No More Learning

151. Jean Paul takes every measure to resist philosophy: for example, parody, or even a return to the principle of imitation (see, e. g. , Clavis Fichtiana seu Leibgeberianaand VorschulederAsthetik).
152. See August Wilhelm Schlegel, Die Kunstlehre, Pt. 1 of the lectures on lit- erature and art, quoted from Kritische Schriften und Briefe, vol. 2 (Stuttgart, 1963). P- 9-
153. The problem poses itself in all functional systems, and it often remains debatable--e. g. , for the pedagogical value of pedagogical theory or with refer- ence to the status of legal dogma or legal theory as a (self-acknowledged) source of positive law. Controversies of this sort ultimately depend on institutional and organizational conditions, e. g. , on the role of pedagogy in the education of teachers or on the openness of the legal system to a "law of judical precedence" that is justified by current legal opinion because it cannot be justified innova- tively as a kind of legislation. From theology, one expects a positive, committed relationship to belief, even though the effects of theology do not always corre-
Notes to Pages 281-84
395
spond to this assumption. From the theory of science, one expects a more non- scientific (nonhypothetical, dogmatic) self-relation, and so forth.
154. "1st das Reale aulSer uns: so sind wir ewig geschieden davon; ist es in uns: so sind wirs selber" (Jean Paul, Vorschule der Asthetik, p. 445).
155. This is how Earl R. Wasserman, The Subtler Language: Critical Readings ofNeoclassic and Romantic Poems (Baltimore, 1959), interprets the changing de- mands that are placed on the language of lyric poetry from Dryden to Shelley.
156. The question of what reality is in itself is still a matter of dispute. See, e. g. , N. Katherine Hayles, "Constrained Constructivism: Locating Scientific In- quiry in the Theater of Representation," in George Levine, ed. , Realism and Rep- resentation: Essays on the Problem of Realism in Relation to Science, Literature, and
Culture (Madison, Wis. , 1993), pp. 27-43.
157. This notion, which implies a distance from all variants of postmodern
constructivism, can be demonstrated by a somewhat extensive quotation: "Der Idealismus in jeder Form mu8 auf die eine oder die andre Art aus sich herausge- hen, um in sich zuriickkehren zu konnen und zu bleiben, was er ist. Deswegen mufi und wird sich aus seinem SchoS ein neuer, ebenso grenzenloser Realismus erheben" (Friedrich Schlegel, Gesprdch iiber die Poesie, pp. i6iff. ).
158. As we know from Mikhail M. Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World (Cam- bridge, Mass. , 1968).
159. In the sense of Spencer Brown's "law of crossing" {Laws of Form [1969; rpt. New York, 1979], p. 2): "The value of the crossing made again [that is, back across the same boundary, N. L. ] is not the value of the crossing. " The move- ment back and forth asserts the distinction only on condition that it remains the same.
160. On the history of this distinction as a frame of narrative, see Davis, Fac- tual Fictions.
161. Jean Paul, Vorschule der Asthetik, p. 88.
162. Ibid. , p. 87.
163. A similar strategy underlies E. T. A. Hoffmann's Elixiere des Teufels--
elements of the story do not really come from the Devil, but the narration gains plausibility by making the reader believe they do.
164. Walter Schulz adopts this guiding metaphor to present die historical sit- uation of the philosophy of art in his Metaphysik des Schwebens: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Asthetik (Pfullingen, 1985).
165. This is the point of Peter Fuchs's interpretation of romanticism in Mod- erne Kommunikation: Zur Theorie des operativen Displacements (Frankfurt, 1993), pp. 79fF.
166. See also Ludwig Tieck, William Lovell, quoted from Fruhe Erzdhlungen und Romane (Munich, n. d. ), p. 603: "Es ist ein Fluch der auf der Sprache des Menschen liegt, da6 keiner den anderen verstehen kann. "
396 Notes to Pages 284-85
167. Friedrich Schlegel, Lucinde, in Werke, vol. 2, p. 74.
168. The reflection on writing is foregrounded when not only the author writes and the reader reads but the protagonists in the novel write as well, or when the protagonist, as in Tieck's William LovelL, is accessible only through written testimony (letters). The author can then exploit and ironize, at both lev- els, the typical accessories of the horror novel, while withholding from the reader which one of the protagonist's heterogeneous written testimonies constitutes the true "meaning of the story. " In thefinalanalysis, the "miraculous" and the "sub- lime" appear trivial in that they can be explained biographically. Uncertainty ex- plodes every dimension of a possible hermeneutic search for a deeper meaning. As textual content, writing affirms what one is supposed to think of the fact that even the author is only a writer--a typical effect of a reentry that throws the ob- server into an "unresolvable indeterminacy" (Spencer Brown, Laws ofForm, p. 57) and makes him realize that nothing else is intended.
