On the Aesthetics of Roman Ingarden: Interpretations and Assessments

B. Dziemidok and P. McCormick Editors

On the Aesthetics of Roman Ingarden Interpretations and Assessments

ON THE A E STH ETIC S OF RO M AN IN GARD EN

Nijhoff International Philosophy Series VOLUME 27

General Editor: JAN T .J. SRZEDNICKI Editor fo r volumes on Applying Philosophy: LYNNE M. BROUGHTON Editor fo r volumes on Logic and Applying Logic: STANISLAW J. SURMA Editor fo r volumes on Contributions to Philosophy: JAN T.J. SRZEDNICKI Assistant to the General Editor: DAVID WOOD

Editorial Advisory Board: R.M. Chisholm, Brown University, Rhode Island. Mats Furberg, Goteborg University. D.A.T. Gasking, University of Melbourne. H.L.A. H art, University College, Oxford. S. Korner, University of Bristol and Yale University. H .J. McCloskey, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Melbourne. J. Passmore, Australian National University, Canberra. A. Quinton, Trinity College, Oxford. Nathan Rotenstreich, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Franco Spisani, Centro Superiore di Logica e Scienze Comparate, Bologna. R. Ziedins, Waikato University, New Zealand.

For a list of volumes in this series see final page of this volume.

On the Aesthetics of Roman Ingarden Interpretations and Assessments

Edited by

BOHDAN DZIEMIDOK University o f Gdansk, Poland

and PETER McCORMICK University o f Ottawa, Canada

if KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS DORDRECHT / BOSTON / LONDON

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data On the aesthetics of Roman Ingarden. Bibliography: p. 1. Ingarden, Roman, 1893— Contributions in aesthetics. 2. Aesthetics, Modern— 20th century. I . Dziemidok, Bohdan. II. McCormick, Peter (Peter J .) B4691.153406 1989 1 1 1 '. 8 5 88-27303

ISBN 0-7923-0071-8

Published by Kluwer Academic Publishers, P.O . Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands. Kluwer Academic Publishers incorporates the publishing programmes of D. Reidel, Martinus Nijhoff, Dr W. Junk and MTP Press. Sold and distributed in the U.S.A. and Canada by Kluwer Academic Publishers, 101 Philip Drive, Norwell, MA 02061, U.S.A. In all other countries, sold and distributed by Kluwer Academic Publishers Group, P.O . Box 322, 3300 AH Dordrecht, The Netherlands.

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/I /I 53 2 , ^ All Rights Reserved © 1989 by Kluwer Academic Publishers No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner. Printed in The Netherlands

DLA STUDENT6W POLSKICH

For the Polish students — and the students of Poland

Contents Foreword

ix

I.

Ingarden’s Philosophical Work: A Systematic Outline. Danuta Gierulanka 1

II.

The Structure of Artworks. Anita Szczepanska 21

III.

The Work of Art and Aesthetic Categories According to Ingarden. Janusz Misiewicz 55

IV.

Ingarden’s Theory of Values and the Evaluation of the Work of Art. Bohdan Dziemidok 71

V.

Ingarden and the Development of Literary Studies. Henryk Markiewicz 101

VI.

Ingarden, Inscription, and Literary Ontology. Richard Shusterman 131

VII.

Ingarden’s and Mukarovsky’s Binominal Definition of the Literary Work of Art: A Comparative View of Their Ontologies. John Fizer 159

VIII.

Literary Truths and Metaphysical Qualities. Peter McCormick 187

IX.

On Ingarden’s Conception of the Musical Composition. Andrzej Pytlak 233

X.

The Sculptural Work of Art: Uniquely ‘W ithin’ the World. G. David Pollick 255

XI.

Ingarden on the Theatre. Danuta Kuznicka 283

viii

Appendix.

Select Bibliography of the Philosophical Works of Roman Ingarden. Danuta Gierulanka 297

Foreword Roman Ingarden’s very extensive philosophical work in metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, and aesthetics con­ tinues to attract increasing attention both in Poland and in North America. Further work left uncompleted at his death is appearing. Major bibliographies of his work as well as of studies about his work are now in print. Ingar­ den’s scattered axticles on various questions in philosophy aure being collected. And conferences devoted to his work are now held regularly. These diverse activities might suggest a similar diver­ sity in Ingarden’s philosophical legacy. But such a sugges­ tion would be misleading. For interest in Ingarden’s work has continued to centre on the one area which is arguably at the core of his achievement, namely the complex prob­ lems of aesthetics. In this field Ingarden seemed to pull together his various interests in ontology and epistemology especially. Here he brought those interests to focus on a set of issues that would occupy him creatively throughout the vicissitudes of his long and difficult scholarly life. More­ over, aesthetics is also the field where Ingaxden perhaps most succeeded in orchestrating the many themes he owed to his phenomenological training while finally transposing the central issues into something original, something dis­ tinctively his own that philosophers can no longer identify as merely phenomenological. Ingarden’s aesthetics not surprisingly has captured the interest today of many scholars in different fields. The pe­ culiar distinctions of his work have had a particular, and lasting, influence, for example, on literaxy theory stretch­ ing from the eaxly “New Critical” work of Rene Wellek and Austin Warren in the United States, through the more orthodox phenomenological work of Mikel Dufrenne in France, to the more recent German work in “Readerix

Response Theory” that Wolfgang Iser continues to elabo­ rate. But Ingarden’s work, however influential and however well known especially in Poland, has not yet, it seems to many, gained the attention in the English-speaking world its distinctions truly merit. Despite the appearance of an excellent collection about his work some years ago, Ingar­ den’s work still awaits the critical scrutiny of younger schol­ ars inside and especially outside Poland. Consequently, we have tried to commission for this col­ lection a series of papers in English by both mature and younger scholars working today within the Polish intellec­ tual world as well as beyond. The present collection tries to focus fresh attention on Ingarden’s aesthetics. Drawing heavily on the substantial new publications which have ap­ peared over the last years since Ingarden’s death in 1970, this collection tries to make a new beginning in the un­ derstanding and assessment of Ingarden’s major achieve­ ments in aesthetics within the context of his philosophy as a whole. Thus the particular contributions Ingarden has made to aesthetics axe highlighted in this collection follow­ ing the presentation of an overview of his philosophy and a series of discussions of more general themes. Moreover the contributions of some younger scholars both in Poland and in North America have opened up, we think, some new room for further critical debate. We sincerely hope that the present collection will help in detailing the continu­ ing interest of Roman Ingarden’s exceptional philosophical achievements. March 1988 Peter McCormick (Ottawa) Bohdan Dziemidok (Gdansk)

I.

Ingarden’s Philosophical Work

A Systematic Outline Danuta Gierulanka

Roman Ingarden became a disciple of Edmund Husserl while the latter was still in Gottingen. Although opposition to Husserl’s transcendental idealism has found its fullest expression in Ingarden’s philosophy, none of Husserl’s dis­ ciples remained as faithful as Ingarden in conceiving the sense of philosophy as an “exact science” and in pursuing the phenomenological method. According to Ingarden, philosophy is neither a synthe­ sis of the exact sciences, nor their theory, nor an analysis of their language. Philosophy differs from all the exact sciences by the nature of its special problems and the cog­ nitive means subordinate to it. The only factors common to philosophy and the exact sciences are their objectives, consisting exclusively in gaining knowledge, and their re­ quirements of scientific exactness (i.e., no statement is ac­ cepted without sufficient grounds). The specificity of the philosophical problematic in comparison with that of the sciences can be described as follows; the sciences are con­ cerned with the elements of a field of research while philoso­ phy is concerned with its entirety. The distinction between essential an non-essential properties plays a minor part in the sciences: all properties are treated equally as factual data. Philosophy differentiates between them. It is ori­ ented toward the essences of individual objects; moreover, it studies general objects. It is concerned not only with facts, but also with pure possibilities. The sciences are always dogmatic in that they accept certain assumptions without investigating their validity (e.g., they assume the 1

B. Dziemidok and P. McCormick (eds.), On the Aesthetics o f Roman Ingarden, 1-20. © 1989 by Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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existence of their respective field of research). Philosophy, however, should be free of this kind dogmatism (it should study its own principle statements and work out its basic concepts). Ingarden’s philosophical output does not form a closed system in the sense of a set of statements derived from apriori accepted general assumptions. Following the ba­ sic methodological principle of Husserl’s phenomenology, Ingarden obtained results in all areas of his philosophy by referring directly to the “things given in experiences” corre­ sponding to the type of object being investigated (in direct intuitive cognition). In spite of the great breadth of topics studied his results constitute a lucidly organized whole, as I shall presently try to demonstrate. Ingarden’s writings (over two hundred items including twenty-seven large books) belong primarily to three areas of philosophy: epistemology, ontology, and aesthetics (includ­ ing the theory of the work of art). This does not, however, comprise all of his work, as I shall show later. The first decade of Ingarden’s philosophic work already included basic results which set the direction and paths of development of his thought [1-7 of the appended Select Bibliography]. I shall discuss the main core of Ingarden’s philosophy in several sections, indicating the thought processes leading from one to another. Epistemology, being the least known chapter of his thought, and ontology, which dominates Ingarden’s philosophy, will be discussed more extensively. Ingarden’s epistemological considerations are mainly meta-theoretical in character. They are concerned with the tasks and structure of epistemology, with the possibil­ ity of a correct construction of the latter, as well as with its relation to other scientific and philosophical disciplines. It seems that the direction of Ingarden’s theoretical thought was shaped by the realization of a few simple facts viz.:

Ingarden’s Philosophical Work

3

1. The interest in cognition and the necessity of its the­ oretic study appear at the moment doubts arise concerning the results of cognition. Therefore, the sense of the exis­ tence of epistemology lies in the solution to the problem of the objectivity of cognition in all its forms. In short, epis­ temology must include the so-called critique of cognition; this is the first postulate. 2. In principle, once a doubt has appeared it requires an ultimate refutation. Otherwise an alleged solution might raise further and further doubts, and so on ad infinitum. “Ultimate” here means indubitable, undogmatic, and in­ dependent of everything else, i.e., not justified on grounds belonging to other fields. Thus, according to the second postulate, epistenjology must be absolute; its solutions and arguments must be ultimate (in the above sense). These axe natural and challenging postulates, but how can they be realized? It is often said that they cannot be realized, that such a theory of knowledge cannot even be begun. However, Ingarden is not willing to abandon his effort until he has become convinced that the objections raised against it are indeed irrefutable. His opponents rea­ son basically as follows: The subject of epistemology is cognition, considered in terms of its effectiveness and cog­ nitive value (objectivity). Now in order to study cognition the theory of knowledge must employ some new cognition. However, how can it be ascertained that the new cognition is objective? This must be either assumed a priori, thus entailing a petitio principii, or subjected to a new cogni­ tion, thus leading to an infinite regress. There seems to be no solution to this situation. Ingarden’s reply in “Uber die Gefahr einer Petitio Principii in der Erkenntnisstheorie” [2] is as follows: The above reasoning is based on the false as­ sumption that the process of cognition must always differ from the object of cognition. But it just so happens that in cognitive acts, as acts of consciousness, the very occurrence

4 Danuta. Gierulanka of the act, the experience of living through it (Durchleben), is at the same time knowledge of it; it is a cognition of it. The latter can be made lucid through maximum concen­ tration, by an oversaturation, as it were, of consciousness. The distinction between the act and the object of cognition is here only an abstract differentiation between two aspects of the same conscious act. Thus in this exceptional situation we gain a certain in­ fallible cognition, for how could such an experienced act ex­ ist or be other than the way in which it actually presents it­ self in experience (Durchleben)? This idea, appearing from time to time in the history of philosophy (with Descartes, Kant, or Brentano), is expressed for the first time in a clear and precise way by Ingarden. The example of Durchleben enables us to understand what it means that a certain cog­ nition is true, i.e., we can conceive the idea of the objec­ tivity of cognition. Thus a kind of Archimedean point of support has been found for the theory of knowledge. Starting with this result Ingarden carried on multilat­ eral reflections on the theory of knowledge for many years. The results are collected in a large book [44], available as yet only in Polish. The author had just begun work on vol­ ume two when he died. The book is, in the author’s words, a methodological introduction to the theory of knowledge, having as its purpose the conscientious construction of the theory of knowledge from its very foundations, starting with a formulation of the problems. This may perhaps ac­ celerate a development that until now has been somewhat chaotic. The method of reasoning used in the book can be called the method of “successive approximations”: the author chooses certain conceptions of the theory of knowl­ edge which have appeared in history; from their principal intentions he weeds out accidental shortcomings and incon­ sistencies; once idealized in this way he submits them to a critical investigation, demonstrating why they could not

Ingarden's Philosophical Work

5

lead to the construction of a satisfactory theory. Each sub­ sequent theory is chosen on the basis of the way it is able to avoid some of the errors of the former. The first in the se­ ries is the psycho-philosophical theory of knowledge (in the style of English empiricists and positivists of the nineteenth century). By its very definition of the categories of cogni­ tion (such as the subject, process, and objects of cognition) as real objects and processes, this theory is a priori bound to commit logical errors (the vicious circle of contradiction) when it attempts to lay the basis for any solution to the problem of the objectivity of the cognition of the world. The second theory, namely descriptive phenomenology in Husserl’s style, avoids these errors thanks to the introduc­ tion of the phenomenological reduction and the concept of pure consciousness. However, the latter theory cannot ar­ rive at sufficiently well-founded general statements (since incomplete induction is not infallible). Besides, it has no adequate means at its disposal for defining all the concepts required by the theory of knowledge (e.g., the cognitive value of the result of cognition). Only the third and fourth conceptions, viz., the a priori phenomenological and the autonomous theories of knowledge, can consecutively re­ move these faults. Ingaxden did not complete this task, but thanks to his great precision and subtlety further paths in many directions are clearly visible. In this area of philosophy Ingarden was most strongly influenced by Husserl, sometimes modifying but above all developing and refining Husserl’s ideas. Progress is most pronounced in the analysis of a priori conditions. The lat­ ter is treated in a sense different from the purely formal Kantian a priori, being concerned with so-called ideation or eidetic cognition, which can appertain also to something material (qualitative). Such cognition is obtained on the basis of one’s own perception or even imagination by ab­ stracting from the facticity and individuality of what is

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given and employing the operation of variation. Ingarden tried to demonstrate for which objects, within what limits, under what conditions, and why this cognition could pro­ vide universally valid and certain results that would not require further control. This is exactly the key point in the theory of knowledge. Finally, another result in this area of philosophy: the pronouncement in Ingarden’s inaugural address of 1924 [3] concerning mutual independence: a correctly constructed theory of knowledge is not only independent of other (sci­ entific and philosophic) disciplines, but the reverse is also true: no other discipline derives its results or justifies its arguments from the theory of knowledge. Each discipline must arrive at its results by its own means of cognition. The theory of knowledge, or rather that part of it called the “critique of cognition,” may only appraise the effec­ tiveness of these means and the cognitive value of the at­ tained results as well as show the ground on which they are based. However, this evaluation neither makes the given results true (or false) nor improves (or worsens) them. It can only reassure us with respect to the results in question. Ingarden makes a clear distinction between such reassur­ ances and justification (or refutation). Realization of this independence results in a characteristic “partitioning” of Ingarden’s philosophy. He radically “cuts off” the theory of knowledge from other areas of philosophy which enables the author to reject the notion , which has prevailed since Kant, that the theory of knowledge is the key to the solu­ tion of philosophical problems. This also enables him to at­ tempt a new approach to the basic issue in the controversy between idealism and realism concerning the existence of the world, a problem with which, in his own words, his “entire attitude to reality was most closely bound.” This new approach is made from the ontological point of view. Ontology dominates Ingarden’s philosophic work. In

Ingarden’s Philosophical Work

7

order to avoid misunderstanding, I shall immediately state that ontology should not be identified with metaphysics. Ontology, according to Ingarden, is concerned with pure possibilities and necessary connections (regardless of facticity), whereas metaphysics is directed to the factual exis­ tence and factual essence of everything that exists. Ingarden refines Husserl’s concept of ontology by scrupulously differentiating within what Husserl call Wesen three types of entity: (1) ideal qualities (species), (2) the essences of individual objects which, in Ingarden’s opinion, are as individual as the objects themselves, and (3) general objects (universalia) for which he reserves the term “idea.” The original concept of the formal structure of ideas de­ veloped in “Essentiale Fragen” [4] enables him to escape objections raised for centuries against universals. Only In­ garden’s conception makes two allegedly contradictory sets of properties clearly distinguishable for the first time, viz. (1) the universal “man in general,” for example, would have to be, as it were, something real and changing in time, just like any man in general. On the other hand, man in general, i.e., the general object, would have to be something ideal and unchangeable; (2) a “triangle in general” would have to be both right angled and non-right-angled simultaneously. The idea has a two-sided structure, i.e., qua idea it is being that is immutable, extra-temporal, etc., but at the same time each idea has a certain content, thus being an idea of a certain kind of object, e.g., the idea of man which encompasses all human individuals. This content envelops all material (i.e., qualitative), formal, and existential mo­ ments that can be distinguished in objects of the given kind. These moments, however, are of two kinds; some are constant, i.e., those which must be the same in each indi­ vidual object of a given kind; others are variable (in the mathematical or logical sense) of a predetermined range of variability. If, in a given idea, a variable is replaced by

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one of its values (i.e., made constant), a less general idea is obtained. Progressing further in the same manner, we can eventually reach specific ideas in which the only variable is the moment of individuation and to which individual ob­ jects are directly subordinated. It should be noted that, e.g., the degree of universality is one of the properties of an idea which it possesses qua idea; another property is that it has this and not another content. Ingarden can now define ontology in more precise terms as the analysis of the contents of various fields, including, however, the analysis of the contents of ideas of pure con­ scious experiences, i.e., phenomenology (which Husserl op­ posed to ontologies) as well as existential ontology (i.e., analysis of the contents of the ideas of the modes of exis­ tence). Ingarden’s most important work is the Spor o istnienie swiata (Controversy over the Existence of the World) in three volumes [15, 19, 48] which came about in a spirit of opposition to Husserl’s idealism. Preparatory work dates from 1925. I shall try to present the main ideas of the book. According to Ingarden, the lack of a satisfactory so­ lution to the old problem — whether the being of the so-called real world is dependent or independent of con­ sciousness, i.e., the dispute between idealism and realism — must be due to faults in the point of departure. There­ fore, a new attem pt to solve this problem must begin with the re-examination of the initial questions. The source of the problem lies in the uncertainty of external perception. However, this uncertainty can itself be the reason for the lack of lucidity in the whole question. The concept of the world or reality contained in the problem has been formed empirically, i.e., it is based on uncertain external percep­ tion. Therefore the concept of the world or reality neces­ sarily requires a re-elucidation based on the results of the ontological analysis. This is especially so as the source of

Ingarden’s Philosophical Work 9 the uncertainty of the external perception lies in turn in a basically ontological situation: real objects (taken in the from in which they present themselves to us) are transcen­ dent to their cognition (in no act of perception are they effectively and intuitively given in the entirety of all the properties ascribed to them). The very core of the contro­ versy is a metaphysical problem (though intricately inter­ woven with problems of another kind) since, after all, it is a question of the factual existence of the world; never­ theless it seem proper to start with ontological investiga­ tions. That is because all ontic categories corresponding to the concepts included in the initial question require elu­ cidation. It appears, for example, that the “dependence” or “independence” of the being of the world on conscious­ ness may still have various meanings. This elucidation will eventually lead to further more differentiated and precise questions. Ingarden adopts at first the following plan of procedure: to define, using existential-ontological analysis, concepts of the possible modes of existence; to establish a compete list of non-contradictory combinations of the modes of existence of the world and of the consciousness which are theoretically possible answers to the question of the existential relationship between them; then to gradu­ ally eliminate some of these answers on the basis of for­ mal and material ontological analysis. The latter allows for the rejection of solutions which cannot be reconciled with those features of consciousness of the world to which they would have been ascribed as a result of formal and material ontological analysis. Thus, the number of possible solutions of the problem will be greatly diminished and the ultimate choice will belong to metaphysical investigations. This procedure would not only significantly facilitate the metaphysical choice, but also the possible solution would not be limited to a statement of an essential fact an would be rationally understandable.

Danuta Giervdanka The three volumes of the Controversy constitute a sys­ tematic realization of the above presented plan for existen­ tial and formal ontological investigations. As it is not here possible even to outline them, I shall mention only that the achievements are of two kinds: (1) central ones connected with the problem itself and comprising a series of state­ ments at the end of the second volume (and related to the discussion of the causal structure of the world in volume III, para. 109 and 110); (2) a “by-product,” as it were, ob­ tained “on the way” to the solution of the primary problem: the development of the conceptual apparatus of existential and formal ontology together with the concept of the ca­ sual relationship. To my knowledge, no other philosophical investigations so thoroughly explain, starting from the very foundations, such a complete set of ontic categories. It is not a linguistic analysis. Language becomes an issue much later. The analysis of ideas is always carried out in the Controversy in a direct intuitive contact with the relevant situations. This occurs in the previously mentioned a priori cognition. Following his own epistemologically grounded conviction that first one must become cognizant and only then reflectively construct the theory of the cognition, In­ garden “practiced,” almost through his entire philosophical career, a priori cognition in ontology (and not without suc­ cess!) before he was able, at the end of his life, to provide a more profound theoretical description of it along with arguments as to its validity. 10

The first step in existential ontology consists in unveil­ ing intuitions hidden behind philosophical considerations of the problems of existence. On this basis concepts of pairs of opposed existential moments are defined: (1) an existen­ tial original being, i.e., one which has in itself a sufficient basis for its existence (esse a se) as opposed to an existentially derivative being (esse ab alio)] (2) an existentially autonomous being, i.e., one whose qualifications are im­

Ingarden’s Philosophical Work

11

manent to it, as opposed to an existentially heteronomous being, or one possessing qualification ascribed to it from the outside; (3) an existentially contingent being, i.e., one whose being is always stipulated by something else, as op­ posed to an existentially self-dependent one; (4) an exis­ tentially inseparate being, i.e., one which exists in a certain whole with something else, as to an existentially separate being. Non-contradictory combinations of these existen­ tial moments yield definitions, incomplete as yet, of the possible modes of existence. There are supplemented by considerations of the time factor in some modes of exis­ tence, especially in those which are particularly suitable to the objects of this world (these being divided into three categories: events, processes, and objects that endure in time. Next comes the discussion of the form (as something non-qualitative in the extreme) as opposed to m atter (the qualitative constituent of being) and the analysis of the possible types of unity holding between them. Formal ontology includes the elucidation of the formal structure of an autonomous individual object in two re­ spects: as the subject of properties with its direct quali­ tative determination (called the constitutive nature), and with respect to its properties as opposed to the structure: whole-parts. This concept of the objects structure is clearly opposed to the treatment of the latter as a bundle of prop­ erties. Next, the structure of the autonomous individual object and that of a general object (an idea), as well as of a purely intentional object (see below) are contrasted. Then the structure of the state of affairs and of the relation is an­ alyzed. The essence of the object, its identity, is discussed. Finally, taking into account the fact that the world is not an individual object but a set of interconnected objects, the structure of object domains is analyzed. These axe of two kinds: closed compact domains (such as that of mathemat­

Danuta Gierulanka ical objects) and “worlds,” in which causal relationships constitute the principal existential bonds. The analysis of the possible causal structures of the world fills the central volume of the Controversy, which already hinges on mate­ rial ontology. Finally, the form of pure consciousness, i.e., experiences and the stream of experiences, is analyzed. It appears that consciousness has rather the form of an in­ dividual object and not of a domain, as Husserl assumed. The question emerges concerning the possible inseparate­ ness of its stream with respect to certain constituents of the world (the human soul and the body). This would re­ quire rejecting the idea of a pure consciousness and thereby entail a basic modification of the initial question. Simul­ taneously, a wholly different door would open to the so­ lution of the “idealism-realism” controversy. This matter, which is only briefly signalled at the end of volume II of the Controversy, requires further investigation. Regardless of the result, however, the already developed conceptual tools (whose basic elements have been listed above) remain unchanged. These tools are applicable to almost all pos­ sible domains of consideration, owing to the “ubiquity” of the ontic categories. In this lies the basis for one kind of concentration of all of Ingarden’s work axound the Contro­ versy, almost all of his subsequent writings draw on the ontological conceptual attainments of this work. The Controversy dominates Ingarden’s philosophic work also in the sense that a large part of his achievements in the theory of art, and indirectly in aesthetics, axiology of man, philosophy of language, and logic arose on the basis of its ontological problematic. It might be asked whether this is possible. I shall try to demonstrate that indeed it is. It seems that according to the possible idealistic solu­ tion at issue in the Controversy, the objects of the world, which we call “real,” would exist in the same way as, for example, fictional characters whose existence and qualifi­ 12

Ingarden’s Philosophical Work 13 cations are ascribed to them by the conscious creative acts of the author. In other words, they would be existentially heteronomous. According to the realistic solution, on the other hand, the existence and qualifications of these objects would be imminently contained in them, i.e., these objects would be existentially autonomous. Ingarden is convinced that there is a close relationship between the mode of exis­ tence and the formal structure of the object. Therefore, it might be possible to solve the problem of the mode of exis­ tence of the world not directly but rather, indirectly, by first settling the question of the formal structure of the objects of this world. Thus, it is not surprising that in aiming for a thorough understanding of the structure of heteronomous objects, which he calls purely intentional objects, Ingarden turns to investigate literary works of art. Already in 1931 the first edition appeared of his best known book, The Literary Work of Art [7], whose contents exceed by far the scope of the original problem. The book contains the concept of the structure of the literary work of art, which has become classic. Its most important state­ ments are as follows: 1. A literary work of art is a purely intentional object (all that it is is ascribed to it by the author’s consciousness); it is a product of the author’s conscious acts. 2. To prevent his work from perishing together with the conscious acts of its creation, the author makes it perma­ nent, e.g., by setting it down in writing. Thus he shapes a certain physical object called the ontic foundation of the work, which cannot, however, be considered a part of the work of art; it is completely outside the work. 3. A literary work of art is stratiform, possessing at least four strata: (1) the stratum of word sounds; (2) the stratum of language meanings (the first and second forming the bistratum of language); (3) the stratum of perspectives in which the objects and situations represented in the work

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Danuta Gierulanka

appear; (4) the stratum of these objects and situations. 4. Once finished, the work of art forms a whole, but its parts are so ordered that it unfolds while read in time; this is called the quasi-temporal structure of the work of art. 5. In various strata, and particularly in that of the rep­ resented objects, the work of art is schematic, inevitably containing gaps, since it is impossible to describe all prop­ erties of the represented objects in a finite number of words. Nevertheless, they are treated in the work of art as com­ plete objects, although the mode of completion is not un­ ambiguously decided by what was stated in the work it­ self. The effective completion, which under certain circum­ stances occurs in the reader’s thinking or fantasy, is called its concretization. There may be different concretions of the same work, although they are not fully subject to the reader’s self-will. The work of art sets certain limits to admissible completions. The Literary Work of Art played a three-fold role in Ingarden’s philosophy: (1) it carried out its objective of being a preparatory study of the purely intentional object; (2) it introduced the concept of the literary work of art out­ lined above; (3) it became the starting point for Ingarden’s further work, which emerged from the issues discussed in the book. This last item is the most important one for our present consideration. One group of writings extends Ingarden’s research on the literary work to other arts, viz. music [8], painting [13], architecture [14], and film [17]. These extensions, however are never automatic transfers of results obtained for one kind of object to another. Each kind is studied in an in­ tuition which allows the characteristic features of the ob­ ject to be unveiled. Ingaxden is not afraid of pluralism in results, if the things themselves dictate such pluralism. He fervently tries to avoid a uniformity-at-all-costs which would distort reality, depriving it of the richness that so

Ingarden’s Philosophical Work 15 much enchants us when we have natural contact with it, without theoretical prejudices. The second group of writings deriving from the The Literary Work of Art concerns a subject to which Ingar­ den devoted an entire book, The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art [11]. In view of the stratiform structure of the literary work of art, of its quasi-temporal span and pri­ mary aesthetic function, its function is complex; it must be a multi-step process and it may assume very specific forms. Starting from such complexity, this book, in its epistemological aspect, enriches the philosophical literature with problems never before considered or even anticipated in epistemology. Ingarden’s most important contribution to aesthetics is his penetrating analysis of aesthetic experi­ ence, the form of direct experience suitable to this domain and which validates aesthetic judgments and evaluations. The third group involves works bordering on aesthetics and philosophy of language, such as “On the Functions of Language in the Theatre” [15] or “Artistic Functions of Language” [43]. It must be remembered, however, that owing to the language stratum present in the literary work, the extensive fifth chapter of The Literary Work of Art contains a certain concept of language and an analysis of the structure of meanings of various categories of linguistic expression. Ingarden thus enters the terrain of philosophy of language. The fourth complementary group of writings concerned with the problem of values is inevitably connected with the work of art. Ingarden distinguishes here between aesthetic and artistic values, which can be mainly ascribed to the work of art itself as a schematic creation. These latter are the technical values of its vaxious elements or structural features; they are axiologically neutral in themselves but stipulate or cause the appearance in an aesthetic experience of aesthetically active properties of the work’s concretion.

16

Danuta Gieru.la.nka.

Suitable choices of these aesthetically active features, which may appear in various strata of the work, form in turn the foundation for the overall value of the work of art (resulting from their harmonization). Such a concept of aesthetic value [22] is the basis for Ingarden’s new treat­ ment of the problem of the objectivity of aesthetic values. Their objectivity is understood here as the sufficient foun­ dation in the properties of the work (scheme) itself. If in retracing the path of the formation of an aesthetic value, as described above, one finally reaches the neutral skeleton of the work (i.e., its qualitative and structural features, which can be found absolutely in the work itself), and this skele­ ton is a sufficient basis for the appearance of this aesthetic value, then the latter must be considered to be objective. The latter group of writings on aesthetics paves the way to general axiology. Its principle issues are outlined in a paper entitled “W hat We Do Not Know about Values” /in 36]. This paper lists and discusses, often with constructive suggestions, the following problems: (1) What is the basis for the distinction between the main types and domains of values? (2) What is the formal structure of a value and the relation of this structure to the object whose value it is? (3) What is the mode of existence of values (if they exist at all)? (4) What is the basis for differentiating between values as to their “ranking”; is it possible to establish a general hierarchy of values? (5) Do “autonomous” values exist? (6) The problem of the objectivity of values (of various kinds). Ingarden’s axiology is connected with the view of man as a bearer of values (e.g., moral values), or as a creator of valuable works of art, or as their recipient, one for whom the truly human world is saturated with values. The road to the problems of the specific features of human nature that distinguish mankind from the world of other living creatures leads directly from investigations of works of art.

Ingarden’s Philosophical Work

17

These axe a kind of intentional creation making up the “hu­ man reality” which man builds around himself /in 46]. The third source of Ingarden’s philosophy of man is the onto/ logical analyses in the Controversy of objects such as the organism, consciousness, the soul, and the person. Ingarden’s logic is deeply rooted in ontology and inter­ woven with the philosophy of language. The foundations of the sense and functions of logical constructs and of the va­ lidity of statements expressed in linguistic formulations are always sought by Ingarden in ontic states of affairs. On the other hand, both the source of logical problems as well as hints for their solution are sometimes found in the analysis of meanings, intentions, and functions of suitable expres­ sions in (colloquial!) language. For example, in the essay “On the Conditional Judgment” [20], Ingarden, while op­ posing the logistic concept of material implication, which by no means explains the sense of a conditional sentence and leads to the acceptance of really paradoxical sentences as true, investigates above all the ontic ties between states of affairs denoted by the antecedent and conclusion of the conditional statement. There might be some hesitation about whether one can distinguish in Ingarden’s work a separate group of methodololgical writings, even though a lucid methodological con­ sciousness undoubtedly pervades his entire philosophical output and contributes decisively to the transpaxency of its entire structure. The method of phenomenological descrip­ tion was treated in an early report: “The Aims of Phenomenologists” /in 33], and was later applied in masterly analy­ ses in various areas of his research. Ingarden treated very seriously Husserl’s methodological insight that the method of investigation is determined by the type of the object studied. His philosophic practice (which in various areas involved research ab ovo in so fax as it started with prescientific convictions) showed as a result gradual parallel

18 Danuta Gierulanka progress in the cognition of the object and in the develop­ ment of the method of studying it. Consequently, sporadic writings which clearly discuss the problem of method [31, 38, 47], though mostly polemics with the oft proposed “universalist” methods, can always be included not only in methodology but simultaneously (in view of the contents of the author’s arguments) in an area of research which has to do with objects whose investigation is at the same time their methodology of cognition. Ingarden’s main work in epistemology, already discussed above, should be treated in terms of its methodological aspects rather than consid­ ered as belonging to the area of methodology. Among the writings on the philosophy of language, those which re­ late to the role of language in cognition should be similarly treated /in 45]. A large group of critical studies concerning certain ori­ entations of modern and contemporary philosophy [33, 39, 41 ] involve, in almost all cases, the problems of epistemol­ ogy and logic (mainly polemics with neo-positivist logic); only a few are concerned with the theory of the literary work of art /in 23]. Ingarden’s attempts are always here directed at reaching the things themselves that are the sub­ ject of the critically discussed views and, in agreement with the phenomenological method, to lead the reader to think for himself rather than be blindly directed by the critic or the criticized author. I hope that it has become clear by now why the philo­ sophical work of Ingarden (covering such a wide span and multitude of problems and marked by a thoroughness of analysis within each of the topics studied) preserves the character of a tightly interconnected though highly ramified whole. This is augmented by a network of links connecting several of his works and sometimes joining fields consider­ ably removed from one another. The linkage comes about thanks to the individual topics which reappear in various

Ingarden’s Philosophical Work

19

writings, and are considered in each case from another point of view, and unveil different features of the given topic, de­ pending on the role it plays in the context of the given work. Consider the following example, which should serve to demonstrate the point. To trace Ingarden’s consider­ ations on time, the following writings and aspects of this topic would have to be examined: Controversy, volume I [15]: time as a moment of the mode of real existence and its role in determining the formal type of the object (event, process, object enduring in time). Controversy, volume III [48]: the temporal relationship between cause and effect. The Literary Work of Art [7]: the time presented in the literary work, the quasi-temporal structure of the literary work of art; changes in time of the work’s concretization (so-called “life” of the literary work of art). The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art [11]: tempo­ ral foreshortenings and perspectives in the concretization of the literary work of art. “On Films and A rt” [17]: the problem of time organi­ zation in a film. “Man and time” [12]: two different experiences of time and their connection with the feeling of self-identity. On Responsibility [40]: preservation in time of the iden­ tity of an object as a condition of responsibility; the tempo­ ral structure of the world as a foundation of responsibility. Intuition and Intellect on Henri Bergson [1]: the socalled intensity of perduring; geometricized time and pure enduring. “Consideration on the Problem of Objectivity” [38]: va­ rieties of ontic objectivity for objects from various temporal phases. Other features of Ingarden’s work — precision in for­ mulations and courage in attacking difficulties, the thor­ oughness and power of suggestion of analyses, scrupulous

20 Danuta Gierulanka argumentation, cautiousness in accepting solutions, sweep­ ing dynamics and force of arguments, all combined with a healthy moderation, naturalness, lucidity, internal or­ der, and calm — cannot be transmitted in any attem pt to present his work. These one can appreciate only in an attentive reading of his works. The present paper has been limited to an outline of the problems treated by Ingarden, in an attem pt to lead the reader to the work itself — to sup­ ply him, as it were, with a map of a large city, with its large central districts and points of interest marked out, and in­ cluding the transportation system connecting up the whole, a map which should enable everybody to travel about the manner which suits them best. Translated by Halina Bockris Translation reviewed by Edward Swiderski

II.

The Structure of Artworks

Anita Szczepanska

The aesthetic ideas of Ingarden are an irreplaceable source of inspiration and a point of reference for many scholars, irrespective of their particular philosophic orientation — they have found a permanent place in Polish aesthetic thought and one can hardly imagine a contemporary in­ vestigation in aesthetics taking no account of Ingarden’s impressive achievement. Yet despite some fascination with his aesthetic system, nothing like a “school of Ingarden” has ever been founded. The reasons for this are too complex to be adequately explained in this paper; one, at least can be mentioned: alterations within aesthetics itself, which un­ der the pressure of cultural change tends to examine art phenomena in an ever wider context of the processes of culture and civilization. Sociological and semiotic trends, treating a work of art as an instrument of social communi­ cation and as a m atter of principle shunning academic and philosophical aesthetics, thrive and flourish. Phenomeno­ logical aesthetics, oriented toward investigating a general, eidetic structure of the object and necessary relationships within it and regarding cultural, social, and historical de­ terminants as superficial and unimportant to the object’s essence, found itself in the position of an outsider. The main objection that scholars of a semiotic orien­ tation formulate against Ingarden’s theory of the work of art is its ontological character, the fact that the primary subject of investigation is the structure and the essential features of the work of art treated as an isolated objectiv­ ity, not as a mere component of communicative acts within the framework of a particular language of artistic conven­ tion. 21 B. Dziemidok and P. McCormick (eds.), On the Aesthetics o f Roman Ingarden, 21-54. © 1989 by Kluwer Academic Publishers.

22

Anita Szczepanska

Not all the followers of the above-mentioned orientation reject, however, the results of Ingarden’s investigation en bloc, some admit that in spite of fundamental differences between the two theoretical approaches there are certain concurrences that make it possible to apply some sugges­ tions of the phenomenologist to semiotic analysis. The concurrences are to be found in certain fundamental onto­ logical positions — the rejection by Ingarden of psychical solutions in his separation of the work of art from the expe­ riences and impressions of both the artist and the observer, his ascription to the work of intentional being — that make it possible to define a work of art as a sign possessing intersubjective meaning and at the same time constituting ontological characteristics for the whole class of cultural signs. Likewise, there are some basic conceptions discerned by Ingarden in his ontological analysis of literary work that are not only translatable into the language of semiotic aes­ thetics, but also render possible a more precise expression of many a problem related to the definition of the artis­ tic sign.1 Similarly, the answers to some questions vital to the semiotic investigation (e.g., the problem of which properties of works of art enable them to function in sev­ eral languages of artistic communication) can be found in Ingarden’s observations on the schematic features of works of art, aspects of their structure that make them suscepti­ ble to various modes of concretization and bring into being numerous objects of great variety. The objection against the ontological character of In­ garden’s aesthetic investigation, namely against his con­ centration on the problem of the structural analysis of an isolated work of art, reveals the oversight of a very im­ portant and perhaps most original trait of his aesthetics. Ingarden’s conception of the aesthetic situation and of the subject-object encounter that is fundamental to aesthetics precludes a division into “subjective” and “objective” in­

The Structure of Artworks

23 vestigations. According to Ingarden, there is nothing here like objects in themselves, existing independently of percep­ tion, “given” in the way that real objects are given; there axe only intentional objectivities created by conscious acts of an artist or an observer. It should not therefore be for­ gotten, when investigating the structure of a work of art, that the work understood as an intentional objectivity is insepaxably bound to the creative acts of an axtist and to the concretional acts of a perceiver. Ingarden never tired of emphasizing this fundamental feature of his conception; it was present already in his first treatise on aesthetics, The Literary Work of Art, dealing with the ontology of a lit­ erary work. The work of axt was from the very beginning comprehended as a purely intentional product of the cre­ ative acts of artists and, at the same time, opposed, as a schematic creation with potential elements, to its own concretizations — a work that had to be created both by its author and by the re-creative experiences of a reader or a spectator, and thus that “indicated, at once by its very na­ ture and by its mode of existence, existential processes of different psychical subjects as indispensable conditions for its existence (or ‘life,’ as I call it) it points at the whole community of its readers, spectators, or listeners”.2 W ith­ out losing sight of this perspective, we will now describe Ingaxden’s main theses concerning the mode of existence and the structural characteristics of the work of art. I.

The existential theses

The work of art is by its mode of existence fundamen­ tally different from a real object; it is an object brought to life by conscious acts of an artist and so ontologically derivative, heteronomous, and intentionally existing. Its ontological foundations are twofold: the acts that brought it to life and the material objects appropriately shaped by

24

Anita Szczepanska

an artist. Despite being subject to psychical arts, the work of art is not a psychical entity and should be identified neither with the psychical experiences of its creator nor with those of observers. In the terminology worked out by Ingarden to denominate different modes of existence by indicating different ontological moments, the work of art is an object ontologically derivative from and at the same time both ontologically independent of the experiences of its maker and observers (being a separate entity) and on­ tologically dependent on its maker, observer, and material substratum. Neither may the work of art be identified with the material object which provides a basis for its durability and intersubjective accessibility. II.

Theses on the structure of the work o f art

1. The work of art is a schematic and in many respects a nondescript creation, with many of the aspects it embod­ ies existing only potentially. It only attains fulfillment and concreteness in the process of aesthetic perception — in In­ garden’s words, in the process of its “concretization.” The outcome of the process of the aesthetic concretization of the work of art is the aesthetic object. There are, therefore, two different kinds of entities: the work of art as a schematic and intentional creation and as an aesthetic object (the work’s concretization attained in the aesthetic experience). It is not, therefore, the work of art as a schema that we perceive, but one of its concretizations. 2. The work of art is generally composed of several strata arranged in a hierarchic order. The functions of all the strata in relation to the others determine their mutual organic relationship and their structural unity, with suc­ cessive “lower” strata forming foundations for the “higher” ones, conditioning their existence and defining their char­ acteristics. The number of distinguishable strata differs in different types of works of art.

25 The Structure of Artworks 3. Apart from the schema of the strata, which forms the basic, “anatomical” structure of the work of art, we may distinguish within it a peculiar quality-structure consisting of a natural framework of the work of art and a system of interrelated quality-structures of paramount importance in supporting the aesthetic value of the work. Ad I.

The existence of the theses

The indication that the whole sphere of cultural cre­ ation, including works of art, belongs to the province of intentional being is one of the fundamental achieve­ ments of Ingarden’s investigation. If, as suggested by some theoretitians,3 the whole development of twentieth-century, dividing all phenomena into physical or psychical, then the discovery of an intermediate zone, irreducible to either or­ der, is a tremendous achievement of phenomenology in gen­ eral and of Ingarden in particular, in his theory of a mode of intentional being with both existential characteristics and formal properties. Here I would like to look more closely at the question of the ontological situation of works of art treated as a cate­ gory of intentional being. The specific character of this on­ tological situation, compared to that of purely intentional and not preservable objects, lies in the fact that works of art rely not on a single but on two different autonomous subjects, one of them being an act, creative or perceptive, the other a material object enabling their “embodiment” and preservation. The part played by these two ontological foundations may be summarized as follows: the material, existential foundations are the basis of the durability of the work of art, which makes these foundations more im­ portant than the acts of perception; the latter, however, axe of a creative or co-creative nature and so axe more im­ portant in their own right. The part played by the creative and perceptive acts in relation to the work of art is con­

26

Anita. Szczepanska

stitutive or co-constitutive; that of the material existential foundations, sustaining.”4 Traditional aesthetics has never worked out a clear dif­ ferentiation between a physical object and a work of art itself. There are also some post-Ingardenian theories (like that of N. Hartmann) which accept his conception of the work of art’s intentionality and complex structure and yet incorporate into the work of art its material basis as a “low­ est” stratum, and so construct and object are existentially heterogeneous. Let us examine now the arguments provided by Ingar­ den against the identification of the work of art with the material object that forms its basis. His reasoning concerns especially those types of work where such an identification seems most obvious, a painting identified with the canvas hanging on a wall, an architectural work treated as con­ crete, architectonically-formed matter. His main argument refers to the fact that the physical objects that form the ex­ istential basis of the work of art are individual, as all real objects qualified entirely by the lowest, spatio-temporal, quality-forms. As such they possess a number of features absolutely meaningless as properties of a work of art such as temperature, weight, volume, molecular structure, and many others, neutral and irrelevant to the qualification of a work of art. Many statements may thus be formulated about these material objects, statements that axe untrue if made about the corresponding works of art and vice versa. In contrast to the fully qualified material objects, the works of art superposed upon them are schematic creations, not completely endowed with qualities but only possessing some specific traits. At the same time, although not equal to the material object as fax as the degree of qualification is concerned, the work of art is superior in another way, having features far exceeding the set of properties that can ever be attributed to the former.

27 The Structure of Artworks A painting cannot be identified with a paint-coated can­ vas hanging on the wall, one of the reasons being that an objectivity it represents — people and objects — appears in a space of its own, which has nothing in common with the real space containing the real object, the painted can­ vas. For example, the succession of hierarchically ordered strata — the strata of colour patches, of appearences, of represented objects, of literary themes — belong to the painting, not to the painted canvas, because none of them is the property of a material object.

Similarly, an architectural work must not be identified with its underpinning, i.e., with the mass of material of which a building is constructed, for one could realize the same work many times producing a number of identical buildings and only one architectural work (the same applies to reproductions of a painting). The validity of this distinc­ tion is further corroborated by the possibility of restoring architectural structures — individually different material objects serving as existential foundations of one and the same work of art. Ingarden’s thesis on the intentional ex­ istence of the architectural work has been opposed by cer­ tain theoretitians, e.g., J. Slawinska, who argues that his propositions are irreconcilable with theories such as con­ structivism in architecture. According to Slawinska, “In­ garden’s ‘On the Architectural Work of A rt’ provides more arguments against his conception of the purely intentional existence of the work of art than in support of it. This conception, having been educed from the analysis of other arts and transferred to the field of architecture cannot be fully reconciled with its most vital trends, namely, those that stress the functional and structural virtues of architec­ tural objects.”5 Ingarden answered this and other objec­ tions raised by Slawinska in a letter to the editor, in which he set forth new arguments for the necessity of discrimi­ nating between real objects and entities like architectural

Anita Szczepanaka 28 works, whose existence only partially depends on purely physical (material) objects, “certain fitting multiplicities of perceptive and reflective acts being indispensable agents for their final constitution. The building itself and the material used for its construction are vested with different systems of properties; to identify one with another is to acknowledge the existence of some contradictory objects.”6 A further reason for differentiating between the work of art and its material substratum is the mode of their ap­ pearance. A painted canvas or a three-dimensional mass are given in a simple, sensual act of perception, visual or tactile; they may be looked at from any point of space; change of place affects only the sharpness of vision and does not lead to the object’s “disappearance,” whereas in order to further intentional apprehensions, exceeding simple sensual percep­ tion and involving complex processes of consciousness. The act of seeing a painting is, as pointed out by Husserl, always “founded”, i.e., superposed upon other apprehensions, the complexity of the foundations growing with the number of strata contained within the painting. Ingarden also demon­ strates that the immediate apprehension of the painting is never founded on a full perception of the real object but on an experience of a part of sensual data. This kind of perception is therefore selective, “guided” by a system of possible data determined by colour patches of the paint­ ing, the latter serving in their turn as the sensory basis of appearences that are eventually to be reconstructed by the observer. Colour patches have a different function when we perceive a painting and when we look at a painted canvas: they do not reveal properties of a real object but render possible the quasi-perceptive seeing of an intentional, rep­ resented object. The painting imposes some additional ex­ igencies of perspective vision: to be able to see represented objects and extension we must place ourselves at a definite spot of the real space. The immediate apprehension of the

The Structure of Artworks

29 painting does not obliterate completely the peripheral con­ sciousness of the presence of the painted canvas, the latter bringing out sensations of appearances other than of those reconstructed in the painting. To see a painting requires a sort of glossing over of these peripheral data. The process of seeing a painting, therefore, far transcends a simple, sen­ sual perception of a real object and requires many complex mental acts. Another difference between the work of art and its sub­ stratum the real object lies in the different types of indi­ viduality vested in them,7 the difference being due to the causes of their individualities each lying elsewhere. The material object is an unqualified oneness due to its real, autonomous mode of existence and unequivocal spatiotemporal qualification; the individuality of the work of art is qualified as it ensues from uniqueness of its qualified con­ ditions, and so is both non-temporal and unconnected with spatial designations. The relationship between the material basis and the work of art depends, however, on the kind of art involved. Sometimes the relation is very close, as in an architectural work, and sometimes very remote or even indirect, as in a literary work. J. Makota speaks figuratively of the differ­ ent “extent of the work’s immersion into the substratum,” but the fundamental thesis of the necessity of discrimina­ tion between the work of art as an intentional entity and the material object that is its existential basis applies to all kinds of works of art. Ad II. la.

T heses on the structure of the work of art

Schematization

Where traditional aesthetics saw only one object, the work of art, Ingarden enumerates three kinds of entity: apart from the already treated discrimination between the

30

Anita Szczepanska

work of art and its material foundation, he differentiates within the intentional being two further objects, the work of art itself and its concretization, which is the real aes­ thetic object. This proposal is based on a statement that is among the most important discoveries of Ingarden’s aesthetics: that the work of art is a schematic object, or, more precisely, a not quite definite schema, embodying potential elements and by its very nature appealing to an observer’s supple­ mentary actions in order to obtain fullness of existence and concreteness. Only in such “complemented” form may the work of axt act aesthetically. This schematization is linked with the fact that the work of art is an intentional entity (objects of this kind can ex­ ist only within the sphere of intentional being); the real, autonomous world is radically different, real objects being definite in every respect, comprehensively and unequivo­ cally. The objects represented in a literary work yield the best examples of schematization. These objects are defined in some respects only, namely in those which are specified expressis verbis by a literary pronouncement. “For it is impossible to specify univocally and comprehensively infi­ nite multitudes of the features and conditions of individual objects, represented with the aid of a finite number of sen­ tences or words making them up.”8 The represented ob­ jects, usually presumed to correspond to real objects, are conceived as absolutely individual and possessing an infi­ nite number of properties. Though the form of a nominallydesignated object used in a literary text is such a form, an object possessing a potentially infinite number of proper­ ties, it is also only a schema that will never reach com­ plete fulfilment. Owing to potential contents of the word’s nominal denotation, the majority of the object’s properties are just co-presumed, not fixed univocally. Similarly, the

31 The Structure of Artworks properties of represented objects, formed by conditions or states of things given in sentences, are finite as a result of the finite number of sentences. There is, therefore, a fun­ damental contradiction between the “claims” of the objects represented in a literary work to the status of fully shaped individual objectivities, and the possibility of denominating such objects in a finite lingual text. That is why the ob­ jects created by such a text inevitably include some “blank” spots — or in Ingarden’s words, “insufficiently qualified spots.” These appear wherever, on the basis of a complex of sentences belonging to the literary work, it is impossi­ ble to state whether in certain conditions a given object 0 does or does not possess a property P.9 The represented ob­ ject is therefore but a formal schema of an infinite number of “qualifiable” spots, mostly blank. The choice of insuffi­ ciently qualified spots differs according to different literary works, and may be peculiar both to a particular work and to literary styles or types. Schematization and potentiality do not affect repre­ sented objects only, but appear on other strata of a lit­ erary work, on the strata of both meaning creation and appearances, which according to Ingarden are “kept on the alert” by the literary text and become a reality only in the reader’s perception. Works of art immediately apprehended by the senses are schematic too, though their sources of schematization are different. In the case of architectural works, Ingarden speaks of a multitude of schemata of appearances deter­ mined beforehand by a definitely shaped matter (the ar­ rangement of the building’s masses) and “belonging” to a given shape. These schemata of appearances must not be mistaken for specific individual appearances experienced by the spectator. The same applies to painting. “In different concretizations there appears an assortment of permanent factors ...

32

Anita Szczepanska

which result in an unchanging skeleton of the painting; while in the course of experience the variable factors ex­ ert an influence on one another and so oust or rectify each other, at least partially. It turns out that they are not univocally determined by the painting (or by the painted canvas) but are complements of a schematic creation that the picture in fact is.”10 It goes without saying that the painting’s schematization is also connected to the presence of insufficiently qualified spots in its quality structure. With reference to musical works, Ingarden mentions schematization mainly in connection with their notation: the music script merely transmits schematic data, which achieve the completeness of an actual work only in an act of musical performance. “At various moments of a musi­ cal work determined by a score we encounter a considerable vagueness of qualification and a number of singular obscuri­ ties possible only in a purely intentional work, which in the course of musical performance become ipso facto eliminated and replaced by ‘clear-cut’ univocalised determinations.”11 The musical work itself is therefore a schematic creation, an intentional object determined by the score, and must be discerned from its performances in which those moments of the work that are not present in the schema or are there only in a general outline achieve completeness and univocal character. lb.

Concretization

Given this schematization and the potentiality of many of the work’s qualifications, the special ontological struc­ ture of the work of art results from the fact that “the whole work as well as its respective elements are a sort of appeal for an act of concretization,”12 an appeal for a complemen­ tary actualizing and personating activity of the perceiver. This necessity of concretizing while perceiving is dictated, as shown above, by the very structure of the work of art.

