Owen Barfield: Philosophy, Poetry, and Theology

Owen Barfield

Philosophy, Poetry, and Theology

Michael Vincent Di Fuccia

Foreword by Owen A. Barfield

OWEN BARFIELD

Philosophy, Poetry, and Theology

Veritas 20

Copyright © 2016 Michael Vincent Di Fuccia. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers,

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paperback isbn: 978-1-4982-3872-4

hardcover isbn: 978-1-4982-3874-8

ebook isbn: 978-1-4982-3873-1

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Names: Di Fuccia, Michael Vincent

Title: Owen Barfield : philosophy, poetry, and theology / Michael Vincent Di Fuccia.

Description: Eugene, OR: Cascade Books,

2016

| Series: Veritas | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers:

isbn 978-1-4982-3872-4 (

paperback

) | isbn 978-1-4982-3874-8 (

hardcover

) | isbn 978-1-4982-3873-1 (

ebook

)

Subjects: 1. Barfield, Owen, 1898–1997. 2. Philosophers—Great Britain—20th century. I. Barfield, Owen A. II. Series. III. Title.

Classification:

B1618.B284 D392 2016 (

print

) | B1618.B284 (

ebook

)

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

November 8, 2016

Table of Contents

Title Page

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Owen Barfield: A Poetic Philosopher

Literature Review

Overview and Plan

Terminology

Part One: Aesthetic Participation

Chapter 1: Poetic Language

The Evolution of Consciousness

Language: Owen Barfield’s Philological Investigations

Language and Being: Poetry in Owen Barfield and Martin Heidegger

Chapter 2: Poetic Philosophy

Situating Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Owen Barfield’s Reception of Coleridge

Part Two: Sociological Participation

Chapter 3: Poetic Living

The Influence of Lucien Lévy-Bruhl

Assessing the Primitive

Lucien Lévy-Bruhl’s Successors: The Inherent Nature of Participation

Chapter 4: Poetic Making

The Rise of Modern Science

Owen Barfield’s Critique of Modern Science

Part Three: Theological Participation

Chapter 5: Poetic Theology

The Limits of Philosophy: A Participatory Alternative

Poiēsis Proper: Theology as Poetic Metaphysics

Concluding Remarks

Bibliography

VERITAS

Series Introduction

. . . the truth will set you free (John 8:32)

In much contemporary discourse, Pilate’s question has been taken to mark the absolute boundary of human thought. Beyond this boundary, it is often suggested, is an intellectual hinterland into which we must not venture. This terrain is an agnosticism of thought: because truth cannot be possessed, it must not be spoken. Thus, it is argued that the defenders of truth in our day are often traffickers in ideology, merchants of counterfeits, or anti-liberal. They are, because it is somewhat taken for granted that Nietzsche’s word is final: truth is the domain of tyranny.

Is this indeed the case, or might another vision of truth offer itself? The ancient Greeks named the love of wisdom as philia, or friendship. The one who would become wise, they argued, would be a friend of truth. For both philosophy and theology might be conceived as schools in the friendship of truth, as a kind of relation. For like friendship, truth is as much discovered as it is made. If truth is then so elusive, if its domain is terra incognita, perhaps this is because it arrives to us—unannounced—as gift, as a person, and not some thing.

The aim of the Veritas book series is to publish incisive and original current scholarly work that inhabits the between and the beyond of theology and philosophy. These volumes will all share a common aspiration to transcend the institutional divorce in which these two disciplines often find themselves, and to engage questions of pressing concern to both philosophers and theologians in such a way as to reinvigorate both disciplines with a kind of interdisciplinary desire, often so absent in contemporary academe. In a word, these volumes represent collective efforts in the befriending of truth, doing so beyond the simulacra of pretend tolerance, the violent, yet insipid reasoning of liberalism that asks with Pilate, What is truth?—expecting a consensus of non-commitment; one that encourages the commodification of the mind, now sedated by the civil service of career, ministered by the frightened patrons of position.

The series will therefore consist of two wings: (1) original monographs; and (2) essay collections on a range of topics in theology and philosophy. The latter will principally be the products of the annual conferences of the Centre of Theology and Philosophy (www.theologyphilosophycentre .co.uk).