169. See, e. g. , Friedrich Schlegel, "Uber die Philosophic" quoted from Werke, n
vol. 2, pp. 101-29 ( 8)-
170. "Die Schrift hat fur mich ich weifi nicht welchen geheimen Zauber,
vielleicht durch die Dammerung von Ewigkeit, welche sie umschwebt," writes Schlegel (ibid. , p. 104). As an author, Schlegel imagines that life is writing--to paraphrase it in somewhat metaphysical terms. For another example, see the text, discovered by Jochen Horisch, of the romantic naturalist Johann Wilhelm Rit-
ter: "Die erste und zwar absolute Gleichzeitigkeit (von Wort und Schrift) lag
darin, dafi das Sprachorgan selbst schreibt, um zu sprechen. Nur der Buchstabe spricht, oder besser: Wort und Schrift sind gleich an ihrem Ursprung eines, und keines ohne das andere moglich" (Ritter, Fragmente aw dem Nachlaft eines jun-
gen Physikers--Ein Taschenbuchfur Freunde der Natur, Zweites Bandchen [Hei- delberg, 1810], p. 229, quoted from Jochen Horisch, "Das Sein der Zeichen und
die Zeichen des Seins: Marginalien zu Derrida's Ontosemiologie," in Jacques Derrida, Die Stimme und das Phdnomen: Ein Essay uber das Problem des Zeichens in der Philosophie Husserls [Frankfurt, 1979], p. 14). On romanticism as a culture
of writing, see also Walter J. Ong, Interfaces ofthe Word: Studies in the Evolution of Consciousness and Culture (Ithaca, N. Y. , 1977), pp. 272ff; and Peter Fuchs, Moderne Kommunikation, vol. 1, pp. 97ff.
171. E. g. , by August Wilhelm Schlegel.
172. PauldeMan,BlindnessandInsight:EssaysintheRhetoricofContemporary Criticism (1979; 2d ed. Minneapolis, 1983), p. 196. Even before romanticism, however, one occasionally finds the notion that nature is experienced in an ob- servation trained in art. See, e. g. , Denis Diderot's "Essai sur la Peinture," quoted
from CEuvres, Pleiade ed. (Paris, 1951), pp. 1143-1200 (1156): "II semble que nous considerions la nature comme le resultat de l'art. " Decisive here is the shift of the nature/art distinction toward action and experience. This shift avoids the colli- sion between God as creator and the attist as the producer of a single work.
Notes to Pages 285-87
397
173. Especially in early romanticism. See Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-
Luc Nancy, L'absolu UtteWaire: Theorie de la Littirature du romantisme allemand (Paris, 1978), Introduction.
174. In "Uber Goethes 'Meister,'" Friedrich Schlegel writes of "criticism as a high form of poetry": "dafi sie iiber die Grenzen des sichtbaren Werkes mit Ver- mutungen und Behauptungen hinausgeht. Das mufi alle Kritik, weil jedes vor- treffliche Werk, von welcher Art es auch sei, mehr weifi als es sagt, und mehr will als es weifi," quoted from Schlegel, Werke, vol. 1, p. 154.
175. In contrast to the current discussion in legal theory provoked by Ronald Dworkin. What the romantics called "criticism" becomes now, with the same in- tention, "constructive interpretation," which is supposed to generate the best possible version of the text. See Ronald Dworkin, Law's Empire (Cambridge, Mass. , 1986), pp. jif. and throughout; on the same topic, see further David Couzens Hoy, "Dworkin's Constructive Optimism v. Deconstructive Legal Ni- hilism," Law and Philosophy 6 (1987): 321-56. In this way, one arrives despite all scruples at the notion that there must be a single correct decision in current law.
176. "Monotheismus der Vernunft und des Herzens, Polytheismus der Ein- bildungskraft und der Kunst, dies ist's was wir bedurfen," states the "Alteste Sys- temprogramm des deutschen Idealismus" (quoted from Hegel, Werke, vol. 1 [Frankfurt, 1971], pp. 234-36).
