chapter 7 nondiscursive symbolic forms from ways of knowing through the realms of meaning by william...

Copyright © 2011 by William Allan Kritsonis/All Rights Re-served

7

NONDISCURSIVESYMBOLIC FORMS

INSIGHTS

1. To say that ordinary languages are “discursive” means that they are used in customary speech for communicating ideas.

2. The nondiscursive symbolic forms are used in all the arts and for the expression of feelings, values, commitments, and insights in the domains of per-sonal knowledge, metaphysics, and religion.

3. Nondiscursive symbolic forms appeal is principally to the imagination.

4. Discursive symbolic forms are outwardly oriented, nondiscursive forms are inwardly oriented.

5. Discursive forms meanings that unfold in sequen-tial argument.

6. Nondiscursive forms meanings are presented in a unitary vision.

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134 PART TWO: FUNDAMENTAL PATTERNS OF MEANING

7. In the discursive, meaning is attained at the end of a demonstration.

8. In the nondiscursive forms, meaning is grasped all at once.

9. In discursive language the ideas are organized ac-cording to the principles of ordinary logic.

10. Nondiscursive forms have their own kind of logic, meaning, and their distinctive patterns and char-acteristic orders and relationships.

11. The nondiscursive symbolisms are chiefly used to express meanings in the realms of esthetic experi-ence, personal knowledge, and synoptic insight.

12. Nondiscursive forms are appropriate even in ordi-nary practical affairs when the purposes of com-munication are best served by direct presentation of a form instead of by reasoning to a conclusion.

13. It is part of everyone’s education to learn to “read” the meanings communicated by natural events and to act accordingly.

14. The whole human body is an instrument for com-munication.

15. Parents and teachers today would do well to rec-ognize how much of their own instruction is either directly or indirectly aimed at the inculcation of so-cial conventions and to become aware of the meanings communicated by these symbolisms of the act.

16. Modern educators would do well to devote more attention to the abiding importance of ritual sym-bols in the nurture of human personality and in the conservation and enrichment of cultural values.

17. The meaning of literature is in the language itself.18. The meaning of the language is discernible only

through its use within the concrete literary cre-ation.

19. Materials are not generally available for studying and teaching nondiscursive forms.

20. There are many different kinds of nondiscursive forms, making any common measure more diffi-cult.

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NONDISCURSIVE SYMBOLIC FORMS 135

21. In mathematics one really knows the subject only if he knows about the subject.

22. It is not enough to teach students of mathematics how to make calculations and demonstrations skillfully and automatically.

23. The student of mathematics can be said to know mathematically only if he understands and can ar-ticulate his reasons for each assertion he makes.

24. The sovereign principle of all mathematical rea-soning is logical consistency.

25. The subject matter of mathematics is formal (ab-stract) symbolic systems within which all possible propositions are consistent with each other.

26. Mathematics only yields conclusions that follow by logical necessity from the premises defining each system.

27. In mathematics theory is the whole body of sym-bolic content of a given postulational system.

28. Technical skill in computation and the ability to use mathematics in scientific investigation, valu-able as they may be, are not evidence of mathe-matical understanding.

29. Mathematical understanding consists in compre-hending the method of complete logical abstrac-tion and of drawing necessary conclusions from basic formal premises.

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We come now to a third type of symbolisms that dif-fer in function, and to a large extent in content, from or-dinary languages and mathematics. While they vary among themselves more than do the two kinds of sym-bolism previously discussed, common to all of this third type is their use in what are called “nondiscursive” modes of expression. The symbolisms employed in such expressions may then be referred to as “nondiscursive symbolic forms.”

DISCURSIVE SYMBOLIC FORMS

To say that ordinary languages are “discursive” means that they are used in customary speech for com-municating ideas in a consecutive, connected fashion, following the principles of common logic. Such dis-course is appropriate for assertions of fact and other ut-terances meant to be understood literally. It is intended as a means of effective cohesion and practical action within the community. Similarly, mathematics is discur-sive because it is based on logical deduction, with argu-ments moving from premises to conclusions by consec-utive steps. Both kinds of discursive forms are used for factual statements in the sciences, where rational order is of the essence.