Conor Cunningham and Eric Austin Lee, Series editors

Foreword

Attention to Grandfather’s work has ebbed and flowed over the century since he was first published, but in recent years the tide of admirers has been rising. Grandfather’s work has a way of freeing us because it illuminates not just where we are, but why and how we got here. With this knowledge comes the joy of relief. That joy arises with the uncovering of a truth that is surprisingly simple, if we are shown in what direction to look. My gratitude goes to Michael Di Fuccia who has stood tall and pointed the way.

This essay is a milestone in Barfieldian studies. The contention is that Grandfather’s thesis regarding the history of word meanings—that over time word meaning fades—is not merely about words and their meaning, but also about the recovery of a vision of ultimate reality in which the qualities of the world that transcend the realm of the sense perceptible are taken to be constitutively real in order that we might overcome our present idolatrous gaze (e.g., positivism) and its savage consequences. Di Fuccia shows that Grandfather’s desire to envisage poetry as the perfecting of prose, and the imagination as the perfecting of reason, is no whimsical assertion. It is a thorough and coherent scheme that is intended to redirect us beyond our present gaze to a reality replete with meaning and significance. We are reminded that it is this poetic philosophy that lies at the heart of Grandfather’s life work.

Grandfather’s poetic philosophy is placed alongside early modern and contemporary trends in philosophy, the social and physical sciences, and theology, in order to show that it actually outwits early modern developments in secular thought that are still very much with us today. The argument goes that Grandfather’s poetic philosophy is actually more philosophical than philosophies of immanence precisely because it admits to philosophy’s real need of inspiration (via the imagination) or its openness. Grandfather’s attention to this openness is ahead of his time, because, as Di Fuccia stresses, the greatest and most promising achievement of Grandfather’s poetic philosophy is that it intimates a theological or middle realm that is denied by philosophies of immanence. This is the impetus for the final portion of the essay wherein he takes Grandfather’s poetic philosophy to its theological culmination, theology as poetic metaphysics.

Grandfather’s voice is like a distant drumbeat drawing us to the parade where we find like-minded revelers enjoying the rhythm of the festivities. This essay brings a heightened awareness of that voice which stirs inside us. Following Di Fuccia’s appraisal Grandfather’s voice is noticeably resounding louder and clearer, and we look forward to the gathering it heralds. Grandfather’s has been the quiet voice, but we may still find it to be the most persuasive.

Owen A. Barfield

Grandson & Trustee

Oxfordshire, England

www.owenbarfield.org

Acknowledgements

I would first like to thank my doctoral supervisor John Milbank for his constant patience and encouragement. Before I met John I had no idea it was possible for one man to have the intellectual capacity and charm of twenty. More often than not, his grace and humor were a welcomed antidote for my incompetence. Additionally, I am grateful for the academic and pastoral guidance of Simon Oliver, who was kind enough to take me on as a teaching assistant and trust me with his theology students. From him, I have learned so much. His example is something all of us should strive to attain. Also, I owe a special thanks to Conor Cunningham for his many lectures and conversations on philosophy and theology, and for trusting me with his students in the philosophy of religion seminars. If in my lifetime I can obtain half of his wit (and good looks) I will certainly have succeeded. I am deeply indebted to Catherine Pickstock for her continued intellectual generosity and her painstaking reading and commentary on my initial draft. I am forever grateful for my friendship with Eric Austin Lee, who embraced me as a new doctoral student. His academic and spiritual generosity sustained me throughout this process. I could not have asked for a kinder spirit with whom to have shared in this journey. I would also like to thank Owen A. Barfield, grandson of Owen Barfield, for his continued friendship and permission to view the Owen Barfield Papers at the Bodleian Library, Oxford University.

I also want to thank my parents, Chip and Janet. Thank you for believing in me time and time again. As a child, there is nothing better than to know that your parents love and approve of you. Thank you for constantly telling me how proud you are of me. I would not be who I am without you. The same goes for my little sisters, Janelle and Carly. Thanks for loving me even though I am so far away. I am always amazed by your capacity to love unconditionally.

Lastly, and most importantly, a huge thanks to my beautiful wife Sara. I love you. Thank you for literally risking it all with me and for leaving everything behind to follow God on this crazy adventure. Thank you for teaching me day in and day out what faith looks like. I could not have asked for a more unique, funny, pretty, passionate, and loving person to spend my life with, and, come to think of it, now that I’m done we can finally get started!

