No More Learning

JJ. See Michael Hutter, "Die fruhe Form der Miinze," in Dirk Baecker, ed. , Probleme der Form (Frankfurt, 1993), pp. 159-80; trans, as "The Early Form of Money," in Dirk Baecker, ed. , Problems of Form, trans. Michael Irmscher, with Leah Edwards (Stanford, Calif. , 1999), pp. 107-20; see also Hutter, "The Case of Money," in Richard W England, ed. , Evolutionary Concepts in Contemporary Economics (Ann Arbor, Mich. , 1994), pp. 111-36.
78. Of course, we are not questioning die high artistic achievements, e. g. , of Chinese painting or Indian music. Nor do we intend to look down on these ac- complishments from a European perspective. We merely point out that one can- not speak of evolution in diese cases, nor of structural changes heading toward
38o Notes to Pages 238-3?
an ever-increasing improbability. On die contrary, what impresses us in art forms of this kind is the constancy of the perfection accomplished. To be sure, there are developments in Chinese painting that could be interpreted as evolution--espe- cially the shift from a linear and distinctly ornamental style of contours to a spontaneous style that expresses the unity of the brush stroke and the painterly result. But one can hardly claim that such changes lead to the differentiation of a self-evolving art system. Rather, Chinese painting is an indication of what kinds of evolutionary opportunities reside in ornamental art forms. Apart from that, the exact dating of the "take off" of European developments is debatable, but only if the conceptual basis for such a discussion is sufficiently secured. I per- sonally consider the fifteenth century the decisive period. One must concede dif- ferences between individual European territories, which increasingly begin to consider themselves to be nations and distinguish themselves from one another. The mannerist style and Dutch painting are worlds apart--however, from the perspective we are advancing here, we are dealing with phenomenally different variants of one and the same process.
79. Particularly famous are the paradoxes ofJohn Donne, which point toward Italian influences (Berni, Lando, and so forth). See Helen Peters, ed. ,John Donne, Paradoxes and Problems (Oxford, 1980); A. E. Malloch, "The Techniques and Function of the Renaissance Paradox," Studies in Philology 53 (1956): 191-103; and Michael McCanless, "Paradox in Donne," Studies in the Renaissance 13 (1966): 266-87.
80. According to Gotthard Giinther, "Cybernetic Ontology and Transjunc- tional Operations," in Beitragezur Grundlegung einer operationsfahigen Dialektik (Hamburg, 1976), vol. 1, pp. 249-328.
81. One of the best analyses of this development is still the interlude in Max "Weber, Gesammelten Aufiatze zur Religionssoziologie, vol. 1, quoted from the 5th ed. (Tubingen, 1963), pp. 536-73. On the dissociation of art (poetry) from sci- ence in the sixteenth century, see further Gerhart Schroder, Logos und List: Zur Entwicklung der Asthetik in derfriihen Neuzeit (Konigsstein, Ts. , 1985).
82. On the situation in the seventeenth century, see Niklas Luhmann, Liebe
als Passion: Zur Codierung von Intimitat (Frankfurt, 1982); trans, as Love as Pas- sion: The Codification of Intimacy, trans. Jeremy Gaines and Doris L. Jones (Cambridge, Mass. , 1986; rpt. Stanford, Calif. , 1998).
83. See, e. g. , Ellery Schalk, From Valor to Pedigree: Ideas ofNobility in France in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Princeton, N. J. , 1986); Claudio Do- nati, L'idea di nobilita in Italia: SecoliXTV-XVIII (Bari, 1988).
84. On the efforts to cultivate a specific certainty of judgment, see Richard-
son, A Discourse on the Dignity, Certainty, Pleasure andAdvantage ofthe Science of a Connoisseur, pp. 241-346. Some decades later, Hogarth rejects the concept of "connoisseur," which he finds arrogant and irritating. See Hogarth, The Analysis
Notes to Pages 240-4$ 381
ofBeauty, esp. pp. 26ff. , and his subsequent attempt to ground a theory of the vi- sual arts objectively.
85. See Baltasar Gracian, El discrete (1646; Buenos Aires, i960).
86. Insistence on difference is apparendy more important than an exact knowledge of criteria. The admission of the difficulty of judgment is often qual- ified by assurances of the following kind: "il est cependant tres assures qu'il y a
1
un bon et un movais goust. " See (Jean Baptiste Morvan), Abbe de Bellegarde,
Reflexions sur le ridicule et sur Us moyens de I'iviter, 4th ed. (Paris, 1699), pp. i6off. Similarly Roger de Piles, Diverses Conversations sur la Peinture (Paris, 1727), p. 37, after rejecting the imposition of having to provide a definition of taste: "La maniere dont l'esprit est capable d'envisager les choses selon qu'il est bien ou mal tourneV' Apparently, the notion of taste aims at the necessity of an (evolutionary) selection without being able to provide a criterion.
