
to a particular symbolic creation is analogous to the richness of one's
own experience. This also affects the development of interpretational
schemes, in the sense that the development and use of schemes of interpretation will vary in accord with the richness of one's experience.
The universe of meaning designated as the provinces of the concrete
constitution of consciousness are not the province of one individual
or any individual type or particular group. As poetry is not the province of the poet alone, so science is not limited to the scientist; the
world of common sense is the limit of no normal human being's experience. Rather, as consciousness concretizes its potentialities these
universes of meaning may be realized in successive and almost simultaneous actualizations as one can participate in a common sense world
of meaning in a matter of hours, or moments. Hence, from an epistemological point of view no world of meaning should be regarded as
primary, but instead, the search for foundations ought to be grounded in a theoretical and speculative attempt to account for the multiple
manifestations of consciousness.
LANGUAGE AND THE SYMBOL

Language and Consciousness

The prior section may be considered as an epistemological construction

which attempts to provide a foundation for the manner in which consciousness becomes concrete. Language was purposely bracketed out

18

LANGUAGE AND SYMBOL

for reasons of clarity, but no total picture can be achieved from a permanent exclusion of language. Now it is possible to return to a consideration oflanguage in relationship to consciousness, a consideration
which will provide a theoretical foundation for the symbol and symbolic language in relationship to language generally.
In order to demonstrate the interrelationship between language and
consciousness it is possible to begin with the somewhat rhetorical question, are there situations in which consciousness is not related to language? There must be non-linguistic experiences. The cinematic experience of a montage, the musical experience of listening to a symphony, the immediate psychic experience of anxiety: all these are not
necessarily linguistic. In this sense it is possible and legitimate to claim
that there is no necessary relationship between language and consciousness on a pre-reflexive level. For example, the psychic experience of
fear is something encountered with shock and amazement, and overwhelming experience. Its immediate character is affective and not cognitive; it is spontaneous and non-reflective, an experience wherein immediate images are more significant than language. While it is experienced one has no way of communicating its meaning in the intensity
of the moment. He is without any interpretative scheme with which
to give an analysis of its meaning or significance. It is a total experience which, in its immediacy, can neither be understood nor communicated. Equally, it is legitimate to claim that the experience of listening to music in its immediacy is a non-linguistic experience. The
beauty of immediate musical discovery, its totality, its unity is nonlinguistic, almost beyond reduplication in words.
Language does not contain experience. Language cannot engulf the
totality of experience. Language is a medium through which experience is expressed; it is not a vessel for the fulness of completeness of
experience.
But, if language can neither be identical with pre-reflexive experience, and if it cannot be conceived as a vessel or container, there is
a level at which language and experience are in fundamental unity,
namely, at the level of reflective experience. The experience of fear,
cited a moment ago, may occur to the individual as an immediate and
unique experience utterly distinguished from linguistic appropriations.
If, however, that experience is to become meaningful and relevant to
the particular individual who experiences it, it must necessarily become
linguistic. Its meaning must necessarily be recorded in and through
words, even though they may not capture the totality of the experi-

SYMBOL AND LANGUAGE

19

ence. Indeed, these immediacies may begin to recess with the passage
of time. However, if I am to convey that experience even to myself,
I am forced to use words to do it.
The conclusion is this: although there may not be an identity between language and the totality of experience at any level, there is an
identity between language and consciousness at the reflective level.
To think' is to involve oneself with language. Conversely, not to have
language is not to be able to experience on the reflective level.

Language as Isomorphic to Consciousness

A moment ago an attempt was made to construct a theoretical model
which accounted for the manner in which consciousness functions.
Now that model will be used to show how language functions. A consideration of the basic unity and identity between language and consciousness will be suspended in order to concentrate upon language as
an abstract body of potentiality. 2
The distinctive thing about life within a culture may be characterized by the overwhelming role that language plays within it. No individual within the culture invents language, rather language is always
present. Language precedes birth and succeeds death. The measure of
maturation of individuals within a given culture is linguistic. The child's
ability to learn the complex sounds, rules, and patterns of language is
the foundation for his ability to discover his culture and his world.
The heritage of culture is language, which from the individual's point
of view cannot be changed or altered. If speech patterns are altered,
or if grammatical rules are changed by individuals, the result is misunderstanding. Language has an implicit power over the individual
within the culture. He is subject to the whims of language, as well as
to its formalizations. The limits of one's language are the limits of
one's cultural universe of meaning.
The claim has been made that language dictates behavior. Certainly,
learning a language is learning to behave in accord with its rules. Since
a native language is acquired at an early age this process is basically an
unconscious one. But the strict correlation of language and behavior
is the fundamental limitation of the grammatical view of language.
2 By "language as an abstract body of potentiality" I mean language abstracted from concrete intentional usage, or, in phenomenological terms, language abstracted from consciousness. It is my view that the phenomenological approach to language must incorporate a structural orientation. As I will show later, the structural orientation is a moment, albeit a very
important moment, in the overall theory of language.

20

SYMBOL AND LANGUAGE

From a grammatical point of view language is a totality which at any

given moment has a structure which cannot be changed. Hence, if the
choice is made to take the grammatical view as the fundamental model for the consideration of language, behavioristic consequences are
inevitable. That is the fundamental issue which emerges when phenomenology and structuralism confront one another. Phenomenology
opts for the freedom of individual expression while the structural model is willing to accept behavioristic consequences for the sake of analytic precision. Phenomenology cannot account for the grammatical
precision achieved by the structural model; equally structuralism cannot account for the creative usage central to phenomenology. But the
conflict between the two orientations need not remain unresolved.
There are essentially three moments in an appropriate philosophical theory of language. The first incorporates language as an ideal totality, a purely abstract body of potentiality which functions as a system of signs which obey a set of rules and laws. This conception of
language is basic to the structural model. Language is grammatical. At
this moment in the development of language, consciousness is embedded within language.
There are two key insights with regard to this moment in the development of language. First, language is fundamentally social. Second, language structures our pre-reflexive world of meaning. The first
insight is the correlate of the first section on multiple realities. Epistemologically, one knows the world through the sign of the other.
The world signifies itself to us. In this sense there is a certain necessity in language. Man is born into a world that is already typified by
language. He is forced to come to terms with language simply to know
the world. In this sense Saussure and others are correct when they
suggest that the origins of language are unconscious. The origins are
unconscious because language is not consciously created at any particular time or place for the pre-reflexive world of meaning is already
structured by language.
Here emerges the extreme difficulty which the structural model
presents the philosophical theory of language. Because language has a
pre-conscious heritage, because language from an ordinary point of
view determines behavior, it is assumed that the first moment of language can determine the total phenomenon of language. Because language is conceived as prior to the subject it is assumed that it is better
to exclude the subject from a consideration of language for the sake
of scientific precision.

SYMBOL AND LANGUAGE

21

It must be admitted that consciousness is embedded in language as

consciousness is embedded in the structures that organize one's social

universe of meaning. Consciousness only discovers itself as emerging
out of the other; it does not create itself. Hence a theory oflanguage
which attempts to account for the creativity of the conscious acting
subject in his use of language, must acknowledge the deterministic
origins of language. Language presents a set of structures and laws
which the subject must obey if he wishes to be understood and to
understand.
The second moment in the development of a theory of language is
the moment of concretion or actualization. This moment incorporates
the transition from the passive to the active, from potentiality to actuality, from abstraction to concrescence. To use language creatively
is not only to be able to absorb and implement the grammar of language, but also it is to be able to intend language in a specific way. At
the level of concrete usage the grammatical theory of language is fundamental but incidental to the meaning of language. It is inevitable
that the immediate means for appropriate communication, simply
language that does communicate, is through obedience to a set of
grammatical rules. This is fundamental for it is the basis for the possibility of communication. But it is incidental to the actual meaning
of the language concretely used because its actual meaning transcends
grammatical usage. A poem, a scientific description, and an ordinary
conversation may all share the same grammar, but if grammar was
the only clue one had to meaning, we should be left with the obvious
falsity that all modes of discourse had a similar meaning.
Consequently, it seems impossible to construct a theory of meaning in relationship to language without consideration of the manner
in which language is intended. In other words, language considered in
isolation from a theory of consciousness or a theory of mind seems
to be limited to the narrowness of the grammatical model. The second moment in a philosophical theory of language moves beyond
the structural model in two ways, first through a consideration of
the manner in which the subject intends language and second, through
a consideration of the distinctions within language itself. Actually,
these are aspects of the same issue, namely, a correlation between
la~guage and consciousness. The paradigm model for the way in which
the subject intends language is given in the prior section on consciousness. As language is used it differentiates itself into special languages,
the meaning of which must be deciphered in accord with the finite

22

SYMBOL AND LANGUAGE

realms of meaning which represent the concretization of consciousness.

The argument for the differentiation of language in accordance
with the differentiation of consciousness can be made negatively. The
problem is best illustrated from the point of view of interpretation.
If, for example, one interprets a poem as one interprets a journalistic
account of a new event, it is probable that the meaning of the poem
would be lost. Equally, if one interprets archaic myth as elementary
scientific description he fails to understand the meaning of the myth
and in reality the myth is falsified. If one enters a chemist's laboratory with either a common sense or a mythic scheme of interpretation
he quite probably misapprehends, both perceptively and linguistically,
the meaning of the activities within that context. The error that is
made in each of these situations is the misplacement of an interpretative scheme which is given within the particular language used. The
positive counterpart of the negative example accounts for its multiple
usages. As consciousness, language distinguishes itself as one moves
from the abstract to the concrete, from potentiality to actuality. It
develops in accord with human intention and in relationship to human activity. On the intentional or concrete level language may be
understood in relationship to the constitution of finite worlds of
meaning as in the general case of consciousness. In terms of the construction of the common sense world of meaning the intention of
language is transparent to the object intended. That which is held in
common in this context is an intersubjective world of meaning which
is presumed to be unambiguous by the participants in that world. It
should be stated that the world-object theory of language is not intended. As on the grammatical level, contextual meaning is primary. But
the meaning of language on the intentional level with its differentiations differs in accord with the mode of intention given in the finite
realm of meaning in which it occurs. Hence, the meaning of words is
correlate with the intentions of the users of those words, and an interpretation of language must be able to account for those intentions.
Hence, in a common sense framework the meaning of language seeks
to be the common meaning, the public meaning, the meaning that is
easily and unambiguously understood. When one communicates to a
friend, when one participates in a conversation, the assumption is
made that the meanings intended are not hidden.
In contrast to ordinary language, scientific discourse attempts to
provide foundations for meaning. The language of scientific inquiry
contains within it a critical attitude which seeks to establish meaning.

SYMBOL AND LANGUAGE

23

But scientific language is more than that reflected in the formation

of a critical attitude inasmuch as it can incorporate an entire vocabulary of refined meaning to speak about the physical and intellectual
world. In some cases it seems proper to speak of this linguistic modality as an extension of ordinary language in the sense that the properties of ordinary language are refined to meet the critical and constructive demands of a given scientific discipline. A particular scientific discipline has a set of presuppositions including modes of perception, perspective, style, and character. These are conveyed in and
through the language in such a way that learning the discipline involves learning the language. Scientific language shares in common
with common sense language the grammatical moment. The same
grammatical rules are applied and in many cases the same vocabulary
is used. However, the point of differentiation is at the juncture of
concrete usage when it is possible to deduce the different rationales
of the special languages on the basis of the construct, intentionality.
The distinctive characteristic of symbolic language is that, in the
process of concrescence, in usage, the intention of the language is not
transparent. The intention of symbolic language is multivalent, combining levels of reality in such a way that a distinctive universe of
meaning is created. It is because of this distinctive characteristic, multivalence, that interpretation of symbolic language becomes problematic. Therefore, interpretation of symbolic language requires a special
hermeneutic. Symbolic language may be called the language of deliberate ambiguity which communicates through ciphers rather than
signs. The meanings of myths, poems, novels, dramas, etc. have to be
understood by a careful revelation of the layers of meaning which
they contain. The intentions within any particular symbolic work are
multiple. For example, in most dramas we are presented with a protagonist who goes through a series of events, experiences, and situations which lead him to a certain destiny. On the most immediate
and literal level, these occurrences are mundane, communicating only in terms of the common sense world of meaning. On another level
these occurrences have a meaning that is not opposite to the original
meaning but, as it were, disclosed through it. Hence, the mundane
occurrences reveal the nature of human destiny, the character of tragedy, or the self-effacing quality of comedy. Significantly, the second
level of meaning is not to be understood as independent of the first
level, but the first level is necessary in order that the second level
may occur at all.

24

SYMBOL AND LANGUAGE

CONCLUSION

The problem of this essay has been to conceive of the symbol within
language so that the linguistic construct which occurs as a consequence
of the symbol, namely, a symbolic language may be accounted for in
such a way that attention may be given to the special rubrics and
properties of that symbolic form. At the same time it has been necessary to conceive of the symbolic form within language generally. In
order to achieve that end first, it was necessary to construct a theory
of consciousness which accounted for the finite worlds of meaning in
which consciousness is constituted, and second, it was necessary to
show how language corresponds to those finite worlds through which
it becomes actualized. In this way it was possible to account for language as a totality in terms of the grammatical model, while at the
same time it was possible to conceive of specialized language conceived
in relationship to the constitution of consciousness. Hence, it is possible to conceive the way in which the symbol and symbolic language
may be a part of language generally, while retaining their unique character. At the same time following this approach, it should be possible
to avoid the errors of behaviorism. Language, when concrete, can be
conceived as an aspect of human creativity.

CHAPTER II

MIRCEA ELIADE: STRUCTURAL HERMENEUTICS

AND PHILOSOPHY

INTRODUCTION

In some ways the theoretical issue, the problem of the last chapter,
cannot be solved without moving toward the concrete task of interpretation. If it can be established that the symbol is a distinctive linguistic phenomenon with its own rubrics and properties, the next
task will be the encounter with concrete symbols, the problem of
interpretation. Mircea Eliade's contribution to the development of a
theory of interpretation is the development of a hermeneutic which
incorporates phenomenological and structural motifs. In this discussion the issue which will in some sense dominate the rest of the book
is presented, namely, the issue of the meaning of symbols as authentic
representations and articulations of human experience. Here specifically the problem of the religious symbol is discussed; later other types
of symbols will be considered. The theoretical framework of the last
chapter provides the foundation for the development of this hermeneutic orientation.
THE SYMBOL AS A DIMENSION OF CONSCIOUSNESS

There seems to be a growing feeling that the symbolism of archaic

and oriental cultures can and ought to be taken seriously. The question is how? It is one thing to empathize with man in other and past
cultures; it is another thing to understand him. In the past, archaic
and oriental symbolism was thought to be important as a datum in
the development of modern consciousness. Although this interpretation is still given credence by some, historical-evolutionary hypotheses are being replaced by interpretations which want to understand
this symbolism as an authentic dimension of human consciousness
regardless of its historical origin. If archaic symbolism can be regarded as representative of a dimension of consciousness the question of
interpretation is primary.

26

MIRCEA ELIADE

I wish to debate this question by reference to a hermeneutic devel-

oped by the historian of religions and phenomenologist, Mircea Eliade.

Although Eliade has neither claimed nor been granted the status of a
philosopher, he regards his work as a preliminary stage for philosophical reflection. The chief interpretive problem is one of the procedure
from the appearance of a sacred phenomenon - a symbol, myth, hierophany, etc. - to the understanding of that phenomenon. Once the
hermeneutic procedure has been clarified it will be possible to suggest
it as a possible method for philosophic reflection.
There is a polemic in Eliade's thought which provides the negative
foundation for his hermeneutic, namely, the polemic against reductionism. The difficulty that reductionism presents in any form is its
tendency to explain away the phenomenon being studied. The argument is this: if a sacred modality can be reduced to psychological,
sociological, or historical statements about it, its original intention is
lost. This simply means that a religious form ought to be interpreted
as a religious form, i.e., with hermeneutic tools appropriate to its
structure. A psychological interpretation of a religious modality may
be useful and indeed, enlightening, but it will not be exhaustive. To
claim that a psychological interpretation is exhaustive must result,
necessarily, in reductionism. Other types of interpretation will yield
similar conclusions.
Eliade has made his position clear by specific references to reductionistic positions. In sociological terms, Durkheim attempted to make
religion an aspect of sociological theory.
For Durkheim religion was a projection of social experience ... He concluded
that sacredness (or "God") and the social group are one and the same thing. l

The psychological mode of explanation is equally unsatisfactory. "For

Freud, religion as well as human society and culture in general started
with a primordial murder.,,2 Totemism, with its underlying psychic
explanation, informed Freud's reductionism. His method assumed that
a sacred phenomenon is understood properly when it is reduced to a
psychic phenomenon. Eliade agrees with the Freudian claim that the
manifestation of the sacred has psychological significance; he does
not agree that this is its only significance. An equal claim can be made
1 Mircea Eliade, "The History of Religions in Retrospect : 1912-1962," The Journal of
Bible and Religion, XXXI (No.2, April, 1963), p. 99.
2 Ibid., p. 101.

MIRCEA ELIADE

27

about historical reductionism. Historical explanations of religious phenomenon tend to explain that phenomenon by reference to the historical circumstances that gave rise to its appearance and not to the
intrinsic character of the phenomenon itself. 3
This kind of criticism however places one on the horns of a hermeneutic dilemma. Does not investment in theory, any theory, place
restrictions on the object of interpretation? If interpreter and object
interpreted are in some intersubjective relationship, can one avoid the
problem of reductionism that will follow almost inevitably? I, for one,
do not believe it possible to escape the basic "intersubjective" relationship that any hermeneutical position must presuppose. To this
extent, psychological, sociological, and historical theories of interpretation are on a par with philosophical and religious modes of interpretation. But I do believe the manner in which this intersubjective relationship is stated is crucial. To the extent that a theory is imposed upon the object of interpretation it may be said to be reductionistic. To the extent that a theory may be said to be the result of
investigation it may be said to be consequential, or derived from the
object. It is important to note here, that in contradistinction to theories which result in reductionism, Eliade attempts to establish a hermeneutic which arises as a consequence of one's encounter with the
sacred.
In any case, in Eliade's hermeneutic this original polemical position
has its consequence in a positive correlate: the notion of the irreducibility of the sacred.
A religious phenomenon will only be recognized as such if it is grasped at its own
level, that is to say, if it is studied as something religious. To try to grasp the essence of such a phenomenon by means of physiology, psychology, sociology,
economics, linguistics, or any other study is false; it misses the one unique and
irreducible element in it - the element of the sacred. 4

Philosophically this means that the sacred must be granted an original

ontological status. Reasons may be cited. The sacred as manifest to
the believer may be said to have such an original status. If an authentic interpretation may be derived, i.e., an interpretation which does
not abort the sacred by imposing external norms foreign to the object
interpreted, this initial claim must be taken seriously. The task of the
3 Ibid., p. 105.
4 Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion. Cleveland and New York: Meridian

Books, 1958, p. xiii.