Introduction

We must, then, make our choice. The whole basis of epistemology from Aristotle to Aquinas assumed participation, and the problem was merely the precise manner in which that participation operated. We can either conclude that this persistent assumption was a piece of elaborate self-deception, which just happened to last, not only from Aristotle but from the beginnings of human thought down to the fifteenth or sixteenth century A.D., or we can assume that there really was participation. I should find the second hypothesis the less fantastic of the two . . . .

—Barfield

¹

Owen Barfield: A Poetic Philosopher

Arthur Owen Barfield (1898–1997), the first and last Inkling, has yet to obtain the legendary status of his fellows, yet he has had a profound influence on their thought. Lewis thought him quite remarkable, referring to Barfield as the wisest and best of my unofficial teachers, who towers above us all. ² Eminent Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger claims that it was Barfield’s linguistic thesis that formed the basis of Tolkien’s conception of Middle-Earth, ³ while Robert James Reilly has identified strong elements of Barfield’s romanticism in the work of Lewis, Tolkien, and Charles Williams. ⁴ Although a variety of authors have chronicled the influence and originality of his wide-ranging thought, ⁵ hitherto the theological implications of the most prominent and promising feature undergirding the breadth of Barfield’s corpus have gone largely unexamined; that is, his attempt to wed philosophy and poetry utilizing what he, following Samuel Taylor Coleridge, called polar logic. Therefore, what follows is an investigation of this poetic (or polar) philosophy, its shortcomings, and some remarks on its theological implications. It will be argued that in his poetic philosophy Barfield’s subject appears to inhabit a medial or middle realm that, aside from some noted lapses, presents a formidable challenge to any conceivable closed or immanentized philosophy. Although lacking, when this poetic philosophy is brought to its theological culmination it intimates that finite being (immanence) is a gift that always-already participates in its infinite divine (transcendent) source.

Barfield notes that as a young boy he was raised without religious beliefs and if anything a slight bias against them. Indeed, he thought such things were humbug. But as he grew older he noted, I began to abhor this vacuum in myself which did not at all fit with the promptings either of my emotional or of my moral nature . . . .⁶ This drove him to study poetry, which kindled that part of him that his earlier skepticism had denied.⁷ What he discovered was that poetry (i.e., the subjective imagination) actually enhanced the outer or objective world, revealing a deeper meaning than he had hitherto envisaged. This is precisely the type of aesthetic encounter his poetic philosophy seeks to verify. It was these early experiences that marked the beginning a lifelong endeavor to rectify the division between rational and poetic discourse. Hence, Barfield’s bookplate reads, Zwie seelen wohnen ach! In Meiner Brust (Two souls dwell, alas! In my breast!)—a line borrowed from Goethe’s Faust. The two souls are the rational and poetic, objective and subjective, that his participatory philosophy sought to bring into harmony.

At bottom this poetic philosophy is linguistic, based upon his earliest work in philology. In a time when words had become merely arbitrary,⁸ Barfield discovered them to be of vital, ontological gravitas. According to Barfield, the language one uses directly coincides with one’s philosophy or consciousness (i.e., a restricted language coincides with a restricted ontology).⁹ He had an uncanny ability to draw upon language in order to highlight the inconsistencies or limits of such reductive philosophies (e.g., nominalism, atomism, positivism, empiricism, mechanism, reduction, individualism, scientism, etc.). He is most critical of Cartesian thought (the relegation the non-material or non-spatial to the mind) for arbitrarily creating a chasm between subject and object, which dominates the modern consciousness and forms the basis of the social and physical sciences.¹⁰ His poetic philosophy sought to overcome this dualism so that man might apprehend those real forms of reality (what he generally refers to as qualities) in the world that had been lost to such reductive philosophies. Barfield believed that the properly trained imagination could rediscover a world before this Cartesian division, where subjects and objects are not divided, but intermingle or participate in one another.

