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We begin this series with the early essay which gives its name to this column - written in 1959. (Fifth of six sections)  The Function of Principle The theme of this search, by reason of the vastness of the problem of meaning, is an investigation which hopes to discover the principle that has collective jurisdiction, not over the particular of a specific existence, but over the general content of all things for which the all-inclusive name “meaning” has been established as a mutual base. Thus I hold it to be necessary to examine the nature of principle itself, in the expectation of at least partially revealing its structure. I can possibly demonstrate the function of principle illustratively, by discussing the problem of comparison, to show how principles become actively engaged in ordering the world of thought as well as physical being. For good reason we are wont to see meaning between existences which are involved in comparative measuring. Partners in comparison are items of the same kind which, however, differ in the amount or degree of their same traits. Therefore, a comparison of significantly dissimilar things may only be effected if we invent for them a general and collective term and impose it as the common denominator. The comparative function is probably best exemplified by selecting adjectives which already have comparative significance in linguistic use. I propose the antonyms “large” and “small,” with the intent to seek out and make evident the nature of the intellectual act whose consequence is comparison. Assuming, as items of a wholly arbitrary collection, an egg, a chair, and a tank, which have no features in common except physical size in different degrees of magnitude, we reduce the identity of each by terming them all “objects,” and make them thereby available for comparison. The chair, seen merely as an object of size, is unquestionably larger than the egg, quite as certainly as it is smaller than the tank. And it does not seem possible that any of these items might relate by exerting an influence upon or making a contribution to any other. Relation, so it appears, in this random assortment of things, could only be the accidental result of an atypical selection, and it would then not be achieved by reason or under the condition of a comparison in size, but would be brought about by a fluke of circumstance. To place ourselves in a position to compare egg, chair, and tank, we have determined to ignore their respective identities by naming them collectively objects, and apparently have deprived them simultaneously of all power to contribute meaning. They have seemingly retained nothing but an ability to displace amounts of space by physical bulk. And their unequal sizes are their only visible contribution to each other. Yet, a difference in size can be as potent a contribution of one object to the other as that of wheels and chassis reaching the status of carriage, by being made to jointly fulfill their possibilities in practical reality. For, in their dissimilar properties, those two were capable of supplying the exact needs that left each short of the identity they assumed in collaboration. Thus, unequal magnitudes are the essential supplements in the assertion of the new identity, namely, size comparison. With these differing sizes as the granted prerequisite, the mind of man must cooperate to the extent of qualifying – without loss of inherent meaning – egg, chair and tank, by exploiting the tolerance which their identity owns. This flexibility permits the generalization that designates them simply as objects and makes them available for the act of comparison. As largeness or smallness will forever change location from one object to the other when one surpasses another in either quality, we recognize that largeness, bound to the visible object, is always excelled by another still larger that reduces the first to smallness. From this we infer that only an infinite, all-inclusive vastness of magnitude may claim “largeness,” as also solely the dimensionless, infinitely tiny point in space cannot be surpassed in “smallness.” Only incomprehensible infinity possesses these designations of extremes in magnitude without either question or challenge. But the mind of the human being needs an instrument – and finds it in comparison – which will reduce the infinitely large and small to the dimensions of his intellect or even physical mass. In expressing a thing as “large” or “small,” we state in reality that it is larger or smaller than a certain point of reference in the environment, and impose thereby the measure of our own experience. The generalization, in which I have gathered nouns of very unequal meaning by collectively calling them objects, provides a guiding hint how the nature of principle can be revealed. The particular condition which is shared and recognized as identical in otherwise most dissimilar items is precisely the factor that provides their collective name and imposes sameness, under the identity of this name only, upon all relative activities carried on in terms of that general definition. In this manner, the collective and general principle governs diverse things in the exact areas that are recognizable as common ground. So, egg, chair and tank under the principle of comparison assume a common denominator in the designation “object” and act the same, by all offering their physical size to be measured against each other and also in contrasting reference to environmental experience. In this way, the principle of comparison extends to man the most precious gift of allowing him to comprehend his world in terms of proportions that he can himself establish in accord with his limitations. Principle, by definition, requires difference in the identities that it contains within one law. As well it requires that, pertaining to these differences, an area of overlap of function is found where those diversities act identically and as equals. Since principle unifies differences under one jurisdiction, it cannot therefore reveal itself in things whose identity is the same in all respects. Thus, recognition of principle is the instrument of comprehensive understanding. For it makes huge complications explicable by concentratedly simplifying them. By virtue of this reduction, they become manageable for the mind. 
