Baumgarten considered beauty the goal and perfection of sensuous knowledge (as
if we looked into the world to discover beauty, and only occasionally encountered deformities)--a figure burdened with tradition that propelled aesthetics toward its later development.
if we looked into the world to discover beauty, and only occasionally encountered deformities)--a figure burdened with tradition that propelled aesthetics toward its later development.
Niklas Luhmann - Art of the Social System
" As early as romanticism, however, one was potentially aware of other, more far-reaching possibilities for disrupting the illusory reference to reality, namely, by incorporating the doubling of reality into art itself.
If this strategy were successful today, then one could dispose over the doubling of reality in art--whether through the one- sided accentuation of artistic means, of the "script" of art, through self- sabotage, or through presenting the elimination of difference.
But isn't the "end" reached in this way perhaps just the end of an identification of
Self-Description
313
art with a certain style of self-description, with a reflection on unity
246 rather than a reflection on difference?
One must therefore ask oneself how and to what purpose one distin- guishes between reality and fiction, and what reality must be in itself that it can tolerate this distinction. The artificiality of this distinction becomes evident if one considers the difficulty of introducing it and rendering it plausible in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Statistics, which emerged roughly at the same time, was confronted with the same problem (the same distinction). Employing the distinction between real- ity and fiction begs the question of what reality itself must be like in order to assume both a real and a fictional form, while leaving open the possi- bility for crossing the internal boundary of this distinction. We have based our investigation on a theoretical concept capable of answering this ques- tion; we presupposed an operative system that draws this distinction and, in so doing, renders the world invisible. When communication (rather than perception, for example) is at stake, society is the system that makes it possible--for itself and for art--to distinguish between reality and fic- tion. One could then pursue the suggestion that art tests arrangements that are at once fictional and real in order to show society, from a position within society, that things could be done differendy, which does not mean that anything goes.
Along these lines, reality might still be defined in terms of a resistance,
which is no longer the resistance of the external world to attempts to grasp
it by knowing and acting, but a resistance, within one and the same sys-
tem, of internal operations to the operations of the system. In the system
of society, one might think of the resistance of communication to itself, a
resistance that ends up constructing a genuine reality (one must keep in
mind, of course, that there are structural couplings between communica-
tion and the perceptions of individuals and that individuals tend to inter-
vene in communication when claims are made that contradict their per-
247
ceptions ). In the art system, this resistance has to do, as we suggested
248
earlier, with incongruities in the formal arrangement of artworks or
with disturbances in communication through art and about art that can be traced to the lack of fit between the components of an artwork. If a work manages to pass this test, then it creates what we have called a fic- tional reality. The more demanding the manner in which the problem of form is posed, the more unlikely it becomes that communication occurs at all and the more impressive is the manner in which the work testifies to
314
Self-Description
249
the reality that is processed within the art system.
atic state of the current self-description of the art system, who would want to exclude the possibility that this might still happen in the future?
However, our description remains external and has no control over whether, and in what ways, the art system, together with its works and self-descriptions, will venture into this future. To do so, the art system will have to proceed in a manner specific to form, that is, by using distinc- tions. One will have to avoid the trap of identity. In this regard, at least, art must break with the kind of modernity envisioned by Adorno, or even the one propagated by Habermas. The future of art depends on whether it opts for difference and whether it can make use of constraints to expand the room for further distinctions.
VIII
We can summarize the results of our elaborate investigations in one question--a question that cannot be answered by sociology or by any other academic discipline, but only by art. Society has differentiated an art system at an operative and structural level. As a result, that system remains dependent on its social environment, and such dependencies (of an eco- nomic nature, for example) may increase. At the same time, however, the environment cannot determine what counts as art and how artworks will be judged. The overabundance of communicative possibilities that emerges from this state of affairs can be processed and put into form only within the art system. This includes the problem--which did not present itself until the twentieth century--of how the distinction between art and nonart is to be controlled; how, in other words, the paradoxical unity of art and nonart can be dissolved within the art system itself.
