Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Philosophical and Theological Papers 1958-1964

Titel: Philosophical and Theological Papers 1958-1964

Stichwort: Symbol; Wechselbeziehung: Affekt - Bild, Imagination

Kurzinhalt: By a symbol is meant an affect-laden image. There is the image, and either it evokes the affect or the affect evokes it.

Textausschnitt: 189a A fourth type of meaning, one that again escapes the level of words, of clear concepts, of flat affirmations and negations, is the meaning of the symbol. By a symbol is meant an affect-laden image. There is the image, and either it evokes the affect or the affect evokes it. They correspond to one another. The affect finds expression in the image, resonates in the image, finds form and concreteness in the image; on the other hand, the image is dynamic, alive, moving, insofar as it is connected with the affect. Images or symbols have been studied in many different ways. In the Freudian account, symbols are expressions of family relationships, especially family relationships gone sour, and very sour, as illustrated by the Greek tragedies built about the story of the Seven against Thebes.1 Carl Jung is concerned with symbols of transformation, of conversion, of death and resurrection, with the preformation, on the level of the unconscious and of the sensitive soul, of man's higher spiritual activities.2 (Fs)