28

MIRCEA ELIADE

interpreter will be to grasp somehow and recreate imaginatively the

conditions for the sacred appearance.
On the basis of what has been established, from this perspective,
one does not recreate imaginatively the sociological conditions for
the manifestations of a sacred form. Nor would it be sufficient to do
the same from the perspective of psychology. The model I find most
appealing for this crucial hermeneutic step is one taken from the domain of phenomenology proper. The attempt to understand the sacred as an irreducible form is accompanied by the technical attempt
to capture its intentional mode. A sacred form, for example, a stone
carved in the shape of a phallus or a pearl venerated as a modality of
sexuality, presents vivid examples of the problem at hand. The obvious temptation for the western sophisticate, who has never admitted
such objects into his spiritual pantheon, is to understand them in an
ordinary mode of manifestation, or as natural objects. But to do this
is to miss their meaning, in Husserlian terms, to fail to discover their
true intentionality.
Eliade's second hermeneutic principle, the dialectic of the sacred
and the profane, is introduced precisely to capture this intentional
characteristic of the sacred modality.
The sacred is qualitatively different from the profane; yet it may manifest itself
no matter how nor where within the profane world because of its power of turning a natural object into a paradox by means of a hierophany; (it ceases to be itself as a natural object, though in appearance it remains unchanged).s

It follows that ordinary modes of understanding will not give us the

meaning of the sacred because the sacred does not manifest itself in
an ordinary way. But cosmic symbolism does reveal itself in ordinary
forms. The sacred reveals itself in stones, earth, sky, persons, and almost any form imaginable. Thus the modality of manifestation is complex. It is precisely this complexity which the dialectical principles
wishes to capture. The sacred appears in and through the profane.
"Among countless stones, one stone becomes sacred - and hence becomes instantly saturated with being."6 The sacred is perceived thus
in the context of ordinary profane things which are separated, i.e.,
stand apart, from their ordinary role because the sacred is revealed

5
6

p.4.

Ibid., p. 30.
Mircea Eliade, Cosmos and History. New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1959,

MIRCEA ELIADE

29

through them. It would seem, therefore, that Eliade's doctrine of the

irreducibility of the sacred leads to an attempt to recreate by means
of imagiryation the conditions for the sacred appearance. It may be
concluded that this can be done by granting the complexity of the
sacred appearance as dialectical. Having acknowledged that complexity, it is necessary to discover the intentional mode peculiar to the
manifestation of the sacred phenomenon.
This hermeneutic approach may be sustained and clarified by acknowledging the position against which it is directed.
In the time of Max Muller and Tylor, the scholars used to speak of naturalistic
cults and of fetishism , meaning that primitive man adored natural objects. But
the veneration of cosmic objects is not "fetishism." It is not the tree, the spring,
or the stone that is venerated, but the sacred which is manifested through these
objects. 7

It is one thing to construct an apparatus wherein the sacred may be

perceived adequately; it is another to move from levels of perception

to those of understanding. I regard Eliade's chief hermeneutic achievement as the movement from an initial acknowledgment of the sacred
in its dialectical complexity and distinctive intentional modality to an
understanding of its meaning. The problem is epistemological; its solution is structural.
The notion of the irreducibility of the sacred and the dialectic of
the sacred and the profane establish the conditions for the appearance
of the sacred. They in no way provide the meaning of a particular sacred phenomenon. It is quite possible that the meaning of a particular
phenomenon is not at all apparent to either the researcher or to the
believer. For example:
When a sorceress burns a wax doll containing a lock of her victim's hair, she does
not have in mind the entire theory underlying that bit of magic. 8

The question is, how does one get to the theory which will explain
the phenomenon? To answer this more difficult hermeneutic problem,
Eliade makes two claims which enable him to move from the manifestation of a sacred object to its meaning. First, he suggests that phenomena of sacred manifestation will tend toward archetype.

7 Mircea Eliade , " The Quest for the 'Origins' of Religion," History of Religions, IV (No.1 ,
Summer 1964), p. 167.
8 Eliade, Patterns, p. 9.

30

MIRCEA ELJADE

There is no religious form that does not try to get as close as possible to the true
archetype, in other words, to rid itself of "historical" accretions and deposits. 9

For Eliade, archetype may be regarded as the initial structure of the

sacred. This is to be distinguished from the Jungian definition of archetype as the collective unconscious. Second, he suggests that phenomena of a given type or structure will tend toward system. Speaking of vegetation hierophanies he said:
What must be emphasized at once is that all these hierophanies point to a system
of coherent statements, to a theory of the sacred significance of vegetation, the
more cryptic hierophanies as much as any others. 10

Structure then functions on two levels. On the first level one discerns
an initial archetype manifest through the sacred phenomenon. On the
second level this initial structure tends toward a larger context of
structural associations. Hence, the argument is that a particular arche
type is understood not in terms of itself, i.e., in terms of its particular
concrete historical manifestation. Rather, understanding occurs when
the total system of associations is uncovered, or better, reconstructed.
The initial problem presented by the discernment of structure is
morphological. It is necessary to separate those phenomena which
have structural similarities from those which do not. The task is one
of morphological classification. In his study of cosmic symbolism Eliade is able to distinguish a number of morphological types: the sky
and sky god symbolism, the sun and sun worship, the moon, water,
stones, earth, woman, vegetation, agriculture and fertility, and the
symbolism of space and time.
To make this morphological classification, a departure is made from
what might be called an historical method. The transition from one
element in a morphological type to another is not historical. This
claim is not intended to depreciate the historic significance of any
given phenomenon; but it does suggest that the relationship of hierophanies is non-historical because they do not follow a particular historical order. Morphological analysis and classification does not have
its consequence in the construction of a history of religious consciousness.

9 Ibid., p. 462.
10 Ibid., p. 9.

MIRCEA ELIADE

31

A treatise on religious phenomena starting with the simplest and working up to

the most complex does not seem to me to be called for, ... I mean the sort of
treatise that begins with the most elementary hypothesis (mana, the unusual, etc.),
going on to totemism, fetishism, the worship of nature and spirits, thence to gods
and demons, and coming finally to the monotheistic idea of God. Such an arrangement would be quite arbitrary; it presupposes an evolution in the religious phenomenon, from the simple to the complex, which is a mere hypothesis and cannot be proved; we have yet to meet anywhere a simple religion, consisting only
of the most elementary hierophanies. 11

Indeed, ordering religious phenomena on the basis of an historicalevolutionary hypothesis about the development of religious consciousness is a distortion of what seems to be the facts of sacred appearance.
Here Eliade is of the same mind as Claude Levi-Strauss who wants to
dismiss any qualitative distinction whatsoever between primitive and
modern thought. In Eliade's case, morphology is designed as a hermeneutic method to replace the historical-evolutionary hypothesis.
Hence, the significance of the morphological approach is that it offers
an alternative solution to the problems of intelligibility presented by
sacred phenomena.
It was suggested a moment ago that the most significant problem
for Eliade's hermeneutic method was the movement from the initial
appearance of the sacred phenomena to an understanding of its meaning. It can now be seen that the solution to that problem is basically
structural and not historical. Honesty to the special character of the
sacred manifestation, i.e., honesty to its special intentional mode, does
not allow us to place phenomena within an historical-evolutionary
scheme. The hermeneutic alternative of morphological analysis has
suggested that meaning will be understood in terms of the association
of sacred modalities. For Eliade, understanding is basically a task of
imaginative reconstruction, but reconstruction on the basis of principles given by structuralism.
The analogy which clarifies best a hermeneutic grounded in structuralism is given by the structural linguistics. Ferdinand de Saussure's
Course in General Linguistics 12 developed the notion of dividing the
study of language into historical dynamic modes and structural internally related modes. To these separate spheres of study, de Saussure

Ibid., p. xiv.
12 Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics. New York: Philosophical Library,

11

1959.

32

MIRCEA ELIADE

gave the term diachronic and synchronic linguistics. Language could

be studied either in terms of its internal structural relations or its historical dynamic development. Diachronic linguistics focused on historical change and development within language, while synchronic
linguistics understood language as a total system of inter-relations.
Eliade has found the structural (synchronic) model most appealing.
Rather than understanding a symbol or myth as representative of a
stage in the evolution of human consciousness, Eliade has asked the
structural question regarding the place of a religious phenomenon
within a total synchronic system. This leads to the basic judgment
that religious phenomena tend toward system. This tendency is the
intentional mode of every particular sacred manifestation. On this
assumption morphological analysis is held to be necessary; its consequence is the transition from appearance to understanding.
Only one thing matters in the history of religion; and that is the fact that the immersion of man or a continent, together with the cosmic and eschatological meaning of such immersions, are present in myth and ritual; the fact that all these
myths and all these rituals fit together, or, in other words, make up a symbolic
system which in a sense pre-existed them all. 13

At times structuralism has been thought to be indifferent to consciousness and subjectivity. In Eliade's case, however, structuralism is the
handmaiden of phenomenology. I t is by uncovering the intentionality
of a sacred modality through an act of imaginative reconstruction
within consciousness that understanding occurs. Eliade gives his own
distinctive stamp to this phenomenological procedure. Understanding
does not occur by the reconstruction of a particular phenomenon,
but rather by the reintegration of that phenomenon within its system
of associations. Such a hermeneutic approach could well be called
eidetic reintegration. The discernment of the structure of a phenomenon would be analogous to an eidetic analysis. Once the intentional
structure is uncovered, it is reintegrated into its proper system of associations through the use of morphology and structuralism. The consequence of that reintegration is understanding.
Grounded on an initial acknowledgment of the independent validity of the sacred understood as an irreducible form, Eliade's hermeneutic attempts to capture the intentional mode of the sacred mani-

13

Eliade, Patterns, p. 450.

MIRCEA ELIADE

33

fest through the profane by morphological analysis and eidetic reintegration. It is worth noting that the major task of the hermeneutic,
reintegration, is precisely the opposite of the reductionism against
which the hermeneutic was constructed.
THE METHOD FOR ESTABLISHING THE SYMBOL AS A VALID FORM

The conclusion to be drawn from this discussion is that hermeneutics

so conceived assumes that the sacred is an element in the structure of
consciousness, not a moment in the history of consciousness. Structuralism, as employed by Eliade, effects a rather radical revision when
the hermeneutic is compared to previous attempts to understand the
sacred. In a sense the historical-evolutionary hypothesis tends to drive
the philosopher away from any serious consideration of the sacred.
Lucien Levy-Bruhl illustrates this problem in the conclusion of Primitive Mentality when he attempts to draw a basic distinction between
the archaic mind and the modern European mind.
In short, our (the modern European) mentality is above all "conceptual," and
theirs (the primitive mind) hardly at all so. It is therefore, extremely difficult, if
not impossible, for a European, even if ht! tries, and even if he knows the natives'
language, to think as they do, although he may speak as they do. 14

His point was:

Almost unconsciously, the European makes use of abstract thought, and his language has made simple logical processes so easy to him that they entail no effort.
With primitives both thought and language are almost exclusively concrete by
nature. 15

The philosophical consequence of this approach is that archaic experience is interesting as a datum in the history of consciousness, but only as a significant backdrop to modern theoretical consciousness. Philosophers such as Ernst Cassirer and Susanne Langer, who became interested in myth and symbolism, found a vast wealth of material to
document their theses about the historic emergence of man into the
modern age. To this extent they took archaic experience seriollsly.
But they did not take that experience seriously in the sense tha t th ey

14 Lucien Levy-Bruhl, Primitive Mentality, tra ns. by Lillian S. Clare. Boston: Beacon Pr ess .

1966, pp. 433-434.

15 Ibid., p. 433.

34

MIRCEA ELIADE

chose to evaluate it on a plane equal to that of their hypotheses about

modern man.
The emerging question is, can that experience ever be taken seriously if one accepts the basic assumption of an historical-evolutionary
hypothesis? There are reasons for suggesting that it cannot. If one has
made a judgment already about the superiority of an hypothesized
theoretical consciousness, then it will follow that the myths and symbols of archaic experience will always have the stigma of an inferior
imagination.
As we have seen, a careful analysis of the basic characteristics of
religious modalities will not allow for such a judgment. The case for
the obliteration of this distinction has been stated well by Claude
Levi-S tra uss.
Prevalent attempts to explain alleged differences between the socalled primitive
mind and scientific thought have resorted to qualitative differences between the
working processes of the mind in both cases, while assuming that the entities
which they were studying remained very much the same. If our interpretation is
correct, we are led toward a completely different view - namely, that the kind
oflogic in mythical thought is as rigorous as that of modern science, and that the
difference lies, not in the quality of the intellectual process, but in the nature of
things to which it is applied. 16

Eliade's hermeneutic makes a similar judgment. As one would not

depreciate a work of art simply because it was a product of a previous
age, so one would not depreciate the validity of myth and symbolism
because it was a product of past history. Further, in terms of its aims,
myth and symbolism in complexity and logic is as rigorous as the products of modern thought.
The structuralists seem to have discovered that there is no valid
reason for depreciating archaic and oriental experiences of the sacred.
Equally, there are reasons for considering the experience of the sacred as valid regardless of the historical epoch or ~ultural region in
which it occurred. As Eliade has shown, a hermeneutic of the sacred
cannot be justified on the basis of an emergent anthropology because
the development of the sacred does not follow an historical order.
It seems better to assume that the experience of the sacred is corre-

16 Claude Levi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology. New York and London: Basic Books,
Inc. , 1963, pp. 229-230.

MIRCEA ELIADE

35

late with man's attempt to construct a meaningful world. Hence, the

burden of structural hermeneutics is the recovery of the intentional
mode of the sacred modality. In this sense a structural hermeneutic
is concerned with matters of consciousness and meaning. It is possible to suggest then that structural hermeneutics opens up the possibility for a serious philosophical consideration of the sacred.
The correlate of the doctrine of the irreducibility of the sacred is
the assumption that it represents a dimension of experience that can
be regarded as unique. To depreciate the uniqueness of that experience must in some sense be to misunderstand it, while to understand
it is to realize that it is part of man's quest for meaning. So conceived,
the experience of the sacred is analogous to what phenomenologists
have called a mode of being-in-the-world. It can be understood as a
mode of self-constitution. At the same time a study of the sacred will
expand the philosophical understanding of what that quest for meanmg 1S.
Eliade has stated this case rather dramatically:
AN. Whitehead has said that the history of western philosophy is no more than
a series of footnotes to plato. It is doubtful whether western thought can maintain itself any longer in this "splendid isolation. ,,17

The point of this somewhat critical commentary is:

The effort spent on correctly understanding modes of thought foreign to the western rationalist tradition, that is to say, in the first place deciphering the meaning
of myths and symbols, will be repaid by a considerable enrichment of consciousness. 18

The basis for this possibility has been established through the creation
of a hermeneutic which assumes the validity of sacred manifestation
without negative valuation.
Serious philosophical consideration of the sacred requires not only
a justifiable foundation but also an interpretive context. It was suggested earlier that the initial hermeneutic datum was hierophany, i.e.,
a manifestation of the sacred. The modality for the occurrence of
hierophany is symbol and myth. Symbol and myth establish the context for hermeneutics as the basic components of a primary religious

17

p.95.
18

Mircea Eliade, Mephistopheles and the Androgyne. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1965,

Ibid., p. 13.

36

MIRCEA ELIADE

language. Hence, the context for the interpretation of the sacred is

the study of language, in this case the particular language of symbol
and myth. Such a language exists as the foundation for philosophical
analysis. So conceived, this primary language provides the pre-reflective basis for philosophical reflection.
A special language requires a special hermeneutic. To the extent
that the language of symbol and myth constitutes a particular mode
of discourse, a hermeneutic must be devised specially to understand
that mode of discourse. As we have seen, the major difficulty interpretation presents is the attempt to construct a hermeneutic which
avoids false reductions. It is probable that structural hermeneutics
may be applied to philosophical interpretation if a similar commitment is made. However, if the basic claims of structural hermeneutics
are introduced for philosophical interpretation, they must be understood as analogies for philosophical interpretation.
First, the contention that the sacred is irreducible suggests that the
sacred modality, the symbol and the myth, provides the pre-reflective
basis for philosophical reflection. Philosophical interpretation takes
on its own particular character not by trying to get behind the sacred
modality, but through reflection from this primary form. Second,
commitment to this basic principle requires the hermeneutic or interpretive movement from appearance to meaning or sensibility to understanding on the basis of structural and morphological principles.
Third, if one is to avoid the problems engendered by distinctions between logical and pre-logical mentalities the task of imaginative reconstruction may follow the procedures of eidetic reintegration.
To these three movements, which are basically reduplications of
Eliade's, a fourth distinctively philosophical task needs to be added.
Philosophical interpretation is concerned not only with understanding
the language of symbol and myth, but also with its verifiability. With
such language verification occurs through specifying the referent of
symbolic and mythic statements. This task may be defined in relationship to the program of structural hermeneutics. Given the polemical and constructive foundation of structural hermeneutics, the referent of symbolic and mythic statements is not solely cultural nor
solely historical because no one culture nor any linear theory of history is capable of explaining their meaning. Since structural hermeneutics aims at understanding meaning as an aspect of the structure
of consciousness, it follows that the final referent of religious language is anthropological, in the sense that the use of symbol and myth

MIRCEA ELIADE

37

represents a unique dimension of consciousness. Hence the final task

of the philosopher is that of placing this language in the context of a
philosophical anthropology.
CONCLUSION

We have outlined Eliade's structural hermeneutic, and we have suggested its potential as a program for philosophical interpretation. For
some, the legitimacy of this enterprise may be doubted still. We consider ourselves moderns, historical people who make a distinction between myth and history. I do not contest the validity of that distinction, but there is no reason to give to it a negative interpretation. It
is precisely because the distinction between myth and history can be
made that we are in a position to understand, perhaps for the first
time, the positive function of myth and symbol as a distinctive dimension of consciousness. Thus, it seems possible to suggest that an
investigation of that phenomenon may contribute in a positive way
to contemporary self-understanding. Eliade has suggested that an encounter with the myths and symbols of non-western and archaic cultures may "lead to a renewal in the philosophic field, in the same
way that the discovery of exotic and primitive arts half a century ago
opened up new perspectives in European art.,,19 This possibility may
be the final result of an enquiry into structural hermeneutics.

19

Ibid.

CHAPTER III

PAUL RICOEUR: THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL NECESSITY

OF A SPECIAL LANGUAGE

INTRODUCTION

A confrontation with archaic symbolism has brought new life to modern culture. Equally, an encounter of modern western culture with
its own indigenous historical symbols may facilitate a similar renewal.
The work of Paul Ricoeur can be conceived of as continuous with
that ofMircea Eliade because it brings the threefold issue of the meaning of the symbol, a hermeneutic of the symbol, as well as the anthropological and linguistic consequences of the discovery of the symbol
into a strictly philosophical framework. Hence, our original quest for
an understanding of the meaning of symbols, the search for a framework for interpretation, will be furthered by a consideration of the
work of Paul Ricoeur.
THE QUESTION

Are there particular dimensions of human experience represented in

special languages? If so, is a philosophical investigation of these languages necessary for the construction of a global anthropology? That
is the question I wish to examine, not in a philological but in an anthropological sense. The twofold reference of the question is anthropological and methodological. On the one hand, does the attempt to
construct a global anthropology require the investigation of particular types of language? On the other hand, if such an investigation is
judged to be necessary, is a special mode of philosophical interpretation required?
I wish to debate the question of inquiry into a special language by
reference to the thought of the French phenomenologist, Paul Ricoeur.
This question has particular significance in the context of his writing
because of the major transition from the abstractions of phenomenological eidetics to the consideration of the opaque, occasionally obscure, but undeniably rich language of symbol and myth. The reason

PAUL RICOEUR

39

for this tranSItion in Ricoeur's work may be traced to a dialectic

between anthropological problematic and methodological adequacy.
Certain methods may describe important dimensions of experience,
but no ol).e method is adequate to cover the full range of experience.
Hence the author is driven methodologically from eidetic description
to hermeneutic interpretation. The reason for this transition is not
found in method, but in the anthropological problematic of the will.
While the eidetic method can present one with a "pure" description
of the will, the will confronts the radical limitation of evil, and as previous philosophers have found, evil defies systematic description even
though it is the product of an initial human expression. The anthropological correlate to this methodological problem is the necessary
risk of a philosophical encounter with the language of symbol and
myth in the name of an attempt to derive a global philosophical understanding of man.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE WILL

First, it is necessary to examine Ricoeur's case for the consideration

of a special language. One of the most fascinating discoveries for the
student of Ricoeur's work is the recognition of the emergence of this
problem throughout the entire Philosophy of the will. In fact, I would
contend that the issue debated here cannot be understood apart from
an analysis of that work taken as a whole. Second, I wish to probe
the significance of the claims involved in this position.
Ricoeur's overall purpose in Philosophie de la volonte 1 is to establish a view of man, conceived under the rubric "will," sufficiently
comprehensive to include the full range of ideal possibilities and actual limitations available to the acting human individual. The resultant anthropology may be described as global because it attempts to
incorporate as many dimensions of human experience within its special purview as possible. The image which functions as a model for
this vision of man is one of totality.
With the global view as the overall aim of Ricoeur's philosophical

1 Paul Ricoeur, Philosophie de la volonte: Vol. I Le volontaire et l'involontaire (Paris,

1950); Freedom and Nature: The Voluntary and the Involuntary, trans. by Erazim V. Kohak
(Evanston, 1966) . Philosophie de la volonte: Vol. II Finitude et culpabilite: 1. l'homme faillib/e, 2. la symbolique du mal (Paris, 1960); Fallible Man, trans. by Charles Kelbley (Chicago,
1965), The Symbolism of Evil, trans. by Emerson Buchanan (New York, 1967). Hereafter,
we shall refer to the Engfish translations.