33 The Structure of Artworks Due to the schematization of the work of art many concretizations are possible: we deal with a number of concretizations that are its “complemented,” “substantiated” forms. It should be added, as stressed by Ingarden, that both the work itself and its concretization are different from the subjective experiences of apprehending it; the work and its concretizations have no psychical connotations what­ ever, although their existence depends partially on psychi­ cal experiences. The schematization of the work explains and justifies differences, often quite considerable, between different concretizations of the same work of art: it may allow in the same measure for different concretizations and none of them may be rejected or recognized as “wrong.” Only by taking account of the opposition between the work of art and its concretizations can the situation “in which the insufficiently qualified becomes fully denominated and the potential actualizes itself”13 be understood. “The fact that the one and only work allows any number of concretiza­ tions, often departing to an appreciable extent from the work itself and differing considerably among themselves, has its basis, among other things, in the schematic struc­ ture of the work of a rt’s objective stratum, which admits insufficiently qualified spots.”14 The schematization of the work of art and the diversity of its concretizations obviously do not depend exclusively on insufficiently qualified spots on the stratum of represented objects, in a literary work or in any figurative art: In a literary work each stratum con­ tains different kinds of both insufficient qualifications and potentialities; in the arts the situation is, as already noted, somewhat different. The aesthetic perception of the work always assumes the form of one of its concretizations. Usually we are unaware of this and identify a concretization with the work (most scholarly investigations share in this guilt). The work is, however, “in its very essence different from all its concen-

34

Anit& Szczepanska

trizations. It appears in them, evolves in them, but each of these developments transcends it out of sheer necessity.”15 Here a difficulty arises. If we always deal with some spe­ cific concretization and never with the work itself, there is no ground for investigating the proper structure of the work and for setting it vis-a-vis its concretizations. In or­ der to clarify the problem a more extensive quotation from Ingarden seems expedient: If there were no, so to speak, direct access to the literary work, all our analyses would be exposed to the danger of being suspended in mid-air. ... I would like to indicate that this objection is pointless. Firstly, if we were really able to ap­ prehend every paxticular work in one of its con­ cretizations, then this concretization would not be a pretence (or a veil) debarring us from the work, but something by means of which it would distinctly manifest itself. Even individual dif­ ferences between particular concretizations en­ able us to discover what belongs to the work it­ self and what to concretizations determined by things accidental to the work: differences be­ tween various concretizations of the same work surely do not belong to the work, e.g., differ­ ent fulfilments of the same insufficiently quali­ fied spots of the work. ... Finally, in the text we speak of aesthetic contact with the work, whereas in order to detect the results presented here, a theoretic, purely cognitive access to the work is indispensable. .. . I may act in such a way that there will be no concretization of the work ... I try to stick to the text as close as possible, with all its insinuations and potential­ ities. In that way I will achieve the work in the schematic form I have presented in this book,

The Structure of Artworks but at the same time I will not achieve aesthetic perception and will not reach the aesthetic lit­ erary object.”16

35

In his works Ingarden investigates the problem of con­ cretization in three contexts: (1) in connection with on­ tological analyses dealing with the structure of different types of works of art; (2) while investigating the process of getting acquainted with a literary work; (3) in connec­ tion with the aesthetic experience, the situations in ques­ tion being the apprehension of sets of aesthetically valent qualities and their polyphonic orchestration, the creation of aesthetic objects, and communication with the aesthetic value. The conception of concretization, educed from struc­ tural properties of the work treated as a schematic creation and standing for a peculiar “complete” version of the work formed in the act of perception, contains both aspects of the “aesthetic situation,” objective and subjective: “The concretization of any literary work and of the literary work of art in particular is a result of the union of two different factors: the work itself and the reader, especially his cre­ ative and co-creative activities at the time of reading.”17 The factors that determine the form of concretization are to be found both in the work and in the cultural features of the historical period in which the concretization takes place. Ingarden maintains that the concretization is first and foremost an expression of relations between the work and the literary climate of the period. The work usually assumes a form typical of the given period; the influence of the individual atructure of the reader is ordinarily of secondary importance. The theory of concretization enables us to apprehend the work both in its relations to the perceiver, and thus opens prospects of overcoming the antinomy between de­

36

Anita Szczepanska

scribing the work of art as a specifically structured decla­ ration and as a social fact. One author who failed to notice these prospects in the ideas of Ingarden is Stanislaw Lem; in his famous book The Philosophy of Chance he undertakes a vigorous polemic with Ingarden’s views on the theory of literature. Lem’s main thesis is that there is nothing like an inner seman­ tic organization of the work and that in every single act of reading it is the work’s code that determines its inner structure. In other words, the immanent meaning order of the work is but a “misleading fiction of literature spe­ cialists; in reality the said order originates and takes shape in the acts of interpretation, which by installing the work within specific significative systems provide it with differ­ ent ‘structures of sense.’ ... To read a book does not mean to confirm its established semantic order (it being nonex­ istent, anyway) but rather to identify a certain set of rules of perception.”18 Lem rejects utterly any idea of an organized inner struc­ ture of the work existing independently of perceptive acts. Semantic structuring of the work would, in such a case, de­ pend entirely on receiving gear “applied” to the work and be thus absolutely free, unrestricted. According to Lem, the perceiver’s acts cannot be described as “filling in the framework cast in the work, but constituting this frame­ work, extracting the work from the state of shapelessness and imposing a rational form upon it.”19 Lem’s polemic purpose, directed against positions ne­ glecting the role played by acts of reception in the consti­ tution of significative contents of the literary work, is man­ ifest; it is not, therefore, altogether clear whether these ex­ treme theses may and should be taken literally, or whether they are but a sort of exaggeration aiming at an emphasis of some important traits of literary communication. The reason is that in many parts of his book Lem withdraws

37 The Structure of Artworks from his positions and speaks as if the structuring done by the reader was to a certain extent governed by the de­ terminations of the work. This is most strongly marked in his appeal to the notions of genotype and phenotype in analogy with the work and its readings: the phenotype is supposed to be “what comes into being in the reader’s mind, but what blessed simplicity often identifies with the work as a genotype. Both the text and the organic geno­ type are the governing programmes of information set in a material carrier.”20 And so, in the process of reading, the work treated as a “control system” stops depending entirely on the receiving code; receptions become submit­ ted to some “directive restrictions of the system,” specified by the very “framework cast in the work” whose existence Lem previously rejected. Thus formulated, the unity of the work’s genotype stands in opposition to the diversity of its “phenotypes” or readings (the analogy with Ingarden’s notions of the work and its concretizations is striking), with the genotype serv­ ing as a point of reference for different readings and de­ termining their field of dispersion. As rightly observed by J. Sawinski, “if we maintain that beyond particular phe­ notypes hides a fairly stabilized genotype of the work ... , we appear to understand that this genotype is within reach of our observation, yet at the same time we state some­ thing very similar to the object of our polemics: that the reader’s concretizations settle round a solid core which is nothing else but an ‘objective’ order of a literary work.”21 It appears that on the m atter at issue Lem’s views do not differ appreciably from Ingarden’s approach. This striking similarity becomes most evident in those parts of Lem’s book where he attempts his own description of a reading of a French novel, showing false interpretative hypotheses emerging in the course of reading as precisely the “wrongly” read and describes the process of transforming and reinter­

38

Anita Szczepanska

preting earlier parts of the work under the influence of the later. The whole process might, against Lem’s intentions, serve as a specification of Ingarden’s theoretic argument for the step-by-step character of the process of the cogni­ tion of a literary work and for the gradual articulation and concretization of data supplied by the text and making the reconstruction of the represented world possible. These polemics testify to the vitality and endurance of issues put forward by Ingarden, whose importance to mod­ ern theory of culture has been affirmed by one of its out­ standing contributors: “The issues undertaken by Ingar­ den in his theory of concretization have of late been proved particularly timely, having been imposed upon literature’s attem pts at a description of the work in relation to a reader no more treated as a passive receiver of anything the work cared to offer but as a full partner in the act of literary communication. ” 22 2.

The stratified structure

Analyzing the structure of different types of works of art, Ingarden points not only at a multitude of their ele­ ments, at the complex and multi-plane character of their structures, but also at close relationships, existential and functional, between different strata. In a “cross-section,” the majority of works of art appear as stratified systems whose lower strata serve as existential foundations of the higher ones. The “lowest” stratum is founded directly upon the selected properties of the material substructure. What Ingarden meant by the stratified structure of the work of art and by its prerequisites, can be best explained by the following: These are the conditions, both necessary and sufficient, that a work of art must satisfy in or­ der to possess a “multilayer” structure: (a) it

The Structure of Artworks must be composed of heterogeneous elements (as, e.g., in a literary work, vocal sounds, rep­ resented objects, etc.) (b) homogeneous ele­ ments, like vocal sounds, must combine in sets of a higher order (e.g., the meanings of words into the meaning of a sentence), the latter join­ ing in their turn into linguistic compositions of a yet higher order (sentences in groups of sentences), so that eventually all compositions thus created unite in a single element of the work, usually spreading over the whole span of the work (e.g., the stratum of the meaning of a literary work); (c) thus created, the basic el­ ement of the work must not lose its separate and individual character in the in the work’s totality, but remain a clear-cut element of the whole, both when the work’s own structure is considered and in the form it assumes in aes­ thetic perception; finally, (d) between different basic elements of the said type there must ex­ ist an organic bond, ensuing from their essence and bringing them into the whole of the single work.23

39

Different material substrata result in fundamental dif­ ferences of structure and type of element between differ­ ent literary works and especially between works making use of language and works having recourse to immediate apprehension via the senses. The substance of a literary work is not a directly shaped matter, like colour patches in a painting, masses in architecture, or tones in music, but language, i.e., a cultural intentional creation allowing only indirect construction of the represented world by means of conventional linguistic signs. “What is represented in the literary work may be set up in the realm of imagination only, as it lacks sensual forms that might be apprehended

40

Anita, Szczep&Aska

immediately by the perceiver’s sense-perception.”24 The fundamental heterogeneity of the literary work springs from this fact, for on the one hand we deal with the linguistic stratum, on the other with the represented world. The ob­ jectivities represented in the literary work are given “with a projection-apparatus to develop them.”25 Different strata may be found in non-literary works as well; their contents appear, however, as single homogeneous subjects, whereas the content of the literary work is a whole consisting of two heterogeneous elements. Ingarden distinguishes four strata of the literary work: (1) the phonetic stratum, (2) the semantic stratum of the meanings of sentences, (3) the stratum of objectivities rep­ resented by purely intentional states of things defined by the meanings of sentences, and (4) the stratum of schema­ tized aspects by means of which represented objectivities of the work become manifest. Close connections between the strata appear already in this enumeration: the seman­ tic stratum superimposed, as it were, automatically upon the phonetic one as a result of the permanent linkage of meanings to particular sounds in any given language. And since the meanings of sentences inevitably produce their own intentional equivalents — states of things to which the represented objects are committed — the represented world arises immediately upon the semantic stratum. As a result of the specific character of literary language, of its vividness, some “schemata of aspects” are set in motion in the sphere of represented objects and states of things, mak­ ing possible the immediate, if only notional, appearance of these objects. The represented world is thus uplifted to the sphere of intentional existence by means of both strata, phonetic and semantic, and especially by the latter, sup­ ported in its turn by the phonetic stratum. The introduction of the strata of represented objec­ tivities and of schematized aspects brought many objec­

41 The Structure of Artworks tions from investigators endorsing the “linguistic” model of the literary work, limited exclusively to linguistic ele­ ments. Henryk Markiewicz preferred to consider the as­ pects as particular contents of certain sentences and, echoed by Janusz Sawinski, proposed to recognize the stratum of represented objectivities as a “higher semantic stratum ” described as a kind of “concentration of meanings,” “with­ out the necessity of resorting to the conception of strata other than the stratum of meanings connected with lin­ guistic segments of the text.”26 At the opposite end of the continuum lies the musical work, the only type of work of art described by Ingarden as possessing only one stratum: although not all the elements of the musical work are homogeneous, still they never unite in uniform wholes that might be considered as strata in Ingarden’s sense of the word. This enunciation has been contested by Zofia Lissa; in her analysis of the structure of the musical work she re­ ferred to Ingarden’s theory of the literary work. In oppo­ sition to the view taken by Ingarden, that in cinema the sound is organically related to the picture, she proposed to differentiate between the visual and the sonic, and to treat both spheres as separate strata. In her “Remarks on Ingar­ den’s theory of the Musical Work” Lissa touched on some disputable views Ingarden presented in his treatise “The Question of the Identity of the Musical Work” [8 ], focus­ ing especially on the problem of the historical limitations of theses on the fundamental features of the musical work: “For all aestheticians,” she says, “views on the essence of music are historically constrained, being based on musical empiricism, i.e., on the kinds of musical works and on the reception they received that the philosophers axe provided with by the times, environment, and civilization to which they belong.”27 The views of Ingarden correspond to an historically laxge proportion of musical works, but not to

42 Anita Szczepanska the whole of music. The author bases her argument on ex­ amples drawn from vanguard music, European folk-music, and the music of long-bygone times. Ingarden responded to her criticism with a statement that in his analysis of the structures of literary and musical works of art, allowing at the same time a certain margin for a typical cases In which it is not sure whether the positions obtained for the first group of objects will be maintained. .. .It is possible that the new mu­ sic belongs precisely to the kind of case only partially compatible with the positions taken with regard to the musical work in a narrow sense. I do not think, however, that we should adopt a relativistic, historically changeable at­ titude. . .. Besides, my considerations on works of different arts were of a formal and existential kind and not concerned with the material en­ dowment of the work of art. For the latter may vary greatly over the centuries and it is doubt­ ful whether the limits of its variability will ever be established.28 According to Ingarden a careful examination of the exam­ ples of musical works discussed by Lissa does not confirm her argument that they do not fit the formal framework set up by his earlier analyses. The architectural work resembles the musical work in a number of ways. In both cases the act of perception does not have to extend beyond what is immediately and specifically given. “In architecture, as in music — as gen­ erally in all non-figurative arts — direct apprehension of what is given in sense-perception (always qualitatively synthetizing, however) brings us immediately to the architec­ tural or musical work of art.”29 In both cases the con­ crete, definitely shaped material serving as the existential

43 The Structure of Artworks basis of the work of art, is homogeneous. It seems plausi­ ble, therefore, that the architectural work might be a onestratum creation like the musical work. Ingarden rejects this implication, however, and suggests that there are two strata: (1) the stratum of visual aspects manifesting per­ ceptively the shape of the building, and (2) the stratum of the very form of the three-dimensional mass. For, in principle, in every architectural work there is an infinite multitude of the “schemata of aspects,” determined in ad­ vance by the properly shaped matter. Still, it may seem doubtful whether in the case of architectural works this discernment of two strata is really justified. Having ex­ amined in her book Ingarden’s theory of the structure of different kinds of works of art, J. Makota denied in general the expedient of distinguishing the stratum of represented objectivities in every kind of work, arguing that the aspect of an object belongs inseparably to the object as its way of appearing. The epistemological phenomenological analysis speaks, however, and even with regard to “normal” percep­ tion, of a “stratum ” of aspects beyond which lie only the objects themselves. The situation of abstract painting is similar to that of the musical composition. Ingarden is inclined to recognize it as a one-stratum work, whereas in figurative painting, apart from the strata of colour patches and appearences, there is also the stratum of represented objectivities and, in many cases, the stratum of a literary or historical subject. All the multi-stratified works give rise to the question of whether their way of existence is homogeneous, since each successive stratum is an existential foundation of the other “higher”-placed strata. Ingarden does not touch upon this problem, although his answer is implicit in his theory of the intentional object: in respect to the intentionality of existence, the work of art is multi-stage.30

44 3. Qualitative structure

Anita Szczepanska

When analyzing the “anatomical” structure of the work of art, Ingarden used to point out that in different strata of particular types of works one can find, apart from purely structural moments, some aesthetically active qualities. The aesthetically valent qualities of different types appear on every stratum of the work and create a specific qualitystructure of decisive importance to the work’s value. Here we shall outline the idea of this structure, or, to use In­ garden’s expression, the system of aesthetically significant qualities, attempting at the same time to show its relation to the stratified structure of the work. In the work of art Ingarden distinguishes three types of qualitative moment: (1) aesthetically neutral moments, material and formal, some of which are of consequence for the establishment of aesthetically valent qualities; (2) aes­ thetically valent qualities built upon them (positively or negatively); (3) the aesthetic, qualitatively defined value. Qualities belonging to the first group form an aesthetically neutral skeleton of the work, qualified by different sets of properties — e.g., the properties relevant to the specific character of the material basis, to their stratified structure, to their objective or processive character, etc. Some fea­ tures of the neutral skeleton participate as the work’s pro­ ficiencies in setting up aesthetically valent qualities. Upon the basis of the aesthetically neutral skeleton arise different aesthetically valent moments, which in their turn determine the value of the concretized work of art. Ingarden attempted to produce an open-ended list of the moments that may appear as aesthetically active and arranged them in the following groups of qualities: first, the aesthetically valent material and formal qualities, then various forms of the qualities “excellence” or “cheapness,” the ways the qualities become manifest, variants of “new­

The Structure of Artworks

45

ness,” “naturalness,” “truth,” “reality” and a number of ways they affect the perceiver. There is also a group apart, that of the qualities determining in detail the aesthetic val­ ues themselves. Among nine discriminated groups Ingarden draws at­ tention to two, the group of material qualities and the group of formal moments, as the groups of paramount importance both to the creation of a fully substantialized work and to the remaining groups, which derive from them. Ingarden calls these moments an aesthetically valent framework of the work. His attitude directly opposes the views of the adherents of formalism and theories linking the value of the work with its essence. “For it is not true that all the for­ mal moments, and only them, axe aesthetically valent, nor axe the material moments of that character.”31 Different relationships arise between the valent framework and the different groups of qualities, and also within the framework itself, e.g., some qualities are derivative, like the more defi­ nite determinations of the moments belonging to the valent framework or of whole groups of them. A closer analysis of relationships between different types of quality shows that an appearance of a certain type of basic qualification is ac­ companied by a “representative” of each specified group of qualities. “Speaking differently: the appearance of some qualities from each specified group of aesthetically valent qualities is an inevitable consequence of the valent frame­ work’s contents.”32 For instance, the emergence of a basic quality must go together with a definite manner, positive or negative, of its appearance in the work, a manner that dis­ plays a certain “excellence,” a certain grade of originality or newness, etc. In this way Ingarden justifies his hypothe­ sis that in the work of art there is a system of aesthetically significant qualities, a coherent schema of hierarchicallyordered qualities crucial to the qualitative determination of the work’s value.

46

Anita Szczeparislca The theoretic significance of these issues lies in the pos­ sibility of a completely new approach to the problem of the “objectivity” of aesthetic value. This would require, how­ ever, a more extensive expatiation on axiological problems; here I only want to touch on a question of the relation between the two structures — the quality structure and the stratified structure of the work of art. This relation has sometimes been mistakenly interpreted, with the aes­ thetically valent qualities of the work treated as another “stratum .” I think that the situation is different: in a case like this we have to do with two different hierarchical struc­ tures which enter into complex and multi-layered relations with one another. Ingarden did not comment explicitly on this problem, but the premises for its analysis are implied in his conception. In what appears to be his only direct remark on the mutual relationship between the two structures, Ingarden maintains that both of the following attempts at a solution are unacceptable: either to try to re-arrange the groups of qualities according to their aesthetic significance and thus to obtain a completely new stratification of the work of art, or to suggest the introduction of a fifth stratum of the liter­ ary work of art alongside the four distinguished previously. “The problem appears to be much more complicated and it is not as if the strata I am presently going to speak of were, let us say, a continuation or completion of the strata which I have discussed before, when I was examining the structure of the literary work of art, painting, etc.”33 The two structures — the fundamental stratified structure of the work of art and its axiological quality structure — may be said to interweave or to mutually penetrate each other. To make this penetration and the way it comes about intel­ ligible we have to begin with the fundamental fact that the aesthetically significant qualities may manifest themselves in every stratum of the work: in the case of a literary work

The Structure of Artworks 47 of axt, in. the phonetic stratum, and in all the strata of meanings and objects meant; in painting, in the strata of colour patches, appearances and represented objects, etc. It is thus clear that the axiological structure penetrates the whole work, affects all its strata. It is therefore impossible to identify, e.g., the lowest phonetic stratum of a literary work, the stratum that serves as a basis for the remaining strata, with the neutral skeleton of the work, or to sin­ gle out one particular stratum responsible for the artistic craftmanship of the work. On the contrary, each stratum of the work may be shown to display a hierarchy of aes­ thetically significant qualities, along with moments which are aesthetically neutral and belong thus to the “neutral skeleton.” Within the linguistic stratum certain features of language may be altogether aesthetically indifferent, while other features may become artistically valuable provided they lead to the manifestation of immediately apprehended aesthetically valent qualities. The situation recurs within all remaining strata of the work, e.g., within the repre­ sented world certain aesthetically valent qualities may be founded in the attributes of the world and, therefore, these attributes express a certain artistic competence (i.e., they are not artistically indifferent qualities). Those features of the represented world which do not support any aesthet­ ically valent qualities belong, by the same token, to the neutral skeleton of the work. The insight we have explored so far can be summed up as follows: aesthetic quality-structures are “built into” each stratum of the work; these structures consist of elements of the neutral skeleton of the work, with artistically sig­ nificant qualities and aesthetically valent qualities founded upon them. It is obvious, however, that this description considerably simplifies the actual and more complicated sit­ uation. The additional complexity is due to the fact that an artistically significant quality which makes certain va­

48

Anita Szczepanska

lent qualities emerge may, but does not have to, belong to the same stratum of the work on which the aestheti­ cally valent qualities which makes certain valent qualities emerge may, but does not have to, belong to the same strat nmof the work on which the aesthetically valent qualities appear; on the contrary, it happens frequently that, e.g., a particular sentential structure serves as a basis for cer­ tain aesthetically valent qualities that manifest themselves in the represented world, and so the aesthetic competence (a definite sentential structure, in our example) belongs to the linguistic stratum, while the aesthetically valent quality manifests itself in the represented world. Thus we arrive at a more accurate formulation of our conception: if aesthetically valent qualities occur already in the “lowest” stratum of the work of art — in the case of a literary work in its phonetic stratum, in a painting in the stratum of colour patches (and similarly also in the case of one-stratum works) — then this stratum possesses a “full” axiological structure, namely aesthetically valent qualities, artistic features that are responsible for the ap­ pearance of these aesthetically valent qualities, and neutral elements; if there are “higher” strata, then the aesthetically valent qualities occuring in these strata may be based either on artistically significant qualities that belong to the same stratum or on artistically significant qualities of “lower” strata. An additional complication is due to the fact that sometimes one and the same quality of the work of art is not only artistically significant but also aesthetically valent, e.g., the lucidity of a complicated sentence may be aesthet­ ically valent, and the same lucidity, if it provided one of the bases for another aesthetically valent quality (e.g., a certain atmosphere within the represented world), is a sign of artistic skill. It seems that no unique, rigid schema of the mutual penetration of the two structures is available. This point

The Structure of Artworks

49 becomes obvious if we recall the variety of all possible mod­ ifications of their mutual relationships, as sketched above. A thorough examination of the aesthetically valent and ar­ tistically significant qualities displayed on different strata of the work of art, as well as an investigation of the prop­ erties which belong to the neutral skeleton of the work, are possible only if particular works are dealt with. The aesthetic value of the work of art is built upon these two mutually penetrating structures. The “being built upon” of the aesthetic value distinguishes it from the aesthetically valent qualities which fulfil their determina­ tive function within particular strata (or within elements of the work singled out in another way, e.g., its parts), while the aesthetic value embraces the whole of the work of art. Therefore, it always manifests itself as a moment aris­ ing from the aesthetic quality-structure of the work, some­ thing that, as I have tried to show, is by its very essence “immersed” in the work’s “stratified” anatomy. Ingarden’s conception of the qualitative structure of the work of art has been critically analyzed by Stefan Morawski.34 One of his objections, namely the charge of an unjustified “multiplica­ tion of entities,” refers both to the discrimination between artistically valent qualities and aesthetic qualities, and to the isolation, within the framework of aesthetic value, of a “quality” of value. The first of these objections has far-reaching consequences, since it calls into question the discrimination fundamental to Ingarden’s system, that be­ tween the work of art and the aesthetic object. Morawski argues that since artistic qualities are not directly given in the aesthetic encounter with the work of art they are only hypothetically assumed — we may suppose that they are, but we will never know what they are. The author does not seem to recall, however, that, the aesthetic ex­ perience apart, we may still become acquainted with the Work of art via its properties, not only through the so-called

50

Anita Szczepanska

pre-aesthetic cognition but also through the investigation of the work based on already performed concretizations of it. All this enables us to ascertain which properties of the work possess the ability (and so the artistic valency) to underpin specific aesthetic qualities and the way they axe organized. On the other hand, Morawski rightly indicates that the same qualities may perform the functions of both artistic and aesthetic qualities, but this does not testify, as can easily be shown, to the gratuitousness of the said dis­ crimination. The reasons for Morawski’s objections to the discrimination between the quality of value and the aes­ thetic value are not clear, nor is his statement that the said discrimination is ontologically groundless. In values (as in everything that exists) we may distinguish the categorical form, the m atter, and the mode of existence; hence the chaxge of multiplication of entities seems a misunderstand­ ing, for is it not true that the quality (matter) of value and the value itself are two different beings? Ingaxden’s statements on this subject leave no room for doubt: “The qualities of an aesthetic value are its determinations, qual­ itative and immediately cognizable. ... The values differ among themselves too, which means that they possess de­ terminations of their own or qualities that define them.”35 The most fundamental objections against Ingarden’s theory of the structure of the work of art and against his theory of the aesthetic experience are due to the assumption of the phenomenological method mentioned at the begin­ ning. These objections are raised against the absolute char­ acter ascribed to an historically-determined understanding of the work of art and its functions, and against the model of an aesthetic experience that takes no account of the mul­ tiplicity of ways people have entered into communication with art in different periods and different cultures. I think, however, that there is an admissible interpretation of the positions of Ingarden that to a certain extent averts these

51 The Structure of Artworks objections: it should be remembered that the general char­ acter of Ingarden’s positions is of a very peculiar kind, con­ nected with the eidetic, ontological analyses of pure possi­ bilities, while the question concerning which sphere of ac­ tual phenomena these analyses may be applied to is from this point of view of minor importance. What is essential is that it is at all possible to demonstrate objects of this type, apprehended in their eidetic structure (incidentally, Ingar­ den often stated the statistical rarity of perceptive pro­ cesses that did not transcend the limits set by his model). In view of those trends of inquiry that emphasize the communicative character of the perception of art, the the­ ory of Ingarden omits the phenomena belonging to the process of artistic communication. These approaches too are not free of onesidedness, concentrating all their interest on the facts of social mediation and on the determination of receptive behaviour by social codes of reception, failing to analyze the structure of the object that participates in these acts, the work of art itself. It seems that the new approach to the issues connected with the perception of art, offered by semiotic analysis, is not at variance with the conception of Ingarden, according to whom the object of aesthetic experience is not finished, existing, but rather the outcome of receptive acts. This formulation implies a possibility of taking into consideration all types of factors affecting the course of reception. The aesthetics of Ingar­ den offers, moreover, a number of solutions, mostly in the field of the ontology of the work of art and of the aesthetic object, that enable us to avoid the extreme positions — the one treating the work as an object independent of the ways it acts and functions, the other exaggerating the role of receptive processes that allegedly proceed irrespective of the properties of the work, exclusively in accordance with the requirements of cultural standards obligatory in any given period.

52 N otes

Anita Szczepanska

1. Katarzyna Rosner, “Ingardenowska koncepcja budowy dziela sztuki jako zrodlo inspiracji do analizy komunikacji artystycznej” (Ingarden’s Conception of the Structure of the Literary Work of Art as a Source of Inspiration for the Analysis of Artistic Communication), Studia Semiotyczne, V (1974). 2. Ingarden [42], Studia z estetyki (Studies in Aesthetics), (Warsaw 1970), III, 23-24. 3. Krzysztof Pomian, “O filozofii K. Twardowskiego” (On the Philosophy of K. Twardowski), Wi§z , IV: 4 (1973). 4. Janina Makota, O klasyfikacji sztuk pieknych (On the Classification of the Fine Arts), (Cracow 1964), 173. 5. Jadwiga Slawinska, “Uwagi o teorii dziela architektury Romana Ingardena” (Remarks on the Theory of the Architectural Work of Roman Ingarden), Studia Esteiyczne, I (1964). 6. Ingarden, List do Redakcji (Letter to the Editor), Studia Esteiyczne, I (1964). 7. Ingarden [13], “O budowie obrazu” (On the Structure of Painting). 8. Ingarden [21], Studia z estetyki (Studies in Aesthetics), (Warsaw 1966), I, 40. 9. Ingarden [21], 39. 10. Ingarden [23] Studia z estetyki (Studies in Aesthetics), 2nd ed., (Warsaw 1958), II, 100. 11. Ingarden [23], 280. 12. Michal Glowinski, Style odbioru (The Styles of Reception), (Cracow 1977), 96. 13. Ingarden [7], 0 dziele literackim (On the Literary Work of Art), (Warsaw 1960), 323. 14. Ingarden [23], 103. 15. Ingarden [7], 416. 16. Ingarden [7], 415-16.

The Structure of Artworks

53

17. Ingarden [16], Szkice z filozofii literatury (Sketches in the Philosophy of Literature), 67. 18. Janusz Sławiński, “Wypowiedz w dyskusji nad Filozofia Przypadku S. Lema” (Minutes of a discussion on The Philosophy of Chance of S. Lem), Pamiętnik Literacki, I (1971). 19. Stanisław Lem, Filozofia przypadku, Literatura w świetle empirii (The Philosophy of Chance: Literature in the Light of Empiricism), (Cracow 1968), italics added. 20. Lem, 196. 21. Sławiński, “Minutes.” 22. Głowiński, 113. 23. Ingarden [S3], 201-02. 24. Makota, 219. 25. Makota, 220. 26. Henryk Markiewicz, “O dziele literackim R. Ingardena” (On the Literary Work of R. Ingarden), Estetyka, II (1961); J. Sławiński, Semantyka wypowiedzi narracyjnej (The Semantics of the Narrative Pronouncement), in W kręgu zagadnień teorii powieści (The Field of the Theory of the Novel), ed. J. Sławiński (Wrocław 1967), 17. 27. Zofia Lissa, “Uwagi o Ingardenowskiej teorii dzieła muzycznego” (Remarks on Ingarden’s Theory of the Musical Work), Studia Estetyczne, III (1966). 28. Ingarden, “Uwagi o uwagach Zofii Lissy” (Remarks on the Remarks of Zofia Lissa), Studia Estetyczne III (1966). 29. Ingarden [23], 126. 30. Such a solution has been proposed in the above-noted book of J. Makota. The phenomenon of multi-stage intentionality — intentional objects being substructured by others, or “contained” within them — is characteristic of the sphere of intentional being. Ingarden discusses a number of examples of this kind: e.g., in the case of a literary work (an intentional object in its own right) the material, namely language, is another object. W ithin the framework of the intentional objectivity of the represented world there may appear

54

Anita Szczepanska persons who bring to life, through the act of “personated” talking, other persons or objects, which results in the appearance of storeyed intentional structures.

31. Ingarden [42], 300-01. 32. Ingarden [42], 302. 33. Ingarden, Wykiady i dyskusje z esietyki (Lectures and Discussions on Aesthetics). Aesthetics Department, Jagiellonian University, May session, 1963, (Warsaw 1981), 396. 34. Stefan Morawski, “Szkola stawiania pytari” (The School of Asking Questions), Studia Estetyczne, part i, VII (1970), part ii, VIII (1971). 35. Ingarden [86], Przezycie — dzielo — wartosc (Experience — Work of Art — Value), (Cracow 1966), 129, 197.

III. The Work of A rt and Aesthetic Categories According to Ingarden

Janusz Misiewicz

It would seem that the elucidation of the essence and speci­ ficity of artistic values consists in the description of the structure and operation of the work of art. Most modern aesthetic theories seem to share this conviction. However, the explanation of artistic values through the operation of a certain kind of object (works of art) leads to unexpected and even paradoxical results, which appear even in compe­ tent and conscientious studies. Let us take for an example the aesthetic inquiries of Ro­ man Ingarden.1 These deserve attention at least because Ingarden exactly specifies the problems treated by most professional students of art, who rely on their intuition or on common customs. Ingarden undertakes the effort of elucidating the basic concepts and aesthetic categories in an honest confrontation with art as his constant com­ panion in life. His studies, conscientious and penetrating, are directed at artistic phenomena and provide an excep­ tional opportunity to discover drawbacks of a certain way of thinking about art connected with the philosophical tra­ dition of modem aesthetics. I am not approaching Ingarden’s theory from the point of view of a different conception of the work of art, but in order to expose both the inconsistency of the very general idea of the work of art and its fairly limited usefulness in the description of artistic values. In some respects, Ingarden’s conception offers an opportunity for the continuation and intentional advancement of certain matters despite difficul­ ties that will undoubtedly emerge in subsequent inquiries. 55 B. Dziemidok and P. McCormick (eds.), On the Aesthetics o f Roman Ingarden, 55-70. © 1989 by Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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According to Ingarden, the work of art is an object of a special kind; in its mode of existence it is intentional and heteronomous (as opposed, for example, to real and ideal objects and, on the other hand, also autonomous ob­ jects), having a determined ontic scope and constant func­ tion, an object with a characteristic structure — schematic, containing gaps and indeterminate places which are subse­ quently filled up in the process of aesthetic concretization by the recipient. (The domain of this notion covers the socalled fine arts, “les beaux arts” as distinguished by Charles Batteux,2 complemented with the twentieth-century art of cinema.) The work of art thus understood, self-same and in principle unchangeable, may be (and usually is) concretized in different ways by recipients. However, if we accept that the essence of the work of art determines its intentional and heteronomous character and that it is realized through creative and recreative acts, then its identity must be ensured by the unchangeability of what Ingarden calls “the physical ontic foundation of the work of art” (the latter denotes, for instance, the media of paint and canvas in painting or a building in the work of architecture). However, a closer determination of the specificity of dif­ ferent kinds of artistic creation carried out by Ingarden reveals that in fact these various kinds of art have no com­ mon categorial form and their relations to the physical on­ tic foundation are also varied. Some of them (painting and sculpture) have the nature of things lasting in time, while others have the nature of processes (theatrical spectacle, a piece of music); some works are embedded in things and in them persist as objects of aesthetic delight; others exist in language, which is a product of social communication and a certain interhuman entity and still others owe their durability to the accepted manner of a musical notation. A literary work is a thing, an intentional object, that

The Work of Art and Aesthetic Categories 57 has its ontic foundation in another object (language); this results in a multiplicity of the physical forms in which it can be recorded (book, gramophone record, tape). Thus, contrary to Ingarden’s thesis, the concept of the physical ontological foundation of the work of art seems appropri­ ate only for some variants of artistic creation, while the nature of this relation between them and the work proper is changeable in the realm of all art. Significant differences between particular kinds of art are also revealed by a comparison of the principles of their construction. For example, the multi-layered literary work is opposed to the bi-layered work of architecture and to the essentially homogeneous musical work of art. Various kinds of artistic creation appeal differently to the recipient: some do so directly, visually or aurally or combined in a visual-aural reception, while others, as Wladyslaw Tatarkiewicz would say, appeal to the imagina­ tion (a literary work). Moreover, the schematic nature of a structure cannot be accepted as an attribute of each art if, as Ingarden writes, “the circumstance that the ontic foun­ dation of a work of architecture is a certain real building has the result, ultimately, that the work is not a schematic creation in the sense in which a literary work or painting are. Thus, the schematic character does not belong to the essence of every work of art in general.3 The relation of the work of art to its receptive concretizations takes various forms in different arts (painting, music, literature). It is precisely the complexity of this problem that is revealed by Ingarden’s approach to a work of music in which the score is regarded as a scheme deter­ mining a potential multiplicity of correct and aesthetically valuable performances, as well as the apprehension of a the­ atrical spectacle exclusively as a concretization of a literary work in drama as a literary kind. In fact, in the former case weactually encounter a

58

Janusz Misiewicz

substitution of Ingarden’s basic relation “work of a rtconcretization” by the relation “scheme of a work of a rtrealization-concretization”; in the latter case it becomes the relation “work of art-concretization (performance)concretization (listening).” Such an approach to music fails to result in a positively defined work of music, while the ap­ proach to the theatrical spectacle removes the proper work from theatre to the domain of literary creation. According to the results of Ingarden’s inquiries, one should therefore assume that some works have a schematic character, since they exist only potentially (music), while the essence of other works is determined by different kinds of creation (e.g. theatrical vs. literary play). Thus, the superior relation “work of art-concretization” accepted by Ingarden cannot be retained in the full scope of the various kinds of artistic creation, while their variety again makes one raise a question both about the founda­ tions on which such differently constructed and operating objects are being integrated and, more generally, about the essence of the work of art shared by all of them. One may suppose that the factor integrating this group of phenomena — a rather uneven group, as it turns out may be found in artistic values that, although differently realized and manifesting themselves in various ways in par­ ticular works, preserve their basic identity at least within paradigmatic, “full-blooded” works of art. Let us assume that the work of art constitutes an ontic foundation of artistic values. Let us also assume that the work of art is described as any object which tends to serve aesthetic functions due to the skills and artistic values it possesses, embedded in the so-called axiologically neutral skeleton.4 Let us then ask, for instance, in what way we get at the literary work of art in its essential determinants. It is obvious that every literary work, read “normally,” is given to the recipient in some receptive experience, so

The Work of Art and Aesthetic Categories 59 that in order to obtain, for instance, an outline of the gen­ eral construction of the literary work one should first cor­ rectly reduce all those factors that, though belonging to concretization, do not enter the scope of the essential com­ ponents of the work of art, especially those factors which within a given object of art impress a specific qualitative stamp of its own picture of artistic character (e.g., the con­ crete realized values of a certain literary work). Thus, in order to gain access to the work of art one should some­ how de-concretize one’s receptive apprehension. Intention is then directed towards a determination of the general idea of the literary work of art. This task, although difficult, can still be performed, ac­ cording to Ingarden, who referred to his own results in one of his main works, The Literary Work of Art. The outcome of such a procedure, i.e., a literary work of art in its essential determinates, actually constitutes “an intentional object of a higher order” or, as Husserl might say, “a counter part of a higher constitutive layer of consciousness.” Let us add that it is higher than the usual concretization process. Still, there is something puzzling in this procedure, es­ pecially when we accept as its purpose the production of a positively defined work of literary art, the carrier of skills and artistic values. For these values, realized in existing literary works, are always reached by means of concretiza­ tion; nor can we find a better foundation to judge the artis­ tic skills of a given work than by submitting to it in the aesthetic attitude. Let us add that, according to a fairly consistent opinion of experts, the highest and, if one may say so, most evident artistic values are in most cases indi­ vidual and specific, i.e., values that on the one hand do not easily yield to typological approaches and on the other “do not fit” the usual stereotypical patterns of reception. Thus, as we see, the construction of a general model of a work of literary art, determined by a generalizing and

60 Janusz Misiewicz typifying approach, excludes the individualizing and con­ cretizing attitude which fits the reception of artistic literary values. The paradox lies in the fact that one can either pro­ vide a description of the construction of the literary work while neglecting its artistic values or offer such a deter­ mination of its values and thereby exclude total and fully general claims. In the former case the question of the artistic character is left open, although we have tried to achieve a positive determination of the literary work of axt; in the latter case we have to give up a fully objective (and general) coun­ terpart of the aesthetic experience and shall probably have to widen our point of view to include the domain going beyond the arbitrary realm of artistic literature. In the former case we seem to be dealing with “the axiologically neutral skeleton” of the work of art rather than the work itself; in the latter, with the domain of art deprived of the ontological foundation of objects of art, it is the object’s value that decides whether it is “artistic” or not. Naturally, the “axiologically neutral skeleton” of a work may concern all varieties of creation, from a trifle to a mas­ terpiece, but it cannot reveal any differences between them, especially in relation to matters most significant from the point of view of artistic values, i.e., their concrete and spe­ cific manifestations in the work. Perhaps this “skeleton” can also represent an even more general category than the literary work of art, such as the literary work in general, though it does not bring us closer to a description of artistic values in their literary variety. Thus, it is perhaps worthwhile to pay more attention to what Ingarden writes in the preface to the first volume of Studies in Aesthetics: ... when for the first time I was faced with the problems of the essence of the work of art, with the values it embodies and introduces into

The Work of Art and Aesthetic Categories

61

human life, there at once emerged in the fore­ ground questions concerning the basic structure of the work of art and the structures of works of particular kinds, as well as the problem of the mode of existence, especially of its ontic deriva­ tiveness and dependence on the productive act of the creator and on the receptive behaviour of the recipient. Both should be considered quite independently of the value of the work of art in respect to the aesthetic object. Hence, a number of considerations seem quite indiffer­ ent to aesthetics. Nevertheless, they show that both the general structure of the work of art and its mode of existence are specifically differ­ ent from the structure and mode of existence of real objects and, furthermore, that because of that the domain of art and aesthetic objects constitutes a specific world unto itself which is built upon real objects and which, by way of contrast, throw some light on the structure and mode of existence of that which is real.5 It seems that Ingarden’s treatise The Literary Work of Art constitutes an attem pt to reconcile contradictory schol­ arly aims, namely, the description of the structure of the literary work and the determination of its artistic skills. In consequence, the structure is penetrated with artistic mo­ ments which everywhere go beyond it. An example of this penetration may be found in the layer of schematized ap­ pearances, distinguished as one of the constituents of the general structure of the literary work. In my opinion these “appearances kept handy” actu­ ally constitute a set of artistic skills of the representational variety of literary creation. This is also supported by the description they are given by Ingarden, according to whom appearances impose on the recipient sequences and series

62 Janusz Misiewicz of imaginary phenomena, as well as by the fact, that, in Ingarden’s theory, this is the only noncontinuous layer of the work. It seems that Ingarden was far from rejecting works lacking or only slightly filled with appearances, or from removing them beyond the domain of what he called “full-blooded” literary works. But it is worth emphasiz­ ing that he did consider the possibility of a lowering of the artistic effectiveness of those literary works that are lacking in appearances. Thus, the layer of schematized ap­ pearances belongs to the domain of what is artistic (and specific) rather than to what is typical and common to all varieties of literary creation. The treatise The Literary Work of Art also contains examples of artistic qualities going beyond the scheme of the general structure of the work of art and beyond its objective domain. An example of aesthetic factors going beyond the structural determinations of the literary work may be found in what Ingarden calls “metaphysical qual­ ities” whose “occurrence in the work of art allows various kinds and degrees”6 and which are realized, though infre­ quently, in the experience of real life. One may suppose that the impossibility of mutually rec­ onciling the individualizing (directed towards values) and generalizing views of the literary work of art also concerns other forms of artistic creation, as has been shown above. The literary work of art constitutes, therefore, a convenient example of what happens in all art or rather in its possible theoretical determinations. The superior concept of the work of art covers various kinds of artistic creation (painting, literature, music, etc.) that are characterized by different principles of construc­ tion, different regularities of structure, different modes of perception and different relations to the “the ontic foun­ dation”; they also differ in the ontic scope and in deter­ minants in respect to receptive concretizations. All that

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is fully general in their intentionality (although they share this ontological status with other, non-artistic, objects of culture: institutions, customs, opinions) and the fact that artistic values which determine the social sense of art are given in concretizing apprehension, in the act of the aes­ thetic perception of the work of art. Thus, for a description of literary values only the second component of the rela­ tion “work of art-concretization” is useful: the first merely determines the objective scope of concretization. A de­ scription of artistic values should also take into account their qualitative differentiation which to some extent cor­ responds to traditional aesthetic categories. In more recent aesthetics, the approach through aes­ thetic categories serves the purpose of creating a system of aesthetically significant qualities of combining the generic distinctiveness of qualities with the specific values of the work of art.7 Such an attitude also characterizes recent works by Ingarden.8 The ample list of aesthetically significant qualities made up by Ingarden9 is comprised of two main kinds of quality: (1) elementary qualities (the so-called aesthetically valu­ able moments), and (2) whole qualities, which he calls the qualities of values. Aesthetically valuable moments are di­ vided into two main variants, “material” and “formal,” and into several groups of derivative moments related to the basic moments — connected, for instance, with the way in which the qualities occur or operate on the recipient. In the derivative group there occurs, for instance, such charac­ teristics as “reality,” “veracity,” “naturalness,” “novelity,” etc. Among aesthetically valuable moments of the material kind belong the names of many traditional aesthetic cate­ gories, such as the “tragic,” the “dramatic,” the “lyrical,” the “sublime,” the “pathetic,” etc. Similarly, among formal moments there are listed such categories as “symmetrical,” “harmonious,” “dynamic,” “correct,” “concise,” etc. By

64

Janusz Misiewicz

way of contrast, these groups are accompanied by aesthet­ ically negative moments: for instance, ‘‘banal,” “boring,” and “shallow,” among material moments (in a particular variant, the so-called “intellectual moments”) and, among formal moments, “monotonous,” “clumsy,” “uneven,” and “incorrect.” In concrete works these aesthetically valuable moments are combined with one another forming sets (as­ sortments) of qualities of a higher order and thus generating several superior variants of aesthetic values. Ingarden calls these variants qualities of values, using this term because of a peculiar feature dominant within a given variant of values. Among the variants (qualities) of values he distinguishes, for instance, “beauty,” “prettiness,” “greatness,” “matu­ rity,” etc., with which he juxtaposes “ugliness,” “hideous­ ness,” “smallness,” “immaturity,” etc. One may therefore think that the predominant quality of a value (positive or negative) of a work constitutes a derivative of the assortment of aesthetically valuable mo­ ments realized in the work. Both qualities of values and aesthetically valuable moments generally correspond to tra­ ditional aesthetic notions. It seems, then, purposeful to consider the way in which aesthetic categories determine certain values (groups of values) and the extent to which they are specifically aesthetical or go beyond the specifi­ cally aesthetic sphere. At least two aesthetic concepts, beauty and ugliness, are apparently absolute categories of the qualities of values, in the sense that every realization of beauty in any variant is something aesthetically positive, just like every ugliness is aesthetically negative. Yet, when taken separately (and in a certain variant) both beauty and ugliness may be treated instrumentally from the point of view of the general value of the work: they do not determine in advance the value by their mere occurrence. This is particularly evident in representational arts in which particular aesthetic charac­

The Work of Art and Aesthetic Categories 65 teristics are embedded in objects in the work of art. In a representational work, banal “doll-like” prettiness (as a variant of general beauty) may be treated satirically without recommending this kind of quality to its recipients at all. A beautiful form associated, let us say, with a se­ rious topic may actually result in dismal failure in terms of aesthetic function if the contrast between that which is presented and the manner of its artistic treatment proves too great. The functional relation combining the qualities of the work means that what is valuable in itself (charm or elegance) does not always retain its value in combination with other properties of the work. Similarly, ugliness does not always have an aesthetically negative qualification; quite the contrary in certain works, where it is given a positive function. The late portraits of Rembrandt present old, ugly, and sickly people, but the physical ugliness of the sitters only strengthens, if not ac­ tually determines the values of Rembrandt’s art, especially in the range of the highest values, i.e., the metaphysical qualities present in his works. As an art historian writes: “Rembrandt’s old men have in them something of the pa­ triarchal majesty of biblical heroes. Those poor, exhausted, helpless people are shown in such a way as to make every­ body understand that they deserved a better fate.”10 As a qualitative mark of objects and events, ugliness may be variously and positively exploited in artistic cre­ ation. For example, it may be employed in such a way that as a form of the world it constitutes a visualization of a cognitive revelation, an illustration of a truth about life: “the world is ugly, people are vacant.”11 It may also be combined with completely opposed treatments of the world presented in the work of art, a depiction in the spirit of both the sublime and the comic. The sublime, a picture of the world contaminated with ugliness, may be a mani­ festation of the drama of existence in a world repulsive and

Janusz Misiewicz alien to man; it may be a picture of the human condition, determined but also unwanted, whose significance consists in the heroism of existence in a hostile and offensive reality. Comic applications of ugliness are probably as old as the representational arts themselves. The ugliness of carica­ ture and satire constitutes the main means of characterizing man, a sign of his social status and personality, and an externalization of his animosities and inclinations. The ludic, comic, in a way elemental, highly values characters from traditional comedy with long noses and huge bellies, exag­ geratedly lean misers and hideous suitors.12 Ugliness thus employed is the first signal of an agreement with the recip­ ient, a shaxed detachment from the presented figures, ugly and therefore ridiculous. In traditional comedy physical ugliness symbolized, as a rule, inner ugliness and hence the romantic characters in the commedia dell’arte were hand­ some as a mark of their righteousness. Thus, comically employed ugliness has a definite positive value in building up the general sense of the work and its overall value. Naturally, these examples do not exhaust all the cogni­ tively and artistically positive applications of ugliness. One could still mention, for instance, the beautiful presentation of ugly things typical of the works of Hieronymus Bosch, who painted his “hellish larvae” in refined, charming har­ monies of colour, or the device of an apparently ugly and clumsy execution which becomes a signal precisely of for­ mal virtuosity.13 The beauty of a painting in the sense of an achieved colour harmony, often happens to be based on ugly primary colour qualities which, taken separately, would constitute aesthetically negative moments. Writing about Pablo Pi­ casso’s paintings, Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz stated: 66

Looking at these masterpieces of our times it is hard to understand by what miracle the four colours, two of which are neutral and the

The Work of Art and Aesthetic Categories

67

other two almost ugly as such and resembling some excrements in green grass, may have cre­ ated this beautiful perverse harmony, necessary in its perversity, only through their extremely modest, yet mathematically certain, particular distribution in fan-like gradations and angular masses,in which the very apprehension of form or what the so-called experts call technique is merely an unassuming blurring of planes in its discretion and simplicity.14 Therefore, the usefulness of aesthetic categories (beauty, ugliness) in a description of the values of a representational work seems to depend on distinguishing in it two functional moments, namely, what is presented and the manner(s) of presentation, or of particular aesthetic qualities and their overall congruence in non-representational arts. To some extent these oppositions are in agreement with Ingarden’s distinction between “aesthetically valuable moments” and “qualities of aesthetic values”15 (assuming that “moments” build up “qualities”); at the same time they differ from Ingarden’s conception in that for him beauty and ugli­ ness are taken for qualities of aesthetic values while the tragic and wittiness are taken for aesthetically valuable moments. This is in disagreement with the operation of ugliness creating comic or possible satiric effects, described above. From the point of view of the intended superiority of the comic, ugliness is precisely an aesthetically valuable moment rather than a superior (and negative) quality of values; the result is similar when ugliness creates a supe­ rior feature of the sublime in a particular work. Thus, a description of the values of the work of art should first of all give an account of the elementary char­ acter of the values of work and states if it is principally beautiful or comic or tragic and what constituent qualities build up this superior quality. The determination of a con­

68 Janusz Misiewicz stant repertory of aesthetically valuable qualities does not serve this purpose because in concrete works “aesthetically valuable moments” and what Ingarden calls “the qualities of values” may somehow exchange places. In a work whose principal function is comic, ugliness may belong to a set of “aesthetically valuable moments” and not to that of “the qualities of values”; in an essentially tragic work, the tragic is not only “an aesthetically valuable moment” but also a basic “quality of values.” The main problem of aesthetics dealing with a descrip­ tion of values, as Ingarden rightly states, is the question of the congruence of aesthetically valuable qualities lend­ ing the work its determined form of superior value. These problems should be solved separately both for particular kinds of artistic creation (painting, literature, etc.) and for particular works, yet not under an assumption accepted in advance but taking into account the concrete, visually apprehensible differentation of artistic creation. Regarded in isolation, in their purely qualitative endow­ ment, both beauty and ugliness fail to reveal a specifically artistic character, probably because, it seems, these are not strictly or absolutely artistic qualities. The ugliness of peo­ ple portrayed by Rembrandt belongs both to art and to the world, in about equal extent: even the most refined colour harmonies of beautiful paintings have their real counter­ parts in visual colour qualities (colours and colour assort­ ments). None of the qualities which created beauty in the understanding of the ancients — symmetry, regularity, or proportion — was something that occurs only in art and has no right to exist beyond art. (In fact they believed just the opposite, that art is valuable only in so far as it constitutes an imitation and embodiment of the beauty of the world or the idea of beauty.) Therefore, when we look at the isolated notions that denote the so-called aesthetically valuable mo­ ments, it turns out that none of them is a qualification

The Work of Art and Aesthetic Categories 69 of only artistic products (works of art), that they concern equally well the sphere of non-artistic phenomena. Such notions as wistful, lyrical, appealing, unpleasant, interest­ ing, banal, sophisticated, coarse, or noble16 contain noth­ ing that would be against their non-artistic applications “in life.” Perhaps the understanding of art itself demands going beyond the scope of strictly artistic operations to those of a rt’s higher-order functions, which justify the appearance of particular artistic solutions. One should expect that at least in some part of artistic creation aesthetic qualities (and functions) appear around this structural centre of the work, which constitutes its metaphysical sense. Therefore, aesthetic functions themselves neither sufficiently nor fully explain the significance of art.

N otes 1. Ingarden [7], 0 dziele literackim (On the Literary Work of Art), (Warsaw 1960); also Ingarden [21, 23, 42], Studia z estetyki (Studies in Aesthetics), I—III (Warsaw 1966-70). 2. The first modern determination of the canon of arts, proposed Batteux in his Les beaux arts reduits a an meme principe, published in Paris in 1746. 3. Ingarden [23], 161. 4. Ingarden’s term. 5. Ingarden [21], vii-ix (italics added). 6. Ingarden [7], 374. 7. On these themes see F. Sibley, “Objectivity and Aesthetics,” Artistotelian Society, supp. XLII (1968), 31-54, and

70

Janusz Misiewicz “Aesthetic and N o n -A e s th e tic Philosophical Review, LXXIV (1965), 135-59. Sibley states th at aesthetic properties (tertiary qualities) are dependent on other (non-aesthetic) properties of things. 8. Ingarden [36], Przezycie-dzielo-wartosc Experience-Work of Art-Value), (Cracow 1966). 9. Ingarden [42], 228-315.

10. M. Alpatew, Historia sztuki (History of Art), III (Warsaw 1977), 210. 11. J. P. Sartre. 12. This theme is developed in M. Bachtin’s study of Rabelais, Tworczestwo Francois Rabelais (Moscow 1965). 13. For instance, Chagall’s paintings, or the drawing technique th at imitates the eidetic vision of a child. 14. S.I. Witkiewicz, Nowe form y w malarsiwie. Szkice esteiyczne (New Forms in Painting. Aesthetic Sketches), Teatr (Theatre), (Warsaw 1974), 68 (italics added). 15. Ingarden, “Zagadnienie systemu wartosci estetycznie donioslych” (The Problem of the System of Aesthetically Significant Values), in Ingarden [42], 16. Ingarden [42], 290-91.

IV . Ingarden’s Theory of Values and the Evaluation of the Work of A rt

Bohdan Dziemidok

The theory of values has today assumed a central place in contemporary aesthetics. It seems to me that the reasons for this predominant position should be sought not only in the theoretical and cognitive importance of axiological problems but also in their ideological significance. The aim of this essay is a presentation of some axiolog­ ical views (especially those concerning art) of Roman In­ garden, one of the most distinguished Polish philosophers of the twentieth century and the most outstanding phe­ nomenological aesthetician. Although the problem of values became t£e main ob­ ject of Ingarden’s scholarly interests only in the 1950s and 1960s, a full presentation of all his achievements in the do­ main of the theory of values of the work of art would be far beyond the scope of this study. Thus, the analysis will be limited to the views of the author of Spor o istnienie swiata (The Controversy over the Existence of the World) [15, 19, 48] concerning several polemical problems of the theory of aesthetic values. As a matter of fact, the significance of these issues and the solutions proposed by Ingarden go outside the purview of aesthetics. Undoubtedly, the two ancient controversies have a gen­ eral axiological character: (1) the conflict between objec­ tivism, subjectivism, and relationism about the mode of existence of values; and (2) the opposition between abso­ lutism and several varieties of relativism concerning the character of values and value judgements. 71 B. Dziemidok and P. McCormick (eds.), On the Aesthetics of Roman Ingarden, 71-100. © 1989 by Kluwer Academic Publishers.

72 1.

Bohdan Dziemidok The origin of Ingarden’s theory of values

As has been mentioned above, the theory of values be­ came the predominant concern of the author of the Con­ troversy only after the Second World War. His first study devoted especially to this field, entitled “Uwagi o wzglednosci wartosci” (Remarks on the Relativity of Val­ ues) [18], appeared in 1948. However, Ingarden paid most attention to these problems in the decade between 1956 and 1966. During that period he published his major works dealing with fundamental axiological issues in aes­ thetics, namely: 1956, “Wartosc estetyczna i zagadnienie jej obiektywnego ugruntowania” (Aesthetic Value and the Problem of its Objective Grounding) [22]; 1958, “Uwagi o estetycznym sadzie wartosciujacym” (Remarks on Aes­ thetic Value Judgement) [24]', 1961, “Zasady epistemologicznego rozwazania doswiadczenia estetycznego” (Princi­ ples of the Epistemological Analysis of Aesthetic Expe­ rience) [30]] 1964, “Wartosci artystyczne i wartosci este­ tyczne” (Artistic and Aesthetic Values) [34J’, and 1966, “Czego nie wiemy o wartosciach?” (What Don’t We Know About Values?). However, it is quite natural that the prob­ lems of aesthetic and artistic values should have appeared even earlier in Ingarden’s writings, in the period between the wars. Indeed, one may claim that the foundation of his conception of artistic and aesthetic values actually took shape during that period. For the first time, the crucial distinction between the work of art as a schematic forma­ tion and the aesthetic object appeared already in 1931 in Das literarische Kunstwerk (The Literary Work of Art) and it served as a ground for the differentiation of artistic and aesthetic values performed in 1937 in O poznawaniu dziela literackiego (The Cognition of the Literary Work of A rt).1 from the outset Ingarden regarded values as a poly­ phonic harmony of aesthetically valuable qualities imposed

Ingarden on Values and Valuation 73 on the object, thus definitively opposing both subjectivism and extreme relativism in the theory of values.2 It should be mentioned as well that Ingarden’s theory of values has since become the subject of several studies.3 2.

