1 Prosopopoeia and Apostrophe
‘At once Rumour raced through Africa’s great cities. Rumour is of all pests the swiftest. In her freedom of movement lies her power, and she gathers new strength from her going. She begins as a small and timorous creature; but then she grows until she towers into the air, and though she walks on the ground, she hides her head in the clouds. … By night she flies hissing through the dark in the space between earth and sky, and never drops her eyelids in contented sleep. In the daylight she keeps watch, sometimes perched on the rooftop of a house and sometimes on the tall towers of a palace. And she strikes dread throughout great cities, for she is as retentive of news that is false as she is ready to tell what is true.’ Virgil, Aeneid, IV. 173-7, 186-8; trans. W F Jackson-Knight, Penguin Books, 1956, pp 102-3.
The literary trope, or figure of speech, by which human characteristics including intentional actions are attributed to inanimate objects or abstract ideas has been common in poetry, and sometimes in rhetorical speeches, since classical times. The technical term for it is prosopopoeia or personification. It is often combined with another trope called apostrophe (literally, turning aside from the person one is really addressing to pretend to address someone or something else, which also may be inanimate or abstract), as in the following examples.
‘Accursed hunger for gold, what do you not drive the hearts of men to do?’ Virgil, Aeneid, III. 55
‘For now, hills and groves of Alba, I appeal to you, I say, and call you to witness.’ Cicero, Pro Milone, XXXI. 85.
‘Fair daffodils, we weep to see / you haste away so soon!’ R Herrick, To Daffodils.
‘Fly, envious Time, till thou run out thy race.’ J Milton, On Time.
‘Blow, blow, thou winter wind; / thou art not so unkind / as man’s ingratitude’ W Shakespeare, As You Like It, II.vii.174.
‘Death, be not proud, / though some have called thee / mighty and dreadful’ J Donne, Death.
‘Ye flowery banks of bonnie Doon / how can ye blume sae fair?’ R Burns, The Banks of Doon.
‘Stern Daughter of the Voice of God! / O Duty!’ W. Wordsworth, Ode to Duty.
‘Hail to thee, blithe spirit! / Bird thou never wert.’ P B Shelley, To a Skylark.
‘Thou still unravished bride of Quietness, / thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time.’ J Keats, Ode to a Grecian Urn.
These forms are part of the fabric of poetic language, which tries to communicate through metaphor ideas that cannot adequately be expressed in factual and literal prose. Such personification, for example of Wisdom, is found in a number of Old Testament books:
‘Wisdom calls aloud in the streets, she raises her voice in the public squares; she calls out at the street corners, she delivers her message at the city gates … “Since I have called and you have refused me, since I have beckoned and no one has taken notice, since you have ignored all my advice and rejected all my warnings, I, for my part. will laugh at your distress, I will jeer at you when calamity comes.” …’ Proverbs, 1: 20-21, 24-26.
In the New Testament, Jesus uses many images and metaphors, often puzzling both opponents and his followers about how literally to understand them, for example: ‘”I tell you most solemnly, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you”. … After hearing it, many of his followers said, “This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it?”’ Jn 6: 53, 60. (See my Introduction to Origen in Annex A4 for further discussion of Jesus’ use of metaphor.) His practice of addressing God as his father was an innovation which he taught his followers to follow in their prayer, and there is at least a partial personification in the Fourth Gospel of ‘another Advocate’, whom the Father will send, ‘to be with you for ever, that spirit of truth which [or whom] the world can never receive since it neither sees nor knows it [him]; but you know it [him] because it [he] is with you, it [he] is in you.’ (Jn 14: 16-7) English translations of these verses (informed by a possibly incorrect understanding of later Trinitarian doctrine) make the personification seem more complete than the original Greek, by using ‘whom/him/he’, where the Greek text uses the neuter forms throughout, agreeing with pneuma (spirit).