NONDISCURSIVE SYMBOLIC FORMS

The nondiscursive symbolic forms are used in all the arts and for the expression of feelings, values, com-mitments, and insights in the domains of personal knowledge, metaphysics, and religion. In these fields the aim is not literal statement, but figurative expres-sion. The appeal is principally to the imagination rather than to consecutive argument. In the discursive do-mains language is used for common understanding of objective conditions: in the nondiscursive domains lan-guage is used to express personal subjectivity. In other words, discursive symbolic forms are outwardly ori-ented, nondiscursive forms are inwardly oriented.


CONTRAST BETWEEN DISCURSIVE AND


Alfred North Whitehead and Susanne Langer have defined the contrast between the discursive and nondiscursive by means of the concept of presenta-tional immediacy. In the discursive forms meanings un-fold in sequential argument. In the nondiscursive forms meanings are presented in a unitary vision, i.e., in di-rect or immediate insight. In the discursive, meaning is attained at the end of a demonstration (whether explicit or implicit), while in the nondiscursive, meaning is grasped all at once, as an immediate presentation.

It was said above that in discursive language the ideas are organized according to the principles of ordi-nary logic. It is not to be inferred from this that the nondiscursive symbolic forms have no logic. Nondiscur-sive forms have their own kind of logic, meaning, and their distinctive patterns and characteristic orders and relationships. They are not haphazard or disorganized. It is simply that their organization does not follow the lines of literal rationality. In this sense they are the modes of expression suited to nonrational (though not necessarily irrational) kinds of experience.

The nondiscursive symbolisms are chiefly used to express meanings in the realms of esthetic experience, personal knowledge, and synoptic insight. However, they are sometimes used in practical affairs and ordi-nary social life, as in the case of signals, manners, and gestures (to be discussed below). This indicates that the essential distinction between the two types of sym-bolism is not in the fields of application, but in the con-trast between discursive and nondiscursive. Nondiscur-sive forms are appropriate even in ordinary practical affairs when the purposes of communication are best served by direct presentation of a form instead of by reasoning to a conclusion.

Nondiscursive symbolic forms may best be charac-terized as particular sensory objectifications of subject


states. Subjective meanings are contained in unified patterns of sense perception.

This general description of nondiscursive symbol-isms may attain greater clarity and point, and the dif-ferences among the various forms may become evi-dent, from the following brief analysis of the principal types of nondiscursive forms.

PRINCIPAL TYPES OF NONDISCURSIVE SYMBOLIC FORMS

SignalsSignals are codes for communicating action-cues.

Strictly speaking, they are not nondiscursive, because they are to be understood literally and logically, nor are they even really symbols, because they are ideally used as stimuli to automatic action and not as bearers of re-flective meaning. Since they are a kind of language, with regular patterns, and since they are capable of be-ing reflectively understood, they are at least analogous to nondiscursive symbols.

Every person must master a large vocabulary of conventional signals if he is to adapt safely and effi-ciently to his environment. In a modern city he has to know what a host of light signals and sound signals mean if he is to travel securely. An employee in an of-fice or factory must understand the meaning of bells, whistles, dials, and colored lights if he is to do his job. With the increasing mechanization of industrial civiliza-tion, more and more such regulatory signals are neces-sary and the mastery of the signal language occupies an ever larger place in each person’s education.

Some signals are natural rather than conventional. For example, the barking of a dog or the hissing of a snake may be a signal of danger. A black sky, lightning, and thunder may indicate coming rain. These stimuli to action are not properly part of language, which is gen-erally limited to communication between human be-ings. Natural signals are sometimes metaphorically re-ferred to by such terms as “the language of the ani-


mals” or “the language of the elements.” In any case, it is part of everyone’s education to learn to “read” the meanings communicated by natural events and to act accordingly.

Bodily GesturesBodily gestures have several different communica-

tive functions. They are sometimes signals, as in the case of a policeman directing traffic or a person in a meeting raising his hand for recognition by the chair-person. In other circumstances they may be symptoms, as when a person is convulsed with pain, recoils in ter-ror, or leaps with joy, enthusiasm, or excitement. Symp-tomatic gestures are natural rather than conventional signs, except that their forms may be modified by cul-tural expectations. Bodily gestures may also be truly symbolic, as when one opens his arms to welcome or comfort another or clenches his fists in threat or defi-ance. While such symbols are also cues to action and to some extent symptoms of inner conditions, they are predominantly means of expressing ideated meanings, in which the distinctively human powers of imagination, self-consciousness, and rational deliberation are inter-fused. The mode of expression is a visible act, commu-nicating the meaning by direct presentation.