General characterization of values

According to Ingarden, values are not ontologically in­ dependent; since they are always values of something, they cannot be treated as autonomous objects.4 They are values of something but - with the exception of utilitarian values they are not values for something or for somebody; they are not of a relational nature and hence cannot be regarded as a kind of relation between an object possessing definite quali­ ties and a subject perceiving it.5 Values are connected with the object, yet they are not merely features of the object; they are specifically imposed on the features (qualities) of the object as its determined polyphonic and synthetic qual­ ifying properties.6 Finally and self-evident for Ingarden, values cannot be treated as something subjective, created by the subject and reducible to the subject’s experiences or attitudes. The values of a work in question can in no way be limited to experiences evoked by the work or to any mental states accompanying the aesthetic perception. Aesthetic experiences possess their own practical value for the recipients of art but the value of the work of art it­ self is something different from those experiences and in no sense can values be identified with those experiences.7 The aesthetic experience, frequently and according to Ingarden incorrectly understood as so-called “enjoyment” or “aes­ thetic pleasure,” is by its nature subjective and it is lived through by the recipient, whereas the value of a work of art is attributable only to the work itself. Ingarden writes: It still happens, especially in this country, that value and its quality are identified with the at­ titude within which we apprehend it or with

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3.

Bohdan Dziemidok the experiences, especially with the so-called “enjoyment,” that we live through within the context of this attitude. It is a grossly out­ dated view and there is no need to review again all the arguments against it. Suffice it to indi­ cate, as has already been done many times, that such experiences as ‘enjoyment’ or any kind of ‘pleasure’ are certain mental states or types of behaviour of the recipient perceiving, for in­ stance, a painting or a work of architecture, a behaviour which develops in a chaxacteristic way and which quickly comes to an end. Fur­ thermore, there are as many pleasures as there are instances of our contacts with a given work of art and as there are people partaking in them. The gentle beauty of a painting by Vermeer is one and the same and it constantly belongs to the painting without regard to when and how many people look at it and how many times they do so. Thus, notwithstanding the diffi­ culty of the task of accounting for the quality of this beauty, it is at any rate something distinct form the experience or the psychic attitude of the recipient.8 A rtistic values and aesthetic values

Values connected with the work of art are divided by In­ garden into two groups, namely, artistic values existing in the work itself, which by virtue of being a schematic forma­ tion is aesthetically neutral, and aesthetic values appearing in the aesthetic concretization of the work of art, that is to say, in the aesthetic object.9 Both types of value exist objectively though they differ in several crucial respects. W ith aesthetic values, which are qualitative in nature, we

Ingarden on Values and Valuation 75 can be in direct and sensuous contact with the aesthetic ex­ perience. On the other hand, artistic values, which are not qualitative phenomena but, as Ingarden calls them, specific “skills” of the work of art, can neither be detected directly in the aesthetic experience nor discovered through a sen­ suous contact with then. However, one may deduce that they exist as specific skills of the work of art on the basis of a number of aesthetically valuable concretizations of this work.10 In contradiction to nonrelational aesthetic values, artistic values are relational for they serve a purpose. They can be reduced to two skills of the work of art as a schematic formation, namely, (1) the skill of being able to induce an aesthetic experience, and (2) the skill of being able to cre­ ate a basis for the constitution of an aesthetic object and the aesthetic values connected with it. Thus, artistic values have an operative, instrumental nature in the same way as the work of art itself, for according to Ingarden the work is only a “tool” (a means) for the self-constitution of an aesthetically valuable object.11 4. Ingarden’s approach to the objectivity of the values of th e work of art For Ingarden the question of the objectivity or subjec­ tivity of values is the most fundamental problem of axi­ ology. In his opinion the mode of existence of values is determined by the mode of existence of the carrier of val­ ues, i.e., the object to which a given value can be ascribed. Yet, this does not at all mean that the modes of existence of both values and their carriers must necessarily be iden­ tical. Ingarden did not commit himself on this issue; for him values cannot be assigned any one of the main modes of existence - real, ideal, or intentional.12 Aesthetic values are attributable to an intentional object, such as an aes­ thetic object, yet it does not follow that aesthetic values are strictly intentional entities.

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Bohdaa Dziemidok According to Ingaxden the solution of the problem of the objectivity or subjectivity of aesthetic and artistic values requires a more precise explication of the basic assumptions ascribed to the notions of “objectivity.” In his study “The Question of a System of Aestheti­ cally Significant Qualities” Ingarden distinguishes six main meanings of the terms “objectivity” and “subjectivity.”13 Yet, not all these meanings are connected with the concepts of values. In his opinion one may legitimately speak of the objectivity of aesthetic values in three principal senses: 1. Aesthetic value does not appear in the subject but in the object (as “effectively contained” or “appearing in an object”). 2. In its existence and endowment the aesthetic value is independent of the cognitive acts which can eventu­ ally lead to its discovery. 3. Finally, aesthetic value can be regarded as objective when it is sufficiently conditioned by the object and its properties. At the same time Ingarden admits that there are two legitimate senses in which one may speak of the subjectivity of aesthetic values, namely: 1. Aesthetic value is not ontically autonomous, since the object to which it belongs exists heteronomously as an intentional entity. 2. The existence of aesthetic value depends indirectly “on the creative acts of the maker of the work and on the co- creative acts of the recipient in the aesthetic experience.” The dependence is indirect since nei­ ther the creator nor the recipient generates straight­ forwardly the value itself. Nevertheless, the creator

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produces the physical base of the work which consti­ tutes an artistically effective (valuable) ground for the valuable foundation of the work. If aesthetic values “are sufficiently conditioned by the valuable founda­ tion of the work of art, then they are only indirectly and partially dependent on the co-creative aesthetic experience of the recipient.”14 Ingarden does not determine whether the aesthetic value is objective or subjective in the sixth sense of the term, a m atter he leaves open. Although Ingarden distinguishes three senses in which the term “objectivity” may be applied to the concept of “aesthetic value,” he believes that the problem of the ob­ jectivity of aesthetic value may, in principle, be reduced to the question of the manner in which this value is grounded in the qualities of the aesthetic object and the work of art. “The problem of the manner of grounding the aesthetic value in the work itself, i.e., in the aesthetic object, or pos­ sibly the lack of such grounding, is, in other words, the problem of the so-called ‘objectivity’ or ‘subjectivity’ of aesthetic value in general.”15 Since the qualities of aesthetic value are direct qualita­ tive determinants of the value (thus they are not something entirely different from the value itself), the problem of the sufficient grounding of aesthetic values demands some an­ swers to two specific questions: 1. W hat is the relation between the qualities of aes­ thetic values and aesthetically valuable qualities, or, in a different formulation, are the former sufficiently grounded in the appropriate selection of the latter? 2. W hat relation obtains between the aesthetically valu­ able qualities of the aesthetic object and aesthetically neutral yet artistically significant properties of the

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Bohd&n Dziemidok work itself? (Again, it is the question of the manner and degree of grounding the former in the latter.)16

According to Ingarden, only a demonstration of sufficient grounding on both levels permits us to accept the concept of objective values. The objectivity of artistic values presents a similar case. One may speak of their objectivity only when they are sufficiently grounded in aesthetically neu­ tral yet artistically significant moments of the work that, in turn, should be sufficiently grounded in the physical ontic foundation of the work. Ingarden upholds the objectivistic view in both cases. Thus, as can be seen, Ingarden’s aes­ thetic objectivism has a moderate and specific character. 5. Ingarden’s objectivism and aesthetic relationism It is evident that Ingarden’s explanations of the suf­ ficient grounding of values in the aesthetic object and in the work of art undermine aesthetic subjectivism. Nev­ ertheless, one may still have doubts whether they consti­ tute an adequate justification of objectivism. Objections of this kind have been raised by S. Morawski,17 whose doubts seem largely valid. For although the very criticism of sub­ jectivism by demonstrating the grounding of values in the object may be acknowledged as well- founded and fruit­ ful, still it would be hard to accept that it convincingly proves the validity of the attitude of aesthetic objectivism and that it adequately justifies the hypothesis of the objec­ tivity of aesthetic values, as this objectivity is only partial. However, I believe that Ingarden’s considerations indirectly confirm the validity of the ‘relationistic’ solution, although he himself would not admit it. Values are not subjective since they are values of the object in whose qualities they are grounded. Yet they are not completely objective either, because they are always values for somebody who, owing

Ingarden on Values and Valuation 79 to the influence of multiple social and biological condition­ ings, recognizes and feels definite properties of an object as valuable, since in their origin and at least indirectly, as even Ingarden admits, they are dependent on the subject. Yet, as has been noted above, Ingarden himself quite definitively rejects the relationistic point of view. The au­ thor of The Literary Work of Art maintains that not only the work of art itself but also the aesthetic object as con­ stituted in the process of aesthetic concretization by a sub­ ject axe entirely transcendent in relation to the subject. In his opinion, the active participation of the recipient in the constitution of the aesthetic object cannot be used as an argument in support of a relationistic theory of values (in Ingarden’s terminology - the relativity of values). The origin of the aesthetic object Does not determine the ontic character of aes­ thetic values themselves ... Regardless of the kind of origin and the participation of the recip­ ient in the constitution of the aesthetic object^ in the moment of being consituted the object is something with which the recipient is in di­ rect, sensuous contact; he or she apprehends it in one way or another and responds to it. In all this and in respect to the recipient and his or her experience it is as much transcendent (con­ stituting a self-subsistent whole) as the work of art itself or as any ontically autonomous ob­ ject, especially a real object, in relation to the experiences of a consciousness. This transcen­ dence extends not only to the work of art itself or to the aesthetic object in its neutral or in­ different qualifications, from the point of view of values, but also to valuable qualities and the values constituted on their bases.18 Thus, as we see, by the objectivity of aesthetic values

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Ingarden understands not only their sufficient grounding in the qualities of the aesthetic object and of the work of art but also the total transcendence of these values in re­ lation to the subject. It appears that the defence of the conception of the objectivity of aesthetic values in the sec­ ond sense is an exceptionally difficult task precisely within Ingarden’s theory of the aesthetic object understood as an aesthetic concretization of the work of art performed by a percipient.19 After all, Ingarden allows for the active role of the subject in direct co-creation of the aesthetic object and, therefore, in indirect constitution of aesthetic values; he nevertheless considers this an argument for relationism since at the moment of apprehending or discovering values the latter already exist in the aesthetic object, and conse­ quently are transcendent in relation to the subject. Two objections may be raised against this interpretation. First of all, the participation of the subject in constituting the aesthetic object, which Ingarden does not deny, is in fact an argument in favour of relationism. Secondly, the mo­ ment in which the constitution of the aesthetic object or the aesthetic concretization performed by the subject has ended (and there follows only the discovering and sensuous apprehension of already constituted qualities and aesthetic values) exists exclusively in Ingarden’s ideal, theoretical model; in the practice of real contact with art it is entirely fictitious. After all, contact with a work of art such as a film reveals that the processes of aesthetic concretization and direct sensuous contact with aesthetic qualities take place practically simultaneously. Once the viewing of the film comes to an end, so does its aesthetic concretization (the latter is possible only in the aesthetic attitude, which ceases on departure from the cinema) and so does the di­ rect contact with the aesthetic qualities and the imposed values constituted in the aesthetic object. If one’s experi­ ence may be trusted, then there is no evidence for a stage

Ingarden on Values and Valuation 81 of the aesthetic experience where the perception of a work and the process of its aesthetic concretization would be fin­ ished while direct sensuous apprehending of the aesthetic values in the established aesthetic object would still be un­ der way. The aesthetic object, understood as an aesthetic concretization of a work of art, and its proper aesthetic values never become fully transcendent in relation to the recipient, and to some extent they always depend on the recipient for their existence. In its ideal and naturalistic variety, ontological aesthetic objectivism seems to sever the sphere of values from man in a way that does not seem rationally justified; moreover, re­ garding values as fully transcendent in relation to man may lead to the mystification of the realm of values. If like In­ garden one defends a more moderate variety of aesthetic ob­ jectivism, one may largely avoid these consequences. How­ ever, in this case the necessary reference to experiences and attitudes of an individual leads to the breakdown of objec­ tivism and in practice means a concession to relationism. No objectivist - and Ingarden is no exception in this re­ spect - has yet succeeded in establishing either some fea­ ture shared by all beautiful objects (as a necessary and sufficient condition of beauty) or a set of features permit­ ting the distinction of aesthetic values in the domain of ontology. Ingarden comes close to a pluralistic objectivism whose followers maintain correctly, that beauty may be an at­ tribute of sets ab or be , but also of quite different sets, e.g. kl , mn , etc. Yet the adherents of this theory avoid the very significant question of who has decided and when that these are aesthetically valuable sets and why sets ab or kl have been accepted as valuable.20 The only variety of objectivism that may successfully be defended is sociological objectivism. Yet all sociological objectivism is directly or indirectly a variant of sociologi­

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cal aesthetic relationism. In the latter case, instead of an individual (or individuals) and his or her experiences, the subjective element in the relation is substituted by a social group that determines and suggests appropriate hierarchies of value to the individual. Among all these trends in axiology, the historical - soci­ ological relationism of values constitutes, in my opinion, the tradition that most closely approaches marxist aesthetics.21 6. T he object of th e controversy between absolutism and aesthetic relativism Another fundamental problem in the theory of aes­ thetic values is the controversy between absolutism and relativism, concerning the question whether aesthetic val­ ues and judgements are relative or not. The controversy between absolutism and aesthetic relativism occurs on two different planes because it concerns both (1) the charac­ ter of the values themselves and (2) the aesthetic status of value judgements. In connection with values two specific questions seem to me most important, namely: (1) Are aesthetic values and the criteria of values changeable or are they eternal? For instance, if a certain work of art is a masterpiece will it always be a masterpiece, or if harmony is an accepted aesthetic value will it never cease to be a value? (2) Do aesthetic values have a universal character, common to all humankind or perhaps even cosmic, or have they a par­ ticular character, a class character typical of only specific cultures milieus, or even individuals? Aesthetic relativism proclaims the relativity of aesthetic values. What is beautiful for x, may not be beautiful for y; what is valuable for one social group (or on the basis of a certain kind of culture) is not always aesthetically valu­ able for another social group (or in a culture of a different

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kind); what induces admiration and aesthetic approval in the twelfth or seventeenth may not give rise to any admi­ ration or appreciation in the twentieth century. On the other hand, the followers of aesthetic absolutism claim that genuine aesthetic values are independent of in­ dividual tastes, class, and cultural conditions and criteria, and the changeability of the so-called taste of the epoch. In its most extreme aesthetic absolutism proclaims the univer­ sality of a determined perfect model of beauty. Such monis­ tic absolutism is in opposition not only to relativism but also to aesthetic pluralism, whose representatives maintain that there exist many equal forms (types) of beauty, an attitude which is by no means identical with a conviction about the relativity of beauty. The solution of the problem concerning the nature of values (changeability - unchangeability, universality - par­ ticularity) is largely determined by the approach taken in the controversy toward the mode of existence of values. Aesthetic subjectivism naturally leads to relativism (only the Epicurean Philodemos and E. Abramowski do not con­ form to this rule). However, the opposite does not hold true, for one can be a relativist while simultaneously re­ jecting subjectivism (only extreme axiological relativism is usually combined with subjectivism). A similarly regular, though complex, relation obtains between objectivism and aesthetic absolutism. Absolutism is first of all close to ob­ jectivism, although one may encounter an exceptional case of absolutist subjectivism (E. Abramowski). Still, not every follower of aesthetic objectivism must also be an absolutist (e.g., the Soviet aestheticians J. Boriew and L. Stolowicz). 7.

Ingarden’s m oderate aesthetic absolutism

As an axiological theorist Ingarden was a consistent opponent of aesthetic relativism, especially in its extreme (subjectivist) variety, on both planes distinguished above.

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Bohdan Dziemidok The problem of the relativity or the absolute character of values was the subject of a special study in 1948, “Re­ marks on the Relativity of Values.” However, this issue was also raised in many of his other works dealing with values. Already in his first writings on aesthetics, Ingar­ den rejected and criticized extreme aesthetic relativism. He claimed that aesthetic values are not only objective but also absolute. The most complete attem pt thus far to character­ ize the specific variety of Ingarden’s axiological absolutism can be found in a dissertation by Adam Wegrzecki entitled “0 absolutnosci wartosci extetycznych i etycznych” (On the Absolute Nature of Aesthetic and Ethical Values).22 The moderate character of Ingarden’s aesthetic objectivism im­ plies that the variety of aesthetic absolutism he represents is also much less radical than the absolutism of Plato and Scheler, Hartmamnn and Elzenberg. Speaking very briefly, this less radical character of Ingarden’s aesthetic absolutism is reflected in two of his convictions. Firstly, absolute and non-relational values are only aesthetic values, while artis­ tic values (because of their subordinate, instrumental char­ acter) are relative and relational.23 Secondly, even aesthetic values are not wholly absolute, in each respect and in every possible meaning of the term “absolute.” Ingarden admits that in some senses one may speak of the relativity of aes­ thetic values. According to him, of the five principal meanings of the concept of “relativity” that he distinguishes in “On the Relativity of Values,” only two may legitimately be applied to aesthetic values:24 1. Aesthetic values are relative in the sense that they are not ontically autonomous and do not exist in the same manner as real objects. In their existence they are dependent on the existence of objects to which they belong and they are derivative in respect to their ontic status. Nor are they fully independent of men

Ingarden on Values and Valuation 85 perceiving the ontic foundations of values in their ex­ istence. Without the activity of a subject no aesthetic objects, which are the carriers of values, could come into being.25 2. Aesthetic values may be regarded as relative also in the sense that they are not accessible to all subjects but only to specially qualified subjects whose percep­ tual and emotional faculties meet very specific and infrequently realized requirements.26 Allowing that the relativity of aesthetic values in these two senses might be acknowledged, Ingarden also defends the conviction about the absolute nature of aesthetic values in two other, very significant, senses. 1. First, the absolute nature of aesthetic values con­ sists in their unchangeability. According to Ingarden, they are unchangeable in the sense that they are not susceptible to any changes taking place beyond the aesthetic object (e.g., changes in the course of the subject’s experience). Ingarden does not claim that aesthetic values have a universal character, common to all humankind, since in their existence they are connected with a monosubjective object which exists exclusively for a determined recipient of the work of art. For the same reason the aesthetic object is im­ permanent. Still, they are unchangeable in the sense that in the already shaped object they do not change as long as the object itself exists in an unchanged form. “Their changeability occurs only when the aes­ thetic objects themselves undergo a change,”27 for in their existence they depend only on the qualitative and formal properties of these objects. 2. In many of his works Ingarden repeatedly claims that aesthetic values are in no sense relational. They are

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Bohdaa Dziemidok “absolute in the sense that they are the very em­ bodiment of aesthetically valuable qualities.”28 They are “in themselves qualitatively complete and selfsufficient; they are nothing relative that would refer to something or serve something.”29 “Beauty, aes­ thetic charm, a peculiar attuning of aesthetically va­ lent qualities, etc. - all these are various kinds of spe­ cial qualities that are what they are, self-contained, and, at the same time, non-relational to anybody or anything. . . . Precisely because their existence is not an ‘existence for’ somebody or something, the circum­ stance that somebody does not encounter them in the real environment accessible to him or her, does not violate at all their absoluteness (irrelationality) and objectivity.”30

A. Wegrzecki is right when he emphasizes the fact that Ingarden rejects not only radical relativism but also rad­ ical axiological absolutism.31 Yet it is difficult to accept his suggestion that Ingarden’s polemic with relativism can be reduced to his criticism of extreme relativism. With equal fervour and consistency Ingarden also fights against relationism, which need not be connected with a conviction about the radical relativity of aesthetic values. If Ingarden’s specific aesthetic absolutism is a conse­ quence of his objectivistic solution of the question of the mode of existence of values, then it should not be surpris­ ing that doubts and critical remarks about Ingarden’s abso­ lutism will be partly analogical to those that have already been raised in relation to his aesthetic objectivism. If one accepts Ingarden’s concept of the aesthetic object, it is difficult to question the thesis of the unchangeability of aesthetic values, as Ingarden conceives it. But since this unchangeability is as transitory, fragile, and fleeting as the short existence of the aesthetic object, it is hard to take this as a strong argument for absolutism. At any rate,

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consistent and radical absolutism could not recognize such a relative unchangeability of values as a sufficient justification of the approach. W ith respect to Ingarden’s rejection of the relational conception of aesthetic qualities and values, the negation of relationism is particularly difficult to carry out within his aesthetics on the basis of radical objectivism and aesthetic absolutism. After all, according to Ingarden the aesthetic object, the ontic foundation of aesthetic qualities and val­ ues, is a concretization of the work of art performed by a recipient of the work in the aesthetic attitude. The exis­ tence of the aesthetic object and its appropriate aesthetic values is connected with the subject and his or her active perception of the work of art. Only a recipient can appreci­ ate the aesthetic value, while a direct response to a value is a component of the aesthetic experience. If we admit that without the activity of the subject experiencing the work of art there is no object and no aesthetic value, the defence of the thesis that the existence of the aesthetic value is not “an existence for somebody” becomes very difficult. As we have already said, a radical absolutism separating the world of values from man does not contain such immanent difficulties. Ingarden nevertheless rejects it. One cannot question the fact that by proving the con­ nection between values and an object Ingarden greatly con­ tributes to a restriction and undermining of extreme (sub­ jectivist) aesthetic relativism. Still, this does not at all mean that he also undermines historical and cultural rel­ ativism; nor does it mean that he succeeds in proving the validity of absolutism, even in the moderate variety he pro­ poses. Like other absolutists, Ingarden deliberately ignores anthropological, sociological, and historical studies whose findings make axiological absolutism unacceptable. In his consideration of aesthetic values Ingarden takes into ac­ count first the work of art, second its recipient, and third

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what comes into being in consequence of the reception of the work by the recipient, i.e., the aesthetic object. This does not, however, take sufficient notice of the sociocul­ tural context in which the perception of the work of art takes place. Without taking into account sociocultural con­ ditions such as needs, modes of experiencing, and evaluat­ ing, artistic conventions, semantic codes, and so on, one cannot answer questions such as why the dramatic quality, expressiveness, originality, clarity, or subtlety of a work (all enumerated by Ingarden as aesthetically valuable qualities) may be or even ought to be regarded as aesthetically valu­ able. In this case my doubts do not concern the validity or arbitrariness of the list of valuable qualities given by In­ garden, which is a different matter. (From the long list of aesthetically valuable qualities produced by Ingarden I have intentionally selected those that also seem valuable to me.) My point is that the ahistoricity and asocial disposition of phenomenology deprive it of the chance to explain why par­ ticular values of an object are (or are not) felt and estimated as aesthetically valuable. For centuries, people recognized (or did not recognize) symmetricality, expressiveness, or originality as aesthetically attractive and valuable. In dif­ ferent epochs and types of culture the enumerated qualities were not treated identically. What or who has decided, and for what reason, about the acceptance of symmetricality or rhythmicality as qualities that are not aesthetically neu­ tral? Eidetic intuition provides no opportunity to answer these questions. 8. Ingarden's criticism of extrem e relativism and scepticism in the problem of evaluation and aesthetic judgem ents The rejection of aesthetic relativism in the domain of

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values themselves leads Ingarden to consequent criticism of extreme relativism and scepticism in the problems of aes­ thetic evaluation and in the m atter of justifying aesthetic judgements. In fact, the polemic with extreme relativism in the latter domain has received more attention in his works. In its most developed form this critique was carried out in The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art (especially paras. 32 and 33) and in two congress papers, “Remarks on Aesthetic Value Judgement” (Venice 1958) and “Principles of the Epistemological Analysis of Aesthetic Experience” (Athens 1960). Ingarden’s polemic with extreme relativism can only be understood by taking into consideration some of his conceptual distinctions concerning the evaluation of the work of axt. In consequence of distinguishing the work of art and artistic values from the aesthetic object and aes­ thetic values connected with it there appears a distinction between artistic and aesthetic evaluations. Aesthetic evaluation, which finds its primary expression in a direct emotional response to value and a secondary ex­ pression in an intellectual aesthetic evaluation, concerns the aesthetic value of particular concretizations of the work. On the other hand, artistic evaluation, expressed in the form of artistic appraisals, should apprehend the artistic value of the work itself. According to Ingarden, the passing of a valid artistic judgement is a much more difficult task than determining the aesthetic value of a given concretiza­ tion. “The determination of a significant appraisal of the artistic value of a work” may be performed “only by some­ one who knows the scope of the possible concretizations of the work.”32 Since in practice it is impossible to take into account all concretizations, artistic appraisals are only ap­ proximate and their significance is limited. Hence, accord­ ing to Ingarden, the divergence of evaluations is something natural and regular but, as will be seen below, this does not constitute a justification of subjective relativism.

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As has been mentioned above, the aesthetic evaluation that according to Ingarden has a more elementary character and is much more significant occurs secondarily in the form of aesthetic appraisals and as a response to value. By a response to value (a phrase introduced by Dietrich V. Hildebrand in Wertantwort) Ingarden understands a direct, emotional evaluation (a form of the aesthetic ex­ perience), occurring at the climax of the aesthetic experi­ ence. On the other hand, aesthetic evaluation or the aes­ thetic value judgement (in his works after the Second World War Ingarden uses the latter term more willingly) is a conceptual-linguistic expression of the response to value.33 Normally, the aesthetic value judgement is (and should be) the expression and result of the response to value. However, as a purely intellectual act, performed not in the aesthetic attitude but in the cognitive one, it is characterized by some independence and may not always be based on a concrete aesthetic experience. Such evaluations, severed from a def­ inite aesthetic experience, are quite often pronounced by critics employing certain scholarly “criteria.” According to Ingarden, such appraisals may be valid merely by chance, since they are deprived of their natural justification, such as a concrete aesthetic experience. Thus in Ingarden’s theory neither artistic evaluations nor aesthetic evaluations (assuming a regular course of eval­ uating) are fully self-sustained and depend exclusively on the fancy of the person uttering them. The former and the latter both require a justification by prior stages of evalua­ tion. Both the former and the latter find a direct or indirect justification in the original response to the aesthetic value of the concretization of the work of art. Ingarden explic­ itly states that “the aesthetic value judgement is merely a derivative and secondary product and it plays a subsidiary role in the process of apprehending the value of the aes­ thetic object.”34

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Both in The Cognition of the Literary Work and in the two quoted congress papers the formula de gustibus non est disputandum is for Ingarden an expression of extreme relativism and aesthetic scepticism.35 The followers of this formula usually cite the fact of the divergence of aesthetic experiences and evaluations, which, in their opinion, is a sufficient argument for the conviction that all evaluations are equally (exclusively subjectively) motivated and that no discussion of this matter can bring positive results. Ingarden does not question the fact of the divergence of tastes and aesthetic evaluations, yet he thinks that it does not constitute a sufficient basis for the acceptance of the formula as valid. In all of the three cited works, Ingarden proves that extreme (subjectivistic) relativism is by no means a suffi­ ciently justified approach. In his opinion, the arguments of the followers of this approach do not stand up to criticism and are either based on false premises or result from mis­ understandings whose source is to be found in the neglect of the fundamental distinctions introduced by phenomenol­ ogyAs a rule, subjectivistic relativism relies on the diver­ gence of aesthetic evaluations concerning the same work of art. Since the work is the same, while its appraisals differ considerably, for radical relativists this implies the reign of total subjectivism and arbitrariness in the domain of aesthetic tastes. For Ingarden, however, this reasoning is based on two false assumptions, namely: 1. on the conviction that when one passes aesthetic judgements about works of art the real object of these evaluations is always the work of art as such; and 2. on the assumption that, with divergent value judge­ ments concerning a single work of art, the object of the evaluation is always the same or that always the

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Bohdan Dziemidok same thing is being evaluated in all such cases.36

The followers of extreme relativism (and not they alone) do not distinguish the work of art from its aesthetic con­ cretizations and they do not realize that as a schematic for­ mation the work of art creates the possibility of performing a number of its different concretizations, all of which may be equally valuable. As a result value judgements, which most often con­ cern particular concretizations, are untenably regarded as evaluations of the work itself thus creating the appearance of divergent evaluations. In fact, however, the objects of evaluation are essentially different, and there is no real di­ vergence of evaluations concerning the same object. Ac­ cording to Ingarden we also encounter the illusion of diver­ gent evaluations when the appraisals of the values of dif­ ferent aesthetic concretizations concern only one of these concretizations. If our evaluations concern different aesthetic concretiza­ tions of the work of art, that is, different aesthetic objects, then the divergence of evaluations not only does not prove arbitrariness and chaos in the domain of aesthetic evalua­ tion but, on the contrary, is fully legitimate. Yet, if our evaluations do not concern particular con­ cretizations of the work of art but really the work itself, then also in this case the object of the evaluation is not always the same. To pass a justified and significant artis­ tic evaluation of a work one should take into account as many of its aesthetic concretizations as possible. Only on the basis of the latter may we correctly reach the artistic value. Yet in practice we can never take into account either all the possible concretizations or the same concretizations. Ingarden rightly points to the fact that “every apprehen­ sion of the work of art ... is always partial. Thus, the work always manifests itself only in a certain selection of its properties.”37

Ingarden on Values and Valuation 93 In this way it turns out that the divergence of aesthetic and artistic evaluations has not only subjective reasons but also that it is always justified objectively, at least in part. Still, Ingarden does not limit himself to the demonstra­ tion of the fact that the generalizations of subjective rela­ tivism and aesthetic scepticism are not sufficiently justified because the arguments of the followers of these approaches do not stand up to criticism. He thinks that the central issue of the controversy is not properly formulated. For in fact the question of the signifi­ cance and justifiability of aesthetic and artistic evaluations is a secondary and inessential matter. Another question is more important, namely whether the response to the value of a given aesthetic concretization of a work of art is condi­ tioned by this value. Already in his book On the Cognition of the Literary Work Ingarden wrote that one should first of all answer the question: “are different aesthetic emo­ tional responses possible ... with respect to the fully de­ termined concretization constituted in a certain aesthetic experience?”38 Here the point concerns responses differing with respect to the degree of appreciation. Only the ac­ ceptance of an affirmative answer to this question would justify the conviction of de gustibus non est disputandum. However, to Ingarden such a possibility seems “at least very unlikely.”39 This problem is similarly formulated in both congress papers (though Ingarden’s approach underwent a partial modification in the two years between them). In his Venice paper he claims that one should first of all decide if there exists “a close relation between the value of the aesthetic object and the sense of evaluation.”40 Radical relativists negate the existence of such a relation and maintain that the evaluation of every object may be quite arbitrary. In­ garden explains, however, that it is not the causal relation that is the point but “a sensible subordination between the

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manner in which the appreciation of a valuable object is shown and the quality of the value it possesses. To what is beautiful we respond with admiration, to what is nice with delight, to what is ugly with repulsion, and so on. “We always have to deal with some sensible - one could even say rational - behaviour towards what is apprehended and felt. . . . The sensible relation between the response to a value and the quality of the value is strict and obvious,” so much so that according to Ingarden an improper response to a value may be “a preposterous behaviour.”41 Pathological or perverted cases (e.g., a response of ad­ miration to hideousness) cannot undermine the correctness of aesthetic evaluation, much like mistakes in reasoning do not undermine the validity of the rules of logic. A much more important question is the justifiability and signifi­ cance of aesthetic value judgements. First of all, passing from direct evaluation (within the aesthetic experience) to value judgements one may commit mistakes. Yet, as In­ garden adds, it is not certain whether language is on the whole able to reflect faithfully all the essential contents of the aesthetic experience. In his Athens paper Ingarden did not change his opinion about the most important matter; he still maintained that the validity of subjectivistic relativism and aesthetic scep­ ticism had not been proved. De gustibus non est disputandurn could be regarded as justified only if “the response to the aesthetic value was not conditioned by the quality of the value in the aesthetic object so that with a certain quality of the value every response to the value would re­ ally be possible.”42 Yet in this paper Ingarden comes to the conclusion that at the present stage of knowledge it is ex­ tremely difficult to justify the opposite approaches as well. W ith surprising caution and scepticism he begins to speak about the possibility of justifying the standpoint he has de­ fended so far. Only two years earlier he had spoken with

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scepticism only about the possibility of justifying aesthetic value judgements, and seemed to have had no doubts con­ cerning the sufficient conditioning of the response to value. But in 1960 he stated that “every solution of the problem of value apprehension, i.e., the justification and condition­ ing of the response to value, is today lacking a sufficient theoretical basis.”43 As Ingarden rightly observed, the question of the con­ ditioning of aesthetic evaluations, especially important among problems of aesthetic evaluation, may be solved in three ways: 1. Evaluation is a purely subjective act, depending ex­ clusively on the will and predisposition of the evalu­ ating subject, and it is by no means conditioned by the properties of the evaluated object. This position of subjectivist relativism is consistently rejected by Ingarden. 2. Acts of evaluation are exclusively conditioned (suffi­ ciently and unequivocally) by the properties o f the evaluated object. The question about the accuracy and significance of evaluations is not implied by this solution because every evaluation is automatically ad­ equate and valid. This alternative is so unlikely that Ingarden saw no need to oppose it, although he never approved of such an extreme ojectivism and abso­ lutism. 3. Aesthetic evaluation (its content) depends both on the qualities of the evaluated object and on biological - psychical and social skills, on predispositions and attitudes of the evaluating subject. This conception of object - subject conditioning is, I think, most valid. Although in his Venice paper Ingarden expresses an opinion that with the present state of knowledge none of

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the three solutions is sufficiently justified; still, in the same text, while presenting conceptual distinctions in the intro­ ductory part, he states that “the response to value is con­ ditioned by the shaping of the aesthetic object and by the mode of behaviour of the experiencing subject.”44 In spite of the declared rejection of relationism in his theory of aes­ thetic values Ingarden once again - objectively speaking came out as a follower of precisely this conception. It seems to me that Ingarden’s considerable achieve­ ments in the domain of the theory of aesthetic evaluation should include: 1. The introduction of further fundamental distinctions and conceptual differentiations, such as: (a) the sep­ aration of the two stages of aesthetic evaluation, pri­ mary evaluation (direct and emotional), constituting a component of the aesthetic experience, and sec­ ondary evaluation (purely intellectual), which finds its expression in aesthetic value judgements; (b) the distinction of artistic evaluations (concerning the work of art itself) and aesthetic evaluations (appre­ hending the values of particular aesthetic concretiza­ tions of the work of art). 2. Discovering in the object multiple causes of diver­ gence in both aesthetic and artistic evaluations, and then interpreting them in such a way that they cannot serve as arguments confirming the claims of aesthetic scepticism and radical relativism. 3. Demonstrating that the formula de gustibus non est disputandum cannot be regarded as justified and, even if it is not actually overcome, then at least con­ siderably limiting the influence and weakening the po­ sition of extreme subjectivist relativism in the theory of aesthetic evaluation.

Ingarden on Values and Valuation 97 The theory of values and evaluation of the work of art was never completed by Ingarden, who was aware of its gaps and unsolved problems. Yet Ingarden achieved so much in this domain that the theory of aesthetic and artistic values belongs among the greatest and most important achieve­ ments of Ingarden’s philosophy and its significance reaches beyond phenomenology. In his theory one may find statements and conceptions whose acceptance does not require the adoption of the methodological assumptions and ontological solutions of phenomenology. The conceptions that most obviously have the status of scientific discoveries include, among others, (1) the distinction between the work of art and its particular aesthetic concretizations and the awareness of the fact that value judgements treated as evaluations of the work itself are primarily evaluations of particular concretizations, and (2) the distinction between direct aesthetic evaluation and evaluation expressed in value judgements.

N otes 1. Ingarden [7], 0 dziele literackim (On the Literary Work of Art), (Warsaw 1960), 62-63, 410-423, and 453-58 par. 68; Ingarden 0 poznawaniu dziela literackiego (The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art), 7, 128, 147—49, 235. 2. Ingarden [7], 420, 453-55; Ingarden (11), 7, 59, 64-65, 128, 144-145, 189. 3. M. Golaszewska, “Ingardenowski swiat wartosci” (Ingarden’s World of Values), in Fenomenologia Romana Ingardena (Roman Ingarden’s Phenomenology), (Warsaw 1972), 397-420; and M. Golaszewska, “Romana Ingardena filozofia wartosci estetycznych” (Roman Ingarden’s Philosophy of Aesthetic Values), Zeszyty Naukowe UJ, Prace Filozoficzne, III, (Cracow 1973). Roman Ingarden’s theory of aesthetic

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values was also discussed in the following. A. Szczepariska, “W sprawie interpretacji niektorych twierdzen Ingardenowskiej estetyki” (Concerning the Interpretation of Some Propositions of Ingarden’s Aesthetics), Studia Estetyczne, IX, (1972), 341—53; and “Perspektywy aksjologiczne badari struktury dziela sztuki w koncepcji R. Ingardena” (Perspectives of Axiological Studies in the Structure of the Work of Art according to R. Ingarden), Studia Estetyczne, X (1973), 239-53. S. Morawski, “Szkola stawiania pytan” (The School of Asking Questions), Studia Estetyczne, pt. i, VII (1970), 261-81, pt. ii, VIII (1971), 243-54. J. Kmita, “O dwoch rodzajach wartosci zwi^zanych z dzielem sztuki” (On Two Kinds of Values Connected with the Work of Art), in Wariose, dzielo, sens (Value, Work, Sense), (Warsaw 1975), 177-95. B. Dziemidok, “Romana Ingardena teoria wartosci dziela sztuki w swietle estetyki marksistowskiej” (Roman Ingarden’s Theory of Values of the Work of Art in the Light of Marxist Aesthetics), Studia Filozoficzne, III, 3 (1975), 29-43. See, also R. Luthe, “Czy alternatywa sceptycyzmu? O niektorych aspektach Ingardenowskiej teorii wartosci dziela sztuki” (An Alternative to Skepticism? On Some Aspects of Ingarden’s Theory of Values of the Work of Art), Studia Estetyczne XIV, (1977), 29-44; D. Surowiec, “Wartosci w swiecie literatury” (Values in the World of Literature), “Przegl§d Humanistyczny (1979), 71-88; and E.H. Falk, The Poetics of Roman Ingarden, (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1981), 187-201. 4. Ingarden [85], “Zagadnienie systemu jakosci estetycznie donioslych” (The Question of a System of Aesthetically Significant Qualities), Ingarden [42], 306; and “Czego nie wiemy o wartosciach?” (W hat Don’t We Know about Values?), in Ingarden [42], 234. 5. Ingarden [84], “Wartosci artystyczne i wartosci estetyczne” (Artistic and Aesthetic Values), in Ingarden [42], 286. 6. Ingarden [11], 145; Ingarden [18], “Uwagi o wzglejdnosci wartosci” (Remarks Concerning the Relativity of Values), in Ingarden [42], 218; and Ingarden, “Czego nie wiemy” , 234. 7. Ingarden [11], 200, 217-18; and Ingarden [84], 270-73. 8. Ingarden, “Czego nie wiemy” , 225-26. 9. Ingarden [84], 274-87.

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10. Ingarden [84], 286; Ingarden [SO], “Zasady epistemologicznego rozwazania doswiadczenia estetycznego” (The Principles of Epistemological Analysis of the Aesthetic Experience), in Ingarden [42], 170. 11. Ingarden [30], 169; Ingarden, “O estetyce filozoficznej” (On Philosophical Aesthetics), in Ingarden [42], 14. 12. Ingarden [34], 286. 13. Ingarden [35], 306-08. 14. Ingarden [35], 306 n. 15. Ingarden [35], 305. 16. Ingarden, “Wartosc estetyczna i zagadnienie jej obiektywnego ugruntowania” (Aesthetic Value and the Question of Its Objective Grounding), in Ingarden [42], 261-62. 17. Morawski, “Szkola” , pt. i, 280, pt. ii, 245, 249, 254,. Cf. also the polemic of Szczepanska with Morawski in Szczepanska, “W sprawie interpretacji.” 18. Ingarden [34], 275; cf. also 271. 19. Some interesting remarks about Ingarden’s concept of concretization may be found in the following. H. Markiewicz, Glotvne problemy wiedzy o literaturze (The Main Problems f the Knowledge of Literature), 3 ed. (Cracow 1970), 82-83, 325-26; A. Nowicki, Czlomek w swiecie dziel (Man in the World of Works of A rt), (Warsaw 1974), 275-76; M. Glowinski, “O konkretyzacji” (On Concretization), Nurt, 97 (1973). 20. An interesting, though controversial, attem pt to create an objectivist theory of beauty in a pluralistic variety was recently undertaken by a representative of American analytic aesthetics, Guy Sircello, A New Theoy of Beauty, (Princeton 1975). 21. Among others, cf. Markiewicz, Glowne problemy, 324, 326; A. Kuczyriska, Piekno. Mit i rzeczywistosi (Beauty: Myth and Reality), (Warsaw 1972), 41; O. Drobnicki, £wiat przedmiotow ozywionych. Problem wartosci a filozofia marksistowska (The World of Animate Objects: The Problem of Values and Marxist Philosophy), (Warsaw 1972), 27, 29, 36; J. Hawthorn, Identity and Relationship: A

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Contribution to Marxist Theory of Literary Criticism , (London 1973), 146-48; S. Morawski, Inquiries into the Fundamentals of Aesthetics, (Cambridge, Mass., 1974), 8, 41-49. 22. A. W§grzecki, “O absolutnosci wartosci etycznych i estetycznych” (On the Absolute Nature of Ethical and Aesthetic Values), in Fenomenologia Romana Ingardena [see n. 3], 421-47. 23. Ingarden [SO], 169; Ingarden [34], 286. 24. Ingarden [18], 208-13. 25. Ingarden [18], 211, 215, 218. 26. Ingarden [18], 212, 218. 27. Ingarden [18], 218. 28. Ingarden [SO], 169. 29. Ingarden [34], 286. 30. Ingarden [18], 213. 31. W§grzecki, 421. 32. Ingarden [11], 240. 33. Ingarden [11], 214-15, 237; Ingarden [42], 101, 167. 34. Ingarden [24], “Uwagi o estetycznym s$dzie wartosciuj§cym” (Hemarks on Aesthetic Value Judgement), in Ingarden [42], 164. 35. Ingarden [11], 186, 214. 36. Ingarden [24], 155. 37. Ingarden [24], 155-56. 38. Ingarden [11], 214. 39. Ingarden [11], 214. 40. Ingarden [24], 157. 41. Ingarden [24], 160. 42. Ingarden [SO], 173-74. 43. Ingarden [SO], 174; 172. 44. Ingarden [SO], 167.

V.

Ingarden and the Development of Literary Studies

Henryk Markiewicz

In 1923 Roman Ingarden, a young secondary-school teacher working for his post-doctoral (habilitation) in epistemol­ ogy, wrote a review of the Festschrrift for Kazimierz Twardowski. He analyzed in some detail Zygmunt Lempicki’s paper “W sprawie uzasadnieijia poetyki czystej” (On the Justification of Pure Poetics). He closed his observations with a suggestion concerning the intuitive nature of our contact with literary works and he asked himself the fol­ lowing question: Can one, however, intuitively examine a thing like a literary work; is this an object that can be directly cognized? What is “a literary work,” as distinguished on the one hand from a logical or grammatical construction, and on the other — from real objects and non-literary works of art? This is a central question the solution of which depends finally on both a demarcation of poetics from the other areas of the theory of art, and a decision whether anti- psychological arguments can be entirely applied to poetics. But Professor Lempicki’s paper offers no clar­ ification of these questions. Perhaps it is only I who find a need for such a clarification be­ cause I have not been much concerned with the theoretical analysis of poetical works. But if I am aware of the problems involved here there are curious questions and big surprises to be encountered. (Ill, 385)1 101

B. Dziemidok and P. McCormick (eds.), On the Aesthetics o f Roman Ingarden, 101-129. © 1989 by Kluwer Academic Publishers.

102

Henryk Maikiewicz Chronologically the latest of Ingarden’s published works, “Funkcje artystyczne jezyka” (Artistic Functions of Language) [43], not so much ends as breaks off with the following sentence: The analyses carried out here should be com­ pleted with the investigation of artistic func­ tions of linguistic constructions in pure nondescriptive lyric poetry. My impression is that this function is very different from the functions performed by the language of epic or drama. This necessitates a renewed consideration of the essence of the lyric, which means that for the time being I must give it up. Between these two statements, the first of which sig­ naled newly awakened interests, and the second of which revealed some exhaustion in an old though still creative scholar, there is contained a great philosophical adventure that twice — at the beginning and towards end — dis­ tracted Ingarden from the main area of his investigations. His book Das literarische Kunstwerk (The Literary Work of Art) [7] was written first of all with the intention of solv­ ing some basic philosophical problems especially the ques­ tions of idealism and realism. The author considered the literary work mainly from the viewpoint of ontology: he treated it as a purely intentional object and by analyzing the peculiarity of its mode of existence as compared to real existence “of the question of the existence of the world” (I, 31). Aesthetic and literary problems became his proper subject only in the book 0 poznawaniu dziela literackiego (The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art; 1937) [11] and in the papers on truth in literature and on the content and form of the literary work, which were amplified and devel­ oped in the post-war years. Only when compelled by ex­ ternal circumstances did Ingarden enter the field of literary

Ingarden and Literary Studies 103 theory: he did so in his lectures in poetics at Lvov Univer­ sity in the years 1940-41. Out of these only a small section have been published. Finally, articles appeared after 1956 analyzing axiological aspects of works of art and of aesthetic objects; directly concerned with literature are two items: “Funkcje artystyczne jezhka” (Artistic Functions of Lan­ guage) and a polemical essay “Sprawa stosowania metod statystycznych do badania dziel sztuki” (The Problem of the Application of Statistical Methods to the Investigation of Works of Art) (1967). Thus Ingarden’s work — jnany times and in different ways, though on a limited scale — enters the field which he used to call “knowledge about literature,” and divided into philosophy of literature, science of literature, and lit­ erary criticism. Let us recall that philosophy of literature includes ontology and theory of cognition of the literary work, literary aesthetics (in the narrower sense, i.e., as a theory of perception of literary works), philosophy of liter­ ary creation, and axiology and sociology of literature. As distinct from philosophy of literature, which through di­ rect, a priori cognition investigates the content of general ideas (their constant and changing components) and dis­ covers necessary connections between them, the study of literature is limited by facts and is empirical in its essence. It includes on the one hand descriptive characterization of particular literary works and their typology, and on the other, a set of historical and literary problems. Criticism gives an account of aesthetic concretizations and on this basis offers evaluation of literary works. Later on Ingar­ den noticed a further area of “knowledge about literature,” namely, the theory of literature or poetics, which occupies an intermediate place between literary and philosophy of literature. Like the science of literature, philosophy of lit­ erature identifies essential moments and relations, proper­ ties, and relations in actually existing literary works” (I,

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271). Again like philosophy of literature, it makes use of the direct, a priori method of cognition; it also uses its basic concepts and assertions in the sense that “they are a means helpful in finding material for investigation and in focusing attention on some concrete phenomena in the sphere of literary art” (I, 273). This scheme has been recalled in order to define, in accordance with Ingarden’s own intentions, the area of his critical contacts with literature. This area is con­ tained within the limits of philosophy of literature or philo­ sophical literary aesthetics (the term aesthetics is under­ stood broadly here); secondarily, it constitutes a part of the theory of literature, namely its philosophical founda­ tion. Ingarden strongly emphasized differences between particular branches of “knowledge about literature,” and he looked without much enthusiasm on philosophical and quasi-philosophical inquiries undertaken by literary schol­ ars, believing that “such confusion of areas and methods of investigation can bring no profit either to the science of lit­ erature or to philosophy” (I, 251). A literary scholar must in turn declare that not everything is clear in the above pro­ posed system, either: the borderlines between philosophy of literature and poetics, and between poetics and typol­ ogy of literary works seem fluid. Let us also note that the methodology of literary research has not been included. Trying to prevent literary scholars from entering the field of philosophy, Ingarden, for his part, did not study works on literary theory in any systematic way: the bibli­ ography given in The Literary Work of Art is scanty (dis­ regarding German readers of the book, Ingarden primar­ ily refers to Polish theorists); and when he returned to the problems of literary aesthetics in the last fifteen years of his life, he confined himself to getting acquainted with a few representative synthetic works and with particular studies directly connected with his own views. This presumably

Ingarden and Literary Studies 105 resulted also from deeper methodological assumptions — a belief that an echo of other views and attitudes hamper an intuitive contact with the object of investigation. But as a result he was often unfair to literary research: he deplored neglects and omissions which were largely eliminated and appealed for a consideration of problems that were already being investigated. He did not see or did not appreciate what had been already done, along the lines pointed out by him or parallel to his own reasoning. When preparing a new edition of his works in 1957 he admitted that he no longer felt as isolated as he had been when his ideas had been originally formulated, but Ht the same time, not with­ out some melancholy, he observed that “literary scholars did not make use of the instrument suggested to them, en­ abling them to investigate in a new way individual literary works” (II, 409). Indeed, it seems that only a dissertation by Lucie Elbracht-Hulseveh on Jacob Bidermann’s “Belisarius” (1935) was an attem pt — though only partial and not very successful — at adjusting literary analysis to In­ garden’s conception. The conclusions that might be drawn from this, however, would be misleading. It is true that Ingarden’s ideas encountered some diffi­ culty before they were finally assimilated by literary schol­ ars. The Literary Work of Art, because it was written in German, was known abroad, but remained inaccessible to many Polish readers; the opposite was true of The Cogni­ tion of the Literary Work of Art and of other smaller stud­ ies, until they began to appear in translation after 1956. But not only language difficulties were the problem: Ingar­ den’s style, though he made use of both everyday language and of metaphor, was nevertheless too complicated and too abstract for the majority of literary scholars. In order to clarify the content of his assertions he explained the philos­ ophy of language, formulated ontological and epistemologicaj assumptions which he could not explicate fully, and re-

106 Henryk Markiewicz {erred his readers to Husserl’s works. His “common-sense” minded readers or those who thought in terms of realism or materialism objected to a pedantic comparison of inten­ tional objects and those existing in reality, and references to ideal concepts. Some terms discouraged the readers or even frightened them; some were not always rightly under­ stood (e.g., “schematized aspects”). Some were not clearly defined by the author (e.g., metaphysical qualities). What was disappointing was the fact that Ingarden’s analyses, especially in The Literary Work of Art,were to a large ex­ tent concerned not with the essence of the literary work of art but with any text examined regardless of its artistic or aesthetic properties. All these circumstances contributed to an indifferent re­ sponse to the book — even in Germany, where the situa­ tion (because of the language and the philosophical tradi­ tion) was relatively favourable. The most prominent of the few German reviewers, Herbert Cysarz, attacked it sharply from his position of quasi-mysticism combined with an “or­ ganic” approach, stating rudely that what Ingarden obtains as a result of his analyses, which disintegrate the work and put aside aesthetic values, stands in relation to the liter­ ary work as “a wet spot to a conceived child.” It seems that Ulrich Leo was the only one to emphasize — though in a casual comment — “fundamental results of extremely important work by Ingaxden” that would be impossible for stylistic investigations to bypass in the future. The silence surrounding Ingarden’s work in the years following is easy to explain by its incongruity with “volkhafte Leteraturwissenschaft” and with Heidegger’s speculations, as well as by Husserl’s patronage, “racially” compromising in those years.2 However, Ingaxden was wrong when he stated that in pre-war Poland his views “most frequently encountered crude opposition based on complete ignorance of his work”

107 Ingarden and Literary Studies (15). The Literary Work of Art was, in fact, greeted with strong approval by the greatest theoretical authority of that time, Zygmunt Lempicki. The Cognition of the Liter­ ary Work of Art was highly esteemed by Stefan Szuman. The sceptical empiricist Julian Krzyzanowski, although dis­ agreeing with more than one of Ingarden’s statements, wrote with respect about his “exquisite analysis,” and “his system constructed with consistency and precision.” Also, Waclaw Borowy emphasized the fact that we have to do with “one of the greatest efforts in the sphere of the the­ ory of literary phenomena in our time.”3 Manfred Kridl — though not always adequately — used Ingarden’s theory as a philosophical basis for his Wstep do badan literackich (An Introduction to Literary Research (1936). The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art met with esteem even in the eyes of the representative of the most traditional trend in lit­ erary research, Ignacy Chrzanowski.4 As a m atter of fact, if we exclude one or two aggressive reviews, it was only Leon Chwistek who frontally attacked “Ingarden’s verbal metaphysics.”5 Authors belonging to a younger generation (i.e. L. Blaustein, M. Des Loges, M. Giergielewicz, T.J. Kronski, I. Krzemicka, M. Milbrandt), most of whom were philoso­ phers, were able to express their appreciation for Ingar­ den in the most respectable scholarly journals. His the­ ory inspired Stefania Skwarczynska when she outlined a programme for phenomenological theory of literature and later when she analyzed the role of understatement in the literary work and the structure of the poetic world. Mar­ ian Des Loges was also inspired by Ingarden in his criticism of Troczynski’s theory of artistic activities 6 and so was Kazimierz Wyka in his studies on the time of the novel.7 The most prominent critic of the young generation, Ludwik Fryde, wrote:

108

Henryk Markiewicz When we grasp the content of the concepts used by Ingaxden and we get to the core of his ar­ gumentation we feel a rare emotion: the dark and mysterious psychological process becomes clear before our eyes, penetrated by a clear and shrewd thought.8

To mention studies other than Polish, Felix Vodicka be­ came interested in Ingarden’s doctrine of the concretiza­ tion of the literary work and made critical use of it in his study Literarnehistoricke studium ohla.su literamich del (An Historical Study of the Reception of Literary Works, “Slovo a slovesnost” 1971). It was an irony of history that a “discovery” of Ingarden by German literary scholarship came almost simultaneously with the beginning of World War II and the persecution of Polish learning by the Ger­ man invaders. In 1939 Gunther Muller published in the Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift fur Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte a paper called “Uber die Seinsweise der Dichtung,” which, without of course mentioning either the term phenomenology or Husserl’s name, gave an appre­ ciative account of Ingarden’s views on the structure and mode of existence of the literary work and on the rela­ tions of the represented world to empirical reality. These views turned out to be a convenient theoretical basis for the orientation towards “imminent stylistic interpretation” which was about to develop at that time. They may have been know to Emil Staiger, the author of Grundbegriffe der Poetik (1946) which, incidentally, was highly valued by In­ garden. But they certainly influenced Wolfgang Kayser, who in the introduction to a frequently reprinted hand­ book, Das sprachliche Kunstwerk (1948), stated emphati­ cally that “the two most important recent works concerning the definition of the subject of literary scholarship and the elucidation of the mode of existence of literary texts axe Das

Ingarden and Literary Studies 109 literarische Kunstwerh by the Polish scholar Roman Ingar­ den, Husserl’s student, and Uber die Seinsweise der Dictat­ ing, by Gunther Muller.”9 In a popular guide, AUgemeine Literaturwissenschaft (1951), by Max Wehrli, Ingarden’s views are included in some detail. In the United States, Theory of Literature (1948) by R. Wellek and A. Warren, a widely popular work that has been translated into many languages, played a similar role. Its main author made use of Ingarden’s theory even earlier in the often quoted arti­ cle “The Mode of Existence of a Literary Work” (Southern Review, 1942).10 Even though American criticism has been particularly concerned with the problems of identity and of the mode of existence of the literary work, as well as with its cognitive function and with the logical value of fictional sentences, there is no trace of direct contact with Ingarden’s works, in which these questions frequently found a similar eluci­ dation — though usually a more precise and subtle one. This situation may be changed now due to the translations of Ingarden’s works that have come out in recent years — it seems symptomatic that M. C. Beardsley does not even mention Ingarden in the bibliographical Notes and Queries to his Aesthetics of 1958, but gives much favourable atten­ tion to him in a brief historical outline of 1966.11 At the time of writing, an extensive analysis of Ingarden’s views has appeared in Rene Wellek’s book Four Critics (1981). Ingarden’s name is placed alongside the names of Croce, Valery, and Lukacs, which in itself is significant. In France, references to Ingarden have only been occasional, made only by aestheticians (particularly in the Phenomenologie de Inexperience esthetique, 1953, by M. Dufrenne). On the other hand, in the German language new re­ search on the structure, morphology, and truth-value of the literary work develops in a constant dialogue with Ingarden’s views. This is most evident in such books

