Origin of man and the presence of myth in the metaphysics of expression: an attack to the unthought in Eduardo Nicol

Origem do homem e presença do mito na metafísica da expressão: um atísbo do não pensado em Eduardo Nicol

Abstract

The present investigation aims to elucidate the presence of myth in the work of Eduardo Nicol. This inquiry of course, is something not thought about, since the author in question from the beginning of his philosophy has recognized that the path of thought is beyond myth, that is, it is nuanced by reason and by conceptual rigor. In other words, for him philosophy is about what is phenomenologically accessible and about what is rationally intelligible. Precisely for this reason, one of the names with which Nicol's philosophy is known is under the name of "Metaphysics of expression" by virtue of the fact that what is given is commonly acquired through an expressive or communicative act. However, and despite this conceptual position, the fact is that the presence of myth can be found at the very heart of this philosopher’s philosophy. It should be noted that there is a particular myth that prevails in the clearing of his work, namely the myth of the androgyne. Through this myth it is possible to elucidate the origin of man and the original idea about symbol.

Keywords
Man; Nicol; Myth; Symbol.

Resumo

A presente investigação visa elucidar a presença do mito na obra de Eduardo Nicol. Essa indagação, é claro, não é algo pensado, visto que o autor em questão desde o início de sua filosofia reconheceu que o caminho do pensamento está além do mito, isto é, é matizado pela razão e pela rigor conceitual. Ou seja, para ele, filosofia é sobre o que é fenomenologicamente acessível e sobre o que é racionalmente inteligível. Precisamente por isso, um dos epílogos com que a filosofia de Nicol é conhecida recebe o nome de "Metafísica da expressão", em virtude do fato de que o dado é comumente adquirido por meio de um ato expressivo ou comunicativo. Porém, e apesar dessa posição conceitual, o fato é que a presença do mito está no cerne da filosofia desse filósofo. Deve-se notar que existe um mito particular que prevalece na clareira de sua obra, a saber, o mito do andrógino. Por meio desse mito é possível elucidar a origem do homem e a ideia original sobre o símbolo.

Palavras-chave
Homem; Nicol; Mito; Símbolo.

Introduction

The theme around the myth in the work of Eduardo Nicol, clearly, is unusual, since the author has expressly proposed the execution of a conceptually rigorous philosophy, called by himself as 'Dialectical Phenomenology', given that to him “the dialectics is not alternative nor option in philosophy, it is rather the natural operation of reason” (NICOL, 2001, p. 180). Likewise, it must proceed phenomenologically, scrupulously in attention to the mode of presence in which the alien is disposed. For a philosophy like this, what is shown is what it is. This is a phenomenon that the dialogic reason needs on each of its symbolic acts. To sum up, this means that, at first sight, in the philosophy of our author, there is no place for absence, or for "a concrete sign that evokes, through a natural relationship, something absent or impossible to perceive" (DURAND, 2010, p. 13). For Nicol, there is only one being: it is reachable considering it is fully manifested in appearance.

However, it is very relevant that the biographical sequence of our author is composed by two monumental works: at the beginning, La idea del hombre published in 1946, and Crítica de la razón simbólica published in 1982, at the end. Both works have as common denominator leading the reason to the limits of its scope; it is precisely in this last work in which he finally comes to recognize “the fact that we are surrounded by mystery…, the mystery is not solved, the origin is the limit; the impossibility of giving reason to this limit is another limit” (NICOL, 1990, pp. 38-39). Nicol, in the last part of his intellectual biography, while displaying the infinite power of the discursive reason, faces the mystery, which, phenomenologically, is evidently impossible. Nevertheless, this last facet contrasts sharply with the first part of his biography because in his 1946 text he is also bordering the limits of the discursive word, affording to recur to poetry, allegory, and myth to overcome those limits without problem. By this, he observes a first approximation precisely to the mythical origin of the metaphysics of the expression. On the one hand, we think that Nicol does not fully perceive this, given that, there is a route which is being used to go through that further limit, in the first part of his work. On the other hand, we state that it is especially here that we have found the framework for the possibility of an investigation around the presence of myth in the Catalan author's philosophy.

