25 May What is Epiphorology?

Unless I someday enter into professional scholarship and have the time and resources at hand to seriously develop this field of study, I cannot foresee deeply investigating this matter outside of a passing hobbyist interest and incidental use in my upcoming book. Yet by proposing the field in a public space, perhaps I may better gauge the potential for this kind of work. I discuss now a new topic for scholarship, which I mint as epiphorology.

Epiphors: A definition

The name epiphorology combines the Greek ἐπί (upon), φέρω (I bear, I carry) and λόγος (account, narrative). The epiphor in question is the implicit understanding of a symbol or image in addition to the purported use. An epiphor properly situated depends on the physics or mechanics of a conceptual idiom to communicate an intuition. While in contrast a metaphor substitutes one concept for another to make a comparison between two things, an epiphor latently dictates the application of such literary devices. An epiphor answers the question what is our common understanding? or how does your thought map to reality? given that ideas and the mechanics of our minds depend on comparisons to things detected by the senses.

Epiphors describe in details acquired through the senses the apparent mechanics of an immaterial concept. To say something has “spiraled out of control” for instance applies metaphorical language to a circumstance in which remediation is fixed or patterned motion and chaos is erratic, exponential and indistinct rapidity. These assumptions are the epiphors regarding an observer’s notions of both order and discord.

The most conspicuous places for epiphors, and the central object of study for such an analysis, are in analogies.

Analogies as a primary vehicle

Analogies principally suppose a state of affairs in one area which also subsists in another, perhaps less obvious fashion in a different area. Analogies can only provide isomorphic descriptions by their nature, and so within a limited context only a limited amount of data can be inferred. In this regard, even metaphors surpass analogies. Analogies however benefit from sharing continuities with older literature and allowing for stricter comparisons given the scope of analogical thinking, to the degree that the same sorts of analogies form a single thread from the earliest centuries to the present day.

Analogies benefit us for comparison because, as a rhetorical device, an author generally intends to emphasize some implicit and incidental but real and important mechanism shared in material and immaterial example. The use of these analogies can reveal otherwise disguised beliefs about ethics, theology, metaphysics and political theory.

An epiphor in a sun analogy

Take for instance a simple yet consistent analogy found in philosophy, the subject of the sun. Almost universally the sun is invoked as a symbol for truth or the good. Since the time of Plato’s Republic, it also serves as a demonstration of the first cause, that which sustains all other causes. Since the time of Philo (De somniis I § 13-19), the sun has provided a ready example for discussing the philosophical characteristics of the God of Israel and how He affects the created world through His invisible power. The two uses below illustrate how this analogy of the sun can diverge quite drastically between two different authors almost one thousand years apart.

Regarding the Father as source	Regarding the distinction of justification and sanctification
It is just the same as in the case of the sun from which come both the ray and the radiance (for the sun itself is the source of both the ray and the radiance), and it is through the ray that the radiance is imparted to us, and it is the radiance itself by which we are lightened and in which we participate. Further we do not speak of the Son of the Spirit, or of the Son as derived from the Spirit	Whomsoever, therefore, God receives into his favor, he presents with the Spirit of adoption, whose agency forms them anew into his image. But if the brightness of the sun cannot be separated from its heat, are we therefore to say, that the earth is warmed by light and illumined by heat? Nothing can be more apposite to the matter in hand than this simile. The sun by its heat quickens and fertilizes the earth; by its rays enlightens and illumines it
Saint John Damascene, De expositio fidei I.8	John Calvin, Institutes III.11.6

Contrast the allusion to the sun in its radiance and the sun in its brightness between the two writers. Both authors argue for the unity of their subjects based on a comparison to the sun, showing that two things ontologically belong to one thing because of their common source. They also wish to show through example a critical theological point. Saint John Damascene compares the Father to the sun to argue that the Son and the Spirit unite with the Father by nature. Contrariwise John Calvin believes a strikingly similar analogy, regarding heat and light, disambiguates two dimensions of the same ontological reality as a causal opposition between cause and effect, producer and product.