2 The Intentional Stance
A rose grower might explain ‘dead-heading’ in the following terms. ‘After the bush has flowered in spring, its aim is to produce from then remains of each flower a rose hip containing seeds by which it can propagate itself. Left to itself, all its energy would then be directed into growing these seed pods. But if you prefer the bush to produce more flowers rather than hips, you cut off the dead heads: the bush knows that these branches can no longer grow into seed pods, and is persuaded to redirect its energy into growing new flowers, which is the only way it has to develop further seed pods.’ Of course, the rose grower does not believe that the bush really has ‘aims’, that it ‘knows’ how to redirect its energy, or that it can be ‘persuaded’ to grow more flowers. This way of speaking, personifying the bush, conveys the main botanical phenomena in much simpler terms, that an amateur gardener can understand, than a full scientific description of the biological and evolutionary processes involved.
In the 1970s, a number of neo-Darwinian biologists began to use this type of language in popular explanations of evolutionary theory, notably (or notoriously) the ethologist Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene (1976, Oxford University Press). This book provides an account of animal (including human) behaviour starting from the premise that ‘We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes’ (Preface to 1st edition). Most of the story is told from ‘the gene’s eye view’. The book was criticized by some scientists as unprofessional in representing the gene as having motivations, goals, and strategies for achieving them; other readers complained of suffering severe depression, apparently convinced that human aspirations and morality were irrelevant or invalid because the selfish strategies of the all-powerful gene must in the long run defeat all human plans.
In his preface to the 30th anniversary edition (2006), Dawkins wrote: ‘The Selfish Gene has been criticized for anthropomorphic personification and this too needs an explanation if not an apology. … Personification of genes really ought not to be a problem, because no sane person thinks DNA molecules have conscious personalities, and no sensible reader would impute such a delusion to an author. I once had the honour of hearing the great molecular biologist Jacques Monod talking about creativity in science. I have forgotten his exact words, but he said approximately that, when trying to think through a chemical problem, he would ask himself what he would do if he were an electron. … Personification of this kind is not just a quaint didactic device. It can also help a professional scientist to get the right answer, in the face of tricky temptations to error. Such is the case with Darwinian calculations of altruism and selfishness, cooperation and spite. It is very easy to get the wrong answer. Personifying genes, if done with care and caution, often turns out to be the shortest route to rescuing a Darwinian theorist drowning in a muddle.’ Later in the same Preface he wrote, ‘One of the dominant messages of The Selfish Gene … is that we should not derive our values from Darwinism, unless it is with a negative sign. Our brains have evolved to the point where we are capable of rebelling against out selfish genes.’ This echoed the last sentences of his 1st edition, ‘We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.’
Daniel C Dennett is a philosopher of mind who, over the last 50 years, has developed a materialist theory of consciousness based on neo-Darwinian evolutionary principles. In particular he has outlined and justified a predictive strategy called ‘the intentional stance’. It works as follows: ‘first you decide to treat the object whose behaviour is to be predicted as a rational agent; then you figure out what beliefs that agent ought to have, given its place in the world and its purpose. Then you figure out what desires it ought to have, on the same considerations, and finally you predict that this rational agent will act to further its goals in the light of its beliefs. A little practical reasoning from the chosen set of beliefs and desires will in many – but not all – instances yield a decision about what the agent ought to do; that is what you predict the agent will do.’ (The Intentional Stance, 1989, The MIT Press Bradford Books, Cambridge, Mass, p 17)
This is the way we routinely treat other people in attempting to understand what they are thinking and how they will behave, but Dennett claims it can validly be applied (with varying success) to other objects, like roses, genes, or even a room thermostat: in this last case, the object’s ‘beliefs’ are few and simple (‘that the room is too hot or cold, that the boiler is on or off, and so forth’) and even fewer desires (e.g. to maintain the room at the correct temperature), from which we can predict that, if the room actually is too cold, the thermostat will turn on the boiler. Dennett would like physical sciences such as neuroscience to develop sufficiently so that we could replace all accounts of human behaviour in subjective (‘mentalist’) terms like ‘belief’ and ‘intention’ – what he disparagingly calls ‘folk psychology’ – by objective (’materialist’ or ‘physicalist’) descriptions based on scientific, independently observable data. He admits, however, that the intentional stance is currently a more useful system for predicting human behaviour than a materialist analysis (which in the present state of our knowledge cannot be complete), and that it can occasionally be a useful predictor when applied to other objects or systems. In more recent books Dennett has used the intentional stance much more widely as a shorthand way of describing Darwinian processes, for example, ‘The wisdom inherent in the design of multicellular life forms can best be understood by adopting the intentional stance toward the whole process of evolution’ (Freedom Evolves, Penguin Books, London, 2004, p. 166). He would not, therefore, see Dawkins’ personification of genes as a metaphorical application of terminology correctly applying to people: he would see such ‘folk psychology’ as equally appropriate or inappropriate to both people and genes.