The finding of the myth by the metaphysics of expression

Even though, on repeated occasions, Eduardo Nicol has insisted that the path of philosophical search must be dominated by reason, meaning that any glimpse of fantasy in this area must be silenced by rigorous thinking, it is true that almost from the beginning of his philosophical proposal, in a parallel way, the Catalan author was stablishing the foundations, for the possibility of a metaphysics of the expression from a mythical horizon.

This situation located in his philosophy, in which the author is using the myth to found his grand philosophical gesture, reminds us of what happened in the pages of Plato's system: while he was trying to expel the poets from the Republic (see, PLATO, 2017, 607a). “Hence, Plato believed that poets deserved to be censored for certain scandalous stories about the gods and for their inability to explain their knowledge of reality. That is why he concluded that they should be expelled from the ideal city of the Republic” (GARCÍA, 1998, p. 15). Plato did not realize that he himself was acting as a poet when founding his ideal city based on a myth. Likewise, Nicol proposes the need a rigorous philosophy throughout the term of the word. He does not realize that in his pursuit of silencing any flash of fantasy, when it comes to mentioning, in its strict terms, the parameters of the metaphysics of the expression, he himself has drawn a path for the possibility of this philosophy which starts exactly from the myth.

How can the presence of myth in Eduardo Nicol's work be explained? To understand this finding a bit, we must mention, first of all, that around 1941, when Nicol publishes his first book entitled Psicología de las situaciones vitales, a concern for the unity of man's being emerges. The Catalan author started from the fragmentation feature, given that from the Greeks to Nicol’s time, the human being had been conceived as divided into its parts, either as two superimposed substances, or as two synchronized substances: the feature was the fragmentation; however, the problem then was unity. Nicol, however, from his first work is going to start paddling against the tide because he claims that the philosophical focus of Psicología de las situaciones vitales has implicitly the goal of man specifically located in the world. This is, man will always appear alone in the context of a situation and vital relationship, in other words: he exists in the middle of a relationship with others and also with its similar, this is like the habitat of man, “the situation is my situation facing all this. Without all this he would not have a situation; but without someone who would live in, in front of, with all this, he would not have a vital situation either” (NICOL, 1996, p, 107); the subject is then differentiated but at the same time twinned with the rest of the mortals, each one has an exclusive behaviour, that is to say unique, but at the same time related to the others. In man there is something that allows him to distinguish himself from his respect for others, but also to identify and distinguish himself from his similar ones. Here lies the key point, from which the author will lay the foundations for the path that the rest of his philosophy will occupy in the future. From here, for the first time, the notion of "expression" can be seen, which will flourish in the hands of the Catalan author. It is enough for now to announce that through this notion the author finds the principle of unity and singularity among mortals.

Let's clarify that the first problem faced by Nico is the fragmentation of the being of man. This fracture can be traced in two directions: first, man with himself and, second, the indifference and lack of communication of each other with others (solipsism). In the text of 1941, the Catalan, at the moment of dealing with the first meaning of this fragmentation, will conclude by saying that “there is no psychic function that operates in isolation from the others; the very idea of isolated functions, and their classification in psychology, is already an adulterating schematism” (NICOL, 1996, p, 25). This means that for the author, the problem of the division of man between body and mind is precisely a false problem because man is an integrated whole that works without separation in every situation. This is because his whole being is at stake in every moment in each one of his actions. He cannot be detached from one of his parts or functions to deal with some situations and become a whole again in another circumstances. Regarding to the second fracture, between the subject and the others, Nicol makes a first exit proposal based specifically on the notion of a vital situation because “in reality, a human being can never stop being in a vital situation” (NICOL, 2004, p. 123): man is in a vital relationship precisely because each one exists in a certain way in the midst of the entity, the vital relationship depends on how each one is before the other. Therefore, the author concludes by saying that "the psychic subject does not exist except in or before events and people" (NICOL, 1996, p. 94). The subject relates to others through their work, that is, through their actions. Each action is a way of expressing oneself, of exposing oneself, this is because every act, to some extent, is in direction towards someone else, not me.

