Perspective
How you see things depends a lot on where you stand
Imagine several people sitting around a table staring at an object. Depending on where a person is sitting, the object looks different. One person may report that they see a green cube. Another person across the table looking directly at one side may think he is looking at a cream-colored two-dimensional square. Both men are looking at the same object, but they see different things.
Yet it is also true that they see a whole thing—more than the one side or perspective of the cube in front of them. “I see the cube from one angle, from one perspective. I cannot see the cube from all sides at once. It is essential to the experience of a cube that the perception be partial, with only one part of the object being directly given at any moment. However, it is not the case that I only experience the sides that are visible from my present viewpoint. As I see those sides, I also intend, I cointend, the sides that are hidden. I see more than what strikes the eye.” Robert Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology, 17. “All experience involves a blend of presence and absence, and in some cases drawing our attention to this mixture can be philosophically illuminating.” Sokolowski, 18.
By highlighting the way that we perceive things differently depending on our perspective, we not only come to know things better (e.g., by seeing all facets of something or considering all parts of a problem), but we also learn about other people more. Two people may walk into a museum and physically see the same painting, but their perception of it could be totally different. And a lot goes into perception. It is far more than a person’s eyesight. It’s also a person’s location, the lighting, the quality of the air; it’s also the person’s memories and life experience that could change his perspective. The same Monet painting could conjure up a terrible memory for one person while it gives another person the complete opposite feeling. You may think the girl is looking at all of those who have abandoned her and her game. Or perhaps she’s an only child thinking of the brother or sister she does not have to play with. Or maybe she is looking back at her house where she has an abusive parent and she is considering running away. The possible interpretations are endless, though we are looking at the same brush strokes.
Some years ago, there was a debate about the color of a dress that was pictured online. The debate took on a strange life of its own, but it was interesting to see some of the reactions: (1) People were surprised and shocked(!) that others could look at the same photo and say that the colors in the dress were something different from what they saw. (2) People were absolutely convinced of their own view point, despite never seeing the dress in person. Once they reached a conclusion—the dress was black/blue or it was white/gold—they held to it firmly. (3) And, when people were challenged, they did not consider that any other opinion could be valid, but rather dug in their heels and their opinions grew stronger.
Return to those people around the table looking at an object. They only see one side of the object, so it may be more reasonable and easier for them to accept that people with different views may see different things. After all, if I am looking at one side of a quarter and you are looking at the other, we are seeing different images, even though we are both seeing the same quarter. It’s a good practice to try to see things from a different perspective. In the movie, “Dead Poets Society,” Mr. Keating climbs on his desk and asks the boys, “Why do I stand up here?” “To feel taller,” one student replies. “No . . . I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way. See, the world looks very different from up here.” How true.
But it is still a question how we can get such variation of perspective when people look at exactly the same thing—the same painting in front of them, the same animal, or the same text? Why are there such differences of opinion when, controlling for things like color-blindness, etc., we can be confident they see the same thing?
[W]hen other perceivers are brought into the picture, the same identity takes on a deeper objectivity, a richer transcendence; I now see it not only as the thing I would see differently if I were to move this way and that, but also as the very same thing that is being seen, right now, from another perspective by someone else. The object is given to other viewers through manifolds that are different from those facing me, and I see the object precisely as being seen by others through viewpoints that I do not share. I realize that it presents facets to others that are not being presented to me, and hence these other facets are cointended by me, precisely as not my own. The identity of the thing is there not only for me but also for others, and therefore it is a deeper and richer identity for me. There is more ‘there’ there; the being and the identity of the thing are heightened by the introduction of intersubjective perspectives.
Robert Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology, 31-32.
I recently looked at two different authors/thinkers who all have written about the Book of Genesis, which seemed like a good starting place. Marilynne Robinson (Reading Genesis) and Leon Kass (The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis) overlap at times in their thinking, but they focus on different aspects of the book because they come to it from different perspectives. As Sokolowski noted, “I see the object precisely as being seen by others through viewpoints that I do not share.” In reading Robinson and Kass, we learn a lot about the interpreter in addition to the text being interpreted.
Robinson is a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist, a Calvinist, and a literary critic. Leon Kass is a physician, is Jewish, and has spent a lot of his career writing and speaking about bioethics and philosophy.