87. See the entry "gout" in the Encyclopedic (Voltaire).
88. This is why it is possible to bemoan evolutionary changes as a decay of good taste. A notorious example is Madame Dacier (Anne Lefebre), Des causes de la corruption du Goust (Paris, 1714).
89. Quoted from Juttner, "Die Kunstkritik Diderots (1759-1781)," p. 18.
90. Onthenexusbetween"taste"and"goodbreeding,"see,e. g. ,Anthony,Earl
of Shaftesbury, Characteristicks ofMen, Manners, Opinions, Times, 2d ed. (n. p. , 1714; rpt. Farnborough, Hants. , 1968), e. g. , vol. 3, pp. 1628". ; but for Shaftesbury, "good breeding" is no longer inborn but acquired (p. 164). See also Jean-Baptiste Dubos, Reflexions critiques sur lapohie et la peinture (rpt. Paris, 1733), vol. 2, pp. 334ff. , who further dissolves the concept ("le public se restreint suivant Fouvrage dont il est question de juger" [p. 336]).
91. For evidence, see Ernst H. Gombrich, Norm and Form: Studies in the Art ofthe Renaissance (1966; 3d ed. London, 1978).
$7
1. See Morris Weitz, "The Role of Theory in Aesthetics," Journal of Aesthetics andArt Criticism 15 (1956): 27-35; Maurice Mandelbaum, "Family Resemblances and Generalizations Concerning the Arts," American Philosophical Quarterly 2 (1965): 219-28.
2. This is a tendency (albeit not an elaborated one) in the "institutional" the- ory of art, which investigates the practices and conventions of the art system (like the institutional theories of law proposed, e. g. , by Hart or MacCormick). See George Dickie, Art and the Aesthetic: An Institutional Analysis (Ithaca, N. Y. , 1974)-
3. With reference to social systems in general, see Niklas Luhmann, Soziale Systeme: Grundrifleiner allgemeinen Theorie (Frankfurt, 1984), pp. i82f. and else-
382 Notes to Pages 245-52
where; trans, as Social Systems, trans. John Bednarz, with Dirk Baecker (Stanford, Calif. , 1995), pp. I29f.
4. See Renate Lachmann, Geddchtnis und Literatur: Intertextualitdt in der rus- sischen Moderne (Frankfurt, 1990).
5. "Redescriptions" in the sense of Mary Hesse, Models and Analogies in Sci- ence (Notre Dame, 1966), pp. i57ff. See also p. 54, n. 65.
6. By contrast, Friedrich Schlegel points out that poetry is art as well (Werke in zwei Bdnden [Berlin, 1980], vol. 2, p. 155). The need to defend this notion shows that it is no longer taken for granted.
7. For a conscientious study that emphasizes the "philosophical" context, see Gerhard Plumpe, Asthetische Kommunikation der Moderne, vol. 1, Von Kant bis /feg? /(Opladen, 1993).
8. For the period after Adorno, see David Roberts, Art and Enlightenment: Aesthetic Theory after Adorno (Lincoln, Nebr. , 1991), p. 21: "Aesthetic theory can no longer claim a vantage point beyond art?
9. Paul Valery raises this question in Variete, quoted from CEuvres, Pl&ade ed. , vol. 1 (Paris, 1957), p. 1240: "Si l'Esthetique pouvait etre, les arts s'eVanouiraient necessairement devant elle, c'est-a-dire devant leur essence. " On the disappoint- ing fruitlessness of a philosophical aesthetics for die self-reflection of art, see also Eckard Heftrich, "Das asthetische Bewufitsein und die Philosophic der Kunst,"
in Helmut Koopmann and J. Adolf Schmoll, called Eisenwerth, eds. , Beitrdge zur Theorie der Kunst im ip. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt, 1971), vol. 1, pp. 30-43. Apart from being aimed at die romantics, this critique is primarily addressed to Goethe and Schiller.
10. We need not only think of Hegel. For illustrations see, e. g. , Friedrich Schlegel's Lucinde, quoted from Werke in zwei Bdnden (Berlin, 1980), vol. 2, pp. 5-99. esp. p. 88.