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We begin this series with the early essay which gives its name to this column - written in 1959. (Third of six sections)  Creation and Creator If I am to maintain my point of view regarding the autonomous character in the meaning of all things, then I am in consequence forced to acknowledge the personal separateness of human existence from the identity of God. The temptation may be great to toy with the sound of words, to say that the concept of creature and creation cannot be understood in any other way than in forever dependent relation to the Creator. These words, however, play a misleading game, and may move the more arrogant among us to state in addition that the Creator does not meaningfully exist, unless it be in relation to creature and creation. In this curious fashion God would be reduced to a level of being where He depended on our existence for meaning in His. I am undecided whether this would be a mere error or the beginning of blasphemy. It is my conviction that, when God completed all He has made, the navel cord between Him and us was severed, when we were given volition and choice – in effect – a self-contained identity. He has set us free, and correspondingly freed his own identity from ours. He is creator by the nature of His omnipotence – the authority to do all things – not because He has made a world and put us in it. Had He never made us, His creator identity would have suffered no reduction from the omission, as it received no increase from the act. To Relate Meaning The preoccupation with meaning in an absolute sense is in no way intended to diminish or deny the importance of the relative coexistence which we observe in the interaction of innumerable things. We are now, however, aware that each thing must contain its meaning within its own identity before it can relate meaningfully to another equally qualified. I should like to state that meaning in the absolute is the presupposed condition upon which meaning in the relative must rest. And, by the same token, it should be added that the relative is the vehicle by which absolutes relate their meaning to each other. So far this investigation has not yet revealed the very typical activity which is required if one thing is to involve itself relatively with another. To study the act which extends the meaning of one identity, and makes it available to the other, is the task to which I am now most urgently put. Despite an unchangeable character founded in identity, it does seem that, included within the integrity of each thing, there is a flexibility of potential functional activity. This participates in the overriding nature of its meaning and is able to extend that meaning of total oneness in many directions, and engage it in diverse forms of coexistence. Maybe it is of some value here – or at any rate, expedient – to resort to exemplification in order to demonstrate the act of relative functioning. Relations of “Four” Assuming any number, “4,” for instance, and giving recognition to its unshakeable character as a symbol of four exactly equal entities, we may yet consider a variety of arithmetical functions in which this value may be employed. Four can be divisor or multiplier, dividend or multiplicand, positive or negative. In this way it is varied in its relative function, but the “fourness” which identifies it is inviolable. Our knowledge of the fact “four,” however, remains incomplete if we do not recognize the relative powers that imply potential and are included in its absolute identity. “Four” owns these powers independently of whatever use we find to employ them from case to case. Therefore it is not truly possible to know an isolated fact. For, to be ignorant of the particular relative strengths included in each fact is to not know it all. Recognition of relative function allows us to examine the identity of a fact from as many sides as there are directions of potential impact upon other entities. Such close scrutiny of all facets reveals an entirety. It does not permit us to be misguided into the belief that a thing has changed identity merely because it relates its meaning in a different way to a different thing than habit is wont to perceive. Seeing from all sides is knowing all directions of potential relative extension to which an existence is empowered by virtue of being. Taking for granted, at the time, the relative powers held within the significance of each word, I was able to look upon the poem mentioned earlier as a self-sufficient unit of meaning and disown it in terms of principle, without either mention or speculation in regard to specific content. And indeed, its theme and subject matter, all-important on their own terms, have not in any way become more relevant now in this discussion. It is, however, essential to realize the complexity of every poem as a unit of meaning that comprises, as one entity, the interrelation of all single meanings that it integrates. Though I maintain that the integration of single facts is a sovereign identity, its meaning in all its oneness is of compound character.  