40

PAUL RICOEUR

anthropology, two kinds of problems emerge which constitute an anthropological problematic. First, the attempt to describe the will under the broad vision of totality yields to a dynamic movement from
abstract possibility to concrete actuality. As a consequence, although
it may be possible originally to exclude any consideration of the problem of evil from the characterization of the will, ultimately the factor of limitation (the involuntary) built into the very structure of the
will leads to the problem of evil by a processive development from
the abstract to the concrete. The global view is a potentially fallible
one because an adequate description of the will leads ultimately to
the most extreme confrontation with the factor of limitation. Hence
Ricoeur's initial vision of the will has built within it a dialectical (I hesitate to say paradoxical) structure which will require a more concrete
consideration.
Equally, this view of man has its own special set of methodological
problems, for no single version of the so-called phenomenological
method is able to present a complete view of the will. When the phenomenological method does not serve appropriate ends, i.e., when it
excludes aspects of experience appropriate to the will, Ricoeur refashions it to serve the central problematic. The question of Ricoeur's
allegiance to the phenomenological method may be raised. More important for this discussion is the problem of whether or not fidelity
to the global view of man does not require the successive methodological revisions. In fact, there are three successive methodological revisions in the Philosophy of the Will. It is by understanding each of
these, and the anthropological problematic that motivates them, that
the case for the necessity of special languages can be made.
The anthropological problematic is stated first in terms of the relationship of the voluntary and the involuntary or freedom and nature. The dialectic between these extremes is conceived in the context of three basic moments of the willing process: I decide, I move
my body, I consent. The mode whereby philosophic description of
these three basic moments of the willing process is developed is
through Ricoeur's version of eidetics. In this volume Ricoeur shares
with phenomenologists who define themselves in the tradition of
Husserl the conviction that the eidetic method has the capacity to
free reflection from an adherence to the cause-effect scheme of natural events. By recovering the intentional mode of objects of consciousness and isolating (bracketing) them from their ordinary occurrence in the continuum of cause and effect, Ricoeur contends

PAUL RICOEUR

41

that he is able to capture and render intelligible the basic structures

of willing.
What is distinctive about Ricoeur's doctrine of intentionality is its
reconstruction of the phenomenological alternative in an active mode.
Consciousness is a matter of project.
Any function is constituted by its type of object, or as Husserl says, by its intentionality. We express it differently by saying that consciousness constitutes itself
by the type of object to which it projects itself. 2

Originally decision is related to the project or decision of the will.

Second, the project formed becomes an action in which the whole
body participates. Third, the formation of a project and its execution
results in an "acquiescence to necessity,,3 for the project can no longer be changed. The consequence of designating "project" as the intentional mode of the willing consciousness is the opening up of the involuntary for understanding. The decision of the will can be understood in relation to bodily motivation as it presents "reasons" for it.
The action (voluntary motion) which occurs as a consequence of the
decision reveals the involuntary organs of willing, habit, etc. The consent to necessity reveals the intentional function of the unconscious,
biological life, etc., which provides the basis for consent.
Freedom and Nature
The methodological issue raised by Freedom and Nature therefore is
the use of an eidetic method for the purpose of the consideration of
the function of the will, as it is correlated with the involuntary processes of the body in the three moments of willing. As a consequence,
the major issue arising from this consideration of the will is the doctrine of freedom. The eidetic method functions for the construction
of that doctrine inasmuch as it attempts to free interpretation of the
will from emperical observation.
Freedom has no place among empirical objects; it requires a reversal of viewpoint
and a discovery of the cogito. 4

Yet freedom is itself limited by the involuntary processes of the body,

2
3
4

Ricoeur. Freedom and Nature, p.6.

Ibid., p. 7.
Ibid., p. 14.

42

PAUL RICOEUR

i.e., finally the will must consent to necessity. Therefore, if Ricoeur's

first principle may be characterized as one which argues the case for
nature as the informant of freedom, his second is that nature is the
limit of freedom. The conclusion of Freedom and Nature is instructive in this regard. For Ricoeur, "an only human freedom"s is a freedom which is limited by the context of its occurrence - involvement
of the human in nature. The idea of a perfectly motivated freedom,
or a freedom which is unlimited, is the opposite of an incarnate freedom which is governed and limited by the body. In the latter case
freedom either rejects the very nature which informs and shapes it, or
it consents to necessity as the bond of freedom. It is only on the basis of consent that freedom is incarnate.
Here we have the foundation of the anthropological problematic
inasmuch as freedom can never be content with simple acquiescence
to the necessity of nature. The final resolution of freedom with nature
leads beyond nature. At this point the dynamic of Ricoeur's thought
occurs. Basically, the eidetic method is concerned with the fundamental possibilities of thought. Ricoeur, like Merleau-Ponty, has extended
that definition to include the body incarnate as the informant of these
possibilities. Yet he has still operated within a fairly strict Husserlian
orientation. Eidetics can provide us only with the fundamental structures of willing.
The paradox of freedom and nature in consent is the final achievement of the eidetic method, but it is the point at which the method
itself must be broken. Freedom is limited. But freedom drives beyond
limitation. This becomes the radical problem. Man's possible experience of rupture and his actual experience of evil lead to a drive toward transcendence which involves more than a neutral paradox of
freedom and nature. It is the human possibility of evil which presents
another limitation; it poses a more radical question for evil. Hence an
anthropology which attempts to understand fully human freedom
must move beyond the neutral sphere of eidetics to a locale wherein
the experience of evil may be posited as a possibility.
Fallible Man

The confrontation between freedom of the voluntary and the restric-

Ibid., p. 482.

PAUL RICOEUR

43

tions of the involuntary constitutes the first instance of the dialectic

between anthropological problematic and methodological limitation
in the Philosophy of the Will. Fallible Man, the first part of the second volume of that work continues the same dialectic by shifting the
focus of discussion from the neutral sphere of eidetics to the more
highly charged existential realm where fallibility is a possibility.
Fallible Man, seen in the context of the entire work, simply interjects the ethical question. How is evil, or the fallibility which must
exist as its presupposition, possible? In order to answer that question
it is no longer the bodily involuntary which functions as the informant of reflection, but an hypothesis about man. The entire book
seeks to elaborate that hypothesis through noetic, active and affective
considerations which do no more than posit evil as a possibility.
The idea that "man is by nature fragile and liable to err,"6 which
is to say that there is a "non-coincidence of man with himself,"? constitutes this hypothesis. As such it functions as the pre-reflexive basis
for reflection specifying fallibility as experienced within a knowingacting-feeling consciousness. This fundamental motif guides the reflection on man as "situated" between finite and infinite (Descartes),
reason and desire (Plato), and the double infinite (Pascal). It is by
following the basic themes presented in the hypothesis that one is
brought into a deepening reflection directed toward the concrete passing through knowing, acting, and feeling wherein the actuality of fallibility is elaborated most fully.
The hypothesis is expanded epistemologically through the discovery
of pure imagination which exists as a meditation between the finite
limitation of immediate perception (point of view) and the transcendence of perception in the use of language (infinite verb). In Kantian
terms pure imagination is the reconciliation of the two perspectives
but in a disproportionate way. Hence an epistemological non-coincidence is introduced. In terms of the active mode of self-consciousness,
the finite-infinite dialectic occurs in the juxtaposition of character
(that to which one is limited finitely) and happiness (that which one
desires infinitely), reconciled in the notion of respect. That latter
again posits the hypothesis by showing that within the notion of respect there is both reconciliation and non-coincidence. The most con-

6
?

Ricoeur, Fallible Man, p. 3.

Ibid., p. 4.

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PAUL RICOEUR

crete representation of the hypothesis occurs in the third reflective

moment, feeling. Here the dialectic is between the finitude of pleasure and the infinitude of happiness elaborated in the Greek notion
of thumos. In feeling disproportion becomes most radical, fragility
most real, because the conflict between the polarities is most apparent. "The disproportion between the principle of pleasure and the
principle of happiness points up the truly human significance of conflict."s Conflict points to mixture which is the basic composition of
man's felt experience.
Ricoeur's overall argument is that each reflective moment in the
discussion points to the larger issue of freedom juxtaposed to evil. In
fact he claims that the fundamental issue of the work is to construct
an "ethical vision of the world" or more simply to "understand freedom and evil by each other."g
Fallible Man then is another statement of the anthropological problematic, finally to be eclipsed by a methodological inadequacy. It
moves the discourse of freedom and limit one step further; but limitation is now valuated as the possibility of evil. The limit of freedom
is man's own propensity to fragility, his radical internal disproportion
viewed distinctively on the noetic, acting and feeling level. It is here
that we are given an invitation to view the real limit of freedom which
must affect the will most radically.
To illustrate the role of freedom in this discourse on fallibility, one
has to return to the global view and the quest for a total understanding of man. The two-fold characteristic of the three moments in the
understanding of fallibility has been to see man as constituted between finite and infinite. Ricoeur makes this characteristic into a kind
of Hegelian dialectic with originating affirmation, existential difference, and human meditation as the principle notions.1O All those forms
which represent the transcendence of the finite toward an enduring
freedom are classified as originating affirmation, inclusive of the infinite verb, the idea of happiness, and thumos or happiness of the
heart. Existential difference is synonymous with those aspects which
express finite limitation such as point of view, character, and pleasure.
Finally, it is between these two characteristics (originating affirmation

S
9
10

Ibid., p. 161
Ibid., p. xxiv.
Ibid., p. 207.

PAUL RICOEUR

45

and existential difference) that a full understanding of man and the

possibility of fallibility begins to emerge as a possibility. In human
meditation, which locates these extremes in man, one is enabled to
understand both totality of man's experience of himself as well as his
possible limits.
It is one thing to suggest that fallibility is a possibility, i.e., the
possibility of evil intrinsic within man's nature; it is quite another to
claim that man is somehow committed to evil. The argument is that
if the eidetic method can produce an understanding of freedom informed and limited by nature, and if the method of existential description can present an understanding of freedom tempered by fallibility, neither one is sufficiently concrete to deal with the real limit
of freedom, i.e., actual evil. It is this limit of phenomenological reflection that drives Ricoeur to a consideration of language. But the
consideration is not one of language in general but a very specific language of confession wherein the experience of evil is contained. Succinctly, the dialectic between anthropological problematic and methodological adequacy leads to an argument for special languages and
the development of a hermeneutic method adequate to interpret that
special language. Abstractly considered that is the argument for the
anthropological necessity of a special language. The analysis of a specific set of symbols and myths in The Symbolism of Evil attempts to
prove the case.

The Symbolism of Evil

In general Freedom and Nature and Fallible Man establish the case
for a consideration of symbolism and myth. However two specific
problems emerge from the program outlined in The Symbolism of
Evil. Can one really speak of symbol and myth as the component
parts of a special language? If one can establish the particularity of
that language does it follow that it is required for anthropological
reasons?
'At this juncture Ricoeur makes a distinction between three types
of language in the realm of discourse on evil: a primary language related to symbols claimed to be the most elemental and central of the
expressions about evil; a language of symbolic interpretation in myth
which depends upon the primary symbols of which myth is a primitive elaboration; and a language of philosophical interpretation which
is fundamentally speculative in its consideration of the problem of

46

PAUL RICOEUR

evil. The argument for going to the primacy of the symbol as the original and most elemental expression of the consciousness of evil is that
ordinary philosophical discourse is too abstract to entertain the primary utterance given by the confession of evil in the symbol. "We
must proceed regressively and revert from the 'speculative' expressions to the spontaneous ones."u
One case for distinguishing language of symbolic-mythic type from
other modes of discourse is predicated upon the distinction between
abstract and concrete. Ordinary philosophical language attempts to
attain abstract and univocal concepts while symbolic-mythic language
is said to be concrete. This has often been an abortive distinction for
the interpretation of myth since the term concrete as applied to myth
is synonymous with simplistic and non-theoretical language. Ricoeur's
version of this distinction is that symbolic-mythic language is concrete
because it is a language which incorporates both the complexity and
the paradoxical nature of man's involvement with and in evil. Hence it
can be called a human "avowal" of evil. Consonant with this view Ricoeur makes a distinction between symbol and sign. While signs have
a singular intentionality, symbols are said to be double in intention.
This means simply that the symbol is fundamentally bi-polar in the
sense that symbol contains both literal and symbolic reference. For
example, the symbol of stain (Ricoeur chooses three primary symbols:
stain, sin, and guilt) may have an abstract opaque reference to a feeling
of psychic impurity, but this second intentionality is known through
and constituted by the primary intentionality of stain, i.e., a literal
spot.
Myth, defined as a primitive elaboration of symbols, carries on the
process begun in symbols by attempting to "embrace mankind as a
whole in an ideal history." 12 This ideal history seeks to give to the
experience of fault a beginning and an endY Finally, myth tries to
get at the enigma of human existence by construing human experience between innocence and guilt, purity and stain, etc. 14 Hence myth,
through its use of symbols, presents a context for its interpretation.
Distinctions between symbol and concept, mythic discourse and rational discourse, may be commonplace in western thought. Generally,

11 Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, p. 4.

17 Ibid., p. 162.
13 Ibid., p. 163.
14

Ibid.

PAUL RICOEUR

47

these distinctions have not favored symbol and myth. In Ricoeur's hermeneutic analysis, however, symbolic-mythic language compliments
the central philosophical inquiry. This may be shown by invoking Ricoeur's central hermeneutic principle "the symbol invites thought."IS
In this case symbol and myth provide the foundation for philosophical reflection. Here symbolic language functions in the same way as
the bodily involuntary in Freedom and Nature or the hypothesis in
Fallible Man. However, the interpretation of this discourse serves the
central problematic. It is Ricoeur's contention that symbol and myth
present us with a radically concrete vision of human freedom in conflict with evil.
In contrast to the more traditional philosophical discussions Ricoeur contends that the symbolism of evil escapes the identification
of evil with non-being or the absence of being. Evil is positive because
it is posited. Yet if it is the result of man's responsible act, it paradoxically has the characteristic of precedence; evil comes from something
outside the self. Hence evil is contagious; it becomes a condition of
life. Taken together therefore, the symbols point to something more
than fallibility. They suggest that evil surrounds human freedom as
something paradoxically prior to experience and yet a matter of human responsibility. The consequence is a radical limitation of man's
freedom of choice. 16
Myth simply presents a greater elaboration of this dialectic in thematic variation from myths of the creation, fall, tragedy and exile.
Generally in all of them, and particularly in the reconciliation of the
various themes in the Adam myth, the myths of evil present the vision of man suspended between the freedom that is rightfully his and
the bondage that is the result of his complicity with evil. It is this vision that is presented through the hermeneutics of the special discourse of symbol and myth.
AN ANSWER

We are now in a position to answer the question raised at the outset

of this chapter, namely, to what extent is it possible to speak of the
anthropological necessity of a special language? A reading of Ricoeur's

15 Ibid., pp. 347-357. Also, Paul Ricoeur, "The Hermeneutics of Symbols and Philosophical Reflection," International Philosorhical Quarterly (No.2, 1963), II, 191-218.
16 Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evi , see discussion, pp. 151-157.

48

PAUL RICOEUR

philosophical anthropology would suggest that a particular mode of

discourse as representative of a particular type of experience is in fact
required if one is to achieve a global understanding of man. Hence
from the perspective of a global anthropology, a symbolic-mythic language may be said to be necessary.
Ricoeur's argument seems distinctive in its proposal that philosophy
turns to myth and symbolism, not for an elaboration of the history
of consciousness, but for a more adequate philosophical anthropology.
As a consequence the evaluation of the function of myth is much
more positive than previous attempts to philosophize about myth.
One may simply turn to Ernst Cassirer's Philosophy of Symbolic
Forms l7 to discover that the purpose of the study of myth is to understand the origins of modern theoretical consciousness. Hence myth,
as the precursor of language in this case, is introduced to account for
man's original consciousness of the world. In his view, if myth and
the religious symbol had a claim to be representative of an aspect of
experience, that experience has been transcended by modern theoretical consciousness. That position, of course, is not unusual. It simply
suggests that myth states in a bad or poor way something which may
be stated better by reason.
Cassirer's position on the understanding of myth may be regarded
still by some as the most adequate orientation toward myth. It is
worth noting, however, that Ricoeur's argument is different. Ricoeur
assumes that a rational mode of discourse is in some cases less appropriate to experience than symbolic-mythic language. As modern existentialism has shown, it is not unusual to suggest that rationality is
limited. But to suggest that myth, on occasion, is more adequate than
reason is unusual.
But if myth and symbol have this particular function, it is because
they are conceived as a special language. Hence this particular argument for a special type of language has implications for an overall
theory of language. What is language, if we can speak of special languages with particular contents? It is true that The Philosophy of the
Will does not present a complete statement of such a theory. A total
theory oflanguage predicated upon this particular analysis of symbolism and myth would require description and specification of the func-

17 Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. Vol. 2 Mythical Thought (New
Haven, 1955). One should not forget Cassirer's pioneer work in this area.

