1.2.2 |
SYMBOLS AND THE MENTAL OR SPIRITUAL |
The popular distinction between what is termed "mental", "spiritual" or
"psych(olog)ical" on the one hand and "physical" or
"material" on the other is a metaphysical concoction of a number of
clearly, or at least more clearly, definable distinctions, such as:
- mental or personal vs bodily (or
physical)
- abstract (non-spatiotemporal) vs concrete
(spatiotemporal)
-
propositional vs
nonpropositional
- cultural vs natural
- visual (and auditory) vs tactual (gustatory
and olfactory)
- symbolic
(representative) vs nonsymbolic
(presentative)
It is remarkable that human symbolism in ideology and in art
is mainly, and often only, visual and auditory so far as the
five senses are concerned. Traditionally human beings seem to
more closely connect the visual, or visual and auditory, with
what is or can be of symbolic significance than they do with
respect to the other senses. There is no need for this, however,
since symbols can in principle also use the sense of touch, of
taste or of smell.
The above list of antitheses illustrates how the symbolic and
the visual together are drawn into the sphere of the mental and
of culture, whereas the presentative and the tactual stay in the
sphere of the physical and of nature. At the same time the presentative
is associated with the
concrete
ground-world; and the
representative with
abstract,
propositional reality. Yet,
in actual fact, a visual symbol is as 'concrete' as a tactual symbol.
Concrete symbols are, perhaps, not propositional, but abstract
symbols can be either propositional or nonpropositional.
Preferably symbols should not only adequately represent a
certain idea or discipline, but have beauty as well. Beauty
itself is a concept which is often put on the side of the
visual(-auditory), culture (or art), the abstract and the
propositional (or literature) with the symbolic. It is traditionally
restricted to what is pleasing to the eye or the ear or to what
pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit. Esthetics, which is
etymologically supposed to deal with all sense perception, tends
to deal exclusively or predominantly with the visual. It could
be said that the beautiful and esthetic refer to the visual or
visual-auditory by definition, but then similar kinds of concept
and theory can be developed with regard to the senses of touch,
taste and smell. Of course, there are words like nice, fine
and delicious which can denote that something is pleasing to
one or more of the three other senses. But they are either
employed for all senses or associated with what pleasurably
exalts the body in particular. For sure, this is not wrong. What
is wrong is to suggest that beauty in the visual field would be
less physical or spatiotemporal than the experience of a nice
feeling in the tactual, or one of the other nonvisual, fields.
Such an attitude is not warrantable: if a visual symbol or other
thing should look good or be nice to look at, a tactual symbol
or other thing should feel good or be nice to touch. Neither
symbol or thing is more spiritual or more physical than the
other. (Let alone more sexual in that intentionally touching a
nice human body would be plain eroticism, whereas intentionally
looking at such a body would be pure esthetics.)
Maybe something is 'beautiful' when it pleases the sense of
sight or hearing. To be attractive, however, it does not only
have to please the eyes or the ears, but also to represent
something valuable. Beauty covers the presentative aspect of
something, but there is also an (often not less) important
representational aspect. (If beauty is said to cover both
aspects, then being beautiful is not solely a question of
pleasing the senses.) The representational aspect becomes most
noticeable when the beautiful is expressed by artistic means,
for the use of symbols (in the widest sense of the word) is
essential to art in particular. Evidently, what applies to
beauty and to the senses of sight and hearing, applies to the
senses in general, even
tho ordinary
language may have no analogs of beauty and attractiveness
for all five senses.
If one does make the distinction between beauty and its analogs
on the one hand, and attractiveness and its analogs on the
other, and if one wants to associate this with the distinction
mental/physical, it is attractiveness and its analogs
which have both a physical and a mental or spiritual dimension,
regardless of the kind of sense concerned.
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