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as Die typischen Erzahlsituationen in Roman (1955) by Franz Stanzl, Die Logik der Dichtung (1957) by Kate Ham­ burger, Zur theorie der literarischen Wertung (1957) by Herbert Wutz, and Kritische Wissenschaft vom Text (1970) by Erwin Leibfried. References to Ingarden are particularly frequent in scholars concerned with the aesthetics of liter­ ary response (e.g., W. Iser, Der implizite Leser, 1972). In his book Phdnomenologie und Literaturwissenschaft (1973) the Yugoslav theorist Aoran Konstantinovic presented In­ garden’s views with great care and appreciation. A similar situation can be observed in the area of Polish literary theory: while Kazimierz Budzyk and Ste­ fan Zoikiewski12 maintain a theoretical disinterest in Ingar­ den’s works, for the younger generation of scholars like Kaz­ imierz Bartoszynski, Janusz Slawinski, Michal Glowinski, Katarzyna Rosner, or the author of the present paper, In­ garden’s theory constitutes as a rule a starting point leading towards one’s own — frequently polemical — critical posi­ tion. It is also no wonder that Maria Golaszewska, a former student of Ingarden, often refers to his theory in her works on aesthetics of literature. It is, however, more significant that Jerzy Pelc, a philosopher representing realism, uses In­ garden’s ideas as a point of departure and then formulates his views on the literary work and on the assertive value of its sentence in opposition to Ingarden.13 Stanislaw Lem does likewise in his Filozofia przypadku (The Philosophy of Chance; (1969) where he attempts to present problems of literature from a cybernetic viewpoint. Thus Ingar­ den’s presence in Polish theoretical awareness is clearly marked, particularly since the appearance of two collective volumes: Fenomenologia Romana Ingardena (Roman In­ garden’s Phenomenology (1972) and Roman Ingarden and Contemporary Polish Aesthetics (1975). This presence is also being marked in the writings of other East European authors. After the Russian transla­

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tion of Ingarden’s aesthetic studies appeared in 1962 with a cautious but appreciative introduction by W. Razumny, references to this volume have begun appearing in the works of Soviet scholars (N. Gej, G. Pospelov). The val­ ues of the studies have been emphasized by K. M. Dol­ gov Fenomenologia literatury R. Ingardena (R. Ingarden’s Phenomenology of Literature) in a collective volume on In­ garden’s Phenomenology. Besides Mukarovsky’s studies, Ingarden’s works constituted the main frame of reference for the papers given at the Prague symposium K interpretaci umeleckeho literarniho dila (1969). Even the East German Marxist scholar Norbert Krenzlin, who is critical of Ingarden — interpreting his views as an “aesthetics of consumption” and accusing him of formalism and objective idealism — emphasizes the importance and rational content of his “intellectually rich and unusually subtle studies.”14 In his book Das Werk “rein fvir sich” (1978) this same author argues that Ingarden’s analyses of the function of language in the literary work, of its stratified structure, and of the reader’s activity in the process of concretization are theoretical achievements of high value that should be assimilated into Marxist aesthetics. The present essay — without probing purely philosophi­ cal problems — is an attem pt to indicate the most vital mo­ tifs and inspirations present in Ingarden’s work that have been — or can be — made use of in literary research. This attem pt is prompted by a conviction that many of Ingar­ den’s statements retain their value regardless of their on­ tological components: a literary scholar may re-formulate them (e.g. in materialistic terms) or may (if he feels in­ competent) refrain from making judgements in this respect. The same concerns Ingarden’s epistemological declarations: the method of “direct a priori cognition” can (particularly in his application) be treated, after Adjukiewicz, simply as a “careful entering into the meaning of words” by means of

112 Henryk Markiewicz examples unquestionably referred to them.15 With this reservation, it is, however, necessary to start with ontological questions. This is what Ingarden has made clear to literary scholars, as well as convincing them that the literary work is an object separate from psychological acts of the author or readers, from the material carriers of meaning making up concrete copies of the work, and also from the sum of meaning of its sentences. He also demon­ strated that the literary work is an object transcendent in relation to each of the aspects (“perspectival foreshorten­ ings”) under which it appears to the reader in the course of different phases of reading (and also after the reading is over), and in relation to different ways in which it can be read, and which differ almost of necessity in the degree of adequacy with regard to different planes of the work. One can say without hesitation that Ingarden opened the eyes of literary scholars to the whole complexity of on­ tological and semantic relations which lead from tiny layers of link or from vibrating air particles to such components of the literary work as characters, plot, idea, and so on. He showed how numerous are the cognitive acts which must be performed by a competent receiver of the literary work and how difficult it is to perform them with an unvarying degree of concentration and involvement. Ingarden, as is generally acknowledged, defined the lit­ erary work as a purely intentional object and thus existen­ tially dependent, because its source of existence is rooted in the author’s creative act, and at the same time deriva­ tively intentional because it is based ontologically on sim­ pler intentional creations, namely, the meaning of sentences whose physical foundation is constituted by material lan­ guage signs. It has to be noted that it is the typical quali­ ties of these material signs that are in question, and not the concrete totality of their properties which occurs within a certain range of changeability in different copies of differ­

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ent performances of the same work, and also contains some features which are not relevant for its signifying functions. It may seem that this formula — which anyway does not entirely reflect Ingarden’s philosophical subtleties — is excessively complex and also suggestive of idealism. But for a literary theorist who is trying to find a philosophical foundation for his analyses, it is certainly more nourish­ ing than a statement that describes the literary work in general terms as a “reflection of reality,” thus leaving him with an unsolved alternative: an ideal or material object (since there is nothing else to choose) or, on the other hand, statements that merely define the work as a configuration of signs, which really means evading the ontological problem. Ingarden has worked out in detail the question of the literary work as consisting of numerous phases (merely touched upon in Lessing’s Laokoon) and put even more effort into revealing its many-layered, as he liked to call it, “anatomy.” He considered this idea to be of utmost importance and he believed firmly that the four strata he identified — those of sound, of meaning, of represented ob­ jects, and of schematized aspects (the schemata of aspects in which objects appear) — are not a construction, a model, or a figurative approximation, but constitute a fully ade­ quate representation of what is given in a direct experience of this “anatomy.” However, distinguishing the level of sounds, of mean­ ing, and of theme in the literary work has been an obvious m atter for literary scholars (for example, it was in this way that Mukarovsky analysed the poem May by Macha, 1928). What was new in Ingarden’s conception, namely, the dis­ tinguishing of the stratum of schematized aspects, did not meet with the appreciation of either theorists of literature or estheticians. It was argued that although represented objects come to appearance through aspects, these aspects cannot be separated from the objects; they are projected to­

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gether and therefore both belong to the represented world. The treatment of written signs merely as material founda­ tion of the work and a signal controlling selection of typical verbal sounds, which itself does not belong to the work, also raised doubts. And finally, it was observed that from the viewpoint of the needs of literary analysis it would be nec­ essary to introduce further distinctions and hierarchy. At the same time it was generally agreed that many of Ingarden’s observations concerning the spatial orienta­ tion of represented objects, and especially those concerning the construction of represented time, were new and useful (e.g., the opposition between an abbreviated report and a detailed presentation, and between a remote and close temporal distance in relation to presented events). A discussion with Ingarden’s conception of stratifica­ tion developed in the opposite direction as well: as a ten­ dency to characterize represented objects as concentrations of meaning of some sort, “without referring to concepts of strata other than the stratum of meaning connected with the language segments of the text.”16 This suggestion, how­ ever, blurs essential differences between the unequivocally ordered semantic content of the text received as a sequence of sentences and higher semantic units which are given in these meanings only potentially, and which come into being only through a selection, condensation, and simultaneous multi-directed bringing together of these meanings. It is worth adding that the structuralists, who attach great im­ portance to making accurate distinctions between particu­ lar “levels of description” discriminate as a rule the level of “discourse” and the level of “history” and — with the exception of Jakobson — would not agree to treat poetics as a part of linguistics. This level of “history,” when com­ pared with Ingarden’s concept of the represented world, looks impoverished and schematic. Therefore, it has even been supposed that “Ingarden may very likely play an im­

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portant role in the overcoming of the difficulties encoun­ tered by the study of literature and related disciplines in their attem pt to make use of semiology.”17 Perhaps more important than statements on the strat­ ified structure of the literary work was the distinction be­ tween the work as a schematic object open to intersubjective reconstruction, and its different monosubjective con­ cretizations performed by readers. Especially valuable was the introduction of the concept of “areas of indetermi­ nancy,” which was very useful for the description of differ­ ent ways in which the represented world can be constructed. Of even greater value has been the description of the al­ ready mentioned process of synthetizing objectivization in the course of which the content of the represented world separates itself and gains independence in relation to the meanings of successively read sentences: one and the same sentence is objectivized differently: e.g., in a process-like or an object-like way (and in the latter case is objectivized in many directions corresponding to the different objects referred to in this sentence), which may in turn contribute to a different constitution of the represented world (e.g., dynamic or more static). These analyses make it possible to distinguish in the literary work that which is given to the reader from that which is “assigned” — either unequivocally or as a multiplechoice operation — with a view to combining the meanings of sentences into higher units of meaning, thus completing and inferentially connecting them. The analyses postulate an investigative effort directed towards the grasping of intersubjectively given elements, properties, and relations ex­ isting in the literary work; at the same time Ingarden’s con­ siderations warn against attaching absolute value to one’s reconstructions, and they could prevent many futile argu­ ments about the “rightness” of competing interpretations of the. same work.

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Henryk Markiewicz In some of Ingarden’s formulations there is no cleax de­ marcation between a reconstruction of the literary work and its concretization, that is “a whole in which the work appears, with amplifications and transformations per­ formed by the reader.”18 In the course of concretization, according to Ingarden, the literary work develops in the concrete time of the reader’s experience: sound formation and phenomena are realized in a concrete vocal material (if reading aloud is the case), the aspects of represented ob­ jects are actualized, areas of indeterminancy present in the represented objects and in the aspects in which they appear are completed, and artistic qualities are transformed into aesthetically relevant qualities which embody aesthetic val­ ues. These statements have been of considerable method­ ological value for literary scholars: they emphasized a need to distinguish between the work itself and the aesthetic emotions it generates, as well as between generalized reflec­ tions it occasions or amplifications of its content appearing in the course of reading and imaginational representations which accompany the process of reading. Ingarden did not, however, avoid questionable normativism. He came to consider the imaginational realization of schematized aspects and a completion of areas of indeter­ minacy present in the objects, and to regard these aspects as indispensable conditions of a correct concretization of the literary work. But many competent readers say that they do not undergo this particular imaginational experi­ ence in the course of reading. As regards to completing areas of indeterminacy (which, as Ingarden used to empha­ size, are not to be identified with obvious presuppositions or with the consequences of presented events) it seems that his admirable aesthetic intuition failed him on this point. One should add, however, that in the last German version of The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art Ingarden ad­ mits that in many cases areas of indeterminacy left “blank”

Ingarden and Literary Studies 117 are an important factor in malting the presented situation more expressive or suggestive, and completing them would weaken the aesthetic effect.19 Another problem connected with Ingarden’s name is the question of so-called quasi-judgements in the literaxy work. He placed them between genuine judgements and pure propositions because they do not aspire to being true in the logical sense but merely set up fictitious objects and states of affairs, endowing them with an appearance of real existence. Into this category Ingarden included not only sentences referring to fictitious objects and their utterances, but also sentences referring to real objects if they appear in the context of quasi-judgements, and lyrical utterances including reflective sentences which express general state­ ments on philosophical or ideological points. Ingarden con­ sidered quasi-judgements the most essential feature of “lit­ erariness” ; within the sphere of literature are included only those works which do not contain any genuine judgements. According to Ingarden, once genuine judgements do appear the work is relegated to the borderline or peripheral area, and “if the work consisted of such judgements exclusively it would no longer — despite so-called ‘beautiful form’belong to the literary art” (435). These ideas generated a broad polemic that still persists.20 It was generally agreed that quasi-judgements adequately specify a peculiar assertive status of sentences referring to literary fictions. At the same time, it was pointed out that Ingarden did not distinguish consistently enough the assertive character from the logical value of the sentence and, moreover, that he considered this assertive character sometimes from the author’s point of view and sometimes from the reader’s. It was also observed that he did not specify characteristics that would make it possi­ ble to distinguish quasi-judgements from the reader’s. It was also observed that he did not specify characteristics

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that would make it possible to distinguish quasi-judgements from genuine judgements. Ingarden’s general definition of lyrical utterances as quasi-judgements (Ingaxden made a se­ mantic shift here classifying all clearly subjective and emo­ tionally charged reflections as quasi-judgements) and his inclusion of sentences in epic literature concerning histori­ cal or geographical reality in the same category have also been questioned. It was noted that in some of Ingarden’s statements a vicious circle seemed to appear: the “literary” quality of the work pointed to the fact that its sentences were to give to the work the quality of “literariness.” An­ other controversial point was the identification of the whole of literature with the sphere of quasi-judgements. There is no opportunity here to relate in detail the con­ troversy and to analyze the legitimacy of particular objec­ tions which were formulated in the course of it. It can only be observed that Ingarden did not take into consid­ eration the fact that the concept of “literature” is itself an historical phenomenon, and a fairly recent one, whose boundaries have been continually changing. He also ig­ nored the existence of different conventions which varied according to the period and the literary genre, written or unwritten “agreements” between the author and the reader establishing (approximately) how the assertive chaxacter of sentences of the poetic (and later, literary) work should be taken (e.g., that utterances of patriotic lyric poetry or con­ temporary reportage are to be treated “quite seriously”). W hat was valuable in this section of Ingaxden’s philos­ ophy of literature was distinguishing quasi-judgements not only from false judgements but also from pure propositions, and the subtle description of a psychological attitude as­ sumed by the reader in relation to literary fiction. And, ir­ respective of reservations that have been made, Ingaxden’s analyses rightly appealed for caution in the treatment of propositions contained in the literary work as assertions

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referring to an extra-literary reality. However, Ingarden agreed, as has sometimes been forgotten, that such utter­ ances sometimes occur in the literary work, although he considered them to be alien to its nature. In the course of his analyses he proposed an accurate distinction between the author as (1) a real person, the producer of the work, (2) the causative subject belonging to the work, whose features are determined by the work itself (the “author’s image,” in Vinogradov’s terminology), and (3) the object presented as author by the work itself (e.g., the fictitious narrator), thus constituting its inner element. Contrary to the simplified opinions of his not-tooattentive adherents as well as his not-too-attentive adver­ saries concerning the theory of quasi-judgements, Ingarden did not draw any conclusions which would separate the represented world from extra-literary reality. As a m atter of fact, he believed that only on the grounds of this the­ ory is it possible to talk of represented objects as being similar to, or representative of, the real world because gen­ uine judgements refer to real objects and not to similar or representative objects. In The Literary Work of Art Ingar­ den distinguished three modifications of quasi-judgements according to the degree to which they approximate gen­ uine judgements. They evoke three different kinds of rep­ resented object: fantastic, faithful to the type of the objects existing in extra-literary reality, and faithful to individual real objects. He also specified in discussions held at his aes­ thetic seminars different ways in which the term “truth” is to be understood with reference to the literary work (among others, logical truth, a faithful representation of non- artis­ tic objects or a simple resemblance to them, consistency of represented objects, an illusion of their existential in­ dependence, the sincerity and faithfulness of the author’s expression), which is a set of distinctions very useful in studies of the concept of realism.

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Henryk Markiewicz But Ingarden did not consider these varieties of “truth­ fulness” to be essential for the constitution of values pecu­ liar to the literary work or a work of art in general. The representation of the real world by the fictitious world was for him, as it were, only a pretext which made contact with different “harmonies” of aesthetic qualities possible: An essential task of the work of literary art is to generate an aesthetic experience in the reader and in this way to make it possible for an aes­ thetic object to be constituted. This object is — objectively speaking — an embodiment of aesthetic values of a particular kind. As values they gave a reason for their existence in the very fact of being valuable and as such they demand realization (285). Can we speak, then, of Ingarden’s aestheticism? This depends on the meaning we give to this semantically un­ clear term. But even if it was aestheticism, it certainly was not formalism. For among aesthetic qualities, Ingax­ den placed most highly those qualities which he called — a little unfortunately — “metaphysical qualities” (by which he meant qualities contained in the semantic field of sub­ limity), and also some other emotive qualities contained in the semantic field of sublimity), and also some other emotive qualities (like the comic, the grotesque, etc.) anal­ ogous to qualities which occur the real world but are weak­ ened by a peculiar modification of the existential moment and therefore comprehended from a certain distance, which makes aesthetic emotion possible. Especially when talking about lyric poetry, Ingarden liked to stress that it some­ times is “unequalled in its function of revealing some most essential connections between final qualities that come to appearance in the deepest layers of the human soul and fate, and in the function of the intuitive understanding of

Ingarden and Literary Studies 121 these connections” (422). Thus he finally came to claim that an essential function of poetry is a peculiar cognition: a revealing vision, an emotion accompaying it, and “un­ derstanding radiating through it — the role of which is equally significant as the role of purely intellectual cogni­ tion though it is of an entirely different nature” (423). He was even prepared to treat his analyses as “supporting a thesis of so-called Marxist aesthetics on the condition that this thesis — concerning the function of generalizing per­ formed by a work of art — is formulated more correctly and is not applied in a very general way to any work of art” (II, 427). It can be seen from the above quotations that the ob­ jections made to Ingarden’s theory — claiming that his “anatomy” of the literary work was futile because it con­ cerned features occurring in any work, and that it destroys the structural unity of the literary work — were groundless. In order to describe the structure adequately it was neces­ sary to isolate its particular elements and establish relations between them; in order to embark on the investigation of artistically or aesthetically valuable elements it was first necessary to reveal an aesthetically neutral skeleton of the work of art because it is this skeleton that determines a particular range of artistic possibilities and also serves as a foundation on which aesthetically valuable elements can be built. “Harmony” in turn, an organic connection as op­ posed to a contingent coexistence of individual elements or qualities in a valuable literary work, has been a persistent, constantly repeated article of his theoretical code. Ingarden’s interests moved from the problem of the structure of the literary work towards the question of con­ cretization, and then to the problem of artistic and aes­ thetic qualities and values, which in his last work he de­ scribed as “the main problem of literary studies.” However, this area of Ingarden’s thought, particularly

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fascinating for the literary scholars since it touches upon his deepest methodological troubles and scruples, produces at the same time a slight embarrassment. On the one hand Ingarden postulates such efficiency on the scholar’s part as regards the conscious generating of different concretiza­ tions of the same work, while on the other hand he perceives many obstacles preventing one from achieving an adequate concretization; he finally reveals so many contradictions be­ tween an investigating attitude (fully objective, distanced, analytical, and perceiving different aspects of the work with equal clarity) and an aesthetic attitude (demanding an emotional response, direct closeness to the work, and a hierarchization of its different aspects) that it is difficult to imagine what the realization of his postulates should look like, particularly in the case of the reflective cognition of one’s aesthetic concretization of the literary work. Ingar­ den himself points to this near-utopian character when he says that “for only a partly satisfactory description of data occurring in the aesthetic-reflective cognition it would be necessary to create a new language,” a language which, he does not hesitate to say, would be “irrational” because it would be deprived of definition-established meanings (171). According to Ingarden’s early views, such reflective cog­ nition of the aesthetic concretization of the literary work was to be a domain of literary criticism, if it was worthy of this name. A study of literature was to limit itself to the reflective cognition of the literary work as a work of art, i.e., cognition taking into account aesthetic potentialities con­ tained in its artistic qualities. But the difference between artistic and aesthetic values is not very clear and Ingarden himself acknowledged a difficulty in making this distinction. In his last works he postulated an integral cognition of the literary work which would also include its aesthetic aspect, and thus would transgress the formerly established limits of the science of literature. “The whole of Pan Tadeusz,”

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he wrote, should be analyzed from the point of view of complexes of aesthetically valuable qualities successively coming to appearance. It should be demonstrated how these complexes harmonize with one another: whether they are finally com­ bined in an artistically connected whole whose dominating elements, in their successive devel­ opment, lead to a particular architecturally or­ dered final meaning which, after the reading of the poem is over, is retained as determined in the reader’s experience. It should also be made clear to what extent this whole harmony of aes­ thetically valuable qualities is determined by artistic functions of the language, and to what extent — by the structure and properties of the world represented in Pan Tadeusz (III, 357). The persistence with which Ingarden constantly re­ turned to this sphere of problems, the tentative nature of these attempts, and the ever-changing terminology seem to testify to the difficulties he encountered while trying to solve them. His solution is unlikely to satisfy literary schol­ ars, but it is certainly much more profound than their for­ mer theoretical awareness of this area. The systematization of aesthetically valuable qualities which Ingarden proposes en passant (material, aesthetically valuable elements, emo­ tional, “intellectual” and substantial; formal valuable ele­ ments; varieties of “excellence” or “cheapness” of qualities; varieties of “novelty”; varieties of “being natural”; varieties of “truthfulness”; varieties of “reality”; varieties of affect­ ing the perceiver) is very useful for an accurate description of the language of literary criticism. Literary research in Poland, owes to a large extent, to Ingarden its being set free from the biographical and psy­

124 Henryk Markiewicz chological approach. Formalistic conclusions have some­ times been drawn from the conception of quasi-judgements; but it may also be used for the purpose of perfecting and defining more precisely an investigation of the ideological and cognitive content of literature. By concentrating his critical efforts on the literary work, Ingarden strengthened the work-centered orientation of literary research as well as the primacy of immanent and idiographical analysis. He stated explicitly that the “characterology of individual lit­ erary works constitutes an essential section of literary re­ search” (221). But he also appreciated the typological and historical functions of literary studies, whose final aim, he believed, was to “analyze a process of historical change in the literary climates of successive periods of a particular lin­ guistic or cultural complex” in its relation to “the history of culture, the history of political and social transforma­ tions, as well as processes of development of a particular community” (241). One can question the distribution of emphases in Ingarden’s views on the aims of literary study but it is certainly not possible to accuse him of doctrinaire narrowness. On the contrary, and in striking contrast to his uncritical supporters and opponents, he regarded any research area, no m atter how remote from his own inter­ ests, with considerable respect as long as it was scientifically grounded. The significance of Ingarden’s work for literary scholars, however, does not consist merely in the totality of his theses and comments, which it is difficult entirely to grasp and to exhaust: it grows at each successive reading of his works. These works have become a model difficult to attain, of systematic, thorough, careful study, with too ‘awkward’ ex­ amples or obsolete solutions. They have demonstrated ob­ scurity, chaos, and ambiguities in the traditional conceptual and terminological apparatus and a simplemindedness in its criticism. A particularly instructive example is his study

Ingarden and Literary Studies 125 of form and content, compared to which both prior and later (often rambling) analyses of the subject look pitiable: those which talk of “the unity of form and content” and point to the impossibility of separating the two concepts, as well as those which consider there concepts meaningless. Ingarden’s works are permeated by an enormous cognitive optimism; they demand a lot from a literary scholar, some­ times so much that his goals seem impossible to attain. But Ingarden often indicated in a realistic way the possibilities and limits of the critical cognition of literature — pointing out that the literary work can be presented only in different successive cross-sections, and therefore “each presentation of the literary work by means of a set of judgements is to some extent inadequate in relation to the work itself” (193). His works were generated by “a great, superhuman love of truth,” as his philosophical opponent Leon Chwistek once said. They formulated fundamental questions as well as questions concerning “unfashionable” problems (like the problems of form and content, aesthetic categories, or the psychology of literary characters) — what matters is only that our experience tells us these questions are essential for our contact with the world of literature.21 Finally, and primarily, Ingarden’s works wake the lit­ erary scholar from his non-reflective, automatized attitude to the object of his study: they reveal a whole complexity, uniqueness, and variety of problems connected with the lit­ erary work as a cultural phenomenon: the literary work is a real wonder. It exists, lives, acts upon us, immeasurably enriches our life, gives us hours of delight and allows us to reach bottomless depths of being, Ingarden wrote in his old-fashioned, solemn style, “al­ though in its mode of existence it is only a het­ eronomous creation that in the sense of exis­ tential autonomy amounts almost to nothing.

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Henryk Markiewicz When we want to comprehend it theoretically it reveals to us its complexity and manysided­ ness, which can hardly be grasped; and still it appears to us in the course of an aesthetic experience as a unity through which this com­ plex structure hardly shows. Its exsistence is heteronomous, entirely passive it would seem; but through its concretizations it effects deep changes in our life, broadens it, lifts it above the trivial level of ordinary living, gives to it di­ vine radiance; it is a “nothing” in itself, and at the same time it constitutes a wonderful world, though it comes into being only through our grace and through our grace it is (458).

Into this essence of literary study, into the fascinating paradoxical nature of the literary work, Roman Ingarden penetrated more profoundly and more thoroughly than any other contemporary scholar.

N otes 1. Arabic numerals in the text refer to pages of Ingarden [7], O dziele literackim. Badania z pogranicza ontologii, teorii jezyka » filozofii litemtury (The Literary Work of Art. An Investigation on the Borderlines of Ontology, Theory of Language, and Philosophy of Literature), (Warsawa 1960). Roman and arabic numerals refer to pages of the relevant volumes of Ingarden [21, 23, 4&], Studia z estetyki (Studies in Aesthetics), vol. I (Warsaw 1957), vol. II (Warsaw 1958), vol. Ill (Warsaw 1970).

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2. H. Cysarz, Review of Das Literarische Kunstwerk, Deutsche Literaturzeitung (1935), 1595-99; U. Leo Pirandello, “Kunsttheorie und Maskensymbol,” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift fu r Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte (1933), 123; cf. G.M. Vajda, “Phénomenologie et sciences littéraires,” Acta Litteraria Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae (1969), 102- 06; N. Krenzlin, Das Werk “rein fü r sich” (Berlin 1979), 131-57. 3. Z. Lempicki, “Dzieło literackie, Struktura i wygląd” (The Literary Work: Its Structure and Appearance), Wiadomości Literackie, IX (1932); S. Szuman, “Nowa książka prof. Ingardena” (Professor Ingarden’s New Book), Przegląd Współczesny, V III/IX (1937); J. Krzyżanowski, “W poszukiwaniu teorii literatury” (In Search of a Literary Theory), Nowa Książka, II (1937); W. Borowy, “Szkoła krytyków” (A School of Critics), Przegląd Współczesny, II (1937). 4. A copy of Z. Lempicki’s postcard addressed to I. Chrzanowski, dated 18 Jan. 1937 (in the possession of the author). 5. L. Chwistek, “Tragedia werbalnej metafizyki” (The Tragedy of Verbal Metaphysics), Kwartalnik Filozoficzny, II (1932). 6. S. Skwarczyńska, “Przedmiot, metoda i zadania teorii literatury” (The Subject, Method and Tasks of the Theory of Literature), Pamiętnik Literacki, (1938); S. Skwarczyńska, Z teorii literatury. Cztery rozprawy (From Dissertations on the Theory of Literature), (Łódź 1947); M. Des Loges, “Uroszczenia teorii czynności artystycznych” (Claims of the Theory of Artistic Activities), Życie Literackie, IV-V (1939). 7. H. Wyka, “Czas powieściowy” (The Time of the Novel) (written in 1944), in O potrzebie historii literatury (On the Need of Literary History), (Cracow 1969). 8. L. Fryde, “Lekcja marzenia” (A Lesson in Dreaming), Tygodnik Ilustrowany, XVII (1937). 9. W. Kayser, Das sprachliche Kunstwerk (Bern 1948), 17. 10. Reprinted in the anthologies Critiques and Essays in Criticism, ed. R.W. Stallman (New York 1948); The Problems of Aesthetics, E. Vivas and M. Krieger (New York 1953).

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11. M.C. Beardsley, Aesthetics from Classical Greece to the Present: A Short History (New York 1966), 369-72. 12. K. Budzyk, “Glowne problemy metodologiczne w badaniach literackich” (Main Methodological Problems in the Study of Literature), Przeglyd Humanistyczny, III (1958); S., Zolkiewski, “O dziele literacldm” (The Literary Work), Nowa Kultura, XV (1960). 13. K. Bartoszynski, “Z problematyki czsu w utworach epickich” (On the Problems of Time in the Epic), in W kr$gtt zagadnien teorii powiesci (The Problems of the Theory of the Novel), (Wroclaw 1967); J. Slawinski, “Semantyka wypowiedzi narracyjnej” (Semantics of the Narrative Utterance), in the same volume; “On Concretization” , in Roman Ingarden and Contemporary Polish Aesthetics (Warsaw 1975); K. Rosner, 0 fvnkcji poznawczej dziela literackiego (On the Cognitive Function of the Literary Work), (Wroclaw 1970); H. Markiewicz, Glowne problemy wiedzy o literaturze (The Main Problems of Literary Study), (Cracow 1965); M. Golaszewska, Tworczosc a osobowosc tworcy (Creativity and the Author’s Personality), (Lublin 1958); M. Golaszewska, Filozoficzne podstawy krytyki literackiej (Philosophical Foundations of Literary Criticism), (Cracow 1963); J. Pelc, “O istnieniu i strukturze dziela literackiego” (The Existence and Structure of the Literary Work), StudiaFilozoficzne, III (1958); J. Pelc, 0 wartosci logicznej i charakterze asertywnym zdari w dziele literackim (On Logical Value and on the Assertive Nature of Sentences of Literary Work), (fragments published in Polish scholarly journals after 1960). 14. N. Krenzlin, Review of Das literarische Kunstwerk, Weimarer Beitrage, III (1967), 519-21. 15. K. Adjukiewicz, Zagadnienia i kierunki filozofii (Problems and Directions of Philosophy), (Warsaw 1949), 71. Thus Ingarden says, for example, th at in order to get at the essence of the literary work it is necessary: “(a) to analyse the structure of the literary work using examples of works purely literary (such th at no one can doubt whether they are works of literary art) and then consider border line cases of different kinds, (b) not to give a priori any definition of the work of literary art th at would mark in a schematic way a

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demarcation line between a literary work of art and non-artistic written formations, because there is no clear demarcation line and also because if we are to attem pt to obtain a definition of the literary work this can be constructed only as a result of exhausting and comprehensive investigations, and not at the beginning of this process through mere conceptual constructions, disregarding facts” (i, 402). 16. Slawiriski, “Semantyka,” 17ff. 17. M. Zurowski, “Teoria sztuki widowiskowej” (A Theory of the Art of Spectacle), Dialog, (1970). It is especially T. Todorov litterature et signification, Paris 1967) whose ideas can be seen as partly convergent with Ingarden’s, evident in the terminology he uses(“l’etude d ’une oeuvre en profondeur et en etendue, les strates significatives, l’organisation de l’univers represente”). 18. Ingarden [16], Szkice z filozofii literatury (Sketches in the Philosophy of Literature), vol. I, (Lodz 1947), 67. 19. Cf. H. Markiewicz, “Places of Indeterminacy in a Literary Work,” in Roman Ingarden and Contemporary Polish Aesthetics, (Warsaw 1975). 20. Cf. the works mentioned above by Borowy, Hamburger and Pelc; also K. Gorski, Poezja jako wyraz (Poetry as Expression), (Torun 1946), 90-95. 21. A conference on “The Marxist Critique of Phenomenology and the Philosophy of Roman Ingarden” held at Jadwisin in June 1975 can testify to growing international response to Ingarden’s theory. The papers read at the conference, partly concerning literary study, have been published in the journals Studia Filozoficzne and Dialectics and Humanism.

V I.

Ingarden, Inscription, and Literary Ontology

Richard Shusterman

I hold that a world is something more than the noise it makes; it is also the way it looks on a page. — T.S. Eliot I It would be both presumptuous and futile to attem pt within the space of a short essay an adequate critical ex­ position and assessment of Roman Ingarden’s theory of on­ tological status of the literary work of art. For Ingarden’s theory, extensively articulated in The Literary Work of Art and still further developed in the The Cognition of the Lit­ erary Work of Art, is probably the most complex, detailed, and exhaustive account ever to be given of the ontological nature of the literary work of art.1 In this paper, there­ fore, I shall concentrate my critical scrutiny on one rather narrow and apparently minor aspect of Ingarden’s theory. Indeed, one might waggishly say that I shall be concentrat­ ing on an ontological aspect of the literary work which does not really exist for Ingarden, an aspect which he explicitly and repeatedly rejects from the ontological make-up of the literary work of art. I refer to the visual or graphic di­ mension of the literary work; and I mean by this not the visual imagery which the work’s words evoke, by simply the written, printed, or (as we shall for convenience generally denote it) the inscribed form of the text. Ingarden’s rejec­ tion of this possible dimension warrants our attention in its own right, but may also shed light instructively on much wider aspects of Ingarden’s thought. 131 B . Dziemidok and P. McCormick (eds.)t On the Aesthetics o f Roman Ingarden, 131—157. © 1989 by Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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Given Ingarden’s taste for ontological complexity and polyphonic richness, it is hard to accept that the graphic or inscribed aspect of the literary text can find no place among the different strata which Ingarden sees as constituting the ontologically complex, aesthetically rich, and polyphonically harmonious unity which is the literary work of art. Ingarden summarizes the literary work’s four constitutive strata as follows: The literary work is a many-layered formation. It contains (a) the stratum of verbal sounds phonetic formations and phenomena of a higher order; (b) the stratum of semantic units: of sentence meanings and the meanings of whole groups of sentences; (c) the stratum of schema­ tized aspects, in which objects of various kinds portrayed in the work come to appearance; and (d) the stratum of the objectivities portrayed in the intentional states of affairs projected by the sentences. (CLW, 12) Ingarden further insists that the literary work’s multiplicity of strata, its “complexity and many-sidedness” contribute to its aesthetic power and help make it into something which “enriches our lives to an extraordinary degree” (LW, 373). For “if a literary work is a work of art having pos­ itive value, each of its strata contains special qualities . .. of aesthetic value . . . which lead to a peculiar polyphony of aesthetically valent qualities which determines the qual­ ity of the value constituted in the work” {CLW, 13). In other words, the plurality and heterogeneity of the dif­ ferent strata make the literary work a unity which is rewardingly rich and polyphonic rather than monotonously uniform. “The diversity of the material and the roles (or

Ingarden, Inscription, and Literary Ontology 133 functions) of the individual strata makes the whole work, not a monotonic formation, but one that by its nature has a polyphonic character,” where each individual stratum “is visible in its own way within the whole and brings some­ thing particular into the over-all character of the whole without impairing its phenomenal unity” (LW, 29-30). The plurality of strata belonging to the literary work contributes to the work’s aesthetic richness in two ways. First “the material of each stratum leads to the constitution of its own aesthetic characters, which correspond to the na­ ture of the material” (LW, 58); for example, the phonetic stratum affords qualities of rhythm, tempo, and melody. But, secondly, there may be aesthetic qualities or charac­ ters resulting from the synthesis of qualities from different strata; for example qualities emerging from the synthesis of the phonetic stratum and the meaning stratum, quali­ ties like onomatopoeia and other phenomena where sound and meaning enrich or modify each other. Ingarden, for instance, notes how “the many and various ‘emotional’ or ‘mood’ qualities” associated with the sound of literature are “conditioned and influenced by the meaning that is bound to the word sound” (LW, 52). Thus, synthetic aesthetic qualities or characters may occur not only narrowly within an individual stratum, but “ may also be syntheses of a still higher order among moments of different groups” of characters belonging to different strata (LW, 58). Clearly Ingarden emphasizes and celebrates the lit­ erary work’s “remarkable polyphony of aesthetic charac­ ters of heterogeneous types” emerging from heterogeneous strata (LW, 58). Consequently, for Ingarden, the fact that a given stratum takes part in and enriches the aesthetic polyphony of the literary work of art will constitute “ an important argument” that the stratum “belongs” to the work, since “its absence from the work must lead to farreaching changes in it. The polyphony must then not only

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Richard Shusterman be the poorer, lacking a ‘voice,’ but it must also be thor­ oughly different, since other types of harmonies would have to be constructed” (LW, 58). However, notwithstanding his commendable openness and largesse in recognizing the rich variety of heterogeneous strata which constitute the literary work of art (and prevent it from being tamely pigeonholed in either of the two tradi­ tional ontological categories of ‘real’ and ‘ideal’), Ingarden explicitly excludes the work’s inscribed stratum, the writ­ ten or printed text, from being an element of the literary work. For Ingarden, “the written word does not . . . belong to the literary work at all”; neither the real graphic ma­ terial not the typical letters founded on it are an element of the literary work of art.” Though Ingarden concedes that its real durability provides an indirect, ontic basis of the literary work, the inscribed text is excluded from prop­ erly belonging to the work and is relegated to an external subservient tool for the phonetic stratum, being “merely a regulative signal for the reader, informing him which words he is to concretize” (LW, 35n, 367). This exclusion of the inscribed text from the work, and thus from contributing to and enriching its heterogeneous polyphonic aesthetic har­ monies, is decisively reaffirmed in The Cognition of the Lit­ erary Work of Art. “The print (the printed text) does not belong to the elements of the literary work of art itself (for instance as a new stratum ... ) but merely constitutes its physical foundation” and plays “a modifying role in the reading” (CLW, 4). We may well feel some discomfort at the idea that some­ thing which is both a physical foundation of the work and a regulative structure for its experience or concretization is nonetheless firmly excluded in principle from belonging to the work as an element or aspect contributing to its on­ tological (if not aesthetic) status. In any case, I certainly believe that Ingarden’s rejection of the inscribed text is un­

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satisfactory and highly problematic, and in what follows I shall be examining and challenging the reasons Ingarden brings for it. Some of these reasons are not fully artic­ ulated but vaguely suggested by Ingarden and will thus have to be fleshed out by interpretation. Though some seem largely the unconvincing product of unreflective pre­ conceptions, others are more substantial and cogent, even if not ultimately compelling. But before considering In­ garden’s reasons for denying the literary pertinence of the inscribed text we must note that however unacceptable we find this view, it is unfortunately very widespread. First, among continental aestheticians, we find Croce adumbrating Ingaxden and treating the written text as merely a sign for producing certain sounds. Mikel Dufrenne still more shaxply denies the aesthetic relevance of writing, while maintaining the essentiality of the oral: “l’ecriture n ’est qu’on moyen . . . pour la vraie langue qui est la langue orale,” “la poesie est un voix ... pas un etre ecrit.” Among aetheticians of the analytic school, we find Beardsley main­ taining that since words are “meaningful sounds,” they and the literary works they constitute “present two aspects for study: the sound-aspect and the meaning-aspect.” Beards­ ley thus blatantly fails to admit that words consist of letters as well as phonemes and morphemes, and hence that they and the literary works they constitute have a visual aspect as well. J.O. Urmson is more outspoken in rejecting the significance of the inscribed text, boldly asserting that “lit­ erature is essentially an oral art,” “the written word being primarily a score for the performer”.2 Thus Ingarden’s rejection of the inscribed text as aes­ thetically irrelevant to and ontologically excluded from the literary work of art puts him in very good company. Nonetheless, I think it also puts him in error, because, as I have argued elsewhere, there are compelling reasons to rec­ ognize the ontological pertinence and aesthetic relevance of

136 Richard Shusterman the inscribed text and to place it alongside oral performance as a legitimate, full-fledged end-product of literary art and an adequate object for aesthetic, literary appreciation.3 My position, briefly, is that literary works may exist as either oral or written and that, taking literature as a whole, neither form is primary or more authentic. Literary works are verbal entities and that includes both texts and oral performances. Poems may exist without ever being inscribed and novels may exist without ever being vocal­ ized. Just as we may generally appreciate a poem without being aware of how it would look transcribed in lineation on a page, so we can enjoy a novel without imagining what sounds would be heard if it were read aloud. However, as either the phonetic or the inscribed provides, in Ingarden’s terminology, a material stratum of the work, both can be said to belong to it and both in principle can be relevant to its aesthetic appreciation. Though literary art may have originated as an essentially oral art, with the invention of writing, and further with the invention and development of printing and the consequent growth of literacy, the literaxy artist was provided with a medium through which he could reach a far larger audience and in which he could convey a far longer and more complex message which could not be adequately conveyed in a standard oral performance. The literary artist began to write more to be read than to be heard; the written text has largely supplanted the oral performance, and we thus find more asides to “the reader of this story” or “the reader of this line” as op­ posed to “the hearer of this tale.” Moreover, once the in­ scribed text was firmly established as a standard, if not the predominant end-product of literary art and typical object of literary appreciation, it was only natural that literary artists would exploit the rich aesthetic possibilities offered by the inscribed medium. Prominent among these possi­ bilities are, of course, visual effects of a variety of forms,

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examples of which have been analyzed elsewhere.4 Certainly some literary works axe best appreciated in oral performances. But others seem best appreciated in in­ scribed texts, where one can appreciate their visual form, and can swiftly skim back and forth to refresh the mem­ ory and retrace developing patterns of character, plot, and imagery. My position of phonetic/inscribed egalitarianism is more fruitful for literary appreciation, since it not only encourages the critic to pay more attention to meaningful visual aspects of inscribed literature which should conse­ quently be related from the work. The argument as it stands so far is obviously defective. It is clear that the mere fact that the literary work con­ sists of much more than the inscribed text does not entail that the inscribed text does not belong to the work as a feature of it. Plainly all that follows is that the inscribed is not the sole aspect of the work and that there are oth­ ers which are more important. Ingarden, however, tries to make the exclusion of the inscribed text seem a more plau­ sible inference by suggesting that since the work consists of sentences and since “a sentence is nothing real” (LW, 9) but purely intentional, it seems proper to view the literary work (as Ingarden does indeed view it) as a purely inten­ tional formation devoid of any real components. Therefore, the apparent real status of the inscribed text would make it incompatible with the work so conceived, and it must consequently be excluded from the work. This sketchily suggested argument is problematic and inconclusive. One problem is that it seems to work just as well for the sounds of the work as for its inscriptions. For the sounds of the work as orally performed axe certainly as real as its inscriptions. At first blush, sounds might appear less materially real than inscribed texts, since they are invisible to the naked eye and it is harder to delimit their spatio-temporal location. But invisibility surely does

Richard Shusterman 138 not imply non-physical unreal status. Ingarden, however, is aware of the problem that the reality of sounds poses for his literary ontology; he therefore is careful to insist that the word sounds which belong to the literary work are not concrete physical bounds but rather typical, intentional entities which are neither real nor ideal. This sort of word sound is not any real “concrete phonic material ... but a typical phonic form (Gestalt).” This form shows itself to us only through the concrete phonic material. It is given to us on the basis of this material and it continues in ex­ istence even though quite extensive differences frequently occur in the material ... This un­ changeable phonic form ... cannot be identi­ fied with either this phonic material or its in­ dividual concretizations, because it is one and the same, while the phonic material carrying its concretizations is many and manifold. Nor can it be considered something real, nor by its essence the real cannot appear as identically the same in many real individuals or real individual occurrences. . . . Whereas the word may be u t­ tered countless numbers of times, and the con­ crete phonic material may always be new, the “word sound” remains the same. (LW., 36-38) Translated into more fashionable Peircean terminology, Ingarden’s message is simply that the word sounds which belong to the literary work are not concrete phonic tokens but rather types. A phonic type is embodied in, but not identical with, any of its different tokens (or even all of them), which in turn are nonetheless unified in their diver­ sity by all being tokens of, instantiations of, one and the same type. (Ingarden naturally assumes that the typical phonic form or word-sound type, like any type entity is not

Ingarden, Inscription, and Literary Ontology 139 a real material entity, and this, of course, neatly fits into the view of the literary work itself as a type entity, which maintains its identity is different material tokens and which cannot therefore be regarded itself as a material individual. Here we must note that some philosophers have cogently argued for the attribution of a real, material and partic­ ular status to type entities in general and works of art in general and works of art in particular. But to go into this issue would mean getting embroiled in ponderous ontolog­ ical wrangles over such terms as ‘type,’ ‘real,’ ‘material,’ ‘individual’: while we must pursue a more limited quarry and a more specific question).5 Even if we assume, with Ingarden, the irreality of types, we must ask the following: if the word sounds of the literary work may be conceived as typical phonic forms or non-real type entities and thus be incorporated into a purely inten­ tional literary work, why can’t Ingarden do the same for the inscribed words of the text? What prevents us from regard­ ing the literary work’s inscribed text as composed of typ­ ical inscribed forms (rather than concretely real, physical inscriptions) and as being a type entity which is embodied and presented in the many different real tokens of the text but which cannot be identified with any of them nor with any of its individual concretizations in the reader’s percep­ tion? In short, what prohibits us from treating word in­ scriptions like word sounds and thus enabling the inscribed text as a non-real type entity to be included in the literary work: The answer, I think, is that there seems to be no logical or ontological prohibition. Ingarden himself recognizes that the written word can be conceived as “a certain vague type of Gestalt quality” which might perhaps be thought to belong to the literary work, and he sometimes treats the inscribed text and its components as type entities. The inscribed characters of the text, which for him merely serve as a signal for realizing

Richard Shuaterman 140 the phonetic stratum, “must be formed typically.” “These typical letters, however, must be based on some individ­ ual, e.g. visually apprehensible, material” so that the work may be preserved over time. The typical inscriptions must be thus set down and embodied “in some real, fixed, rel­ atively little- changeable material,” the “concrete graphic material” of the token text (LW, 35n, 365-67). However, as with the typical word sounds, the typical inscriptions constitute a non-real, intentional type entity which cannot be identified with any of the real tokens which embody it. We surely seem to have the ontological apparatus for clearing the way to accept the inscribed text, as type entity, as belonging to the literary work. Yet Ingarden, in the end, firmly and explicitly rejects the inscribed text not only in its real but in its “typical” form. In contrast to the word sounds and sentences which “axe genuine components of the literary work, neither the real graphic material nor the typical letters founded on it are an element of the literary work. As we have said, they are merely a regulative signaF for the phonetic stratum (LW, 367). Ill Ingarden’s rejection of the inscribed text cannot there­ fore be properly explained in terms of general ontological principles. So it would seem to be the product of aesthetic considerations. This might be expected since close scrutiny will reveal that the issue of the work of a rt’s ontological sta­ tus is intimately interrelated and ultimately undetachable from the issue of the work’s aesthetic appreciation, i.e., of how we interpret and evaluate the work. To try to put the point briefly, our commitment as art critics and consumers that certain categories of features or elements associated with the art work are relevant to the interpretation and evaluation of the work will compel us to reject an ontologi­ cal position where these features or elements axe incompat­

Ingarden, Inscription, and Literary Ontology 141 ible with the ontological status claimed for the work. As intentionalist critics, for example, we must reject the phenomenalist view of the work as a purely perceptual entity. Thus, as Joseph Margolis shrewdly notes, even if we try to avoid the entire issue of ontological status of the work of art, our principles or practices of criticism “might well read back, if we wished, into a statement of the kind of entity a work of art is.”6 1. The question which should now claim our attention, therefore, is that of the aesthetic reasons for Ingarden’s re­ jection of the inscribed text from the literary work of art. There seem to be three major reasons or arguments which motivate his rejection. The first is that of aesthetic purity or unity. Ingarden seems to argue that if we admit the inscribed text as part of the literary work of art, then the work would in some way be “contaminated” or aesthetically marred, and our aesthetic experience of it would suffer. For Ingarden, the inscribed text “introduces a certain contam­ ination into the whole of the literary work of art,” and its only saving grace is that “it allows the identity of the work to be preserved much more faithfully than is possible with purely oral transmission” (CLW, 15). Now in considering any argument relating to aesthetic purity, we must be careful to realize that this notion is sus­ piciously ambiguous and vague. It is sometimes taken as complete uniformity or lack of mixture of elements, but it is also frequently construed as consummate fusion or unifica­ tion of elements into an organic whole. Obviously, absolute uniformity of elements would make a rather dull work of art, and thus it would seem that the demand for “elemen­ tal” purity stems from the aesthetic requirement of unity. But unity is only one side of the classic formula for beauty, the other being diversity or richness, which of course os quite contrary to this first conception of purity. It is, therefore, only the second conception of purity

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whose violation in disunity, disorder, or discord implies an aesthetic flaw. Certainly, it is the only one to which Ingar­ den, with his emphasis on heterogeneity and polyphonic harmony, can appeal. Now though admission of the in­ scribed aspect of the text surely makes literary art less pure in the first sense, mixing another aspect or stratum to sound, meaning and the rest, this does not necessarily create impurity in the second and important sense, unless there is a reason why such a mixture cannot be harmo­ nious and unified, that is, unless inscription simply cannot achieve unity with other strata. This, however, seems pre­ cisely to be Ingarden’s charge, for he asserts that though “the verbal sound enters into a close connection with the written word they do not blend to form a unity” (CLW, 14). This is in sharp contrast to the perfect blending of word sounds and meanings which for Ingarden seems to fol­ low as the natural or necessary consequence of the essential indissolubility of word sound and meaning, where “a given phonetic material becomes a word sound only because it has a more or less determinate ‘meaning’ ” and where re­ ciprocally “the meanings are essentially bound to the word sound,” “since meaning units necessarily require a wordsound material” (LW, 39, 59, 61). According to Ingarden, this intrinsic unity of sound and meaning is reflected in the unity of their apprehension when we experience a literary work. Simultaneous with and inseparable from the de­ scribed apprehension of the verbal sounds is the understanding of the meaning of the word; the complete word is constituted for the reader in just this experience, which, although com­ pound, still forms a unity. One does not ap­ prehend the verbal sound first and then the meaning. Both things occur at once: in ap­ prehending the verbal sound, one understands

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the meaning of the word and at the same time intends this meaning actively. ( CLW, 22) However, even if we grant Ingarden the thesis that there is an essential or necessary unity of word sound and mean­ ing (and there may be room to question this, e.g., in cases where words axe clearly heard but not understood or where meanings axe grasped without the word sound being ac­ tually heaxd or imagined), this does not in any way pro­ vide any reason for denying that unity can also be achieved between “word sights” (i.e., word inscriptions) and word sounds and meanings. Such unity would admittedly be still more compound by involving a third (viz., the inscribed) aspect. But there seems to be no general aesthetic or onto­ logical reason for assuming that a trinity of aspects cannot be unified while a duality can be (or alternatively why four strata can be unified but any fifth must sunder unity). If Ingarden’s argument here is that the inscribed text must or is apt to corrupt the work’s unity because unlike the phonetic stratum it is detachable from or not necessary for meaning (which can be apprehended simply through sound alone), this argument seems a rather transparent non sequitur. Detachability (conceptual or technical) does not preclude aesthetic unity. The fact that I can separate a song’s lyrics from its melody does not preclude their being united in aesthetic perception and grasped as a polyphonic unity. Ingarden is perhaps laboring here under a confused, but not unpopular, misconception of organic unity, where the fact that the elements can be conceived as sepaxate precludes their being truly unified into an aesthetic whole whose qualities cannot be reduced to the mere sum of those of its parts. If the inadequacy of this view of organic unity is not apparent from the above example, I have elsewhere analyzed its defects and inconsistencies in some detail.7 Moreover, there is cause to question the ineliminability or indispensability of the phonetic stratum to the work’s

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meaning, which Ingarden maintains and employs in argu­ ing for rejecting the inscribed while incorporating the oral into the literary work. For it is most doubtful whether it is always impossible to understand and appreciate a lit­ erary work without experiencing its words sounds. The pervasive phenomenon of silent reading would seem to be a clear counter-example which we shall soon have to examine. First, however, we must read what seems to be Ingarden’s only other argument for the view that admission of (and consequent attention to) the inscribed text must corrupt the unity of the literary work. In rightly remarking that our reading typically grasps “whole words” rather than individual letters or marks and that it immediately attends to the inscribed text as “the carrier of meaning” of a conceptual not visual kind, Ingar­ den further tries to justify his habit as necessary for an adequately unified experience of the work. If we attend to the visuality of the text, Ingarden argues, “that would prove to be a distraction in reading, because our main at­ tention in visual reading is directed at the apprehension of the typical verbal forms” and their meaning. Admission of (or attention to) the inscribed text “would disturb us un our reading,” from attending to word and sentence mean­ ing which, for Ingarden, apparently assumes that it is just impossible to apprehend appreciatively the visual aspect of the inscribed text without being blinded to the ordi­ nary linguistic meaning it conveys, and consequently that it is impossible to appreciate the rich and meaningful play between visual representation and linguistic meaning in a literary work of art. Once articulated, this assumption is obviously and sharply refuted by our not uncommon experi­ ence of apprehending both the ordinary linguistic meaning and the attractive meaningful shape of the many poems which highlight and meaningfully employ the visuality of their inscribed texts. What then motivates or explains In­

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garden’s unconvincing denial? I think part of the explanation is an unsatisfactory and unnecessarily constrained picture of aesthetic appreciation, one that is too much enclosed in a singular temporally pro­ gressive and ephemeral experience of concretization where proper recognition is not sufficiently given to the funding ef­ fect and superimposition of previous experience of the work. Ingarden, of course, is basically committed to the view that adequate aesthetic appreciation is a richly synthesizing pro­ cess which “demands an attentive consideration of all sides of the work of art” where different impressions of differ­ ent aspects of the work supplement, check, and perhaps correct one another, and are, ”in any case, combined syn­ thetically into a whole” (CLW, 201). This, for Ingarden, is easy enough to accommodate in spatial, stationary art like painting and sculpture; but in literature (or music) the problem of synthesis is aggravated by the fact that the work is temporal and sequential, and thus, as it is experienced se­ quentially over time, its “previous phases” or perceived ele­ ments tend to “pass away” (CLW, 201-202, 227, 305n). Be­ cause the literary work’s contemplation and ... concretiza­ tion . . . unfold in time, with its part or phases soon pass­ ing away, this requires “the perceiving subject to perform particular synthesizing operations” (CLW, 202). “The aes­ thetic experience which takes place in the cognition of a literary work of art thus demands ... a much greater con­ cretization and a more dynamic holding-together of the un­ folding parts of the work” (CLW, 228). Ingarden’s unwillingness to countenance our apprecia­ tion of the visuality of the inscribed text thus seems to come from the fact that it will too severely tax our powers of concentration and synthesis. To put the point with blunt simplicity, if we attend to the visual form of the inscribed text while it is read, we will not be rich enough in attentive resources to pay sufficient attention to the sound and /or

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meanings of the words and may even miss them as they temporally unfold and disappear. Two objections are worth making here. First, experi­ ence, shows it is not impossible to notice textual visuality and word and sentence meaning (and sound). Secondiy, the view that attention cannot be divided since otherwise improperly apprehended words and sentences will pass and elude us presupposes that we are dealing with an ephemeral oral performance and not the a stable text that the appreciator can slowly peruse, pause over, retrace his scrutiny, and generally digest at his own speed. Whatever initial and limited plausibility Ingarden’s argument from distrac­ tion may possess seems to depend upon the assumption that we are and must be dealing with an oral concretiza­ tion of ephemeral sequentiality. But that is precisely what we are challenging. Moreover, in any case, it is clear that the argument is not one that can be limited to the target of the inscribed text, for is it similarly applicable to the phonetic stratum. Indeed, Ingarden himself revealingly slides this way in elab­ orating his point about visual distraction by noting that “ the same thing happens in hearing a speech or a ‘recited’ literary work,” when, through insufficient attention to the word forms and meaning, although we hear the speaker’s voice (and perhaps even because we attended too much to its sound), “we often say we ‘didn’t hear’ the speaker and consequently didn’t understand him” (CLW, 20). Since even word sounds may be a distractive threat to adequate apprehension of the meaning of the passing words and sen­ tences of the literary work, the proper and typical aesthetic response, according to Ingarden, demands that “the pho­ netic qualities of the work must be heard ‘incidentally’” only and thus that we should not “concentrate on this stra­ tum particularly” (CLW, 23). The verbal sound is noted only fleetingly,