177. See August Wilhelm Schlegel, Die Kunstlehre, pp. 23ff. (29).
178. This is the topic of Walter Benjamin's dissertation, Der Begriffder Kun- stkritik in der deutschen Romantik (Frankfurt, 1973). However, Benjamin inter- prets the relationship between medium and form (pp. 82f. ) as a continuum, as a transition or intensification rather than as a difference. To be sure, Benjamin cites Friedrich Schlegel s formulation of the "boundaries of the visible work" (pp. 81, 84), beyond which resides the idea of art, but he does not elaborate Schlegel's terminology on his own (p. 52, n. 141).
179. Jean Paul, Vorschule der Asthetik, ? 27: "und das Begrenzte ist erhaben, nicht das Begrenzende" (108).
180. E. g. ,inSolger,VorlesungeniiberAsthetik,pp. 125,i99f. SeealsoJeanPaul, Vorschule der Asthetik, ? 48, pp. i48ff, where he argues that one must study the
semblance of seriousness in order to get at the seriousness of appearance. Hence the incompatibility of irony and the comic.
181. See Hans J. Haferkorn, "Zur Enstehung der biirgerlich-literarischen In- telligenz und des Schriftstellers in Deutschland zwischen 1750 und 1800," in
Bernd Lutz, ed. , Literaturwissenscha. fi und Sozialwissenschaften 3: Deutsches Biirg- ertum undLiterarischeIntelligenz 1750-1800 (Stuttgart, 1974), pp. 113-275; Giesen and Junge, "Vom Patriotismus zum Nationalismus. "
182. August Wlhelm Schlegel suggests that and how one can dispense with the Idea: "Das Schone ist eine symbolische Darstellung des Unendlichen" (Die Kunstlehre, p. 81).
398 Notes to Pages 287-pi
183. The theme of a change of identity, e. g. , in the sexual relationship between brother and sister, was common before romanticism, and it becomes evident that this is a literary topic that presupposes writing. For evidence from the Italian Re- naissance, see Graziella Pagliano, "Sociologia e letteratura, owero storie di fratelli e sorelle," Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia 35 (1994): 151-62.
184. See, e. g. , Hoffmann, Ritter Gluck, quoted from E. T. A. Hoffmann,
Musikalische Novellen und Schriften, ed. Richard Miinnich (Weimar, 1961), pp.
35-55-
185. Friedrich Schlegel, "Uber Lessing," quoted from Werke, vol. 1, pp. 103-35
(123).
186. Novalis, Fragmente II, no. 2167, quoted from Werke/Briefe Dokurnente,
ed. Ewald Wasmuth, vol. 3 (Heidelberg, 1957) (numbers follow this edition). 187. A formulation pertaining to postmodern architecture can already be ap- plied to romanticism: "Whereas a mythology was given to die artist in the past by tradition and by patron, in the postmodern world it is chosen and invented" (Charles Jencks, "Postmodern vs. Late-Modern," in Ingeborg Hoesterey, ed.
,
Zeitgeist in Babel: The Postmodernist Controversy [Bloomington, Ind. , 1991], pp. 4-21 [9]).
188. On the misrecognition of the functional differentiation of the social sys-
tem, which is already widely established, see Klaus Disselbeck, Geschmack und
Kunst: Eine systemtheoretische Untersuchung zu Schillers Briefen "Uber die asthetis- che Erziehung des Menschen" (Opladen, 1987).
189. See, e. g. , Ludwig Tieck's novella Das ZauberschloJ? (ifyo).
190. Foranoverview,seeDavidRoberts,ArtandEnlightenment:AestheticThe- ory after Adorno (Lincoln, Nebr. , 1991). See also Christoph Menke-Eggers, Die Souveranitdt der Kunst: Asthetische Erfahrung nach Adorno und Derrida (Frank- fart, 1988).
191. Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialektik der Aufkldrung (1947), quoted from Theodor W. Adorno, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 3 (Frank- furt, 1981).
192. This could be demonstrated by a more detailed analysis of new forms of "fantastic" art. A wealth of materials can be found in Christian W. Thomsen and Jens Make Fischer, eds. , Phantastik in Literatur und Kunst, 2d ed. (Darm- stadt, 1985). See also Tzvetan Todorov, The Fantastic (Ithaca, N. Y. , 1973). To- dorov's answer is diat the fantastic renders the issue of supernatural influences undecidable (! ).
193. See Stephane Mallarme's famous "Un coup de des jamais n abolira le haz- ard," Preface, quoted from CEuvres completes, Pleiade ed. (Paris, 1945), pp. 453-- 77: "Les 'blancs,' en effet, assument l'importance, frappent d'abord; la versifica- tion en exigea" (453).