Facial ExpressionsThe same remarks apply to facial expressions as

to bodily gestures. Facial expressions may likewise be signals, as when a frown means “it is time to leave,” or symptoms, as when a smile indicates satisfaction or pleasure, or symbols, as when a puzzled expression is used to convey the idea of doubt or uncertainty.

Bodily Gestures and Facial ExpressionsBodily gestures and facial expressions are not only

in themselves expressive forms, they are also impor-tant accessories to ordinary language. Some people speak with their hands as much as with their lips. In-


deed, deaf-mutes may have to depend wholly on ges-ture-language. In this event gesture becomes discursive and is not essentially different from ordinary spoken or written discourse; it only employs a different symbol-system. Much bodily expression is not used as a vehicle for discursive meanings, but serves a presentational function. Everyone knows the qualitative difference be-tween the meanings imparted by only reading or hear-ing and by both hearing and seeing the speaker. It is a commonplace among teachers of speech that commu-nication is function of the person as a whole, including gestures, facial expressions, and bodily posture.

Humans communicate in many ways.Body language such as postures,gestures, and facial expressions

are nonverbal forms of communicationthat must be interpreted by the lis-

tener.Many people get upset when someone

doesn’t watch them speak.Teachers are adamant—

“pay attention to me while I’m talking to you.”

With thirty students in one class,how can the teacher make sure he/she


pays attention to each individual?How will it affect the student if he/shedoes not pay attention to each individ-

ual?


Picture


It follows the proper mastery of language includes far more than the acquisition of vocabulary and under-standing and skill in grammatical construction. Practice in the varied and subtle arts of bodily expression is also needed if a person is to be able to articulate nondiscur-sive as well as discursive meanings.

The whole human body is an instrument for com-munication. The symbols of bodily movement have their characteristic elements and grammatical relation-ships, that are an integral part of the subject matter of language instruction. From such a holistic standpoint, the student is not taught to read words and sentences as self-subsistent symbolic patterns of the communicat-ing person by attending to all of the visual and auditory stimuli that emanate from him.

Manners and CustomsBy elaboration of bodily expression-symbols the

more complex languages of manners and customs are constructed. Like speech, conventional behavior pat-terns are important for social cohesion and harmony. Actions may speak more plainly and eloquently than words. The myriad forms of social usage do much to set the tone of life of a people, providing means of expres-sion that extend, complement, and enrich the meanings carried by ordinary language. Cultural anthropologists have done much to demonstrate the significance of customs in the life of humankind. They have shown that customary behavior, like ordinary language, is not a mere aggregate of separate elements, but is patterned into an interconnected whole. For example, relation-ships between parents and children are regulated by a great many mutually reinforcing acts symbolizing re-spect, authority and freedom, dependence and inde-pendence, responsibility, and other aspects of status and expectation. Not only is the language of custom a structured whole, but there are as many such lan-guages as there are different cultures. The languages of custom are relatively independent of the ordinary lan-


guages, as shown by the fact that people within the same broad culture group may speak different tongues and that people with widely different cultural patterns may be found within any one language group.

Modern anthropologists have demonstrated in their study of cultures how to go about learning the vo-cabulary, morphology, and syntax of the language of custom.1 The first requirement is an attitude of interest in, respect for, and attentiveness to other peoples and their ways. The second rule is to discover the charac-teristic patterns of meaning, so that isolated acts may be interpreted within the context of the culture as an intricately balanced and articulated whole. This same approach holds, mutates mutandis, for the study of other tongues.

