Man and Value (review)

108Philosophy and Literature familiar with some of these thinkers will be struck by the surprising thematic and even terminological convergence between them and Heidegger in regard to topics such as "unhiddenness," "clearing," and the identity of poetry and theology. Grassi clearly shares Heidegger's belief that the time has come to seek out poetic alternatives to Western rationalism; but he is also aware of a wider range of resources, already part of the Western tradition, that may help in formulating such alternatives. Heidegger and the Question ofRenaissance Humanism is an important book for those engaged in the quest for similar alternatives and for those who are considering the viability of combining postmodern, nonfoundationalist philosophy with some of the values of humanism. University of KansasGary Shapiro Man and Value, by Roman Ingarden; translated by A. Szylewicz; 184 pp. Washington, D.C: Catholic University of America Press, 1983, $54.95. Posthumously published works frequendy reveal the more personal or even deliberately suppressed aspects of a writer's intellectual world. Thus the publication in 1972 of six little essays by Roman Ingarden realized a fleeting wish the Polish phenomenologist had expressed not long before his death, asking jestingly in a circle of friends, "How about if I some day put out a Little Book on Man" (p. 9). As we learn from D. Gierulanka's forewords to both The Little Book on Man (Cracow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1972) and Man and Value, Ingarden's interest in man manifested itself in print only once before, at the onset of his career, when he submitted as title of his first proposal for a doctoral dissertation "The Structure of the Human Person." Among the nine essays collected in the present volume, only six had been included in the earlier Polish publication, which became an instant success, going in a short time through three sold-out printings. Its popularity may have been due to the proper sequence of the textual fragments arranged by the editor, which allows even someone entirely unacquainted with Ingarden's thought to be easily drawn into the problems of a quite serious and difficult philosophical anthropology . The only essay to constitute some difficulties is the one "On Responsibility — Its Ontic Foundations" (pp. 53-117). Unlike the others on human nature, reality, time, and fruitful discussions, which had all been written in Polish, the essay on responsibility first appeared in German. The latter also differs from the rest in style and content. Dealing with the psychophysical structure of man as one of the fundamental conditions of responsibility, it introduces the reader to Ingarden's well-known philosophical craftsmanship, the parascientific , spatial stratification of phenomenological thought. But instead of the more innocent ontological questions that characterize the "little" essays, "On Respon- Reviews109 sibility" tackles fundamental issues concerning ethics, social responsibility, and the hitherto unresolved relationship between causal determinism and the freedom of the will. The three essays appended here by the English translator to the original six from The Little Book are all concerned with values: their essence, relativity and morality, and the material and manner in which their manifestation is realized. They are examples of conceptual ordering, attempts at specific phenomenological analyses, and evidence of Ingarden's axiological pluralism. Absent from these essays on value, as from the one on responsibility, are actual pronouncements on value or even the slightest trace of an engagement. Ingarden's definitions of works of art as "purely intentional objects" owing to the artist's acts of consciousness are accompanied by occasional, seemingly peremptory statements on the autonomy and objectivity of aesthetic value. While such qualities seem to be desired by the author, he fails to demonstrate their existence. The integrity of Ingarden's thought remains intact in both categories of essays. His fundamental ontological investigations into man's reality and into art both move in the same privileged sphere of intentionality and consciousness. Ethical and aesthetic values seem to be born from the encounter between the causal determinism coming from the real world and the exercise of free will. The most fascinating and vibrant of Ingarden's essays included in the present volume is the one on "Man and Time," written during the war. It confronts the need for...