If this is the question, then everything depends on determining more precisely what contributes conceptually--eventually through the direct observation of artworks as "form"--to the operative closure of the art sys- tem. In this regard, highly abstract mathematical and systems-theoretical considerations suggest the need to pay attention to distinctions and to think of form as a boundary that separates two sides. This notion can be elaborated under a factual or a temporal aspect. Factually, each determi- nation of a form excludes something--the world, on the one hand, and the observer (the artist, the beholder) who uses the distinction, on the other. Under the title "conceptual art," the individual artwork, although
Given the problem-
Self-Description
315
indispensable, was relieved of the burden of answering for itself, and the problem was displaced onto the recursive network of the art system. In this situation multimedia modes of presentation flourished. But the ques- tion of how the work is made, how it is represented, remains. Temporally, each form determination generates an indeterminacy transcending the form, which, if one wants to retain the form (rather than destroying it and starting from scratch), can no longer be filled at will. Art therefore always demonstrates the arbitrary generation of nonarbitrariness or the emer- gence of order from chance. In addition,jit displays the difficulties that oc- cur in the creation of connecting forms, and it shows how established forms are altered by "redescriptions" Jof the sort suggested by the Art & Language Group.
An external (in this case sociological) description of the art system can
establish this much--and, if necessary, revise it in the course of further de-
velopment of the discipline. But such a description says nothing about
how the art system handles self-generated uncertainties and difficulties.
The avant-garde has raised the issue and put it into form. It remains to be
seen whether and how the art system will deal with this challenge. With
growing freedom, the uncertainty of criteria will increase, and distin-
guishing between success and failure in art will become more difficult.
Some may doubt whether the traditional task of creating more redun-
dancy for a greater amount of variety is still binding for art. However, so
long as the autonomy of the art system prevails, there will always be a
medium that motivates the search for convincing forms. If anything is
possible, then the criteria for selecting what is admissible must be tight-
ened. In the long run, handing out commuters' passes instead of a selec-
tion can hardly satisfy. Only the overcoming of difficulties makes a work
2i0 significant: Hoc opus, hie labor est.
Reference Matter
Notes
Preface
i. Niklas Luhmann, Soziale Systeme: Grundrifleiner allgemeinen Theorie (Frank- furt, 1984); trans, as Social Systems, trans. John Bednarz, with Dirk Baecker (Stan- ford, Calif. , 1995). Concerning the social system, currently only a short text writ-
ten for Italian universities is available; however, a more comprehensive publication
is in preparation. See Niklas Luhmann and Raffaele De Giorgi, Teoria della soci- eta (Milan, 1992).
? 1
1. This distinction has since been relativized on the basis of neurophysiological research. See Gerhard Roth, Das Gehirn und seine Wirklichkeit: Kognitive Neuro- biohgie undihrephilosophischen Konsequenzen (Frankfurt, 1994).
2. As Derrida has pointed out repeatedly, this move has turned the philosoph- ical tradition against itself. Assuming the primacy of thought, it treats writing as something external, although the tradition itself could only exist as writing!
3. We speak of "double closure" in the sense that the brain, in separating lev- els of operation, puts itself in a position to coordinate the coordination of its pri- mary processes. See Heinz von Foerster, "On Constructing a Reality," in his Ob- serving Systems (Seaside, Calif. , 1981), pp. 288-309 (304ff. ).
4. This reverses the common Cartesian doctrine (hetero-reference is doubtful; self-reference is certain). Kenneth J. Gergen, Toward Transformation in Social Knowledge (New York, 1982), p. 66.
5. Here and in the following, we disregard the neurophysiological correlates of perception. At this level, perception must be understood as a kind of mea- surement that functions selectively in that it cannot measure everything when it
519
32. 0 Notes to Pages 6-p
measures something. See Howard H. Pattee, "Cell Psychology: An Evolutionary Approach to the Symbol-Matter Problem," Cognition and Brain Theory 5 (1982): 325-41; A. Moreno et al. , "Computational Darwinism as a Basis for Cognition," Revue Internationale de systimique 6 (1992): 205-21. See also Roth, Das Gehirn
und seine Wirklichkeit. Regarding this process, consciousness begins with a der- ealization, that is, by erasing all information about the location where the per- ception actually takes place.
6. On this topic, see Heinz von Foerster, "Das Gleichnis vom Blinden Fleck: Cber das Sehen im allgemeinen," in Gerhard Johann Lischka, ed. , Der entfesselte Blick (Bern, 1993), pp. 14-47.
