the Broken Ring: A History and Theory of Symbol

This work is regarded as the founding text of a new epistemology and may be read as an introduction to The Crisis of Religious Symbolism by the same author. It begins with a historical survey of theories of symbolism stretching from antiquity to the modern period, moves on to a critique of contemporary linguistic theory, and then turns to a ground-breaking structural analysis of the symbolic sign that uncovers a necessary but too long elided metaphysical dimension. In sum, it presents a theory of the symbol that seeks to restore, intelligibly, and in a way that transcends contemporary deconstructions, the ancient doctrines of both East and West. But make no mistake: this is philosophy, not ethnology. The symbolic sign is the nodal point of metaphysical thought, the place where nature becomes culture and culture becomes nature; that is, where being and meaning are reconciled without confusion. Such is the central concern of The Broken Ring.