A Philosophy of Form by Edward Ingram Watkin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Contemplating the Truth Together

Don’t let anyone convince you that the old - ideas, things, people - are merely archaic. Most often they contain little gems - of insight, craftsmanship, and wisdom - that reward even the slightest effort to recover them. A Philosophy of Form is an example of the point.

E. I. Watkin was a polymath - a philosopher, an aesthetic theorist, a poet, and occasionally even a theologian, among other things. He was a Catholic convert so much of his writings contain modern interpretations of medieval scholastic philosophy, particularly that of Thomas Aquinas. I find such apologetic material more self-rationalizing than analytic. But his A Philosophy of Form contains some stimulating thinking about the social character of aesthetics and a general method of reconciling aesthetic differences. This review covers only these aspects of his theory.

To some extent A Philosophy of Form is a period piece. ‘Form’ was typical of how one talked about aesthetics in the 1930’s. This is especially so for theoreticians with a Platonist tendency since it was Plato’s ‘eternal forms’ that inspired much of their thought. And if nothing else, Watkin is a card-carrying Platonist. But although his language is a bit archaic, his insights are still novel.

For Watkin, Form is “the nature of things.” This includes characteristics like shape, colour, dimensions, and so forth; but also everything else that can be ascribed to any object, idea or event. Form, therefore constitutes a kind of potential even if some aspects are never observed or recorded. This is obviously meant as a reference to Platonic ontology. The Forms constitute ultimate reality and their ‘nature’ is what one investigates in order to appreciate examples of a Form as it is manifest in a concrete material object, an idea, or event, or even an emotion. “Forms as such cannot change.” They are always complete.

“Matter,” on the other hand, “is the potency of receiving Form.” Matter is never encountered except in its union with Form. Individual things occur through this union. Form exists independently of Matter only in God. Some Matter may be ‘dead’ in the sense that it does not have the potential to develop more fully into its proper Form. Or, what amounts to the same thing, “a Form whose material expression is not renewed or improved.” If all this sounds a bit antique, it’s because it is fairly standard ancient Greek metaphysics. But Watkin uses it in a new way.

The human mind desires to know, to find the truth; it drives towards an ultimate reality. This is realizable only through Form not Matter. And the human faculty which permits and executes this search is called Contemplation. Contemplation is the activity that allows us to assemble wholes from parts. It is the same capacity as that described by Wordsworth in his poem Prelude (see https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). The apprehension of Form achieved through Contemplation is the standard or ideal by which we can judge our knowledge which is always a subjective, and therefore partial, truth.

Contemplation then is the perception of Form. Since Form is the standard of truth, it is also the ultimate measure of value. In other words, value is a Form of the divine. Without a perception of this Form, no action, rational or not, can be undertaken. That is, without a contemplative sense of the Form of value, we are left in the position of Ballam’s ass in the biblical parable - unable to choose between two equally attractive sources of food, and therefore dying of hunger.

It is significant that Watkin feels that “Mathematical Forms of quantity are the most clearly apprehensible.” Quantitative measurement is not more difficult than other kinds of perception, but in fact easier. The reason is because human beings are closer to these Mathematical Forms than any others. In a sense they are jointly created by God and man and so can be perceived through Contemplation more clearly and directly than others. Quantification therefore is not an inhibition to assessment of truth, beauty, and goodness, but a method of facilitating such assessment.

Perhaps most important in Watkin’s metaphysics is the belief that Contemplation is not a personal, private activity, but a social, public process involving, in principle, the entire planet: “Only the total life of humanity as a whole can obtain a vision of truth adequate to the entire capacities of the human mind.” Put another way, we can all know what any of us knows but no more than that... and no less. The establishment of the standards of truth are necessarily, and radically inclusive. Any deviation from absolute inclusivity distorts these standards and therefore compromises the truth.*

Contemplation therefore is a union of Freedom and Unity. It provides a view of what truly is but only in concert with other human beings. We must not mistake the recognition of truth as an individual achievement:

“... the successful statesman, financier or general, usually regarded as so pre-eminently and exclusively practical, owes his success to the faculty of seeing the wood in the trees, the form which gives unity and significance to a host of details, chaotic to the less gifted observer. He owes it to the power of contemplation.”

Watkin’s ‘bottom line’ as far as my interests go is that there is a necessary ethos implied by Contemplation:

“The entire human race is alone adequate to the sum of human contemplation. Recognition of this fact must unite men in a sympathy with points of view they cannot themselves share in the understanding which such sympathy begets, and in a humble appreciation of whatever is valuable and true in the belief and practice of others.”

“Contemplation unites,” he says, “by discovering unity.” It therefore demands a commitment of faith that what will result through Contemplation is a discovery. Certainly if such faith in one’s fellows is lacking no discovery is possible. And there is no absolute guarantee that any community or group can maintain the necessary level of mutual faith long enough to make this discovery. Therefore effective Contemplation is a risky business. Nevertheless, Contemplation is the necessary and sufficient condition for reason to function and for society and its constituent individuals to strive toward real value.

The alternative of course is coercion with its inevitable suffering, expense, and ineffectualness. It certainly seems worth the risk to me. Then again, perhaps that’s just an old man being old.

*Mary Carruthers makes a similar suggestion in her study of medieval monastic thought. See https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

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