Ingarden, Inscription, and Literary Ontology quickly, and without hesitation; it represents only a quick transition to the understanding of the words or sentences. The verbal sound is then heard on the periphery of the field of awareness and only incidentally does it sound “in our ears,” provided, of course, that noth­ ing out of the ordinary draws our attention to it. It is precisely this fleeing way of apprehend­ ing the verbal sounds which is the only correct way for the apprehension of the literary work as whole. This is the reason one often hears the de­ mand for a “discrete” declamation, to prevent the phonetic side of the language from coming to the fore. ( CLW, 23)

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Notice here how the problem of the fleeting passage of words and sentences, whose meanings we must ever be ready to grasp before they flee, is transferred to and revealingly reflected in the account of apprehension of sound, which must be grasped “fleetingly, quickly, and without hesitation.” It should be sufficiently clear from the above that In­ garden is extremely anxious lest attention be allowed to stray from the meanings of the words and sentences which constitute the literary work’s central stratum and secure its intersubjective identity (LW, 29, 360-64). One way of trying, through theory, to insure maximal attention to the stratum of meaning is to exclude possibly competing strata from properly belonging to the literary work. This could explain why Ingarden thinks of himself justified in rejecting the visual as a contaminating distraction which must mar aesthetic unity, though there clearly seems to be no reason why the visuality of the text cannot be harmoniously syn­ thesized with sound and meaning. The pervasive and obvi­ ously successful use of the inscribed text literary art surely indicates its pragmatic compatibility with verbal sound and

148 Richard Shusterman meaning. And surely we axe not to deny in principle that visuality as such can be aesthetically united with audible meaningful speech; for think what such a denial would en­ tail for the arts of drama, opera, and cinema. 2. If Ingarden rejected the visual, inscribed text to pro­ tect (by harsh and unnecessary means) the primacy of ver­ bal meaning, and if similar considerations make him warn against a deep, unhurried appreciation of the work’s pho­ netic qualities, why was the phonetic stratum not simi­ larly stripped from the work? The answer to this question will provide us with Ingarden’s second apparent argument for excluding the inscribed stratum as part of the literary work while incorporating the phonetic, and it is this. The inscribed text is obviously eliminable from and not neces­ sary for apprehending and appreciation the work (since il­ literates can enjoy poetry and stories), but Ingarden would have us conclude that while word sounds must belong to the work, word inscriptions, by such comparison, do not. The constitutive foundation proper of the indi­ vidual literary work certainly lies in the stra­ tum of meaning ... but the meanings are es­ sentially bound to the word sounds... Without the “word sound” . . . it could not exist at a ll... [Moreover] because the phonetic stratum forms the external, indispensable shell for the stratum of meaning units and thereby also for the whole work, it plays an essential role in the apprehen­ sion of the work by a psychic subject... [There­ fore Ingarden concludes,] the phonetic stratum is an essential constituent of the literary work; if it were eliminated the whole work would cease to exist, since meaning units necessarily require a word-sound material. If it were formed differ­ ently that it actually is an a given work, that

Ingarden, Inscription, and Literary Ontology 149 work would undergo sweeping changes. (LW, 59-61) This argument is much stronger and harder to challenge than those previously considered. But even admitting, as I think we must, that literary works do not always require for their apprehension and appreciation inscribed texts, we may propose two challenges to the argument. First we might suggest that to count as belonging to the work it is enough for the inscribed text to be generally sufficient (as opposed to necessary) for their proper aesthetic appre­ ciation. Secondly, making the same initial admission of the dispensability of the inscribed text, we may deny that the case is all that different regarding the phonetic qualities of the work. Let us now concentrate on the second line chal­ lenge, postponing the first until it reemerges in the context of our criticism of Ingarden’s apparent third and final aes­ thetic argument for rejecting the inscribed text from the literary work. How does one claim against Ingarden that the phonetic stratum is not always and necessarily present whenever we appreciatively apprehend a literary work of art? The ob­ vious, though allegedly disputable, evidence for this claim is the prevalent phenomenon of silent reading. When one reads a literary work silently to oneself one may (and usu­ ally does) understand and appreciate it without producing any sounds at all. Several aestheticians, desiring to rescue the claim of the of the essential oral nature of literature (or a least poetry), have therefore tried to find some manifes­ tation of the phonetic in silent reading. More extravagant literary theorists, like Barbara Smith, have posited the exis­ tence of mysterious, imperceptible “pseudo-sounds” which are produced in and inform our silent reading albeit per­ haps unbeknownst to us. More disciplined philosophers, like Ingarden and Urmson, employ a more subtle tactic, arguing that silent reading essentially involves a process

150 Richard Shusterman of imagining or becoming aware of “sounds that would be heard” in actual oral performance, and thus it essentially requires the presence of the presence of the phonetic stra­ tum even if it is not physically actualized or produced.8 Thus, whether orally performed or silently read, the liter­ ary text inescapably directs “the reader . . . to apprehend the work in its phonetic stratum,” “informing him which word sounds he is to concretize in actual expression (as in recitation out loud) or in imaginative reconstruction (as in silent reading)” (LW, 367). However, this argument for the necessary phonetic na­ ture of silent reading is hardly compelling. It is not at all clear from introspection that silent reading must or even al­ ways does involve such phonetic imaginations; and our fre­ quent surprise as to how texts we’ve silently read actually sound when read aloud gives further reason to doubt that silent reading is always phonetic imagining. Finally, there are the many cases of the congenitally deaf who surely can­ not properly imagine or reconstruct the phonetic stratum of literary texts, yet surely read, understand, and appreci­ ate literary works of art. I certainly do not deny that in one’s silent reading one can and (at least with poetry) one frequently does imagine the work’s word sounds, and that such imaginative activity may well improve or enrich our appreciative understanding of the work. Indeed, for some texts and/or poor readers of poetry, it may be essential for proper appreciation of the work. But this does not mean that phonetic apprehension is always or necessarily present in silent reading and that consequently word sounds, unlike word inscriptions, are always necessary for and present with the apprehension of word meanings. Silent reading shows they are not and that the inscribed text can suffice for con­ cretization of meaning and consequent understanding and appreciation. There is, then, no compelling aesthetic evidence here

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for the claim that while inscription is unnecessary and ir­ relevant for meaning, meaning cannot be conceived or ap­ prehended apaxt from the apprehension of (real or imagina­ tively reconstructed) word sounds. One therefore suspects that Ingarden’s insistence on this claim is a product of not aesthetic inquiry but of a very basic and pervasive philo­ sophical prejudice for the oral over the inscribed, a phonocentrism which perhaps has its proximate source in Husserl and his phenomenological “living voice,” but which reflects a phonocentric metaphysics of presence which stretches back to Plato’s Phaedrus. This is a Derridean direction which deep decontructionist critics of Ingarden might wish to take.9 But I shall not explore it here, finding more than enough of interest on Ingarden’s richly intricate surface. 3. I shall instead consider one last argument for re­ jecting the inscribed while embracing the phonetic, which seems to emerge, albeit not very prominently, on the surface of Ingarden’s text. This argument should not be confused with the previous one, i.e., that the phonetic stratum is instrumentally necessary or essential for constituting and apprehending (the meaning of) the literary work, while the inscribed text is not. The argument now is rather that the phonetic stratum is highly significant or even essential text in its visuality is instead totally irrelevant aesthetically to the work. For Ingarden, the phonetic stratum is so impor­ tant that “if it were formed differently than it actually is in a given work, that work would undergo sweeping changes”; and, in any case, without the aesthetic value of this stratum “the polyphony of the work would be poorer by a signifi­ cant element” (LW,, 61). The aesthetic significance of the work’s phonetic qualities is stressed again in his later book. Not only do they themselves constitute an aes­ thetically important element of the work; they are often, at the same time, a means of disclos­ ing other aspects and qualities of the work, for

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Richard Shusterman instance, a mood which hovers over the situ­ ation portrayed in the work. This the reader must have an “ear” for the phonetic stratum of the work. (CLW, 23)

According to Ingarden, nothing like this could be said for the inscribed aspect of the work, whose only role for him is to serve the phonetic. He does not demand the reader have an “eye” for the work’s textual form along with his “ear” for its music, but rather (as we saw) he cautions against visuality as a possible distracting irrelevance . Is the visuality irrelevant because it does not belong to the work, or is it not, rather, that it is claimed not to belong to the work because it is held aesthetically irrelevant to it? There seems to be a circularity here. But whether or not it exists and is vicious is a question we may perhaps put aside, because the claim that textual visuality is al­ ways aesthetically irrelevant and insignificant to literary works is vitally important to the work’s aesthetic charac­ ter and must be grasped for proper appraisal of the work, so in other literary works the visual aspect of the text is significant or even crucial to its aesthetic character, and must be attended to for the work to be appreciated and criticized aright. Such works include not only poems by moderns like Mallarme, Apollinaire, and e.e. cummings as well as the whole movement of so-called “Concrete Poetry,” but also include the entire genre of pattern poetry which was so prominent in the seventeenth century and whose roots stretch back to the Greek and Roman literary art of inscription. In these numerous literary works, the visuality of the inscribed text is not only significant but perhaps even necessary for a full understanding and aesthetic apprecia­ tion of the work. Moreover, countless other works exploit the visuality of the inscribed text in less dramatic but still quite significant ways. Think, for example, of “eye rhyme” and of the central role of lineation in poetry; imagine what

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the transcription of poem’s verse lines into prose-paragraph format would do to our aesthetic experience of the work. Nor is the aesthetically significant role of the visual lim­ ited to verse. Novels also not infrequently exploit textual visuality in a variety of ways.10 The empirical evidence of the aesthetic relevance of the visual, inscribed text is enormous and the varieties of its aesthetically relevant employment are manifold. Substan­ tial scholarship has been devoted to this subject, and I cannot try to summarize the findings here.11 W hat must be urged, however, is that the very fact that the inscribed text not only provides apprehension of the work but also frequently makes a significant aesthetic contribution to the work should be enough to deter us from excluding it in principle from belonging to the work as Ingarden excludes it. This, of course, represents the first line of challenge mentioned earlier. IV Let me conclude by cautioning against a possible misun­ derstanding of my defense of the inscribed text against Ingarden’s exclusion of it from the literary work, and by placing my attack on Ingarden’s theory (which despite my criticism I greatly admire) into a larger perspective. This should cast light on more general and fundamental aspects of Ingarden’s literary ontology which perhaps underline the narrow point of doctrine I have been challenging at such length. My somewhat impassioned case for the ontological per­ tinence and aesthetic relevance of the visual, inscribed text, and my criticism of Ingarden’s view that the phonetic stratum is always indispensable and aesthetically essential might be misconstrued as a philosophical attem pt to give the ontological an aesthetic pride of place to the inscribed over the phonetic. This is not my intention nor my view,

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Richard Shusterman and would only be to escape one distortion by embracing another, perhaps one in a different direction. Nor is my point to deny empirically that over the history of literature and criticism, the aesthetic role of the phonetic stratum has been relatively much more prominent than that of the inscribed text. My point, however, is to emphasize the rel­ ative and historical nature of this thesis as opposed to the essentialist, absolutist tendencies which seem to underlie and motivate Ingarden’s thought. When we contrast the traditional centrality of the pho­ netic to the greater marginality of the visual, we are speak­ ing about relative tendencies of an historical character, which indeed differ to some extent in different literary gen­ res and periods. We are not talking about the timeless ab­ solute essence of literature, of what does and must always exist in the literary work as an aesthetically relevant ele­ ment that is necessary for the work’s apprehension and ap­ preciation. Philosophy often displays a hoary prejudice to seek and find permanent, absolute, and universal essences even in realms of inquiry where no such things exist to be found. Ingarden, despite some positive steps toward recognition of the historically conditioned and exceedingly variable nature of literary works, remains an essentialist thinker; and his literary ontology consequently suffers. In arguing for the indispensability of the phonetic and in discussing the question of whether there may in fact be counter-examples to this thesis, Ingarden casually but most revealingly remarks, “our question is directed at what belongs in essence, not in fact” (LW, 54). The remark may cause puzzlement since what belongs to the work in essence bust belong to it in fact, thought not apparently vice-versa. But the remark does reveal Ingarden’s pervasive essentialism, which poses for him the following dilemma. Either the phonetic stratum belongs to the essence of the work and is therefore always indispensable to its ap­

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prehension and aesthetic character, or, alternatively, it does not belong to the essence of the work and is therefore merely a dispensable means for apprehension of the work proper and cannot be a constitutive part or aesthetically signifi­ cant aspect of it. In essentialism’s rigid binary logic, there is not room to say that the phonetic is aesthetically sig­ nificant or indispensable in some literary works but not in others. Saddled with the essentialist choice of alternatives, Ingarden can only be commended for choosing the lesser of two evils and incorporating the phonetic as belonging to the work’s essence and a consequently capable of adding to its essence richness. With the inscribed text, his choice was unfortunate but understandable. For given the same essentialist logic and the fact that the inscribed text has obviously not been indispensable (as shown by oral tra­ dition) and has moreover been obviously less aesthetically significant than the phonetic, the inference must follow that the inscribed text does not similarly belong to the work and cannot constitute an aesthetically relevant aspect of it. Dis­ pensability entails non-essentiality, which in turn means not belonging to the work proper, which finally means ex­ clusion in principle from being an aesthetically significant aspect of the work. The fact that many literary works have been written to be visually appreciated and can only be fully appreciated through attention to the visual aspects of their inscribed texts is apparently dismissed by Ingarden as but mere irrelevant fact, and not essence. Thus, the promising option for both artist and critic to take the inscribed text as a relevant dimension of the work and as a possible source for aesthetic richness is scratched by essentialism as a non-starter. But traditional aesthet­ ics has long suffered from paying more respect to essences than facts; if there is one fact that contemporary aesthetics seems to have profitably embraced, it is that art and liter­ ature neither have nor require timeless essences, but rather

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seem to be comprised of historically conditioned and shift­ ing congeries of heterogeneity. Ingarden, with his welcome emphasis on the heterogeneous constituents and “life” of the literary work, points the way to contemporary theory, but is not quite our contemporary.

N otes 1. See Ingarden [7], The Literary Work of Art, trans. G.C. Grabowicz (Evanston, 111., 1973); and The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art, trans. R.A. Crowley and K.R. Olson (Evanston, 111., 1973). These books will be referred to hereafter as LW and CLW respectively. 2. See B. Croce, Aesthetic trans. D. Ainslie (New York 1970), 100; M. Dufrenne, Le poetique (Paris 1973), 70-71; M.C. Beardsley, Aesthetics (New York 1958) 116; L.O. Urmson, “Literature,” in , ed. G. Dickie and R.J. Sclafani (New York 1977), 338. 3. See R. Shusterman, “The Anomalous Nature of Literature,” British Journal of Aesthetics, XVIII (1978), 317-29; and “Aesthetic Blindness to Textual Visuality,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, XLI (1982), 87-96. For a fuller exposition of my literary ontology, see R. Shusterman, The Object of Literary Criticism (Amsterdam 1984), 78-109. 4. See, for example, Shusterman “Aesthetic Blindness,” and R. Draper, “Concrete Poetry,” New Literary History, II (1971), 329-40. 5. To pursue these issues concerning type entities, see E.M. Zemach, “Four Ontologies,” Journal of Philosophy, LXVII (1970), 231-47; J. Margolis, “The Ontological Peculiarity of Works of Art,” Journal o f Aesthetics and Art

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Criticism, XXXVI (1977), 44-49; A. Harrison, “Works of Art and Other Cultural Objects,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, LXVIII (1967), 108-24; and R. Wollheim, Art and its Objects (Harmondsworth 1970), 90-100. 6. J. Margolis, “On Disputes about the Ontological Status of a Work of Art,” British Journal of Aesthetics, VIII (1968), 150. For a detailed analysis of the logical interdependence of the issues of the work’s identity, ontological status, interpretation, and evaluation, see R. Shusterman, “Four Problems in Aesthetics,” International Philosophical Quarterly, XXII (1982), 21-33. 7. See R. Shusterman, “Osborne and Moore on Organic Unity,” British Journal of Aesthetics, XXIII (1983), 352-59. 8. See B.H. Smith, “Literature as Performance, Fiction, and A rt,” Journal of Philosophy, LXVII (1970), 553-63; and Urmson, 338-40. For detailed criticism of these views of silent reading, see Shusterman “The Anomalous Nature of Literature.” 9. For Derrida on Husserl and the “phenomenological voice,” see J. Derrida, Speech and Phenomena and Other Essays on Husserl’s Theory of Signs, trans. D.B. Allison (Evanston, 111.,1973), ch. 1. 10. Ironically, one such way is discussed in D.M. Levin’s foreword to Ingarden’s LW, with the example of the following sentence (from Nabokov’s Ada) whose visual aspect is shown to be aesthetically significant in enriching complexities of meaning. She looked back before locking her (always locked) door. (LW, xli) Surprisingly, Levin does not comment on the dubious relevance of such inscriptional features according to Ingarden’s theory. 11. See, for example, D.M. Anderson, The Art of Written Forms, (New York 1969); W. Chappell, A Short History of the Printed Word, (Boston 1980); J. Sparrow, Visible Words: A Study of Inscriptions In and As Books and Works of Art (Cambridge 1965). Other studies are cited in my “Aesthetic Blindness.”

V II. Ingarden’s and Mukarovsky’s Binominal Definition of the Literary Work of A rt

A Comparative View of Their Ontologies John Fizer

1. The feasibility of a comparative study of Ingarden and Mukarovosky An attem pt to compare Ingarden’s and Mukarovsky’s on­ tological positions on the work of literary art might seem equally incongruous to adherents of both phenomenology and structuralism. However, a closer look at these posi­ tions reveals that in spite of their manifestly different epistemologies, on a number of other issues they are not as dis­ parate as one might assume. Even though Ingarden, unlike Mukarovsky, “considered [the literary work] as something detached from the living intercourse of psychic individu­ als and hence also from the living cultural atmosphere and the various spiritual currents that develop in the course of history” (1973a, 331), and thereby gave preference to the inquiry as to its being as such, i.e., ontology, he by no means remained oblivious to its communicative function, i.e., semiotics. Such oblivion would have been inconsis­ tent with the very notion of the heteronomy of the inten­ tional object which, accordingly, in order to be, must enter into a specific relationship with the perceiving subject. In other words, the very being of such an object is contingent upon its potentiality or its peculiar forces “to bring [the observer] to constitute an aesthetic object” (1973b, 239). Therefore, in this sense, it is of no substantive difference 159 B. Dziemidok and P. McCormick (eds.), On the Aesthetics o f Roman Ingarden, 159-186. © 1989 by Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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whether, as Ingarden postulated, this object exists because it is “cognized,” “concretized,” “actualized,” i.e., brought into existence by the intentional acts of our consciousness, or, as Mukarovsky posited, this object is because-it func­ tions as a perceivable signifier. W hat is significant here is that according to both of them, (a) the being of the work of literary art is predicated upon the dynamic interaction between subject and object, and (b) the notion of this in­ teraction opens their respective positions to both putative semiotic and ontological inquiry. The semiotic dimension of Ingarden’s ontological theory has already been attested by Katarzyna Rosner (1975), while Mukarovsky’s semiotic theory has not you been studied from the ontological per­ spective. Hence there is, as will be shown in this article, a core of issues that Ingarden’s and Mukarovsky’s positions have in common, albeit often differently perceived and ren­ dered. Specifically, the issue of the ontological status of artistic and aesthetic objects appears to be central to both of them. Undoubtedly, Ingarden’s and Mukarovsky’s in­ terest in this issue was heightened by the prominence of Husserl’s phenomenology in the thirties.1 Ingarden, adher­ ing to the principle concern of this school of the philosophy, considered the ontology of the literary work of art to be the central ramification of literary scholarship. Ontology, in his opinion, does not investigate particular literary individu­ als in their factual condition but rather the con­ tents of general ideas of literary work and espe­ cially the work of literary art. It asks what per­ tains to this idea and in particular how certain individual objects ought to be constituted and what general qualities it ought to have in order to be something like the work of literature or the literary work of art. And further, what are the possible types and variants of literary works

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(works of literary art) admissible under the ba­ sic general structure of the work. (1966, 275) His seminal works, The Literary Work of Art and The Cog­ nition of the Literary Work of Art, address these questions vigorously and extensively. Mukarovsky, even though he wrote no specific study on the ontology of artistic/aesthetic objects, demonstrated his concern about it in a series of articles devoted to general aesthetics and the theory of art. In my expose of their ontological theories I will try to show how their binominal definitions of the work of liter­ ary art, while trying to avoid the hazards of psychologism, raises at the same time a series of epistemological problems which resist satisfactory solution. In particular it will be shown that the conceptual split of the work of art into two distinct entities, artistic and aesthetic, obfuscates or even challenges its eidetic coherence.2 2. The ontological m odel and its tem poral analogue Ingarden, in contrast to Husserl’s transcendental monism, posited an ontological pluralism whereby he tried to de­ fine the essential structure of all existing and subsisting objects constituting man’s Lebenswelt. He distinguished four modes of their being: absolute, ideal, real and inten­ tional. Works of creative art belong to the fourth mode. As such, they are characterized by heteronomy, derivation, and non-actuality. This means that the work of literary art and the created sentences are not ontically au­ tonomous objectivities but only purely inten­ tional ones. Nonetheless, the work (or the sen­ tences) exists as soon as it is created. But it exists as an ontically heteronomous forma­ tion that has the source of its existence in

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John Fizer the intentional acts of the creating subject and, simultaneously, the basis of its existence in two heterogenous objectivities: on the one hand, in ideal concepts and ideal qualities (essences) and, on the other hand, in real word signs. (1973a, 361).

The work of literary art, therefore, is transcendent to (a) in­ tentional acts, (b) ideal concepts, and (c) real word signs. These, being ontically autonomous, are but its existential sources. While it has its ontical foundation in them, it is not identical with them. “In comparison with the existence of the real, the ideal, and, finally, the purely conscious, what is created is analogous only to ‘illusion,’ to something which only pretends to be something though it is not this something in an ontically autonomous sense” (1973a, 101). This being the case, what are the literary work’s en­ dowments and where is its existential locus? Unlike the ontically autonomous objects which have their “inherent definition in themselves” and hence exist by themselves, intentional objects, even after their creation, continue to depend upon and be determined by the intentional acts of the creating, perceiving, and cognizing subject. Their ma­ terial datum, i.e., the real word signs, aural, oral, graphic, or all three combined, without such acts, remains but an­ other physicum. Accordingly, the work of literary art is a phenomenon which must continuously result from ad­ equate noematic-noetic interaction. There is, however, a difference between the primary and secondary or the purely intentional and derivatively purely intentional ob­ jects (1973a, 126). The former originate out of ideal con­ cepts, intentional acts, and the autonomous material object or “real word signs,” the latter out of concepts, intentional acts, and the primary intentional object. Consequently, we can say that the former is created and the latter co-created.

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Here creation is to be understood only as a partial actual­ ization of that which exists ideally. Ingarden observed: The intentional act of pure consciousness is not creative in the sense that it can create genuine realizations of ideal essences or ideal concepts in an object that is intentionally produced of it. If it were creative in this sense, it could create gen­ uinely real and eo ipso ontically autonomous ob­ jectivities. However, this is denied to it. Thus, in the forming of a sentence, it can produce only actualizations of ideal meaning contents of concepts and form them into new wholes (i.e., meaning contents of sentences). (1973a, 366) Should the primary intentional object fail to free itself from the acts which created it, it will remain subjective, i.e., inaccessible to other subjects. It will not gain intersubjective identity. Both primary and secondary objects, taken in themselves, appear to be “totally rigid formations and [in their] rigidity are also fully secured as regards [their] identity” (1973a, 356). This rigidly formed phenomenon is neither simply “out there,” as a physical object, nor merely “within us,” as a experience, but “among us” as “identically the same meaning” (1973a, 360). Its identity is tantamount to its intersubjectivity. Mukarovsky’s ontological view of the work of literary art is less intricate than that of Ingarden and, unlike the latter, which changed little in time, shifted from initially consid­ ering the collective consciousness to the perceiver’s con­ sciousness as the major accent of semiotics. Peter Steiner regards this shift to be of major theoretical importance since it allegedly signified Mukarovsky’s more pronounced adherence to phenomenology (Mukarovsky 1978, ix-xxxix). This was undoubtedly a significant shift, but hardly a sub­ stantive one since even after it Mukarovsky continued to

164 John Fizer consider “the total act of the subject’s existential experi­ ences,” to which the work refers, as being rooted in “social codes.” Specifically, Mukarovsky came to believe that se­ mantic unification of the work of art is indeed initiated by the perceiver’s semantic gesture, “but this gesture does not transcend the intersubjectivity of “social codes” or, to use Merleau-Ponty’s apt expression, it is “irrevocably immersed in the world.” Mukarovsky’s “oeuvre-chose” or work-thing is a complex, structurally bifurcated sign, consisting of two fundamental components, the material and immaterial, or phonological and semantic. The first is perceivable by the senses and the second is “lacking even merely potential per­ ceptibility” (1976, 17). The material component “proceeds from reality, [the immaterial] tends toward it, though only through the mediation of psychic phenomena (images, emo­ tions, volitions) evoked by speech” (1976, 18). For both Ingarden and Mukarovsky, the work of lit­ erary art originates in the matrix of the following three constituents: Ingarden’s work of art intentional act real word signs ideal concepts

Mukarovsky’s oeuvre-chose psychic phenomena phonological components semantic components

Real word signs and phonological components, as material givens, in order to become works of art are to be, in Ingar­ den’s language, “actualized,” and in Mukarovsky’s are to be perceived by the intentionality of man’s consciousness. However, actualization and perceptibility are understood by them somewhat differently. For Ingarden it is the ideal concepts that constitute “the ontic basis of sentences” and

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serve as the regulative principle of that formation, while for Mukarovsky the perceptibility of the material givens is de­ termined by signification “dans la conscience collective.”3 By “ideal concepts” Ingarden understands the total seman­ tic potentiality of the word, which even though it is not to be found in the real world, nevertheless, as a general­ ization, forms its semantic ambiance. At each moment of the word’s appearance, this potentiality yields a part of the word’s ideal sense. Hence we can speak about the ac­ tual and potential stock of compound nominal expressions. However on this point, i.e., the role of “ideal concepts” in the bestowal of meaning on words and sentences, Ingarden is somewhat ambiguous. On the one hand, he treats actual meaning as a partial realization of the ideal meaning, and, on the other, he believes that “the ideal concepts are not component parts of these functions. They are as transcen­ dent with respect to those as are subjective operations, and they are also transcendent with respect to the latter and remain beyond the reach of their influence” (1973a, 361). Graphically, within the bounds of three concentric circles, according to Ingarden, the work of art (circle A) receives its artistic and aesthetic “unite de sens” both from inter­ subjectivity (circle B) and ideal concepts (circle C), while according to Mukarovsky only from “I’epoque donnee,”4 or circle B. Of course, an argument, and in some sense a valid one, can be made that Mukarovsky’s circle B, by not being iden­ tical with the immediate historicity but rather with the “to­ tal set of existential experiences of the subject, be he the creative or the perceiving subject” (1977, 73), must, at least potentially, subsume the contents of circle C. Accepting the view of Alexander Potebnia, Mukarovsky observed that the artistic sign, owing to its close semantic contextual cohe­ siveness, while weakening its relation to immediate real­ ity, “acquires the nature of a total designation” (1977, 77).

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A, work of art B, intersubjectivity, I’epoque donnee C, ideal concepts

Hence, it can be argued, the artistic sign, by securing for itself “the global designation”, becomes, in fact transcen­ dent to “I’epoque d o n n e e Consequently, in terms of such argument, the apparent difference between Ingarden and Mukarovsky becomes insignificant. In summary, according to Ingarden, the literary work as such is a purely intentional formation which has the source of its being in the creative acts of consciousness of its author and its physical foundation in the text set down in writing or through other physical means of possible reproduction... By virtue of the dual stratum of its language, the work is both intersubjectively acceptable and reproducible, so that it becomes an intersubjective intentional object, related to a community of readers. As such it is not a psychological phenomenon and is transcendent to all experiences of conscious­ ness, those of the author as well as those of the reader. (1973b, 14) In this mode it is accessible to and reproducible by us. “It is possible,” Ingarden observed, “to contemplate a lit­ erary work of art in such a way th at its places of inde­

Ingarden and Mukarovsky 167 terminacy stand out as such, or, to put it differently, in such a way that it is possible to apprehend the work in its schematic structure and to oppose it to its various con­ cretizations”. (1973b, 244). Mukarovsky , on the other hand, held that the “oeuvrechose,” sui generis, is a sign , an external sensory sym­ bol, which directs itself to another reality, i.e., to an aes­ thetic object. Without this directional factor it ceases to be “oeuvre-chose.” In his own words, “work- thing functions... only as an exterior symbol (significant, accord­ ing to Saussure’s terminology) to which a definite meaning corresponds in the collective consciousness (which we also sometimes call ’the aesthetic object’), determined by what is common to the subjective states of consciousness and evoked by the work-thing among the members of a certain collective “ (1966, 85). From this it follows, then, that the work-thing, without its definite meaning, cannot be isolated and hence, paradoxically, cannot be known. 3. A esthetic correspondence, com pletion, and extension Conceiving of the artistic object as a schematic forma­ tion with multiple indeterminacies (cf. Fizer 1979a) in all four of its strata (cf. Fizer 1973), it was for Ingarden cogent to conclude that once perceived, such a formation will be subject to various transformations, either in the direction of further schematic contraction or the augmenting expan­ sion. Calling these transformations aesthetic addenda or concretizations, Ingarden inferred that they render the lit­ erary work of art aesthetic, even though they themselves are not the aesthetic object. It is the work itself, “taken precisely as it is expressed in a concretization in which it achieves its fullest incarnation” (1973a, 372), that is the aesthetic object. The artistic object, once created, remains

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the same.5 Aesthetic concretizations, on the other hand, owing to the influence of “the cultured atmosphere” (1973a, 351), continue to change. This change, however, should be no means be fortuitous. It must do justice to the work and be adequate to it. An aesthetic object is, then, to use the Aristotelian category, the actualization of the work’s po­ tential aesthetic qualities. Being “predetermined” by the work,”it is “founded in it and is in this sense ’objective,’ despite the fact that its actualization depends on the activ­ ity of the observer” (1973b, 296). It follows then that the aesthetic object, in potential, and in spite of its temporal variability remains the same. The extent of this potential­ ity determines its aesthetic life. Once it is exhausted, the artistic object ceases “to live.” And yet, such a “dead” object can be resurrected by displaying renewed potential­ ity for aesthetic concretization. In other words, the work of creative art can live intermittently. “It has phases of magnificent development and perfection as well as phases in which, through impoverishment of the concretizations, it itself becomes more and more impoverished” (1973a, 354). In sum, Ingarden’s view of artistic/aesthetic objects can be rendered by the schema opposite. Mukarovsky’s aesthetic object, in contrast to Ingarden’s tertiary formation, is a semantic complement to the au­ tonomously existing sign. As such, it is both related and transcendent to it. As an immaterial phenomenon oc­ curring in the collective consciousness6, it is directed at the “total content of social phenomena of the given mi­ lieu” (1978, 82), including science, philosophy, religion, pol­ itics, economics, etc., rather that at one of its specific existants. Hence it carries no explicit existential value and has no documenting authenticity. Even when it is the­ matically specific ( “distinctement determine”), as in the case of tendentious art when it is directed at the defi­ nite existant of this milieu, the total context of this mi-

169

Ingaxden and Mukarovsky physical d atum artistic object

aesthetic object

•ontically autonom ous

•purely or deriv. purely intentional

•ontically heteronom ous

•derivative

•ontically heteronom ous

•deriv. purely intentional

•intersubjectively identical

•p artially actualized

•stru ctu rally stratified polyphonic form ation

•p o ten tial aesthetic a n d m etaphysical value qualities

lieu in not completely suspended but rather is posited as this component’s circumference. Therefore, the identity of the aesthetic object is predicated upon the function it per­ forms and not, as Ingarden postulated, upon its structural specificity, for example, its places of indeterminacy. Yet, strangely enough, according to Mukarovsky, this function is not a construct component of the aesthetic object7 but “a necessary part of [man’s] reaction to the world around him,” or a mode “of [his] self-realization vis-a-vis the ex­ ternal world” (1978, 39, 41). Does this mean that an aes­ thetic object or aesthetic sign, sui generis, having no func­ tional capacity, is undistinguishable from other objects or signs and hence must be determined ad novo in each per­ ceptive act? Not at all. As mentioned previously, unlike other objects, material and mental, whose existence does not depend upon m an’s perception, (a) the aesthetic ob­ ject “reflects in itself reality as a whole,” (b) this reality is organized “according to the image of the subject’s atti­ tude toward this reality, and, thus, (d) instead of affecting reality, it projects itself into reality (1978, 43). These vari­

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John Fizer able functions (reflects in itself, projects itself, is capable of, etc.) are expressions of the object’s intentionality, which is accorded to it by the creative/perceiving subject, rather than by its immanent predicative qualities.8 In the words of Mukarovsky, “the perceiver’s active participation in the formation of intentionality gives this intentionality a dy­ namic nature. As a resultant of the encounter between the viewer’s attitude and the organization of the work, inten­ tionality is labile and oscillates during the perception of the same work, at least - with the same perceiver - from perception to perception” (1978, 99). In sum, Mukarovsky’s schema of the aesthetic object is as follows:

the world of things and signs

collective consciousness

work-thing

aesthetic object

• autonomous sign • sensory symbol • sign-object

• heteronomous object • total reality • intentional structure

4. E pistem ological accessibility to a rtistic an d a e sth e tic o b jects From the above expose it follows that Ingarden ad­ mitted, if only theoretically, the cognition of three and Mukarovsky of two ontologically distinct objects. Ingar­ den’s The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art attests to his massive effort not only to describe but also prescribe the adequate ways of apprehending them. Mukarovsky also

Ingarden and Mukarovsky 171 stated that his essays on general aesthetics, written in the thirties and forties, were “the results of work determined from stage to stage by a consistent epistemological orienta­ tion” and that during that time “not everything could have been unambiguous from the very beginning” (1966, 337). Let us, then, briefly examine their respective epistemo­ logical stratagems. As far as the purely cognitive attitude9, toward the work of literary art is concerned, Ingarden distinguishes two modes of cognition, pre-aesthetic and aesthetic. In the first, the work ‘“in its schematic form constitutes the main object of study; in the second ... the object of study is its con­ cretization actualized in aesthetic experience” (1973b, 170). To achieve the first, Ingarden, true to the phenomenologi­ cal concept of epoche, insists on the a priori cognitive pos­ ture which our mind must assume in order to reach the object of cognition (cf. Ingarden 1976 and Fizer 1979). He wrote: “Prior to admitting the existence of objects and pro­ cesses that differ from that which is given in experience, one must acquire this experience and become clearly aware of the direct data in which the object presents itself” (1963, 295). Cognition of the literary object, as it is in itself, must then be “guided by the idea that the results of cognition gained in it are accommodated to the object of cognition and that all those elements are eliminated from it which arouse even the slightest suspicion that they originate in some factors foreign to the object” (1973b, 181). Once our mind assumes this noetic posture, it can then discern the artistic datum (givenness) from aesthetic addendum (concretization) or, more specifically, those attributes of the artistic object which are independent of those circum­ stances under which they appear. Given this kind of cog­ nitive procedure, Ingarden claims, we can apprehend the artistic object in its intersubjective identity. The apprehension of the aesthetic object

172

John Fizer (1) is based on, and permeated in all its ele­ ments by a faithful (correct) reconstruction of the work in respect of its determined and ac­ tual elements, to the extent that this is pos­ sible, (2) keeps within the bounds of the pos­ sibilities predetermined by the work itself for these elements (factors) in the concretizations which go beyond single reconstruction of the work elements which make explicit what is un­ ambiguously implicit in the work, fill out the places of indeterminacy, actualize the potential elements, and produce in intuition the aesthet­ ically relevant qualities and their harmony, and (3) is a “similar” as “close” to the work as pos­ sible (1973b, 386)

In addition to being rooted in the meaning-apprehending and cognitive acts, the apprehension of the aesthetic object is also rooted in the “acts of imaginative beholding of repre­ sented objectivities and situations and, if need be, of meta­ physical qualities manifested in them (1973a, 233). The question of when this apprehension is to be affected, during or at the end of aesthetic concretization, is of crucial epistemological importance. “When,” Ingarden asked, “should the cognition be accomplished? During the course of the aesthetic experience or after its completion?” (1973a, 398). Both alternatives present formidable difficulties. Ingarden himself neither reached a definitive answer to this question nor insisted upon one. He stated: “In this difficult situa­ tion we must not stand on principle. On the contrary, we must be willing to try different approaches and to exclude nothing as error. The aesthetic experience can take various forms, chiefly because literary works of art are determined in many different ways and can make apprehension either easier or more difficult for the experiencing subject” (1973b, 399). However, merely as a hypothesis, he posited that

Ingarden and Mukarovsky 173 “somehow there must be a synthesis, the formation of a single aesthetic object which embraces the whole work of art. This seems, at any rate, to be demanded. The ques­ tion is whether it can be achieved and, if so, how.” Such a synthesis, Ingarden admitted, “cannot be achieved for all literary works of art” (1973a, 398). One thing seemed clear to him: The more this final act is pure experience, purely intuitive apprehension, the greater seems to be the cognitive weight and the significance of the results it achieves. And the more it relies on recollections and mere mental acts which re­ fer to the “earlier” aesthetic object correspond­ ing to the individual acts of a play or chap­ ters of a novel, the greater is the danger of a falsification or misinterpretation of what is no longer (1973a, 398). Perhaps it would be consistent with Ingarden’s position if we were to say that the aesthetic object, during the course of aesthetic experience, is an object in statu nascendi while the one which becomes full constituted and which is based on acts of memory is essentially a cognitive synthetic con­ struct. The question of how the aesthetic object can become an intersubjective phenomenon, i.e., a phenomenon fixed “in a set of judgments and corresponding concepts” (1973b, 409), has not been fully developed by Ingarden. His general ob­ servation was that there are two classes of aesthetic objects, “(a) those which according to their nature can be cognized immediately as the same by many properly qualified sub­ jects of cognition and (b) those which are accessible to the immediate cognition of one, and only, one, subject of cog­ nition” (1973a, 398). Objects of the first class are em ipso facto intersubjective and those of the second monosubjec-

174

John Fizer tive. The verification of both modes can be undertaken ei­ ther directly, by recourse to an appropriate direct cognition which can be performed by several subjects, or else indi­ rectly, by reduction of the aesthetic object through' logical operations to judgements which then can be tested directly. Mukarovsky’s epistemology of the work of literary art is essentially also phenomenological. It likewise attempts to investigate the immaterial object in our consciousness rather than the material product itself. How do we know that we know both this object and its material correlate, the sign? Mukarovsky’s answer is: we know them because of our active participation in their intentionality, because of our membership in the same(real, ideal, or occasional) com­ munity, and because of the specific mode in which the workthing has been made, i.e., because of its intentional struc­ ture. The work-thing provides the perceiver with the im­ pulses which, if adequate, stimulate in his consciousness the awareness of the appropriate aesthetic tradition and, within its context, form the aesthetic object. The perceiver’s ap­ prehension of this object is therefore focused not on the “material object itself but the ‘aesthetic object’ that is its immaterial equivalent in [this] consciousness” (1978, 62). In more general terms, the sign, or oeuvre-chose, is, to use an old Cartesian category, res extensa and therefore relatively constant, while the aesthetic object is a temporal phenomenon, and therefore diachronically and synchronically variable. However, the constancy of the sign does not make it totally passive with no terms of its own for its ap­ prehension. In fact, “the longer a work retains its aesthetic effectiveness, the greater is the certainty that the endurance of value does not lie in a transient object but in the way in which the work itself is created in its material appear­ ance” (1978, 62). This “way,” this mode of creation, imbues the sign with semantic capacity which renders the object aesthetic. Mukarovsky observed: “the greater semantic ca­

Ingarden and Mukarovsky 175 pacity the work demonstrates, the more capable it is of resisting changes in place, social milieu and time, and the more universal its value is” (1978, 66). Ingarden, it should be recalled, ascribed this endurance of aesthetic value to “the artistic object’s schematic formation with spots of in­ determinacy of various kinds” (1973a, 251), which, in his view, alone constitutes the basis and possibility for its life. Mukarovsky, to be sure, to a lesser degree than Ingar­ den, also insisted on certain epistemic preconditions of aes­ thetic apprehension. Without calling them epoche or re­ duction he in fact suggested a procedure rather close to this. He observed, “intentionality as a semantic fact is ac­ cessible only to the view of a person who adopts toward the work an attitude unclouded by any practical consid­ eration” (1978, 97). This attitude must be “unmarked,” i,e,, free of “a current purely contemporary view that we unjustly consider generally valid” (1978, 98). There is , however, a difference between the two. Ingarden’s aim, via epoche, was to achieve a faithful or adequate knowledge of both the artistic and aesthetic objects10 as intersubjectively accessible phenomena, while Mukarovsky’s was to enable the perceiver “to find in the organization of the work an arrangement that will permit the work to be conceived as a semantic whole” to understand “its intrinsic artistic in­ tent” (1978, 96). yet, inasmuch as the perceiver’s initiative is as a rule, individual only to a small degree, and “being de­ termined for the most part by general factors such as time, generation and cosial milieu” (1978, 96), it wa of lesser im­ portance to him than to Ingarden, who insisted that the perceiver foregoes “his own creation of a new reconstruc­ tion of [the work], so that if reconstruction is nevertheless involuntarily constituted, it is ... transparent and allows [him] to apprehend the work in the original through it, the work itself, and no longer its reconstruction” (1973b, 349). According to Mukarovsky, such an act is neither possible

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nor necessary. To sum up, Ingarden’s epistemological theory posits the possibility of apprehending the work of literary art on the level of all of its three existential modes: the mate­ rial datum and the artistic and aesthetic objects. Even though the second and the third are objects of conscious­ ness for one isolated ego, both of them, the first as it was given and the second as it has become through the sub­ ject’s special epistemic effort and attitude, may be trans­ formed from monosubjective to intersubjective phenomena. Mukarovsky’s theory admits only two objects: work-thing and aesthetic object. But he, too, conceives of the work of art as a nonempirical being which appears to, but is not identical with, the individual consciousness, which alone validates the literary sign as a sign-object. The essential difference between these two theories is that the former insists, via adequate reconstruction, on attaining a heteronomous, derivative, and non-actual (in sense that it subsists rather than exists) artistic object, while the latter denies such a possibility on the ground that the aesthetic judgement would have to be a priori. This, in Mukarovsky’s view, is impossible since aesthetic judge­ ment could not “fit the necessary conditions for an a priori judgement . .. [It] frequently appears to be derived from previous experiences, one’s own or borrowed” (1978, 63). Consequently, because it is impossible to separate our con­ sciousness from the de facto world, access to the temporal­ ity of the artistic object remains but an abstract concept, subject to theoretical reflection rather than aesthetic expe­ rience. 5. Some critical com m ents on Ingarden’s and M ukarovsky’s theories The difficulty th at one has with Ingarden’s schema is

Ingarden and Mukarovsky 177 its emphatic insistence upon the existential heteronomy of both “purely and derivatively purely intentional objects.” One can understand and agree that the former’s “ontical foundations repose in the acts of consciousness by which they have been intentionally produced, or, more precisely, in the psychical subjects fulfilling these acts” (1974, 101), but it sis hard to comprehend how the latter can be both derivative and intentional, particularly in the case of liter­ ary objects which are alleged to be no more and no less than adequately reconstructed purely intentional objects. If purely intentional objects are founded in both ideal con­ cepts and ideal qualities and by intentional acts and “real word-signs” become derivative purely intentional, how then can the latter, being ontically heteronomous, become the basis for subsequent derivative purely intentional objects? Heteronomy, as I understand it, must be founded in au­ tonomy, which indeed is or could be any act or any ideal concept. But the cognitive retrieval or reconstruction of the literary object as it was originally intended is no longer founded exclusively in the autonomy of my consciousness but also in the heteronomy of the existing primarily inten­ tional object. Hence we must say that either the recon­ struction or actualization of the literary object, as it was originally intended, is not intentional or , as Mukarovsky contended, is impossible. Ingarden, being aware of this dilemma, tried to redefine the problem by observing: Both isolated words and entire sentences pos­ sess a borrowed intentionality, one that is con­ ferred on them by acts of consciousness. It al­ lows the purely intentional objects to free them­ selves, so to speak, from immediate contact with the acts of consciousness in the process of execution and thus to acquire a relative in­ dependence from the latter. Being purely in­ tentional, the objects “created” by the units

178

John Fizer of meaning remain both ontically heteronomous and ontically dependent, but this ontic relativ­ ity of theirs refers back directly to the inten­ tionality immanent in the units of meaning and only indirectly to the intentionality of the acts of consciousness. (1973a, 125)

In my opinion, this qualification does not resolve the is­ sue of autonomy versus heteronomy of derivatively purely intentional objects. This brings us to the second difficulty, namely, to the issue of our capability of reconstructing the work in itself, i.e., as a “timeless object.” Can we really attain such a derivatively purely intentional object which in all respects could be considered a correlate of the primarily intentional one? I agree with Piotr Graff, who states that “an artis­ tic object in a pure form is not accessible to individual experience, because such experience always involves some acts which at least partially recreate some elements of the aesthetic object in a concrete (no longer) schematic form. The effort to keep strictly to the ‘pure’ artistic object as a schematic entity is vain because of the very nature of experiences” (1975, 73). To this I would add three addi­ tional critical comments. First, the reconstruction of the pure artistic object is considerably hindered by the diffi­ culty of establishing an adequate correlation between the meta-language by means of which we render this object intersubjective and the language in which this object is given. No m atter how radical a reduction (phenomenolog­ ical, transcendental, eidetic) we perform on the object of our perception, on ourselves and on the generality of the object, if indeed such a reduction is possible, the suspension of nonessential elements of all three will still be precluded by the linguistic mode of this operation. Husserl himself observed that “all the activities of reason are as good as entirely bound up with speech” (1969, 19). How can we,

Ingarden and Mukarovsky 179 then, attain an object whose linguistic rendition, as a rule, necessitates an existential commitment and thereby viti­ ates the very intention of all three cases of epoche? Sec­ ond, the artistic or literary object, being temporal, nec­ essarily must be grounded in the reader’s mnemic acts which do not contain the power of absolute retention and reproduction11. As a result, the derivatively purely inten­ tional object, in Ingarden’s definition, has a limited chance of becoming an indubitable correlate of the purely inten­ tional one. What emerges in the reader’s consciousness or even in the phenomenologically controlled reconstruction is an object which both quantitatively and qualitatively is, in various degrees, at variance with its model. For an indu­ bitable correlate we would have to possess an ideal memory. However, this does not mean that, owing to these psy­ chological and linguistic impediments, a consistent and hence intersubjectively testable object cannot be arrived at . It can, provided we do not insist, as Ingarden did, upon what Husserl called the eidetic univocality (Eindeutigkeit) between purely and derivatively purely intentional objects. They can remain at variance, as they always do, and at the same time become intersubjectively apprehended. There­ fore, it is to be understood that the reconstruction of the artistic object occurs within the context of socially rather that ideally generated rules. W hat all this leads us to is that the artistic object, in it­ self, is to be conceived only as an ideal (i.e., an autonomous, original, and non-actual) being that, phenomenologically, appears to us as a set of certain conditions to be fulfilled by our consciousness. W hat emerges out of this fulfillment, no m atter how rigorously it is pursued, is not the purely inten­ tional artistic schema itself, but rather a kind of aesthetic object which in some way is contiguous to this schema. Should we agree with Ingarden that the work of literary art (p) contains four fundamental strata (q, r, s, t ), then,

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John Fizer as an artistic object, encoded in the artistic datum, it can be written in the language of modal logic as: p —8(q.r.s.t.) Should we further agree that an aesthetic object can be intersubjectively fixed, then, with the aid of a logical clas­ sification of relations, it can be grouped into three opposing categories instead of two, as Ingarden claimed: reflective/ anti-reflective, symmetrical/asymmetrical/anti-symmetrical, and transitive/nontransitive/anti-transitive (cf.TJemov 1971, 94). This multiple classification permits us to treat various aesthetic objects in terms of their proximity or the absence of such to their respective artistic data, rather than, as Ingarden did, in terms of their valency or ade­ quacy, which alone do justice to the work of art. Moreover, such classification shuns axiological hazards. Third, the artistic object, in order to be completely ac­ cessible to us, would have to be retrieved as identical with its artistic datum, i.e., as : x y [ R( x , y ) ---- (x = z)\ Such identity would be possible provided the artistic da­ tum (a) were deprived of its temporality cf. Fizer 1976), (b) were semantically unambiguous, and (c) had homolog­ ical signs. Therefore, instead of seeking the artistic cor­ relate in our consciousness, we would be content with the aesthetic object, which may stand in the eight-fold rela­ tion to the datum which spurs it into being. Each of these relations is aesthetically valid, provided, of course, these re­ lations are not extra-aesthetic dicta imposed upon the da­ tum by vested interests. In our quest for the artistic object we may and indeed should attempt, as Husserl insisted, to “put ourselves out of play,” i.e., to eliminate (ausschalten) and bracket (einklammern) both the world that surrounds

Ingarden and Mukarovsky 181 and penetrates it and our empirical ego that fuses with it, but this attem pt can hardly be absolute. Cesare Segre put it quite well when he said: “A work of art, like any expression of the mind, comes to us with clear-cut bound­ aries, but what it contains is inexhaustible; the ‘model’ the critic proposes can never be more than an approximation to it” (1973, 23). In regard to Mukarovsky’s theory, a criticism could be raised against its claim that the locus of the structure of the work of art lies either in the collective or the perceiving consciousness rather than in the work itself. He wrote: There is no alternative but to admit that the existence proper of a structure, particularly the structure of a new work, does not lie in mate­ rial works (which are only its external manifes­ tations) but in a consciousness. The correlation of components, their hierarchy, their agreement and variances - all of these constitute a certain reality, but a reality in essence and only there­ fore capable of being dynamic. A consciousness is the locus of its existence (1978, 77). This claim sounds very much like the one made by Husserl according to which this world, with all its objects, derives its whole sense and its existential status, which it has for me, from myself, from me as the transcendental Ego, the Ego that comes to the fore only with the transcendentalphenomenological epoche. The fact that Mukarovsky tried to decentre this Ego in the living traditions in which it “con­ stantly charges, develops, and endures without interrup­ tion” (1978, 78) did not alter the ambiguity of his position since replacement of the Transcendental Ego by the Collec­ tive Ego, without ascribing existential autonomy to reality at large, still left the latter deprived of its fundamental ontic attribute. As long as this reality gains its existential dis­

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tinctions exclusively through the intentionality of our con­ sciousness, be it transcendental or collective, its ontological being remains very much in doubt. Had Mukarovsky dis­ tinguished between real (temporal) and purely intentional beings, and thought only of the latter as heteronomous, like Ingarden, his ontology of works of art would have been less exposed to the dangers of subjectivism. The “exter­ nal manifestations” of the work of art cannot be dismissed as “only” ontologically insignificant, but as centrally im­ portant in the determination of the work’s genus (Gattungsverwandtschaft). Without such manifestations reality out there could indeed be reducible to sameness (Dieselbigkeit) and man’s consciousness could be thought of as the sole constitutor of the infinite variety of objects. I agree with Ingarden that the work of art is not an amorphous hyle which, through man’s perception, is to be transformed into an appropriate morphe, as Mukarovsky’s theory implies, but rather it is an object in readiness (Parathaltung) with noematic endowments of its own. These endowments might not always reveal themselves as they were intended in the primary creative act, and yet, if only ideally, their encoded presence is a precondition for our awareness of the poly­ morphic reality.

Ingaxden and Mukaxovsky

183

N otes 1. Ingarden was one of the most prominent students of Husserl (cf. Tymieniecka 1976). Mukarovsky, according to his own admission, was also very attentive to Husserl’s ideas, particularly to his theoretical study of the sign. Husserl gave lectures in Prague and his philosophy was well received by the Prague Circle (cf. Holenstein 1979). Herbert Gronebaum and Gisela Riff observed in their postscript to Mukarovsky’s works: “In the first stages of Prague Linguistic Circle activity in the twenties there existed a series of points of contact between the functional apprehension of language and Husserl’s phenomenology; not only in the numerous personal contacts, not only in the common resistance to psychological and sociological relativism but above all in the comprehension of meaning as an objective, in the subjective intentional object which distinguishes itself from the individual mental acts of its perception” ( M ukarovsky 1974, 293). 2. It is to be stressed that Ingarden’s ontological split of the literary work into the artistic and aesthetic objects was already widely challenged and appraised, among others, by his own master Husserl and by both his conceptual adversaries and his disciples. 3. A c te s du H u itie m e C o n g r is In te r n a tio n a l de Philosophic (1936), 1066. 4. A ctes, 1067. 5. Ingarden observed, it can “be changed unintentionally. Such a change can occur when, in a simple apprehension of the work, the reader — as is usually the case — is not conscious either of the fortuitousness of a given concretization or of those points in which it materially and necessarily differs from the work” (1973a, 35). 6. Mukarovsky understands collective or social consciousness simply as a “central core” (ustredni ja d r o ) of the socio-cultural context shared by the members of the definite collectivity in a definite time and space. Conceptual categories such as collectivity, time, space, object, subject, in Mukarovsky’s theory, are conceived as operants in a complex schema of four fundamental functions: practical, theoretical, symbolic, and aesthetic.

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7. This view is rather close to Ingarden’s idea of “borrowed intentionality” in derived purely intentional objects (1973a, 125). 8. Ingarden speaks about this intentionality as loaned, which in the fact of perception is taken over and thus becomes really actually intended (1973a, 339). 9. “The goal of this cognition is to acquire a knowledge, or, if you will, a number of true sentences, relating to the object which we have before us and which our cognizing has left untouched, being, all exactly as it is in itself” (1973b, 173). 10. Ingarden distinguishes between the faithful reconstruction of a literary work of art and the objectivity of knowledge about it. The former is “an instance and also a degree of similarity between the work and its reconstruction; in the limiting case it can lead to the identity of those two objectivities so that the work itself can be revealed in the reconstruction.” The latter can never be achieved. “We can have no absolute guarantee th at one reconstruction is absolutely faithful to a literary work of art which we are investigating in that it continues to be unfaithful (inaccurate) in this or th at point” (1973b, 356). 11. Ingarden himself conceded that “memory gives us no guarantee that what we remember is identical with the content of the actual past moment” (1973b, 346).

R eferences 1936

Actes du Huitieme Congres International de Philosophic a Prague, September 1934• Prague.

Fizer, J. 1973

“The Concept of Strata and Phases in Roman Ingarden’s Theory of Literary Structure.” The Personality o f the Critic, ed. J.P. Strelka. University College. 10-39.

Ingarden and Mukarovsky

185

1976

“Ingarden’s Phases, Bergson’s Duree reelle, and William James’ Streams: Mataphoric Variants or Mutually Exclusive Concepts on the Theme of Time.” An alecta H usserliana, IV. 121-139.

1979a

“Indeterminacies as Structural Components in Semiotically Meaningful Wholes.” P T L a Journal f o r D esc rip tive P oetics and Theory o f Literature, IV:I. 119-131.

1979b

“Epoche, Artistic Analysis, Aesthetic Concretization: Reflection upon Roman Ingarden’s Reflection.” In Language, Literature, and Meaning, I: Problem s o f L ite ra ry Theory, ed. John Odmark. Amsterdam 351-371.

Graff, P. 1975

“The Ontological Basis of Roman Ingarden’s Aesthetics: A Tentative Reconstruction.”” In R o m a n Ingarden and C o n te m porary P olish A esthetics, ed. P. Graff and S. Krzemieri-Ojak. Warsaw.

Holenstein, E. 1979

“Prague Structuralism: A Branch of the Phenomenological Movement.” In Language, Literature, and Meaning, I: Problem s o f L ite ra ry Theory.

Husserl, E. 1969

F orm a l and T ranscendental Logic. TY. Dorion Cairns.