7. On space and time as media, see Chapter 3, section III, below.
8. One can arrive at different results only if one fails to distinguish between brain activity and consciousness. For a typical example in the realm of neuro- physiology, see Gerhard Roth, "Erkenntnis und Realitat: Das reale Gehirn und seine Wirklichkeit," in Siegfried J. Schmidt, ed. , Der Diskurs des radikalen Kon- struktivismus (Frankfurt, 1987), pp. 229-55. Roth even ascribes "semantic" capa- bilities to the brain.
9. One reason for this may be that the neurophysiologist occupies the posi- tion of an external observer for whom the internal/external difference defining
his object of research is already given. Then the only question remains how the brain enables itself to perform representational or semantic functions. On this topic, see: Paul M. Churchland, A NeurocomputationalPerspective: The Nature of Mind and the Structure ofScience (Cambridge, Mass. , 1989), esp. p. 77; Gerhard Roth, "Kognition: Die Entstehung von Bedeutung im Gehirn," in Wolfgang Krohn and Giinther Kiippers, eds. , Die Entstehung von Ordnung, Organisation und Bedeutung (Frankfurt, 1992), pp. 104-33. Consider further the distinction between "reality," from the perspective of an external (second-order) observer, and actuality, from the perspective of the brain or consciousness, in Gerhard Roth and Helmut Schwegler, "Self-Organization, Emergent Properties and the UnityoftheWorld,"Philosophical (1990):45-64(56ff. ).
10. See George Spencer Brown, Laws ofForm (1969; rpt. New York, 1979), pp. 56S. , 69fT.
11. For good reasons, Benny Shanon has argued against this prevailing view. See Shanon, "Metaphors for Language and Communication," Revue internationale de systemique 3 (1989): 43-59. In his theory of language, Maturana rejects the metaphor of transmission as well--but only because he conceives of language in terms stricdy internal to the organism as a structural coupling of the nervous sys- tem with itself (which may be justified but is of no help for a theory of social com- munication). See Humberto R. Maturana, Erkennen: Organisation und Verkor-
perung von Wirklichkeit: Ausgewdhlte Arbeiten zur hiologischen Epistemologie
(Braunschweig, 1982), esp. pp. 54ff. , I54f. On transmission as one of many meta-
Notes to Pages 10-12
321
phors that have influenced our understanding of communication, see also Klaus Krippendorff, "Der verschwundene Bote: Metaphern und Modelle der Kommu- nikation," in Klaus Merten, Siegfried J. Schmidt, and Siegfried Weischenberg,
eds. , Die Wirklichkeit der Medien: Eine Einfuhrung in die Kommunikationswissen- <<? /<</? (Opladen, 1994), pp. 79-113.
12. See, e. g. , Paul de Man, Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric ofCon- temporary Criticism, 2d ed. (Minneapolis, 1983), pp. 232f. --but in a somewhat different terminology, replacing reference by constitution.
13. See Roth, Das Gehirn und seine Wirklichkeit, pp. 25off.
14. For Husserl, as we know, this meant that conscious activity and phenom- enon were strictly the same thing (this is why he called his philosophy "phe- nomenology") and that intention was the form of the act that continually re- produced this unity.
15. From this insight follows an epistemological "constructivism" thatfindsits equivalents in the realms of biology and psychology--that is, in the world of Jean Piaget, Humberto Maturana, and Heinz von Foerster. See Niklas Luhmann, Erkenntnis als Konstruktion (Bern, 1988); Luhmann, "Das Erkenntnisprogramm des Konstruktivismus und die unbekannt bleibende Realitat," in Luhmann, So- ziologische Aufkldrung, vol. 5 (Opladen, 1990), pp. 31-58 (trans, as "The Cognitive Program of Constructivism and a Reality That Remains Unknown," in Wolfgang Krohn et al. , eds. , Self-Organization: Portrait ofa Scientific Revolution [Dordrecht, 1990], pp. 64-85); and Luhmann, Die Wissenschaft der Gesellschafi (Frankfurt, 1990); see further Helmut Wilke, "Systemtheoretische Strategien des Erkennens: Wirklichkeit als interessierte Konstruktion," in Klaus Gotz, ed. , Theoretische Zu-
mutungen: Vom Nutzen der systemischen Theoriefur die Managementpraxis (Hei- delberg, 1994), pp. 97-116.
