Abstract
It is a commonplace of contemporary thought that human consciousness, precisely because it is, as its etymology suggests, a knowledge with, mirrors the social and historical situation in which it manoeuvers. Quite naturally so, too, since we pick up our categories within a milieu and are taught its art of experiencing with a view to communication. Without a shared world, the concept of rational discourse, of argumentation, is meaningless. Yet we also recognize that the notion of sharing must receive its full weight of importance. It emphasizes a diversity of standpoint, the possibility of coming together in unity that presupposes differences.1 Indeed, were this not the case, the notion of a rational critique, with its being paradoxically both a part of and apart from the world it criticizes, would be senseless. It is, of course, no resolution of this and similar paradoxes simply to refer to the dialectical character of human consciousness : individual yet social, spontaneous yet determined, etc. The terminology may grate; “dialectic” may suggest the ponderosity and ingenuousness of Hegel and Marx. In essence, however, the word is meant to call attention to the inclusive both-and character of consciousness : one, therefore, that belies the simplicity and neatness of an eitheror.
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References
See John W. O’Malley, “Reform, Historical Consciousness, and Vatican II’s Aggiornamento,” Theological Studies,XXXII, 4 (December, 1971), 673–701. According to this model, a tradition (the “substance”) is passed along like a baton from generation to generation, so that historical changes are growths, either benign or malignant, though usually the latter. The description of this competent article as an “ecclesiological breakthrough” signalizes, perhaps, the tardy awakening of some theologians to the relevance of the work of Collingwood, and the evident failure of philosophers to communicate that philosophy of finitude and historicity which has developed since the time of Kant.
In Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology,London: Barries & Rockliff, The Cresset Press, 1970, 42–44, Mary Douglas has pointed to a lack of sensitivity to symbols on the part of the English Catholic bishops by taking away “fish on Friday” as an identifying badge for their Irish faithful.
See E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational, Berkeley & Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1951, 209–10.
F. M. Cornford, Principium Sapientiae. The Origin of Greek Philosophical Thought, Cambridge: at the University Press, 1952.
The so-called corporeal or material faculties. See Robert J. O’Connell, St. Augustine’s Early Theory of Man. A.D. 386–391, and St. Augustine’s Confessions: The Odyssey of a Soul, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1968.
For an application of the Pseudo-Areopagite’s Celestial Hierarchy to the ecclesiastical and human hierarchy, see Otto von Simson, The Gothic Cathedral. Origins of Gothic Architecture and the Medieval Concept of Order,Bollingen Series XLVIII, New York: Pantheon Books, revised edition, 1962, 137–40.
A fuller account of the juridical mentality would amplify the impact of the Celtic monks, whose emphasis upon penance and the confession of sins afforded the legal mind the opportunity to develop the Latin Church’s elaborate system of casuistry. Although a sign or gesture has a life of its own, i.e. conveys some meaning ex opere operato (in mere performance), still the fullness of meaning demands intention or purpose (the ex opere operantis). The consequence, unfortunately, is that morality readily slips into simply a matter of intention (there is some point to Gilbert Ryle’s ridiculing “intention talk” in The Concept of Mind),producing the bizarre results that Huizinga (The Waning of the Middle Ages,Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Co., 1956, 216) has mocked:
Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic. Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England,London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971, 51, citing H. S. Cronin, “The Twelve Conclusion of the Lollards,” English Historical Review,XXII (1907), 298. “We see nothing of change” is indicative of what we have called realism.
Ibid., 603–4, citing L. Febvre, Au Coeur religieux du XVIeme siècle, Paris, 1957.
We have already called attention to Evans-Pritchard’s remarks on Azande patterns of thought, as well as to a community’s awareness of the social aspect of disease that underlies the role of the witch-doctor. V. W. Turner’s article, “A Ndembu Doctor in Practice” (in Magic, Faith and Healing,ed. A Kiev, Glencoe: The Free Press, 1964) offers evidence to corroborate Robin Horton on witch-doctors. Recently, John Blacking, who combines musicology with social anthropology, has reported on the impact of a community on an individual’s musical sense.
Citations are from John Blacking, “Man and Music,” The Times Literary Supplement,November 19, 1971, 1443–44).
Pope Paul VI, the Encyclical Letter, Mysterium Fidei,1965.
Martin Luther, The Babylonian Captivity,Weimar edition of Werke VI, 516, 521, cited by Mary Douglas, Natural Symbols,48.
In fact, the term came into Catholic theology to combat physicalism. See Piet Schoonenberg’s article on transsubstantiation in The Sacraments: An Ecumenical Dilemma (Concilium, 24), New York: Paulist Press, 1967. I am indebted to this article for several insights.
For a philosophical treatment of this problem as that of “myth,” see Paul Ricoeur’s The Symbolism of Evil,translated from the French by Emerson Buchanan, Boston: Beacon Press, 1969. If myth deserves pride of place as that which provides us with a framework of meaning and value, we still have to know how to handle storied contents, with all the earmarks of explanations, by which mythic patterns are inculcated. Ricoeur is obviously troubled by the churches when they tell us what the stories mean.
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© 1975 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Munson, T.N. (1975). Religious Experience in History. In: Religious Consciousness and Experience. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9405-1_3
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