The previous mentioned ends up stating an important revelation: "given that we are always in some situation, when we are in it is what we express, it always expresses our way of being in situation" (NICOL, 1996, p. 148). Nicol carries out the identification among being, doing and expression. This is of paramount importance, since, starting form this, the foundations for the hope of a philosophy of expression are laid. Man, far from being conceived as a closed or conclusive substance, is understood rather as a work, as something open that is always in the process of resolution. Considering that man is known only for what he does, and his job is to build his being, and this entire poetic process is manifested or exposed in the expression, the first comparison between doing, being and the expression is carried. “At this point we have reached its end. Our claim would have been to show clearly that a psychological theory of vital situations necessarily leads to a theory of expression” (NICOL, 1996, p. 162). This path would refer to the unthinkable.

It is curious that between 1941 and 1957, a period that separates the publication of Psicología de las situaciones vitales and the appearance of the first version of the Metafísica de la expresión, there is an extremely important and symptomatic fortress. This intermediate fortress is the publication, in 1946, of the first version of La idea del hombre. This work is where Nicol makes the discovery of the myth and assumes it as a constitutive element of his philosophy. Considering that while it is true that, on the one hand, "this work can be considered as a history of anthropology in Greece" (NICOL, 2004, p. 9), it is also true that, on the other, the author is laying the groundwork for the possibility of a philosophy of expression but from different images of Greek mythology.

In a sense, the face of the urgency of a new metaphysics, the need to weigh notions such as expression, appearance, communication, intersubjective solidarity and concretion of the human being becomes urgent. What now appears on the horizon is the possibility of the metaphysics of expression, and the Catalan author, we do not know the reason, has opted for myth as a first piece towards the establishment of this philosophy. Although, deep down, the author knows that in the range of Greek images, a symbolic wealth underlies that poetically discover the genuine nature of man's being.

2. First Mythological Approach to the Metaphysics of Expression, or Similarity and Difference between Men and Gods

We begin this subsection by bringing up a phrase mentioned by Joseph Campbell (2008), regarding the relationship between myth and philosophy: “it would not be an exaggeration to say that myth is the secret entrance through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos are poured into human cultural manifestations. The philosophies, the arts, emanate from the fundamental magic ring of myth” (p, 11). This is a solid manifestation. Throughout the tradition, we have been able to witness the recurring presence of mythological images in different philosophical systems, already as a source of inspiration, as a correspondent position, as a goal at the end of time, starting from Plato, Nietzsche, Marx, Heidegger, Cassirer, etc.

Nicol's approach focuses specifically on the framework of Greek culture: “In Greece, the divine world is far complex and diverse. From its slow formation process, we can gather something that matters to our object of study: the humanization of divine beings corresponds to the progressive individuation of the Greek man” (NICOL, 2004, p. 50). At this point, we find a similar and at the same time different element of the approach expressed, at the time by Hegel, when he claimed that the Greek religion itself consisted of the anthropomorphizing of the gods. That is, according to the German author, “the figure of God who sheds himself of the hardship of the natural conditions of animal existence. These old gods, in which the luminous essence is first particularized in pairing with darkness ..., are replaced by figures that only have in them the dark resonance that reminds those titans, and are no longer natural essences, but diaphanous ethical spirits of the self-conscious people” (HEGEL, 1980, p. 379). These approaches are similar, just because both authors recognize that the Greek Pantheon's own note consists in overcoming the merely natural, or bestial. However, the reason for this anthropomorphizing is different for these authors. For Hegel it is the deployment of the absolute Spirit for the sake of his own concept, while in Nicol it is the deployment of the subject, which, constantly striving to get ahead identifies with their gods. In Hegel, it is God himself who, through the Greek pantheon, draws ever closer to the concept of truth. The agent is not the mortal; it is the divinity trying to overcome his being outside himself towards his coupling in the process of resolution towards the truth. On the contrary, in Nicol it is the poor mortal, who through his forces, has gradually become individualized until he has the possibility of having an idea about himself, which will allow him, on the one hand, to identify with, and at the same time differentiate himself from their gods.