PAUL RICOEUR

49

tion of each particular mode of discourse as it correlates with human

experience. Ideally, distinctions could be made between scientific discourse, aesthetic discourse, religious discourse, etc. Each mode of discourse could point to a specific aspect of human experience. In fact,
a rigorous theoretical approach would require such specification and
elaboration.
Presently, The Philosophy of the Will does not offer such a theoretical approach to the problem of language. But Ricoeur has shown
in a very concrete way that a particular mode of language, symbol
and myth, has a certain set of properties which can be specified by
reference to the overall task of a philosophical anthropology. Therefore, if Ricoeur does not offer a complete theory of language on
which the investigation of myth and symbol may be established, his
argument may be sustained in a more concrete way.
This leads to the suggestion that Ricoeur's designation of the particular function of symbolic-mythic language is a type of verification.
Here verification is not logical but distinctly anthropological in the
sense that, in the context established in The Philosophy of the Will,
problems of language find their foundations in problems of man. Inasmuch as the anthropological problematic was established prior to
a consideration of language, and because language was considered only to enhance that anthropological problem, language has its referent,
or its possibility of verification in an anthropological context. To suggest that certain languages are required means that verification must
occur in the anthropological context of the language. Only if this is
done can one legitimize the retreat to symbolic-mythic discourse.
Hence, by raising the question of verifiability, I am really concerned
to discover whether or not Ricoeur's case for the anthropological necessity of special languages can be sustained.
There are two kinds of questions which, if asked, will substantiate
this kind of verification. The first refers to the anthropological content of the language, while the second refers to the claim to the uniqueness of the language. If it is possible to specify that anthropological
content, while at the same time establishing its uniqueness, then it
seems possible to verify the legitimate and necessary usage of that
language. Of course, if this is not possible, then the claim that it is
necessary for a philosophical anthropology to incorporate a consideration of myth and symbolism is simply invalid.
Ricoeur contends that it is possible to specify the content of mythic-symbolic language through a consideration of the anthropological

50

PAUL RICOEUR

problematic of human freedom. The dialectic between freedom and

limitation is stated most radically when, in the myths and symbols of
evil, freedom is understood to be bound by evil. Specification can be
understood as a mode of verification when it is understood that the
necessary referent is the experience of freedom juxtaposed by evil.
Conversely, such language would be said to be unnecessary if experience could be dealt with in some other way. But the point is, inasmuch as it is possible to point to, and to elaborate, the specific and
distinctive content of the discourse a mode of verification does occur.
However, the real issue seems to be whether or not it is possible to
present the symbolism of evil in other modes of discourse. Again, one
is forced to return to the central distinction between concept and
symbol. Ricoeur has stated:
These elementary symbols are the unique language of the domain of experience
that we shall briefly call the experience of "avowal," or self-confession (l'aveu).
In fact there is no direct, non-symbolic language of evil undergone, suffered, or
committed; whether man admits his responsibility or claims to be the prey of an
evil which takes hold of him, he does so first and foremost in a symbolism whose
articulations can be traced out thanks to various rituals of "confession" that the
history of religion has interpreted for us. 18

Of course the claim to the uniqueness of the symbol is a matter of

definition. But it is possible to clarify and designate the claim to
uniqueness that symbols and myths have. Symbolic-mythic discourse
is unique because it presents the juxtaposition of freedom and limitation in the problematic of man's avowal of his experience of evil. It
seems possible to suggest therefore that there is a type of verification
to which the claims of symbolic-mythic language may be submittednot logical but anthropological.
CONCLUSION

This chapter has presented a case for the anthropological necessity of

a special language. It suggests that this claim emerges concretely out
of the problems and issues in Paul Ricoeur's The Philosophy of the
Will. If one can develop criteria for verifying that claim, I think it deserves consideration. It is conceivable that the reincorporation of myth

18 Ricoeur, The Hermeneutics of Symbols, p. 193.

PAUL RICOEUR

51

and symbolism into the realm of philosophic reflection may result in

a philosophical renewal.

CHAPTER IV

MYTH, STRUCTURE AND INTERPRETATION

INTRODUCTION

The traditional form in which symbol has occurred is myth. In the

following chapter, using insights derived from Eliade, Ricoeur and
Claude Levi-Strauss, we wish to show how it is possible to construct
a theoretical approach to myth which integrates insights from both
the structural and the hermeneutical schools.
FROM EVOLUTION TO STRUCTURE

It is well known that in the heyday of mythic studies myth was thought
to be pre-linguistic, a phenomenon which facilitated the evolution of
human consciousness to language. The students of myth held that its
investigation was synonymous with the discovery of the origins of human consciousness, an assumption which gave documentation to the
judgment that consciousness is an evolutionary phenomenon. The conceptual framework which informed these early interpreters had a double edge being directed equally to the interpretation of the multitude
of mythological material discovered in the nineteenth century, as well
as toward the justification of a popular then-contemporary theory of
mind. Certainly great strides were made in the amassing and interpretation of vast amounts of newly gathered material, and the cause was
sufficient to kindle the public imagination. Yet, in retrospect one wonders ,if the discoveries of the past were less important to these interpreters than the theory of consciousness justifying the advances of
their present epoch.
Certainly that situation has been reversed rather dramatically in recent times in the sense that the term "evolution" has been replaced
with the term "structure"; myth is now seen in consequence as a legitimate dimension of human expression instead of that first step in
the evolution of man from mythos to logos to science. As Claude
Levi-Strauss has pointed out, the rigorous epistemological models offered by the modern science of linguistics made such a change possi-

MYTH, STRUCTURE AND INTERPRETATION

53

ble. His conclusion to the now famous essay, "The Structural Study
of Myth" is a kind of symbolic water-shed dividing evolutionary and
structural approaches.
Prevalent attempts to explain alleged differences between the so-called primitive
mind and scientific thought have resorted to qualitative differences between the
working processes of the mind in both cases, while assuming that the entities which
they were studying remained very much the same. If our interpretation is correct,
we are led toward a completely different view - namely, that the kind of logic in
mythical thought is as rigorous as that of modern science, and that the difference
lies, not in the quality of the intellectual process, but in the nature of the things
to which it is applied. This is well in agreement with the situation known to prevail in the field of technology: What makes a steel ax superior to a stone ax is not
that the first one is better made than the second. They are equally well made, but
steel is quite different from stone. In the same way we may be able to show that
the same logical processes operate in myth as in science, and that man has always
been thinking equally well; the improvement lies, not in an alleged progress of
man's mind, but in the discovery of new areas to which it may apply its unchanged and unchanging powers. 1

The consequences of this turn toward structure and the rejection of

the evolutionary hypothesis with regard to the interpretation of myth
are monumental. First, this reversal has led the student of myth to replace a view of myth as epochal and contingent, a brief moment in
the development of human history, with a view of myth as a necessary
construct of human societies and mentalities. Structural approaches
do not need to abolish myth to interpret it. Second, this reversal has
led to a new search for anthropological foundations in a conceptual
or philosophical sense. One only need think of Cassirer's conclusion
to the second volume of his The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms 2
where his disagreement with Comte's famous formulation of the history of consciousness into three stages - the theological, the metaphysical and the positive - is not predicated upon a radically different view of man but only a different schematization of evolution. Of
Claude Levi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology. Garden City, New York : Doubleday
Book, 1967, p. 227.
'2 Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. New Haven : Yale University Press,
1955, Vol. 2, p. 236. Although this judgment of Cassirer's work may appear to be rather
harsh it is not intended to be. While affirming the pioneer work Cassirer did in the philosophical study of myth it seems necessary to suggest that his neo-Kantian theory of the symbolic
transformation of consciousness led him to conceive of an epochal theory of myth. While
myth dominated consciousness in one period according to his view, science dominated it in
another. For a discussion of this problem in Cassirer's work see Paul Ricoeur, De L'interpnitation. Paris, Editions de Seuil, 1965.
1

~nc.hor

54

MYTH, STRUCTURE AND INTERPRETATION

course, Cassirer is more appreciative of myth, but the limitations of

his approach are just the same as those of Comte inasmuch as a monodimensional evolutionary theory of consciousness is presupposed.
Third, this reversal has led to a human and not merely an historical
context of reference. Temporal location is not in itself sufficient explanation for the meaning of a phenomenon. One of the consequences
of this has been to conclude that myths regardless of their historical
origins are comparable. Instead of seeing mythic phenomena as a socalled "primitive" manifestation of consciousness distinct from modern consciousness, the logical distinguished from the pre-logical, the
movemel1t toward structure has allowed a conception of logical structures of the mind in pre-modern societies which are not qualitatively
distinct from those of more complex and sophisticated societies. Finally and most important, the transition from evolution to structure
has meant that myth can be treated as an authentic linguistic form.
This has allowed for considerations of the complexity of myth which
could not have been achieved when myth was considered to be either
non-linguistic or pre-linguistic. When myth is conceived as a linguistic
structure its complexity is verifiable, while assumptions about myth
as pre-linguistic led to the belief that myth was the product of a prelogical or simple mentality. 3
The rather dramatic reversal caused by the introduction of the term
"structure" into studies of myth and religious symbolism generally is
not without limitation, however. Based as it is on analogies between
the epistemological models offered by the pioneer studies in linguistics,
the structuralist approach has often resulted in the same limitations as
those characteristic of the earlier linguists. Ferdinand de Saussure's original work in linguistic studies drew the conclusion that language was a
matter of social inheritance the structure of which was immutable. 4
3 The notion of myth as language is not new. But the attribution to myth of the complexity of language as conceived by linguistics is distinctive. This breakthrough allowed the
interpreters of myth to conceive it neither as a relatively naive approach to the experience
of the world nor solely as primitive science. Consequently, the students of myth were given
the opportunity to study it as a somewhat independent phenomenon even if these interpreters failed to acknowledge the distinctive religious intentionality of myth.
4 Saussure states: "The signifier, though to all appearances freely chosen with respect to
the idea that it represents, is fixed, not free, with respect to the linguistic community that
uses it. The masses have no voice in the matter and the signifier chosen by language could be
replaced by no other. This fact, which seems to embody a contradiction, might be called colloquially 'the stacked deck'. We say to language: 'Choose' but we add: 'It must be this sign
and no other'. No individual, even if he willed it, could modify in any way at all the choice
that has been made; and what is more, the community itself cannot control so much as a single work; it is bound to the existing language." Course in General Linguistics. New York:
McGraw-Hili, 1959, p. 71.

MYTH, STRUCTURE AND INTERPRETATION

55

If one wishes to draw the psychological and philosophical conclusion

from this approach it is: mental behavior is the consequence of verbal
behavior while verbal behavior is a matter of social inheritance. This
conclusion is in fact a deterministic one. The consequence that has
been drawn by the structuralists is that the origins of myth are drawn
from sub-conscious latent behavior patterns. s Hence, the curious fact
is that ~hile under the evolutionary approach to myth interpreters
obscured myth because of the somewhat mystical identification with
the origins of human consciousness, the structural model has often
been limited by a set of pre-defined behavior patterns of which the
creators of individual myths were not at all conscious. It seems possible to conclude that the theoretical assumptions which obscured myth
under the evolutionary model have been replaced by another set of
assumptions derived from the structural model which limit interpretation to the quest for modes of unconscious social behavior. It could
be concluded that the latter approach is as devasting as the former.
However, I do not wish to make the argument that one step forward
equals a similar movement in the opposite direction, for I still think
it possible to maintain that the movement from evolutionary hypotheses to structural ones is a definite advance. Instead, I shall argue for
a theoretical approach to myth which combines structure and interpretation essentially and hopefully free of behavioristic assumptions.
STRUCTURAL HERMENEUTICS

Since there is no way to avoid theoretical questions let us begin at the

point of the disclosure of the myth, in other words, at the beginning
of interpretation. Being cognizant of the set of problems presented
we shall attempt to combine an appreciation of the term "structure"
with that tradition which has understood interpretation to be identical with the task of designing a hermeneutic. Parenthetically one could
add that the concern for rigor that has characterized the structuralist
tradition has often been sadly lacking in the hermeneutic tradition.
The oversimplification that is often the result of reading the hermeneutic tradition from Schleiermacher to Dilthey is that hermeneutics
means the incorporation of the subjective principle of the interpreting

5 Claude Levi-Strauss states: "History organized its data in relation to conscious expressions of social life, while anthropology proceeds by examining its unconscious foundations."
Structural Anthropology, p. 19.

56

MYTH, STRUCTURE AND INTERPRETATION

understanding subject into a rendering of any text. While the basic

thrust of this tradition may be affirmed, I am not convinced that the
hermeneutic approach has gone far enough, except in certain instances,
in its quest for a rigorous foundation.
Positively, the hermeneutic tradition has attempted to give myth
an independent foundation free from both the etiological explanations so characteristic of evolutionary thinkers as well as the purely
psychological or sociological explanations often characteristic of structuralist thinkers. Indeed, the methodological first step, if one is to
avoid the limitations of either point of view is achieved through the
incorporation of the notion of intentionality in correlation with the
linguistic object of study. Intentionality, the cardinal phenomenological doctrine used by Edmund Husserl to establish the validity of the
acts of human consciousness, may be said to function in such a way as
to give an initial validity. This granting of validity is the most important first step in this establishment of a structural hermeneutic since it
allows, on the basis of the voluntary effort of the interpreted a suspension of judgment allowing thereby the claim of the object of interpretation to express itself. To the western sophisticate who acts as interpreter, myths, particularly archaic myths, may seem apparent and simply impossible to believe, and for that reason - false. However, if one
is willing to grant the claim of myth as real, that is, if one refuses to
make myth either into primitive science or a matter of sub-conscious
social behavior, it is probable that an interpretation of the myth in
terms of principles that are germane to the structure of the myth is
possible. Rudolf Otto, through his notions of the religious a priori,
originally conceived the necessity of such an approach. However, no
one has stated this principle more eloquently than Mircea Eliade:
A religious phenomenon will only be recognized as such if it is grasped at its own
level, that is to say, if it is studied as something religious. To try to grasp the essence of such a phenomenon by means of psychology, physiology, sociology,
economics, linguistics, or any other study is false; it misses the one unique and
irreducible element in it - the element of the sacred. 6

Theoretically this means that myth must be granted an original onto-

6 Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion. Cleveland and New York: Meridian
Books, 1958, p. xiii. As the following sections of this chapter indicate, we find Eliade's
thought most insightful in approaching problems of myth, language and interpretation. This
approach to hermeneutics is outlined in more detail in chapter II.

MYTH, STRUCTURE AND INTERPRETATION

57

logical status inasmuch as myth derives its validity, at least at the

time of its creation, from someone's belief in it. An authentic interpretation may be developed if in fact one is willing not to abort this
claim, not to understand the myth to be something other than it is,
but to acknowledge through a suspension of negative judgment the
valid claims of the myth. Surprisingly it is precisely this step that has
not been taken by structural anthropology which defended so magnificently the validity of myth in terms of its linguistic complexity
while failing to perceive the religious intention of myth.
Intentionality may be said to function in relationship to myth as
a modality of meaning the reality of which is neither objective nor
subjective but intersubjective. In other words, the task of a hermeneutic is not to reduce myth to a series of ideal types which can be
said to have a surrogate function replacing the actuality of the language. Equally the point of a hermeneutic is not to reduce all interpretation to the independent and subjective response of the interpreter. If the former view ends in a restatement of the earlier quests for
an ideal language, the latter approach ends in a kind of reductionism
equally destructive wherein the interpreter's own self-understanding
becomes determinative for the meaning of the myth. In this instance
the criterion for understanding is not given through the myth but is
imposed upon the myth under the rubric of a contemporary worldview which is considered to be exclusive of myth. 7 The principle of
intersubjectivity is not a compromise between either an objective or
a subjective approach, rather it is the consequence of the recognition
that that which is given for interpretation is given for someone who
must creatively reconstruct in order to understand. It is then this constant inter-relation between the interpreting subject and the object
interpreted that makes a hermeneutic possible.
To acknowledge the reality of the disclosure of the sacred is one
thing, to understand it is another. It is at this point that we choose to
introduce the term "structure" as a hermeneutic device which hopefully will lead to understanding the myth. The term itself is ambiguous in the sense that different interpretations are given by its many
formulators. We shall argue for a limited structuralism predicated upon a set of assumptions appropriate to the hermeneutic tradition rather

7 The approach here intimated is Rudolf Bultmann's method of demythologizing. In that

hermeneutic method the discontinuity between the archaic mind and modern mentalities is
stressed so radically that the initial authentic intention of the myth tends to be obscured.

58

MYTH, STRUCTURE AND INTERPRETATION

than the linguistic tradition. 8 As we have seen the structural model

leads to behavioristic consequences with regard to the interpretation
of myth, or to put this criticism in the context defined by our principles of interpretation, the structuralist model when taken over directly from linguistics denies the principles of the specific religious
intentionality of the object interpreted. For example, the approach
of structural anthropology based as it is upon structural linguistics
has been to reduce the particular myth under study to a number of
basic units which constitute binary oppositions. 9 The resulting interpretation is one that suggests that the myth was created in order
to provide an explanation for a series of social laws unconsciously
held by a particular society. Further, the series of binary oppositions
provides the basis which resolves the basic oppositions of its originating culture. The emerging problem is one related to correlations
between language, linguistic models and interpretation.
The linguistic model has indeed yielded a vast amount of information about the nature and character of archaic anthropological
and social development. But one wonders why the transition from
evolutionist and diffusionist procedures to structural ones has as one
of its consequences the transformation from the examination of conscious processes to those of the unconscious.
"History organizes its data in relation to conscious expressions of
social life, while anthropology proceeds by examining its unconscious
foundation.'lio The consequences of this approach for the interpretation force one necessarily into the position of rejecting the initial
form of the myth causing interpretation to speculate upon the possi-

8 This approach does not deny the linguistic significance of myth. Rather it attempts to
affirm that myth functions as language but in a structure of signification that points to human consciousness.
9 Claude Levi-Strauss states: " We know that to obtain a structural law the linguist analyzes phonemes into 'distinctive features', which he can then group 'into one or several 'pairs
of oppositions'. Following an analogous method, the anthropologist might be tempted to
break down analytically the kinship terms of any given system into their components ... . .
It is at this 'micro-sociological' level that one might hope to discover the most general structural laws, just as the linguist discovers his at the infra-phonemic level or the physicist at the
infra-molecular or atomic level." Structural Anthropology, p. 33.
Later with regard to myth he states: "(1) Myth, like the rest of language, is made up of
constituent units. (2) These constituent units presuppose the constituent units present in
language when analyzed on other levels - namely, phonemes, morphemes, and sememesbut they, nevertheless, differ from the latter in the same way as the latter differ from themselves; the belong to a higher and more complex order." Structural Anthropology, pp . 206207.
We conclude that aithough the analogy with the phonemic structure is not identical yet
the overall assumptions with regard to the use of that model are similar.
10 Claude Levi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology, p. 19.

MYTH, STRUCTURE AND INTERPRETATION

59

ble underlying causes for its genesis. In one sense the rejection of the
positivism of evolution results in the affirmation of the positivism of
structuralism, for the correlate assumption to the one that makes
myth a matter of unconscious processes is that the religious possibility does not exist; hence there must be another explanation for it.
One school's gain is another's loss. But the problem remains, can one
derive a mode of interpretation which deals with the primary intentional modality of the myth? Such an interpretation we shall label
"authentic."
In order to begin to examine and answer these questions an example of cosmogony can be cited from the Omaha Indians.
"At the beginning," said the Omaha, "all things were in the mind of Wakonda.
All creatures, including man, were spirits. They moved about in space between
the earth and the stars (the heavens). They were seeking a place where they could
come into bodily existence. They ascended to the sun, but the sun was not good
for their home. Then they descended to earth. They saw it covered with water.
They floated through the air to the north, the east, the south and the west, and
found no dry land. They were sorely grieved. Suddenly from the midst of the
water uprose a great rock. It burst into flames and the waters floated into the
air in clouds. Dry land appeared; the grasses and the trees grew. The hosts of the
spirits descended and became flesh and blood. They fed on the seeds of the
grasses and the fruits of the trees, and the land vibrated with their expressions
of joy and gratitude to Wakonda, the maker of all things.""