The Hague. Ingarden, R. 1947

S p o r o istn ien ie swiata, vol. I, Cracow.

1963

Z badan n ad filozofiq wspolczesnq,(ZZ) Warsaw.

1966

“O poetyce.” In Studia z estetyki (21), vol. I. 275- 278. cf. the German translation G egenstand und Aufgaben der L ittera tu rw issen sc h aft (Tubingen 1976), 34-38.

1973a

The L ite ra ry W o rk o f A rt: In vestigation on the Borderline o f Ontology, Logic, and the T heory o f Literature. 'Lr.

George G. Grabowicz. Evanston, 111. 1973b

The Cognition o f the L ite ra ry W ork o f A r t. Tr.

Ruth Ann Crowley and Kenneth R. Olson. Evanston, 111.

186 1976

John Fizer “Problem der husserlischen Reduktion:” An alecta Husserliana, IV. 1-72.

Mukarovsky, J. 1966

S tudie z estetiky. Prague.

1974

Studien z u r struktralischen A s th e tik und Poetik. Munich.

1976

On P o etic Language. Tr. and ed. John Burbank and

Peter Steiner. Lisse. 1977

The W ord and Verbal A rt. Tr. and ed. John Burbank

and

Peter Steiner. New Haven. Rosner, K. 1975

“Ingarden’s Philosophy of Literature and the Analysis of Artistic Communication.” In R om an Ingarden and C o n te m porary Polish A esth etics. 191-221.

Segre, C. 1973

“Semiotics and Literary Criticism.” The Hague.

Tymieniecka, A.T. 1976

“Beyond Ingarden’s Idealism/Realism Controversy with Husserl: The New Contextual Phase of Phenomenology.” An alecta Husserliana, IV. 241-418.

Uemov, A.I. 1971

Logicheskie osn ovy m etoda modelirowaniia. Moscow.

V III.

Literary Truths and Metaphysical Qualities

Peter McCormick

Works on literature are able ... to suggest hypotheses about human behaviour, human motivation, human action, and sometimes about the social structure. — J. Hospers The experience of the work o f art always fundamentally surpasses every subjective horizon of interpretation. — H.-G. Gadamer [The] chief function [of literature] is to show the possible and necessary connections between the qualitative endowment of objects ... and values and to enable man to enter into a direct commerce with values by acting on his emotional life. — R. Ingarden In one of the most consequential reflections on the problems of literary aesthetics, The Apology for Poetry, Sir Philip Sidney wrote that poets never lie because they never affirm anything. “Nowe for ye Poett hee nothing affirmes and therefore never lyeth,” Sidney writes in the Norwhich Manuscript, “for as I take it; to lye is to affirme that to be true which is false. So as yet 187 B. Dziemidok and P. McCormick (eds.), On the Aesthetics o f Roman Ingarden, 187-232. © 1989 by Kluwer Academic Publishers.

188

Peter McCormick other Artists and especially the Historian af­ firming many things can in the Clowdy knowl­ edge of mankinde hardely escape from any; But the poett as I saide before never affirmeth ... and therefore though hee recount things not true, yet because he telleth them not for true, he lyeth not.”1

Sydney’s own affirmation has continued to exercise philosophers and literary critics even today. For his com­ ment raises more than one issue.2 Are there indeed literary truths, or is talk of truth in this domain finally nothing more than another species of figurative speech? If we speak properly of not just truths but of literary truths, then just what analysis of truths as such can sufficiently warrant this talk? More simply, what are literary truths, how are they presented in literary artworks, how do we as readers come to know such truths, and exactly what are literary truths true of? I should like to address one of these questions only, the nature of literary truths. After providing an example of the myriad works which raise this question, I want to exhibit the varied contexts in which this kind of question arises. Against this background I propose then to contrast two quite different contemporary accounts of literary truths, an analytic account and a hermeneutic one, before attempting to show how several common features in this set of philo­ sophical disagreements can be brought into sharper critical focus with the help of Ingarden’s work on metaphysical qualities. 1.

Q uestions about tex ts

Here then, to being with, is a poem, a dramatic mono­ logue by Posthumous from act II of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline.

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Is there now way for men to be, but women Must be half-workers? We are all bastards; all, And that most venerable man which I Did call my father was I know not where When I was stamp’d; some coiner with his tools Made me a counterfeit; yet my mother seem’d The Dian of that time; so doth my wife The nonpareil of this. 0! vengeance, vengeance; Me of my lawful pleasure she restrain’d And pray’d me oft forbearance; did it with A pudency so rosy the sweet view on’t Might well have warm’d old Saturn; that I thought her As chaste as unsunn’d snow. 0! all the devils! Now, on reading such texts carefully we sometimes find ourselves asking different kinds of question. What kind of text is this? How does this poetic statement differ from other kinds of literary statement? Are such fictional state­ ments ever true or false? How are we to describe the content of this text? Are there procedures available for interpreting this text in an unambiguous way? How are we to evaluate the success or failure of this work? How can we assess the propriety of a particular performance of this monologue? W hat does this text mean? And, most centrally for our present concerns, just what would allow us rightly to hold that such a text exhibits literary truths? These questions are not idle ones as George Steiner’s magisterial analysis of the many difficulties in just this text has amply demonstrated.3 We find here lexical prob­ lems (the term “pudency”), syntactic difficulties ( “and pray’d me oft forebearance”), semantic problems ( “chaste as unsunn’d snow”), rhetorical issues ( “0! vengeance, vengeance”), textual problems (what was the original ver­ sion of these lines?), performance problems (is the conven­

Peter McCormick 190 tional Elisabethan presention of such monologues norma­ tive in any faithful production of the text?), and on, and on. Shakespeare’s monologue then and — to multiply the genres for what follows — such texts as the choral ode in Sophocles’ Antigone, or Dante’s geometrical vision at the end of the Paradiso, or the hunt scene in Tolstoy’s War and Peace, raise a variety of issues which require some sorting. We do well to notice here initially what Beardsley has referred to as three different levels of question.4 There are first “particular questions about particular works” (13). Here, for example, someone may well ask whether Shake­ speare’s Sonnet 116 is a misleading example of the form we know as Shakespearean sonnet, or whether the hunt scene in War and Peace is properly speaking an instance of pastoral. Questions of this first sort are those for the practitioners of criticism. “They do not require theoretical reflection, but demand true information and interpretive skill” (13). Other questions may be asked of these works at a more general level. Thus, someone may inquire whether all tragedy requires explicit generalization as in Sophocles; or whether the epic can only be understood as a rhymed poem as in Dante or also as allowing realization in prose as in Tol­ stoy’s epic novel; or whether the Shakespearean monologue is but an instance of the lyric and not a genre in its own right. Questions of this second sort insist on a systematic knowledge of the arts, the kind of knowledge we have come to expect of a theorist of the arts or, in short, of an aesthetician in the broad sense. Finally, still other questions may be raised about such texts at even a more general level just in those cases where the texts themselves — say Pope’s Essay on Man, or Boileau’s Art poetique — deploy a certain range of crit­ ical terms in their own right. Thus, someone may ask

Literary Truths and Metaphysical Qualities 191 whether the critical term “unity” is not used equivocally in Pope’s essay, or what are the assumptions about mind made in Sophocles’ use of the term “hamartia,” or whether Dante’s understanding of harmony is logically consistent with Aquinas’s interpretation of Aristotle’s physics. These questions, while clearly involving some attempt at system­ atic inquiry, are usually understood as more than just aes­ thetic concerns; in fact, they are taken as philosophical concerns above all. We have then critical, aesthetic, and philosophical questions as instances of at least some but not all of the many kinds of issue which literary texts raise in a pre-eminent way. But this division is not yet very clear. We ought then to explicitate briefly the last two of these kinds of question. It is not only linguists, rhetoricians, literary critics, tex­ tual editors, translator, actors, men and women of letters, and so on who turn to literary texts but philosophers as well. The logic of fictional sentences, for example, in such literary artworks as the poems of Baudelaire, is of increas­ ing interest to formal semanticists and philosophers of logic. The kinds of entity whose descriptions one finds in such literary artworks as, for instance, the “ficciones” of Borges together with the conditions and criteria which govern their identity are of continuing interest to ontologists. The na­ ture of judgements which both fictional characters as well as author’s personae or authors themselves express in such literary artworks as, for example, the plays of Moliere re­ main a fruitful area of inquiry for epistemologists. And the peculiar features of particular literary plots — think of the novels of Dostoyevsky or George Eliot or Flaubert or James — attract the interest of some specialists in moral philos­ ophy and even in the philosophy of religion. Here then are several of the many examples which could be cited and at much greater length in support of the claims that literary artworks invite the serious attention of philosophers.

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The interests of philosophers of art or aestheticians — and I will use this term in its narrow sense as a short expres­ sion for the former — however, are somewhat more difficult to make precise. For even when we artificially narrow the sense of the word “aesthetics” to include philosophical is­ sues only, it is not immediately evident that there is any further set of questions for the aesthetician to investigate than just those which we have already noted as topics of interest for the logician, the ontologist, the epistemologist, and so on. The independence of aesthetics as a philoso­ pher’s discipline, in short, is controversial. For whatever questions would seem to be grist for the mill of aesthetics, the frequent claim is, turn out after some grinding to be the stuff of epistemology or moral philosophy or whatever. One counter move to this reductive strategy, however, is particularly prominent in the specialized journals. How­ ever much analysis is undertaken, the counter claim goes, there is at least one set of questions about objects, per­ ceptions, judgements, predicates, values, criteria, and so on that is not reducible to actual concerns of other tradi­ tional branches of philosophy. And this set of questions concerns aesthetic objects, aesthetic perceptions, aesthetic judgements, aesthetic predicates, aesthetic values, aesthetic criteria, and so on. With this dispute in mind, then, we may proceed as follows. There is at least one philosophical question which some of these texts cited or others like them may be taken as raising. And this question is a question about aesthetic truths. Do some artworks provide us with what may prop­ erly be called aesthetic truths, or not? More specifically, do some literary artworks present us with a set of truths about, say, persons which may properly be called aesthetic truths in general and, in instances like those which I have referred to, literary truths in particular? This is the issue which we now need to bring into sharp focus with the help

Literary Truths and Metaphysical Qualities of a contrast. 2.

193

Literary truths — an analytic perspective

I begin then with a rough characterization of some an­ alytic views about truths in literature. Although I shall not rely exclusively on their works alone, I shall be refer­ ring most often to Weitz, Mandelbaum, Beardsley, Hospers, and Purtill, whose work in this area continues to be representative.5 The view I present, however, is a construc­ tion and not attributable to any one thinker alone. Many but not all analytic philosophers who are inter­ ested in the literary work of art often begin with a famil­ iar observation. Literary works of art consist of different kinds of sentence about different kinds of thing. Moreover, some of these sentences — we might call them here “lit­ erary statements” — often purport to be communicating truths about many important matters. Scrutinizing any classic work of fiction, say War and Peace%is usually sufficient to see that this observation is correct. Literary works of art like War and Peace do con­ sist of many different kinds of sentences. There are, to keep our list short, statements, dream accounts, questions, excla­ mations, commands, curses, prayers, and so on. Moreover, each of these items appears in more than one guise. For we have foreign-language expressions, idiolect, slang, bro­ ken utterances, incomplete sayings, and so on. The variety is very great both of kinds of sentence and of the variants these sentences assume. The examination and linguistic analysis of literary works provides a welter of further data for those who would wish to itemize further. If the kinds of sentence in literary works, then, are nu­ merous, the matters these sentences deal with are even more extensive. Even when we confine ourselves to literary statements alone, we find all kinds of topics in evidence.

194 Peter McCormick Literary statements, for example, often propound putative truths about those features of the world which the natu­ ral science axe accustomed to describe. We can read claims made about the nature of society, culture, and human insti­ tutions in a vein we have come to expect most often in the social sciences. Truths are offered about historical events and human actions in a way historians most often use to formulate such matters. Literary statements are made too about the nature of mind, about human ideals, about even such important but surely obscure matters as individual destiny. Now with these vague but non-controversial observa­ tions in hand analytic philosophers proceed to sharpen their concerns by operating several exclusions. The point of interest is not, initially at any rate, under­ stood as a set of questions about the values we catch sight of when dealing sympathetically with literary works of axt. The accent falls rather on truths. Moreover, the concern is not with truths of any great stature in the way for exam­ ple that didactic theories of art, so important to Plato in several periods of his thought, focus narrowly on the pres­ ence or absence in literary artworks of “greater truths.” Nor finally is the analytic philosopher usually concerned with symbolized truths in the peculiar sense of what so many readers find themselves responsive to, say, in Kafka’s work — putative truths about the world which they are not able to formulate in non-figurative terms. Of course there axe important questions, and indeed philosophical ones, which concern values, great truths, and symbolic truths. And some might even hold that at least paradigmatic cases of successful literary artworks provide privileged access to such matters. But analytic philosophers axe almost always concerned with what they like to refer to as the everyday garden variety of common-sense truths; not the pate de grives and the canard a Vorange but the peas and caxrots

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on the philosophical menu. The accent then falls squarely on the question whether some literary statements in liter­ ary artworks can be said to deal with truths at all, and if so then just how? If a start is made with observation about sentences and a preliminary formulation of the m atter at hand is some­ thing like what I’ve just described, what then is the usual answer to the question? Before looking at the response three distinctions of unequal importance should be noted. We need to distinguish first between sentences within the literary work and sentences about such a work. The distinction is of course commonplace. Yet it is one we need to make explicit if we wish to avoid slipping from talk about truths which sentences within literary works refer to and truths which sentences within literary-critical works refer to. This second variety can be extensive in its own right once we begin to reflect on critical practice. But the set of expectations we bring to works of literary criticism axe very different indeed from those we bring to literary works of art. Sometimes, it is true, these expectations overlap as in those cases where works of literary criticism would seem to have aesthetic pretentions of their own quite apart from the artworks they purport to be reflections on. Yet in general, and however difficult any anatomy of these sets of expectations might prove, the fact of such difference is plain enough. A second distinction some analytic philosophers con­ tinue to find useful is a more slippery one, that between propositions and predication. Despite almost a hundred years of work in modern philosophy of logic, propositions remain elusive entities which appear to many philosophers as at best only half real. Propositions, some would argue, are not themselves linguistic entities, but if they are to be found at all, they are to be found only in the company of sentences. “Predication” on the other hand is a tech­

196 Peter McCormick nical term in the context of this discussion. The relevant sense here is almost exclusively confined to the kinds of is­ sues philosophers struggle with when they raise questions about saying and showing. This sense has been construed as “each distinguishable respect in which a discourse or part of a discourse may be said to be true or false.”6 Thus a statement that says one thing and suggests another is taken here to mean two predications. An example might go like this. “Peter is not the worst player in the tennis tournament,” which says that at least one player is worse than Peter and suggests further that Peter is at any rate a pretty bad bet. Now the truths in literature which philoso­ phers are concerned with are not those which assume a propositional form but those which are expressed in the predications which occur in many of the sentences com­ prising the literary work. A third and final distinction we need to notice turns on a contrast between the kinds of interest analytic philosophers have with the sentences in a literary work and the interest which the literary critic has. The literary critic, we might say with Monroe Beardsley, is largely concerned with three tasks. The first is that of explication, the attem pt that is “to determine the contextual meaning of a group of words . .. given the standard meanings of the words plus infor­ mation about their ranges of connotation.” The second is that of elucidation in the sense of determining “parts of the world of the work, such as character and motives, that are not explicitly reported in it, given the events and states of affairs that are reported plus relevant empirical gener­ alizations.” And the third is interpretation in the sense of determining not the thesis of a work, that is, “its doctrine or ideological content,” but the themes of the work, that is “something named by an abstract noun or phrase” such as, say, the tragic character of poverty (401-03). Philosophers, by contrast, usually are concerned only

Literary Truths and Metaphysical Qualities 197 with what can be properly termed true or false in the liter­ ary work. This may well turn out to be the thesis which the critic has been able to isolate with the help of his different training, skills, and sensibility. The philosopher, however, will go on to ask his or her characteristic questions about such theses, questions for example about the world, or just how such truths are presented (whether by statement or assertion or whatever), or just what kind of truth or falsity such statements can properly be said to have. Now each of these distinctions raises questions in its own right. But these questions need not occupy us here. Rather we have to notice, now that the starting point, the issue, and the relevant distinctions are in mind, just what answers the philosohpers are want to provide to their own question. One way to get clearer about the answer is first to cast the initial question in a more general form, to see just what positions have been taken in its regard. The problem is just how fictional statements differ from non-fictional ones, or how fiction differs from non-fiction. And this has generated at least five kinds of response which are worthwhile recalling here.7 (1) The first view holds that fiction is not true while non-fiction is true. Yet there is a difficulty here with say­ ing just how we axe using the vague word “true.” The main problem with this view, however, is that many fic­ tional works contain true statements (say War and Peace), whereas many non-fictional works contain false statements (say, Principia Mathematica). (2) A second view holds that fictional works consist of sentences which axe neither true nor false. But the same kind of consideration that proved fatal to the first view proves fatal to the second. For some non-fictional works contain sentences which axe neither true or false (com­ mands, say, in programmed logic texts) and some fictional

198 Peter McCormick works contain sentences which are either true or false (cen­ sus figures for small Pennsylvania towns in the 1920s in John O’Hara’s novels). (3) A third view holds that all declarative sentences in fictional works are disguised imperatives of the form “suppose th a t...” or “let us pretend t h a t . . whereas no such disguised imperatives are on the loose in non-fictional works. When we reflect on the variety of uses to which declarative sentences are put, however, this view appears overly ingenious. (4) A fourth view locates the differences between fic­ tional and non-fictional works in readers’ attitudes rather than in the sentences of the work. The attitude of a reader who takes up War and Peace to determine Tolstoy’s phi­ losophy of history is different from the attitude of a reader who takes up War and Peace to enjoy a novel. But his view, like the preceding one, also seems overly ingenious. As Beardsley puts it, “you do not have to ignore the truthvalue of a discourse for it to be literature, and ignoring the truth-value of the Principia does not make it fiction” (420). (5) A fifth view turns on a distinction between uttering a sentence and asserting one. A journalist may, for example, utter a sentence in reporting certain views about the Polish constitution. But he is both uttering and asserting such a sentence when he utters the sentence in such a way as to communicate to his listeners that he believes the sentence is true. Fictional works then are construed to include truths of utterance only, whereas non-fictional ones include truths of utterance and truths of assertions. It is not difficult however, as the journals show, to raise important doubts as to the well-foundedness of such a distinction without even multiplying those doubts by considering the legitimacy of its application to literary works. With these five general views as background I turn to the usual response given to a narrower question. The ques­

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tion here is not how fictional works differ from non-fictional ones, but how putative truths found in literary texts dif­ fer from truths found in non-literary ones. And the most commonly held response to this question goes as follows. Truths in literary works differ from truths in nonliterary works in the way that suggested truths, the truths of predications, differ from asserted truths, the truths of propositions. But just how are truths suggested in literary works? Literary works do not suggest truths either in the sense that these truths are intended by the author or in the sense that these truths are graspable by the audience. Thus neither writers’ nor readers’ intentions do sufficient justice to the work itself. “We want to be able to say,” John Hospers writes, “that something is implied [suggested] even though the author may not intend it and be quite unaware of it, and even though the audience [reader] may be so imperceptive as not to grasp it.”8 But just what kind of truths are implied in this large sense of implication as suggestion? “Works of literature,” Hospers continues, “are able . .. to suggest hypotheses about human be­ haviour,- human motivation, human action, and sometime about the social structure... These works may suggest or intimate (say without saying) numerous propositions [predications, in our terminology] ... about the world, about the subject m atter of the work itself. And since some of these suggested propositions are doubt­ less true, we have here surely an important sense of truth in literature.” (213) 3.

Literary truths — a herm eneutic perspective

I want now to look at an alternative approach to the problem of literary artworks and putative truths. This

200

Peter McCormick approach I will characterize simply as a hermeneutic one. Again, without restricting the presentation to their work alone, I will here be mainly concerned with the work of H.-G. Gadamer and in part with the connections between his hermeneutic philosophy and the earlier reflections of Dilthey, Husserl, Ingarden, and Heidegger.9 It is important to recall that neither here nor earlier is there any attempt to represent any one particular position as such. Rather the concern is with sketching the main features of a general po­ sition most of whose elements a certain group of thinkers would characteristically find to be important in the light of their own individual views. I shall follow the same division here as earlier, beginning with a starting point and issue, then sketching more fully the context and formulation of the matter. Hermeneutic thinkers concerned with questions about truths and literary artworks have a different point of de­ parture from their analytic colleagues. Instead, that is, of remarking the curious fact that many statements appear­ ing in literary works of art are both similar and yet im­ portantly different from those which occur in non-literary texts, hermeneutic thinkers are struck, for example, by the way temporality and history are represented in such texts, by the play of langauge and silence in literary texts, and especially by a peculiar expectation of literary artworks as of all art. This expectation might be put as follows. Hermeneutic philosophers are less concerned to analyze the truth conditions of different kinds of sentences, whether lit­ erary or non-literary, than they are intrigued by the possi­ bility that artworks may provide access to truths that are otherwise unavailable elsewhere. The starting point here, then, if we confine ourselves to questions about literature and truths, is not an observation but, roughly speaking, an assumption. We need to try to get clearer, however, about what the

Literary Truths and Metaphysical QuaUties 201 issue here may be. Hermeneutic philosophers are not char­ acteristically concerned with whether or not a certain class of sentence can be said to be true or false on some analyzed sense of those cardinal terms. Rather a general assumption has already been made before the literary artwork is ap­ proached, general in that it accompanies hermeneutic re­ flection not just on literary artworks but on artworks of every kind. The assumption, as I understand it, comes to something like this: artworks present truths about many things; literary artworks present truths especially about persons (characters) and about their actions (plots). The point, then, is that whether artworks present truths at all is not at issue for the hermeneutic thinker. Rather what invites his reflection is, granted that artworks present truths, just what these truths are about and just how art­ works present them. Most interesting is what I referred to above as an assumption. For work on these questions is characteristically in the service of a larger interest, the question whether some artworks present some truths about persons and actions which are not available anywhere else; a class of truths available, that is only in their peculiar lin­ guistic medium are taken to be in some as yet unclarified sense privileged sites for the manifestation of such occult truths. The issue here then does not turn on the similarity between literary and non-literary texts (both comprise sen­ tences), but on the dissimilarity between a peculiar class of truths accessible in literary artworks pre-eminently and the inaccessibility of such a class of truths elsewhere. If these are the starting point and the main issue of a hermeneutic reflection on literary artworks, what further context do we need so as to make an initial formulation of the question more understandable? I think we need espe­ cially to appreciate the polemical character of hermeneutic thinking about the nature of aesthetics. Hermeneutic reflection, in proposing for investigation

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what seems to be an intriguing property of literary artworks which is not found to the same degree in other artworks or indeed outside the realm of art, is self-consciously trying to contest certain consequences of an established scientific world-view. Consequently, the issue which this view is call­ ing to our attention is to be understood inside a critical understanding of the history of modern aesthetics. Aesthet­ ic?, this larger claim goes, has been understood up to the present as a progressive and largely helpful subordination of a philosophical discipline to one only of a number of pos­ sible interpretations of science. Aesthetics thus has come to function as an investigation of particular kinds of ob­ jects with the help of a methodology extrapolated from the models of modern mathematics and physics. More specif­ ically, whatever kinds of truths are taken to be aesthetic truths are as such almost all construed further in terms of concepts derived from our contemporary understanding of the nature of science as an intelligible discipline and our understanding of the truths which science is concerned to formulate. So, in locating the issue in terms of some hypothetical feature of artworks alone, the hermeneutic view is indirectly contesting the model we habitually work with in delimit­ ing certain questions as problems in aesthetics, say, rather than as problems in ontology. And this view is also con­ testing indirectly the model we habitually bring to bear on questions pertaining to the nature of truths. In short, part of the background here includes a polemic against a construal of the separate domains of philosophy after the model of mathematical understandings of modern science and a construal of truths in artworks on the model of truthfunctional analyses of scientific truths. Questioning the un­ derstanding of truths in literature which analytic philoso­ phy presents then involves questioning the understanding of modern aesthetics as a philosophical discipline.

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But even supposing that such a polemic were largely if not in all its details justified, just what alternative does the hermeneutic view propose? It is important to see that an alternative is proposed, and the need for a positive account of both aesthetics and literary truths is acknowledged. The problem is not with the denial that more than a negative account is required, but with the particular positive ac­ count brought forward. For this alternative is murky one. Beyond holding out the hope for literary artworks present­ ing different kinds of truths than the natural sciences do, this position draws attention to the kinds of indirect knowl­ edge that have traditionally been associated with human­ istic traditions. Gadamer, for example, wants to hold that the humanities have preserved until recent times a different, looser, more open-ended, one might even want to say more contextual understanding of truth than the natural sciences have. This understanding, so the story goes, is still opera­ tive in the early Dilthey until the struggles with psycholo­ gism finally move Dilthey beyond the perduring insights of his neglected masterpiece, the biography of Schleiermacher. With important qualification, a similar understanding is to be found also in parts of Collingwood’s work, for exam­ ple in his treatment of the logic of question and answer to which Gadamer refers explicitly. Still, we must persist in asking just what the positive element in this different understanding of truth looks like. One important element in this account is the contention that, whatever characterization we settle on for those non­ objective, non-verifiable, non-scientific truths in literature, we must situate those truths neither in the sentences in the work nor in those about the work. Rather these truths are to be identified within the understanding of the texts. And such an understanding may assume, as the case of dramatic production clearly indicates, more than a sentential form only.

204

Peter McCormick But doesn’t this further contention bring back into play all the versions of intentionalism, whether centred on au­ thors or performers or audiences, that both analytic and hermeneutic philosophers have been so ingenious in dis­ qualifying? This is not clear. In fact, it would be nec­ essary to look much more closely at just what intention­ alism is before trying to judge this matter intelligently. W hat should be noted for now, however, is the charac­ teristic way in which the hermeneutic thinker responds to such a query: “the experience of the work of art always fundamentally surpasses every subjective horizon of inter­ pretation,” Gadamer writes. Moreover, his own work in large part aims to “show that understanding is never truly subjective behaviour toward a given ’object,’ but towards its effective history — the history of its influence; in other words understanding belongs to the being of that which is understood” (xix, xxi). Most of this may be the case. The persistent problem is finding persuasive reasons, and reasons of a sort that an­ alytic and not just hermeneutic philosophers would accept, for justifying such a view. We have, at least in the remarks above, no such arguments but assertions only. They may be true, and then again they may not be. What we require from the hermeneutic philosophers, however, and precisely here, is less assertion and more argument. But this final point requires more elaboration. Notice both how important the point at issue is and how the hermeneutic thinker retorts. The point is just how we are to know what stands for or against the kind of sug­ gestive but hardly rigorous reflections put forward so far. How are we to evaluate such reflections? And if we do not settle on a solution to this puzzle, then exactly why need we try to look further into the nature of truths in literature than analytic philosophers are already doing? At least we know what can count as an answer to the questions they

Literary Truths and Metaphysical Qualities 205 axe asking, and we know what form such answers should take even if these answers are not yet all in hand. The hermeneutic thinker characteristically replies to this caxdinal objection in some such terms as these. To meet the conditions analytic philosophers impose on puta­ tive aesthetic theories about truths and literature would be inconsistent with the critique of a one-sided view of scien­ tific truth. To put hermeneutic reflection into such an ac­ ceptable form would be to practise just that kind of power­ ful but overly narrow kind of thinking which these reflection have been aiming to question.10 Perhaps not all the issues we have to raise about truths in literature can be poured into the mold of problems seeking solutions. Some of these issues we may not even yet be able to get into proper ques­ tion form. So much, then, for the starting point, the focus, the contexts, and the point at issue of a second set of views about literary truths. So, the dispute about what is to count as a proper theory of truths in literature continues; we need not pursue it further here. More important are several further features of the hermeneutic approach, features which indicate, like the elements noted so far, a resistance to any easy method of critical evaluation. 4.

Invitations to further inquiry

I want now to pursue somewhat further at least one basic opposition between the two perspectives which I have been at some pains so far to sketch. If the characteristic form for the questions many ana­ lytic philosophers bring to literary texts is something like “just how do truths in literature differ from truths else­ where?” what if any question characterizes the other ap­ proach? With the polemical context still in mind I think we can put the question something like this: just what if any truths make themselves manifest in the understanding

206 Peter McCormick of literary works of art and not elsewhere? Here again we require some background. Putting our question this way and not another stresses the idea, now more familiar since careful critical reflec­ tions of Roman Ingarden’s work has started, that the lit­ erary work of art is in some important sense a process-like phenomenon.11 An aesthetic object, this story goes, is con­ stituted in the interaction between the stratified structure of the literary work of art and the active understanding of its readers. The claim then is that the work of art is a kind of event, in fact an ontological event in the sense that such an event brings about the appearance of one species of ob­ ject, the aesthetic object; it makes this appearance manifest to the sympathetic understanding of a reader and makes available in this phenomenon access to truths about persons and actions. It is capital here to recognize the primacy of the artwork over the imagination. For if there is a way out of the impasses of psychologism which continue to threaten hermeneutic theories of aesthetic truths, then such an is­ sue cannot be found in the direction of subjectivity alone, no m atter how deeply we pursue the archaeology of knowl­ edge. Husserl’s greatest attempt at doing phenomenology, his endless studies on temporality, have demonstrated this point. And Husserl himself, as the tortured drafts of his in­ tersubjectivity materials show unequivocally, came to un­ derstand the point of his interminable beginnings, a lesson which Heidegger learned early on. That is why, while insist­ ing on the understanding of the literary work of art as that area in which there comes to presence whatever truths lit­ erature yields, Gadamer writes: “literature as an art-form can be understood only from the ontology of the work of art, and not from the aesthetic experience that occurs in the course of that reading” (143). But what more precisely is it that such understanding is active upon? And what is it in the literary work of art

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that makes such presences possible? Both the hermeneutic and the analytic philosopher here appeals to the peculiar role language plays in literature. For the hermeneutic philosopher, however, language is no longer viewed as simply a means of communication and therefore an entity to be understood in terms of either so­ phisticated mathematical theories like Shannon’s or imag­ inative structuralist theories like Jakobson’s or metaphor­ ical self-referential theories like Derrida’s. Nor is literary language to be construed simply as a means of expres­ sion and therefore to be subjected to all the puzzles of expression theories of art. Rather language in the liter­ ary work is listened to with something like the ear we see at work in Heidegger’s mediations on Trakl’s colour sym­ bolisms or George’s formalisms or most notably Holderlin’s lyric memorializings. That is, language on the hermeneutic view is habitually understood not in the sense of a formal system but in the obscure and almost mystical sense of a speaking event, a verbal happening. The text speaks or, as Heidegger never tires of saying in On The Way to Language in some of his most carefully deployed tautologies, “Lan­ guage speaks,” “the essence of language is the language of essence.” This is part of what lies behind some of the cryptic statements in Gadamer’s work about cultivation, common sense, taste, and tact as modes of indirect knowledge, about inexplicitness and inexpressibility (34-36). “All encounter with the language of art,” he writes, “is an encounter with a still unfinished process and is itself part of this process.” The controlling idea is that the peculiar kind of speaking that goes on in the literary work of art is a domain, a site, a topos where we are summoned, as Heidegger likes to say, by the unarticulated possibilities of a world breaking through the language of the text of our understanding. This kind of language, the claim here

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Peter McCormick goes, may make available to us truths that are otherwise inaccessible. Again, I think we need to say plainly that this kind of talk is for many of us unsettling. What should be noted however is the primacy, in such unusual talk about language as speaking, of an experience with language rather than of a concept of language. If we are ever to come to critical terms with the central oppositions between analytical and hermeneutic approaches to truths in literature, as I think we must, we need to recognize this central opposition be­ tween a concept of language and an experience of language. The former is a difficult enough affair; but the latter refers us exasperatingly to time, to history, to, for one example only, the mysteriously privileged speaking of language that characterized the ritual of Greek tragic drama at Athens. One final point should now be made. W ith this focus on the process character of the literary work of art as an event and the speaking of language in what comes about in the understanding of such a work, clearly the accent in the hermeneutic view falls on some as yet unexplicitated account of experience. Dilthey of course worked long and hard at developing a more comprehensive account of expe­ rience than the empirical account he continued to be both­ ered by even after his reading of Kant. And Husserl too in a quite different vein looked towards reconstructing a view of experience that would measure up to what he called the life world. Regardless of the different problems each of these attem pts foundered on, a common and enduring feature of both was the stress on time and history. The objectivi­ ties of science were to be set aside, or got around, or even transcended in the vital interest of situating things and events anew at the centre of a history of understanding. So the hermeneutic approach characteristically stresses origins while skirting biographical fallacies, and stresses traditions while side-stepping historicisms. “If it is acknowledged,”

L it e r a r y

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Gadamer writes, “that the work of art is not a timeless ob­ ject of aesthetic experience, but belongs to the world that endows it with significance, it would follow that the true significance of the work of art can be understood only in terms of its origin and genesis in that world” (148). But does this text give us access to truths which are oth­ erwise inaccesible? To the contrary. It would seem that, without forcing all truths into the form of sentences, we still can notice that the truths which the hermeneutic approach directs us to seem more like old chestnuts than novel rev­ elations. What could be more familiar than the cycle of seasons, the cycles of child-bearing, the cycles of birth and death, the cycles even of our knowledge and our ignorance? I think we have to recall here the early contrast between a concept of truth »nd an experience of truth. Granted that we are not at all clear about just how the term “experience of truth ” is to be reconstructed, we do understand nonethe­ less that truths in the second sense are more happenings than mental constructs. So in asking just what truths the text gives us access to, we need to reflect on the possibility that a text does not so much afford us insight into novel concepts as, the claim is, occasionally bring about some kind of event of understanding. Our initial problems then return, but now in a different form. For we are pressed to ask just how we are to know when such events come about, just how we are to charac­ terize such events, and, most importantly, just what such events, if there be any, have to do with if not concepts then, to use the recommended phrase, experiences of truth? Neither the analytical nor the hermeneutic thinker provides an unambiguous response to such difficulties. Each merely raises again the doubt that this kind of difficulty about the nature of literary truths, namely the tortured relations between their contents and their understanding, allows no consistent solution without a

210 Peter McCormick re-examination of the paradigms themselves within which we do philosophy. I want to turn then to an alternative account. 5.

Literary truths and quasi-judgements

In The Literary Work of Art, where he replies to the criticisms brought against his work by K. Hamburger in Die Logik der Dichtung,12 Roman Ingarden presents a cen­ tral formulation of his perspective on the nature of literary truths. The key passage runs as follows: .. .do literary works of art (fictional poems) con­ stitute pure judgements (pure “reality state­ ments” in Hamburger’s terminology) or not? It seems to me beyond doubt that Hamburger must say: No, in no case. Poetry is not composed of judgements. Fine. Then I ask: What, then, are those propositions that are components of poetry? In a general sense, they are predicative sentences... Are they then pure “assumptions” in Meinong’s sense? Or are they somewhat “neutralized” affirmative propo­ sitions? Both seem false to m e... There must be something else, therefore. In my opinion it is precisely the “quasi-judgement.”13 In short if there are such things as literary truths, In­ garden wants to hold, then these truths depend upon the existence of a peculiar class of judgements called literary judgements or quasi-judgements. But his formulation poses at least three tasks for any­ one who would evaluate Ingarden’s view both sympathet­ ically and critically. The first is describing the nature of quasi-judgements, the second articulating the connections between quasi-judgements and predicative sentences, and finally stating succinctly the consequences for Ingarden’s

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theory of literary truths. I will look at each of theses issues in turn. In the conclusion to the first volume of the 1966 edition of his Studia z estetyki,14 Ingarden provided some impor­ tant later reflections on the theme of literary truths which had already occupied him in both The Literary Work of Art and The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art.15 He examines there, among other things, the nature of judg­ ing. When properly performed, judging is judging seriously. And “judging ‘seriously,’” he writes, “is the primary and proper sense of judging performed with full conviction when the judging subject discharges himself fully in the act of judgement without any reflective distance from himself ... And without any reservation regarding either the judging itself or the object of this judgement.”16 Judging, then, is pre-eminently a non-reflexive kind of activity except in the case, which Ingarden explicitly mentions in a passage which I have omitted, when judging is directed to one’s own self. But granted that the act of judgement be performed in a certain way, a second element must also be present if we are to speak of judging in the proper and primary sense. Later on in the same’essay Ingarden explicitates the ontological status of those matters with which proper judgements are concerned. Thus, he writes, “judgement arises only where a sentence predicating a certain state of affairs ’places’ that state of affairs in the real world or in some other world existentially independent of the act of judgement” (179). Proper or genuine judgement then is both “serious” in the sense of being sincere and not primarily reflexive, and ob­ jectively oriented in the sense of predicating something of a real referent. Now, Ingarden is anxious to distinguish these genuine judgements from quasi-judgements. This distinction, how­ ever, is difficult to engineer because, unlike the formal lan­ guages of mathematical logic, at least in some of the early

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work done during this century in such treaties as the Principia Mathematica, no special signs mark the occurrence of quasi-judgements in either colloquial or in literary lan­ guages. Ingarden refers, in both The Literary Work of Art and in The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art, to Rus­ sell’s use of the assertion sign to distinguish between gen­ uine judgements or theses of the system and pure affirma­ tive propositions (Meinong’s Annahmen, which share with genuine judgements a peculiar form but which lack their peculiar function, namely assertion).17 Ingarden wants to claim that quasi-judgements are neither genuine judge­ ments nor pure affirmative propositions, and this claim is difficult to make out without involving himself deeply in logical, epistemological, and ontological issues all at once.18 Put in summary form, however, Ingarden’s case runs as follows. Quasi-judgements cannot, on the one hand, be genuine judgements because on this interpretation the ex­ istential status of the referents of such judgements would be that of real objects instead of that of intentional ob­ jects. And this, as is shown by reflection on the variety of imaginary entities and states of affairs which literary works present, would contradict our experiences of literary works. But quasi-judgements cannot, on the other hand, be pure affirmative propositions either because, on that in­ terpretation, the existential status of the referents of such judgements would lack both verisimilitude and above all credibility, and this too would run counter to our experi­ ences of literary works. Of these two claims, that quasi-judgements are neither genuine nor merely pure affirmative propositions, the sec­ ond is more puzzling. Ingarden did however fill out his ear­ lier account in The Literary Work of Art and The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art with the later essay I have al­ ready alluded to earlier. The key idea in this fuller account is an inference from his first account of pure affirmative

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propositions. For, if such propositions lack the assertive function, then they also make no belief claims. Sentences expressing quasi-judgements, Ingarden writes, cannot be “Meinongian assumptions [pure affirmative pro­ positions] .. .that is, sentences completely de­ void of assertive power and therefore not con­ veying any belief regarding the reality of what they designate. For if they were “assumptions,” objects presented in literature would have been deprived of all character of real existence, and, although they would as regards their proper­ ties perhaps resemble real objects, they would not have been able to pretend to be such ob­ jects and would not have imposed themselves as real. All artistic illusion would then become impossible.19 But what then are quasi-judgements? Quasi-judgements are modified genuine judgements. The modification is of a double sort. First, the mental acts which result in quasi-judgements are not serious in the sense in which they make no reference to independently existing real objects or to real states of affairs. “I perform the sentence-forming act,” Ingarden explains, “but at the same time I behave as though I were judging that I was not doing this seriously... I take no responsibility. I do not intend to submit what I am reading to an examination, I do not look for arguments for or against the assumption that what the sentences say is or was true. I do not ... assume that they claim a right to truth or even that they designate a certain state of affairs in the real world” (169). And, second, the basis of a quasi-judgement is not “the receptive cognition of objects” but mental acts only and these of a peculiar kind. These mental acts are intentional acts which do not aim at achieving an accommodation (if

214 Peter McCormick not a correspondence) to what exists antecedently, but at a “progress beyond the world already given, and sometimes liberation from it and the creation of an apparently new world” (170). Quasi-judgements then are neither properly serious nor primarily oriented to the world. These two qualifications provide us with a general view of how genuine judgements are modified. They do not how­ ever particularize because the modification can be manifold depending on whether the quasi-judgement in an individual case is more like the genuine judgement than the pure affir­ mative proposition or vice versa. Some quasi-judgements seem closest to pure affirmative propositions, as in the case of Maeterlinck’s symbolist dramas in Les aveugles or Pelleas et Melisande where no claim to historical versmilitude is made at all. Other quasi-judgements occupy, we might say, the middle ground between the two extreme po­ sitions, as in the case of Biedermeier novels where no histor­ ical claims are made, strictly speaking, but where nonethe­ less “the represented objectivities” do refer in some loose sense to a real world. Finally, still other quasi-judgements seem closest to genuine judgements, as in Schiller’s trilogy Wallenstein, where the represented objectivities are pre­ sented in as faithful a manner as possible in the light of scholarly historical accounts of the same facts and states of affairs. The relative intermediate status, then, of quasi­ judgements seems to be a function of whether or not, and if so then to what degree, the reader of the literary work refers the contents of the purely intentional correlate of his intentions to independently existing real objects or states of affairs. In short, quasi-judgements and the idea of refer­ ence to a real world is also difficult to accept without fur­ ther qualification. For Ingarden here speaks mysteriously, in what seems a deliberate echo of post-Kantian idealism (the quotation marks around the word “placing” are Ingar­ den’s own), of “placing” or positioning an intended state of

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affairs in the spatio-temporal world. But surely when we first think of something or other and then, in a subsequent reflection, think about this something’s existence or non­ existence, we may be performing a mental act of far more ordinary and simple epistemological status than “placing” the intentional content of the first act by the mediacy of a second act in the real world? Why not a simpler, less figurative, and less psychologist account here, and not just of “reference to the world” but of seriousness and reflexive distance as well? But if the description of the first term (genuine judge­ ments) with which Ingarden wishes to contrast quasi­ judgements is misleading, the description of the second term (pure affirmative propositions) is very hard to make much sense of at all. The problem here is not finally with the reference to Meinong’s account of assumption, although in its own right this account is both extensive and quite complicated. At least the reference to “assumptions” gives a general view of what Ingarden has in mind when speaking of “pure affirmative propositions.” And this general idea is clarified a bit by the further reference to Russell’s not unproblematic talk, in the context of the Principia, of “as­ sertions.” The difficulty here rather is with a contrast be­ tween quasi-judgements and pure affirmative propositions. In other words, the contrast is poorly calibrated since the notion of proposition remains, although for a shrinking mi­ nority of philosophers who still hold for the existence of such entities instead of plumping for sentences tout court, a controversial one indeed. Even were we to translate talk of propositions here into talk of sentences, however, Ingar­ den gives us no help as to just how such a translation would proceed in such a way as to respect at least the major lines of his own comprehensive ontology. Finally, a closely re­ lated difficulty here has to do with the unspecified ontolog­ ical status of the contents of pure affirmative propositions.

Peter McCormick 216 Do these contents have the same status as that of any in­ tentional correlate whatsoever, or do they, as Ingarden’s remarks seem to suggest, have a special status? If so, then what specifically is that status? One major difficulty with Ingarden’s account is I think clear. For Ingarden cannot elucidate the nature of quasi­ judgements with the sole help of a double contrast so long as the description of each term in that contrast remains either misleading or virtually unintelligible. But this diffi­ culty is one of detail only. Besides, before any possible re­ construction could be attempted we would need to be much clearer about other features of his doctrine. What then of his account of quasi-judgements and predicative sentences? 6.

Quasi-judgem ents and predicative sentences

So far, in trying to grasp Ingarden’s elusive treatment of quasi-judgements, we have noted a certain hesitation be­ tween formulations which rely on judgements and formu­ lations which rely on sentences. We need now, if possible, to remove this hesitation by scrutinizing Ingarden’s later discussion for clarity about the kinds of sentence he has in mind when talking of quasi-judgements. The starting point for reflection on this issue must be the observation that literary works are composed of a great variety of sentences only some of which are the declara­ tive sentences which expose judgements. Moreover, liter­ ary works contain predicating sentences which perform dif­ ferent functions. Part of Ingarden’s task is to sketch this variety in more detail. The declarative sentences at issue here, Ingarden holds, are usually singular statements, whether those which refer to discrete particulars such as individual persons, or those which refer to higher order particulars, such as those which class-nouns like “company” or “regiment” refer to. In either

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case, these statements function as means for the construc­ tion of the work’s fictional world, to what Ingarden calls “the presented quasi-reality,” even though he adds “they themselves do not belong to it” (174). In addition to these singular predicating sentences, there are plural predicating sentences, singular and general sentences of the type either “some S are P” or “every S is a P,” and finally general predicating sentences which Ingarden calls “gnomic gener­ alizations,” sentences, that is, which “do not refer directly to any particulars presented in the work”20 (175). Since we need to have this set of distinctions clearly in view it will be useful to summarize schematically the four basic kinds of predicating sentence discussed so far together with their respective object. We have, then: 1. Singular predicating sentences which refer to individ­ uals or classes; 2. plural predicating sentences which refer to the same kind of objects as (1); 3. singular predicating sentences of the form “some S axe P ” and plural predicating sentences of the form “every S is a P,” both of which refer to individuals or classes; and 4. gnomic generalizations, which refer to particulars only indirectly. Before bringing his discussion to a point, Ingarden adds a second element. If we are to determine more exactly just what axe the relations between quasi-judgements and sen­ tences, Ingaxden thinks we must taken into account more than just the structure of the paxticulax sentence concerned. We must, that is, consider the contexts of the sentences as well, in other words, “its background and the function it plays in the totality” (176). Consequently, and with this

Peter McCormick 218 principle in mind, Ingarden goes on to deploy those sets of sentences with contexts: (a) “sentences clearly quoted in the text and uttered by one of the characters presented in the work” and (b) “sentences appearing in the works of a borderline character” (176). Examples of each type de­ scribed here are provided. Thus, for (a), consider sentences like Aeneas’ general judgement in the Aeneid, “en Priamus, sunt etiam sua praemia laudi, /sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalem tangunt,/ solve mutus; for (b), con­ sider sentences like du Bellay’s lyric, “hereureux qui comme Ulysse a fait un beau voyage” and, for (c), consider sen­ tences like Goethe’s line in Hermann und Dorothea, “Doch Homeride zu sein, auch nur als letzter, ist schon” (176). Finally, against this double typology — four kinds of sentence and three kinds of sentential context — Ingarden defines the major relationship between sentences and quasi­ judgements. Quasi-judgements are thus not just modified genuine judgements expressed in predicating sentences in literary works, but specifically those judgements expressed in sentences of type (1) which appear in no context like (1), that is, “singular statements that are neither quoted nor uttered by any of the characters presented in the work and that apply to objects presented in the work” (178). Ingarden notes specifically that such sentences may by construed as authorial utterances only at the price of seri­ ous ambiguity. For the author may speak inside his role as author-poet about the world of represented objectivities, or outside that role about the independent real world. But here the question of just whose utterances these sentences are is not beside the point. In fact this question when re­ formulated brings Ingarden to the heart of his discussion. Ingarden’s reformulation is as follows: “Is it that, when the author utters directly within the realm of his poetic work certain judgements in the strict sense of the work about some extra-artistic reality, he abandons his poetic role, or

Literary Truths and Metaphysical Qualities 219 is it that, by uttering them, he not only retains his role but such utterance also constitutes the effective fulfillment of his role?” (177-78). And, of course, behind this for­ mulation is an operative distinction assumed throughout between the author of a work and what Ingarden calls “the lyrical subject” of a work (184). But what about sentences of type (1) which appear in lyrical contexts or borderline contexts? Ingarden wants to claim that, in the case of lyrical works, so long as the dis­ tinction is preserved between author and lyrical subject, then predicating sentences of the lyrical subject, given the other requisite conditions as well, are in fact instances of quasi-judgements. And, in the case of borderline texts such as Goethe’s sentences from the literary preface to Hermann und Dorothea, which is often printed separately as an elegy, Ingarden wants to claim that such sentences have a “dou­ ble aspect” which requires “a similar duality in the reader’s attitude” (196). But, if the first case is reasonably straight­ forward, the second is complicated and requires more dis­ cussion than our present purposes allow. So much then for at least the central relations between quasi-judgements and predicating sentences. Again, just as in the first part of Ingarden’s analysis of quasi-judgements, there is much of substance here. We need only notice the unusual and penetrating way Ingarden makes the familiar distinction between author and lyrical subject, or the care­ ful discussion of the status and kinds of authorial comment in literary works, or the useful remarks about the nature of borderline cases, a topic Ingarden discusses further in an extraordinary analysis of Plato’s Symposium (197 ff.). And again here too we need to enter further particular reserva­ tions before moving into the last part of this account. The analysis of sentences which Ingarden provides us with here leaves much to be desired. This remains the case even when we note his very restricted space for discussing

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this topic, the generally dated quality of his extensive dis­ cussion of the “stratum of linguistic sound formations” in The Literary Work of Art (which requires extensive revision in the light of developments in empirical linguistics since the early thirties when this material was first published), and even when we exclude his unsatisfactory treatment of terms. For Ingarden does not make clear what distinction if any he wishes to introduce between declarative and pred­ icative sentences. Moreover, his account wavers between talk of particular and general sentences. And of course In­ garden makes no mention here of the problematic yet im­ portant cases of negatives, conditionals, interrogatives, and above all, for his account, the distinction between direct and indirect discourse. These difficulties, however, remain questions of detail and do not require extensive reflection for their resolution. A more complicated problem arises when Ingarden pro­ ceeds to talk of sentences plus their contexts. The immedi­ ate difficulty is that we are not able to determine just what the context of the relevant sentences includes and what it excludes; we do not know, from Ingarden’s account, just where to draw the line. Much more important is the subsequent problem with the tripartite division of sentences and contexts. Why three kinds and not two or four or however many? Ingarden provides us with no justification. Moreover, scrutinizing the actual division he proposes would seem to compound our initial puzzlement. Is the distinction here effected in terms of genre, type one being fiction, type two being the lyric? If so, then what happens to the third type? Is the distinction then between fiction (types one and two) and non-fiction (type three)? If so, why specify type three as a borderline case instead of just non-fiction? Ingarden does not answer. These difficulties with both Ingarden’s account of sen­

Literary Truths and Metaphysical Qualities 221 tences and his typology of sentential contexts are not with­ out their consequences. For when he arrives at specifying the nature of these sentences in which quasi-judgements are expressed, his account is necessarily uneven. We find again a lack of definiteness in his switching between talk of sentences and, this time, not of propositions but of state­ ments. Moreover, the negative reference to the first type of sentential context is especially weak because no atten­ tion has been paid earlier to the distinction between direct and indirect discourse. Finally, the unspecified notion of context is made to do too heavy a job when left both un­ determined and then in addition negative. The result is a description of a class of literary sentences, normally those in which putative literary truths are supposedly expressed, which so far from enhancing our understanding of the car­ dinal concept of quasi-judgements actually impedes that understanding by its surprising incompleteness. I turn now from the application of Ingarden’s idea of quasi-judgement to the notion of literary truths. 7.

Literary truths and m etaphysical qualities

The problem of the nature of literary truths arises from Ingarden’s account of the nature of quasi-judgements. The central difficulty for Ingarden in this account, as opposed to the problems I have been trying to exhibit, is the ten­ sion between the modified character of judgements and the persistent claim that literary artworks have something to do with reality. Thus, the question about literary truths “arises, on the one hand, from the assertion . . . that no sentence in a literary work of art is a ’judgement’ in the true sense of the word, and, on the other hand, from the .. .assertion that the poet seeks to give ’reality’ in his work.”21 If however we are somewhat clearer about In­ garden’s views on quasi-judgements, the new idea here of

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Peter McCormick “reality” needs some sorting out before we can grasp clearly enough the opposition between these two assertions. Ingarden provides us immediately with four different senses of the cardinal term “reality.” (1) The strictest sense of the term refers to “a determined relationship between a true predicative proposition and an objectively existing state of affairs selected by its meaning content” (300). This idea of “reality” would at first glance seem to be the idea re­ quired by a traditional correspondence theory of truth. But such an interpretation would be premature as is demon­ strated by Ingarden’s further talk here of the proposition being characterized by “a relative quasi-feature,” a topic already detailed at length in chapter six of Ingarden’s Essentiale Fragen,22 A second sense (2) of the term “reality” is the figurative sense in which the judicative proposition itself rather than the relationship between the proposition and the world is called a “truth.” The third sense (3) is that in which a true judicative proposition’s intentional cor­ relate is described as its “truth.” And the final sense (4) of “reality” is that in which he speaks of “the appertaining objectively existing state of affairs.”23 It is already clear from his enumeration, however, that Ingarden’s discussion is once again overly loose. For each of the four senses just distinguished is to be understood as a gloss not so much on the term “reality” as on “truth,” or, more simply, a “sense” of the word “truth,” a not uncontroversial view. Moreover, no one of these senses does justice to the idea of literary truth. For as Ingarden him­ self points out senses (1) to (3), in that they all refer to genuine or proper judicative propositions, cannot be rele­ vant to a discussion of the quasi-judgements which char­ acterize the literary work. And sense (4) is also irrelevant because, as Ingarden repeatedly insists, “objectively exist­ ing states of affairs in no way constitute an element of a literary work” (301). In short, whatever sense might be

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found for the expression “literary truth” it is in no way to be regarded the content of a true proposition (cf. 303). But if these senses are, without exception, inappropri­ ate, just in what senses may we speak of literary truths? Ingarden suggests four. To begin with we have the sense of “literary truth ” as (5) truth by reproduction of repre­ sented objectivities, a sense of truth which is operative in contexts where we speak of a literary work being a “good copy” of something or other as in, but only in, the case of historical novels. In this sense what is spoken of as true is what is well represented. Ingarden specifies: “we then call ’true’ a represented objectivity engaged in the function of reproduction (or the sentences effecting its constitution) if it is the truest reproduction of an appropriately reproduced real objectivity” (301). A further sense of literary truth (6) is that of objective consistency. In this sense, once an au­ thor has determined the kind of entity he is dealing with, say a character or an event, then he is bound to observe in his subsequent dealings with the same entity the iden­ tity conditions and criteria which determine that entity. In addition, the relevant empirical laws which may govern actual entities of the given intentional type must also be observed, together with what Ingarden obscurely calls “the a priori essential laws of the given ontic region” in which this entity is specifiable (302). It should be noted that (5) and (6) are not to be understood as conditions for the ex­ istence of a literary work, but only as senses of the term “literary truth.” For Ingarden is aware that many literary works do not exhibit a concern for either verisimilitude or consistency. Still another sense of “literary truth” (7) is the notion of tru th as the presence of “metaphysical qualities.” Ingaxden has in mind here a vaxiety of matters which I will touch on briefly in a moment. For now the main point he wishes to make is that some literary works axe “true” despite the

Peter McCormick 224 lack of either a representative function of a concern with objective consistency. In these works situations are, if not represented, at least presented, and indeed with or without their proper metaphysical qualities. When these qualities are present, Ingarden wants to claim, we speak in this sense of literary truths. A final sense of “literary truth” (8) comes clear in In­ garden’s discussion of the related term of the “idea” of a literary work. Here we speak of “literary truth” not just in the sense of a given metaphysical quality but in the larger sense of the presence or “manifestation” of that metaphys­ ical quality together “with the total situation in which it is manifested” (304). Ingarden tries to put this nuance more exactly. The “literary truth” of a work in the sense of the “idea” of a work “is based on the essential connection, brought to intuitive self-givenness, that exists between a determinate represented life-situation ... and a metaphys­ ical quality that manifests itself in that life-situation and draws its unique coloration from its contents” (304). The connection cannot be grasped in a purely conceptual way, Ingarden says, but when grasped it allows one to under­ stand the literary work in its most fundamental unity. In sum, we may for Ingarden speak properly of “literary truths” in no one of senses (1) through (4), and in any one of senses (5) through (8). But we need now to explicitate more fully just what Ingarden would seem to have in mind ny his talk of “metaphysical qualities.” The topic is a central one for Ingarden the ontologist, and thus a very extensive subject. The relevant materi­ als for our purposes, however, can be found in sections 48 and 49 of The Literary Work of Art. Before trying to dis­ cern the most important features of metaphysical qualities, it is worth citing their evocative description in Ingarden’s own words. Life goes by — if one may say so — sense-

Literary Truths and Metaphysical Qualities 225 lessly, gray and meaningless... And then comes a day — like a grace — when perhaps for rea­ sons that axe unremarkable and unnoticed, and usually also concealed, an “event” occurs which envelops us and our surroundings in just such an indescribably atmosphere, whatever the par­ ticular quality of this atmosphere, whether it is frightening or enchanting to distraction, it dis­ tinguishes itself like a shining, colorful splen­ dor from the every day grayness of the days, and it makes of the given event life’s culmina­ tion point, regardless of whether the basis for it is the shock of a brutal and wicked murder or the spiritual ecstasy of union with God. These “metaphysical” qualities — as we would like to call them — which reveal themselves from time to time are what make life worth living, and, whether we wish it or not, a secret longing for their concrete revelation lives in us and drives is in all our affairs and days. Their revelation constitutes the summit and the very depths of existence... When we see them, the depths and primal sources of existence, to which we are usually blind and which we hardly sense in our daily lives, axe “revealed,” as Heidegger would say, to our mind’s eye. But they not only reveal themselves to us; in looking at and in realizing them, we enter into primal existence. We do not merely see manifested in them that which is otherwise mysterious; instead, they are the primal [element] itself in one of its forms. But they can be fully shown to us only when they become reality... They are high points which throw a shadow on the rest of our lives; that is, they evoke radical transformation in the ex-

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Peter McCormick istence which is immersed in them, regardless of whether they bring with them deliverance or damnation (291-92).