This last contrast, described by Nicol, is of crucial importance, because through it his philosophy will find significant elements for later deployment. The author affirms, “The Hesiod epic offers us, on one hand, the almost complete picture of the anthropomorphic divinities of the Olympus; on the other, it shows a man who has rationalized his religion” (NICOL, 2004, p. 50). In both nuances, the divine and the mortal, in the mythology of the Greek world meet in a special way and walk in tandem. The anthropomorphizing of that pantheon corresponds to the emergence of a man who, taking over more and more of his being, has finally dared to commune effectively with divinity. This is an exclusive peculiarity of the Greek world, because there we find, without more, a special affinity between man and the gods. Each divinity represents the yearning for some faculty or power of the mortal. Here one can speak of effective communion and, at the same time, distinction with the divine.

The Greek man who has reached an acceptable degree of individualization is something confirmed by the testimony of the deployment of his theogonic and tragic literature. One of the first gestures of this man in front of the divine is to place himself next to his gods, to shelter himself, and to do as they do, but even more, to measure his stature with respect to theirs, for there is eminently a difference between one and the other. The life of the Greek man characterizes by the firm conviction of the incursion of the divine in human affairs, as there is a habitual trade between them: the gods can come down to take the daughters of men. God is who is above, he enforces his designs and his whims among mortals; this tells us that the Greek knows that he is the bearer of an eminent image of God. However, Nicol states that the most specific difference consists in the recognition that “the gods are immortal and the men are not; the gods have unlimited power and men are limited in all their capacities and virtues” (NICOL, 2004, p. 51). Man, before God, dawns as finite and limited. He remains positioned in the world in the midst of his waning, the god reveals himself as someone without limits and possessor of all virtue.

The Greek man displays his life in the middle of a similarity and difference between him and his gods. However, there is an outstanding note that defines the being of man in front of the gods; this note is precisely the finitude. Everywhere a man's being is delimited by other subjects or by the things that surround him such as the ground, the sky, etc. Man finds his place in the world, acquiring a first certainty as a bearer of the image and likeness of God he knows. He knows he is mortal and therefore, he is different from his gods. This differentiation to take on their gods will gain momentum more and more.

The Greek man identifies with his gods for two reasons, because they have an appearance similar to his, and because God represents the model or archetype that any Greek aspires to. We can affirm that man knows himself as the bearer of the image of God, and at the same time, he knows himself differently. Nicol says, "A sort of familiarity is established between man and god, which destroys essentially religious strangeness” (NICOL, 2004, p. 51). The Greek man cohabits with the gods; the rationalization of the divinity allows him to collapse the religious terror that once could keep him away and disjointed, to inhabit now in the proximity of the divine.

This cohabitation with the divine is an aspect that singularizes the Greek finite soul; however, it wishes to widen its limits. This proximity to the gods sows in his soul the power and the desire for something else. The Greek myths are a faithful reflection of this effort, because not in vain the literature is full of the feats billed by the heroes, who being mortal, are called or tested by the gods: “the winner in the Olympic games returns triumphant to his city; kings march on him, but also the gods” (NICOL, 2004, p. 79). The figure of the hero represents the unspoken commitment to exceed human limits. Despite being a simple mortal, he dares to complete a portentous test or trial to be graceful to the gods or to challenge them. Nicol says, "The hero occupies the peculiar intermediate position between gods and men" (NICOL, 2004, p. 80). In the figure of the hero, man has reached a preponderant success; because here man exceeds his limits and rises as someone almost divine. The hero has exceeded the average height of the ordinary man, and now he becomes an intermediary between the kingdom of heaven and the community of those below. Here it is possible to approximate the following inference: the myth opens the way for the display of the spirit of man. The Greek has found an aesthetically excellent path to widen his limits through myth. This simple man can dare more; he can exceed his limits.