If we assume that this myth is "real," if we assume that the society

who originally recited this myth as a story about their "beginning"
meant what they said, in other words, if we are willing to grant the
Omaha that modicum of humanity that we allow for ourselves, then
it is also necessary that we, momentarily at least, suspend our own socalled sophisticated beliefs about the primacy of other religious forms
or our positivistic assumptions about the superficiality of religion generally. Momentarily, for the student of this particular myth, all things
were in the mind of Wakonda. Products as we are of that epoch that
has lived on the heritage of Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud we have
learned that ordinary consciousness is false consciousness, that ordinary perceptions are false perceptions, indeed, that immediate judgments are fictitious. It is this initial judgment that leads us to reject
II Fletcher and La Flesche, "The Omaha Tribe," in Twenty-seventh Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology (Washington, D.C., 1911), pp. 570-571. Quoted from Mircea
Eliade, From Primitives to Zen. New York and Evanston: Harper and Row Publishers, 1967,
pp.83-84.

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MYTH, STRUCTURE AND INTERPRETATION

the surface projections of the myth leading to a search for another

interpretation. However, we shall proceed to argue that the form itself dictates the meaning of the phenomenon with the result that
meaning is something to be grasped at the outset rather than superimposed on the basis of a judgment that the initial projection is unreal. Such a procedure should allow us to move to levels of interpretation that transcend this initial intention, not by excluding it, but
by understanding it as the literal embodiment of the intention of the
myth. In this sense, the way to capture the "authentic" intention of
the myth is to assume at the outset that the myth means what it says.
The problem that manifests itself at this level is the problem of
experiencing the myth in such a way that one is able to grasp the intention as it interpolates itself into one's own experience. This follows directly from the way a myth functions for an archaic society.
Myths are believed. Myths are said to point to that which is real,
sacred, bearers of ultimate meaning, etc. To understand them one
must believe with that initial believer in the primary statement of
the myth.
Now we are able to turn to the non-grammatical but linguistic use
of the term "structure~" First, we agree with the argument that myth
functions on grammatical terms as language and therefore has a complexity equivalent to any other linguistic product. Consequently, myth
could not have been produced by an inferior mind. However, beyond
that the analogy breaks down because it assumes that myth is identical with ordinary language, or language in general. If we take the simple grammatical statement "John loves Mary," it is possible to do an
analysis from the point of view of linguistics which will separate phonemic, semiotic and semantic components in such a way that it is
possible to separate the complex structural elements that combine to
illustrate the linguistic sophistication presupposed in the grammatical
make up of such a seemingly simple meaning. To refer to the myth
cited a moment ago, the same grammatical complexity is represented
in the statement" At the beginning all things were in the mind of Wakonda." The grammatical model certainly assures the complexity of
the archaic mind, but it fails to deal with the characteristics peculiar
to myth. The grammatical approach to myth assumes that analysis
can occur on the basis of a model which attempts to exclude all subjectivity, in other words, myth can be reduced to a system of signs
related internally without external reference. Analysis begins by reducing the myth to a series of component parts, oppositions, which

MYTH, STRUCTURE AND INTERPRETATION

61

when juxtaposed yield supposed latent meanings, a kind of grammatical reconstruction.

When a linguistic turn is made in the analysis of myth a distinction
should be made between abstract and concrete linguistic usages. Abstractly conceived all language is "ordinary" language in the sense
that it partakes in a set of universal rules. Concretely, however, language becomes specialized in the sense that it becomes the prerogative of the intentionality of a particular modality of consciousness.
On the grammatical level one is dealing with a correlation of signs
while on the hermeneutic level one is dealing with the relationship of
linguistic signs and signification. Hence an intentional relationship is
assumed to exist between language presented and consciousness. We
are assuming on this level that the language of myth is indispensable,
that is, unique, correlate with an intentional mode of consciousness.
Consequently, the hermeneutics of myth (philosophical and religious)
may be considered a second order interpretation which approaches
language as concrete in correlation with experience. The field of interpretation is then given a context which is phenomenological in the
sense that language is considered as a matter of self-constitution. Some
clarification of this point is required.
In classical phenomenology l2 consciousness is discovered through
a procedure of phenomenological reduction which reveals and unfolds
the constitution of self as the center of value and judgment. If it is
possible to conclude that consciousness is no longer available to analysis as classical phenomenology thought, then it is necessary to consider consciousness as embedded within language, to be given through
language. The consequence of this approach will be to study language
as constituted by consciousness, or to put it another way, language in
correlation with human self-constitution. By analogy it is possible to
claim that myth as language constitutes itself as a unique datum of
consciousness with special properties and characteristics. We would
like to argue that language in the abstract is grammatical while lan-

12' By classical phenomenology I mean Husserlian phenomenology. A number of terms,

abstract and concrete, regionality, self-constitution, etc. are -taken from Husserl's writings,
particularly Cartesian Meditations and Formal and Transcendental Logic. The hermeneutic
foundation for the interpretation of language can be developed on the basis of the construction of a theory of language which can be formulated by revising the method of classical
phenomenology to account for the proposition, consciousness is embedded within language.
The consequence of such an approach would be the development of a phenomenology of
language. I have presented this view in a more complete manner in the book, Mythic-Symbolic Language and Philosophical Anthropology, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971.

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MYTH. STRUCTURE AND INTERPRETATION

guage in the concrete is regional in the sense that it is possible to correlate language with special areas of experience. From the point of
view of interpretation it is possible therefore to specify regions of
interpretation with the consequences that special areas of language,
special languages, may be designated with rubrics and properties appropriate to each. In one sense then the structural analysis of myth
as we conceive it will result in the specification of the rubrics and
properties of a special language. So conceived the structural analysis
of myth is anthropological in the philosophical and not solely in the
sociological sense, for according to this model myth is correlated with
human meaning in its ultimate sense and not with social meaning in
an unconscious behavioristic sense.
When conceived on the level of discourse the most immediate distinction that can be made between myth and other kinds of discourse
is predicated upon a distinction between the literal and the symbolic.
Literal discourse may be said to compose language of two types, the
first dependent on the spontaneous use of signs, the second appropriate to critical scientific language wherein single and identical meanings
are intended. If I should use a simple statement such as "I see a tree,"
the sign "tree" would not be taken to stand for anything else but that
intended by the term. Equally, if I should devise a scientific formula
I would depend upon the creation of a system of signs, the meanings
of which would neither change nor be ambiguous. This kind of language, however, differs from the way in which the language of myth
appears. In contrast the language of myth shares with the psychic and
the poetic, the symbolic mode. Symbolic discourse differs from literal
discourse in its exercise of and incorporation of multiple levels of
meaning. To return to the notion of intentionality, much scientific as
well as spontaneous discourse aims at a singular level of signification.
We may say that the intentionality of such singular language, is that
it says what it means in a transparent and literal way. In contrast,
symbolic language of which myth is a type, is dependent upon the
multivalence of primary religious symbols. In other words the intentionality of the religious symbol is double or multiple. Speaking of
the symbol stain, Paul Ricoeur states the distinction in this way:
Every sign aims at something beyond itself and stands for that something; but
not every sign is a symbol. We shall say that the symbol conceals in its aim a
double intentionality. Take the "defiled," the "impure." This significant expression presents a first or literal intentionality that, like every significant expression,
supposes the triumph of the conventional sign over the natural sign. Thus, the

MYTH, STRUCTURE AND INTERPRETATION

63

literal meaning of "defilement" is "stain," but this literal meaning is already a

conventional sign; the words "stain," "unclean," etc., do not resemble the thing
signified. But upon this first intentionality there is erected a second intentionality
which, through the physically "unclean," points to a certain situation of man in
the sacred which is precisely that being defiled, impure. The literal and manifest
sense, then, points beyond itself to something that is like a stain or spot. Thus,
contrary te perfectly transparent technical signs, which say only what they want
to say in positing that which they signify, symbolic signs are opaque, because the
first, literal, obvious meaning itself points analogically to a second meaning which
is not given otherwise than in it .... This constitutes the depth of the symbol,
which, it will be said is inexhaustible. 13

This multivalence of the symbol raises the question of interpretation

(hermeneutics) in a new and radical way for the problem emerging
from this linguistic approach to hermeneutics is one which requires a
sensitivity to the manner in which signification occurs. To return to
the example of the tree, if the word tree were to function in a symbolic way, as a manifestation of the sacred, the function of the term
"tree" in a language would be multivalent. Its meaning would be construed on both a sacred and a profane level. On one level the term
would signify simply our ordinary definition of "tree" while on another level the term refers to the manifestation of the sacred within
the tree, i.e., to the tree as sacred object. The problem of interpretation is that of correlating these different levels of meaning acknowledging both the potential opacity of the symbol and the necessity for
understanding. In Ricoeur's terms this is the task of correlating the
literal intention with the symbolic intention.
The context for interpretation of the symbol, however, is not given
through the separation of the symbolic from the particular sphere of
givenness, rather the symbol is given in a linguistic context which
must be accounted for. The context for the emergence of religious
symbolism is given in language i.e., myth. Further, myth can be conceived as a language of interpretation, for its purpose is to interpret,
that is to make the primary symbols intelligible. Hence, one can never
begin with that datum that is prior to interpretation; thinking about
symbolic discourse begins with symbolic discourse. It is the peculiar
property of this kind of language to inform rather than to restrict
thought. In other words thinking begins with the symbolic mode.
Now the sense in which structure is finally applied will be allied

13

Paul Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil. New York: Harper and Row, 1967, p. 15.

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MYTH, STRUCTURE AND INTERPRETATION

closely to this double problem for interpretation, namely, the multivalence of symbols, as well as the linguistic (mythic) context of the
symbolic discourse. Again one can turn to the notion of intentionality in order to find a solution. In this sense the literal structure of the
symbol will be correlate with its symbolic structure. Eliade has shown
for example with regard to cosmic symbolism that the literal form of
something symbolized constitutes the primary intentional network
from which secondary intentional modes may be drawn as in sky
symbolism wherein the sky god takes on the basic characteristics of
the sky, permanence, transcendence, vastness, etc. The intentional
network which characterizes the totality of the symbol is informed
on this primary level, the task of interpretation is to establish the
correlation between primary forms and their secondary elaboration.
In terms of the symbol set within the context of language the task
is to discover the intentional referent of such language. Earlier it was
suggested that the failure of the grammatical model is manifest in the
total internalization of reference. In contrast, if one conceived such
language as intentional it is possible to refer it to a .modality of consciousness. In this sense the referability of myth is to the human subject. At this point the term "structure" applies to those basic characteristics of myth which can be delineated as structural modes of consciousness which myth reveals.
ARCHAIC ONTOLOGY

It is now possible to raise the question of how myth functions in archaic societies fully cognizant of its peculiar linguistic constitution
as a special language capable of revealing and illuminating basic structures. In order to do this we shall consider the nature of the cosmogonic myth as the paradigmatic myth in archaic societies said to provide a structural model for myths in general. If we can return to the
cosmogony of the Omaha, and if we can choose to rise above the
temptation to construct a grammatical analysis, it is possible to speculate that the concern of the myth is to comment, to explain the
origin of things and provide thereby a foundation for understanding
how Omaha culture originated. That is a fairly obvious deduction
from a text that says plainly that when time began all things, including men who were spirits, were in the mind of the God and that he
made it possible for men to take on the bodily form in order that
they may become human. As the myth intimates, they did become

MYTH, STRUCTURE AND INTERPRETATION

65

human, receiving bodies, and they are grateful to Wakonda their original source of unity for that temporal becoming.
From this rather short analysis we can conclude that the Omaha in
particular and archaic societies in general are concerned through the
construction of the cosmogonic myth to create what Eliade has aptly
called an "archaic ontology." In other words the ultimate meaning
that the archaic religious mentality seeks is to understand himself in
terms of origins seeking an orientation to the world that is cosmogonic rather than historic.
For the man of archaic societies .... what happened ab origine can be repeated
by the power of rites. For him, then, the essential thing is to know the myths.
It is essential not only because the myths provide him with an explanation of the
World and his mode of being in the World, but above all because by recollecting
the myths, by re-enacting them, he is able to repeat what the Gods, the Heroes,
or the Ancestors did ab origine. To know the myths is to learn the secret of the
origin of things. In other words, one learns not only how things came into existence but also where to find them and how to make them reappear when they
disappear. 14

Now the structures that emerge from the construction of an archaic

ontology are structures which can be associated with modalities of
being rather than grammatical structures, and yet they are a-linguistic,
for if consciousness is itself linguistic the very condition for the possibility of their being is linguistic. We shall return to the problem of
structure and language at the conclusion of this section, however at
this point it seems possible to delineate the basic structures within an
archaic ontology. We shall designate the categories of this ontology
under the rubrics time, space, nature and existence. (It should be noted parenthetically that these are categories illuminated by Eliade's
work on the cosmogonic myth.) 15 Temporality is the archaic tendency to construe a meaningful time as synonymous with in ilia tempore;
the primordial time of the beginnings. Space suggests the archaic desire to live in space which imitates original and primordial models.
Nature means the openness of archaic societies to the regenerative
power of natural forms, that is, the cyclical recreation of the new and

14 Mircea Eliade, Myth and Reality. New York and Evanston: Harper and Row, 1963,
pp. 13-14.
15 It should be noted that cosmogony is the paradigmatic pattern for myth for Eliade.
All other myths partake of a similar structure, even myths which posit ultimate meaning in
the future, in the sense that they project ultimate meanings beyond ordinary history. Hence,
the eschatological myth from one perspective has a meaning similar to the cosmogonic myth.

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MYTH, STRUCTURE AND INTERPRETATION

original in plant and animal life. Existence refers to the attempt made
by people of archaic societies to live on a plane where original forms
become structures constitutive for existence.
Archaic man's original ontology, as it bears on his conscious apprehension of time, has the distinguishing character of selecting only
those "primordial" events as meaningful which have as their consequence his own symbolic participation in in illo tempore. The correlation that may be established between cosmogony and time is one
where only a particular kind of time is selected, upheld and distinguished from other kinds of time. This particular kind of time manifests the original creative act. For archaic man time is meaningful
because it has an archetypal character which not only reveals a form
of understanding but can in fact be repeated. Hermeneutically it can
be said that a sacred phenomenon has a special meaning because of
its tendency towards archetype. This archetypical structure is given
meaning because of its participation in that which can be designated
as the first time, the time of origins, etc.
If one aspect of the structure of temporality is the ability to present a model (archetype) original in the sense that it defines a beginning, temporality as sacred manifestation has within it the capacity
for regeneration. The myth of the eternal return, that temporal construct which has within it the capacity for repetition illumines the
creative possibilities for regeneration. Significantly, the direct consequence of intelligibility is activity, i.e., a mode of understanding yields
a mode of action which can be repeated by those who participate in
the myth. It is significant that the language of myth structures the
meaning of temporality for all past time in such a way that it may
be rendered present through manifesting the primordial events present for contemplation and action. In a moment we shall attempt to
account for this fact by showing how the language of myth may be
regarded as unique.
Cosmogony is the paradigmatic model for archetypes of both time
and space. The archaic desire to transform chaos into cosmos and
thereby live at the center of meaning illustrates the close relationship
between structure and meaning. The distinction between chaos and
cosmos is similar to the distinction between the sacred and the profane inasmuch as the cosmos alone is perceived to be real while chaos
is associated with profane and un meaningful experience. In Eliade's
thought this notion of the archaic use of space is associated with the
symbolism of the center, which is either manifest through the sacred

MYTH, STRUCTURE AND INTERPRETATION

67

visual power of cosmic objects or constructed on a pattern revealed

in the original cosmogony as in the construction of a temple, village,
home, etc. Again, the cosmogonic myth may be the linguistic instrument which tells about the origin of sacred space revealing thereby
the pattern for reconstruction.
As the cosmogonic myth speaks about time and space, so it speaks
about nature, that model of regeneration whose birth is ever new and
always repeated. Among the hierophanies to be included in religious
man's encounter with nature are hierophanies of the sky, the sun, the
moon, water and stones. Equally important is the sacrality of the
earth, woman, and fertility as well as the sacredness of vegetation
and the modalities associated with agriculture. To say that natural
forms reveal themselves meaningfully is to suggest that particular forms
reveal a particular archetype. Water reveals a pattern of regeneration;
stones are meaningful because of their capacity for endurance; the
sky is associated with archetypes of transcendence; the earth and
woman are associated with fertility and generation. What is unique
about archaic man's perception of nature is that nature as a manifestation requires as a consequence the need to penetrate its very structure in order that its totality and wholeness might be perceived.
Archaic societies attempt to understand a form in terms of all its
relations including those to the self as a part of nature. The sky, for
example, is perceived on a sacred level as transcendence and power
representing man's attempt to transcend his conditionedness either
through rituals of association or by myths of the sky god, creator
of power, and transcendence. An oyster, shaped like the female vulva, which gives birth to the pearl is seen as the symbol of fertility.
The water with its very lack of form symbolizes chaos, hence the
time before creation, that which is necessary for birth. Again, the
language of myth is the language which tells the story of these cosmic symbols.
Cosmogony has another level, the level where archaic ontology becomes existential in the sense that existence is made meaningful as
the original models for action and contemplation reveal themselves.
That which is sought after in modalities of temporality, spatiality,
and nature is the pure form almost in a Platonic sense. Perhaps from
his own encounter with brokenness archaic man seeks to restore in
archetype that which has been lost in actuality. To posit the requirement for an original model, existence must be seen as broken and
autonomous, indeed, as ruptured. The distinctiveness of the cosmog-

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MYTH, STRUCTURE AND INTERPRETATION

onic myth is its attempt to abolish brokenness and rupture. 16 The experience of brokenness plus the attempt to abolish it suggest the radical denial on the part of archaic man of autonomy and separation.
Nostalgia for paradise, openness to the world, perception of the self
as homo-symbolicus and anthropo-cosmos - all these indicate the extent to which symbol and myth are employed to do that which archaic man would otherwise be unable to do, namely to restore in language
and action that which is broken originally in experience. Hence, it
seems possible to say that the cosmogonic myth provides the opportunity for the archaic mind to abolish profane time and to recover
sacred time in such a way that sacred temporality becomes a mode
for transcending the conditioned character of ordinary experience.
By recreating sacred space the myth attempts to recover the experience of the true or pure form as a reality for living, for one's beingin-the-world. The construction of nature as a sacred form symbolized
as an experience of regeneration and totality permits the existential
perception of the self as anthropo-cosmos allowing self-perception as
a part of the macro cosmic. In each case existence is perceived as complete and as a denial of ordinary conditionedness and limitation.
CONCLUSION

It seems possible to return to the set of issues raised in the prior sections of this chapter. In the first section the change from evolution to
structure in the study of myth was highlighted. While that development was affirmed in general some of the limitations of the grammatical model were pointed out. In the second section an alternative was
attempted predicated upon the theory of structure derived from a reworking of hermeneutic phenomenology, one which acknowledged
the linguistic character of myth. In the third section some basic structures of the cosmogonic myth were described and analyzed as they
were seen in the context of the prior theory of interpretation. It
seems possible to conclude that myth, when seen in the context of
language in correlation with consciousness, constitutes a special lan-

16 Eliade's comments about western philosophy and its preoccupations in this regard are
apt, "It is the human condition, and above all the temporality of the human being, that constitutes the object of most recent western philosophy, , , , Now, this problem of the 'conditioning' of man (and its corollary, rather neglected in the West: his 'deconditioning') constitutes the problem of Indian thought," Yoga: Immorality and Freedom, New York: Bollingen
Series LVI, Pantheon Books, 1958, p, xvi,

MYTH, STRUCTURE AND INTERPRETATION

69

guage with its own unique rubrics and properties (its own structures)
which cannot be replaced by other regions of discourse. The value
judgment emerging as a consequence of this investigation seems important. If we assume that the discovery of the pure form, or the
archetype of regeneration, of innocence was the product of human
folly, then myth is indeed the product of a false consciousness. However, if one is willing to grant that quest as a legitimate and necessary
aspect of man's human and linguistic constitution, then not only does
myth constitute a unique and special mode of discourse, it will perhaps continue to do so.

