Table Of ContentSYMBOL 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 1
Chapter I: SYMBOL AND LANGUAGE 7
Introduction 7
On Multiple Realities 7
Potentiality, Givenness, Heritage, Memory 7
Actualization and Meaning 10
Multiple Realities 12
Language and the Symbol 17
Language and Consciousness 17
Language as Isomorphic to Consciousness 19
Conclusion 24
Chapter II: MIRCEA ELIADE: STRUCTURAL HERMENEUTICS
AND PHILOSOPHY 25
Introduction 25
The Symbol as a Dimension of Consciousness 25
The Method for Establishing the Symbol as a Valid Form 33
Conclusion 37
Chapter III: PAUL RICOEUR: THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL
NECESSITY OF A SPECIAL LANGUAGE 38
Introduction 38
The Question 38
Philosophy of the will 39
Freedom and Nature 41
Fallible Man 42
The Symbolism of Evil 45
An Answer 47
Conclusion 50
Chapter IV: MYTH, STRUCTURE AND INTERPRETATION 52
Introduction 52
VI TABLE OF CONTENTS
From Evolution to Structure 52
Structural Hermeneutics 55
Archaic Ontology 64
Conclusion 68
Chapter V: TOWARD A THEORETICAL FOUNDATION FOR A
CORRELATION BETWEEN LITERARY AND RELIGIOUS
DISCOURSE 70
Introduction 70
Background 70
Theory of Language: The Possibility of a Phenomenological
Model 71
Hermeneutics: the Interpretation of Special Languages 76
Conclusion 79
Chapter VI: SOCIQ-POLITICAL SYMBOLISM AND THE
TRANSFORMATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS 80
Introduction 80
The Conflict of Rationality: Operational and Dialectical 81
Utopian Symbolism 85
Symbol, Seriality, and the Group Resolve 89
Symbol, Structure and Philosophical Anthropology 92
Conclusion .96
Index 99
INTRODUCTION
For the past four or five years much of my thinking has centered up
on 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 prod
uct of a cultural imagination has been diminished; it has been neces
sary 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 argu
ment, 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 ac
count of in this argument; first, the definition of the symbol, and sec
ond, 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 phenomenol
ogists 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-
2 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 mean
ing 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 desig
nates 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 inter
pretation 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 se
ries of symbolic transformations which, although false, gave a func
tional interpretation of the world. Hence, myths and symbols, to fol
low the argument, were created by those peoples primarily for pur
poses of social organization, or for purposes of primitive scientific in
vestigation 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 sym
bol 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 prob
lem in a twofold sense. On the one hand it is impossible to divorce
oneself from the common sense world of ordinary meaning. Strange-
INTRODUCTION 3
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 knowl
edge 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 inter
pretation 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 particu
larly 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 symbol
ic usages.
The second problem which interpretation points to is that of veri
fication. 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 hypothe
sis 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 sim
ply a given for interpretation, in order to account for its presence it
is necessary to account for the peculiar set of meanings and inten
tions which went into its production. The process would be greatly
simplified if it was possible to interrogate the producers of the sym
bol. 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-
4
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 so
phisticated 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 foun
dation sufficient to account for not only the definition of the sym
bol 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 intentionali
ties must be correlated with symbolic forms. The construction of
philosophical foundations for interpretation becomes critical at this
juncture initially because the theoretical foundations for interpreta
tion 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 ten
ded to eliminate the symbol on the basis of a philosophical commit
ment to an evolutionary scheme. Such interpreters directly or indi
rectly 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 rational
ity which would no longer require non-scientific expressions.
Our own commitments are somewhat different. We wish to con
struct 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 dif
ferent 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 argu
ment that the symbolic form is something other than a linguistic mo-
