Saving the Appearances is the philosophical essay by the English barrister-turned-philologist Owen Barfield, published by Faber & Faber in 1957. Barfield argues that human consciousness has evolved — that medieval and ancient cognition was 'participatory' in a way modern consciousness is not, treating the perceived world as already meaning-laden rather than as a value-neutral physical object on which meaning is later projected — and that the modern habit of treating physical appearances as 'mere appearances' over a hidden non-experiential reality is a species of what he calls idolatry.
Barfield was the longest-surviving member of the Inklings circle and the author C.S. Lewis named as his 'wisest and best of my unofficial teachers.' The book covers roughly three thousand years of history — from ancient and medieval modes of perception through the scientific revolution — and ends with an account of what Barfield calls 'final participation,' a conscious and deliberate recovery of the participatory sense as the spiritual task of modernity.
The familiar world which we see and know around us — the blue sky with white clouds in it, the noise of a waterfall or a motor-bus, the shapes of flowers and their scent, the gesture and utterance of animals and the faces of our friends — is a system of collective representations.
p. 18 · Chapter 1, "The Rainbow"
Reception
Saving the Appearances is the book by which Barfield is best known outside Anthroposophical circles, and is one of the few mid-20th-century works on consciousness that have continued to be taken up across philosophy, theology, and contemporary consciousness studies; Iain McGilchrist names it as a formative influence, as do figures from John Vervaeke and Jonathan Pageau to the physicist David Bohm. Specialists in the history of perception are divided on Barfield's evolutionary thesis: the strong claim that earlier humans literally perceived a different world is far from the consensus in cognitive anthropology, while the weaker reading — that the conceptual furniture of modern objectivity is a particular cultural development rather than a transparent given — has been much more widely accepted. Wesleyan University Press has kept the book in print since the 1988 reissue, and it is regularly set on syllabi in environmental philosophy, the philosophy of religion, and consciousness studies.
Frequently asked
What is Saving the Appearances about?
Barfield argues that the familiar perceived world is a system of collective representations — not brute reality but the product of an unconscious organizing act of human consciousness. He calls the modern tendency to forget this and treat appearances as ultimate facts "idolatry," and traces the evolution of the participatory mode of perception from ancient times through modernity.
What does Barfield mean by saying ancient cognition was "participatory"?
That medieval and ancient people did not treat the perceived world as a value-neutral physical object onto which meaning is later projected. Instead the world came already meaning-laden — perceived as belonging to the perceiver in a way modern analytical consciousness does not experience. Barfield argues this was a genuine difference in mode of perception, not a deficit in reasoning.
Is Saving the Appearances still widely read?
The book has been in continuous print in the Wesleyan University Press edition since 1988 and is regularly set on syllabi in environmental philosophy, philosophy of religion, and consciousness studies. Iain McGilchrist names it a formative influence, as do John Vervaeke and Jonathan Pageau.