Roman Ingarden S Philosophy Of Literature

In Roman Ingarden’s Philosophy of Literature Wojciech Chojna makes Ingarden’s philosophy of literature more consistent with Husserl’s phenomenology and more immune to both absolutism and relativism. The latter is overcome not through falling back on essentialism but from within itself.

This long-awaited translation of Das literarische Kunstwerk makes available for the first time in English Roman Ingarden's influential study. Though it is inter-disciplinary in scope, situated as it is on the borderlines of ontology and logic, philosophy of literature and theory of language, Ingarden's work has a deliberately narrow focus: the literary work, its structure and mode of existence. The Literary Word of Art establishes the groundwork for a philosophy of literature, i.e., an ontology in terms of which the basic general structure of all lliterary works can be determined. This "essential anatomy" makes basic tools and concepts available for rigorous and subtle aesthetic analysis.

This Ingardenia volume is the second in the Analecta Husserliana series that is entirely devoted to the phenomenology of Roman Ingarden. The first was volume IV (1976). Twenty years after Ingarden's death, this volume demonstrates that the Polish phenomenologist's contribution to philosophy and literary scholarship has received world-wide attention. His ideas have proven especially fruitful for the definition of the structure of the literary work of art and the subsequent recognition of its characteristic features. Of all the early phenomenologists who were students of Husserl, it is Ingarden whose work has faithfully pursued the original tenet that language "holds" the essence of the life-world "in readiness" (bereit halten). To investigate this premise with the rigor of a science, as Husserl had envisioned for phenomenology, was Ingarden's life work. That Ingarden did not quite reach his ambitious goal does not diminish his unquestionable achievement. The understanding of the nature of the literary work of art has increased enormously because of his analyses and aesthetics. The Polish phenomenologist investigated above all the work of art as a structure of necessary components which define and determine its nature. That the artistic ingredient was shortchanged under those conditions should not be surprising, particu larly since Ingarden usually kept a purist's philosophical distance from the concrete detail of the material under consideration. He was not concerned with individual works of art but with the principle that was shared by all of them as the defining feature of their being.

Mitscherling provides a study of Ingarden's life, career, and works, and focuses on the genesis and development of this great thinker's philosophical position in relation to that of Edmund Husserl. He summarizes, explains, and illustrates a number of Ingarden's most important investigations presented in The Controversy Over the Existence of the World, a work clarifying the debate between realism and idealism in a more thorough manner than has ever been attempted. He continues by focusing on Ingarden's examination of various sorts of works of art in particular (the dramatic work, the musical work, the painting, and the architectural work) and on his contributions to aesthetics in general.

Ingarden's relevance today -- Introduction to the concept of identity -- Some traditional approaches -- Ingarden's general ontology -- Nature and identity of a literary work in American aesthetics -- Nelson Goodman's syntactical identity -- Richard Wolheim's amendment -- Psychologism -- Semantic accounts -- Joseph Margolis's culturally emergent objects -- Phenomenological concept of identity -- Identity of a perceptual object -- The concept of intentionality -- The Concept of constitution -- Ideality and identity of the objectivities of understanding -- Husserl's theory of meaning -- Ingarden's objections to Husserl's transcendental idealism -- Hermeneutic challenges against the possibility of transcendental phenomenology -- Literary work as a schematic structure -- The notion of a 'purely intentional object' -- Schematism -- Structure of a literary work of art -- The stratum of linguistic sound formations -- The stratum of meanings -- Meanings of sentences -- The stratum of presented objects -- The stratum of schematized aspects.

This is the complete and critical translation into English of Controversy over the Existence of the World by the Polish phenomenologist Roman Ingarden (1893-1970), student and critic of Husserl. Volume I of his three-volume opus magnum offers a fundamental ontological analysis of the modes of being of various types of objects.

This volume explores the work of Polish phenomenologist Roman Ingarden (1893-1970) with respect to his ontology, epistemology and aesthetics. An outstanding student of Edmund Husserl, it offers a unique tribute to one of the most important figures in contemporary philosophy. Leszek Sosnowski and Natalia Anna Michna introduce a team of renowned scholars to present new and timely readings of Ingarden s thought, placing his philosophy in a broader historical and cultural context. In doing so, they offer a cutting edge reflection on the relevance, refinement and depth of Ingarden s theory. Chapters are not only retrospective, but also set out the present and future development of philosophy inspired by his works. Reinvigorating the debate about Ingarden s phenomenological legacy and its relevance for contemporary thought, this collection of essays guides us through his place in the history of philosophy and presents new perspectives on selected aspects of his theory.

Roman Ingarden studied under Husserl before and during the first world war. He belonged to the so-called Gottingen group of Husserl's pupils. Husserl's doctrine was accepted by them and interpreted in a realist vein. Ingarden defended this view all his life. He opposed the development of phenomenology towards idealism. A considerable part of Ingarden's great creative effort is dedicated to the construction of a realist phenomenology and thus, according to him, to continuing the erection of the theoret ical structure whose foundations were laid by Husserl in his Logical Investigations. From Ingarden's standpoint the question of idealism versus realism was a crucial one. Ingarden published several studies on Husserl. The first one was written in 1918 and the last one was published posthumously. The present essay was printed in Ingarden's book Z badan nad filozofi:t wsp61czesn:t- (Inquiries into Contemporary Philosophy 1963) along with a number of other essays on Husserl and his philoso phy. This one is representative for Ingarden's positions. It is a good example of his contribution to an important controversy in the history of phenomenology, and it gives the reader an idea of Ingarden's critique of Husserlian idealism against the background of his argument for realism. Thanks and acknowledgements are due to Mr. J. E. Llewelyn of Edinburgh University. This translation was undertaken in collaboration with him. Arn6r Hannibalsson K6pavogur, Iceland 2I. II.