Loved this conversation! As I noted in a comment there- I would love to hear you three unpackage is Barfield’s conception of “polarity” - e.g. as he tried to explain it in his appendix of What Coleridge Thought... I genuinely wonder at times if I am just too obtuse to understand it!
I don't have WCT on hand but I think it's meant to challenge the facile notion of mere opposition. 3 cannot be the opposite of cantaloupe because opposites must share an axis of commonality in order to be situated in opposition the one to the other. 3 does not share enough with melons to be opposed to them. This much is probably obvious. But now lets consider something like "inside" and "outside," or "mind" and "matter," or "subject" and "object." They are pairs of opposites, indeed, but that entails that they share something that is common to, and transcendent to them both.
The synchronic relation here can also be conceived, in the Barfieldian, which is actually the Steinerian spirit, diachronically. The opposition of "inside" and "outside" hearkens back to a time not when everything was outside nor when everything was inside but rather to a time before the world had been polarised in this way. "Adam" before Eve arrived does not refer to Adam after she arrived but rather to a person which contained, in potentiality, everything that would later appear as both of them.
I hope I understood your question and was able to offer something of interest.
Thanks Max - that does help... I’m probably over thinking it in some respects... I think it’s the whole-ness and unity I miss because I’m focused on the distinctive “poles” as opposed to this usage of polarity as more integrative...
I really appreciate your taking time to respond and trying to help these old brain cells!
Loved this conversation! As I noted in a comment there- I would love to hear you three unpackage is Barfield’s conception of “polarity” - e.g. as he tried to explain it in his appendix of What Coleridge Thought... I genuinely wonder at times if I am just too obtuse to understand it!
Thanks Max!
I don't have WCT on hand but I think it's meant to challenge the facile notion of mere opposition. 3 cannot be the opposite of cantaloupe because opposites must share an axis of commonality in order to be situated in opposition the one to the other. 3 does not share enough with melons to be opposed to them. This much is probably obvious. But now lets consider something like "inside" and "outside," or "mind" and "matter," or "subject" and "object." They are pairs of opposites, indeed, but that entails that they share something that is common to, and transcendent to them both.
The synchronic relation here can also be conceived, in the Barfieldian, which is actually the Steinerian spirit, diachronically. The opposition of "inside" and "outside" hearkens back to a time not when everything was outside nor when everything was inside but rather to a time before the world had been polarised in this way. "Adam" before Eve arrived does not refer to Adam after she arrived but rather to a person which contained, in potentiality, everything that would later appear as both of them.
I hope I understood your question and was able to offer something of interest.
Thanks Max - that does help... I’m probably over thinking it in some respects... I think it’s the whole-ness and unity I miss because I’m focused on the distinctive “poles” as opposed to this usage of polarity as more integrative...
I really appreciate your taking time to respond and trying to help these old brain cells!