Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry

Front Cover
Wesleyan University Press, 1988 - 191 pages

Barfield draws on sources from mythology, philosophy, history, literature, theology, and science to chronicle the evolution of human thought from Moses and Aristotle to Galileo and Keats.

Saving the Appearances is about the world as we see it and the world as it is; it is about God, human nature, and consciousness. The best known of numerous books by the British sage whom C.S. Lewis called the "wisest and best of my unofficial teachers," it draws on sources from mythology, philosophy, history, literature, theology, and science to chronicle the evolution of human thought from Moses and Aristotle to Galileo and Keats. Barfield urges his readers to do away with the assumption that the relationship between people and their environment is static. He dares us to end our exploitation of the natural world and to acknowledge, even revel in, our participation in the diurnal creative process.

 

Selected pages

Contents

INTRODUCTION
11
THE RAINBOW
15
COLLECTIVE REPRESENTATIONS
19
FIGURATION AND THINKING
22
PARTICIPATION
28
PREHISTORY
36
ORIGINAL PARTICIPATION
40
APPEARANCE AND HYPOTHESIS
46
BEFORe and after THE SCIENTIFIC
92
THE GRAECOROMAN AGE MInd and
96
ISRAEL
107
THE DEVELOPMENT OF MEANING page
116
THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE
122
SYMPTOMS OF ICONOCLASM
126
FINAL PARTICIPATION
133
SAVING THE APPEARANCES
142

TECHNOLOGY AND TRUTH
53
AN EVOLUTION OF IDOLS
58
THE EVOLUTION OF PHENOMENA
65
MEDIEVAL ENVIRONMENT
71
SOME CHANGES
79
THE TExture of mEDIEVAL THOUGHT
84
SPACE TIME AND WISDOM
148
RELIGION
156
THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD
167
THE MYSTERY OF THE KINGDOM
174
INDEX
187
Copyright

Common terms and phrases

accept actual actus alpha-thinking already Aquinas Aristotle assumed astronomy aware become believe beta-thinking blood C. S. Lewis called century Chapter children of Israel cipation collective representations collective unconscious concept course Creator Divine Name doctrine earth evolution of consciousness evolution of idols experience fact familiar world feel final participation Goethe grasp Greek hand hear heart human consciousness hypotheses iconoclasm ideas idolatry images imagination instance Jews kind knowledge language Lévy-Bruhl literal look macrocosm man's Max Müller meaning medieval mena metaphor Middle Ages mind moral Moreover movement nature object Old Testament original participation ourselves Owen Barfield parable particles pation perceive perception pheno phenomena philosophy physical Plato potential precisely primitive rainbow referred relation religion repre Rudolf Steiner Saving the Appearances scientific revolution sciousness seen sense sentations significance simply sort soul symbolical Tetragrammaton theory things thinking thought tion to-day totem truth unconscious understand unrepresented unto whole word

References to this book

About the author (1988)

OWEN BARFIELD's many books published by Wesleyan include Saving the Appearances (1988), Poetic Diction (1984), and Worlds Apart (1971). He lived in East Sussex, England, at the time of his death in 1997 at the age of 99. A longtime friend of Barfield's, G.B. TENNYSON is Professor of English at UCLA, editor of A Carlyle Reader (1984), and author of Owen Barfield on C.S. Lewis (Wesleyan, 1989) and other books.

Bibliographic information

TitleSaving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry
AuthorOwen Barfield
Editionreprint
PublisherWesleyan University Press, 1988
ISBN081956205X, 9780819562050
Length191 pages
  
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