Roman Ingarden's Ontology and Aesthetics

FOREWORD

FOREWORD Dr. Mitscherling provides the first comprehensive monograph on the life and the works of a philosopher who in Germany and in his native Poland has long been known as a thinker of marked originality . Now that several of Roman Ingarden's writings have become available in English translations and that his distinguished pupil Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka has published some essays on him, his thought is attracting growing interest both in Europe and in North America. From his early student days at the universities of Gottingen and Freiburg, Ingarden was closely associated with Edmund Husserl and the phenomenological movement. Dr. Mitscherling shows how the way in which Husserl attempted to solve his crucial problem—therelation between the human mind's consciousness of the world and the world of which the mind is conscious— led to Ingarden's lifelong objections, founded on his own realist convictions, to the "transcendental idealism" of his master. Since several of Husserl's prominent followers have challenged Ingarden's interpretation, Dr. Mitscherling examines the conflicting views concerning the character of Husserl's idealism and shows how Ingarden's critical attitude prompted his rigorous scrutiny of the age-old disputes about the arguments concerning the certainty of our knowledge of the world. The author expounds Ingarden's work on the subject, a treatise in several volumes, yet untranslated, which—in spite of its odd and somewhat misleading title Controversy Over the Existence of the World—is a weighty contribution to philosophical discussion. XI Roman Ingarden's Ontology and Aesthetics Turning to Ingarden's books and articles dealing withthe various forms of art, from the literary to the visual and musical, the author draws attention to their being closely linked with Ingarden 's rejection of idealist explanations; theyserve to illustrate and to strengthen his fundamentallyrealist outlook and, at the same time, help in facilitating the reader's grasp ofthe austere and compressed reasoning of the Controversy. He shows, moreover, how Ingarden's analysis of the literary work of art as well as his subsequent presentations of dramatic and musical creations, of painting and of architecture are all part of his ontological program. In presenting this program, the author underlines the particular importance attached to aesthetics and points to the part Ingarden's approach could play in clarifyingproblems at the centre of contemporary discussions in this field. Meanwhilethe fruitfulness of Ingarden's reflections is apparent in their recent use in studies on the theories of literature, of film and of theatre. Finally, Dr. Mitscherling concludes by stressing Ingarden's concern with the fundamentalproblems of metaphysics inherent in all his ontological inquiries. Bycareful interpretation and moderate use of technical terminology, the author succeeds in making accessible the work of a remarkable philosopher and in showing the importance of his thought. RaymondKlibansky XII ...