Robinson’s approach is largely that of a literary critic. She is very interested in how other cultures and writings—like the Epic of Gilgamesh or themes in Greek mythology—influenced the writer(s) of the Book of Genesis. And for Robinson, these literary forms and features are an interpretive lens to the theological points in the text. It is difficult, in fact, to separate the literary and the theological. Robinson seems much more interested in the grand vision of things—the cosmology and metaphysical import of the Book of Genesis—while also being attentive to where the Book of Genesis diverges from other myths at the time and the theological import that may have. She is particularly interested in where the Bible diverges from or changes aspects of what she calls the “Babylonian model.”
Those diversions are Robinson’s interpretive key. Take Noah and the flood, for example. For the Babylonians, the creation of people was not a unique thing—if the gods wanted more people, they just created more people. In the Mesopotamian myth’s account of a flood, there is not much unique about creating a new group of people after the flood. In the Bible, however, Noah is a particular man (along with his family) chosen by God to be the source of future generations. That also means that for the Bible, God’s interactions with man take on moral overtones. Noah is chosen not at random, but because he is righteous. And after Noah, society will have a clearer sense of God’s laws and the parameters He sets for living.
The Bible is also very focused on morality for Kass, but he approaches the text as one seeking wisdom without any preconceptions. Kass frequently talks about how the text reveals itself if one is open to following the text where it leads. By this approach, Kass is like a phenomenologist, seeing every side of something before making a judgment about the whole. He is open to different viewpoints or aspects of the text that could be surprising. For Kass, Genesis presents a moral anthropology, an account of human nature and the human condition that speaks to the perennial challenge we experience caught between our animal nature and our spiritual aspirations. We are bound to the earth while we seek what is above. And for Kass, that tension plays a significant role in how we think about the development of the human community and society, and the relationship between man and woman in particular.
Robinson addresses the struggle between our natural inclinations and our spiritual striving in her treatment of human consciousness. We participate in the divine in some way through human consciousness, which allows her to interpret the creation stories in Genesis not as scientific fact but as literature that reveals something about our unique nature as humans. Kass does not treat Genesis as science, either, but he focuses much more on our development as social beings in the world who are given a structure or framework for moral action by God. We are also social beings in a way that is different from the animals. That is because we are gifted with reason, speech, the capacity for moral choice, and self-reflection. For Kass, the fall of Adam and Eve is less about transgression and more about the awakening of human beings to our full potential. The Flood is about fragile societies and how they can crumble without a proper moral framework rather than divine judgment on a creation gone astray.
Robinson and Kass’s different focus on the text leads to different conclusions, but each of them offers something worthy of our consideration. We should not—indeed, cannot—reduce their interpretations to a simple explanation: Robinson is a Calvinist who focuses on a personal or individual interpretation of the Bible with an eye to the transcendent while Kass is Jewish and focuses on a communal interpretation of the Bible focused on practical wisdom. If we solely view an author’s words by his or her background, we fail to see the full range of their thought. And we also learn about the object of our inquiry—that it is subject to many interpretations depending on what the interpreter personally brings to the text.
These interpretive differences cover everything, not just the Bible. For example, I’m reading Lincoln Unmasked by Thomas J. DiLorenzo on the recommendation of a friend. DiLorenzo challenges the prevailing narrative around Abraham Lincoln—his approach to slavery, the economic underpinnings of the Civil War, and other issues. Agree with DiLorenzo or not, it’s useful to read him and gain another perspective. If you are arguing the opposite position, it’s essential to know what his position actually is, and so you need to read it.
In today’s society, we barely allow others the time they need to explain themselves, much less giving different viewpoints their due. Hearing all sides of an issue or taking in different viewpoints only sharpens our own thinking and is a very human activity.
Remember to turn every page. Have a great weekend and let me know whether you need anything.
Best, Aaron
PS - This week, we laid to rest Peter A. Redpath, who was a man of unique perspective. He taught philosophy at St. John’s in New York for more than 30 years, wrote more than 20 books, and many articles. But Peter was for me a bright light in Phoenix since we met almost 15 years ago. He was always the first to respond to these newsletters, and sometimes added his own pearl of wisdom. He would have liked this post. Peter loved to synthesize things, and see how thinkers of different generations could be in dialogue with one another. We both had a particular interest in how metaphysics and ethics work together in the human person: “The natural human desire to become happy, in turn, can only be satisfied by generating the sciences of metaphysics and ethics,” Peter wrote. “And of these two, ethical activity can only be completely satisfying to the extent to which we are able intellectually to satisfy ourselves that, in this life, we have achieved the best of human goods: a most perfect contemplative knowledge of the beauty of our own souls, that we possess the highest truth and perfect virtue.” He was a gift to me and those who knew him. RIP.