| The second preliminary consideration that I wish to discuss before taking up the analogy between Heidegger and Eckhart has to do with the very idea of such an “analogy.” For we must clarify exactly what the term “analogy” means as it applies to the relationship between Heidegger and Eckhart. Heidegger himself provides the best clue to the nature of this analogy. In 1960, in one of his meetings with the “old Marburgians,” Heidegger recommended the following ‘’analogy” to those theologians who wished to make use of his thought in their theological work Being : thinking :: God : the thinking conducted within faith. Heidegger is borrowing this analogy from the medieval tradition which he knows so well. We have already seen, above, his interest in the medieval doctrine of analogy (cf. FS , 197 if.). Cardinal Cajetan, who codified the Thomistic theory of analogy, refers to this analogy as the “analogy of proportionality” (analogia proportionalitatis), which he distinguished from the analogy of proportion (analogia proportionis). The analogy of proportion, which Aristotle called a pros hen analogy, signifies a direct relation or proportion between the two terms. Milk, e.g., because it contains calcium, is a cause of good bone development, and so bears a direct, because directly causal, relation to bone development. One could, thus, by the analogy of proportion, call milk “bone food,” Not because it is or is composed of a boney substance, but because it is the cause of good bones. The analogy of proportionality, on the other Hand, is employed to relate things which are not immediately or directly related to one another but share only a certain similarity of proportions. This analogy is at work, e.g., in metaphors. If the poet calls the moon the “candle of the eve” he does not mean that the moon is composed of wax, wick, and flame, or that it either is caused by or is the cause of such. Candles have no direct relation at all to planetary satellites. What he means is that the moon “is to” the dark night the way a candle “is to” a dark room. Even the most disparate entities half a dollar and half a century can be related by this analogy, for they need have nothing to do with one another intrinsically, so long as they have a similarity of relationships (a proportion of proportions, a relation of relations). | The second preliminary consideration that I wish to discuss before taking up the analogy between Heidegger and Eckhart has to do with the very idea of such an “analogy.” For we must clarify exactly what the term “analogy” means as it applies to the relationship between Heidegger and Eckhart. Heidegger himself provides the best clue to the nature of this analogy. In 1960, in one of his meetings with the “old Marburgians,” Heidegger recommended the following ‘’analogy” to those theologians who wished to make use of his thought in their theological work Being : thinking :: God : the thinking conducted within faith. Heidegger is borrowing this analogy from the medieval tradition which he knows so well. We have already seen, above, his interest in the medieval doctrine of analogy (cf. FS , 197 if.). Cardinal Cajetan, who codified the Thomistic theory of analogy, refers to this analogy as the “analogy of proportionality” (analogia proportionalitatis), which he distinguished from the analogy of proportion (analogia proportionis). The analogy of proportion, which Aristotle called a pros hen analogy, signifies a direct relation or proportion between the two terms. Milk, e.g., because it contains calcium, is a cause of good bone development, and so bears a direct, because directly causal, relation to bone development. One could, thus, by the analogy of proportion, call milk “bone food,” Not because it is or is composed of a boney substance, but because it is the cause of good bones. The analogy of proportionality, on the other Hand, is employed to relate things which are not immediately or directly related to one another but share only a certain similarity of proportions. This analogy is at work, e.g., in metaphors. If the poet calls the moon the “candle of the eve” he does not mean that the moon is composed of wax, wick, and flame, or that it either is caused by or is the cause of such. Candles have no direct relation at all to planetary satellites. What he means is that the moon “is to” the dark night the way a candle “is to” a dark room. Even the most disparate entities half a dollar and half a century can be related by this analogy, for they need have nothing to do with one another intrinsically, so long as they have a similarity of relationships (a proportion of proportions, a relation of relations). |