Eduardo Nicol worried about the topic of the limits of the being of man, stealthily tracks this original widening in the Greek context. Although the myth of the hero makes possible to elucidate a possibility of such widening, he will also find contrast in Apollo and Dionysus. The Catalan author affirms that the gods inhabit the depths of man, which take shape through precisely myths. The myths express “the ambition of immortality, is the hope of having no need, of not being so needy” (NICOL, 1957, p. 26. The author considers that these divinities are forces that lie at the bottom of man's possibilities longing to take shape, in order to reverse the growth of the spirit; here the mortal “realized that there were in his soul hidden depths, whose reach had remained unexplored; and by exploring these depths in the mystical experience, his being expanded” (NICOL, 2004, p. 52). When the mortal finds the channel to give form and expression to a new power, his being effectively unfolds.

This is just what happens with Apollo and Dionysus. "Both gods are truly capital, because their significance is rooted in two capital powers of man" (NICOL, 2004, p. 63), the one tending toward equanimity, and the other toward excess. Alternatively, as the Catalan says, “Apollo, the world of dreams; Dionysus, the world of drunkenness” (NICOL, 2004, p. 64). Of course, there is a qualitative distinction and opposition between these two divinities. However, the essential characteristic of the Greek countenance reaches just when the most beautiful harmony rises from the opposition between them. The author around this affirms: “When the Dionysian is revealed and given its value, the Greek culture has been completed and humanized, and the value of those creations that harmonize the antagonistic duality in Apollo and Dionysus has still been raised in our eyes” (NICOL, 2004, p. 63). Nicol insists that the relevance of the contrast between these two gods, far from polarization, consists rather in their unity. This is the point that seems outstanding in this episode of Greek mythology, “Apollo, the Delphic god, welcomes Dionysus in his sanctuary, instead of destroying it entirely. They merge with each other” (NICOL, 2004, p. 65). The Catalan author underlines that this unity rises from the opposition.

There is a reckless boldness which only the Greek man, sheltered in the divine, has been able to have and, with it, risk into the hereafter. Nicol refers to this chapter under the following terms:

Dionysus is the one who shows, when ecstasy ensues, the loss of the limits of the distinction between the human, the infra-human and the super-human. Possession is reciprocal. This supreme experience unknown before and after in the cult of the Olympic gods, widens the limits of the human being; with it he opens his way to the unknown (NICOL, 2004, p. 88).

This experience, under the shadow of Apollo and Dionysus, is what leads man to meddle, in an ecstasy, to the beyond. This experience, from the author’s point of view, from now on will cause unusual consequences, both for the existence of mortals, as well as for philosophy. In this myth, the precise point at which the unity of the being dislocates and cracks can be easily identified. The clear desire for the hereafter now that he has caressed the outside with his own hands marks the existence of the Greek mortal.

We consider that, without having to leave the schematization of myth, here we find the crucial point from which Nicol starts the task of seeking a way out that allows him to raise the suture to the fracture just undertaken by the Greeks. For this, the Catalan author will use the myth of the androgyny.