16. Quite differently, Wil Martens, "Die Autopoiesis soziale Systeme," Kolner Zeitschrififur Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 43 (1991): 625-40. See also the sub- sequent discussion in Kolner Zeitschrifi 44 (1992): 139-45.
17. See Heinz von Foerster, "Fur Niklas Luhmann: Wie rekursiv ist Kommu- nikation? " Teoria Sociologica 1/2 (1993): 61-85. His answer is that communication is recursion or, more accurately, that "Kommunikation ist das Eigenverhalten in einem rekursiv operierenden, zweifach geschlossenen System" (p. 83).
18. The significance of the "unfinished" in Leonardo da Vinci and Michelan-
gelo was already debated in the sixteenth century. On the intentional use of am- biguity, often to the point of infinite interpretive possibilities, see Umberto Eco, Opera aperta (1962), 6th ed. (Milan, 1988). See also the notion of "blanks" [Un- bestimmtheitsstellen] in Roman Ingarden, Das literarische Kunstwerk (1931), 4th ed. (Tubingen, 1972), pp. 26iff; see further William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930; 2d ed. Edinburgh, 1947).
19. On the Parsonsian distinction between simple and double contingency,
322 Notes to Pages 13-16
see James Olds, The Growth and Structure ofMotives: Psychological Studies in the Theory ofAction (Glencoe, 111. , 1956).
20. For a similar argument, see Peter Fuchs, Moderne Kommunikation: Zur Theorie des operativen Displacements (Frankfurt, 1993), pp. i$ff.
21. The notion of "reading" may become questionable here, although it gen- erally includes reading poetry. At any rate, artistic perception blocks our habit- ual, hasty, carefree reading, or we are not reading the text as literature.
22. "See"Bliithenstaub,"no. 19:"DerSitzderSeeleistda,wosichInnenwelt
und Aufienwelt beriihren. Wo sie sich durchdringen, ist er in jedem Punkt der Durchdringung," quoted from Hans Joachim Mahl and Richard Samuel, eds. , Novalis: Werke, Tagebiicher und Briefs Friedrich von Hardenbergs, vol. 2 (Darm- stadt, 1978), p. 233.
23. When guided by thought, perception can distinguish between movements and changes. While driving to the gas station, I see someone climbing a ladder and changing the price tag. The man's movements are one thing, his changing of the price, in relation to before/after, is another. The man might fall off the lad- der, the prices cannot. But both can be seen! The same capacity for discrimina- tion must be present whenever we participate in communication and, once again, already at the level of perception.
24. A longer quotation is warranted here. In Jonathan Richardson, A Dis- course on the Dignity, Certainty, Pleasure and Advantage of the Science ofa Con- noisseur (1719), quoted from The Works (London, 1773; rpt. Hildesheim, 1969), pp. 241-346 (247), we read that works of art are suited "to communicate ideas;
and not only those which we may receive otherwise, but such as without this art could not possibly be communicated; whereby mankind is advanced higher in
the rational state, and made better; and that in a way easy, expeditious, and de- lightful. " See also p. 250: "Painting is another sort of writing, and is subservient
to the same ends as that of her young sister. " Richardson goes on to emphasize
the temporal advantage of painting over the much slower sequentiality of words.
25. Baumgarten, the founder of aesthetics as a special branch of philosophy, in- troduces the topic as follows: "Aesthetica (theoria liberalium artium, gnoseologia inferior, ars pulchre cogitandi, ars analogi rationis) est scientia cognitionis sensiti- vae. " Alexander Gotdieb Baumgarten, Aesthetica (Frankfurt/Oder, 1750), ? 1, p. 1.
Baumgarten considered beauty the goal and perfection of sensuous knowledge (as
if we looked into the world to discover beauty, and only occasionally encountered deformities)--a figure burdened with tradition that propelled aesthetics toward its later development. See Aesthetica, ? 14, p. 6: "Aestheticesfinisest perfectio cog- nitionis sensitivae qua talis, ? 1. Haec autem est pulchritude" Baumgarten does consider other possible orientations of perception, but when sensuous cognition searches for its own perfection, beauty is the exclusive goal.