Ingarden wants to hold that metaphysical qualities are not “properties” of objects. Nor are they “features” of mental states. Rather, he calls them “simple or ’derived’ qualities (essences)” in the sense of these slippery terms which he detailed in Essentiale Fragen. Example are such things as — and here is Ingarden’s own list — “the sublime, the tragic, the dreadful, the shocking, the inexplicable, the demonic, the holy, the sinful, the sorrowful, the indescrib­ able brightness of good fortune, as well as the grotesque, the charming, the light, the peaceful, etc.” (290-91). These qualities do not occur often. But when they occur they have a positive value in the context of a life. More­ over, metaphysical qualities are not graspable — and here we recall the sense of “literary truth” as the idea of a work — by conceptual means only. In fact Ingarden goes further here and holds that such qualities are not graspable by any purely rational means in the way that, say, mathematical theories are comprehended. Rather, metaphysical quali­ ties, as it were, let themselves be “seen in the determinate situations in which they arise” (292). To be grasped, such qualities must be perceived by someone who is in the situa­ tion within which such qualities make themselves manifest. Moreover, when perceived, metaphysical qualities exhibit a “deeper sense” to life. Such a perception however cannot be forced; these qualities in some sense conceal themselves. “And it is precisely when we are awaiting and desiring their realization and the opportunity to behold them that they do not appear” (193). Yet, says Ingarden, all persons se­ cretly long to lose themselves in contemplation of such qual­ ities. And this secret aspiration is what lies at the basis of both philosophical understanding and artistic creativity.

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Now, in the literary artwork metaphysical qualities, when present, are exhibited by represented or presented ob­ jective situations. Indeed, Ingarden wants to claim that a literary artwork on the one hand culminates in the manifes­ tations of metaphysical qualities and on the other achieves its individuality in terms of just how it manifests these qual­ ities. Such qualities are concretized in literary artworks al­ though they are realized only in actual life situations which these concretizations simulate. Because of this simulation there is a close relation between their concretization and their realization; because of the distance between the two, however, metaphysical qualities may be contemplated in literary artworks where they most often may only be lived through in reality. Distance also accounts for the fact that realizations of metaphysical qualities transform lives more often than their concretizations do, a point which Ingarden relates to Aristotle’s doctrine of catharsis. The concretiza­ tions of such qualities allow of degrees so that literary works sometimes may only prepare such concretization without any preparation at all. But the most important idea here in this talk of the manifestation of metaphysical qualities and the modes of this manifestation is the link with the larger topic of values. “The manifested metaphysical quality,” In­ garden writes, “as well as the manner of its manifestations in the concretization of a literary work of art, constitute an aesthetic value” (298). So much then for the fuller sense of literary truths as the presence of metaphysical qualities in literary works or as the idea of metaphysical qualities. 8.

Conclusion

The poet Sidney’s affirmation that the poet never lies because “hee nothing affirmes,” raises, I have tried to show, a number of confusing issues about the nature of aesthetic

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truths in general and literary truths in particular. I have been concerned to illustrate and then to clarify by contrast at least some of the central elements these issues involve. More specifically, I have suggested that the fact of repre­ sentative contemporary philosophical disagreement about the nature of these details invites renewed inquiry. Before that investigation can be pursued in a thematic fashion, however, it is necessary to win some critical distance on such contemporary formulations of the problem of literary truths by examining the historical contexts and interpreta­ tions which thoroughly condition these formulations, even if they do not determine them. I have tried to make a start here by calling attention to Ingaxden’s aesthetics. Through­ out my description of Ingarden’s account I have been con­ cerned to point out both positive features and problematic ones. These comments, however have been restricted to individual details in Ingarden’s account. Here we need to step a bit further back. To begin with, it is difficult to see how Ingaxden’s ac­ count of literary truths, for all its inventiveness and sub­ tlety, can be accepted. For the central concept in this account is that of the quasi-judgement, and this concept itself is spelled out only with reference to a problematic ac­ count of genuine judgements and an even more problematic account of so-called pure affirmative propositions. More­ over, as we have seen, Ingarden’s discussion of the kinds of sentence and so-called sentential contexts in which quasi­ judgements are expressed requires a number of precisions as well. Nonetheless, when we go through Ingaxden’s ac­ count of literary truths more critically there do not seem to be, at least in the materials we have examined, grounds for in-principle objections to this account. Provided that the relevant detail in Ingaxden’s treatment of both quasi­ judgements and sentences can be adequately reconstructed, then his account of literary truth can be proposed as a co­

Literary Truths and Metaphysical Quahties 229 herent whole. But I think there is still one fundamental issue which may not be amenable to such generous and sympathetic efforts and hence may induce some ground for making an in-principle objection to Ingarden’s account. This issue comes to the question of whether Ingarden’s account of literary truth entails the concept of the aes­ thetic, particularly in its guise as “the aesthetic attitude” or “the aesthetic experience.” In one of the central and late texts which I have used in this exposition, when discussing the kind of sentence peculiar to literary works, Ingarden writes: “the nature of these sentences is not easy to describe precisely. It is connected with the aesthetic attitude with which we read literary works and specifically with the spe­ cial way in which as a result the reader regards predicating sentences.”24 And towards the end of the same central text when Ingarden is discussing the relations between literary artworks and values, he writes with respect to these values: “there experience is made possible by, among other things, the aesthetic attitude in which the work of art places its consumer” (201-02). And finally we need to recall in this context much of the continuing dispute in aesthetics gener­ ally and especially in the evaluation of Ingarden’s aesthet­ ics about the putative existence of aesthetic objects. For besides the aesthetic attitude and aesthetic experience, In­ garden’s view of literary truths involves even if it does not entail a commitment to their being aesthetic objects. But to the degree that Ingarden’s theory of literary truths nec­ essarily involves the concept of the aesthetic — that is, to the degree his theory cannot be detailed without appeal­ ing to such a concept — then this theory seems flawed in principle. For, as one of the few things aesthetics has man­ aged to demonstrate at least in the mid twentieth century, theories of aesthetic experience cannot finally resist deter­ mined criticism. But this objection would require extensive clarification in its own right as well as careful re-reading of

230 Peter McCormick Ingarden’s fuller treatment of the concept of the aesthetic elsewhere. And this is beside our present purpose. It may then be most appropriate to conclude this discus­ sion of literary truths with a final citation from Ingarden’s work, in which he makes one of his rare attempts to summa­ rize the kernel of his views. “The function of art in general and of literature in particular,” Ingarden writes, “is not to teach man by means of judgements what the real world is like, and in performing its task it does not have to resort to judgements in the strict sense. Its chief function is to show the possible and necessary connections between the quali­ tative endowment of objects, and of man in particular, and values and to enable man to enter into a direct commerce with values by acting upon his emotional life” (203).

N otes 1. Sidney, 31. 2. Some evidence of the difficulties here is available in recent work on the application of formal hermeneutics to literary texts. See Gabriel, Aschenbrenner, Mellor, and Pavel and Wood. 3. Steiner, ch. 7. 4. Beardsely 1966, 13. 5. Weitz, Hospers 1946 and 1960, Beardsley 1958, and Mandelbaum. 6. Beardsley 1958, 404. 7. See Beardsley 1958, 419-20. 8. Hospers, 203.

Literary Truths and Metaphysical Qualities 9.

231

The major text here is Gadamer.

10. See McCormick 1976. 11. See the primary and secondary bibliographies in McCormick 1986, 181-261. 12. Gadamer, 134. 13. Hamburger 1957. 14. Ingarden [7], The L ite ra ry W ork o f A r t, 180-81. 15. Ingarden [21], 415-64. 16. Ingarden [11], The Cognition o f the L ite ra ry W ork o f A rt, and Ingarden (13). 17. Ingarden [21], 167. Herafter cited as “TIL.” 18. Ingarden [7], 179, and Ingarden (11), 64. 19. TIL, 166-167. 20. TIL, 202-203 (italics added). 21. Ingarden 1930a and Ingarden 1930b. See McCormick 1985, P29 and P30 on p. 188. 22. Ingarden [7], 300. 23. Ingarden [4] and Ingarden in McCormick 1985, P14 on p. 186. 24. Ingarden [7], 301. 25. TIL, 165-66.

References Aschenbrenner, K. 1968. “Implications of Frege’s Philosophy of Language for Literature.” British Journal of Aesthetics 8:319-34. Beardsley, M.C. 1958. Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism. New York: Harcourt Brace.

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---------. 1966. Aesthetics: From Classical Greece to the Present. New York: MacMillan. Gabriel, G. 1975. Filetion and Wahrheit. Stuttgart: Frommann Holzborg. Gadamer, H.-G. 1975. Truth and Method. Tr. by G. Barden and J. Cumming. New York: Continuum. Hospers, J. 1946. Meaning and Truth in the Arts. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ---------. 1960. “Implied Truths in Literature.” Journal of Aesthetics and A rt Criticism 19:37-46. McCormick, P. 1976. Heidegger and the Language of the World. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. ---------. ed. 1985. Roman Ingarden: Selected Papers in Aesthetics. Munich: Philosophia Verlag. Mandelbaum, M. 1965. “Family Resemblance and Generalizations Concerning the Arts.” In Dickie, ed. 1977:500-515. Margolis, J. ed. 1962. Philosophy Looks at the Arts. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Mellor, H. 1968. “Literarische Wahrheit.” Ratio 10:124-40. Pavel, T., and J. Wood, eds. 1979. “Literary Semantics.” Poetica, special issue. Sidney, P. 1969. The Apology for Poetry. Edited by M.R. Mahl. Northridge, Calif.: San Fernando State College. Steiner, G. 1975. A fter Babel. New York: Oxford University Press. Weitz, M. 1935. “Truth in Literature.” Philosophic 9:116-29

Revue Internationale de

IX.

On Ingarden’s Conception of the Musical Composition

Andrzej Pytlak

Roman Ingarden’s “Utwor muzyczny i sprawa jego tozsamosci” (The Musical Composition and the Matter of Its Identity) as well as his other studies concerning different domains of art have for years been an inexhaustible stimu­ lus for diverse considerations on aesthetics. Dissertations on musical composition hold, I believe, a special place in contemporary scientific literature, since the problem of the mode of existence and the identity of a mu­ sical composition has not yet been critically analyzed. In­ garden’s conception of an opus in music we for a long time a kind of separate trend in the contemporary aesthetics of music. The problems he undertook were bypassed more of­ ten than not by other scholars, and the definitions of a mu­ sical composition we come across in studies and manuals in various domains of the theory of music delineate solutions of the issue of the mode of existence and the essence of a work of music far removed from the results of research con­ ception of the musical composition similar to Ingarden’s, 1 to say nothing, naturally, about the works clearly making reference to Ingarden’s studies. Today we can say, how­ ever, that the aesthetics of music of recent years leans dis­ tinctly toward Ingarden’s propositions following differen­ tiated ways and paths leading to similar approaches and results in his “purely intentional object,” which must be distinguished from the real object. The real object possesses its essence, i.e., a specific set of qualifications (designations) which are perfectly imma­ nent to it; it is ontologically autonomous, self-contained, 233 B. Dziemidok and P. McCormick (eds.), On the Aesthetics o f Roman Ingarden, 233-254. 1989 by Kluwer Academic Publishers.

234 Andrzej Pytlak or holding its ontological foundation in itself. The purely intentional object does not possess its essence: it only has a kind of constitutive nature which belongs with it and which enables us to identify that object. Thus, ontologically, it is heteronomic, having its ontological foundation in something else. All material designations that appear in contents of purely intentional objects as well as all formal and even existential moments are no more than ascribed to the purely intentional object, mentally allocated to it. The purely intentional object is characterized by the two sidedness of its form. One side is its “contents,” the other its “intentional structure.” This differentiation fol­ lows from the distinction within the intentional act between the act itself and the object of the act. The content is what we conjecture in the purely intentional object in its content is exactly alike it is conjectured: the fact that it is conjectured, that all is ascribed to it, is an essential fea­ ture of its intentional structure. A characteristic mark of the purely intentional object is also the fact that its con­ tent is incompletely defined, showing gaps, and also that in its content, the purely intentional object may be logically contradictory, internally discordant and incomplete. These very features of the purely intentional object account for its excellent applicability to works of art. All works of art are purely intentional objects. Their vehicle is some real object and they have their abuse in conscious experiences of the author (creator). Works of art are not a part of the experiences of their author, neither axe they a part of the experiences of recipients. They are separate from them and from the real objects in which they hold only the ontolog­ ical foundation of their existence. Consequently, a work of art is a purely intentional object based on a real object and to some extent indirectly on creative operations of the author as well as on perceptual operations of the recipients. Coming into contact with the real object of a work of

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art, man objectivizes, the purely intentional object, that is, receives it in a certain way, experiences its presence. Nat­ urally, it is an intentional act. Its intentionality is deter­ mined, first by the sign of art (a given word, musical note, painting) which carries intentionality defined as it were by itself, contained in itself: it is some visible content. And at the same time, second it is determined by our inten­ tion concerning the sign, aiming at it with some invisible, “empty”, content ant that therefore hits the object with a uni-accordant sense.2 Then something like a bond (co­ operation) develops, a fusion of intentionality determined by the sign and by our attitude. This phenomenon is pro­ vided by self presence of the purely intentional object in our observation. Only then the concretization of a work of art is possible, i.e., only then is the completion of its desig­ nation, the intentional filling of the gaps which every work of art contains, since it is a purely intentional object. If individual concretization, set on a basis intentionally determined by the sign and accompanied by a specific atti­ tude of the perceiving subject, attains a quality of harmony evoking an aesthetic experience,3 then we are dealing with an aesthetic object. This aesthetic object exists purely in­ tentionally and is purely intentionally created in the cre­ ative experience with a work of art as its base. Such is an outline of the general assumptions of Ingar­ den’s concept of art, or more precisely, of the mode of ex­ istence of works of art and the process of constituting of an aesthetic object. It follows from the above that Ingar­ den’s fundamental question concerns the existence and the identity of a work of art. It is an existential-ontological question to which the author provide an answer in partic­ ular aesthetic studies concerned with different kinds of art. A musical composition is a work produced by the musi­ cian in the course of his creative efforts. From that moment on it exists regardless of the fact whether anyone receives

236 Andrzej Pytlak it or not. It exists without its maker and without being heard. Ingarden devoted the initial three chapters of his study to negative considerations, in which he arrived at the fol­ lowing statements: 1. A musical composition can be performed in various ways because true judgments about performances are false when applied to the very composition, and con­ versely, true judgments about the composition are false in relation to performances of it. For exam­ ple: every performance is univocally placed in space. It has specific localization, both, in objective terms, as the movement of air waves and as a phenomenon, because it is taking place upon a given stage. Fur­ ther, a musical composition lacks spatial localization (or has an unrestricted localization). Also, every per­ formance is specific, and there can be many perfor­ mances. Finally, musical composition is determined by qualities that do not subject themselves to differ­ entiation. It is always one and the same. There is, therefore, no identity of a musical composition and its performance. 2. A musical composition is a conscious experience nei­ ther of its author nor of a listener listening to it. A musical composition is nothing mental or subjective; it is not a component of the perceiving subject. Sound formations subordinate only quality data of experi­ ence but are not a componential part of them.4 3. A musical composition is not a music score. A mu­ sical composition cannot be identified with the score because, firstly, not every piece of music is recorded and secondly, the score is a system of conventional­ ized signs and is different from the composition to

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the extent that the sign is different from the object represented by it. In the subsequent two chapters, Ingarden attempted to give precision to certain characteristic features of a musical composition, its typical distinctive marks: 1. A musical composition is not a sign referring us to another, real, fact (like the singing of a bird that refers us to a bird, the honking of a car that refers us to an automobile). 2. A musical composition possesses its individuality by the specific, unique selection and harmony of qualities defining it. This is a purely qualitative individuality. 3. A musical composition is supra-individual in relation to the individuality of real objects determined spatiotemporally. 4. A musical composition is supra-temporal. The orga­ nized continuum of phases of a composition is deter­ mined exclusively by components and moments of the work itself and not by something belonging to the real world outside the work. It is unsusceptible to any­ thing outside itself — for example, to the temporal colouring of its performances. 5. A musical composition has a quasi-temporal struc­ ture. This structure consists in a functional depen­ dence of contemporariness and vari-temporariness. Diverse subordinations take place here, which are best illustrated by Ingarden’s “time perspective,” — the finite range of the present time. The time perspec­ tive is determined by three mutually defining mem­ bers (tri-unity): retention, the now actual point, and protension. Retension is the lower (first) limit of

Andrzej Pytlak present time; something that has passed has already the now actual point but is still bound to it, projects onto, and remains with it a contact in a determining tendency, drawing upon itself what is not yet but be­ gins to take shape; this from the upper (second) limit of the range of the present time, protension. The temporal range of the present time is of slit-like nature and is, in turn, a kind of “now” point in re­ lation to the past and the future. The phenomenon may be presented in the following diagram: retention

—

“now” point

—

protension

present time past

future

Naturally, it is only a functional subordination, which has nothing to do with a similar structure of the phases of quality time. Quality time includes the present and the past; it never contains future qualities going beyond protension. The quasi-temporal struc­ ture, on the other hand is a finite, complete entity including the past, the present, and the future. A musical composition includes sound form ations and form ations o f a non-sonic nature determined by them.

For example, motion, audited space, form, emotional qualities, aesthetically valuable qualities, as well as qualities of aesthetic values. In chapters six to eight, Ingarden considers in suc­ cession the problems of the mode of existence of a musical composition, its totality, and its identity.

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A musical composition exists as a purely intentional object the foundation of which is the score and the source of which is its maker. Its source and the foun­ dation are real. The piece itself is neither a psychic (mental) phenomenon nor a physical object. It is a purely intentional being. The entirety of a composi­ tion is warranted by the rationality of its structure, which is characterized not only by occurrences in suc­ cession but the mutual affiliation of all its parts. The very specific sense of its sound-form fall into a unity, an organic totality. The problem of the identity of a musical composition is fully insoluble. It can be phrased only in the follow­ ing way: a musical composition is an organic entity determined by formations of a sonic and non-sonic na­ ture which exists purely intentionally while retaining its schematic identity, which requires the completion of its definition. Ingarden’s study still retains its full topicality in contempo­ rary aesthetics and is an inexhaustible source of inspiration. In the field of music itself, however, certain of Ingarden’s thoughts lose their topicality. For this reason, study calls for analyses and supplementations and leaves room for crit­ ical complementary remarks. I should like to attem pt to formulate several remarks, though I am fully aware of all that this demands. Given at the outset the limited scope of the present article, I must precisely define the method and the range of my work plus my attitude toward Ingarden’s study. The method was dic­ tated by my own studies of Ingarden’s work and my experi­ ence as a performing musician has encouraged me to make this critical analysis, which will be far from complete. Not all of the major problems raised by Ingarden will be dis­ cussed here and not all of the doubts that come to mind in

240 Andrzej Pytlak the course of repeated readings of the text will be noted. I am concerned only with a special kind of continuation of In­ garden’s thoughts — a continuation formulated by putting into question certain of the author’s statements regarding the musical composition. In my opinion there is urgent need to question Ingar­ den’s theses which do not permit us to fully apprehend the musical composition. My critical standpoint as a perform­ ing musician is based on reflections stemming from direct contact with musical compositions, which I think is very useful for going deep into Ingarden’s thoughts. The methodology of my work upon Ingarden’s text can be presented as follows: (1) limitation to only certain issues from the entire range of subjects discussed in “The Musi­ cal Composition,” (2) limitation of the scope of the critical analysis to arguments raising doubts, (3) an overall atti­ tude largely oriented toward the continuation of Ingarden’s thought’s, and (4) the adoption of a critical attitude from the standpoint of a performing musician. According to the above outline, my critical remarks can be summed up in the following these: 1. In the present-day understanding of the musical com­ position, goes beyond Ingarden’s conceptions, making some of his statements lose currency. 2. Ingarden’s assumption that a work of art in mu­ sic precedes its performance is untenable within the framework of his own reasoning, and cannot be ac­ cepted. 3. Ingarden’s severance of a musical composition from its performance was carried out in an oversimplified manner and now calls for revision. 4. The existence of a musical composition is not ex­ hausted by the purely intentional object.

Ingarden and the Musical Composition 241 5. Certain new elements should be introduced into In­ garden’s notion of the “concretization” of a musical composition. This would expand the entire range of problems concerning a musical composition making it more adequate to the very object of the study. Ad (1) Since a musical composition, seen in Ingarden’s terms, is primarily or exclusively a sound formation, it does not include concrete music, for instance, which is not a fact in­ different to an overall conception of a musical composition. Truly, Ingarden could question the relation of concrete mu­ sic to music; he also could answer that his considerations pertained only to so-called pure music, but it is for this very reason that the m atter deserves attention today. Ingarden’s dissertation requires new distinctions in the domain of mu­ sic, and corresponding revisions or a change in the title — The Composition of Pure Music and the Matter of Its Iden­ tity. Without such an addition, Ingarden’s work starts on its way into history. A separate problem is aleatorism — the improvised cre­ ation of a musical work of art. A musical composition con­ tains a gap, which should not, however, be seen in Ingar­ den’s sense of an underdefined spot but rather as an uncom­ posed fragment (in Ingarden’esque terminology) does not yet exist. This gap is not determined, by any intentionally created schematic pattern. The filling of such gaps must take place in accordance with a principle different from the one Ingarden had foreseen. Prior to its performance, an im­ provised composition simply does not exist. Consequently, it falls out of Ingarden’s conception even if it is a piece of pure music. If we picture such a gap as something intended at the conclusion of a given composition we face the classical case

242 Andrzej Pytlak of an unfinished composition. Ingarden had not considered such a possibility. I do not regard this as an inadvertent oversight, it is an issue of extreme interest and importance. I believe it could have led Ingarden beyond the framework he had designated for a musical composition. A similar situation occurs with a composition treated as a theme for variations by another composer, or in so-called improvisa­ tions on the theme. Do such pieces consist in a single musi­ cal composition? Does the theme remain one and the same in a context it had become a part of? What matters at this point is not a variational transformation but the theme of, for example, the opening part of a given composition, from which no change has taken place. How can such a “union” of musical compositions by different composers, often from different epochs, be possible in a single totality? I believe that the problems of an unfinished composition and of a (foreign) theme in a variation cycle axe particularly significant to considerations on the mode of existence of a musical composition, and should not be left unconsidered. A d (2) In order to prove that performances need not be subse­ quent in time to a work of art in music, consider an impro­ vised composition. It comes to life as the result of a given set of activities, and yet, in the course of improvisations it is not but is being created. And yet — how strange — it is already being performed! In Ingarden’s understand­ ing, half-way in to the improvisation there already exists the performance because the statements he had formulated to characterize performance are true in regaxd to it. This piece is, let us say, being performed and at the same time it does not exist (in Ingarden’s terms), because the state­ ments given to characterize the musical composition are false.

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A d (3) An approximation of a musical composition to its per­ formance is the score. Contrary to Ingarden, I must say that determinations regarding a given instrument foreseen in the score include at least one feature that is the same in the score as well as in the musical composition. The instrumental texture of a composition is what I have in mind. Enclosed in the composition and the score in a finite maimer, it is subject to deviation. A musical composition must contain a given possibility of performing it. Not each and every instrument can meet the challenge; a trombone is unfit to perform a sonata by Chopin. We are informed about this fact only by an element of the instrumental tex­ ture of a musical composition, i.e., by the score. In my opinion, Ingarden missed this aspect by an oversight, al­ though the m atter is of essential significance to the score. The score is the schematic design of a musical composition, so why delete from it such important elements? Besides, the determination concerning a given instrument brings the musical composition closer to the performance. The score is a schematic design of a musical composition but, as a recipe, it is also a schematic design for performance. Thus, in a way, it is a “bridge” — an arrangement of elements that permits perception of similarities and of what binds the two forms of a musical composition.5 An axiom characteristic of Ingarden’s reasoning is the designation of a musical composition as a sound formation. I do not know how it could be contradicted that sound formations do not form a component of the performance of such a piece. In Ingarden’s conception, however, this would have to be contradicted, because a musical composition and its performance are two totally different things. It seems to me that at this juncture the author failed to explain certain matters to the full extent. Perhaps it is only a question of

244 Andrzej Pytlak a terminological nature, but since Ingarden did not provide any clarifications in any of his statements that distinguish between the musical composition and its performance, the only thing to be done here is to put a question mark against his views. Another axiom in his reasoning is the similarity between the musical composition and its performances. Thus, dur­ ing a performance an intentional relationship take place: the musical composition — its performance. Such objects as tones and chords mutually subordinated to impressions (i.e., quality data) are similar to the composition itself. The author does not explain what the structure of such a sim­ ilarity is. In what way are these two different things, a musical composition and its performance similar? If they are, then there is the possibility of reducing the similarities to a formally identical shape. W hat is the essence of the similarity? Had the author these two problems, it would have turned out that the severance of a musical composition from its performance would most likely be impossible. Although this kind of performance lies at the foundation of Ingarden’s conception, the great wealth of the author’s ideas provide many arguments running contrary to this statement. As regards performance, Ingarden links it to the fol­ lowing conceptions: (1) a performance is one of the forms of the work; (2) it is something the work is not; (3) it is similar to the work, and (4) it is what unveils the work in its features and the sequence of its parts. Performance, therefore, is one of the forms of the work, namely a real object process. However, this existentially definable pro­ cess is not a musical composition but only a resemblance of it. Owing to this resemblance it is possible to cognize the composition. No mode of cognizance of the work gives us such completeness and concreteness as when we listen to it being performed. The best starting point for all kinds

Ingarden and the Musical Composition 245 of analysis can only and exclusively be its performance — a special kind of operation that can be perceived. Even if a musical composition is different from its performance, still its features are entangled with the performance. This, naturally, does not forejudge final solutions of the prob­ lem — what a musical composition is. Ingarden maintains, however, that if there exists performance then it must be a performance of something. This something — a musical composition, of course — already exists, independently of performance and prior to it. It is an unwarranted argument stemming from an er­ roneous way of speaking. In the justification of my sec­ ond critical thesis I have already pointed out the falsity of the view. It is mistaken, firstly because only in music is the word “performance” linked (unjustly) to the convic­ tion shared by Ingarden that, in time, performance comes after the musical composition. Normally, the reasoning is the reverse: the composition as such follows the perfor­ mance (all activities leading to it). Therefore, it is better in this case to speak of the reproduction of a musical com­ position so that language does not deceive us. This m atter calls for considerations that are missing from Ingarden’s ac­ count. Secondly, Ingarden uses the word “performance” in the sense of a performing or a “rendition” of someone else’s composition, which axe two completely different things. It is rather easy to disconnect the musical composition from the process of its musical interpretation. The matter, how­ ever, grows more complicated and goes beyond the frame­ work of Ingarden’s argumentation, if we examine a musical composition and its completion, i.e., a thing that is com­ pleted, finished, executed. And the existence of something like an accomplished performance fits Ingarden’s concep­ tion perfectly. Suffice it to mention here the phenomenon of retention and the living memory of what has already passed in time or has lost its currency.

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Performance is a process. The object of that process is finished only at the end of the process, as something com­ pleted and gone. The totality of the phases after the end of the process keeps moving, a totality moving further and further into the past without any alteration from the for­ mal or material point of view. Only the degree of intensity of existence varies depending on what happens in all the new presents, which follow that process. Moreover, accord­ ing to Ingarden, only then (ex post) we come to know it as a comprehensively defined entity. Man, a conscious being that lives a conscious life, is capable of the purely inten­ tional grasping of what each and every phase of present and current interests. The completed performance can be apprehended and defined by means of what Ingarden calls a “reconstructing vision7’ in reverberations of a completed act of perception. We can ascribe many of those features to an accom­ plished performance, namely those which Ingarden re­ served exclusively for the musical composition: the se­ quence of parts, “free” localization in space, and even a quasi-temporal structure. It also contains an element of the instrumental texture of a musical composition mentioned above. Although I do not believe it is possible to prove the identity of a musical composition and is performance, certainly some of the essential features that are common can be revealed. The non-sonic components, for example, which correspond to Ingarden’s notion of form, are trans­ ferable onto an accomplished performance. Independently of this, all parts of the performance conceived in this way exist simultaneously, just as they do in a musical composi­ tion. At the time of its completion it ceases to be a process; it does not change; it is unique, or one and only. The most important thing is that it is something totally different from what Ingarden conceives as performance, which he treats too simply.

Ingarden and the Musical Composition A d (4)

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As concerns the mode of existence of a musical compo­ sition Ingarden says that if we consider it as a purely in­ tentional object one must take into account three elements: the author (his operations), the score or performance, and perception. His analysis, however, is related to the com­ position itself. Consequently, the problem of the mode ex­ istence of a musical composition was treated Ingarden as a separate issue and was discussed in the object-oriented aspect. In other words to say anything about an object, according Ingarden, it is necessary to consider its form, its content and its mode of existence. My attention is focused on the mode of existence. Is it truly so that a musical composition exhausts its existence in the form of an object (being) that is purely intentional? If it cannot be radically divided from performance (and from the score, if one exists), and because it enters real-like object relationships via performance (or the score), it can therefore build an entirely new totality. Perhaps something like domain-switching takes place here and the emergence of an entirely new totality occurs possible if we follow In­ garden’s philosophical theory. The concept of a work of art understood as a purely intentional object would not have to be rejected in total: it would it would only call for some additions, and this only in relation to musical composition. It is necessary to reject the separation of the musical composition from its performance in the absolute sense as postulated by Ingarden. I believe that under such circumstances it would be much easier to give precision to and shed light on at least some of the fundamental issues which in Ingarden’s text were suspended by necessity. For instance, the m atter of the adequate perception of a musi­ cal composition; verity in performances; an ideal system of presentations, on the external side, which the composition

248 Andrzej Pytlak determines; or even the exceptionally difficult problem of the identity of a musical composition. One way to move closer to the solution of the problem of the identity of a musical composition, separating its specific structure from other phenomena and acoustic formations, would be to find a marker characteristic of music. In his search for such a marker Ingarden bypassed an extremely important fact, what has been called the “pure dynamism” of the musical composition.6 The musical marker, as seen by Ingarden, may consist if the following: (a) a special order of sounds in co-occurrence and sequencing, (b) the appearance in a musical composi­ tion of some entirely new factors, and (c) something spe­ cific that distinguishes music from acoustic signals and the sounds of nature (sound phenomena).7 At the same Ingar­ den offers his own explanation: Ad (a). A differing order of tones (sounds) alone does not solve the problem. The ordering of tones is insufficient to say that we are dealing with music, with a musical com­ position. Ad (b). Melody, harmony, rhythm, tempo, expression of feeling, and all the non-sonic formations do not set music apart from other phenomena and arts. All of this is met with elsewhere. Ad (c). The possibility of a music marker is given only here since the sounds of a musical composition need refer to nothing but the sound. I believe this problem can be approached in somewhat broader terms. Yuckerkandl, for example, while approv­ ing Ingarden’s marker according to item (c) introduces a new element to item (b), which Ingarden would have prob­ ably called a formation of a non-sonic nature and which Yuckerkandl calls “pure dynamism.” Pure dynamism sup­ plements item (b) so significantly that it can be retained as a second marker of a musical composition.

Ingarden and the Musical Composition 249 It is a strange fact, however, that Ingarden did not sin­ gle out the element “dynamical essence” in music as a sepa­ rate factor of a musical composition. “Dynamical essence” is contained in his “quasi-temporal” structure, if we con­ ceive of this more in musical terms. Consequently, Ingarden uses it implicite. Although the quasi-temporal structure is characterized musically, he understands and gives precision to it in the same way as he did in regard to a literary work of art. In other words, he does not remain within the exclu­ sive territory of music. Dynamism is a notion familiar to Ingarden as a “specific outline” of a melodic sequence, and also as the “mutual affiliation of sonic formations.” This was clear in his distinction between literature, music, film, ballet, and other arts. It is possible that his excellent anal­ ysis of the work of literature excessively dominated Ingar­ den’s theory as regards the characterization of other arts. Ingarden very clearly gives top priority to the literary work of art as compared with others.8 Let us return to “dynamical essence,” which is a basic category within Yuckerkandl’s conception. It is a qualita­ tive notion. Dynamic quality is what distinguishes a sound taken alone from the same sound taken in a musical con­ text, e.g., at the end of a phrase. Dynamic quality accounts for the fact that the sound becomes and has a given inten­ sity. It is a purely musical quality of sounds, independent of acoustic parameters (that is, physical phenomena, and it does not depend on psychological experience of a recipient nature. It is very special kind of quest via sound that is im­ manent to music itself and determining its sense (Ingarden would say, its “intentional contents”). Pure dynamism re­ lates to states and not to objects, to relationships between intensities and not among positions of sound formations, and finally, to directions rather than dimensions. Dynami­ cal essence, therefore, is a non-material phenomenon which at the same time is a true and significant element of mu­

250 Andrzej Pytlak sic. Conceived in this manner, dynamical essence can be included with item (b) and constitutes and important sup­ plementation of it. Pure dynamics is non-material. If this is so, for Ingar­ den it is a very simple matter, since it is purely intentional. Yuckerkandl, however, perceives this pure dynamism as sit­ uated differently in existent reality. The world of music — non-physical and non-psychic, — not to mention that it cannot be reduced to a mixture of those realms — retains the specific relationship of a “third tension” to them. It is a generality in relationship to the particularity repre­ sented by either physical or psychic phenomena, a relation­ ship of something original to its derivates. Consequently, purely dynamical qualities in music are discoveries rather that products of the composer.9 Where, then does pure dynamism come from? Yuckerkandl handles this fact in the following manner: The world is real and man commands two ways of ex­ periencing the reality of the world: objectively and nonobjectively. External reality exists in an objective manner independent of ourselves . We came to know it in a physical way. The non-objective cognition, however, is of a purely dynamic nature: it is characterized by a co-penetration of myself and the world. It does not mean cognition in the juxtaposition “I and the world independent of me” but as if in a mutual participation. In this kind of cognition, the world divides into an inner and an outer world, the only difference being that the “inner world” is not a synonym of “in me” but embraces the entire world. Thus, the boundary is not vertical but horizontal. It run across the entire world and me. In this manner I belong to the complete context of the world. In this sort of experiencing of reality we do not come to know the world but directly experience it, and it is precisely music that makes this possible for us. Other senses always come across a barrier separating us from the

Ingarden and the Musical Composition

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world, since they cognize it objectively; only the ear makes participation in the totality of the real-being possible. Music does not express psychic states of its maker that we recognize via our within; music is about this inner world. It therefore is not a sound formation although it constitutes the essence of music. Ingarden might well have agreed to such a statement, since for him “musical” need not mean “sonic.” Now, if a musical composition included not only the elements given to it by subjective intentions but also by this “pure dynamism,” that is, a self-existent objective feature, it could not be a purely intentional object. After all, it is I believe a doubtless fact that we do not supply a musical composition with pure dynamism, and it is also a fact that this pure dynamism exists in it. Ad (5) A musical composition’s performance should also be re­ garded somewhat differently. Ingarden enumerates charac­ teristics of a performance in terms of the listener. The same concerns concretization of a musical composition. Even the definition of a musical composition as something that re­ mains in us “in the third tension transcendence” is formu­ lated from the view-point of the listener. According to him, the composition is meant to be listened to. That is true, but it is also to played. Due to is nature, it is first intended for playing and only later for listening. The concretiza­ tion of a musical composition, then, must by necessity be conceived in a two-fold and two-step mode, and here In­ garden makes no such distinction. By a “two-step” cogni­ tion, I mean a concretization of the performer and the of the listener. And “two-fold” means that in the case of the performer this concretization is affected by experiencing an active state of playing — performing, in which we ourselves determine the dynamics of the course of sound formation. As a listener, however, we only observe it. There is a fun­

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damental difference between receiving certain sets of audio­ shapes according to someone’s propositions or determining them ourselves. Concretization by the performer, I would call “partici­ pating” and concretization by the listener “secondly fact.” The listener always receives a musical composition in poly­ phonic duet: in the perceived performance and in his own visualization of it. If at times his visualization of a given musical composition converges with the performer’s propo­ sition it still remains the duet conducted unisono. There are no comparisons with the compositions themselves, as Ingarden suggests on many occasions. In the case of concretization by the performer, this sep­ aration is there. The heaxt of the problem of concretization lies in that fact. The listener in his process of perception perceives himself and the performer. A simple consequence of this is an enquiry about the composition itself. As a listener, he does not create it; only the performer produces it. Where, then, is the composition itself? At this point conceptions running in multiple directions begin to appear. The performer, on the other hand, does not experience such a state. For him a musical composition is something en­ tirely different. If I were to seek comparisons in Ingar­ den’s writings, I would say it is something like the genus of essence,10 in which not the repetition of features but only their specific role in constructing the material designation of an object decides that some one moment is constituting the genus. According to Ingarden, the notion of the genus of essence is applicable to all objects of the real type, thus to all seemingly autonomous objects. It therefore embraces purely intentional objects as well. It is, on the other hand, a broader notion and for that reason, in my opinion, is well suited to the object of our considerations, the musical composition.

Ingarden and the Musical Composition 253 If these remarks are at all penetrating, Ingarden’s con­ ception of the musical composition calls for some broaden­ ing; perhaps even the revision of some of his fundamental statements is called for. This would not mean that the focal thoughts and the results of Ingarden’s research have been undermined. The difficulties I have raised may find their solutions within the framework of this theory, though for my part this does not seem altogether likely. I remain convinced, however, that Ingarden’s interpretation of the musical composition will continue to provide a fruitful area for further study.

N otes 1. Victor Yuckerkandl, Sound and Symbol, Music and the External World (London 1956), a study almost parallel to Ingarden’s dissertation on the musical composition. Other publications taking up more detailed themes include R. Reti The Thematic Process in Music (London 1961), an excellent supplement to Ingarden’s considerations on the issue of the totality of a musical composition; D. Cooke, The Language of Music (Oxford 1959), in which the author develops the strongly marked aspect of Ingarden’s study concerning the contents of the sound itself (sound formations); and D.L. Ferguson Music as Metaphor, The Elements of Expression (1960), as well as E. Newton, The Meaning of Beauty (Harmondsworth 1962), representing am approach to the m atter of form and content of a musical composition and a work of art th at is identical to the concept of Ingarden. 2. If our intention is not empty, it undergoes correction in the intentional act by the intentionality determined by the sign until the uni-accordant sense is reached.

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3. A description of an aesthetic experience was given in Ingarden [11], 0 poznawaniu dziela litcrackicgo (The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art), in Ingarden [21], 119. 4. Ingarden’s considerations presented in this chapter are an extension of Husserl’s criticism of psychologism in his “Local Inquiries.” They constitute a rare and at the same time exceptionally outspoken illustration of antipsychologism in Polish scientific literature. 5. Quite intentionally, I bypass the m atter of electronic music scores, not available when Ingarden was writing his dissertation on the musical composition. Using such scores as examples, it would be much easier to prove that there are features common to a musical composition, its score, and, perhaps, its performance. Taking up this kind of argumentation, however, it would be necessary to annex to Ingarden’s study an additional section on present-day types of recording and forms of presentation of musical compositions, something Ingarden clearly did not with to do since he did not take up the issue even within the scope then available to him. 6. Yuckerkandl, 61. 7. Ingarden, Studia z esietyki (Studies in Aesthetics), (Warsaw 1958), [23] II, 196. 8. Cf. Ingarden, “O poznawaniu dziela literackiego” (The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art), in Ingarden [21], 150-52. 9. If such a concept is possible in a formally ontological sense, it would be interesting to know Ingarden’s position regarding a possibility of relationship between the “third tension” and the purely intentional reality. Besides, the existence of a musical composition would not exhaust itself in a purely intentional existence. 10. Ingarden [19], Spor o istnienie swiata (Controversy over the Existence of the World), 2d ed. (Warsaw 1961), II, 433.

X.

The Sculptural Work of A rt

Uniquely ‘Within’ the World G. David Pollick

The subject of this article is the sculptural work of art; not aesthetic theory and not the philosophical work of Ro­ man Ingarden. And although this collection takes as its unifying theme the aesthetics of Ingarden, I’m confident that he would find this emphasis congenial. For, in this case, it is the phenomenon of sculpture itself which makes Ingarden’s reflections so welcome. Little could have give him greater satisfaction than to know that appreciators and theorists of various art modes were capable of finding assis­ tance in his research into specific art forms. And assistance he does provide. For although he carefully avoided giving too blatant an impression of being involved in systematic theory construction, out of the diversity of his inquiries into central art forms emerges a beautifully appointed aesthetic theory. And this theory could no more be his than if it carried with it his personal imprimatur. Bringing Ingarden’s thought to bear on the topic of sculpture is sufficient in its own right to qualify as a task worthy of some effort. It requires that general aesthetic principles be synthesized from his writings on other art form yet to be touched by the Ingardenian approach. And furthermore, since this already necessitates the speculation which accompanies extrapolation, to then go another step and criticize the synthetic Ingardenian view of sculpture leaves one open of being accused of having created straw men for self-serving, purposes. In anticipation of such con­ cerns, let it be said that it was Ingarden who made it clear the necessity of the conclusions I arrive at in this article. 255 B. Dziemidok and P. McCormick (eds.), On the Aesthetics o f Roman Ingarden, 255-281. © 1989 by Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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G. David Pollick For had I not had the luxury of his clarity and precision of thought, the way would have been rougher and the end less firmly resolved. And it is almost with regret that I feel Ingarden just didn’t, in fact couldn’t, say enough. His Husserlian connection was simply too strong. The burden of the last leg of the journey must, once again, fall to the pervading spirits of Martin Heidegger. Let us, therefore, take as the ruling factor of this article a particular art object which requires careful understand­ ing, feeling free to allow Ingarden’s philosophical illumina­ tion to assist us in the task. And where his light does not quite reach, we must move on — never quite capable of leaving him totally behind. 1

Rom an Ingarden's aesthetic theory

Since the decision has been made to accept Ingarden’s aid, a brief synopsis of his aesthetic theory as a prepara­ tion to our examination of sculpture would be helpful. In Ingarden’s aesthetics three works, of course, stand out as most significant: The Literary Work o f Art [7], The Cog­ nition of the Literary Work of A rt [11], and Investigations into the Ontology of Art: Music, Painting, Architecture, and the Film1 [23]. One need only trace the development and refinement of Ingarden’s thought on aesthetics through these three works to arrive at a fairly precise synthesis of his general aesthetic principles — a theoretically simple task enormously complicated by the fact that Ingarden treated each art form as a distinct phenomenon requiring ontolog­ ical explication. Since the objects themselves, instead of a preconceived set of aesthetic principles, guided his in­ vestigations, each art form results in the modification of previously accepted principles. Remarkable in all of this, however, is that there still emerges a set of principles uni­ versally applicable to every art form he treated, as well

The Sculptural Work of Art 257 as concrete examples of these principles , synthesized from the treatment of central axt forms, i.e., literature, music, painting, and architecture,2 that comprises the Ingardenian aesthetic theory. The resultant essential principles can be briefly stated as follows. The work of art 1. is not to be identified with any real thing, 2. is an heteronomous intentional object, ontically de­ pendant upon at least two autonomous objects for the origin of support of its existence: (a) real objects and (b) human consciousness, 3. requires a reader/listener/observer for its constitution and concretization (and as such cannot be identified with any one of its concretizations), and 4. is a polyphonic harmony of aesthetically valuable qualities. Ingarden’s assertion of (1) certainly lends support to the claim that he has produced a general aesthetic theory and not merely a series of individual and unrelated analyses. He says that “every work of axt, of whatever fundamental kind, is senso stricto no real object.”3 The assertion of (2) carries with it the identical implication that “neither is it [the work of art] an ontically autonomous object in general; and it is distinguished by a relativity of being, in principle, a relativity to be excluded from no art.”4 The work of art’s basic heteronomy is clearly established. It should be noted, however, that in Ingaxden’s analysis of the literary work of axt there were three ontic foundations — namely, real objects, human consciousness, and ideal en­ tities. His increased discomfort with ideal entities resulted in an abandonment of the position when he turned his at­ tention to other axt forms. Consequently, they do not figure in the set of general principles.

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G. David Pollick Principle (3) is clearly present throughout Ingarden’s writings and provides further support for the position that there is an Ingardenian aesthetic theory. In response to Wladyslaw Tatarkiewicz’s call for categorical distinctions between aesthetic experiences of differing art forms, Ingar­ den insists on an essential commonality based upon the na­ ture and stages of aesthetic cognition within the aesthetic attitude. There is essentially no difference, “whether we have a sculpture, a picture, a building, or with a literary work of art.”5 All works of art are constituted in acts of human consciousness in basically the same way, through the individual experiences differ as a result of (a) the dif­ fering aesthetically valuable qualities peculiar to each art form and each art work and (b) the aesthetic sensibility and personal lifeworld of the experiencer. Each concretiza­ tion (aesthetic object) of the same work of art is a partially unique individual which reaches to the particular work of art for its principle of identity and continuity. Thus, no two concretizations, cannot be the only explanation, since this is not present in a central art form, namely, architecture.6 Thus it cannot be seen as a general aesthetic principle. Truly of utmost importance to all art forms is the role and significance of the work of a rt’s aesthetically valuable qualities. In The Literary Work of Art it is easy to get the misimpression that the aesthetic value of work is tied in with the heterogeneity of the four strata and their accom­ panying aesthetically valuable qualities. This not the case however. Ingarden was never absolutely committed to a multi-layered description of all art forms, as his treatment of music confirms, but he was committed to the heterogene­ ity of aesthetically valuable qualities. The aesthetic value of an art work is determined by the overall polyphonic har­ mony of aesthetically valuable qualities, not by whether or not an art form has one, two, three or four strata. In the case of multi-layered art forms, each layer brings to

The Sculptural Work of Art 259 the work aesthetically valuable qualities which enter into a harmonic whole which is, in turn, identified with the work’s overall aesthetic value. When there are no layers, however, there are still aesthetically valuable qualities which enter into harmonic relations, which then comprise the aesthetic value of the work. Stratification is not essential to the polyphony of aesthetically valuable qualities. It is by virtue of the polyphony of these qualities alone that there comes to appearance the highest of aesthetically valuable qualities, what Ingarden has chosen to call metaphysical qualities. Here again is found a principle of universal applicability to the art forms Ingarden has addressed. As a result of having identified principles which per­ tain to each of the central art forms Ingarden examined, it is now possible to enlist his services in the analyses of other art forms. Though one would not expect mechani­ cal applicability, it would certainly be reasonable to expect his theory to provide a solid foundation which would then accept finer distinctions appropriate to specific arts. The sculptural work of art now becomes the focus of our atten­ tion. 2 T he sculptural work of art — the Ingardenian perspective Sculpture received minimal treatment in the writings of Ingarden. Almost all of his references to this art form were parenthetical to other topics. Why such an important art escaped his analysis remains a slight mystery. For as his discussion of the aesthetic experience of the Venus de Milo in The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art shows, In­ garden was not without a certain feeling and appreciation for the charms of sculpture. In any case, we are left with the rather tantalizing question, how would Ingarden have described the sculptural work of art?

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G. David Pollick No doubt the principles which generally pertained to literature, music, painting, and architecture would also ap­ ply to sculpture. From his discussion of the Venus, the sculptural work of art must be seen as an heteronomous intentional object distinct from either of its ontic founda­ tions, namely, the real thing (block of marble) and human consciousness. It would also be distinct from its many concretizations, thus avoiding the psychologistic tendencies that Ingarden found so abhorrent. And finally, its overall aesthetic value would be dependant upon the polyphonic harmony of its aesthetically valuable qualities. In other words, it would be consistent in every way with the princi­ ples that emerged from his earlier treatment of central art forms. But the ever meticulous Ingarden would have had more to say on this unique art form and, in fact did. One of his rare, and therefore precious, statements on the nature of sculpture is extraordinarily revealing. Similarly, if one seeks to realize an abstract fig­ ure in sculpture, then it is only a transitional form between sculpture, which according to its nature is a form of representational art, and ar­ chitecture, which is quite completely free from the representational function.7 The representational character of sculpture within Ingar­ den’s framework provides what is necessary to draw cer­ tain conclusions regarding this art form’s stratified struc­ ture. Whenever Ingarden identifies an art form as essen­ tially representational, there is to be found a stratum of schematic aspects.8 And likewise, wherever is found repre­ sentation and schematics aspects, there occurs a stratum of that which is represented, for example in the case of paint­ ing, the stratum of represented objects and situations.9 These two strata, therefore, ought to be applicable to the sculptural art, though indeed their nature and function will differ. A third stratum may sometimes occur in representa­

The Sculptural Work of Art 261 tional art forms, though it need not. This would be the stra­ tum of the literary theme or historical content.10 Whenever it is present, it would be proper to distinguish three strata as belonging to the sculptural work of art, not merely two. Thus, based on Ingarden’s consistency of thought, a struc­ tural description of sculpture itself suggests itself. It is a form with two and sometimes three heterogeneous strata: (1) the stratum of schematic aspects, (2) the stratum of the three-dimensional form of represented objects or situations, and (3) the stratum of literary or historical content, when­ ever present. While the nature and role of each of these strata differs in some respects from similar strata found in other art forms, they are similar enough provide the reader familiar with Ingarden’s writings a basic sense of how the sculptural work of art would fare when submitted to Ingardenian analysis. And all of this, of course, must be taken in conjunction with the already identified four general aes­ thetic principles. The resultant effect is a fairly concise, though simplified, conceptual picture of the essential ele­ ments of the art form — a picture sufficiently developed to permit critical appraisal.11 3

Lim itations of the Ingardenian View

Ingaxden expended his major energies articulating the structural characteristics of central art forms. In fact, he admitted that much of recent art was unfamiliar to him. This is most apparent in his selection of the Venus de Milo as his single sculptural example. Questions must arise, therefore, regarding the versatility and flexibility of his the­ ory in relation to evolving contemporary art movements. Analogous to other art forms, sculpture has dramati­ cally evolved from the classical work of the Venus. But perhaps more than any other art, the boundaries of sculp­ ture have become almost totally ill-defined. The spectrum

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G. David Pollick of art objects subsumed beneath the canopy of sculpture encompasses not only traditionally sculpted figures, but also such objects as Calder’s mobiles and Christo’s run­ ning fences. Whether or not Ingarden’s theory can assist in our understanding of objects such as these remains an unanswered question. Recall that Ingarden referred to abstract sculpture as “only a transitional form between sculpture ... and architecture.”12 Program music, abstract painting, film, and the stage play are likewise seen as straddling the abyss between central categories. Abstract sculpture, as a transi­ tional form, is viewed as significantly different from purely expressed sculpture (essentially representational) on one hand and purely expressed architecture (essentially nonrepresentational) on the other. Abstract sculpture is nei­ ther, while in some respects both — a rather problem­ atic status. If there are characteristics which make both sculpture and architecture what they are, then there must also certain identifiable characteristics which make abstract sculpture what it is, if Ingarden’s distinction is to be re­ tained. Ingarden’s position thus results in a multiplication of the categories of art. And given the evolution of the arts, this multiplication has, in principle, the potential of being endless. Whether or not this multiplication is necessary becomes the question. For if it could be shown that there are sufficient grounds for distinguishing sculpture from all kinds from architecture, then it would not be necessary to create a new category for abstract sculpture; and there­ fore, what Ingarden refers to as a transitional form could be adequately accounted for in the already existent cate­ gories of sculpture and architecture. One might then be led to suspect that the same reduction of categories could be performed with other transitional art forms. This issue has particular importance for the applicabil­ ity of Ingarden’s thought to much of current and future

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artistic developments. For any theory which finds devel­ oping art movements to be ‘exceptions’ or somehow ‘living on the fringe’ of traditional art categories betrays a closure which is philosophically untenable. Therefore, taking into account Ingarden’s unfamiliarity with contemporary art, a way of strengthening his theory would be to show that what he termed transitional forms are, in fact, instances of central art categories which, while possessing a an inherent diversity of expression, maintain a basic commonality of purpose. Thus, the question of the representational char­ acter of all sculpture requires immediate attention. And if the characteristic of representation should prove inadequate as the delineating factor, there will remain the question of exactly what does set these objects apart from, say, archi­ tecture or painting? There is little difficulty in accepting architecture as non-representational, or as presentational, given Ingarden’s use of the term. His claim for architecture is that it is a self-presentation which reproduces man’s soul “through the expression of his fundamental psychological structure and his intellectual capability, as much as the constructiverelational as the perpetual-aesthetic.”13 While representa­ tional art forms do this to some degree, their representa­ tional character is ultimately a hindrance to the presenta­ tional possibilities of the art form. Ingarden’s dichotomy between the two types of art forms is complete. It hinges on an understanding of the difference between the charac­ teristics of presentational and representational. In the architectural work of art there occurs a complete presentation of the spatial form. Neither the perceptual as­ pects nor the three-dimensional spatial form is schematic — all are simultaneously present. The logically and creatively ordered masses represent nothing. The architectural work is a presentation of itself. The logical interdependencies be­ tween the masses result in a “pure self-opened play in the

264

G. David Pollick simultaneity of spatial forms” which “leads to correspond­ ingly aesthetically valuable qualities and to the aesthetic value qualities built upon them.”14 Architecture is creative because it rests upon the discovery (upon a kind of artistic uncover­ ing) and the realization or embodiment of new “forms” — that is, shapes — and new qualita­ tive harmonies — new both in relation to the spatial forms of rigid bodies encountered in our environing nature, and in relation to the already discovered forms of finished architectural works of axt of earlier ages.15 The aesthetic encounter with the architectural work of art is an encounter with new forms and qualitative harmonies — an “expression of the emotional and desiderative fac­ tors of the human soul”16 — an experience of the human soul manifest in the logically and creatively ordered spa­ tial forms of the work. It is in this sense that the term presentation ought to be understood in relation to the rep­ resentation of sculpture. Sculpture is also partially presentational.17 As a threedimensional art form, the spatial form of the work relies upon the sculptural aspects in a similar fashion as does the spatial form of architectural work. Like architecture, the visual aspects of sculpture must always be present re­ gardless of the kind sculpture, abstract or otherwise. The proximity which all sculptural work’s of art have to the ma­ terial thing demands that this be so, thus explaining why it is that sculpture also possesses the presentational quality attributed to architecture, though not to the same degree. And it is this question of the degree of difference which becomes an issue, since it would seem that Ingarden at­ tributes this difference to sculpture’s inability to abandon its representational function.