1. The sun analogy from the Damascene is used to demonstrate the fact that there are no internal causes within the unity of God: the sun by nature gives off the ray and radiance, and it is not the same as if the son caused grass to grow or water to dry because the ray and the radiance emit from the sun essentially. Calvin on the other hand supposes that justification, though it is united to sanctification in some loose sense, causes its opposite and has ontological priority. Note therefore the exclusive understanding each author takes on divine productivity.
2. For the Damascene, the unity constitutes essential identity (sunlight) between the sun, the ray and the radiance: the radiance communicates the ray and the ray communicates the sun. Calvin emphasizes instead that the sun produces two dissimilar things to itself. The products of the sun for the Damascene are not distinguished in real terms from the sun, while the point of Calvin’s analogy is to argue that they are indeed dissimilar.
3. Though the Damascene’s account of unity in God in this analogy does not seem to imply a plurality — we partake of the radiance given by the ray which comes from the sun as the source — in Calvin the difference in light and heat makes it a corporate entity, united as parts of a whole.

The continuity between the sun’s role in both analogies constitutes an epiphor. This single example lays bare some deeply held assumptions about both authors regarding their views on cause-and-effect, unity and productivity.

Limitations

Two factors present obstacles when applying any study of epiphors. First and most obvious, one can take apparent similarities too far between two authors’ analogies and link together what ought to warrant more caution. A person with dishonest motives could also begin with a particular conclusion in mind, for instance wishing to impugn a certain author, and connect them to a rival as distasteful or some bête noire in their field. I highly recommend coupling any epiphorological study with multiple instances of the epiphor appearing. as well as an accompanying dissertation and fair treatment on the principal subject as to ward against such a possibility, such that any monograph which contains some dimension of epiphorology uses it to support a thesis as one among several exhibits of evidence for their conclusion. The credibility of the individual must not be in question as well, or the analysis will be a superfluous and inadequate case.

I also caution against a second, more subtle and less easily remedied issue. A student can draw an epiphor from a source only when an author intends to communicate it through his or her emphasis of its presence, whether or not they are explicitly aware of what they emphasize or its relationship to other uses of the epiphor. The underlying mechanics of an author’s thought can be deeply concealed by a multitude of elements, including tensions in their thought which they leave unresolved and development in their thought which shifts how they might apply those same devices later in different settings. I think specifically of Plato, whose notions of the form as a transcendent entity becomes notably more material (and Aristotelian) in his definitively later works, such that the forms have a noticeably different aspect and function in Republic than Timaeus, to the degree that analogies used in the former could not transition well to the latter. This problem accelerates as we approach our contemporaries because of the sheer multitude of incoherences and disorganizations latent in modern man. I advise the study of epiphors be reserved for those with consistent and constructive thought, preferably before the advent of Renaissance humanism.

Taxonomizing analogies

To sequence these analogies, I imagine a system similar to the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index for cataloguing folk tales. A simple broad index number could suffice for specific subjects (e.g. the sun analogy could be indexed at 5), with subscripted letters distinguishing the observable phenomena which dictate its application. A rudimentary tag system could furthermore help to group together common applications for each of the analogies. For the above example, it might look something like this:

	Index	Tags	Name
	5a	unity, causation (power), essence	Sun-Ray-Radiance
	5b	unity, causation (power)	Sun-Light-Heat

Suggested applications

From the same passage as his exposition on the sun as an allegory, Philo reasons that in all things he cannot do otherwise but “guiding my conjectures by the light of analogy.” (De somniis I.204) Like our ancient forebears, we must not refrain from analogy as critical to understanding. Indeed the words of these similes and comparisons, though using an invented term epiphor, signifies a quite ancient and illuminating principle to human communication. I believe it poses one of the most powerful tools for dissecting and classifying human thought, though it may not suffice as the ultimate “method of methods.”

As a tool for tracing theological, metaphysical, political and literary influences, I also believe strong use cases lay in comparing how the modern world portrays certain real-world phenomena compared to the ancient world and better coloring our perceptions to match those of our predecessors, e.g. regarding birth and labor; war and interpersonal conflict. A similar study can also be used to analyze the use of language etymologies over time, e.g. how the use of artificial went from a term to describe a product of human craftsmanship to a term which means something unnatural or ill-fitting.