More to the point, Barfield linked the emergence of the Cartesian worldview with the division between objective and subjective language. Hence, nowadays the scientist works with material objective facts and the poet with the non-material subjective imagination. In such a scheme fact and meaning are divided. But, Barfield argued that this is not the case. In his studies of word meanings he found that all words were once poetic or metaphorical and over time words divide, pitting what one now speaks of as literal or prosaic (i.e., objective) meaning over-against poetic or metaphorical (i.e., subjective) meaning. This is evident in the present categorization of words as either metaphorical or literal. One can see this in the evolution of individual word meanings. To borrow his own example, today one thinks of blood either in scientific terms (e.g., a red liquid that carries oxygen through the body) or metaphorically (e.g., bad blood). But, in the past these meanings were one; there was no sundering of the spatial from the mental (as Charles Taylor says, black bile was melancholia).¹¹

As Barfield saw it this evolutionary philological phenomenon correlates with a society’s social imaginary and is embodied in its social practice. He found that while primitives employ metaphors to describe objects, the modern scientific use of language intentionally seeks to eliminate metaphor in the name of objectivity. In the same way, modern individualism can be seen as having evolved from the cooperative exchange of primitive cultures. It is in this way that Barfield’s philological thesis forms the basis from which he derives his aesthetic and sociological critique. It appears that one’s initial aesthetic encounter with the world holds a more true meaning which fades over time.

This philological thesis not only turned the prevailing conception of the history of language on its head (which espoused that later poetic or metaphorical language was the result of the combination of earlier roots), but what was most significant about his discovery was that it revealed that the true nature of reality lies not in a division of matter and mind (or spirit), but in the participation of mind and materiality. This essay argues that this is the most profound and promising element in all of Barfield’s thought because of what it suggests about the real. For, as Barfield would have it, a language consistent with our initial encounter with the true nature of being (i.e., one that accounts for quality as well as quantity)¹² must account for both subjective and objective reality. For this reason Barfield insists that the subject and object exist in polar tension (i.e., their ground is neither in themselves, nor in their polar opposite). In such a scheme, subjective knowledge is not solely immanent (i.e., not an active arbitrary ground in oneself, nor a passive receipt of phenomena), but arises by participation in the object (elsewhere Barfield refers to his philosophy as objective idealism).¹³ The essay argues that Barfield’s poetic philosophy implicitly resituates the subject in a theological middle (i.e., neither purely active nor purely passive), which suggests that meaning is not immanent, but comes by participation in the transcendent source of all being.

It will in turn be argued that this is not arbitrary speculation, but actually rescues language, as well as being, from dissolving into meaninglessness (and Barfield was well aware of this).¹⁴ Barfield’s poetic philosophy evokes a middle realm that denies autonomy to both what one commonly takes to be subjective, equivocal poetry (non-identity) and objective, univocal philosophy (repetition), allowing meaning (non-identical repetition)¹⁵ to supervene. His subtle gesture presents a formidable alternative to modern and postmodern philosophies of immanence, whose failure to ground the subject is exposed in the dialectical opposition of active and passive, respectively, which ironically reveals a theological opening within immanence that renders philosophy wanting. As such, a poetic philosophy exposes at once the myth of a totalizable or secular philosophy and the inevitability that immanent philosophy is sustained and perfected in theological transcendence.

Literature Review

As previously alluded to, to date there has been no significant work done on the theological implications of Barfield’s thought. This book is broadly intended to fill that gap. Nonetheless, it remains necessary to mention the former literary contributions indebted to the explication of Barfield’s thought. The notable works that deal explicitly with Barfield are:

Simon De Lange, Owen Barfield: Romanticism Comes of Age. De Lange’s text is the most significant to date. He offers an in-depth biographical sketch of the development of Barfield’s thought by drawing upon his entire corpus, letters, and personal interviews.

Another detailed work on Barfield’s thought is Lionel Adey, C. S. Lewis’ Great War with Owen Barfield, which sketches Barfield’s intellectual debate with Lewis. Adey accentuates the uniqueness of Barfield’s philosophy and the fundamental disagreement between Barfield and Lewis over the truthfulness of the imagination.

