Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry [Paperback]

Saving the Appearances is about the world as we see it and the world as it is; it is about God, human nature, and consciousness. The best known of numerous books by the British sage whom C.S. Lewis called the “wisest and best of my unofficial teachers,” it draws on sources from mythology, philosophy, history, literature, theology, and science to chronicle the evolution of human thought from Moses and Aristotle to Galileo and Keats. Barfield urges his readers to do away with the assumption that the relationship between people and their environment is static. He dares us to end our exploitation of the natural world and to acknowledge, even revel in, our participation in the diurnal creative process.Barfield draws on sources from mythology, philosophy, history, literature, theology, and science to chronicle the evolution of human thought from Moses and Aristotle to Galileo and Keats.Introduction to the Wesleyan Edition
Introduction
The Rainbow
Collective Representations
Figuration and Thinking
Participation
Pre-History
Original Participation
Appearance and Hypothesis
Technology and Truth
An Evolution of Idols
The Evolution of Phenomena
Medieval Environment
Some Changes
The Texture of Medieval Thought
Before and After the Scientific Revolution
The Graeco-Roman Age (Mind and Motion)
Israel
The Development of Meaning
The Origin of Language
Symptoms of Iconoclasm
Final Participation
Saving the Appearances
Space Time and Wisdom
Religion
The Incarnation Of the Word
The Mystery of the Kingdom
Index