CHAPTER V

TOWARD A THEORETICAL FOUNDATION

FOR ACORRELATION BETWEEN
LITERARY AND RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE
INTRODUCTION

In the former chapters the symbol was considered as it appears in a

mythic context. In this discussion the literary role of the symbol will
be analyzed and a theoretical foundation for a correlation between
literary and religious discourse will be offered.
BACKGROUND

It is well-known that the Oedipus myth could function simultaneously

as the manifestation of the basic character of Greek religion, a prime
example of classical dramatic literature, and in modern times a paradigmatic explanation of psychological conflict and resolution. Such a
fact may lead one to speculate upon the close association among the
mythic, the poetic, and the psychic, an association which must be
present in the language of poetry and myth at the outset. In other
words, we do not believe it is possible to construct a correlation between religious discourse and poetic discourse if that correlation is
not given already in the language of poetry and religion; rather, it is
necessary to understand the kind of correlation that exists therein.
In order to understand this correlation the following hypothesis will
be entertained throughout the discussion; we shall assume that there
is a correlation between literary and religious discourse which can be
understood (hermeneutically evaluated) once the properties of the
language have been designated. Consequently, our task will be to construct a theory of language in a phenomenological context in order
that one may turn to the correlation between literary discourse and
religious discourse with sufficient theoretical foundation to allow an
understanding of the possible correlation that does exist b~tween literature and religion.
We consider the theory of language to be the prior concern of this
discussion negatively because both literature and religion have suffered because of inadequate modes of interpretation when conceived as

TOWARD A THEORETICAL FOUNDATION

71

linguistic phenomena, and positively because when understood in the

context of a proper theory of language their legitimacy as an authentic expression of human consciousness is granted. Myth, the linguistic
category into which religious language fits, has been regarded as synonymous with illusion until most recent times, while in philosophical
circles, at least, literary discourse has been identified with the purely
emotive. In order to rectify this situation it is necessary to understand
the language of literature and religion in the context of a theory of
language which affirms rather than negates these modes of discourse.
I should add a parenthetical remark about my own philosophical
predilections. The resources I will use to construct a theory of language for reflection upon the special characteristics of literary and
religious discourse will be phenomenological, that is, drawn from the
areas of phenomenology proper and the phenomenology of religion.
Philosophic commitment in large measure accounts for this choice of
area, however, as phenomenologists have made the "linguistic turn,"
as they have begun to do recently, they have been concerned to conceive language in correlation with experience. The advantage of this
approach is that language is not considered "in itself" as a system of
signs, but, rather language is understood to be correlate with the particularity of human experience. Since both literature and religion
claim to represent special areas of human experience dealing with
ultimate meanings, a phenomenological foundation may begin to account adequately for these linguistic modes inasmuch as it attempts
to explain the unique character of the experience they represent.
THEORY OF LANGUAGE: THE POSSIBILITY OF A PHENOMENOLOGICAL MODEL

A moment ago it was suggested that the fundamental problem con-

fronting one who wishes to correlate poetry and religion is a linguistic

one. If this assumption is true, the prior question, "What is language?"
must be answered in order to pursue the projected correlation. In a
sense there is no experiencing, at least of the kind that can be remembered, that is non-linguistic. I have no experience of myself, no experience of the "I" that I am apart from the linguistic tools which
allow me to convey that experience to myself. Equally, I have no
experience of another apart from the givenness of the language which
allows me to convey that other to myself as person or thing. Even my
ability to think, to reflect would be lost totally if it were not for the
medium of language, that vessel which contains my thoughts. Indeed,

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TOWARD A THEORETICAL FOUNDATION

language is like one's body: poor, inadequate, always unable to do

what one wants it to do, and yet it is the very possibility for the expression both of the fullness of one's being and whatever reality one
chooses to describe. Even when I reflect about my visual encounter
with a painting I must resort to language to convey the meaning of
that encounter. In phenomenological terms, the Cogito is embedded
within language in the same sense that thought is impossible without
language.
There are different ways of approaching language inclusive of different heuristic devices employed to understand it. Language, whether mythic and metaphorical, logical and rigorous, transparent and conceptually clear, generally is defined as having a common set of properties which both limit and provide the possibility for its various usages. Epistemologically understood this abstract realm in which one
conceives the term language is a realm of potentiality for each actual
usage which is given in language considered as a totality or a whole.
In order to use language it is necessary that this body of givenness is
present potentially in order to be actualized. It is this givenness which
conditions my speaking as well as my understanding and in general
my thinking. Simply, in order for any kind of communication to be
possible it is necessary that this realm of potential usage and meaning
exist. But in order for language to be used it is necessary that it be
more than an abstract body of potentiality.
Language is more than a system of signs with a certain grammatical
structure because the use of language implies a user of language. Language never becomes actual apart from the speaker who makes this
body of potentiality actual through the act of oral communication,
or the writer who uses language to create new modes of meaning
through the reconstitution of the potentiality of language in the concrete creation of a novel, a script, or a poem. For each, language is
something given as the fundamental modality through which the creative act takes place, but in every case the actualization of language is
the accomplishment of the one who reconstitutes language by bringing it into the focus of a creative subject. Therefore, the meaning of
language is to be understood through the subject who correlates the
potential givenness oflanguage with the actual use of language. Hence,
it can be said that a philosophy which centers itself in language must
deal with its constitution through a human subject.
Two propositions may be suggested as a consequence of this understanding of language, the first negative, the second positive. First,

TOWARD A THEORETICAL FOUNDATION

73

a philosophy of language ought not consider language in itself if it is

to deal truly with the interpretation of language. Second, a philosophy of language correlates the potentiality of language with its concrete usage by a human subject. This approach to language is phenomenological in the sense that it is concerned with the interpretation
oflanguage as it is constituted by the human subject. The implication
is that an investigation into the total body of language is not possible
at this point because such an investigation only would conceive language as potential. When language becomes actual it becomes a special
mode of discourse appropriate to a particular realm of human experience. Language as such is constituted by taking on special characteristics. The point is this, when I enter a physicist's laboratory I am
not simply expected to playa game; instead I am expected to speak
about a particular kind of experience. The language I use will be correlated with that particular kind of experience, a scientific experience, the assumption being that I will know how to use the language
if I have had some experience of the problems and solutions germane
to that discipline. Equally, if I read a poem, I am invited to experience through the language of the poem the poetic vision. It is true
that both the poet and the physicist are drawing from a common potentiality of language with certain grammatical rules, etc., but it is
also true that as language is constituted by a human subject it distinguishes itself and hence it is possible to speak of linguistic variations,
that is, a scientific language and a poetic language.
The theoretical framework for language considered as correlate
with self-constitution is given through a revision of the phenomenological foundation provided by Edmund Husser!' The phenomenological method is often called a method of description. A more adequate way of stating the central theme of phenomenology is to define it as a skeptical method which applies radical doubt in order to
achieve apodicticity. That is what is meant by Husserl's notion of
"rigorous science," namely the attempt to found philosophy on certitude. Husserl, like Kant, accepted Hume's criticism that science
could not be founded on any objective certitude. At the same time
he argued that the transcendental method was able to recover a certitude which would enable it to provide the foundation for a new
philosophy. Husserl was in agreement with Kant's restatement of the
Copernican revolution. Instead of the self revolving around the world,
the world revolves around the self. Knowledge is a matter of selfconstitution. The epistemological consequence of this revolution was

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TOWARD A THEORETICAL FOUNDATION

that instead of assuming that knowledge occurs through the influence

of objects upon the mind (Locke and Hume), Kant theorized that
the self is engaged actively in the process of making up knowledge.
Husserl concluded from this basic observation that the certitude for
which philosophy seeks can in no sense be drawn from an analysis
of the so-called objective world. Instead certitude can be discovered
through a transcendental analysis of the ego Cogito. This insight provided the basis for his admiration of Descartes, whose method of absolute doubt led to the discovery of the self as the indubitandum,
the apodictic, the Cogito, ergo sum.
Husserl holds in common with Kant and Descartes the understanding that the self provides the constitutive basis for knowledge. Whatever we know is in fact grounded in the apodictic ego. Husserl sought
to explore that epistemological ground for knowledge, uncovering
"noetic" and "noematic" structures which underly the experience
of the- ego. On the basis of the discovery that the self provides the
constitutive foundation for all knowledge, Husserl carried on a lifetime battle with the "natural attitude." The natural attitude was
present most specifically in naturalism, but it was also apparent in
any approach that attempted to establish itself on the assumption
that knowledge is somehow objective.
Knowledge then for Husserl was a matter of self-constitution, in
the sense that the primal guarantor of understanding could not be
given objectively but through the activity of consciousness. One of

the conclusions Husserl drew from the internal exploration of the

modalities of consciousness was the notion that consciousness develops itself in regional categories. In the third of his five Cartesian
Meditations he refers to the notion of region under the title "Material and formal ontological regions as indexes pointing to transcendental systems of evidence." The point of the term "region" is that
the exploration of consciousness leads to the discovery that consciousness manifests itself simultaneously in multiple dimensions at the
same time. In other words, consciousness is multi-dimensional not
mono-dimensional, manifesting itself simultaneously in several dimensions.
Later phenomenologists have been critical of Husserl for not being
sufficiently concrete, with the consequence that they have tended to
dismiss, perhaps correctly, the obscurities of the transcendental ego
and the eidetic analysis of consciousness. Heidegger attempted to

move behind the obscurities of the transcendental ego to the notion

TOWARD A THEORETICAL FOUNDATION

75

of Being, while Merleau-Ponty attempted to discover the concrete

Cogito in an embodied consciousness. In both cases they were led
to the discovery that consciousness is embedded within language; in
Heidegger's case this discovery led to the proposition "Language is
the house of Being"; while in the stance of Merleau-Ponty, embodied
consciousness manifests itself in the gestural act of speaking.
I agree with the "linguistic turn" of phenomenology. Further, it
should be noted that this task has been carried on in the spirit of
Husserl's own attempts to uncover the subjective and apodictic foundations of consciousness. It is in this sense that I turn to Husserl's
notion of a regional theory of consciousness for a phenomenological
theory of language which will function as a model, a kind of conceptual framework, which will allow for the distinctiveness of literary
and religious discourse. Therefore, it seems possible to reconceive
Husserl's regional theory of consciousness as a regional theory of
language. The primary assumption is not only that consciousness is
embedded within language, but also that as consciousness is a matter
of self-constitution, so language is constituted by the human subject.
In other words, I wish to transform the notion of a regional theory
of consciousness into a regional theory of language.
There are reasons for so doing. Language can be conceived as a
matter of self-constitution. Here we wish to distinguish ourselves
from a linguistic, in a technical sense, but non-philosophical consideration of language. Perhaps the best way to clarify this is to make a
distinction between the potentiality and the actuality of language.
Language may be defined abstractly as a structure of internal references in the sense in which the linguist approaches language in terms
of phonological and syntatic theory which together compromise the
grammar of a language. However, the philosopher is forced to go
beyond grammatical theory inasmuch as language is never given as
grammatically pure. In other words, the meaning of language is always given in terms of its usage, as a myth, a poem, a novel, or a
scientific treatise. It is because the philosopher is forced to deal with
the meaning oflanguage that he must consider language as constituted
by the human subject. Indeed, precisely because language is constituted by the human subject, the regionality of language becomes important. The regional theory allows for the legitimate and simultaneous expression of the multiple modes of linguistic expression: poetic discourse, religious discourse, scientific discourse, political discourse, etc. For languages as constituted occur as special languages,

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TOWARD A THEORETICAL FOUNDATION

and as such, the language of religion and the language of literature

are constituted as special languages.
Now to return to the initial question of this section, "What is Language?" We can give two answers. First, language as potentiality is
that large body of discourse which may be conceived in terms of a
self-related system of signs. Second, language as actually used by human subjects is constituted in terms of special languages.
HERMENEUTICS: THE INTERPRETATION OF SPECIAL LANGUAGES

In the prior section an attempt was made to provide a conceptual

framework from which a philosophy of language may be developed.
One conclusion may be drawn from that analysis which will allow a
transition to this investigation of hermeneutic method: namely when
one approaches literary or religious discourse from the perspective
of a phenomenology of language one is not approaching the problem
of language in general, but, rather, the confrontation is with a special
language correlate with a region of experience. The assumption is
that a poem, a novel, or a myth is written because the experience
correlate with that linguistic modality can be conceived and expressed in no other way. Each special language is presumed to be unique,
correlate with a special region of experience. Hence, the hermeneutic
question, the question of how one interprets these modes of discourse,
must come to terms with the special characteristics of the language
it is designed to interpret.
Consequently, hermeneutic theory must have reasonable sophistication with regard to the problems of language, and, in particular,
the problems appropriate to the languages of literature and religion.
Indeed, this transition toward a consideration of hermeneutics as a
method appropriate for the analysis of language distinguishes current
developments in hermeneutic theory. Any philosophical consideration of the notion of hermeneutics finds the modern emergence of
the hermeneutic question in Heidegger's Being and Time. 1 In that
work the term hermeneutic has four meanings, none of which is associated with language. First, the term hermeneutic is referable to
the overall enterprise of Being and Time, that is, the phenomenology
of Dasein. Second, the term refers to the elaboration of the conditions
1 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time. trans. by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson.
New York and Evanston: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1962.

TOWARD A THEORETICAL FOUNDATION

77

of possibility referable to Dasein in the sense that they constitute

potential horizons. Third, and most important, the term refers to the
actual existentiality of Dasein, in terms of its presence as being-inthe-world. Finally, the term refers to the elaboration of a methodology for the human sciences acknowledging that this sense of the term
is to be understood only as a derivation from the other meanings.
Significantly, as Heidegger uses the term at this juncture, hermeneutics is allied with that tradition spanning from Schleiermacher through
Dilthey which identifies hermeneutics with subjective interpretation.
But subjective interpretation, the great discovery of the romantic
period further illuminated in Being and Time, is not sufficient to
account for the difficulties encountered when it is recognized by
Heidegger that Being is embedded in and revealed through language.
In his famous essay "Holderlin and the Essence of Poetry," Heidegger
confronts the problem of a hermeneutic which has language as its
subject matter. Language, in order to be authentic, cannot be a mere
"tool," a dispenser of "information."
The essence of language does not consist entirely in being a means of giving information .... Language is not a mere tool, one of the many which man possesses; on the contrary, it is only language that affords the very possibility of
standing in the openness of the existent. 2

But this is not language in the ordinary sense; rather it is language

as created and delivered through its reconstitution by the poet. In
other words when Heidegger turns to an interpretation of language,
in particular the language of the poet, he makes a fundamental distinction between the ordinary uses of language and language as reconstituted by the poet. Consonant with this intention, he develops
a series of metaphors to deal with the distinctiveness of poetic language suggesting that the poet is one who "names the gods," while
at the same time he reconstitutes existence through language, etc.
This is a most important first step in the hermeneutic analysis of a
special language, even though the special characteristics of that language are hinted at only by Heidegger. The basic thrust in more recent developments in hermeneutic theory remain true to the spirit of
Heidegger.
Before turning to these more recent developments in hermeneutic
theory, an elaboration of our original hypothesis about the potential
2 Martin Heidegger, Existence and Being. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1968, p. 276.

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TOWARD A THEORETICAL FOUNDATION

correlation between literary and religious discourse can be made:

namely, the possibility for the correlation between these languages
will be given on the basis of an analysis of the common properties
of the languages. That which is common to religious discourse and
literary discourse is the symbolic. The reality of the symbolic is in
fact hinted at in Heidegger's discussion of poetic inasmuch as poetic
language is said to be unique or essential. A practical consideration
may illustrate this reality. When I attempt to interpret the lines from
a poem by Dylan Thomas,
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 3
I know that I should be utterly at sea if I construed this to be either

literal or transparent conceptual discourse. Equally, when I read this

passage from a Vedic funerary hymn,
Heave thyself, Earth, nor press thee downward
heavily: afford him easy access, gently tending him.
Earth, as a mother wraps her skirt about her child,
so cover him. 4
I know that I cannot interpret this language as literal. It is only as I
begin to understand that which distinguishes symbolic language from
other modes of discourse that I can begin to understand its meaning.
This example was presented to illustrate the point, somewhat latent in Heidegger, that later figures in the field of hermeneutic theory
emphasize, namely, that a hermeneutic is predicated upon an understanding of the particular character of the symbolic as it exists in
poetry and religion. I refer to the contributions of Mircea Eliade and
Paul Ricoeur. In each case attempts have been made to come to terms
with the precise character of symbolic discourse as it distinguishes itself from other types of discourse. For our purposes the following
aspects of their respective hermeneutic programs will be summarized.
First, the symbol may be distinguished from the concept; at this
3

Dylan Thomas, The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas. New York: New Directions,

1957. p. 128.

4 Mircea Eliade, From Primitives to Zen. New York and Evanston: Harper & Row,
Publishers, 1967, p. 343.

TOWARD A THEORETICAL FOUNDATION

79

point one intends the religious-poetic-psychic symbol as opposed to

the notion of symbol in, for example, symbolic logic. Whereas conceptual discourse purports to be clear and transparent, symbolic discourse is opaque but avowedly rich in meaning. Conceptual discourse
intends to mean precisely that which the words of the discourse claim
because s~ch discourse is transparent to the object intended. The
statement "I see a tree" means just that. The symbol, however, precisely is not transparent for it intends beyond the word or thing
symbolized. In other words, and this is the second point, symbols
are multivalent in the sense that they combine several meanings in a
single word or object. As Ricoeur states the case, symbols convey
a double intentionality. Third, symbols represent and are correlate
with a unique aspect of human experience. Symbols bring the diversities of experience together in one single representation. The tragic
hero is the one who through risk and agony becomes the representative figure who bears in himself both the expectation and the experience of limitation present in the race of men he represents. The
Christ-figure symbolizes in a single being both the negation through
death and the hope through salvation of those who believe in him.
One may conclude that the symbol with its poetic and religious sides
may be that which literature and religion have in common in their
respective languages and therefore that upon which a correlation can
be based.
CONCLUSION

The following conclusions can be drawn from the discussion in this

chapter: first, on the basis of a regional theory of language which
acknowledges the uniqueness of special languages it is possible to so
designate the language of literature and the language of religion. Second, following the direction of hermeneutic theory it is possible to
understand that the very general notion of interpretation has been
transformed into a program which designates the properties of symbolic language prior to interpretation. Third, if there is to be an actual correlation between literary and religious discourse, it is of their
common foundations in symbol. In this latter sense it is possible to
return to our original hypothesis. It seems that a correlation between
literary discourse and religious discourse is possible through the development of a hermeneutic program which gives primacy to the
symbolic.