The centrality of manners and customs in the life of humankind is delightfully portrayed by Harold Nichol-son in his book, Good Behavior: A Study of Certain Types of Civility.2 He presents sketches of twelve civi-lizations, from ancient China, Greece, and Rome, through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, to nine-teenth-century Germany and England. What stands out from this survey are the substantial differences in pat-terns of culture and the fact the quality and tone of a civilization are mainly expressed in the system of man-ners. Furthermore, one is impressed at how largely the educational effort of each society is directed toward the perpetuation of the customary behavior patterns. Par-ents and teachers today would do well to recognize how much of their own instruction is either directly or indi-rectly aimed at the inculcation of social conventions and to become aware of the meanings communicated by these symbolisms of the act.

1 See particularly Edward T. Hall, The Silent Language, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, NY, 1959, for a vivid discussion of cultural forms as a kind of language.

2 Beacon Press, Boston, 1960.


RitualClosely related to gestures, manners, and customs

are the languages of ritual. Ritual tends to be more styl-ized and less individual than manners. Ritual is in-tended to express through symbolic acts meanings at a somewhat deeper level than those arising out of every-day experience. Some rituals are individual and private, and are concerned with objectively trivial matters (e.g., routines of eating or washing). Such personal rituals are usually regarded as pathological, reflecting neurotic compulsions growing out of deep-seated emotional dis-orders. Most rituals are communal and have to do with matters of large human importance. For example, every momentous event in a person’s life—birth, graduation, marriage, death—has its ceremonial accompaniments. The meaning of a nation’s life is symbolized in patriotic rites. The ultimate values and purposes of existence are expressed in the many varieties of religious ritual.

It is a common error of literal-minded moderns to assume that rituals are useless superstitions carried over from a pre-scientific age. Implicit in this attitude is the assumption that all meanings are of the discursive logical type. As we have already seen, there are many meanings not expressible in discursive form. Included among them are those symbolized in ritual. Hu-mankind’s highest hopes, deepest anxieties, and firmest commitments have always found articulation in the vivid presentational forms of ritual activity, in which the participant acts out, or dramatizes, the meanings instead of merely voicing them. The language of ritual is learned both by participation and by observation. Rit-ualistic meanings are enriched by interpretations using ordinary language even though such explications can never fully interpret the meanings conveyed by the ritu-als themselves. Modern educators, who tend to overemphasize the literal and verbal modes of commu-nication, would do well to devote more attention to the abiding importance of ritual symbols in the nurture of


human personality and in the conservation and enrich-ment of cultural values.

GRAPHIC OR OBJECT-SYMBOLS

In addition to symbolic acts, graphic or object-symbols are used to express the more profound mean-ings in human existence. Unlike signals, these visual symbols are not merely clues to action. They are bear-ers of meanings that exceed the bounds of ordinary logic. Examples of such symbols are flags, which focus patriotic sentiments, stars, crescents, and crosses, which carry religious meanings, and astronomical and astrological signs (like the signs of the zodiac).3 Some of these symbols are purely conventional (e.g., many flags) while others are “natural,” in the sense the forms of the symbols are in certain essential respects congru-ent with the meanings symbolized. For example, the Christian symbol of the cross visually represents the ideas of contradiction or conflict and of the meeting of the human and the divine (the horizontal and the verti-cal bars, respectively). The swastika, an ancient Indian symbol, later adopted by the Nazis and derived origi-nally from the sun wheel, represents the ideas of a pri-mal source of light and life, of universality (the four arms), and of energy or power (the sense of movement conveyed by the jointed arms). Similarly, the ancient Chinese symbol is taken as representing the dy-namic contrast and interfusion of the two cosmic princi-ples of yin and yang, the union of opposites (e.g., male and female, light and dark, heat and cold) that is the ul-timate mystery of all being and becoming.

DreamsDreams are a uniquely significant class of symbols

that are once more a subject of lively interest, after a period of neglect and discrediting. From ancient times 3 See Rudolph Koch, The Book of Signs, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, n.d., for description of 493 symbols used by primitive and ancient peoples.


many have thought that dreams have meanings other than their obvious pictorial significance. It has been as-sumed that hidden behind and within the images are messages of importance to the dreamer, perhaps in the nature of portents, warnings, or directions for action. Among the skeptical, rationalistic, and literal-minded, especially since the Enlightenment, dreams have been dismissed as insignificant consequences of bodily dis-turbances or as the meaningless vagaries of a wander-ing imagination. Since the work of Sigmund Freud, dreams have once more become a subject of serious in-quiry. The art of dream interpretation has been reestab-lished on more secure foundations. According to psy-choanalytic views, dreams are an important clue to the dreamer’s emotional life, the true nature of which to a large extent lies buried in the unconscious and which leads him to behave in ways neither he nor others may understand, approve, or

Educators use many ritualisticsymbols to help teach values and

preserve culture. While the teacheralready knows the importance of

such action, the student does not al-ways


understand the significance of the be-havior. How insistent should the

teacher be on obedience in such action, and what are the consequences

if he/she is not?