26. See also Moreno et al. , "Computational Darwinism. "
Notes to Pages 16-20
323
27. See also Niklas Luhmann, "Wie ist Bewufitsein an Kommunikation be- teiligt? " in Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer, eds. , Materialitdt der Kommunikation (Frankfurt, 1988), pp. 884-905 (trans, as "How Can die Mind Participate in Communication? " in Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer, eds. , William Whobrey, trans. , Materialities ofCommunication [Stanford, Calif. , 1994], pp. 371-87); and Luhmann, Die Wtssenschaft der Gesellschaft, pp. nff.
28. We are not investigating, in Kantian fashion, the conditions of possibility for language, nor are we conducting a Darwinian inquiry into the evolution of language.
29. In the realm of alphabetic writing. Ideographic writing in China and Japan has preserved the connection between art and writing in the form of a cherished artistic genre.
30. See Horst Wenzel, "Visibile parlare: Zur Representation der audiovisuel- len Wahrnehmung in Schrift und Bild," in Ludwig Jager and Bernd Switalla, eds. , Germanistik in der Mediengesellschaft (Munich, 1994), pp. 141-57.
31. See Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, "Stimme als Form: ZurTopik lyrischer Selb- stinszenierung im vierzehnten und funfzehnten Jahrhundert," ms. 1992.
32. This idea is not entirely new, as a quotation from David Hume would show. Compare Peter Jones, "Hume and the Beginning of Modern Aesthetics," in Peter Jones, ed. , The "Science ofMan" in the Scottish Enlightenment: Hume, Reid, and Their Contemporaries (Edinburgh, 1989), pp. 54-67. See also n. 24 above.
33. "Bliithenstaub," no. 23, Novalis, Werke, p. 237.
34. For variations on this problem, see Niklas Luhmann and Peter Fuchs, Re- den und Schweigen (Frankfurt, 1989).
35. See esp. Pierre Bourdieu, La distinction: Critique sociale du jugement de gout (Paris, 1975); Bourdieu, Ce queparler veut dire: L'economie des ichanges lin- guistiques (Paris, 1982).
36. In other words, Bourdieu's analyses make it possible to converse about Bourdieu and his analyses--but in the host's home we would be reluctant to comment on Diirer's rabbits hanging above the piano.
37. Heinz von Foerster calls this capacity "memory. " See his "What Is Mem- ory That It May Have Hindsight and Foresight as Well? " in S. Bogoch, The Fu- ture ofthe Brain Sciences (New York, 1969), pp. 19-64.
38. This conclusion is supported by quite different theoretical foundations. For Lyotard, a "phrase" is a language event that makes a difference and vanishes
if it is not linked to other events (enchainement). See Jean-Francois Lyotard, Le differend(Paris, 1983). Regarding the consequences for aesthetics, see, e. g. , the es- say "Newman: The Instant" in Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Inhuman: Reflections on Time (Stanford, Calif, 1991), pp. 78-88. There is no need for a subject that "supports" and "grounds" the event. It realizes itself: "Occurrence is the instant which 'happens,' which 'comes' unexpectedly but which, once it is there, takes
324
Notes to Pages 21-23
its place in the network of what has happened. Any instant can be the beginning, provided that it is grasped in terms of its quod rather than its quid" (ibid. , p. 82).
39. An entirely different question is whether there is a kind of meditation, a motionless standstill of consciousness without reference that refrains from mak- ing distinctions--e. g. , in the perception of artworks, in the gardens of Zen monasteries, or in the contemplation of landscapes. But none of these types of meditation would qualify as communication related specifically to art.
40. This crucial difference between communication through art and com- munication about art is often overlooked (e. g. , by Gerhard Plumpe, Asthetische KommunikationderModerne,vol. 1,VonKantbisHegel(Opladen,1993). Asare- sult, the differentiation of an autonomous art system is treated only in terms of
the differentiation of a particular topic of communication about art.