Dennett’s claims have been strongly challenged by other philosophers of mind, such as John Searle. It is not my intention here to argue for or against Dennett’s position, merely to say that a coherent case can be (and has been) made that the application of ‘mentalist’ language to an object may elucidate aspects of that object which would otherwise be very difficult to understand, without committing oneself to the view that the object is in fact a person.
3 Charles Taylor’s two theories of language
The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, in The Language Animal – The Full Shape of the Human Linguistic Capacity (Harvard University Press, 2016), outlines two theories of the essential nature and purpose of language. His first theory, which he calls ‘Descriptive’ and traces back to Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Étienne Condillac, sees our words and expressions as mirroring the ‘ideas’ in our minds that represent facts as we perceive them in the real world. Language is a necessary tool for us both to think and to communicate, and it is used most effectively for precise and unambiguous descriptions of the world, seen from an objective (that is, a third party) viewpoint. One implication of this is that metaphors, which insert inappropriate elements into a description, tend to confuse or to introduce subjective feelings into what should be an objective statement about the external world. This understanding of language was adopted by Enlightenment thinkers, as particularly suitable for the development of natural science at that time. (It remains the underlying assumption of most exponents of science today, such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett.) Taylor notes that this theory relies on the ‘correspondence theory of truth’ – that a statement is true if and only if corresponds to facts about the real world.
Taylor’s second theory of language, which he calls ‘Constitutive’ or ‘Expressive’, originated in the thought of J G Hamann, J-G Herder and W von Humboldt and was then adopted by the German Romantics, though it incorporates insights from Kant, Heidegger and Wittgenstein in its development. It recognizes that linguistic expressions or utterances derive part of their meaning from the whole context in which they are used, and that often language cannot be fully understood without taking into account the user’s viewpoint, not just that of an independent third party. Language also has a creative capacity: new coinages or metaphors linking what is well understood to a new phenomenon can generate insights that modify our understanding of what had seemed familiar. One of the particular types or domains of discourse that he examines in detail is what he calls ‘human meanings’.
Human meanings ‘concern goals, purposes and discriminations of better or worse [including ethical stances and moral judgements] which can’t be defined in terms of objectively recognizable states or patterns. If what I seek is a meaningful life, or a profound sense of peace, or to be at one with the world, to be reconciled with things, to enjoy deep communion with my loved ones, and the like, what I’m after can’t be captured in some objectively identified pattern. In order to see what’s at stake here, one has to get inside the language of self-description, catch on to what a meaningful life is for me (or my culture in general), what I mean by a sense of peace, what profound communion requires.’ (pp. 93-94) These meanings ‘impinge on us not singly but in interconnected skeins. Pride or shame refer us to activities or achievements which are thought worthy or unworthy, and these to moral or aesthetic distinctions, or classifications of character, which underpin these judgements. … These skeins are, as it were, constellations of meanings which are defined in terms of each other. Pride and shame are given their sense by what are defined as objects of credit or discredit in the culture. But dependence may also go in the other direction; we may reconceptualize pride and shame so as to exclude certain objects from their field; for instance with the acceptance of a view which rules out involuntary features for either; we can only be proud or ashamed of features which we have brought about ourselves. And the skein stretches wider: pride/shame exists in our culture in a field where it contrasts with the alternative guilt/innocence. (pp.184-185) In relation to the modern concept of ‘meaningfulness’, for example, qualities of life or ways of living can be ‘dashing’ or ‘pedestrian’, ‘with integrity’ or ‘opportunistic’. In this range belong various virtue terms such as ‘generosity’, ‘human understanding’, ‘sensitivity’, loyalty’, ‘devotion to truth’, and motives like ‘charity’ or ‘compassion’, which enter into the definition of virtues. (p. 186)