265 The Sculptural Work of Art As we have seen, since pure sculpture is a representa­ tional art form it must always have a stratum of repre­ sented objects. By embodying the work with the guiding principles which direct the observer in the concretization of commonly recognizable forms, the artist is capable of repre­ senting certain aesthetic qualities and harmonies qualities which bring to appearance the intended aesthetic values. By a way of a painterly example, the figure of the damned man in The Last Judgement by Michelangelo is to repre­ sent the despair and anguish of damnation. In contrast to non-representational art forms, The Last Judgement is not merely a presentation of certain emotional qualities, but the representation of forms which, in their quasi-real character, could be said to express such emotions. The very same kind of representation can be seen in representational sculpture. There can be no dispute over the representational character of either the Venus or Michelangelo’s David. Firstly, they are clear representations of the human form. Secondly, they are representations of an individual woman and of an indi­ vidual man. Thirdly, they possess physical postures which represent qualities peculiar to each — Venus with her soft, gentle, and relaxed attitude, and David with his powerful, confident, and noble stature. And finally, there are numer­ ous aesthetically valuable qualities which result from the qualitative determinations of the spatial forms brought to appearance through the represented objects. Even the work of Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris can be seen as representa­ tional. In these cases, the artists attempted to “reduce the images given in visual perception to a schematic or struc­ tural order,”18 thus never fully escaping a representational mode of expression. But the question must be asked, does this exhaust the possibilities of the field of sculpture, as Ingarden would seem to indicate?

There is indeed sculpture which does not attem pt to represent anything in the sense that Ingarden has employed

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G. David Pollick the term. In much the same way that Ingarden has spoken of architecture, there exists a kind of sculpture which is an act of discovery — an uncovering of the potentialities of the medium. The artist is, in this sense, exploring the principles which govern the relationship of mass and volume and the aesthetic qualities which the medium is capable of receiving. The terms which have been used to describe this kind of non-representational sculpture have gone through a rather creative evolution. Initially, it was Cubism that provided the necessary impetus for the modern development of a non-representational movement in the plastic arts. We have already indicated that Cubism can easily be understood as representational. This is now in need of qualification. Cu­ bism went through of its own, an evolution which left repre­ sentation behind. In its early developments it attempted to reduce common forms to their elements of planes and sur­ faces, thus remaining representational (See Picasso’s Head of a Woman, 1909-10). But in its later developments, the objects became increasingly more difficult to recognize, un­ til finally they reached a stage which was non-figurative. At this point these later moments in Cubism’s evolution were no longer identified with the original intent of either Pablo Picasso or Juan Gris, but instead became known as non-objective, or, most commonly, as abstract art. Finally, along came artists who said: Why bother to introduce representational elements at all? Why not let your geometric or architec­ tural structure speak for itself, in terms of pure form and colour? And they proceeded to paint pictures and carve materials in conformity with such principles. Thus a new type of art was born which has been called abstract, construc­ tivist, neo-plastic, and several other names, but all these varieties of abstract art agree in re­

The Sculptural Work of Art 267 jecting the notion that art is in any way depen­ dant on nature. They neither ‘screen’ nature, in the manner of Reynolds, nor respect nature, in the manner of the Impressionists; they will have nothing whatsoever to do with nature. Some of them may attem pt to represent what is funda­ mental to Nature — namely, the laws of har­ mony inherent in the physical structure of the Universe itself; but others claim to be indepen­ dent even of this given quantity, and to invent an entirely new reality.19

Artists such as Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner at­ tempted to “research into basic elements of space, volume, and colour, in order to discover, as they said, ‘the aesthetic, physical, and functional capacities of these materials.’”20 Their work became known as “constructions.” The shift was from reproduction to creation of works which presented space and time embodied in a material construction. The observer encountering either the works of Gabo or Pevsner is seldom inclined to make associations between commonly identifiable objects and the sculptures.These works aggres­ sively resist such attempts. Of Franz Marc and the con­ structivists in general, Karsten Harries has said that they are “engineers of the spirt ... changing magical formulas to force a hidden reality to show itself.”21 It must be seen, therefore, that abstract sculpture is capable of providing an immediacy between the world and the observer which is presentational in the fashion of archi­ tecture. The problem which now must be faced is whether or not abstract presentational sculpture ought to be seen as in some way outside of or on the fringe of art form of sculpture by virtue of its presentational character.

268 4

G. David Pollick The uniqueness of the sculptural work o f art

In order to justify the position of a new art category, i.e., abstract sculpture as a transitional form, it would seem necessary to demonstrate that there is a significant enough number of essential differences between the two sculptural expressions to justify the claim that there is indeed a dif­ ference in the kinds of art object involved. Obviously, the exact number differences sufficient for such a distinction is difficult to determine. But note that Ingarden has moved abstract sculpture, abstract painting, and program music out of the category of a ‘purely expressed’ art form on the basis of one characteristic — representation. If it can be shown that the similarities which these two forms of sculp­ ture and, in turn, fax outweigh the similarities which are peculiar to architecture and presentational sculpture, then it would seem unnecessary to create a new category for pre­ sentational sculpture. Only then can an attem pt be made to identify exactly what does separate sculpture in general from other works of art, and specifically architecture. As has been noted on numerous occasions, a primary difference between architecture and sculpture is that archi­ tecture is essentially hollow. It is not only concerned with exterior space but must take into account the arrangement of interior space as well. Sculpture, on the other hand, is either solid or else presents voids which are only intended to be seen from an appropriate distance and not from within. It can never become fully architectural since there is truly no interior space in the architectural sense. Whether or not a sculptural work is representational or presentational, this is true. There is no basis here for distinguishing between kinds of sculpture. Another obvious difference between sculpture and archi­ tecture lies in the degree of dependence that these two art forms have on the material world and the consequent effects

The Sculptural Work of Art 269 of this dependance. Architecture is bound to the physical world in a way that limits the creative possibilities available to the architect to a greater degree than is the case with sculpture and the sculptor. Architecture must have as a base, or foundation, which takes into account the demands of terrain. As a work of art, it is tied to its foundation and not readily mobile. Sculpture, on the other hand, only min­ imally faces such limitations. Many small sculptural works axe transported from one place to another with the great­ est of ease. This was especially true of artifacts of early art history, i.e., amulets. Abstract sculpture, in particular, can often be turned over, around, and even ‘upside down’ and still remain aesthetically valuable. Calder’s mobiles are an excellent instance of the completely free character of abstract sculpture. And even representational sculpture must be similarly distinguished from architecture in this regard. While a base is necessary for our similar David, the work still remains relatively mobile. And in an essential way, the base is not part of the work of art itself. It sup­ plies the work with a horizontal line and gives the block of marble physical stability. But because of the work’s repre­ sentational character, the base might actually be seen as a distraction from the work of art. This could never be said of architecture, since the centre of gravity of the art work is the same as that of the building, resulting in the fact that their foundations are identical. In the sculptural work of art, however, the centre of gravity of the block of marble is different from the centre of gravity of the work, resulting in the possibility that a base might distract from a work. Therefore, abstract sculpture is freer to achieve its artis­ tic ends than is representational sculpture. And sculpture on the whole is much freer than architecture. The balance and proportion of the sculptural work of art are more de­ termined by the factors internal to the work itself than they are by external factors that affect the real material. Just

270 G. David Pollick the opposite is true with architecture. A third characteristic which serves to separate sculpture of any kind from architecture is the overwhelming practi­ cal character of architecture. Very simply, human beings live with and within architectural structures. The arrange­ ment of the interior spaces is determined by the works prac­ tical function. Even the exterior design must be practi­ cally determined since the interior and the exterior are to a great degree mutually determining. Nothing similar can be said of any kind of sculpture (e.g., the Athenian cary­ atids), sculpture does not perform a practical function that in any way approaches the practical character of architec­ ture. And it must be seen that it is essential to architecture and only peripheral when it comes to sculpture. In archi­ tecture it determines design, thus once again demonstrating sculpture’s freer character. Even the most contemporary architects have not been able to bring themselves to the actual denial of the practical favor inherent in the architectural work. “Though we no longer argue over the primacy of form or function (which follows which?) we cannot ignore their interdependence.”22 And more poignantly, Robert Venturi has said: Architecture occurs at the meeting of interior and exterior forms of use and space. These in­ terior and environmental forces are both general and particular, generic and circumstantial. Ar­ chitecture as the wall between the inside and the outside becomes the spatial record of this resolution and its drama.”23 Although there are certainly many questions regarding the nature of the relationship between the functional determi­ nations and the formal qualities of the architectural work, these poles are genuine and always present. In the above three ways sculpture is clearly distinct from architecture. Although there are many very specific dif­

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ferences, as Ingarden’s analysis of architecture has shown, these three are major. But Ingarden has also based his dis­ tinction between these two art forms on the characteristics of presentation and representation. This is now deserving of closer attention. Architectural presentation, while indicative of differ­ ence, does not truly provide what is necessary to distin­ guish architecture from all other art forms, as Ingarden would seem to indicate. It must be stressed that litera­ ture, painting, and sculpture are also presentational, al­ though not to the same degree. Consequently, according to Ingarden, there are art forms which are absolutely pre­ sentational, i.e., architecture and music, and there are art forms which are both presentational and representational in varying degrees. A purely representational art form does not seem to be a possibility. Therefore, to distinguish be­ tween abstract sculpture, representational sculpture, and architecture on the basis if presentation is to make the distinction on the basis of a degree of difference and not a difference of kind. This would not seem to justify the creation of a new art category. And further, by virtue of the characteristics which presentational and, if it may now be said, presentational/representational sculpture share in common, in order to avoid needlessly multiplying categories it would seem more reasonable to maintain one category of sculpture which embraces both modes of expression than to argue that representation is sufficient in itself to set one form of sculpture apart. But, by not allowing the charac­ teristic of representation to be used as the basis for multi­ plying categories of art, we enter into a basic conflict which is the main thrust of past opinion. The conflict, however, is simply unavoidable. A closer look at the consequences which result form distinguishing art categories on the basis of representation shows this to be the case. Rhys Carpenter provides an excellent statement of the

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more traditional attitude toward sculpture: Sculpture is a visual and not a tactile art, be­ cause it is made for the eyes to contemplate and not for the fingers to feel. Moreover, just as it reaches us through the eyes and not through the finger tips, so it is created visually, no m atter how the sculptor may use his hands to produce his work sculptural form cannot be appre­ hended tactilely or evaluated by its tactual fi­ delity. It may be argued — and with entire warrant — that sculpture frequently involves and appeal to our sense of touch and physical contact; but so does painting. Such tactile sensations are, in either art, induced and secondary, being deriva­ tive of subjective mental association. In apainting of Titian or Bronzino, the representation of material textures such as fur and velvet may be so visually exact that it evokes in us a memory of how velvet and fur may feel when we stroke them. I do not think that sculpture’s tactual appeal is very different or much stronger. Any dissenting opinion is probably inspired by the heightened physical actuality of sculptural pre­ sentation; we cannot directly sense a painted structure by touching the canvas, whereas we can actually explore with our fingers the actu­ ally sculptural shape. But the logic is faulty if it is thence inferred that sculpture is more im­ mediately involved in the tactile sense; for, at best, we can only touch the material medium and not the artistic representation which is in­ tended and calculated for the eye’s contempla­ tive vision.24

273 The Sculptural Work of Art At first it may appear that Ingarden would tend to be in agreement with Carpenter. Certainly Ingaxden would agree with the emphasis placed upon sculpture’s representational quality. He would also agree that the representation of vel­ vet does not permit a direct experience of the texture of vel­ vet; this would be a co-presented quality dependant upon memory. And, he would also agree that our experiences of artistic representation are not experiences of the material medium. But Ingarden does not seem to be fully committed to all that Carpenter’s assertions imply. F. David Martin has said: “the eminence of the eye, in turn, the subor­ dination of sculpture of sculpture as a species of painting presupposes the traditional theory of sense perception.”25 This theory sees the private subject as set against the pub­ lic objects of the world. Sensory data are organized into objects which, while supposedly reflective of the world, axe not identified with it. The subject never truly experiences the world, as such, but instead experiences the mind’s log­ ical constructions of sensory data. In short, the traditional theory of sense perception results in the commonly referred to subject/object dichotomy. According to Martin, this approach “proclaims the eye the fundamental sense organ that establishes a world of objects.”26 As a consequence, representation occupies a piece of pre-eminence. What this ignores that is so crucial to sculpture is the state of affairs which precedes and is the precondition of the mind’s logical constructions of sensory data: We are not in space; we inhabit space. We are not encapsulated bodies, egos wrapped in skin, distinct form things in space. We are open bod­ ies with things journeying through space. As primordially perceived, our bodies, things, and space are in an inseparable community, a pre­ given unity.27

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And here, Heidegger sharpens our focus. Space is not in the subject, nor is the world in space. Space is rather ‘in’ the world in so far as space has been disclosed by that Beingin-the-world which is constructive for Dasein. Space is not to be found in the subject, nor does the subject observe the world ‘as if’ that world were in a space; but the ‘subject’ (Dasein), if well understood ontologically, is spatial. And because Dasein is spatial in the way we have described, space shows itself as a priori.28 In primordial perception we are aware of the essential unity of the ‘world’: there exists a direct involvement in which we are aware of our essential a priori spatiality. The objects of the world are not set off against the subject as ‘things out there’ to which we only have access via logical patterns and models. The abstractions of traditional sense experi­ ence do not permit a ‘revealing’ of the world we are in, but instead leave us with mere images of a shadow world. As such, logical constructions are once removed from the ‘con­ crete suchness’ of things. This is the necessary consequence of seeing the body as radically separate from mind — as merely another entity among entities. Again, we turn to Martin: Our minds are incarnate, embodies, a unity of awareness of body with things within a world so tightly interwoven in primordial perception that the threads can be separated only by the abstractive knives of secondary perception.29 Thus the key to appreciating the sculptural work of art lies in an understanding of the way in which sculpture presents itself to us and for us. If this presentation is reduced to that which is present via sensory perception, particularly visual

The Sculptural Work of Art 275 perception, then sculpture’s being-in-the-world is distorted and our being-with and standing-in sculpture is obscured. While this does not result in the denial of the represen­ tational quality of some works, it does reduce its overall importance. Therefore, in conjunction with the three very specific sculptural characteristics already discussed, there would still appear to be much more that needs to be said regarding the uniqueness of the sculptural work of art. By transcend­ ing the question of representation versus presentation, this has begun to become apparent. Martin has captured this uniqueness beautifully. The space around a sculpture, although not a part of its material body, is still an essential part of the perceptible structure of that sculp­ ture. And the perceptual forces in that sur­ rounding space impact on our bodies directly, giving to that space a translucency, a thickness, that is largely missing from the space in front of a painting. ... W ith a sculpture, on the other hand, even though we do not actually touch the material body, we sense its power and pressing on our bodies. The shadows cast, the reflective surfaces, the bulges and hollows, the textures, and the attraction or repulsion of the material itself pull our bodies in and out. The hidden as­ pects — especially with sculpture in the round — lure our bodies around.30 It is in this sense that the sculptor’s activity ought to be viewed as not only concerned with the mass of the medium but with the space as well. For the sculptor, space is much more than the mere ab­ sence of a material medium. Space is as much the recipient of the sculptor’s creative acts as is the real material. To

G. David Pollick 276 sculpt is to reorder the relationship which exists between the two necessarily related sculptural elements. Similar to the way in which Venturiso eloquently spoke of architec­ ture, sculpture is the wall between mass and space — a record of the essential identity of the two elements, as well as their perceptual differences, while the primordial expe­ rience of ourselves with the world reveals the essential iden­ tity of the space and body in which we are immersed. But the sculptor never merely manipulates a material medium as if it were an object set apart, as an object ‘over-there.’ The sculptor reveals the ‘concrete suchness’ of the world by highlighting the diversity of perceptual possibilities which belong to it. Therefore, the presentation of objects is not an end in itself, but a means; and is aimed at disclosure. And within the aesthetic experience of sculpture, this special quality of the art form emerges vividly. No longer merely a thing over-there, the sculpture resonates with us. And this is more, much more, than a question of representation or non-representation. Rather, it is a question of our deep in­ volvement with the world, an involvement which sculpture is able to call us back to in a unique way via its visual and tactual character. Sculpture revives the withering of our tactual senses by bringing us back in direct contact with the raw power of reality: the bumping, banging, pushing, pulling, soothing, palpitating, tangi­ bility of our withness with things.31 And here is where the metaphysical qualities of Ingarden find their natural home — in the revelation of our most human state of affairs. The sculptural work of art, therefore, must be distin­ guished from architecture on three basic grounds already discussed. By themselves they are sufficient to support the claim that both sculptural forms ought to belong to a single

277 The Sculptural Work of Art category of art object. And the visual-tactual character of sculpture — the way it manifests itself to our perception — simply confirms the propriety of maintaining one cate­ gory for all sculptural works of art as well as dispelling any thought of sculpture being either inferior to or derivative of any other art form. These characteristics clearly establish a difference in kind between sculpture and any other art form, and partic­ ularly architecture and painting. And further, any distinc­ tion that is made within the general category of sculpture is based upon a degree of difference, thus not justifying a mul­ tiplication of categories. By maintaining this position In­ garden’s theory is strengthened since a significant portion of existing sculptures, as well as sculptural works to come, are not relegated to the periphery of the art form. The essen­ tial Ingardenian principles continue to remain fully intact; they provide a firm foundation on the general level. But to maintain the distinction of transitional forms seems to imply that abstract sculpture is in some sense a ‘lesser’ art expression than representational sculpture, thereby making the application of his theory less useful. In fact, Ingarden has indicated that representational art works are poten­ tially more valuable than non-representational art works.32 Modem art, in general, has been forced to fight this atti­ tude since its inception, and any theory which encourages it can only serve to negatively affect the positive contribu­ tion that developing art trends provide. To base the value of sculpture on its ability to represent is essentially to re­ duce the enterprise to the level of the superficial. If anything, the development of abstract sculpture is an attem pt to call sculpture back to its primary historical con­ cerns. The artist throughout history has sought, all above else, to ‘see’ clearly and to present that clarity of insight to his or her community. By moving away from representa­ tion, the abstract artist has attempted to aid in the disclo­

G. David Pollick 278 sure of the forces, laws, and harmonies which comprise ma­ terial and spiritual existence. These sculptural works of axt return diversity to unity. They give us objects where mat­ ter and spirit are momentaxily locked in a poetic identity. As such, no other art form possesses the same potential­ ity for healing the contemporary schism of body and spirit. Can this possibly be looked upon as a transition from one axt form to another? Rather, it would seem to be the ul­ tim ate achievement of sculpture — that towards which it has tended throughout history. In fact, a case could well be made that representational sculpture is more a transi­ tional form than presentational sculpture — attempting to free itself in order to disclose the underlying unity implicit within. Interestingly enough, Ingarden’s tendency to ele­ vate non-representational music to the highest of aesthetic rungs coincides with this view of the sculptural work of art. When viewed from this perspective, all art forms pos­ sess a certain common purpose — an identical goal of ulti­ mate achievement towards which they all strive. Each must contend with the barriers and limitations their medium im­ poses. But all attem pt to transcend the peculiarities unique to the art form, revealing the core of the artistic enter­ prise as a whole. True, it is because of the peculiarities of each art form, which can never be totally relinquished, that there exists the possibility of diverse expressions. But all art forms, to the extent that they are presentational, possess the potentiality of achieving a commonality of pur­ pose. Music and architecture do this quite naturally and, as such, exemplify the highest purpose to which an art can aspire. Sculpture and painting, on the other hand, are forced to contend with the natural schizophrenia of art forms which arise out of the human tendency to imitate. On this point, Aristotle was authoritative. The challenge of these art forms, therefore, lies in overcoming imitations; in attempting to disclose the universality which stands in

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stark contrast to the imitation of anything.

N otes 1. This work was published in German under the title Untersuchungen zur Ontologie der Kunst: Musikwerk, Bild, Architektur, Film (Tubingen 1962). Although an English translation has been anticipated for several years, it can no longer be viewed as forthcoming in the near future. Future references to the German version will read Ingarden [23]. 2. It is quite remarkable that so much has been written in response to Ingarden’s very limited, and one would have to think preliminary, comments on the film and, to a lesser extent, the stage play. (Ingarden’s work on the stage play and the film appear in The Literary Work of Art under the heading “Borderline Cases.” An essay on the film appears in Ingarden [23]. For an excellent survey of the pertinent literature, see Alicja Helman’s “The Influence of Ingarden’s Aesthetics on the Theory of Film,” in Roman Ingarden and Contemporary Polish Aesthetics (Warsaw 1975), 97-107). Regardless of the interest of Ingarden engendered by these topics, they do not influence the course of the current investigation. This is justified on two grounds. Firstly, both art forms fall into that category which Ingarden has called borderline (Ingarden [23], 325, and Ingarden [7], The Literary of Art, trans. G. Grabowitz (Evanston, 111., 1973), 322). Therefore, in accord with the principles Ingarden established in his treatm ent of the borderline art forms of program music and abstract painting, namely that the essential feature of art forms and works of art in general are not to be found in such examples, we are focusing on the art forms Ingaxden saw as central. While this certainly does raise a question regarding the nature of borderline art forms, a question which we will examine, the identification of Ingarden’s essential aesthetic

280

G. David Pollick principles requires that we follow the course he has established. W ith regard to the principles and the method of extending those principles in borderline cases, the peculiarities of the film and the stage play are certainly not without interest, but they do not alter the course of our inquiry. Secondly, given Ingarden’s very limited treatm ent of these two art forms, they must be looked upon as only suggestive. An attem pt to articulate and extend his central principles ought to rely on those studies which drew his fullest attention.

3. Ingarden [S3], 267. 4. Ingarden [S3], 267. 5. Ingarden [11], The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art, trans. R.A. Crowley and K.R. Olson (Evanston, 111., 1973), 21-22. Originally published in Polish and later reissued in a revised and enlarged version in German under the title Vom Erkennen des Literarischen Kunstwerk (Tubingen 1968). 6. Ingarden [S3], 307. 7. Ingarden [23], 300-01. 8. Ingarden [23], 241; Ingarden [7], 255-87. 9. Ingarden [23], 150; Ingarden [7], 217-54. 10. Ingarden [23], 150. 11. For a more complete description of the rationale leading to these conclusions, see G. David Pollick, The Aesthetic Theory of Roman Ingarden (Ottawa, 1982). 12. Ingarden [23], 300-01. 13. Ingarden [23], 300. 14. Ingarden [23], 301. 15. Ingarden [23], 301. 16. Ingarden [23], 300. 17. Ingarden [23], 300. 18. Herbert Read, The Philosophy of Modern Art (New York 1955), 95. 19. Read, 75-76,

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20. Read, A Concise History of Modem Sculpture (New York 1964), 101. 21. Karsten Harries, The Meaning of Modem Art: A Philosophical Interpretation (Evanston, 111., 1968), 100. 22. Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (New York 1966), 26. 23. Venturi, 88-89. 24. Rhys Carpenter, Greek Sculpture (Chicago 1960), 34. 25. F. David Martin, “The Autonomy of Sculpture,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, XXXIV (1976), 274. 26. Martin, 274. 27. Martin, 276. 28. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson (New York 1962), 146. 29. Martin, 278. 30. Martin, 282. 31. Martin, 285. 32. Ingarden [23], 206.

XI.

Ingarden on the Theatre

Danuta Kuznicka

Roman Ingarden’s consideration of theatrical performance can be found in his book “The Literary Work of Art.”1 Two articles in it are especially concerned with theatre: “The Stage Play” (317-23) and the appendix “The Function of Language in the Theatre” (377-93). The latter Ingarden wrote in the fifties,2 more than twenty years after the for­ mer. Though he does not comment on this, it seem an im­ portant fact because from the current point of view the two articles can be evaluated differently. The ideas expressed in “The Function of Language in the Theatre” harmonize with contemporary thoughts on theatre while “The Stage Play” represents a stand which seems controversial, though it is not necessary to add that its intellectual rank and in­ spirational value are exceptional. The ideas expressed in both articles are the main subject of my considerations, al­ though Ingarden also dealt with the question of drama and of theatrical performance in many other places in his book, considering them from various angles.3 I shall attem pt in this paper to consider Ingarden’s thoughts on the theatre from a present-day perspective. An interest in this subject seems to be justified by the substantial transformations the art of the stage has been undergoing with varying intensity but steadily in Europe and America since the turn of the century. These trans­ formations have affected the basic problem in Ingarden’s theatrical thought, that is, the function of the literary text in a theatrical performance. First of all I must explain what I mean in using the terms “theatrical performance,” and “a stage play.”4 It is 283 B. Dziemidok and P. McCormick (eds.), On the Aesthetics o f Roman Ingarden, 283-296. © 1989 by Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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here, generally speaking, the staging of a work of drama, a form that still prevails on th e stages of Europe and figures prominently in American theatres as well. I shall also refer to performances of other types, but these will be provided with comment. I have in mind numerous Polish perfor­ mances above all and a few each of English, American, Rus­ sian, French, German, Italian, Czech, Swedish, Yugoslav, Greek, and Spanish ones. I shall base the image of the contemporary theatre performance resented in this article on numerous theatrical writings that would be too long to mention in this text. W hat were those transformations of the art of the stage mentioned above, which had an effect on the structure of a theatrical performance? Along with the revolutionary achievements of avant-garde directors in the early twen­ tieth century (indeed, already in the late nineteenth cen­ tury) the role of particular components (i.e., systems of signs after Kowzan’s terminology) in a performance has changed considerably. Literature and declamatory acting, prevailing in the theatre before, began to be superseded by other performance components: scenery, lighting, sound. All were becoming equal and were shaped by the director into an artistic whole. Indeed it is the dominating role of the director, following his own ideas, that character­ izes twentieth-century theatre. Particular directors may use these elements to a greater or lesser extent, while the literary component very often becomes little more than a pretext for the whole undertaking. At the same time there is a striking development of numerous styles of scenery on the one hand and of the art of acting on the other. All these phenomena ask of the student of the theatre to be seen in the right perspective and to be approached with special methods. So we can inquire, are Ingarden’s views still valid today? In my response, I am going to take up two problems

Ingarden on the Theatre 285 in Ingarden’s thought: the role of the literary text in the­ atrical performance and, in general terms, the relationship between the literary work and the theatrical one, as well as the problem of the spectator in a theatrical show. Ingarden begins by discussing the relation between a drama (that is, a literary work) and its theatrical stag­ ing and asks the question whether the theatrical perfor­ mance is a concretization of a play or something entirely different from it. In order to answer this question he compaxes the ways and states that in a performance we get “determinately qualified real objectivities, which ap­ pear in corresponding aspects” (319), whereas in a literary work the objectivities are presented and depicted by their “purely intentional states of affairs” and “schematized heldin-readiness aspects projected by sentences” (320). He ar­ rives then at the conclusion: “In the stage play we are thus dealing with a different type of work that the purely literary work” (322). But this position, now commonly accepted, is then abandoned by Ingarden himself when he maintains that the theatrical production is a “borderline” phenomenon of literature (322). He supports this statement with a number of arguments which I shall try to examine critically. The first among them is the statement that “in a stage play we find a stratified structure analogous to that of a purely literary work.” The second is that the “strata of meaning units and phonetic formations are also present in a stage play and have as significant a role as in a purely literary work.” The third, in connection with the “stratified struc­ ture,” is that there appears in a stage play a “polyphony of value qualities.” The fourth is that there also appears a “quasi-judgmental modification of the sentences spoken by represented persons,” so that the objectivities presented in it are also purely intentional.5 The fifth is that “metaphys­ ical qualities can be manifested in a stage play.” The sixth

Danuta Kuznicka 286 and final one is that, there is the particular structure of the sequence [of parts], and it conditions the various effects of the internal dynamics of the work” (322). The three last statements are, in my opinion, right in a general sense. The sentences said on stage and the pre­ sented objectivities are purely intentional; they retain their “quasi” character, although they can come close to reality in mystery plays (cf. Eco, 226; Pavis, 33). Various meta­ physical qualities may appear in a performance. Ingarden considers them to be very wide-ranging, but since the sub­ ject rather defies a systematic description I will make no comment on this. Besides, a play indeed has its own very specific dynamics. This is an interesting area of study not yet very well explored and only now being approached by researchers (Pavis, 186). And yet I think that all these fea­ tures of the theatrical performance do not link it directly to the literary work. They can demonstrate a similarity to film, ritual, or entertainment as well (Schechner, 84-85). What could determine, in my view, the literary character of the theatrical performance are the features having to do with the presence of words, those mentioned in the first three statements: the stratified structure of a stage play, the strata of meaning units and phonetic formations, and the polyphony of value qualities resulting from that strati­ fied structure. So let us look now at Ingarden’s first argument for the theatrical performance being a borderline case of literature. It is the thesis about the stratified structure of the literary work — a basic statement in his system. Let us recall those strata once more: the stratum of word sounds and the phonetic formations of a higher order built on them; the stratum of meaning units of various orders; the stratum of manifold schematized aspects and aspects of continua and series; and the stratum of represented objectivities and their vicissitudes (30). Ingarden admits, however, th at in

Ingarden on the Theatre 287 this stratified structure “new elements appear” and that “some of the strata play somewhat modified roles” (322). Ingarden’s argumentation seems to me on this funda­ mental question somewhat uncertain. He stresses on the one hand the separateness of the theatrical work’s structure and yet on the other hand speaks of that work’s stratified structure. “There appear in a stage play the structural dif­ ferences we have discussed, which make it a new work with respect to the corresponding purely literary work” (322). These structural differences consist in other ways of rep­ resentation that cannot be reconciled with the nature of the literary work. In the literary work the represented objectivities are created through the states of affairs and schematized potential aspects projected by sentences. The function of the states of affairs in a purely literary work is that “they form an essential and most important means of representation, so that the constitution of represented ob­ jectivities depends primarily and essentially on them and at the most is supplemented by aspects held in readiness. In a stage play, on the contrary, these states of affairs do not have primarily to constitute the things that are repre­ sented, since this constitution - which at any rate is only incipient - is effected by the real objects that perform the function of reproduction”(320-21). “The stage play differs from a purely literary work, as we will call it from now on, in that entirely new means of representation, precluded by the essential nature of a purely literary work, appear in it: (1) real objects engaged in performing the function of reproduction and representa­ tion and (2) aspects appropriately formed and predeter­ mined by the properties of these real objects, in which represented objectivities are to appear” (320). Therefore there are in the theatrical work visual elements which by their very presence abolish the functioning of the whole described by Ingarden’s, structure (including word sounds,

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meaning units, states of affairs, schematized aspects, and represented objectivities). The spoken words (i.e., word sounds) appear in the stage reality next to different mean­ ingful elements that are created in other systems of signs (i.e., in other performance components). How do the meanings of words and sentences function, then, in the presence of real objects? The words uttered on the stage assume their meaning according to the cir­ cumstances and the context in which they are spoken. The context is created by the gestures and mimicry of the speak­ ing actor, by the scenery, lighting, sounds. So the meaning is made up of various elements present on the stage. And this constitutes a capital difference between the stage and literary realities. The multifarious and meaningful stage reality (de­ scribed frequently with the term “theatrical semiosis”) is according to present-day researchers continuous: they call it the text (the “testo spettocolare” after de Marinis). Its essential feature is the fact that one cannot distinguish in it elementary units of meaning, as is done in linguistic state­ ments. This is a capital difference which puts in question, it seems, the very important thesis about the stratified struc­ ture of a theatrical performance according to Ingarden: it is linked with all the other theses. The mode of existence of a spoken work in the theatrical performance has already been discussed. As far as the polyphony of value qualities is concerned, it should be said that such a polyphony is the consequence of a multifarious art of the stage, and there­ fore is different from the polyphony present in the literary work. To sum up, because of its specific multifarious charac­ teristics, theatre semiosis is a quite different phenomenon from the literary work and therefore Ingarden’s claim that a theatrical performance or a stage play is a borderline case of the literary work seems to be controversial. But it should

Ingarden on the Theatre 289 be stressed, that he follows this claim with several reserva­ tions. One of them seems particularly important, namely that in the stratified structure of a theatre performance “new elements appear” and that “some strata play some­ what modified roles” (322). This reservation indicate that Ingaxden valued the specifity of the art of the stage. How­ ever, Ingarden’s conception of the theatrical performance is, in my opinion, influenced by the traditional conviction, which claims many advocates — that literature i s very much present in the theatre. This idea is also evidenced by Ingaxden’s description of the real objects in a performance as being there “to reproduce and represent.” He says, These objectivities “play a role,” as it is usually said, or, more precisely, perform the function of reproduction and representation. Indeed, they represent those objects which, in a “drama” that is read, axe intentionally projected by both the stage directions and the main text. These representing objects need not be precisely those real things and men that in a given performance really find themselves on stage. But they must be constituted in such a way that they can per­ form, at least in part, the function of reproduc­ ing and representing objectivities represented in a stage play and of making them appear in ap­ propriate visual and acoustical aspects. At its most basic, it is primarily a question of hav­ ing their determinate thus-appearance appro­ priately form the corresponding aspects so that the represented objectivities can appeax in con­ crete aspects that can be experienced by the “spectator.” (320) This axgument implies that the situation of the char­ acters and the events axe so well defined in the text of the

290 Danuta Kuznicka drama that one can expect them to be “appropriately” pre­ sented in a performance. In a note to the quoted excerpt we can read that “in the case of a historical play, a special, interesting complication occurs” (319): the characters and the events are as concrete as if they were historical events. Ingarden explains the notions of “reproduction” and “rep­ resentation” in the context of an historical novel, thus re­ ferring to once actually existing persons (242). In a system in which the ideas of “schematized aspects” and “spots of indeterminacy” play so importjant a role, this approach is rather unexpected. And indeed, in the confrontation of a literary work with a theatrical staging, “schematized” and “undetermined” character of the presented objectivities is seen even better. How much the shape of represented objectivities and thereby of the whole performance depends on non-literary factors is clearly evidenced by the numerous stagings of a given play. The same text of a drama gets all sorts of inter­ pretations in different performances, makes the existence of a single interpretation indicated by literature very doubtful indeed. The material qualities of real objects on the stage or the actors’ expressions are often so essential that the “representing” outshadows the “represented.” I must men­ tion here that a similar thought is expressed explicitly in Ingarden’s book itself: “in spite of that there is a close con­ nection between a stage play and the corresponding purely literary work provided that the latter exists at all, which, and this must be emphasized, need not necessarily be the case” (322). The struggle of Ingarden’s thought with the conviction that theatre depends on literature can be seen also in his description of the ways objectivities are pre­ sented in a theatrical performance. He says that the world presented on stage is made up of three elements which vary in the method and substance of presentation: objectivities presented in an exclusively perceptual manner; objectivities

Ingarden on the Theatre 291 presented in a two-fold manner (in perceptual depiction and through a linguistic mode of representation); and objectiv­ ities presented exclusively by linguistic means (379). He also adds that the uttering of words is part of the charac­ ter’s behavior and is therefore also part of an act (386-87). However, when he speaks of objectivities presented in two ways (in a perceptual manner and by linguistic means), he gives priority to the literary element. Ingarden writes that “one can consider the relation between the over-all be­ havior of the represented person and the words spoken by him from another vantage point, however, i.e., by asking whether this behavior (in facial expressions, movements, etc.), as it is formed by the actor in a given performance, harmonizes with the words being spoken? Is it attuned to them, or does it conflict with them in any way?” (387). Previously, he would also have said that there must be a “concordance” between the two ways of presenting objec­ tivities (in a perceptual manner and by linguistic means) so that no “contradictory objectivities” could arise. He wisely adds, however, that in this respect all sorts of “poetic li­ censes” are admissible in literary works (379). If we regard this “concordance” between the two ways of representation as the joint shaping of a greater artistic quality, then it is true. But we can assume, in view of what has already been said, that to Ingarden this harmony is more restricted and consists in the creation of similar ob­ jectivities by linguistic means and in a perceptual manner. It must be said that the concordance achieved by the use of various stage devices is the least interesting. Of the high­ est artistic quality are those images made up of many stage elements, producing together a novel quality which is far from being a simple sum. And there is wide range of such aesthetic phenomena in the present-day theatre. Complex structures of meaning consisting of many elements stimu­ late processes of association in the spectator and thus refer

292

Danuta Kuznicka to his cultural competence, his erudition. But he lacks that competence if the signals coming from the stage do not evoke in his mind other events, characters, plays: his perception is then limited to only one character, or to only one meaning of the presented image. So it is up to the spectator to structure the phenomena he is watching. By his cultural competence he himself is “writing” the play as it were (cf. Elam, 95). Despite the criticism expressed here of Ingarden’s per­ haps too close linkage of the theatrical performance and literature, it must be said that his conception of the func­ tion of speech in the theatre is quite modern and topi­ cal. He opens interesting new prospects for investigation by indicating the intentional moments in the presentation of objectivities, by stressing the feeling of characters, com­ munication, and finally the function of speech as a form of action. In discussing all of these, Ingarden points to the role of the pragmatic component recurrent throughout his article. That speech is a form of action constitutes a very fertile idea. Only this approach to the function of speech explains, for instance, the role of language in many con­ temporary dramas (e.g., in the theatre of the absurd or the works of the contemporary playwrights Kroetz and Bond; Sinko 1977). Equally interesting is the study of the impact on the spectator of stage speech (cf. Jakobson). We come then, to the next major problem in Ingar­ den’s book, that of reception and the spectator. Ingarden’s thought here is very topical indeed, and accords with the latest statements of theatre semiotics. The transformations of the present-day stage, the emergence of various theatri­ cal forms appealing more and more to the spectator — engaging him both intellectually and emotionally — have made of him an object of study. What is the function of the spectator in grasping the meaning of a performance? To what extent is his role active and what is its range?

Ingarden on the Theatre 293 Ingarden, having indicated the schematic character of a literary work, its spots of uncertainty and as a result the creative role of the spectator, has opened new prospects for study. However, the spectator’s activity in theatre is different from his approach to a literary work, with its own spots of uncertainty. Here the receiver is not expected to fill in the gaps and make concrete what is schematic, but to restructure the presented world according to his cultural competence. A description of the way theatrical semiosis is segmented is a major problem of contemporary theatre semiotics (Sinko 1982, 54-71). Moreover, the identification of meanings (the segmentation of semiosis) is frequently even more complex because some of the forms of contem­ porary theatre, being close to ritual (the theatre of Grotowski or Schechner, to recall the most obvious examples), invites the spectator to answer the questions “where am I?” and “what am I taking part in?” The process of perceiv­ ing the meanings of the plot is identical with suggesting its character. The theatrical frame is thus often exceeded. Ingarden, while describing the spectator’s position in front of theatrical reality, says, “the spectator finds him­ self outside the world represented in the play; second, he is not a partner in the conversation nor does he partake in the dramatic action; finally, he is a spectator, who, while perhaps not exclusively, exists primarily in an aesthetic at­ titude during the performance” (393; cf. Gofmann, 95). But while describing in this way the spectator’s position in the theatre, Ingarden admits also the possibility of there being other theatrical forms which change his relationship. He speaks of the closed stage (the naturalistic theatre with the “fourth wall”) to which the spectator is not admitted and the stage which is wide-open to him. This would be a theatre in which the actors address themselves directly to the audience, their acting or involving the spectators in a sort of mysteryplay (383-85). Here Ingarden’s thought

294 Danuta Kuznicka formulates concepts that during the last two decades have emerged also in the official theatre, inspiring and stimulat­ ing it. Ingarden’s theatrical thought embraces the whole phe­ nomenon of theatrical performance, including its ontology, the analysis of its structure, its reception by the specta­ tors, and its position in culture. While the latter problems axe only indicated and outlined by him, the former ones are formulated in statements of fundamental importance, and by linking the theatrical work with literature they find themselves within Ingarden’s wide-ranging aesthetical and philosophical system. Of essential and topical value is his approach to the function of language in a performance that links the meaning of words to the context in which they axe spoken. Also his statements on the specific dynamics of a play and the “quasi” character of stage reality accord both with the nature of contemporary performances and their theoretical description. His thesis on the stratified character of performance still remains arguable due to the different semiotic character of theatrical and literary works. While indicating many qualities of Ingarden’s position, I have tried in this study to isolate the questions that are open to discussion and to present them for reconsideration after the stormy transformations of the present-day theatre.

Ingarden on the Theatre N otes

295

1. The Literary Work of Art: An Investigation on the Borderlines of Ontology, Logic, and Theory of Literature with an Appendix on the Functions of Language in the Theater, trans., G. Grabowicz (Evanston, 111., 1973). This translation is based on the third edition (1965) of Das literarische Kunstwerk (originally published in 1931). 2. Ingarden (26), “The Function of Language in the Theater,” is a translation of the Polish “O funkcjach mowy w widowisku teatralnym,” published originally as apaper in Zagadnienia rodzajow literackich (Lodz 1958), I. 3. In para. 30 he dealt with problems of drama; he also recalled the dramaturgy of many authors, for instance Maeterlinck (168, 201, 279) Lessing (255 n., 275 n.), and Shakespeare (70-71, 243). 4. I have decided to use the term “performance,” though the author of a translation prefers “a stage play.” The former is a commonly used term in theatre studies to describe variety of theatrical productions. 5. The English translation omits here a statement present in the Polish version: “ Consequently, the objectivities presented in it are also purely intentional” Wskutek tego takze i tu przedmioty przedstawione sq tworami jedynie czysto intencjonalnymi).

References

Eco, U. A Theory of Semiotics. Bloomington, 111., 1977. Elam, K. The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. London, 1980. Goffman, E. Frame Analysis. Harmondsworth 1974.

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Jakobson, R. “Linguistics and Poetics.” In Thomas A. Sebeok, ed. Style in Lanaguage. Cambridge, Mass. 1960. 355-77. Kowzan, T. “The Sign in the Theatre.” Diogenes, LXI(1968), 52-80. de Marinis, M. “Lo spettacolo come testo.” Versus, pt. i (1978), 66-104; pt. ii (1979), 3-31. Pavis, P. “Languages of the Stage.” Performing Arts Journal (1982). Schechner, R. “Przyczynek do teorii i krytyki dram atu” Dialog (1967), 1. Sinko, G. Kryzys j§zyka w dramacie wspolczesnym-rzeczywistosc czy zludzenie? Wroclaw 1977. ---------. Opis przedstawienia teatralnego — problem semioiyczny. Wroclaw 1982.

Appendix. Select Bibliography of the Philosophical Works of Roman Ingarden

Danuta Gierulanka

Classifications: 0 , ontology; iE, aesthetics; T, theory of knowledge; A, axiology; PA, philosophical anthropology; PL, philosophy of language; L, logic; M, methodology; C, critical studies. [In the following, the existence of translations into Pol­ ish (P), German (G), English (E), and French (F) is noted with reference to the complete bibliography of Ingarden’s work in Peter McCormick, ed., Roman Ingarden: Selected Papers in Aesthetics (Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 1985), pp. 181-262. For example, [E16] indicates an English trans­ lation, item 16 in the English section of that bibliography. Eds.] 1

1921 (T)

Intuition and Intellekt bei Henri Bergson. Darstellung und Versuch einer Kritik. Halle. [P106(ll)]

2

1921 (T)

“Uber die Gefahr einer Petitio Principii in der E rk e n n tn is th e o rie Jahrbuch fur Philosophic und phanomenologische Forschung, IV. [P127]

3

1925 (T)

Uber die stellung der Erkenntnistheorie im System der Philosophic. Halle. [P15]

4

1925 (0 ,T )

“Essentiale Fragen. Ein Beitrag zum Problem des Wesens.” Jahrbuch fur Philosophic und phanomenologische Forschung, VII. [P129(8)]

5

1929 (O)

“Bemerkungen zum Problem Idealismus-Realismus.” In Festschrift, Edmund Husserl zum 70. Geburtstag gewidmet. Halle. 297

B. Dziemidok and P. McCormick (eds.), On the Aesthetics o f Roman Ingarden, 297-301. © 1989 by Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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6

1930 (T)

Psycho-fizjologiczna teoria poznania i jej krytyka (The Psychophysiological Theory of Knowledge and its Criticism). Lwów.

7

1931 (Æ)

Das literarische Kunstwerk. Eine Untersuchung aus dem Grenzgebeit der Ontologie, Logic, und Literaturwissenschaß. Halle. Fourth ed., 1972. [P99, E16, F22]

8

1933 (Æ)

“Zagadnienie tożsamości dzieła muzycznego” (The Question of the Identity of a Musical work of Art). Przegląd Filozoficzny, xxxvi:4.

9

1934 (C)

“Logistyczna próba ukształtowania filozofii” (The Logistic Attem pt at Reshaping Philosophy). [G il, FI]

10

1935 (O)

“Vom formalen Aufbau des individuellen Gegenstandes.” Studia Philosophica, I.

11

1937 (Æ,T)

O poznawaniu dzieła literackiego (The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art). Lwów [G35, E17, F14 and F20]

12

1937 (PA)

“Der Mensch und die Zeit.” Congrès Descartes, Paris. [P57]

13

1946 (Æ)

O budowie obrazu. Szkic z teorii sztuki (On the Structure of Painting. A sketch in the Theory of Art). Cracow. Also in [23]-

14

1946 (Æ)

“O dziele architektury” (On the Architectural Work of Art). Nauka t Sztuka, 11:1-2. [G24(3)]

15

1947 (0 )

Spór o istnienie świata (The Controversy over the Existence of the World), vol. I. Cracow. 2d ed. 1960. [G28.E8]

16

1947 (Æ)

Szkice z filozofii literatury (Sketches in the Philosophy of Literature). Lódź.

17

1947 (Æ)

“Le temps, l’espace et le sentiment de la réalité.” Congrès de Filmologie, Paris. Revue Internationale de Filmologie, 1:2. [P97II(4), G24(4)]

18

1947 (A)

“Quelques remarques sur le problème de la relativité des valeurs.” Congrès, Bruxelles-Louvain. [P82, G40(6)]

299

Bibliography 19

1948 (O)

Spor o istnienie Swiata (The Controversy over the Existence of the World), vol. II. Cracow. 2d ed. 1961. [G28]

20

1949 (L)

“O s§dzie warunkowym” (On the Conditional Judgement). Cracow. [E2]

21

1956 (JE)

Studia z estetyki (Studies in Aesthetics), vol. I. Warsaw. 2nd. ed. 1966.

22

1957 (£;)

“La valeur esthetique et le probleme de son fondement objectif.” Congres d’esthetique, Venice. [PI 14(7), G40(8)]

23

1958 0*E)

Studia z estetyki (Studies in Aesthetics), vol. II. Warsaw. [G24]

24

1958 (jE,M)

“Bemerkungen zum Problem des asthetischen Werturteils.” International Philosophy Congress, Venice. Rivista di Estetica, 111:3. [PI 13(3)]

25

1958 (C)

“Le probleme de la constitution et le sens de la reflexion constitutive chez E. Husserl.” Cahiers de Royaumont, III. [P106(ll)]

26

1959 0E,PL)

“Von der Funktionen der Sprache im T h e a te rs c h a u s p ie lZagadnienia rodzajow litemckich, I. [P99, E16, F22]

27

1959 (C)

“Uber den transzendentalen Idealismus bei E. Husserl.” Colloque Internationale de phenomenologie, Krefeld. [F12]

28

1960 (PA)

“L’homme et la nature.” Congres philosophique, Venice. [P121, G34, E28(l)]

29

1961 (PA)

“Nature humaine.” Congres philosophique, Montpellier. [P132(2), E28(2)]

30

1962 (T,iE)

“Prinzipien einer erkenntnistheoretischen Betrachtung der asthetischen Erfahrung.” Congres d’esthetique, Athens. [P103]

31

1962 (T,M,L) “Bemerkungen zum Problem der Begriindung.” Studia Logica, XIII. [P127(5)]

32

1962 (PL)

“Le mot comme element d’une langue.” Logique et Analyse, n.s. V:20. [P90]

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33

1963 (C)

Z badan nad filozofig wspilczesnq (Studies in Contemporary Philosophy). Warsaw. [Various partial translations]

34

1964 (jE,A)

“Artistic and Aesthetic Values.” British Journal of Aesthetics, IV:3. [P114(8), G40(9)]

35

1965 ( jE,A)

“Zagadnienie systemu jakosci estetycznie donioslych” (The Question of a System of Aesthetically Significant Qualities), Studia Estetyczne, II. [G37]

36

1966 (jE,A)

Przezycie — dzielo — wartoS6. (Experience — Work of Art — Value). Cracow. [G40]

37

1966 (A)

“Einige ungeloste Probleme der Werttheorie.” In Festschrift fur 0 . Tschizewskij. Munich. [PI 14(6)]

38

1967 (T,M ,0) “Betrachtungen zum Problem der Objektivitat.” Zeitschrift fur philosophische Forschung, XXI: 1-2. [P127(6)]

39

1968 (C)

“Meine Erinnerungen an Husserl.” In Briefe an Roman Ingarden. The Hague. [P141]

40 1970 (0,PA)

Uber die Verantwortung. Ihre ontischen Fundamente. Stuttgart. [P132(5), E28(5)]

41

1970 (C)

Innforing I Edmund Husserl Fenomenologi (Introduction to Edmund Husserl’s Phenomenology). Oslo. [P134, G52]

42

1970 (JE)

Siudia z esieiyki (Studies in Aesthetics), vol. III. Warsaw. [Various partial translations]

43 1970 (L,jE)

“Kiinstlerische Funktionen der Sprache. Ein Ausblick.” Sprachkunst, 1:1-2. [P125(19)]

44

1971 (T)

U podstaw teorii poznania (Foundations of the Theory of Knowledge), first part. Warsaw.

45

1972 (L)

Z teorii jfzyka i filozoficznych podstaw logiki (The Theory of Language and the Philosophical Foundations of Logic). Warsaw.

46 1972 (PA,A)

Ksiqzeczka o czlowieku (A Little Book on Man). Cracow. [E28]

Bibliography

301

47

1972 (M,Æ)

“M m Bense und das Problem der Anwendung statistischer Methoden in der Literaturforschung.” Sprachkunst, Beiträge zur Literatur Wissenschaft, 111:3-4 [P123]

48

1974 (O)

Uber die kausale Struktur der realen Welt. Der Streit um die Existenz der Welt. Vol. III. Tübingen. [P140]

Nijhoff International Philosophy Series 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 33. 36. 37. 38. 39.

Rotenstreich, N.: Philosophy, History and Politics. Studies in Contemporary English Philos­ ophy o f History. 1976. ISBN 90-247-1743-4. Srzednicki, Elements of Social and Political Philosophy. 1976. ISBN 90-247-1744-2. Tatarkiewicz, W .: Analysis of Happiness. 1976. ISBN 90-247-1807-4. Twardowski, K.: On the Content and Object of Presentations. A Psychological Investigation. Translated and with an Introduction by R. Grossman. 1977. ISBN 90-247-1926-7. Tatarkiewicz, W.: A History of Six Ideas. An Essay in Aesthetics. 1980. ISBN 90-247-2233-0. Noonan, H.W .: Objects and Identity. An Examination of the Relative Identity Thesis and Its Consequences. 1980. ISBN 90-247-2292-6. Crocker, L.: Positive Liberty. An Essay in Normative Political Philosophy. 1980. ISBN 90-247-2291-8. Brentano, F.: The Theory of Categories. 1981. ISBN 90-247-2302-7. Marciszewski, W. (ed.): Dictionary of Logic as Applied in the Study of Language. Concepts, Methods, Theories. 1981. ISBN 90-247-2123-7. Ruzsa, I.: Modal Logic with Descriptions. 1981. ISBN 90-247-2473-2. Hoffman, P.: The Anatomy of Idealism. Passivity and Activity in Kant, Hegel and Marx. 1982. ISBN 90-247-2708-1. Gram, M.S.: Direct Realism. A Study of Perception. 1983. ISBN 90-247-2870-3. Srzednicki, J.T .J., Rickey, V.F. and Czelakowski, J. (eds.): Lesniewski’s Systems. Ontology and Mereology. 1984. ISBN 90-247-2879-7. Smith, J.W .: Reductionism and Cultural Being. A Philosophical Critique of Sociobiological Reductionism and Physicalist Scientific Unificationism. 1984. ISBN 90-247-2884-3. Zumbach, C.: The Transcendent Science. Kant’s Conception of Biological Methodology. 1984. ISBN 90-247-2904-1. Notturno, M.A.: Objectivity, Rationality and the Third Realm. Justification and the Grounds of Psychologism. A Study of Frege and Popper. 1985. ISBN 90-247-2956-4. Dilman, I. (ed.): Philosophy and Life. Essays on John Wisdom. 1984. ISBN 90-247-2996-3. Russell, J.J.: Analysis and Dialectic. Studies in the Logic of Foundation Problems. 1984. ISBN 90-247-2990-4. Currie, G. and Musgrave, A. (eds.): Popper and the Human Sciences. 1985. ISBN 90-247-2998-X. Broad, C.D.: Ethics. Edited by C. Lewy. 1985. ISBN 90-247-3088-0. Seargent, D .A .J.: Plurality and Continuity. An Essay in G.F. Stout’s Theory o f Universals. 1985. ISBN 90-247-3185-2. Atwell, J.E .: Ends and Principles in Kant’s Moral Thought. 1986. ISBN 90-247-3167-4. Agassi, J. and Jarvie, I.Ch. (eds.): Rationality. The Critical View. 1987. ISBN 90-247-3275-1. Srzednicki, J.T .J. and Stachniak, Z. (eds.): S. Lesniewski’s Lecture Notes in Logic. 1988. ISBN 90-247-3416-9. Taylor, B.M. (ed.): Michael Dummett. Contributions to Philosophy. 1987. ISBN 90-247-3463-0. Bar-On, A.Z.: The Categories and Principle of Coherence. Whitehead’s Theory of Categories in Historical Perspective. 1987. ISBN 90-247-3478-9. Dziemidok, B. and McCormick, P. (eds.): On the Aesthetics o f Roman Ingarden. 1989. ISBN 0-7923-0071-8. Srzednicki, J.T .J. (ed.): Stephan Korner. Philosophical Analysis and Reconstruction. 1987. ISBN 90-247-3543-2. Brentano, F.: On the Existence of God. Lectures given at the Universities of Wurzburg and Vienna (1868-1891). 1987. ISBN 90-247-3538-6, Young, J.: Willing and Unwilling: A Study in the Philosophy o f Arthur Schopenhauer. 1987. ISBN 90-247-3556-4. Pavkovii, A.: Contemporary Yugoslav Philosophy: The Analytic Approach. 1988. ISBN 90-247-3776-1. Winterbourne, A.: The Ideal and the Real. 1988. ISBN 90-247-3774-5. Szaniawski, K.: The Vienna Circle and the Lvov-Warsaw School. 1988. ISBN 90-247-3798-2. Priest, G.: In Contradiction. A Study of the Transconsistent. 1987. ISBN 90-247-3630-7.

On the Aesthetics of Roman Ingarden Interpretations and Assessments R om an Ingarden is one o f the m ost o utstand ing aestheticians and theorists o f art. His co ntrib u tio n to the philosophy o f a rt, how ever, is not w ell-know n in the English-speaking w orld. This book aim s at a critical presentatio n and analysis o f his con trib u tio n to philo­ sophical aesthetics, philosophy o f literatu re and the theories o f m usic, theatre and film. It is the first book o f this kind in English which brings together contributions by scholars from P o lan d an d oth er countries.

K LU W ER A C A D E M IC PU B L ISH E R S

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ISBN 0-7923-0071-8