11. Rosario Assunto elaborates this point in Die Theorie des Schonen im Mitte- lalter (Cologne, 1963). See also Wilhelm Perpeet, Asthetik im Mittelalter (Frei- burg, 1977).
12. For bibliographical references, see Chapter 6, n. 66.
13. After the proliferation of print, one finds an extensive body of literature devoted to this issue, especially in Italy. See Bernard Weinberg, A History ofLit- erary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance, 2 vols. (Chicago, 1961); Baxter Hath- away, The Age of Criticism: The Late Renaissance in Italy (Ithaca, N. Y. , 1962).
14. This is evident in eighteenth-century depictions of life in the cities (Lon- don, Paris) and in the aestheticization of country life.
15. With reference to the educational system, see Niklas Luhmann and Karl Eberhard Schorr, Reflexionsprobleme im Erziehungssystem, 2d ed. (Frankfurt, 1988); on die system of science, see Niklas Luhmann, Die Wissenschafi der Gesellschafi (Frankfurt, 1990), pp. 46$ff. ; on the legal system, see Luhmann, Das Rechtder
Notes to Pages 252-54 383
Gesellschaft (Frankfurt, 1993), pp. 469fE; on intimate relationships, see Luhmann, Liebe als Passion: Zur Codierung von Intimitdt (Frankfurt, 1982); trans, as Love as Passion: The Codification of Intimacy, trans. Jeremy Gaines and Doris L. Jones (Cambridge, Mass. , 1986; rpt. Stanford, Calif. , 1998).
16. Niklas Luhmann and RafTaele De Giorgi, Teoria della societd (Milan, 1992), pp. 36off.
17. See Federico Zuccaro, L'idea dei Pittori, Scultori edArchitetti (Turin, 1607), quoted from Scritti d'arte Federico Zuccaro (Florence, 1961), pp. 149-312 (149ff. ).
18. On the already-stale discussion occasioned by the construction of the cathedral of Milan, see James S. Ackermann, "'Ars sine scientia nihil est': Gothic Theory of Architecture at the Cathedral of Milan," Ars Bulletin 31 (1949): 84-111.
Today we would say that a conflict between theory and practice was at stake; but this opposition did not exist at the time.
19. For an investigation of the striking stylistic changes in Guercino, see Den- nis Mahon, Studies in Seicento Art and Theory (London, 1947; rpt. Westport, Conn. , 1971).
20. Rudolf Stichweh, Derfruhmoderne Stoat und die europdische Universitat: Zur Interaktion von Politik und Erziehungssystem int ProzeJ? ihrer Ausdifferen- zierung (16. -18. Jahrhundert) (Frankfurt, 1991).
21. See also Rudolf Stichweh, "System/Umwelt-Beziehungen europaischer Uni-
versitaten in historischer Perspektive," in Christoph Oehler and Wolff-Dietrich
Webler, eds. , Forschungspotentiale sozialwissenschaftlicher Hochschulforschung: Bun- desrepublik Deutschland-Osterreich-Schweiz (Weinheim, 1988), pp. 377-94.
22. Support of art by the church could now assume the form of support by territorial states governed by the church.
23. See Chapter 4, section VI, above.
24. On such zones of overlapping, e. g. , in the educational system, see also Luhmann and Schorr, Reflexionsprobleme im Erziehungssystem, pp. 53ff. We are thinking in particular of the family, but also of the economy (the education of apprentices and so on).
25. Leon Battista Alberti characterizes these artists in the introduction to his
treatise Della Pittura (1436) as "nobilissimi et meravigliosi intellecti" (Florence,
1950), p. 53-
26. For the inversion of this proposition, which suggests itself today, see Mi-
chael Serres, Lagenese (Paris, 1982).
27. On this context of pulchrum, see, e. g. , Hieronymous Cardanus, De Uno
Liber, quoted from Opera Omnia (Lyon, 1663), vol. 1, pp. 277-83 (278).
28. For the sake of our argument, there is no need to clarify the question whether the common presentation of this transformation in terms of the con-
ceptual pair animistic/mechanistic is sufficient. For an investigation of this prob- lem with reference to Pomponazzi, Cardano, and Telesio, see Eckhard Kefiler,
3<<4
Notes to Pages 254-55
"Selbstorganisation in der Naturphilosophie der Renaissance," Selbstorganisation 3 (1992): 15-29. The conflict between animism and mechanism results from the attempt to go beyond the determination of the one as a number and, hence, as a
fictio mentis.