We begin this series with the early essay which gives its name to this column - written in 1959. (Second of six sections)  An Epitome of Meaning Human creativity, in all its man-made diversity, is perhaps more precisely qualified to provide insight into the nature of meaning than any object or condition which exists in a final, complete, and irrevocable state. For, what men think or make grows from shapeless nonexistence and vague notions to develop an integrity exclusively its own, by which it ripens into meaning. This meaning is the property of the thing so made and, if through the years it be wholly forgotten and engage in no relative activity, then the forgetting characterizes those who forget, but the integrity of a thing richly conceived and well-made is inviolate and therefore meaningful in itself. And so, to make myself more adequately clear, I am offering the invention of the following narrative. A lone traveler on a mule is riding slowly over a gray, barren land. Dusk is approaching and the jackass is weary, tottering ahead step by tortured step. As the two reach a muddy waterhole fringed with grass and clusters of sparse shrubs, the rider dismounts, his hand grips the bridle, and together they approach the edge of the pool. Man and animal drink side by side from the lukewarm and bitter water. Then the man unsaddles his mule and leaves it to graze. After gathering small pieces of dead wood, he lights a fire and cooks his indifferent meal. He eats slowly and, when the food is gone, he broods, buried in the thoughts of his mind. Stirred by something in his meditation, he takes a stubby pencil and a little paper from his saddlebag and, in the uncertain light of his low fire, begins to write. At one time he methodically whittles the point of his pencil, and at frequent intervals he crosses out what he has written and begins again. In the end, when he has crossed and rewritten for the last time, he turns to his animal and says, “Listen, Jackass, listen to what your master has written!” So, he reads his poem to an audience of none and a mule – a poem that is a small treasure of truth and humor, five or six lines wonderfully made. The man is sleepy now and the fire barely glowing, so he unfolds a blanket, wraps himself in it, and falls asleep. At sunrise he will wash, and boil his coffee, and ride away. Poem, poet, and jackass – nobody knowing what may become of them – will pass from sight. My little story may serve to illuminate the theme of absolute meaning by its particular insistence on isolating the integrity of the poem from all opportunity to communicate its content. I maintain that it was a meaningful poem nevertheless, a poem in a very complete and entire sense. For it was thoroughly and well done – all done – hence, all poem. And its identity and meaning rested in the strength it contained, not in the knowledge that a select group of people might have had of its existence, if it had been issued by a publishing house. Also, no significance may be attributed to the poem for another wrong reason, namely, that it must have related meaningfully to its author, as a kind of reciprocal gift in return for the love he so generously lavished in its making. We are bound by reality to accept the insight that, upon completion of a work, its dependence on the maker has also ended. Its existence is sovereign and can survive its author without reduction in meaning. Additionally, we must conclude that, for all the individuals who may know a given work, there must be a host of others who are entirely uninformed about its very existence. Thus, if we refuse to accept meaning in a definitive sense, we arrive at the nonsensical speculation whether the work has been rendered meaningful because of those, the author included, who know about it, or meaningless because of the others who do not. Moreover, meaningless work of poor quality in all fields is abundantly produced and displayed. Who could think in earnest that it has become meaningful because it has been made accessible to the public? So our lone traveler’s poem achieved meaning because it had been written, as the identity of its condition as a poem of whatever kind demanded to be written. A work, once its nature and intent are determined, requires, by dint of its emerging identity, treatment fitted to its own character, thereby in a sense insisting on making itself, as precisely and thoroughly as at all possible, so that nothing may either be taken from it or added. In this manner we are assured that the poem became in essence all of what it was and nothing that was not included in the particular nature and character to which it was committed.  |
A Blog containing longer text selections from essays by Johannes, on art, philosophy, religion and the humanities, written during the course of a lifetime. 
Artists are not art historians. People who write are not all learned scholars. This can lead to “repeat originality” on most rare occasions. When we briefly share a pathway of inquiry with others, we sometimes also must share the same results.
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