CHAPTER VI

SOCIO-POLITICAL SYMBOLISM
AND THE
TRANSFORMATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS
INTRODUCTION

It occurs to us that one of the aspects generally left out of the discussion of the symbol is an analysis of its trans formative role as a
social and political phenomenon. The question we wish to raise in
this chapter is this: how does the symbol function as a linguistic
agent for the transformation of the consciousness of a socio-political
group? This question centers around the issue of individual and social
motivation in the sense that symbols may be used to transform the
consciousness of groups in such a way that effective social change
may result. Certainly, the American political and social experience
of the last decade could be characterized by such a use of symbols,
with, as a consequence, a series of transformations of consciousness
which has changed the American social and political experience considerably. Although we shall delay discussions of specific instances
of such transformation until later, one need only refer to such symbolic visions as John F. Kennedy's vision of The New Frontier, Martin
Luther King's speeches in behalf of disenfranchised black society, the
rhetoric of student protest, the arguments for militancy on behalf of
the Black Panthers, the more radical splinter groups of the Students
for a Democratic Society, recent critiques of the University and the
neo-Marxist critique of technological society. There are several reasons for suggesting that these social and political attempts to transform are involved with symbolic rather than literal or ordinary constructions, charged in many cases with the highly symbolic visions
of utopia rather than mundane views of a static society. In order to
answer our original question we shall consider a number of situations
wherein the symbol does function as the foundation for social-political transformation. It will also be possible to give some consideration
to precisely how it is done.

SOCIO-POLITICAL SYMBOLISM

81

THE CONFLICT OF RATIONALITY: OPERATIONAL AND DIALECTICAL

The first confrontation consists of the conflict between operational

reason and dialectical reason. The cogency of the neo-Marxist analysis of society is to be found not in the solutions it gives to social
problems but in the dilemma outlined in its analysis of society. This
is perhaps best illustrated in the analysis of Herbert Marcuse. From
Marcuse's point of view the problem that must be faced by the thinking individual within contemporary society is the result of its onedimensional character, namely, the society without criticism or opposition. The reason given is that "our society distinguishes itself by
conquering the centrifugal social forces with Technology rather than
Terror, on the dual basis of an overwhelming efficiency and an increasing standard of living."! His contention is that if other societies,
i.e., past societies or contemporary non-democratic societies, have
used the terror of the deathcamp, the armies of the king, or the secret police as methods of social control, modern democratic society
has adopted a different alternative. Technology, considered by some
to be the boon, the great accomplishment of modern society, establishes the means whereby the creativity, the potential, even the freedom of modern man is stifled, inhibited, in fact limited in a way
more devastating than through the terror that any past society may
have known. Marcuse's thesis counters the positions of those who
have conceived technology and its development to represent the unlimited expansion of human freedom. He is looking at the dark side
of our modern technological moon. So conceived, "In this society,
the productive apparatus tends to become totalitarian to the extent
to which it determines not only the socially needed occupations,
skills, and attitudes, but also individual needs and aspirations."2 Certainly one of the consequences of this technological view of totalitarianism is a rebuttal of the old argument that technology is a neutral force without moral significance. Instead, technology becomes
a social and political force of considerable significance.
One of the consequences Marcuse draws from this analysis of technological society is based on a distinction between true and false
needs. A true need may be defined as one which serves the authentic
interests of both the society and the individual, while a false need is
!

Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man. Boston: Beacon Press, 1964, p. x.

Ibid., p. xv.

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SOCIO-POLITICAL SYMBOLISM

a need alien to both which functions as a modality for social control.

The popular side of the false need theory is conceived as a kind of
economic circle wherein the goals of American industry are served
by an advertising machine which forces needs upon people for purposes of economic domination. The intellectual and philosophical
issue which this theory raises is considerably more complex. It holds
that the introduction of false needs into a society is really the consequence of a larger system introduced by technology which reduces
all modes of contemporary thinking about society to one-dimensional
concepts and procedures which have as their aim and consequence
the elimination of qualitative change. Marcuse states it this way:
"Thus emerges a pattern of one dimensional thought and behavior
in which ideas, aspirations, and objectives that, by their content,
transcend the established universe of discourse and action are either
repelled or reduced to terms of this universe. They are redefined by
the rationality of the given system and of its quantitative extension.,,3
As we understand Marcuse, this means that one of the consequences
of living in modern western society is the tendency of that society to
reduce potential understanding of man from multi-dimensionality to
a singular dimension. Conceptuality is considered to be operational
in the sense that concepts are conceived to be analogous to behavior.
This means that those with power within the society tend to understand man in terms of the ways in which he may be manipulated,
i.e., operationally. Therefore, there is no opportunity to change a society since man is what he does, and not what he wants to be.
Essentially, Marcuse presents us with a political vision which harbors within it a critique, both radical and negative, of current western thought. It is of some significance to us that one central aspect
of that argument is linguistic. On the negative side a critique, as we
have shown, is made of operational thinking which is in turn dependent upon a particular usage of language. In order to illustrate our
meaning let us take a hypothetical example. Assume we have been
given the task of analyzing social mobility in an urban non-white
ghetto. It is possible to conclude on the basis of a statistical analysis
that only fifteen per cent of a community of one hundred thousand
have the opportunity to leave the ghetto, that thirty per cent do not
leave for economic reasons, forty-five per cent do not leave because
of the limitations of available housing outside the ghetto, and ten
3

Ibid.,.p. 12

SOCIO-POLITICAL SYMBOLISM

83

per cent prefer to stay. Such a report from an operational point of

view fills a very carefully defined task. From the operational standpoint one has simply analyzed the behavior of the residents of a certain part of the city.
There is a boundary which, when crossed, indicates a departure
from technological rationality. As long as it is possible to remain
within a system of thought which defines behavioral modalities as
primary, problems of value can be excluded. This vantage point makes
it possible to maintain the illusion of objectivity. For example, in
the illustration just cited the entire statistical analysis was conducted
without reference to any trans-social symbols, particularly the symbolism of justice. To be sure justice is not given within the situation;
rather, justice is an ideal type, a norm which is imposed on the situation analyzed. From the operational point of view, however, the
imposition of justice is thought to be irrelevant. Hypothetically, following the illustration, perhaps those who do not leave the ghetto
for economic reasons are victims of economic discrimination, while
those who did not leave because of limitations of available housing
were forced to remain within the ghetto for racial reasons, etc.
In order to make the latter kind of analysis one must move from
monodimensional linguistic modalities to those which combine several regions of experience in contradistinction to one another. One
must bring one's standard of justice into the situation in order to
understand injustice. In the context of this juxtaposition understanding occurs. The great advantage of monodimensional rationality is
thought to be found in the ability to develop a value-free position.
Yet this assumption is open to some doubt. For example, American
society spends the greater portion of its annual revenues on its defense establishment. The rationality operating within the system simply assumes the legitimacy of the defense of society and hence assumes the inevitability of operational means for its achievement. But
the neo-Marxist critique of this so-called "value-free" hypothesis is
devastating indeed. A valuation is already made by operational rationality and language, namely, that the context in which such rationality functions is itself legitimate and further, that it will function to
legitimize that context. Hence the subtle valuation made by the operational rationality that functions in a system that places the highest
priority on defense is the legitimacy of war. The major consequence
of such rationality is that it functions as a means of social control.
To follow the example, inasmuch as operational rationality raises no

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SOCIO-POLITICAL SYMBOLISM

questions about the legitimacy of war, when applied to considerations

of the defense establishment it justifies and legitimizes its various
functions. Now, if operational rationality is assumed to be the predominant type of rationality it will contain all opposition to the particular system to and in which it is applied.
The failure of Marcuse's analysis is not in his critique of one-dimensional thinking, not in his critique of technological rationality;
we find these to be precise and adequate. The limitation of Marcuse's
analysis is to be found in his failure to carry his linguistic argument
through to its constructive conclusion. From a linguistic point of
view Marcuse opposes one-dimensionality to the traditional philosophic usage of universals in contrast to the tendency of one-dimensional rationality to confine itself to the particular. By universal Marcuse means those time-honored philosophic concepts of mind, self,
justice, will, freedom, etc. As long as technological rationality functions to the exclusion of these concepts it functions as a system of
containment. Universals, as the argument implies, function for social
change. In terms of our example, the analysis of mobility carried on
within mono-dimensional rationality and language would function as
a modality of social containment, whereas language which incorporates universals such as justice would function for social change. The
failure of this argument is to be found in its relatively unsophisticated approach to language. Language is, as a medium of communication, composed of universals. From the most elementary point of
view language has to contain universals in order that communication
be possible at all. It is because of our assumptions about universal
meaning that the objects and experiences within our world can be
conveyed to one another. Hence, trees, stones, chairs, tables, lamps,
as well as pain, joy, sorrow etc., have universal meaning as terms.
Therefore, in the sense of ordinary meaning those terms are neither
more nor less universal than those venerable universals taken from
philosophic tradition.
We began this discussion of Marcuse's thought with the intention
of using it as an illustration of how transformation is sought through
a contrast of the literal and the symbolic. Positively, Marcuse's intention may be summarized as an attempt to achieve transformation
through a critique of social and political forms of containment, and
through the development of a constructive position on the foundations for social change. The contrast between operational reason and
dialectical reason is seen from this position to be negatively, the ex-

SOCIO-POLITICAL SYMBOLISM

85

clusion of dialectical rationality through the elimination of universals,

while positively dialectical rationality incorporates the language which
contains universals and therefore is constituent for social change.
Instead of the universals versus particular argument upon which
Marcuse's analysis is predicated we wish to apply a somewhat different approach which will account in a more consistent manner for
the way in which language functions as a trans formative agent for
consciousness, namely, through a distinction between the literal and
the symbolic usages of language. Both incorporate universals, while
the former accounts for social containment, the latter enables social
transformation. However, it is clear that it is unnecessary to reject
the neo-Marxist analysis out of hand inasmuch as this type of analysis
of language has led us to consider the different ways in which language may be employed, as well as to a vision of the necessity for a
transformation of consciousness through a usage of language as a
means for social and political change.
UTOPIAN SYMBOLISM

The second reason for locating the symbol at the center of an analysis of the occurrences of transformation may be discovered in the
symbolism of utopia. The derivation of such thinking is neither philosophical nor rational per se but mythological. Certainly no single
philosophical or sociological school holds any claim to the utopian
vision as strictly their own. It is indeed universal. The elements of
utopia are composed of a vision of harmony of man and nature, the
elimination of all human conflict so that universals such as peace,
justice and freedom may be attained by all without the traditional
forms of coercion that are pragmatically necessary for a society to
function in its ordinary way. Behind this version of the utopian political vision is the desire for the lion to lie down with the lamb, an
archaic vision indeed. As such the Communist Manifesto proclaims
a world wherein human ability is freely given by all in their various
measure, while the needs of the society are adequately met. Equally,
the American Constitution proclaims a society in which all rights are
protected while all freedoms are universally employed. It is true of
course that that which is so universally envisioned by a society is
achieved in the most limited of ways. Hence, there is a considerable
contradiction between a society as it actually is and a society as it
proclaims itself to be.

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SOCIO-POLITICAL SYMBOLISM

By citing this contrast we wish to emphasize the role that symbolism

plays in the transformation of a society via the construction of a
utopian vision. Significantly, at least some major events in recent
American history have partaken of such symbolism. A relatively recent example of the usage of utopian symbolism in American society
is to be found in an eloquent statement from the civil rights period
in the American quest for liberty.
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speedup that day when
all God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and
Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of that old negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, we are free at last!,,4

This kind of rhetoric is neither practical nor realizable. It only partakes of the real situation negatively, the situation in which men lived
at the time of its delivery. The vision is one which is a-historical in
the sense that it assumes that we may free ourselves from the contingencies of history in order to realize an ultimate freedom that
would be otherwise unattainable. The vision excludes the ordinary
world of practical attainment in order to postulate an ideal world
wherein the brokenness of ordinary life may be restored. It is of
some importance then that the vision is utopian rather than practical,
ideal rather than mundane, but, significantly, it provides the foundation for political and social motivation, and therefore the basis for
a type of social and political transformation of consciousness. One
might ask, how?
In the earlier discussions we tended to perceive the symbol from a
synchronic point of view attempting to develop apparatus sufficient
to disclose its meaning. If it is possible to associate change with the
symbol then it is necessary to perceive the symbol from a moving
point of view, or diachronically. In this context it is possible to account for the phenomenon of motivation. By taking the utopian postulate it is possible to understand that the symbol becomes the potential project of a given social group. As the society resolves itself
along the lines of the symbol it changes from its present status of
general unawareness to a position of heightened awareness of an ultimate goal. The process whereby this occurs may be called the stages
or the phases of transformation.
4 Martin Luther King, Jr., "I Have a Dream," The Day They Marched. Chicago; The
Johnson Publishing Company, 1963, p. 85.

SOCIO-POLITICAL SYMBOLISM

87

Initially there is a stage of unawareness wherein one lives in a system of thought and value closed to potential alternatives. In such a
situation one accepts unquestioningly the situation at hand as valid
and definitive for one's life. For example, in American civilization
prior to 1960 it was possible to live in almost total oblivion of the
dilemma .of civil rights that would come to plague the conscience of
the nation and to some extent transform its consciousness in the
1960s. Equally, some decades earlier at the beginning of the century
it was possible for workers to live in almost total unawareness of
their potential rights. Workers were similarly almost unaware of the
economic deprivation which was their lot.
The second phase of transformation is composed of a two-fold discovery which results from the imposition of the symbol on the unconscious situation. It involves the process of coming to consciousness. In terms of the example of utopian rhetoric chosen a moment
ago, the symbol imposes itself upon consciousness as both a positive
and a negative phenomenon. Negatively, it juxtaposes one's ordinary
common sense orientation to the projected possibility presented by
the symbols of freedom and harmony. The ideal of freedom is juxtaposed to the unfreedom presently being experienced by the minority
group, while the ideal of unity is contrasted with the disunity that is
the state of things presently. In this second phase of transformation,
then, the symbol has motivated a group to a level of reflective awareness that was not the case heretofore.
At this point it is necessary to introduce the notions of reflective
and pre-reflective. We can state that at the first phase of transformation experience was pre-reflective. One simply accepted the commonsense world of experience as unalterably the case. At this level the
terms discrimination or freedom from discrimination are not meaningful, for no one is aware of the basic discontinuities being experienced
by the present group. To understand the meaning of discrimination
assumes that one is cognizant of and has begun to question his ordinary status within the society. The second phase of transformation
involves the process of becoming reflectively aware of one's own experience. It is at this point that one questions that set of "assumed
to be true" values and judgments which were heretofore accepted as
valid. In other words one suspends or doubts his ordinary common
sense world of meaning. It is at this point that the symbol generally
and utopian symbolism specifically function for transformation. One
undergoes a negation of his ordinary understanding of the world.

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SOCIOPOLITICAL SYMBOLISM

What was heretofore considered to be the ordinary pattern of relationships within a society is labeled by the member of the minority
group as discriminatory. The symbol presents the individual and the
group with an essentially different interpretation of experience. It is
at this point that a duality, a hiatus, even a dialectic is introduced
into one's experience allowing different levels of interpretation. In
terms of utopian symbolism, the symbolism of a just society becomes
that which initially juxtaposes one's pre-reflective understanding of
his social experience with his reflective understanding of the same.
In this sense the symbol is the focus for the transformation of a sociopolitical group.
On the positive side the symbol establishes the project which a
particular socio-political group may choose as its own. A symbol outlines a future meaning toward which a group may project itself with
the consequence that its fundamental orientation will be changed
necessarily from its prior role within society. In this context social
transformation may occur. However, this is dependent upon the group
resolve, a problem which brings us to the third phase of transformation, namely, decision. Conceived in terms of its socio-political role
the symbol offers a double invitation for reflection and action. Whereas in the second phase the symbol offers itself for reflection presenting the negative and positive possibilities for social change, in the
third phase the symbol offers itself as a possibility for choice. Although the resolve of a particular group through the invitation of the
symbol is a complex problem to which we will turn in a moment, let
it suffice here to comment on some of its aspects.
The question of the group resolve in one sense solves the problem
of the validity of the symbol. As we have seen in earlier discussions,
symbols emerge and they die; there is no objective determinant for
the validity of the symbol. Symbols may be corrupt as in the case
of the symbolism of the dominance of the world by the pure Aryan
race, or they may be pure as in the case of the symbolism of the just
society. But ultimately symbols will be chosen by particular groups
at particular times, for they always involve decision. As bearers of
meaning they invoke such a call for decision on the part of a particular group. Further, inasmuch as symbols are decided upon by particular groups one has in this process of decision the source of social
conflict. The group which has opted for utopian symbolism and has
projected itself toward the realization of those claims will necessarily
be in conflict with the group which deliberately rejects those claims

SOCIO-POLITICAL SYMBOLISM

89

in favor of an alternative set of symbols. Obviously one is led at this

point to reflect on the close relationship between symbol and ideology. For the moment let it suffice to suggest that every ideology is
composed of a series of primary symbols incorporating a primitive
hermeneutic of those symbols as is the case with the construction of
myth.
SYMBOL, SERIALITY, AND THE GROUP RESOLVE

The third reason for considering the symbol at the center of sociopolitical transformation bears on a more extended reference to group
resolution. In order to clarify this it is necessary to turn to Sartre's 5
notion of the transformation from seriality to group formation. One
of the primary facts of the human biographical situation is to have
been born into a number of groups which require nominal or active
participation. The universal heritage of everyman is to be part of a
primal family group, a national group, a social class, a sex group, an
age group, a cultural group, etc. One of the ironies of history is that
individuals have almost no control over this series of groupings, and
whatever freedom one has must be worked out in these pre-defined
groupings. One may wish he had a different family heritage, a different culture, a different nationality, etc. but it is a factor of historical
necessity that most of these groupings cannot be changed regardless
of one's desires.
There are apart from the kind of groupings just mentioned a number of other groups which simply "happen" in the course of one's
daily affairs. Such groups, neither consciously chosen nor part of historical necessity, are merely part of one's daily living experience. For
example, if one goes to a certain restaurant at a certain time of day
he will be part of a particular group, the patrons, the chefs, the
waiters, etc. The reciprocity between the people who happen to be
at the restaurant is minimal, in the sense that they share a limited
number of common interests. Perhaps they have chosen the particular restaurant because of its reputation for serving good food at a
reasonable price. Perhaps the majority are regular patrons who continue to return because of the service and because of the relations
they have with the service personnel within the restaurant. However,
at any particular moment from the time of one's entrance into the
5

We refer here to Jean-Paul Sartre's Critique de la Raison Dialectique. Paris, 1960.