29. Onthedevelopmentofsciencetowardastateseveredfromareligiouslyde- fined cosmos and without aesthetic obligations, see Wolfgang Krohn, "Die 'Neue Wissenschaft' der Renaissance," in Gemot Bohme et al. , Experimentelle Philoso- phic: UrspriingeautonomerWissenschaftsentwicklung(Frankfurt, 1977), pp. 13-128.
30. A different set of distinctions indicates this rupture in the evolution of art.
Before this rupture, the beauty of mathematical proportion (understood in Pla-
tonic terms) was positioned against sensuous pleasure. See Robert Klein, "La
forme et l'intelligible," in Umanesimo e simbolismo, Archivio difilosofia (1958), pp.
103-21; on the construction of the gothic cathedral, see Otto von Simson,
"Wirkungen des christlichen Platonismus auf die Entstehung der Gothik," in
Joseph Koch, ed. , Humanismus, Mystik undKunstin der Welt des Mittelalters, 2d
von
ed. (Leiden, 1959), pp. 159-79;
Gothic Architecture and the Medieval Concept of Order (New York, 1965); on Re- naissance architecture (Alberti, Bramante, Palladio), see Rudolf Wittkower, Ar- chitectural Principles in the Age ofHumanism (London, 1949). The visibility of the principles of construction was therefore not an issue (or only a secondary issue). After this rupture, the situation was the opposite: art became a matter of deceiv-
ing the senses, hence a way of enriching experience.
31. See, e. g. , Chap. 17, "De artibus artificiosisque rebus" of Hieronymus Car- danus, De suhtilitate libri XXI (Niirnberg, 1550), pp. 3i6f. , which rejects the un- necessarily subtle method of Raymundus Lullus (p. 295).
32. See Alastair Fowler, Spenser and the Numbers of Time (London, 1964); Fowler, ed. , Silent Poetry: Essays in Numerological Analysis (London, 1970).
33. See the painter Paolo Pino, Dialogo di Pittura (1548), quoted from Paola Barocchi, ed. , Trattati d'arte delcinquecento, vol. 1 (Bari, i960), pp. 93-139.
34. Ibid. , p. 115.
35. Quoted from the edition by Andrea Masini in Arnaldo Baruschi et al. , eds. , Scritti rinascimentali di architettura (Milan, 1978), pp. 23-144. See also Wit- tkower, Architectural Principles.
36. See Carlo Borromeo, Instructions fabricae et supellectilis ecclesiasticae, quoted from Barocchi, Trattati d'arte del cinquecento, vol. 3 (Bari, i960), pp. 1-113.
37. On the religious aspect of this debate, see Heinz Schlaffer, Poesie undWis-
sen: Die Entstehung des asthetischen Beumfitseins und der philologischen Erkenntnis (Frankfurt, 1990).
38. For an overview, see Robert J. Clements, "Condemnation of the Poetic Profession in Renaissance Emblem Literature," Studies in Philology 43 (1946): 213-32.
Simson, The Gothic Cathedral: The Origins of
Notes to Pages 255-58
385
39. See Plato, Republic, II, XVIIff. and X.
40. See Russell Fraser, TheWar Against Poetry (Princeton, N. J. , 1970).
41. For contemporary evidence, see Sir Philip Sidney, The Defense ofPoetry
(1595; rpt. Lincoln, Nebr. , 1970). For an overview, see further the texts in G. Gre- gory Smith, ed. , Elizabethan Critical Essays, 2 vols. (London, 1904).
42. Sidney complains that historians, "captivated to the truth of a foolish world," provide poor examples (ibid. , p. 22).
43. Representative of many others is Antonio Minturno, L'artepoetica (1563; Naples, 1725), p. 39. See further Bernardino Daniello, La poetica (Vinegia, 1536), pp. 5 and 44fE; Torquato Tasso, Discorsi dell'arte poetica e in particolare sopra il poema eroico (1587), quoted from Prosa (Milan, 1969), esp. the first two discorsi.
44. See Agnolo Segni, Raggionamento sopra le cosepertinenti alia poetica (Flo- rence, 1581), pp. 17-19, quoted from Baxter Hathaway, Marvels and Common- places: Renaissance Literary Criticism (New York, 1968), p. 51.
45. On the allusions to the planned French marriage of Queen Elizabeth, see David Norbrook, Poetry and Politics in the English Renaissance (London, 1984), pp. 88f.