194. These are Heidegger's words. See "Der Ursrprung des Kunstwerks," in Martin Heidegger, Holzwege (Frankfurt, 1950), pp. 7-68 (jif. ).
Notes to Pages 292-95
399
195. We might speculate whether negating every tie to the past amounts to negating any decidable future; after all, the future presupposes something from which it distinguishes itself.
196. See Theodor W. Adorno, Asthetische Theorie, in Adorno, Gesammelte Schrifien, vol. 7 (Frankfurt, 1970).
197. See Chapter 2, section I, above.
198. Umberto Eco, Opera aperta (1962; 6th ed. Milan, 1988), p. 177, maintains that even an open work must be recognizable as a work. But other factors must limit die continuation of a work. A piano piece by Stockhausen can be re- arranged in various ways, but one cannot continue it by singing "Lilli Marleen. "
199. On the notion of an "outside of the calculus of forms," see Elena Espos- ito, "Ein zweiwertiger nicht-selbststandiger Kalkul," in Dirk Baecker, ed. , Kalkul derForm (Frankfurt, 1993), pp. 96-m.
200. Spencer Brown, Laws ofForm, p. 57.
201. For further considerations of this matter, see Arthur C. Danto, The Transfiguration of the Commonplace: A Philosophy of Art (Cambridge, Mass. ,
1983).
202. This can be accomplished from above or from below, by offering a mas-
sive amount of erudition that has become unintelligible or by speaking the slang of the lower classes (Burroughs, Pasolini), which makes sense only to those who are not addressed as readers.
203. That this case can be subsumed under the concept of autonomy has been disputed, e. g. , by Wolfgang Welsch, "Ubergange," Selbstorganisation 4 (1993): 11- 15. But Welsch seems to restrict autonomy to the resistance against external reg- imentation and infringement, and today this is certainly no longer a problem. However, it is unclear how the search for transitions, for contact with "life" or, finally, the assault on the distinction between art and nonart could be made in- telligible, if not in terms of an autonomous action.
204. See. Werner Hofmann, Die Kunst, die Kunst zu verkrnen (Vienna, 1993). 205. Ibid. , p. 47.
206. Here, the differentiation of the art system is especially blatant if one con-
siders the potential reaction were one to attempt to make such works accessible to people who live in the dumps and are forced to build dwellings from trash.
207. See Karl-Heinrich Bette, Theorie als Herausforderung: Beitrage zur sys- temtheoretischen Reflexion der Sportwissenschaft (Aachen, 1992), pp. 6off.
208. See Michael Baldwin, Charles Harrison, and Mel Ramsden (with refer- ence to T. J. Clark), "On Conceptual Art and Painting, and Speaking, and See- ing," Art-Language ns. 1 (1994): 30-69 (45).
209. On such "signal systems," see Raymond Williams, The Sociology ofCul- ture (New York, 1982), pp. i3of.
210. One of the formulas for this technique is "a painting which is not to be seen" (Baldwin et al. , "On Conceptual Art," pp. 44ff, 6}ff. ).
4 0 0 Notes to Pages 296-301
211. Of course, buildings must be excluded from this claim. But an aria, for example, is not tested as to whether it can be performed by someone who has a cold, and at what degree of infection.
212. See David Roberts, "The Law of the Text of the Law: Derrida before Kafka," ms. , 1992.
213. On this and the following, see Rosalind E. Krauss, "The Originality of the Avant-Garde: A Postmodern Repetition," in Ingeborg Hoesterey, ed. , Zeit- geist in Babel, pp. 66-79.
214. Ibid. , p. 68.
215. On this division, considered from the perspective of self-reference/hetero- reference, see further Gerhard Plumpe, "Systemtheorie und Literaturgeschichte:
Mit Anmerkungen zum deutschen Realismus im 19. Jahrhundert," in Hans Ul- rich Gumbrecht and Ursula Link-Heer, eds. , Epochenschwellen und Epochenstruk- turen im Diskurs der Literatur- und Sprachhistorie (Frankfurt, 1985), pp. 251-64.
216. See Fuchs, Moderne Kommunikation, pp. i63ff. Fuchs proposes the dif- ference BezeichnunglNichtbezeichnung as the "Midas-code" of modern art. It is well known that this leads to a dead end.