Picture


be able to control. It is further believed that the lan-guage of dreams can be mastered. Once the meanings communicated by them are mastered and understood, progress can be made toward emotional health. The language of dreams is regarded as a secret code, which it is the task of the analyst to help decipher. When the secrets are discovered, self-understanding replaces self-ignorance, and confusion and meaninglessness give way to insight and clarity of purpose.

There are many different schools of thought con-cerning dream interpretation. Erich Fromm, in an illumi-nating treatment of the subject in The Forgotten Lan-guage: An Introduction to the Understanding of Dreams, Fairy Tales, and Myths,4 discusses the history of dream interpretation. Fromm gives particular atten-tion to Freud’s view that dreams represent irrational and asocial wishes, to Jung’s view that dreams are rev-elations of archetypal forms of wisdom from the “collec-tive unconscious,” and to his own position that dreams express many kinds of mental activity, both irrational and rational, moral and nonmoral. Fromm contends that the symbols of the inner life that appear in dreams are not conventional, but either “accidental” or “universal,” the former referring to images that arise out of chance associations that have proved to be personally impor-tant, the latter representing types of experience that are inherent in the human condition. In the case of uni-versal symbols there is an intrinsic relation between the inner feelings and their sensory representation. For ex-ample, the symbol “fire” represents the feeling of life and energy (or of fear and destructive power, depend-ing on the context), and “valley” represents feelings of security (or of imprisonment, in other situations).

The main point for philosophy of the curriculum is that the symbolism of dreams is a significant language that can be learned with great benefit to the learner. Fromm believes:

4 Grove Press, Inc., New York, 1951.


that symbolic language is the one foreign lan-guage that each of us must learn. . . . It helps us to understand a level of experience that is specifi-cally human because it is that level which is com-mon to all humanity. In content as well as in style . . . Both dreams and myths are important commu-nications from ourselves to ourselves. If we do not understand the language in which they are writ-ten, we miss a great deal of what we know and tell ourselves in those hours when we are not busy manipulating the outside world.5

Myths, Allegories, Parables, and Fairy TalesAs suggested in the above quotation, myths are

another kind of nondiscursive symbolism. Unlike any of the other nondiscursive forms previously mentioned, myths are expressed in ordinary language rather than in pictorial form or in act. The same is true of a number of other kinds of symbols, including allegories, parables, and fairy tales. While these are not in themselves lan-guages, they use ordinary language so as to communi-cate nondiscursive meanings. This is accomplished by employing ordinary language in an extraordinary way, so as to impart the figurative or metaphorical sense rather than the literal sense of ordinary discourse. The meanings of whole myths, allegories, parables, and fairy tales properly belong to the domain of literature (see Chapter 15) rather than to symbolics. In fact, the line between the meanings of literature and of the metaphorical language of literature cannot be sharply drawn. To a considerable degree the meaning of litera-ture is in the language itself, and, conversely, the meaning of the language is discernible only through its use within the concrete literary creation.

Symbolic Interpretation

5 Ibid. p. 10. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.


Symbol interpretation was once a thriving art. Me-dieval scholars, notably Hugo of St. Victor, wrote sys-tematic accounts of symbolism, showing the various levels of possible interpretation, including the literal, al-legorical, mythological, moral, and spiritual. Dante’s Di-vine Comedy, one of the greatest works in all literature, is an outstanding example of verbal symbolic forms used to present nondiscursive meanings on several lev-els, of cosmic scope and universal human significance. In the present scientific and technological age, metaphorical usage has lost the place of honor in favor of literal modes of discourse. It is now becoming clear to many students of language that the earlier interest in metaphorical language was not unjustified, and a new appreciation is arising for the study of meanings that cannot be expressed by literal utterances.