Astrid Diener’s The Role of Imagination in Culture and Society: Owen Barfield’s Early Work draws upon Lewis and other valuable interlocutors to detail Barfield’s thought. Diener does well to outline the philosophical influences that shaped Barfield’s philosophy and the bibliographical context in which his views were formed. However, her overall argument seeks to show a different Barfield, unknown to those who failed to read his earliest works (e.g., Dope, The Devastated Area, Seven Letters, The Silver Trumpet, Some Elements of Decadence, The Lesson of South Wales, and Danger, Ugliness, and Waste). Against the prevailing trend, which maintains that Barfield’s entire corpus utters a consistent warning against technological advancement, Diener argues that the earlier Barfield is rather an advocate for such scientific progress. Distinct from Diener’s analysis, I take Barfield at his word (there is no late or early Barfield)¹⁶ by presenting his fascination with contemporary issues (e.g., individualism, ecology, the rise of modern science, etc.) as concomitant and analogous to his philosophical thought; hence, aesthetic and sociological participation. So against Diener’s thesis, but not intended as a response to her work, this essay suggests that Barfield’s poetic philosophy is the consistent theme underlying all of his thought. In this way, the following analysis of the relationship between Barfield’s philosophical and social or cultural concerns is of a piece with Lange’s, which is based on his reading of a collection of Barfield’s notes. These notes, he claims, intertwine the most prominent eighteenth-century German and English philosophers with Barfield’s cultural, social, and ecological reflections. Explicitly against Diener, De Lange notes that,

Whether or not the body of notes referred to was reserved by Barfield strictly in chronological order, the strong indication from the way that the sequence alternates between matters pertaining to language and socio-economic themes is that his interest in social affairs was present from the outset and was not the manifestation of the stricken moral conscious of a somewhat aloof, armchair philosopher. Her failure to recognize this is a major weakness in the otherwise valuable book by Astrid Diener on Barfield’s early years. I can find no evidence either in his personal papers or otherwise for the impression that she gives of this interest having been tacked on subsequent to his more well-known preoccupations with language.¹⁷

Shirley Sugerman’s Evolution of Consciousness: Studies in Polarity is an informative festschrift written by friends and colleagues on the significance of Barfield’s philosophical thought, which was occasioned in anticipation of his seventy-fifth birthday.

Other mentionable projects that draw heavily, although not exclusively, upon Barfield’s work are: Sharon Warner, Experiencing the Knowing of Faith. Warner critiques Cartesian epistemologies, using Polanyi and Whitehead as her main interlocutors. She draws readily on Barfield’s participatory philosophy in her attempt to account for wholeness; that is, the subject’s role in the knowing experience. For Warner, deep knowing, that which actually shapes one’s identity, does not occur in scientific or objective observation, but only in the interpenetration of subject and object.

Morris Berman’s The Reenchantment of the World draws upon Barfield’s Saving the Appearances in an attempt to re-enchant a world lost to physical science. Like Warner, he avers that Barfield and Polanyi’s argument for the role of the subject in scientific observation deconstructs modern science’s Cartesian premises.

Stephen Talbott’s The Future Does Not Compute, devotes two lengthy appendices to summarizing Barfield’s thought (Appendix A is at bottom a list of bullet points, which consist of a number of Barfield’s quotations, while Appendix B indicates how Talbott utilizes Barfield’s thought to critique the advance of computers and information technology), which he draws upon to suggest that information technology is a furthering of the modern scientific revolution that creates more distance between man and his context. De Lange notes that Barfield was pleased with the work when he received a copy from Talbot.¹⁸

For an example of a text regarding Barfield’s espousal of Anthroposophy see, Gary Lachman, A Secret History of Consciousness. Using Anthroposophic principles, Lachman tries to flip the predominant view that consciousness is a product of matter suggesting that the physical world is rather a product of the evolutionary history of consciousness.

A few notable works dedicated to Barfield’s literary contributions are: Barfield, Hunter, and Kranidas, A Barfield Sampler Poetry and Fiction and Barfield and Tennyson, A Barfield Reader.

Some additional dissertations and theses are:

James Clark, The Sacred Word, which tries to show how Barfield’s linguistic epistemology indicates that knowledge is neither dualistic or arbitrary;

Jason Peters, Owen Barfield and the Heritage of Coleridge, which shows how Coleridge’s theory of language, imagination, and philosophy influenced Barfield;

Donna Potts, Howard Nemerov and Objective Idealism, which examines Barfield’s earlier works to show the influence of his philosophy of objective idealism on Nemerov;

Tiffany Martin, ‘For the Future, which details Barfield’s fiction work and his emphasis on the imagination for overcoming social and ecological devolution by creating harmony with man and the natural world.

