[For Percy, as indicated in his essay "Symbol as Need" (1954),] the inclination toward symbolization is not only a uniquely human one, but one in no way explained by reference to either evolution or biology. (p. 75)
"Symbolic transformation" for him is not a "need," but rather "a means of knowing." He wants not to put labels on people, but understand what they are doing. He believes that symbols enable us to acquire not "facts," but rather knowledge "in the Thomist and existential sense of identification of the knower with the object known." (p. 76)
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Read the rest of this Criticism with our Percy, Walker 1916–: Critical Essay by Robert Coles Access Pass.