217. On "concept art," see, e. g. , Victor Burgin, "The Absence of Presence: Conceptualism and Postmodernism," in Burgin, The End ofArt Theory: Criti- cism andPostmodernity (London, 1986), pp. 29-50 (29): "Today the excitement has died down. Recollected in tranquillity conceptual art is now being woven into the seamless tapestry of 'art history. ' This assimilation, however, is being achieved only at the cost of amnesia in respect of all that was most radical in con- ceptual art. "
218. The relevant literature on this topic has grown out of proportion. (This would be reason enough for a communication system to end the discussion. ) For
a compilation of heterogeneous contributions, see Hoesterey, Zeitgeist in Babel.
219. For a short presentation, which includes his own leading early work, see Jencks, "Postmodern vs. Late-Modern," pp. 4-21.
220. Christo's response to this question is particularly striking: if objects can no longer legitimize their boundaries and distinctions, they must be wrapped.
221. Jencks, "Postmodern vs. Late-Modern," p. 9.
222. A parallel trend is evident in the rapidly alternating fashions in the con- sulting business for organizations, which leads to ever new self-designations.
223. The form of "quotation" indicates that the works' diversity is emphasized rather than melded together and that their diversity is remembered rather than forgotten. The difference is marked in a manner that can be recognized by an in- formed audience. For a wealth of material on this topic, see Lachmann, Geddcht- nis und Literatur.
224. Jacques Derrida, Margins ofPhilosophy, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago, 1982), p. 66.
Notes to Pages 302-8 4 0 1
225. See Talcott Parsons, "Pattern Variables Revisited: A Response to Robert Dubin," American Sociological Review 25 (i960): 467-83; rpt. in Parsons, Socio- logical Theory and Modern Society (New York, 1967), pp. 192-219. In Parsons, this combination refers specifically to the adaptive subsystem of the social system,
but it occurs in this form only when the differentiation of the general action sys- tem has progressed far enough.
226. See already Novalis, Bliithenstaub 109: "Die gewohnliche Gegenwart verkniipft Vergangenheit und Zukunft durch Beschrankung. Es entsteht Konti- guitat, durch Erstarrung, Krystallisation. Es gibt aber eine geistige Gegenwart, die beyde durch Auflosung identifiziert. " Quoted from Werke, Tagebucher und Brief Friedrich von Hardenbergs (Darmstadt, 1978), vol. 2, p. 283.
227. See Lomazzo, Idea del Tempio, pp. 8ff.
228. This might be a reason why one speaks again of "conceptual art. "
229. See Boris Groys, "Die Erzeugung der Sichtbarkeit: Innovation im Mu-
seum: Nicht das Kunstwerk andert sich, sondern sein Kontext," Frankfurter All- gemeine Zeitung, January 28,1995, n. p.
230. Incidentally, the same holds for the latest esoteric interests and for all ver- sions of religious fundamentalism. The parallels between these social contexts and aesthetics are noticeable in the tendency, typical of recent religious or quasi- religious movements, to insist on "experience" as an argument: like an experience mediated by perception, inner experience supplies certainty in situations that, considered in themselves, could be different. A similar tendency is evident in the passion of the mass media for "true stories" that draw on "personal experience" and expose highly individual perceptions and opinions. This kind of communi- cation supplies reality without the obligation ofconsensus.
231. See n. 224, above.
232. Nelson Goodman, Ways of Worldmaking (Indianapolis, 1978), and Good- man, Languages ofArt (Indianapolis, 1968).
233. The notion is from Michel Serres, Leparasite (Paris, 1980).
234. The most familiar critique of an "object"-oriented "aesthetics" is proba- bly Martin Heidegger's "Der Ursprung des Kunstwerks. "
235. See Paul de Man, The Resistance to Theory (Minneapolis, 1986), pp. 67f. and throughout.
236. See Danto, The Transfiguration of the Commonplace, and Danto, The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art (New York, 1986).
237. See the exhibition "Das Bild der Aufitellung" in the Heiligenkreuzhof'Vi- enna (May 27-July 17, 1993). The catalogue, published by Markus Briiderlin (Academy for Applied Art, Vienna), contains texts that reflect upon this framing of the framing of the frame.
238. As structuralists or poststructuralists, for example, or as "new literary crit- icism," neo-Marxists, and so on. On these "institutional" states of affairs, which
402 Notes to Pages 308-15
become more and more chaotic (thus corresponding to the growth of the uni- versities), see Jonathan Culler, On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism (Ithaca, N. Y . , 1982); Culler, Framing the Sign: Criticism and Its In- stitutions (Norman, Okla.