3. The myth of the androgynous, or the mythological basis of the metaphysics of expression

Gilbert Duran (2010) claims that a dominant myth crosses each philosophical system, which manifests itself in different ways, implicitly or explicitly, throughout its thematic development. Nicol considers this possibility, since its philosophy is undoubtedly marked by a dominant myth of the androgyny. Curiously, Nicol sets the myth of the androgyny for the first time where the anthropological functionality between Apollo and Dionysus seems to be exhausted. Among these, their struggle decays further into the fracture of the being. This draws so much attention to Nicol, because, for him, the Dionysian cult was the means through which the ecstasy for what lays beyond, in the outside, was made possible; this would mean that Dionysus was the one responsible for the explicit possibility of a beyond.

For Nicol, the contrast between Apollo and Dionysus ends in a dislocation, the separation between what is contained within the limits of the vigil, and what is beyond these limits: the unit is broken. However, for our author the richness of this myth consists precisely in having come to discover that man is anxious, he is unhappy because he is always a longing being that requires more being. Apollo and Dionysus "do not completely vanish the feeling of inadequacy in the Greek"(NICOL, 2004, p. 68); on the contrary, they open the way for the articulation of another story that, from Nicol's point of view, can explain in a different way and more precisely the condition of man, from which the existence of mortals acquires meaning. The author states that the androgynous myth uttered by Aristophanes at the Symposium of Plato “is not about an interpreted symbolism, or a hidden fold in the intimacy of the Greek, but about the clear idea, wrapped in words of Platonic myth, of that the human individual is incomplete, insufficient and therefore eternally eager and unhappy” (NICOL, 2004, p. 68). It is necessary to recognize the relevance of this last myth which consists in the realization of the birth of the man and it is mentioned the destiny of each one of the mortals in the world. The importance of this myth, compared to others, is that through it, far from leading to an ontological rupture, it rather proposes the suture of being.

However, what does this myth tell us? Plato explains:

At that time the androgynous sex was distinct in form and name, having physical features from both the male and the female…, the form of every person was completely round, with back and sides making a circle, and with four arms, the same number of legs, and two faces exactly alike set on a round neck. There was one head for the two faces, four ears, two sets of genitals. They walked about upright, as we do today, backwards or forwards as the pleased. Whenever they wanted to move fast they pushed off from the ground and quickly wheeled over and over in a circle… They were awesome in strength and might, and their ambition was great too. They made an assault on the gods… Zeus and the other gods deliberated about what they should do but found no solution. After much hard thought Zeus delivered his conclusion: I shall split each one of them in half… After the original nature of every human being had been sever in this way, the two parts longed for each other and tried to come together again (PLATO, 2008, 189e-191a).

The myth affirms that the human being has come to be thanks to a divine intervention, the man is the product of a sentence, the gods agreed how to weaken these reckless androgynous who, encouraged by their pride and arrogance, would have dared to conspire against the inhabitants of Olympus. The feeling of sufficiency that the androgynous possessed would have been what prompted them to challenge the gods themselves. Because of this, Zeus made the decision of cutting them in half, to diminish their pride, limit their sufficiency and make them weaker. Man emerges here, precisely from an original dislocation. This means that it has come to be the product of a kind of punishment, that is, of a fall; the gods undermine this creature by condemning it to walk in life missing a part of itself. Since then, men are overwhelmed by the nostalgia of what, by divine design, they have lost. Each one carries this feeling of loss in tow. What moves man to move forward is the hope of someday recovering what he has lost, that is, regaining the splendor and sufficiency he once had.

This is why Nicol affirms that in the myth of the androgyny there is an opposite coincidence of feelings, such as, the nostalgia of the fullness that was previously used, and the hope of reaching it one day; that is, man is caught by a loss in a double sense. In the first place, there is, of course, a hollow in his being, marked precisely by what he no longer possesses. Man walks with an open wound in his side; while secondly, man marches through life amid the nostalgia of the splendor and fullness he previously possessed. Arguably this loss is what explains the disposition of man in the world, which is thrown into the future wanting, at all times, to remedy this loss. And this is precisely what the other feeling that takes place in this contrast reveals to us: the hope of recovering the lost part again, and of reaching the path that leads him back to his state of fullness. The author affirms: “the myth invented here by Aristophanes, clearly emerges from the nostalgic idea of a lost perfection and a hope of recovering it, which harmonizes with the idea that before we humans had a perfection, which we keep as a remote memory. Human life is thus between two worlds” (NICOL, 2004, p. 368). On the one hand, there is the nostalgia of lost perfection; while on the other; there is hope or the desire to recover it. Human life is constrained in the middle of these two shores. It would be said that it is precisely here that the meaning of the existence of mortals is explained, which is always determined to suture the original fracture of its being.

