[Apologetics] Saving the Appearances

[Stuart Gathman]

In case anyone is interested, we will be on chapters 11-16 this Monday.
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  /Saving the Appearances: a Study in Idolatry/

by Owen Barfield

Book study group

Time: 2^nd and 4^th Monday at 7:00pm, next meeting Aug 11^th

Place: Gathman home in Greenbriar
Email: stuart at gathman.org <mailto:stuart at gathman.org>
Phone: 703-378-9641


C. S. Lewis credited Owen Barfield with making him a theist. Sometimes 
called the "first and last inkling," Barfield wrote quite a bit about 
the "evolution of consciousness." This is a challenging book, which 
bears reading multiple times, but it is worth the effort. There are many 
words to be learned to be able to discuss what Barfield means by 
"consciousness" and the evolution thereof.

For example, we have "figuration," the process by which the mind creates 
"representations" of concepts derived from sensory input. "Particles" 
behave according mathematical laws, and although we cannot perceive 
them, we believe that they compose the "unrepresented" things. For our 
minds build representations of only a tiny part of the unrepresented 
things composed of particles. Before the enlightenment, people were 
consciously aware of the role of representations, and called the process 
of constructing them "participation." Today, participation is 
unconscious, and most people believe their mental representations are 
"reality" (hence the "idolatry" in the subtitle).

What are the benefits of such esoteric inquiry? One benefit, and the one 
that initally drew me to this book, is to gain a much better 
understanding of Medieval authors like Thomas Aquinas. What does he mean 
by "actual" and "potential," "participation" and "actualization"? The 
same applies to Plato and Aristotle.

There is the aspect that consciousness (the things selected for 
attention and represented from the flood of sensory data) depends on 
language, and is passed on to your "children", whether or not you gave 
birth to them. You learn why there is such a drive to redefine words in 
the collective consciousness, and why that is so effective in promoting 
evil. Figuration and extracting abstract representations of sensory data 
are an important part of artificial intelligence (and even dumb robots).

Walker Percy, in "Lost in the Cosmos: the Last Self Help Book" (a very 
funny and edifying read) sees the modern consciousness of self as a 
non-participating observer of the world (despite extensive physical 
evidence to the contrary) as a source of alienation. He got this idea 
while reading Barfield.


This is a cross-disciplinary book, potentially of interest whether you 
seek to study a major idea of a mentor of C. S. Lewis in preparation for 
Oxbridge, are interested in artificial intelligence or neuroscience, or 
seek to better understand the way ancient and medieval people perceived 
the world.

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