The ArtsA final group of symbol-systems to be mentioned

are the forms in which other arts besides literature are expressed. In music various sets of tonal, harmonic, and rhythmic conventions are adopted as a vehicle for musical expression. For example, scales provide or-dered series of standard tones to be used in construct-ing musical patterns. Similarly, the visual arts consist of colors, textures, and movements organized according to certain conventions. These visual art elements and their principles of organization are, like musical ele-ments and forms, analogous to the materials and struc-tures of ordinary language.

The study of the expressive patterns of the arts belongs to the realm of esthetic meaning and not prop-erly to the study of symbolisms. Unlike the case of ordi-nary language, the forms of music, painting, sculpture, architecture, and dance cannot be separated from their substance. Any further discussion of the “language of art” will be reserved for the chapters to follow on mean-ing in the arts (Chapters 12 to 15).


SUMMARY OF MAJOR TYPES OF


This completes our summary of the various major types of nondiscursive forms comprising the last of the three sub realms of symbolics. The nondiscursive forms are not widely recognized as being comparable to lan-guages. Materials are not generally available for study-ing and teaching nondiscursive forms, as are materials for ordinary language and mathematics. One reason for this is that there are many different kinds of nondiscur-sive forms, making any common measure more difficult than for ordinary languages and mathematical systems. Another reason is the previously mentioned fact that these symbolisms cannot always be treated as autono-mous disciplines independent of the fields of meaning in which they are used (e.g., in the esthetic and syn-noetic realms).

Nevertheless, one feature distinguishes all three subrealms, making it appropriate to include them all within one realm and to bear a common name. It is characteristic of all three that they are humanly con-structed symbolic formalisms. They are instruments for the expression of meaning. The emphasis in learning any symbolism is not on the content of the meanings expressed, but on the conventional expressive forms used to objectify and communicate meanings. The con-tent of the meanings to be expressed is the subject of the other realms of meaning, to which we now turn.

WAYS OF KNOWING

1. What does it mean to say that ordinary lan-guages are “discursive symbolic forms”?

2. How is “nondiscursive symbolic forms” defined?3. How do discursive symbolic forms present

themselves?4. How do nondiscursive symbolic forms present

themselves?5. Discursive forms are primarily used to express

what?


6. Nondiscursive forms are chiefly used to express what?

7. List some of the principal types of nondiscursive symbolic forms and their functions.

8. How are bodily gestures symbolic?9. How are facial expressions symbolic?10. How is the human body used as an instrument

for communication?11. Why are manners and customs significant in the

life of humankind?12. In studying cultures, how would a person go

about learning the vocabulary, morphology, and syntax of the language and custom?

13. Patterns of culture are mainly expressed in the system of manners. Why is it important to perpet-uate customary behavior patterns?

14. Why are rituals important relative to expressing symbolic acts?

15. How are graphic or object-symbols used to ex-press profound meanings in human existence?

16. Why are dreams a uniquely significant class of symbols?

17. How are dreams an important clue to the dreamer’s emotional life?

18. What are some of the many schools of thought concerning dream interpretation?

19. Why is it that symbolism of dreams is a signifi-cant language that can be learned with great ben-efit to the learner?

20. Why are myths considered another kind of nondiscursive symbolism?

21. Why is there a new appreciation arising for the study of meanings?

22. How are music and the visual arts elements and principles of organization analogous to the materi-als and structures of ordinary language?

23. Why aren’t nondiscursive symbolic forms widely recognized as being comparable to languages?


24. Why aren’t materials generally available for studying and teaching nondiscursive symbolic forms?

25. What is the one common feature that distin-guishes all three subrealms (ordinary language, mathematics, nondiscursive symbolic forms)?

26. What one feature distinguishes all three sub-realms (ordinary language, mathematics, nondis-cursive symbolic forms), making it appropriate to include them all within one realm and bear a com-mon name?

27. Where should the emphasis be in learning any symbolism for meaning?

chapter 7 nondiscursive symbolic forms from ways of knowing through the realms of meaning by william...

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