Carrol Cox:
> Whatever the "poetic effect" of this it is totally dependent on a prior
> cognitive grasp. Would this work if you didn't know the difference
> between a slant line and a vertical line, had never heard of "slanting
> the truth," didn't know the difference between winter and summer,
> thought afternoon was the darkest period of the 24 hour day, didn't know
> that "weight" didn't apply to "tunes" except slantingly? There is an
> enormous cognitive component in all understanding of poetry, simple or
> complex. Just as there is an enormous emotional component to making
> sense of 2 + 2 = 4. You have to _feel_ the nature of pure number (as
> opposed to 2 piles of sand plus two piles of sand (which of course
> equals one pile of sand) before you can make any sense of the equation.
> And feeling occurs only in response to a bodily condition (emotion).
>
> Oppresses like the weight of cathedral tunes. There is probably some
> synaesthesia operating there, but you also have to have an almost
> immediate tacit (cognitive) grasp of the history of religion in the west
> for that "weight" to have its effect.
You're right about one having to have an understanding of the materials that went into the quoted verse, but I'm talking about the particular language act constituting the particular poem, not all the prior language acts of which it happens to make use. As such, it does not communicate fact and it does not lead to understanding of either the material it purports to cover or of its author, in the sense I think the notion of _understanding_ is being used by Habermas fans. It's a magic formula designed to induce altered consciousness regardless of these things. It may have been intended for private use.