Beyond Transcendence and Immanence: the Hermeneutical Spiral

The spiral, which Ray L. Hart substitutes for the circle, traces the “hermeneutical arc” of the philosopher’s work from his two principal books, Unfinished Man and the Imagination: Toward an Ontology and a Rhetoric of Revelation (1968; 2001) to God Being Nothing: Toward a Theogony (2016). With this substitution, Hart offers much more than a pure and simple indication of his method, since the spiral is itself the method according to which his work proceeds. Indeed, this work is a form of thinking which progresses by intensifications, just like a spiral which grows and intensifies by revolving around an axis – not only upward and downward, but also toward the right and the left. And it is because Hart’s work is a spiral-like progression that the preposition which recurs the most frequently in his work is justified: “toward”. This preposition not only indicates the argument toward which the (philosophical and theological) work progress but signals the fact that this effort is intrinsically tension toward. Thus, “toward” is not a stylistic artifice which rescues the author from having to “define” the object of his research but is rather the preposition which expresses the fact that the author and his research are always in tension between a “terminus a quo” and a “terminus ad quem.” And given that the tension arises when two elements are conjoined and united without any annihilation of their differences, the spiral is the appropriate image for expressing that situation in tension because it is a figure capable of containing multiplicity within itself while also preserving differences. The spiral is capable of this because: (1) it begins by unfolding from a single point and revolving around an axis to progress toward someplace else, in order to (2) enrich itself with new coils which surpass one another without an annihilation of the previous ones, and (3) it does so in a way that is potentially infinite, going toward every possible direction. In sum, insofar as the spiral traces a movement which always goes “toward,” it expresses the way that all human investigation must occur. The originality of the spiral, however, appears when it is contrasted with two other figures which are typically used in philosophy to indicate the way in which research and knowledge are explained: that is, the circle and the line. The latter is the expression of knowledge which proceeds in a continuous and “linear” way: it is capable of sustaining contraries but not contradiction. Indeed, if – as Aristotle says – contraries are maximally distant terms of the same type, then there can be contraries in “linear” knowledge but there cannot be contradictions: the latter would be unproductive and fallacious (which is why they must be resolved). The circle, on the other hand, has presented itself in philosophy in different forms: as circulus in probando, circulus in definendo, petitio principiis, tautology, circulus vitiosus. In contrast to the line which proceeds “toward” in a linear way, the circle tautologically repeats itself – taking back up into itself not only contraries, but also contradictions. The spiral, on the other hand, is a curve which does not return upon itself but rather – as was mentioned above – unfolds by enriching itself with that which is different from it and by going toward that which is other: it intensifies and expands itself not in a linear way, but by appropriating that which precedes it. Accordingly, its “coils” which proceed in a progressive way can even contradict what existed before, as well. Unfolding “toward,” the spiral is capable of that contradictory quality of the multiple that returns on several occasions in Hart’s work. For this reason, although Hart introduces the spiral in order to emphasize its methodological fertility, we maintain that the entirety of his philosophical system proceeds like a spiral. We will attempt to demonstrate this by: (1) pointing out the moments in which Hart introduces this figure and inquiring into the philosophical role that he assigns to it; (2) showing how the spiral is not only the image which is announced by Toward a Theogony, but is also the image which opens philosophy toward what we will a metagony – that is, a philosophical method which, inheriting from tradition the patient inquiry into the “elements” of metaphysica generalis (being) and of metaphysicae speciales (God, the world/cosmos, and humankind), attempts to “comprehend the incomprehensible,” or their incessant genesis. (3) Finally, after highlighting the difference between “duality” and “dualism,” and after having identified the various pairs which Hart introduces, there will be an attempt to show how the spiral is the image which enables us to overcome the opposition of immanence and transcendence when these categories are – at least in philosophy – usually conceived according to a spatial scheme of inner and outer. The latter conception is rarely challenged in philosophical thought that investigates the human experience of the world, of humankind, and of God.