This is where the myth requires the intervention of another figure, which allows survival, and at the same time provides comfort to this dislocated being. The myth goes as follows:

They threw their arms around one another in close embrace, desiring to be reunited, and they began to die of hunger and general inactivity because they refuse to do anything at all as separate being… So it is that ever since that far-off time, love of one person for another has been inborn in human beings, and its role is to restore us to our ancient state by trying to make unity out of duality and to heal our human condition (PLATO, 2008, 191a, b, d).

Once each individual was separated from his other side they surrendered to inaction. It was as the gods decided to anticipate them of a capacity previously unknown, caused by the strong need to intertwine with each other. This is where Eros makes his appearance, trying to wipe away the tears between them, giving them hope to get back together, to be one again. Werner Jaeger explains, “Eros is born of the metaphysical yearning of man for a totality of being, unavailable forever to the nature of the individual. This innate yearning makes it a mere fragment that sighs to rejoin with its corresponding half” (JAEGER, 1986, 576). This same idea, Nicol manifests it in the following terms, “love is the foundation of the community. The Eros thus becomes a formative principle of the human condition. The erotic power that every man possesses as a disposition in a neutral or indifferent state acquires an ethical value” (NICOL, 2004, p. 362-363). Love allows the effective bonding between desires; love is explained precisely only because of a metaphysical insufficiency.

In another part of the story of the myth a crucial and forceful step gives off a fundamental inference in the broad sense of the word, for once Eros participates in this myth. The individual, separated from his other side, is reveals himself ontologically convenient, that is, each is ontologically open and exposed to the one who is similarly seeking his counterpart. Thus, from this myth, the following proposition follows: "Therefore, each of us is a symbol of man, having been divided into two of one" (PLATÓN, 2015, 191d). As soon as the mortal was severed from his other half, he was given the task of looking for what he needed. In fact, this is the destiny of man: to go through life looking for that part that corresponds to him in the midst of endless possibilities that, like one's own, are also in that same search. However, what is relevant about the statement made by the myth is that the ontological condition of the human being is accused; on the one hand, in insufficiency and waning, while on the other, in being or being ontologically open to the other.

This is the original meaning of the symbol, which Eugenio Trías (1999) refers to as follows:

Symbol means the conjunction of two fragmented pieces that belong to an original unit (a medal, a currency). They served to seal a pact or an alliance between two groups or people. Each of them has a half. On a reunion, they threw the fragments and warned of their possible conjunction. They threw both fragments and their possible fit was possible (p. 80).

Eduardo Nicol fully recovers the primary sense of the notion of symbol; the latter, rather than being a hermeneutical device to evoke what is beyond the sensitive, has a strictly ontological and anthropological connotation, which he tells us about: the other is not an alien being, in the sense of ontologically strange to one's own. The other is a being we call neighbor, or similar” (NICOL, 1957, p. 25). Because of this our author adds, "the symbol is something that represents something else without being the same, but maintaining with it that intimate, peculiar bonding, the complementary half" (NICOL, 2004, p. 367). Through the notion of symbol, philosophy thinks about the remedy of the anthropological fracture stirred by the gods. This possibility becomes viable, since, by their origin, mortals are convenient, because the same sword has broken them apart. Everyone carries a similar wound, in which each relief infringed by the knife coincides with the texture left on the other part torn off. Just because of this, the author adds, "our love completes us to the extent that it merges us with the other, but his love for us completes it as well, and between the two a new unity is constituted" (NICOL, 2004, p. 367), with love the limits of singularity transcended, and the man is committed to a new unit. Love is a way of leaving oneself and exposing oneself inevitably to others.

