Learning Paths » 5C Interacting
Joyce's epiphany and contemporary physics is an essay written by Giuseppe Martella.
The aim of the essay is to connect Joyce's concept of epiphany with contemporary physics.
Mr Martella arranged the essay into three chapters:
- Telling a story
- Contemporary physics and
- Joyce's epiphany
to analyze the concepts of myth, history and poetry from the time of Aristotle to the period of contemporary physics, and after that he tried to connect the previous concepts with Joyce's epiphany.
The first chapter, Telling a story, has the function to introduce the Aristotelian concept of story, which recalls the Western narrative of the whole nineteenth century and its epistemological relevance in shaping the form of western thought.
Aristotele's concept of story conflicts with Joyce's works, in that the epistemological function of the story is put into queston by the anthropological sense of the word myth, which is doubted for the first time. As a result a crisis of the view of the physical and metaphysical world follows.
The first paragraph has the function to introduce the concepts of myth, story and poetry in Aristotle's Poetics.
The second and the third paragraphs have the function to describe the three previous concepts:
Myth is the most important element in a work of poetry and it is the shaping structure of a literary work, characterized by unity, coherence extension and development.
The story is a series of events and it is the structural principle (telos) of drama and epos. So the story is the fundamental element of poetic art. In conclusion the philosopher explains what poetry means.
Poetry is an imitation of what is most essential in nature; human action is the main object of poetic imitation and the reality is amenable to a unitary description.
In the fourth paragraph, the author presents TELLING: the semantic innovation in story -, which consists in an operation of synthesis. A synthesis is the process of composition of events in order to develop a story, that is the ordering of facts in a system.
Aristotle's concept of story is a poetic solution to the problems of temporal experience because it imposes order on the chaos of actual experience. The story is composed according to a logical sense, which is a beginning, a middle and an end.
In conclusion the fifth paragraph has the function to underline the contrast between Aristotle's concept of story and Joyce's works, which changes the world view of our time.
The second chapter, about Contemporary physics, has the function to show how the world view changes in our time, in particular in contemporary physics.
The first paragraph has the function to define what contemporary physics means. It means the paradigms of physical science regulating our ideas about that which is in nature.
In the second paragraph, the author provides an example to support his thesis: the development of elementary quantum mechanics. He states theories and experiments in physics nowadays anticipate a discussion of the attribute of any physical object. Consequently it provides a criticism of the idea of substance.
The third paragraph has the function to explain the relationship between the ontological and phenomenological aspects of nature. Indeed, nature appears as a fragment, which refers back to a totality, an event that implies a certain statistic configuration of the whole. So nature appears as a "multiverse" of phenomena which implies a universe of being, which is only to be understood as a statistical probability.
The fourth paragraph has the function to show the goal of contemporary physics, that is, to show the relationship between language and reality. Whenever one wants to discuss nature, one has to use words and concepts which come down to human history. Therefore, they are not immediately capable of explaining the real and that happens only by hypothesis.
The fifth paragraph has the function to explain the analogies and the differences between myths and modern scientific models. In fact contemporary physics uses models, which are considered a series of myths of the present time.
Myths and modern scientific models
Analogies
- Both are symbolic
- No arbitrary inventions
- The cognitive function of the real is irreplaceable.
Differences
- The aim of myth is to explain the proper being of a phenomenon;
- the aim of model is to explain the experience of it.
- Myth is the telling of a story about the world; the model is not.
In conclusion the last paragraph has the function to connect the two chapters with the last one, that is it provides anunderstanding Joyce's poetics.
The relationship between structure and manifestation of a world has to be reconsidered, because the structure of a particle can be understood only in terms of processes and interactions (dynamic sense), so they don't follow the classic logic which considers them in a causal and in a conditional relationship.
The last chapter is the one trying to define and to explain the concept of epiphany.
The first paragraph has the function to present the birth of the concept.
The concept of epiphany arises from the decadent and symbolist poetics around the end of the nineteenth century, which put their stress on the autonomy of the aesthetic perception and on the privileged moment which gives sense to the whole of existence.
Epiphany is a kind of ecstasy, that is A SUSPENSION OF THE USUAL RELATIONSHIP WITH THE BEING, which produces A NEW REALITY, THE TRUTH OF THE THING.
The second and the third paragraphs have the function to explain the concept.
During an epiphany pieces of reality are capable of providing a particular aesthetic meaning.
Aesthetic means beauty, and beauty consists of three aspects:
- Unity
- Harmony
- Radiance.
Therefore during an aesthetic perception (in a moment of radiance), things appear for what they are and this provides a suspension of one's conscience's usual discourse.
Moreover the author introduces the concept of claritas which is in relationship with Heidegger's idea of Lichtung, the suffused blinking in which the being presents itself to human thought.
The fourth paragraph has the function to show the relationship between epiphany and the new logos.
EPIPHANY IS A MOMENT OF AESTHETIC PERCEPTION
REPRESENTING THE ECSTATIC ARREST OF TIME.
This idea is a symptom of a new logos which is searching for itself, but it also a challenge to the classical logic of identity (the principle of cause and necessity and the narrative logic of myth).
As a result, it provides the birth of monologue in Western thought and it opens an epoch of dialogic discourse (used by Joyce in his works).
The fifth and the sixth paragraphs have the function to show the use of epiphany in Joyce's works, in particular in Ulysses, where a new mode of perception of the world is given.
An epiphany is marked by the metaphor of light: it marks the end of an order of relationship among phenomena and the beginning of a new order , and therefore a suspension, which is the beginning of a new world.
In conclusion light allows a new perception of reality.