Roman Ingarden's Ontology and Aesthetics

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION A. PURPOSE ANDSTRUCTURE OF THE PRESENT STUDY The basic claimofthis book is twofold: (1)that we are not in a position accurately to interpret and evaluate Ingarden's studies in aesthetics until we place them within the frameworkprovided by his realist ontological position as a whole,and (2)that,conversely, we cannot fully appreciate the force of Ingarden's arguments in his 'non-aesthetic' epistemological and ontological investigations —such as we find in his magnum opus, TheControversy Over the Existence of the World1 —without understanding how Ingarden intended his studies in aesthetics to provide those investigations, and his own position with regard to the idealism/realism debate, with a solid foundation.In a number of crucial investigations in Controversy, the depth and scope of Ingarden's analyses prohibit him from elaborating central points in sufficient detail to render them entirely clear, and only rarely can he offer illustrations by way of further explanation of these analyses. He is often forced merely to refer the reader to his previous studies—for example, The Literary Work of Art.When we turn to those studies,however, we find their own analyses to be so detailed and lacking in illustrations —and often largely devoted to specific problems belonging , it would seem, exclusively to aesthetics—that the manner in which they might help us follow the labyrinthine argumentation of the investigations in Controversy remains, to say the least, unclear . With regard to the basic claim of this book, then, its initial task must be to (1) demonstrate the manner in which Ingarden's 1 Roman Ingarden's Ontology and Aesthetics realist ontological position provides the context within which we must locate his studies in aesthetics if we are fully to understand them, and (2) clarify the manner in whichthose studies do indeed serve to provide support for Ingarden's investigations in Controversy . In Chapter 1,I present a brief sketch of Ingarden's life, career, and works. There exists as yet no full-length biography ofRoman Ingarden,2 and the shorter biographical summaries and scattered comments to be found in various articles and elsewhere are sometimes in error regarding even the most basic details of his life and career.3 I have attempted to remedy this situation by offering precise dates and specific details and supplying documentation throughout. Some readers may regard the documentation I provide in the notes to Chapter 1as unnecessarilydetailed, especially that having to do with Ingarden's years at Jagiellonian University, but for the benefit of the reader who might wish to pursue his or her own research in this area I have felt it best to err on the side of too much rather than too little.That havingbeen said, I hasten to add that the chapter is not intended as a thorough and definitive biography—that would be another book in itself. My intention has been to record, accurately and succinctly,those detailsof his life and career that appear most immediately to bear upon the genesis and development of Ingarden's own philosophical position vis-a-vis Husserl, and which thereby provide us with an insight into his philosophical program. I hope also to havesatisfied at least a bit of the reader's natural curiosity concerning a thinker whose life remains largely a mystery. Ingarden first stated his objections to Husserl's idealism in a letter he wrote to him in July 1918. Throughout the following decade he taught in Lublin, Warsaw, Torurn, and Lwow, writing and lecturing on problems of epistemology, among other subjects, and by 1928he had completed The Literary Work of An, in which he employs the analyses of the literary work of art in illustration and powerful defence of his own realist position vis-a-visHusserl's idealism. By 1929, he was already concentrating on how best to systematically formulate his position regarding the idealism/ realism debate, but it was not until the end of World War II that Ingarden was able to complete the first two volumes of Controversy . More than any other of Husserl's critics, Ingarden devoted himself to revealingthe extentto which Husserl was committed to a version of metaphysical idealism, and he attempted to reshape phenomenological analysis along realist lines to avoid what he regarded as inescapable difficulties encountered by the Husserlian 2 Introduction idealist program. For this reason he has rightly been identified as the chief proponent of the interpretation of Husserl as a metaphysical idealist, and...