This is how the author, exploring the androgynous myth, has come to the feasibility of a metaphysics of expression. This myth states “love would be like the expression of a metaphysical insufficiency. But, even more sharply, the expression itself would be a consequence of that diminished ontological condition of man” (NICOL, 1957, p. 52).

The mythological approach to a metaphysics of the expression has paid off well; at the same time, it has discovered the origins of man, it has declared to us that its destiny consists in going after the trail of what the gods took from him: his other half and this march can be deployed only through the medium of expression.

Conclusions

Eduardo Nicol expresses that "the truth can be covered with many clothes"(NICOL, 2004, p. 18). The myth constitutes an expression of the spirit, nevertheless, some of these stories, photograph with greater clarity the structure of the being. This is the case of the androgynous myth, whose image has a marked domain in the author's thinking, because we can infer that the core of his philosophy's concern, from beginning to end, is to direct towards the suture of being. The author acknowledges that philosophy has recently entered into an august crisis, caused mainly by the dislocation of the being of man and the burial of being. Before which, he considers that it is pressing to find the path that allows the metaphysical suture.

The author explores possibilities not intended by traditional metaphysics. This is how he dares to trace the mythological approach of the metaphysics of expression, with the understanding that myth can also be a path to truth. On the one hand, it recognizes that "science is not the only way we can follow to reach an understanding of our own being" (NICOL,1981, p. 18); while on the other, he also acknowledges that the being of man is already part of the myth; "there is no doubt that man is there, exhibiting his most prominent way of being" (p. 18). This means that in the myth, the truth is already evident; it is true that it is poetic and often in the form of an allegory. However, as the author describes, the truth can wear different clothing; the fact is that the myth, and especially of the androgynous, tells a great truth: a man is a dislocated being in search of being more.

Man is directed to be, that is, he is called to be. The vocation of life consists in the desire to be. How do you get this? Nicol affirms, “The being of man is expression. Vileness or dignity of being, perversity or simple mediocrity, are there patent, in each individual. The expression is not a pure mechanism, whose springs we can handle indifferently and arbitrary. [All expressions] are forms of dialogue: to be is to dialogue” (NICOL, 1997, p. 24). The human being exists by expressing himself, dialoguing, and always facing each other. Loneliness is a metaphor that only expresses the ontological solidarity of the sufferer. The fact is that expression is the way of being in which man offers himself to the other, in the same proportion as this second, is assimilated into the being of the first: “Expression is a way of giving, which invites the answer and request the delivery of others. However, alien delivery is another expression” (NICOL, 1957, p. 25). That is why it is affirmed that to exist is to dialogue, is to propose and assimilate other proposals. The being of man reveals in everything he does, and his being is molded in the midst of the acts of others. For this, to be is to dialogue.

Everything in the being of man is expression, here the overlapping of all his parts and possibilities take place. Man finally reveals himself as an unbreakable unit, given that the whole being is present in each of his acts, because by means of these he is how he interacts with others. It is true that Nicol recognizes that in man there are two forms of reason: one, so to speak, mystical, and another, rational¹; However, both are expressions of one and the same being, through which different possibilities of being are patented. Man expresses because it is insufficient. At this point, a new route of metaphysics begins.

• ¹ Related to this, Mardones (2003) explains: "In the dilemmatic points, where the human being plays on the edge of the last vision-decision, the concept leaves him" (p. 63) and in order not to come to a full stop, he has the possibility of using myths.

References

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  11 Aug 2023
• Date of issue
  2023

History

• Received
  17 Dec 2020
• Accepted
  15 Feb 2022