"History, Guilt and Habit" contains four
short essays by Owen Barfield, a British supporter of Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy
often regarded as an interesting philosopher in his own right. Barfield is
otherwise most known for being a friend of C.S. Lewis and Tolkien. Three of the
essays are based on lectures held in Vancouver, the fourth on a lecture in
California. As usual, Barfield talks about the evolution of consciousness, the
development of language and the inability of materialism to explain these
things. Not bad, but only a teaser trailer!
Those seriously interested in Barfield can't stop here, but most continue with "Saving the Appearences", "The Rediscovery of Meaning" and "Poetic Diction". Personally, I find Barfield hard to follow and even harder to swallow (his mentor Steiner is even worse!), but he *is* interesting. For a relatively readable introduction to Barfield, see "Romantic Religion" by R.J. Reilly.
Since "History, Guilt and Habit" might perhaps work as a sneak peak, I will give it three stars, but as I said, you can't really stop here...
No comments:
Post a Comment