46. "Soil die Kunst tauschen oder blofi scheinen? " Schlegel will ask with ref- erence to Shakespeare; the answer to this question requires, according to Schlegel, "die tiefste Spekulation und die gelehrteste Kunstgeschichte. " See critical frag- ment no. 121, quoted from Schlegel, Werke, vol. 1, p. 184. In his Gesprdch iiber die Poesie (vol. 2, p. 177), Schlegel questions this very question--that is, its underly- ing distinction: "Es ist darin (in der romantischen Poesie) gar keine Rticksicht genommen auf den Unterschied von Schein und Wahrheit, von Spiel und Ernst. "
47. This issue was debated extensively in the seventeenth century on the occasion of the letters of a Portuguese nun, published by Guilleragues, which were composed in such an emotional state that dieyflyin the face of the rules of writing classical love letters. See the new edition of die Lettres portugaises, by F. Deloffre and J. Rougeot (Paris, 1962). Are these letters authentic or not? This question is difficult to decide. And holding the book in one's hands doesn't help. On the strategies of confusing facts and fiction in the beginning of the modern novel, see also Lennard J. Davis, Factual Fictions: The Origin ofthe English Novel (New York, 1983). A modern version of this play with framing frames is found in Pasolini's novelistic fragment Petrolio. A group, which remains anonymous, de- cides to subject the text's protagonist, Carlo, to surveillance. The spy who has been selected for this task fabricates detailed reports of his observations. One night the suitcase containing these reports is stolen, which makes it impossible, even for Pasolini, the author of the novel, to provide an accurate account of the facts. ("This, of course, is reflected in my narrative. ") He is forced to replace the now "unreadable" texts by the imagination, by his imagination, and in so doing,
he renders himself visible as someone who has plenty of obscenities to report and,
386 Notes to Pages 258-59
as the reader might suspect, is not entirely without interest in the matter. "The reader shall forgive me for presenting him with such boring matters; but I sim- ply live the genesis of my book. " See Pier Paolo Pasolini, Petrolio (Berlin, 1994), quotations on pp. 63f. Even the boredom imputed to the reader is part of the frame boredom/interest, which the author obviously uses to speculate on an in- terest by the reader that supports his own inclinations.
48. Especially in conjunction with the foundation of the Academia del Dis- egno in Florence (1563). The word itself is documented much earlier. See Francesco Doni, HDisegno (Venice, 1549), which I did not have a chance to con- sult directly.
49. For a successful implementation of beauty, see esp. Baltasar Gracian, Agudezay arte de ingenio, 2 vols. (Huesca, 1649; Madrid, 1969). See also the im- portant Introduction by Benito Pelegrin to the French translation of this work,
Art etfigures de I'esprit (Paris, 1983). According to Gracian's Criticdn oder Uber die allgemeinen Laster des Menschen, "everything in life happens as if in an image, in- deed in the imagination" ([1651-1657; Hamburg, 1957], p. 108). This is why philo- sophical wisdom comes about only by way of a disillusionment {desengano). But
this move annuls whatever beauty and happiness contribute to the success of truth as a merely communicative requirement.
50. "Verdad amiga, dijo la Agudeza, non hay manjar mas desabrido en estos estragados tiempos que un desengano a secas, que digo desabrido! no hay bocado mas amargo que una verdad desnuda" (Gracian, Discurso LV, Agudeza y arte de ingenio, vol. 2, pp. 191-92). Similarly, Federico Zuccaro, L'idea dei Pittori, p. 271: disegno is necessary in order to instill vitality and practical use into intelligence and the sciences.
51. Gracian, Discurso XV, Agudezay arte de ingenio, vol. i, p. 163.
52. See Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Eine Geschichte der Spanischen Literatur, 2 vols. (Frankfurt, 1990), esp. vol. 1, pp. 8off. Fitting out individuality with onto- logical and religious ambivalence is characteristic of Spanish literature. It can be traced back to the Libro de buen amor, by an author who calls himself Juan Ruiz, Arcipreste de Hita (ca. 1300), especially if one compares this text to its model, the
Confessions of St. Augustine. On the Libro, see Gumbrecht, Eine Gechichte der Spanischen Literatur, vol. 1, pp. 97ff.
53. See Gerhart Schroder, Logos und List: Zur Entwicklung der Asthetik in der fruhen Neuzeit (Konigsstein, Ts. , 1985), esp. pp. 36f. , 88, 253ff.
54. See, e. g. , George Puttenham, The Arte of English Poesie (London, 1589; rpt. Cambridge, 1970), passim.
55. In Plato's Sophistes, 253 D, the hiding place assumes the form of a law against paradox.
56. For example, the belief that the mixture of blood in afleathat had bitten the lovers would be the same as the result of a love affair.