Theology Today - Vol 41, No.2 - July 1984 - BOOK REVIEW - Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling, Vol. III

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Mind: an Essay on Human Feeling, Vol. III

By Susanne K. Langer

Baltimore, Johns Hopkins, 1982. 246 Pp. $20.00.

This is the third and final volume in the magnum opus of a distinguished American philosopher now emeritus at Connecticut College. Langer is probably best known for a well-received earlier work, Philosophy in a New Key, but she has been at work on the current treatise for twenty-five years. The new work continues themes and interests of the earlier book, especially the concern with a Whiteheadian analysis of the cultural import of symbolism and language.

The volume is concerned with the appearance, rise, and development of mind within the human species, and consequently devotes considerable attention to early cultural developments. As a result the book is steeped in empirical and especially anthropological findings and interpretations, which provide the context for the analysis of language and symbolism. Such data also provide the author with the prehistory of key concepts in the development of mind. Serious attention is given to the shift from animal to human and the place of mind and intelligence in this transition. Volume three in the trilogy is devoted primarily to the human.

One may be surprised to find such a central role given to the realm of feeling, as the title of the volume suggests, especially in an analysis of the concept of mind. The author recognizes, however, the central role of imagination in early humans, who do not interpret the world in modern scientific and causal terms. It is imagination which allows one to transcend the realm of animal realism and affirm the supernatural. Furthermore, early humans interpret the world in terms of acts rather than causes, and "acts record themselves primarily in feeling." Such feelings are not emotional states, but the recording of the quality of the

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act. Consequently, an essay on the development of the mind is necessarily an essay on human feeling for at its foundation, the intellect is a recognition of the presentation of meaning developed as an intuition. Experience needs to be sorted out in terms of what the mind accepts. The growth of feeling then is the key to the evolution of mind with biological form evolving into feeling.

Being a naturalist, Langer indicates how mind arises in the evolution of the human species. She distinguishes herself from the existentialists, however, who introduce a non-physical factor to account for the mind in order to avoid a reductionism.

One of the most elementary forms of symbolic imagery is ritual. Preceding religion and serving as its foundation, gesture and ritual may be developed until an inherent quality "is given a convincing reality," and "deity" is established. In the modern world such religious affirmation is increasingly relegated to the realm of the private or to institutions and reinterpreted in terms of causal and impersonal events.

The appearance of the subject and the feeling of self-awareness lead, as well, to a deeper subjectivistic interpretation of the relation of humans to their gods. Langer is very conscious of the human power of religious symbolization and the effect of the ontological powers so affirmed, especially important in confrontation with the power of death. When it is recognized that ritual power cannot halt death, one may despair over the limitations of human activity, but it also leads to a deepening of religious feeling to meet the despair which arises. It is then that the evolution of the supernatural powers is initiated, along with the deepening self-awareness involved in the affirmation of immortality. Death is seen as an "infringement and violation" of life, and the self goes to great ends to overcome such a violation. With the recognition that death is not a violation but a very part of life itself, a change occurs in the evolution of humankind which is a "phylogenetic step in the history of mind." Langer also recognizes that the relating of sin and death, the very death of the soul, was the occasion for a new "god image" in the evolution of mind bringing forth Christian hope as a ritual conquest of sin and death.

Mind operates in a context of balance, where it is necessary to maintain a balance between the attempted individualization and the "integrity of the biological continuum." Originally religion may have played its role in this attempt at balance, but it soon acquired the function of the "denial or masking of death." This confrontation with death involved, as well, a further change from an emphasis upon personal power without limit, to an achievement of the "highest degree of vital action" in the small span of time alloted to us.

Speech as symbolic communication allows us to transcend the animal state and enter the realm of ideas. We can escape the immediacy of the present and consider what was, what may be, and what ought to be. Such symbolism correlated with the appearance of the individual and self-agency provide the conditions for ethics. One cannot overestimate

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the power of symbolization and its significance for the evolution of mind. Thus the sense of responsibility becomes the "really crucial step in humanization." The feeling of concern for the acts of others binds each to the social structure.

The current situation in the development of mind lies not in "radical mutation," and not in restructuring the relationship of humans and the gods, but toward a new centering of society itself and toward internalization. "The great religions are our present promises of a more proportionate future."

Unfortunately, the failing health of the author prevented her from supplying the more extended metaphysical conclusion to this study which had been contemplated, but it is reflected in the proposals already mentioned. Some will find the empirical and cultural detail intrusive, but it seemed necessary to make the intended case. Some will find the "naturalism" of the analysis unsatisfactory, but the book is written to indicate what we can discover regarding the appearance of mind and its symbolic activities as nature and human culture have developed. The discussion of the concept of mind is not developed according to current fashions, and thus may not receive the attention which it deserves. But it is extremely thoughtful. Dialogue with more current philosophies of mind would have been helpful. Herein is presented a naturalism which has not neglected the import of religious symbols and religious language, a natural theology or philosophy of religious discourse and its role in the evolution of the culture of mind. By taking a very long look at the rise of civilization it places us in its debt both philosophically and religiously.

HAROLD A. DURFEE

The American University
Washington, D.C.