For a thorough biographical sketch see again, De Lange, Owen Barfield. Otherwise, an exhaustive bibliography of Barfield’s work compiled by Jane W. Hipolito can be found here: http://barfieldsociety.org/BarfieldBibliog.pdf.

Overview and Plan

To advance the argument, the essay is divided into three parts that are each introduced by a brief summary. Generally, Parts I and II deal exclusively with Barfield’s poetic philosophy and provide the basis for the theological exposition and critique that is Part III. Because Barfield indicates that all of his thought can be broken down into what he calls aesthetic and sociological participation, Part I, Aesthetic Participation, examines the aesthetic upon which Barfield’s thought is based, while Part II, Sociological Participation, shows how Barfield saw an analogous relation between the aesthetic gaze of particular societies and the way in which it is embodied in their practices and customs. Parts I and II supply the framework for Part III, Theological Participation, which builds upon the implicit conclusions of Parts I and II, in order to construct a discourse that is faithful to Barfield’s poetic philosophy, albeit more properly theological.

Before delving into specifics it is important to note that there is an overarching premise present throughout the essay that loosely coincides with the three linguistic voice phenomena: passive, active, and middle. This pattern constitutes Parts I, II, and III, respectively. Part I seeks to underscore the limits of the passive voice, while Part II, the active voice, which necessitates a rediscovery of the middle voice, pursued in the final subsection of Part III. Generally, the constitution of Parts I to III (the passive, active, and middle voice) are meant to represent the predominant themes of postmodern philosophy (passive voice), modern philosophy (active), and theology (middle voice), respectively. This pattern is meant to draw out the significance of Barfield’s poetic philosophy, as his medial subject appears to resist these modern and postmodern tendencies. This should become increasingly clear as the essay unfolds.

Each chapter draws upon various interlocutors, both influences and antagonists. For the purpose of the present work the chosen influences represent primarily those figures whose work shaped Barfield’s poetic philosophy and secondarily those best suited to underscore the predominant themes of the essay mentioned above.¹⁹ The antagonists are those interlocutors who represent the predominant trends in modern and postmodern philosophy to which Barfield’s poetic philosophy is here presented as an alternative.²⁰ The essay overview is, then, as follows.

Chapter 1 introduces one of Barfield’s largest influences, Rudolf Steiner. Early on, Barfield found Steiner’s theory of the Evolution of Consciousness startlingly similar to his discoveries regarding the evolutionary history of words. As Steiner saw consciousness evolving toward an increasingly self-conscious state, so Barfield’s studies in philology traced an evolution in word meanings from poetic (a participation of subjective and objective) to an increasingly literal or prosaic form that pits the subjective over against the objective. Quite simply, Steiner’s theory, which traced the rise of self-consciousness seen over-against an outer world, was consistent with the gradual division between subject and object that Barfield identified in his earlier studies of words. As previously alluded to, Barfield’s thesis challenged the prevailing theories of his time, but what is most significant was his claim that no language is ever purely objective or literal in the modern sense; rather, language is always a participation of subject and object; that is, always medial. Although not explicit in his work, this gesture forms the overarching premise that Barfield’s poetic philosophy represents an alternative to those philosophies of immanence whose attempts to account for subjectivity (specifically regarding its relation to the object) result in a dialectic that shuttles between active and passive yet never arrives. Therefore, the final section of chapter 1 draws upon Heidegger as an interlocutor, maintaining that his work on poetry (presented as a reaction to modernity’s active subject—e.g., The Will to Power) fails to ground subjectivity in terms of passivity precisely because it is predicated on a philosophy of immanence, which one might say always-already presupposes a division between poetry and philosophy. The result is that Heidegger can grant his passive poet no creativity of his or her own. Trapped in an immanentized vision that can only conceive of either equivocal non-identity or univocal repetition, Heidegger is left to render poetry (the best language) meaningless. In the close of chapter 1, it is argued that Barfield’s poetic philosophy outwits such passivity by resituating the subject instead in a participatory middle, thereby endowing the subject with a creative, albeit co-operative, meaningful expression of the real.