References
- Roman Ingarden, “Man and his Reality”, Man and Value. Münich: Philosophia Verlag, 1983, p. 30.
- In a footnote of the second edition of Spór o istnienie świata [Controversy over the Existence of the World], Warszawa: PWN. 1960, vol.I, pp. 256–257, Ingarden writes “…I busied myself with the question of the human person already in my youth, that is, in 1913. At the time I studied a series of authors (Dilthey, Simmel, et at.), for I wanted to write a doctoral dissertation on the subject. And it was only circumstantial reasons that determined that, finally, in the autumn of 1913, I reached an agreement with Husserl that I would write about intuition in Bergson. But the question of the human person never left my sight.” For an analysis of Ingarden's conception of man, see Władysław Strożewski, “Man and Value in Ingarden's Thought”, Analecta Husserliana. The Yearbook of Phenomenological Research, vol.5, Dordrecht: Reidel Publ. Co., 1976, pp. 109–123. A more recent review is by Georges Kalinowski, La phénoménologie de l'homme chez Husserl, ingarden, et Scheler. Paris: Editions universitaires, 1991, pp. 43–66.
- “On Human Nature”, Man and Value, op. cit., p. 24.
- The following passage from L'évolution créatrice (Oeuvres. Paris: PUF, 1959, 1959, p. 721) could be read in a favourable light in Ingarden's conception of the cultural. “L'homme continue…indéfiniment le mouvement vital, quoiqu'il n'entraine pas avec lui tout ce que la nature portait en elle.” (…) “Tout se passe comme si un être indécis et flou, qu'on pourra appeler, comme on voudra, homme ou sur-homme, avait cherché à se réaliser, et n ‘y etait parvenu qu'en abandonnant en route une partie de lui-même.” (italics in the original). Frances Nethercott brought this passage to my attention.
- “Man and his Reality”, p. 31 (footnote 5).
- “What we do not know about values”, Man and Value, op. cit., p. 132.
- Ibid., pp. 134–135.
- “Remarks on the Relativity of Values”, Man and Value, op. cit., pp. 119–130.
- Ibid., p. 131.
- “On Human Nature”, op. cit., p. 22.
- Wykłady z etyki [Lectures on Ethics], Warszawa: PWN, 1989, p. 337, quoted by W. Strażewski, “O urzeczywistnianiu wartosci” [On the realization of values], in W kregu wartośći [In the Context of Values], Krakow: Znak, 1992, pp. 57–75.
- “On Responsibility. Its Ontic Foundations”, in Man and Value, p. 83.
- Ibid., p. 82.
- “On Human Nature”, p. 23.
- Joseph Margolis, “Constraints on the Metaphysics of Culture”, Review of Metaphysics 39 (June 1986): 653–673, p. 661.
- “Man and his Reality”, pp. 28–29.
- The radical construction of the subject in the context of theories of interpretation in the philosophies of the human and social sciences brings to mind Foucault, on one hand, and, on the other hand, thinkers like Donald Davidson and W.V.O. Quine with their conceptions of “radical interpretation”.
- Margolis, op. cit., 660.
- Ibid.
- Ibid., p. 659.
- Ibid., p. 655.
- Ibid., p. 666.
- A first attempt at a reconstruction of Ingarden's theory of action, without reference to artworks and the cultural context, is my “Ingarden's Value Theory of Action” in Analytic Phenomenology (Festschrift presented to Professor Guido Küng), Dordrecht: Kluwer 1995.
- See, for example. On the Motives which led Edmund Husserl to Transcendental Idealism, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976, Part 1, section 5. Also Einführung in die Phänomenologie Edmund Husserls. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1992, Sechste Vorlesung, verschiedene Begriffe der Transzendenz, Ss. 164–84.
- Ingarden is adamant in his insistence that the physical thing, the work of art, and the aesthetic object are three different entities, even though, as he himself recognizes, the response to the aesthetic object is often such that “…we become convinced that the thing itself possesses those aesthetically valent qualities and the qualities of value which are constituted in it; we are convinced that we simply perceive them in the thing.” The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art, Evanston: Northwestern Univ. Press, 1973, 199. In another text, he writes that, whereas the artwork is given to the subject as an object bearing properties the subject has to discover, not create, there can be no doubt that aesthetically valent qualities are not properties of the artwork as such. “Wartość estetyczna i zagadnienie jej obiektywnego ugruntowania” [Aesthetic value and the question of its objective foundation] Studia z estetyki, torn 3, Warszawa: PWN, 1970, pp. 260–61.
- The constitution in question proceeds via the response to value, a notion which Ingarden admitted requires closer examination. The ideal would be to determine whether there is an ordering of responses to types of values such that certain responses are appropriate and other inappropriate. Cf. “Wartość estetyczna…op. cit., p. 263.
- Ingarden reviews three possible ways in which aesthetically valent qualities and the values arising on their basis may be said to be objective in relation to the artwork. The possibility which he considers to be theoretically promising is that of double-dependency—on the artwork and the perceiver thereof. Ibid., 261.
- Ingarden was somewhat ambiguous on this question. On the one hand, he insisted that “I have never attempted to analyze literary works of art ‘without reference to value’”. On the other hand, he informed his readers that “…the question of what constitutes the nature of…value must remain beyond the scope of our study, since an answer to it assumes, on the one hand, a solution to the problem of value in general and, on the other, an understanding of the structure of the literary work. For this very reason our consideration of the literary work will disregard altogether the issue of whether the works we are dealing with have positive values or are worthless.” As if aware of the ambiguous nature of his case, Ingarden adds that, although he abjured the analysis of the general essence of value, he did look “…for places where values (more specifically, artistic or aesthetic values qualities) can appear.” It seems safe to press that point that, between values and artworks, there is only a contingent relation. Cf. p. lxxxii of The Literary Work of Art. Evanston: Northwestern Univ. Press, 1973.
- On human nature, p. 23.
- On responsibility, p. 67.
- Ibid., p. 70.
- I am aware that even a reasonably complete sketch of the problem as I am presenting it would have to distinguish between different types or kinds of Wertsituationen, for instance aesthetic and moral situations. The present remarks are drawn from Ingarden's theory of morally valent actions, but I assume, for the sake of argument, that what is true there can be applied, with the relevant reformulations, to actions within aesthetic situations.
- It may be implausible to suppose that an artist's activities in producing the works which exemplify value bear aesthetic values in their own right. It is true, however, that we admire an artist's craftsmanship, and speak of it in terms of its finesse and grace, terms which might just as well apply to the result of his labors, the artwork. Prima facie at least, nothing seems to preclude the existence of “Bestimmungszusammenhänge” in aesthetic Wertsituationen on analogy with those which seem to be evident in moral situations. However, these are only suppositions requiring much closer examination. Readers interested in the question should consult the volume of Ingarden collected works gathering together the seminars and conversatoria held in Cracow: Wyklady i dyskusje z estetyki [Lectures and discussions on aesthetics], Warszawa: PWN, 1981, pp. 173–179.
- A related question is whether there exist connections among the various types of Wertsituationen. For example, what would an Ingardenian description be of the complex morala-esthetic situation in which, among other things, responsibility accrues to the artist for producing an artwork which is aesthetically valent and at the same time morally exalted or, on the contrary, abhorrent? In what is the moral (dis-)value exemplified, what is its subject? Cf. the sections in the Literary Work of Art on “metaphysical qualities”.
- On responsibility, p. 70.
- Ibid., pp. 71ff.
- Ibid., p. 75.