90

SOCIO-POLITICAL SYMBOLISM

restaurant one shares a common interest with the others, namely,

food. In this context there is a certain ordering of the entire group.
The relations may be called serial.
Sartre's well known example is of a certain group of people waiting
at a bus stop. They have no common concern, no compassion for the
others in the group, yet they share the common interest of getting
on the bus at a certain time. In Sartre's terms they are objects among
objects and, in a minimal sense, they are related to a primary object
as a collective entity, namely, the bus. It is of some significance that
this kind of minimal grouping is a paradigm of modern life within
technological culture. The office, the modes of transportation, of
communication, etc., produce a situation wherein much of one's life
is lived in quasi-groups wherein the reciprocity of individual to individual is of serial nature. This is the mark of a society which can no
longer be characterized as an entity wherein face-to-face relationships
are primary. Characteristically, technological rationality, the rationality of quantification, presumes serial relations in its attempts at social
control. As the neo-Marxist critique of the media has pointed out,
success in the media depends upon the ability of those in economic
power to objectify the individual in terms of serial groupings.
Sartre's question is our own, namely, what accounts for the transformation from a sub-group ordered in terms of serial relations into
a "real" group, that is, a group fused together with a common identity? Further, perhaps the more important question, how does one
develop the tools for reflecting on that process? Obviously, the answer will yield some insight into the character of social change and
transformation.
From Sartre's point of view the group arises from a certain threat
from other groups as well as from an internal need to establish itself.
One can imagine that a particular ghetto becomes conscious of itself
as a consequence of the awareness of the threats that are imposed
upon it by the outside community, i.e., by the other power groups
which compose an urban society. We might envision a situation wherein the real estate interests of a particular community have chosen
a particular ghetto as a site for urban renewal. The rhetoric used by
this interest group appears on the surface to be pure and without
malicious intent. The residents of the ghetto are told that it is for
the betterment of the community that the present housing accommodations be destroyed in order to provide more adequate housing
in the future. Existential shock arises on the part of the residents of

SOCIOPOLITICAL SYMBOLISM

91

the ghetto when they discover that they will be moved out of their
present apartments and the shock continues when it becomes apparent that the new accommodations will be too expensive. Further, if
they probe the intentions of the real estate interests they will discover that behind their well-meaning rhetoric lies the self-interest of
an entrepreneur. The interests of urban renewal and real-estate's profit motive go hand in hand, with the consequence of ghetto exploitation. The exploited group which had heretofore been a community
serially related now becomes a group with a common identity. The
need for identity would then become the central issue for the transformation of that particular community. Hence, from Sartre's point
of view a stage of action would be initiated which would bring the
ghetto into a new identity. The group would move into a stage of
organization and finally the group would have to deal with problems
of authority.
The significance of Sartre's analysis is to be found in its ability to
account for a series of phases in group transformation which in turn
account for stages in the transformative process. The key factors in
such an analysis include the movement from seriality to group formation via a process of alienation, need and action. This aspect of Sartre's analysis we find to be profound. That which is lacking in Sartre's
analysis is both a consideration of the manner in which language
functions in this process and in a derivative but central sense, the
manner in which the symbol functions. Form our point of view it is
the symbol which functions as the medium for the process of group
formation. Without a consideration of it a full answer to the process
of group formation and the necessary transformation of consciousness implicit in that process is not given.
In order to clarify this point one can consider an actual instance
of the deliberate creation of a symbol in order to achieve a transformation of consciousness which resulted in a new group identity. The
symbol we choose is Black Power. It was created in the mid-sixties
in the drive for voter registration in the South. The symbol arose
out of the frustration of those who were attempting to raise the consciousness of the disenfranchised black man to the point of political
action. Its purpose was to transform the black voter from a passive
non-participant to an active participant in the political process. It
was a well constructed political symbol, indeed. Simultaneously, it
pointed to alienation and possibility. This symbol brought to mind
the apparent contradiction of Southern and to some extent American

92

SOCIO-POLITICAL SYMBOLISM

political and social life of the sixties; to be black and to have power
simultaneously was an apparent contradiction. Hence, to those for
whom it became a symbol it served as a negative and alienating reminder that the powerful in America are not black but white, not
disenfranchised but controllers of the political process. Equally, the
symbol had the positive quality of establishing a project, to be realized in the future. Hence, the symbol presented a foundation for
both reflection and action (decision) which had an enormous impact
on the transformation of black consciousness moving from a relatively amorphous mass with no consciousness of itself to an articulate
political group with self-awareness, self-identity and, to be sure, power.
We do not wish to overstate our case by claiming that the symbol
is the sole fact accounting for such a transformation. Simply, we
wish to claim that it is one of the key factors, if not the key factor
in such a process. Our claim is not that Sartre's analysis is false or
wrong. We simply find it incomplete because of its failure to consider the central role of language. The symbol is central to the process
of transformation from seriality to the formation of group consciousness.
SYMBOL, STRUCTURE AND PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Under the last three topics we have seen the symbol as a key to the
process of social-political transformation. Our model has been diachronic in the sense that the symbol has been conceived as the instrumental phenomenon which brought transformation about. There
is another way of looking at the symbol which may shed light on
another aspect of the process of transformation, namely, the view
of symbol based on the model of synchronicity. The fourth reason
for finding the symbol at the center of socio-political processes of
transformation is one which addresses the symbol qua symbol in
terms of an anthropology of the imagination. On the basis of our
prior analysis it is possible to claim that the symbol functions as a
change agent, a liberating force, which allows group consciousness
to become aware of itself and to express itself. Is there a larger anthropological context in which the change inaugurated by and mediated through the symbol can be identified? The prior discussions
have been concerned primarily with process while this section will
be preoccupied with structure. The concern for process leads us to
the structural issue in the sense that one is asking the question, what

SOCIO-POLITICAL SYMBOLISM

93

can reflection on symbols and their implications for social and political transformation tell us about the structure of consciousness generally? In other words we are led into the realm of philosophical an-

thropology.
Earlier it was shown that a single symbol or symbolism can function in a number of areas simultaneously, and hence a multitude of
interpretations can be given to it, each having its own claim for legitimacy, yet, ideally, none destroying the other alternative claims
of the symbol. As we have seen the great myths of human history
have played such a role. It is possible to suggest at this point that the
same symbol that functioned or functions religiously, psychologically, and poetically, may also function socially and politically. One
might add that it is a peculiar irony of our secular period that the
symbols which functioned in a religious context primarily in a previous epoch now function in a political one. This is certainly true of
the current upsurge of utopian symbolism. Yet this should come as
no surprise since it is within the power of the symbol to manifest itself on several levels simultaneously. The anthropological curiosity
of such a fact, however, is that the symbol must represent the expression of certain structures of human consciousness regardless of
historical epoch.
Heretofore in this chapter we have used a dialectical methodology,
implying- a moment of negative recognition and an overcoming of
that initial negation through a process of reflection and action, a
process contained within the symbol. We should now like to include
the dialectics of the symbol within a comparative methodology. Earlier, Eliade's comparative approach to the interpretation of the symbol was presented as a way in which the interpreter was enabled to
move from the manifestation of the symbol to an understanding of
it. The consequence of that approach was to see the symbol not in
terms of historical manifestation alone, but as a manifestation of the
structure of consciousness transcending its momentary significance.
The assumptions behind such an approach to the symbol are not
only diachronic but synchronic, associated with the temporality of
circularity rather than with a linear notion of temporality. In that
context archetype and repetition became primary categories in the
sense that rel~gious symbols rendered themselves as archetypes which
could be repeated, on the one hand, while on the other, symbols of
a certain set could be reduced to archetypes of which all the symbols
of that particular set could partake. Is it possible to apply a similar

94

SOCIO-POLITICAL SYMBOLISM

interpretative theory to the socio-political symbol as it occurs in the

process of transformation?
This question leads to a brief consideration of the work of Norman
O. Brown. The curious thing about Brown's work is that it knows no
distinction between the various worlds of our experience. The worlds
of experience are conceived of as a unity. For him religion, politics,
and Freudian psychology are integrated into a totality which is in
some sense poetic. The integrating phenomenon which brings these
various worlds together is Brown's use of language, in particular, his
use of symbols. The symbols drawn from these various universes of
meaning constitute the meaning of the totality which is that circular
center from which all meaning emanates. Hence, we receive an interpretation of experience which depends on an interpretation of symbol by symbol. Religious symbols illuminate psychological symbols
which, in turn, illuminate political symbols. The symbol is a totality
which manifests the human universe of meaning which is also a totality. He states:
Freud's myth of the rebellion of the sons against the father in the primal, prehistoric horde is not a historical explanation of origins, but a supra-historical archetype; eternally recurrent; a myth; an old, old story.6

To claim that the myth of rebellion of the sons against the fathers is
supra-historical and not historical implies that it illustrates a pattern
of human action and activity which cannot be explained on the
grounds of its uniqueness alone, but instead on grounds that must
account for its repeatability. Hence, the possible recurrence of the
myth may appear in a form other than that of its original manifestation. It is possible that myth originally thought to be religious, in
Freud's interpretation the religious reduced to psychological categories, could at a later date reappear in a political context. Equally, the
claim that this myth is not an explanation of origins implies concurrently that the myth refers to no single actual point in time; instead,
it may apply to any actual point in time. Origin, then, is a universal
phenomenon referring to any moment in time which has the character of the myth. Hence, there is no contradiction between a myth
which purports to be about pre-historic time and a constitutional crisis which speaks about the same phenomenon as the myth, but from
a political point of view. The battle that took place over the rights of
6 Norman O. Brown,

Love's Body. New York: Vintage Books, 1968, p. 3.

SOCIO-POLITICAL SYMBOLISM

95

the civil constituency versus the right of monarchical authority in

the seventeenth century is from Brown's perspective simply repetition of the earlier myth. The battle that occurred between the absolute monarchist Filmer and the egalitarian Locke was a repetition of
the myth, the former representing the absolute rights of fatherhood,
the latter representing the rebellion of the sons and the desire for
equality.
Brown's method of analysis is one which interprets the symbol by
the symbol or one symbolism by another. Hence, the religious symbolism explaining the relations between fathers and sons already given
a psychological meaning by Freud, is illuminated and does illuminate
the seventeenth century battle for equality over monarchy. One can
either look back to other periods, such as the founding of Rome, the
establishment of the Greek polis, or possibly look ahead to the rise
of Marxism. All' respond to the same need; all may be characterized
by the same symbolism. Although Brown treats the subject only indirectly, the "death of God" phenomenon fits the same symbolism.
The necessity to kill God is not a recent phenomenon, rather its recurrence is as an old man. In most archaic religions the sky god died
as archaic religious life turned to more immediate religious forms.
The tendency persists through Nietzsche. Most revolutions begin with
a critique of religion, and in recent times most revolutions end with
a rejection of religion and God; witness the French revolution, the
Russian revolution of 1917, and even the transition from civil rights
to black radicalism. The case is universal; the symbol repeats itself.
The interesting methodological fact raised by this type of analysis
is that the transformation occurs in the context of recurrence. Initially, it was possible to see these terms as antinomous. It was possible to argue that the transformation of a socio-political group was
unique and unrepeatable. But from a structural and comparative
point of view the phenomenon of transformation via the symbol
must be seen in the context of other transformations. We can begin
with the simple proposition that the symbol changes consciousness,
but it does so universally. The symbol knows no bounds. A symbolism which occurs in a semetic culture may also be present in an archaic culture; it may change from a religious manifestation to a psychic and political one; it may emerge again as poetry. This fact raises
an interesting question about the referent of the symbol, namely,
human consciousness.
Such a question actually refers to human imagination; the im-

96

SOCIO-POLITICAL SYMBOLISM

imagination as timeless and repeatable; the imagination as distinct

and yet multi-dimensional; an imagination whose creativity is not
limited to any singular context; an imagination the final referent of
which is anthropological. It is this final question, the question of the
anthropological referent of the human imagination, that the symbol
invites. Why does the symbol convey a common structure in its multiple appearances? The human imagination transcends the bounds of
history and culture itself. Reality is an individual and social construction. Such a construction is representative of the human quest for
meaning. The symbol is a meaning construct, the referent of which
transcends both historical and cultural moments. As a socio-political
construction the symbol is a response to a human need, constructed
as an imaginary postulate for it is never fully realized in history: the
need for liberation. When conceived in a socio-political context the
transformation induced by the symbol leads to the experience of liberation. The social and individual construction of reality through the
symbol fits under the category of freedom. Transformation is a coming
to awareness by a socio-political group of its enslavement and its possibility to achieve freedom. That is the structure of transformation;
a repetitive process which is the achievement of a moment in time,
but from a comparative point of view, universal. Hence, there is no
antinomy between structure and process; rather structure envelops
process and makes it meaningful. The political symbol illuminates
the moment as a process of manifestation, yet that moment is made
meaningful by its very structure. This is why the structural issue is
ultimately a question of the anthropology of the imagination. The
structures of consciousness which manifest themselves in the symbol
are universal.
CONCLUSION

At the outset of this chapter we posed the question, how does the
symbol function as an agent for the transformation of consciousness
in a socio-political group? We have attempted to answer that question, first, by a consideration of the symbol in the context of the
movement from technical to dialectical rationality; second, in relationship to the symbolism implicit in utopian speculation; third, in
relationship to seriality and group formation; and finally, we considered the structure of transformation itself which transcends and includes the processive motif.

SOCIO-POLITICAL SYMBOLISM

97

It should be noted that the argument for the centrality of the symbol in the process of socio-political transformation is not only a construction but also something which is given for reflection. The symbol is part of the givenness, the heritage, of human existence. To participate in that invitation, and therefore, in the symbol, is to give
oneself to the process of transformation. In this period of much confusion about the aims and goals of socio-political groups it may be
wise to examine the various symbols which proclaim their respective
invitations to transformation.

INDEX

alienation, 91, 92
American Constitution, 85
anthropology, 3, 4, 34, 36, 37, 53,
57, 58, 62; philosophical, 92ff.;
and special language, 38ff.
archetype, 16, 29,30,66,67,69,
93, 94
autonomy, 67, 68
behaviorism, 20, 24, 58
Bergsonian, 11
Black Panthers, 80
Black Power, 91
Brown, Norman 0.,94,95
Bultmann, 57
Cassirer, Ernest, 33, 48, 52, 53, 54
Cogito, 72, 74, 75
communication, 14, 21, 72, 90
Communist Manifesto, 85
Comte, 52, 53, 54
consciousness, 10, 12, 25, 32, 41,
58, 61, 74, 92; false, 59, 69; and
language, 17ff., 75; and symbol,
25ff., 37; theory of, 7,13, 21, 24,
53, 73; transformation of, 16, 80ff.
Copernican revolution, 73
critique, 80, 82, 83, 84, 90, 95
culture, 1,3,4,19,25,26,34,36,37,
38,64, 89, 90, 95, 96; archaic, 3,
25, 37, 57, 60, 85, 95
Dasein, 76, 77
Descartes, 43, 74
dialectic, 28, 29, 39, 40, 43,44,45,
47, 50, 81ff., 88, 93, 96
Dilthey, 55, 77
domination, 82
Dukheim,26

economics, 27, 56, 82, 83, 87,90

eidetics, 32, 33,38,39,40,41,42,43,
45, 74; reintegration, 32, 33, 36
Eisenstein, 5
Eliade, 25ff., 38, 51, 52, 56, 59,64,
65,66,68,78,93
enslavement, 96
epistemology, 17, 20, 28, 29,43,44,
51, 52, 53, 54, 72, 73, 74
evolution, 25,31, 32, 33, 34, 51, 56,
58, 59; to structure, 52ff.
exploitation, 91
Filmer, 95
Freud, 26, 59, 94, 95; Freudian, 94
group resolve, 88, 89ff.
Hegelian, 44
Heidegger, 74ff.
hermeneutics, 23, 38, 39, 45, 47,51,
5~66,68,7~79, 89;andspec~1

languages, 76ff.; structural, 25ff.,

55ff.
Holderlin, 77
human subject, 7, 13, 17, 20, 21, 64,
72, 73, 75, 76
Hume, 73, 74
Husser!, 40,41,56,61,73,74,75;
Husserlian, 28,42,61
ideal types, 15, 57, 83
ideology, 89
imagination, 1, 16, 17, 28, 29,43,92,
96; imaginative reconstruction, 31,
32,36
intentionality, 4, 13, 22, 23, 28, 29,
32,35,40,41,46,54,56,57,58,
61,62,63,64,79
interpretation, 11, 25,46,62, 63, 64,

100

INDEX

73; and symbol, 1,3; theory of,

27; Cf. hermeneutics
intersubjectivity, 22, 27, 57
Jamesian, 11
Jungian, 30
Kant, 73, 74; Kantian, 43, 53;
Neo-Kantian, 1
Kennedy, John F., 80
Kierkegaard, 17
King, Martin Luther, 80, 86
Langer, Susanne, 33
language, 33, 72, 84, 85; and consciousness, 17ff., 75; special, 21,
23, 24,36, 38f., 62, 64, 75, 76f.;
and symbol, 17ff., 91, 94; theory
of, 6, 7, 8, 20, 21, 22,49, 70, 71f.,
79
Levi-Strauss, Claude, 31, 34, 51, 52,
55,58
Levy-Bruhl, Lucien, 33
liberation, 92, 96
linguistics, 27,32,38,51,53,54,
56,57,58,60,61,65,67,69,
71, 75, 76, 83, 84
literary discourse, 6, 70ff.
Locke, 74, 95
Marcuse, Herbert, 8Hf.
Marx, 59; Marxism, 95; Neo-Marxism,
80, 81, 83, 85, 90
meaning, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 17, 21,
72; finite world of, 3, 14, 15, 22,
24; symbolic universe of, 15, 16,
17
Merleau-Ponty, 42, 75
metaphysics, 41, 43, 45, 52, 93
method, 1,30,38, 39,40,41,44,
45, 56, 77, 95
morphology, 30, 31, 32, 36
Muller, Max, 29
multiple realities, 7ff., 20
myth, 22, 23, 26, 34, 37,46, 52,
54, 56, 59, 60; and symbol, 2,
32,35,45,47,48,70
natural attitude, 74
New Frontier, 80
Nietzsche, 59, 95
Oedipus, 70

ontology, 5, 27, 56, 57, 74; archaic,

64ff.
Otto, Rudolf, 56
Pascal,43
phenomenology, 1,7,11,19,20,25,
26,28,32,35,38,40,41,45,56,
61,68,70,71,72,73,74,75,76
Plato, 35, 43; Platonism, 67
pre-reflexive, 6, 7, 11, 18, 20,43,87,
88
psychology, 26, 27, 28, 54, 55, 56, 70,
93, 94, 95
rationality, 13, 35, 48; dialectical,
81ff., 96; operational, 8Hf.;
scientific, 4; technological, 13, 83,
90, 96
reductionism, 26, 27, 33, 36, 57
reflection, 15,18,19,35,43,47,50,
87, 88, 92, 97
regionality, 61, 62, 69, 74, 75, 76, 79
religious discourse, 6, 49, 70f.
Ricoeur, 38ff., 52, 53,62,63, 78, 79
Sartre, 89f'
de Saussure, Ferdinand, 20,31, 54
Schleiermacher, 55, 77
Schutz, 7
science, 15, 23, 62, 73; human, 3, 4,
77; primitive, 2, 56; natural, 3, 4
self-constitution, 35, 61, 73, 74, 75
seriality, 89ff., 96
sign, 6, 60, 62, 71, 72, 76; and symbol,
2,5,46,63
social change, 80, 84, 85, 88
social control, 81, 82, 90
sociology, 26, 27, 28, 56,62,85
socio-political, 6, 80ff.
structuralism, 20, "25, 28, 29,30,31,
32, 33, 34, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 92,
96
Students for a Democratic Society, 80
symbol, Hf., 35, 45, 48, 70, 87, 89;
and consciousness, 4, 25ff.; and
culture, 1, 3, 6; definition of, 1, 6;
as given, 1,3; and hermeneutics, 6,
23, 38, 89; and interpretation, 1,3;
and multi-dimensionality, 5, 6, 46;
and language, 5ff., 17ff., 23, 91, 94,;

INDEX

and myth, 2, 32, 35, 45, 47, 48,

70; and philosophical anthropology,
92f ;and sign, 2, 5, 6; and social
organization, 2, 7; and special language, 1,6; and thought, 6, 47;
and verification, 3, 4, 33, 34
symbolism, 3, 25, 38, 50; sociopolitical, 80ff.; and transformation
of consciousness, 80ff.; utopian,
85ff.
technology, 52, 80, 81, 82, 90

101

Thomas, Dylan,S, 78
thumos, 44
Tylor, 29
typification, 1,3, 9, 20
utopia, 16, 80, 93, 96; utopian symbolism, 85ff.
value-freedom, 83
Whitehead, A.N., 35
Will, Philosophy of, 39ff.
world; common sense, 2, 3, 14, 15, 17,
22, 23, 87; social, 7, 8, 9, 86