As a consequence, in these cases, the correspondence theory of truth does not work, but requires a more holistic method of determining truth or falsity. ‘First, (A) these meanings, for instance, Ethical stances, start off in human culture as inarticulate intimations; and these have to be given some shape, some interpretation. They receive this sometimes first in modes of enactment, sometimes first in some form of verbal definition, and sometimes also in portrayals, rituals, works of art; but eventually all three are involved in defining and clarifying them. The second basic feature (B) these meanings share is that they are interpreted and articulated differently by different people, and eventually also cultures. This gives rise to questioning, sometimes disputes, and often mutual incomprehension and sometimes distrust between people, and even more between cultures. Third, (C) these meanings are defined not singly, but in skeins or constellations, where the meanings of individual terms are defined in terms of each other. … [For example,] in our ethical outlook, the good life is defined in contrast to other less valuable, or even bad or contemptible, ways of living. And the ethical ideal is bound up with some notion of the motives which favor it and those which impede it, while the description of a virtue is meant to make sense of the virtue as we enact it, and reciprocally, the currently accepted enactment is supposed to realize the excellence the virtue describes. We have to move back and forth, between part and whole, between the meaning we give to one incident and that we attribute to a whole life, or a larger slice of history; between our ethical commitments and the motivations we praise or condemn, encourage or frown on; between the virtues we subscribe to and the practices that are meant to realize them; in each case, trying to realize or restore coherence.’ (pp. 255-256) This is like the ‘hermeneutical circle’ of biblical interpretation, which seeks to reconcile the meaning of a particular verse with the message of the book in which it appears, and vice versa.
He discusses many other creative aspects of language, including its use in rituals; performative utterances (‘I declare you man and wife’, ‘I declare this meeting closed’, ‘We the People of the United States … do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America’ – paradoxically, since this Constitution first created ‘the People of the United States’ from the various colonial peoples of the time); ways of speaking that establish, confirm or alter the relationships between participants in a conversation (the ‘footing’ on which it is based); and the role of narratives, poetry and drama; all of which go beyond the limitations of the Descriptive theory of language.
4 Relevance of the above to the Christian understanding of God
The main essay (‘Goodness Gracious’) starts from the concept of God as ‘goodness’ (or ‘the supreme good’), an ideal which is manifested in and has consequences for our world. We would not ordinarily refer to such an ideal as a person. There is no authoritative dogmatic statement in the Christian tradition, so far as I know, that God is ‘a person’. (In part, this may perhaps be because the word ‘prosopon’ / ‘persona’ / ‘person’ became a term of art in the early Trinitarian debates – though the catechism definition of God as ‘a spirit’ is accepted even though one of the members of the Trinity is called ‘the Holy Spirit’). Yet liturgical prayers from earliest times address both the Triune God and the individual members of the Trinity as if they were persons; books about God (particularly in English) use grammatical forms appropriate to a person of the male gender; theologians often attribute to God wishes, intentions, emotions and other ‘mentalist’ concepts derived from our accounts of human behaviour; religious pictures often depict God as an old man; and many manuals of spirituality encourage Christians to imagine themselves conversing with God as if he were a human being.
The purpose of this note is to show that these are natural forms of expression when we are trying to convey novel or complex ideas for which everyday (descriptive) language seems inadequate, or which engage our emotions in ways to which everyday language does not do justice. They contain elements of metaphor or poetic licence that are valid for this purpose, but in doing so they leave behind the careful theological or philosophical analysis that would help us to clarify our understanding of God. There is nothing wrong with saying prayers and singing hymns that use extravagant language and contain fanciful images, nor in imagining face-to-face meetings with God, so long as one is not fooled into thinking that God actually sits on a throne in ineffable light surrounded by cherubim and seraphim and has a face.
Goodness Gracious 