41. Compare Kritik der Urteilskraft, ? 21-, which is a strange text in need of
clarification. On the one hand, the text glosses over the question ofwhether per- ceptions are communicable, or, to put it differendy, how that which is commu- nicable can be sorted out of what is perceived. Furthermore, the text leaves open what is currendy discussed under the topic of intersubjectivity, namely, the ques- tion concerning the transcendental conditions of possibility of an alter ego. In both respects, the text operates naively. It almost looks as if transcendental con- trols could not be introduced at all via the inner reflection on facts of conscious- ness but Only by (reflecting on) how and in what ways these facts are mediated. Let me provide an excerpt: "Erkenntnisse und Urteile miissen sich, samt der Oberzeugung, die sie begleitet, allgemein mitteilen lassen; denn sonst kame ih- nen keine Obereinstimmung mit dem Objekt zu; sie waren insgesamt ein blofi subjektives Spiel der Vorstellungskrafte, gerade so wie es der Skeptizismus ver- langt. " The problem of perception is covered up by Kant's sole concern with the (even more problematic) communication of a mental state, that is, with "die Stimmung der Erkenntniskrafte zu einer Erkenntnis uberhaupt, und zwar die- jenige Proportion, welche sich fur eine Vorstellung (wodurch uns ein Gegen- stand gegeben wird) gebiihrt, um daraus Erkenntnis zu machen. "
42. For an older account of the disposition concerning awareness/unaware-
ness in museums, see Roger de Piles, Course de peinture par principes (Paris, 1708), pp. 12-13. The painter gets annoyed or specializes in capturing the viewer's attention. In a similar vein, and roughly at the same time, Jonathan Richardson complains that gendemen "overlook the beauties which they do not expect to
find" and searches for a new science of connoisseurship that would rectify this problem. A Discourse on the Dignity, Certainty, Pleasure andAdvantage ofthe Sci- ence ofa Connoisseur (1719), quoted from The Works (London, 1773; rpt. Hilde- sheim, 1969), pp. 241-346 (244). Baudelaire begins his famous essay "Le peintre
de la vie moderne" with exactly the same observation about preinformed ob- servers (CEuvres completes, Plelade ed. [Paris, 1954], p. 881).
Notes to Pages 23-26
315
43. On the notion of the "in sich selbst Vollendete" and the idea of purpose without purpose, see Karl Philipp Moritz, Schriften zurAsthetik undPoetik: Kri- tische Ausgabe (Tubingen, 1962), p. 6. Moritz retains the category of purpose be-
cause "das Unniitze oder Unzweckmafiige [kann] unmoglich einem vernunftigen Wesen Vergniigen machen. " The naturalized anthropology of teleological orien- tation does not keep up with the development of the art system. Giving up this view would require a radical revision of what it means to be human.
44. ThismaybewhyHegelconsideredaconceptofimmediacyindispensable, although in retrospect, immediacy presents itself to thinking always as mediated. 45. "Erst durch das Kunstwerk erfahrt er [der Kiinsder, N. L. ], was er mit
seiner Thatigkeit gewollt hat," we read in Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand Solger's Vor- lesungen uberAsthetik, ed. Karl Wilhelm Ludwig Heyse (Leipzig, 1829; rpt. Darm- stadt, 1973), p. 115. And on p. 122: "Dem Kiinsder entstehtdas Kunstwerk mehr, als es von ihm gemacht wild. Er lernt seinen vollen Vorsatz und seine Idee selbst erst dann ganz kennen, wenn das Kunstwerk vollendet ist. "
46. Using Franz Erhard Walther's conception of art as example, Michael
Lingner shows that artists themselves not only see but also want to see their role
in such terms. "Kunst als Projekt der Aufklarung jenseits reiner Vernunft," in
Michael Lingner, ed. , Das Haus in dem ich wohne: Die Theorie zum Werkentwurf 2
von Franz Erhard Walther (Klagenfurt, 1990), pp. 15-53 (4 ff-)- See also the other contributions in the same volume.
47. Specifically on this point, see Winfried Menninghaus, "Genie und Un- sinn: Zur Poetik Immanuel Kants und Ludwig Tiecks," quoted from ms. , 1994. 48. According to Friedrich Schlegel, poetry, too, ought to be treated as art.
See his Gesprdch uber die Poesie, quoted from Werke in zwei Banden (Berlin, 1980), vol. 2, p. 155. Obviously, Schlegel's demand does not go without saying, or else there would be no need for it.
49. Cleanth Brooks arrives at this conclusion on the basis of thoroughgoing interpretations. See his The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure ofPoetry (New York, 1947). For a summary of Brooks's position, see pp. i92ff; for an ab- breviated version, see p. 74: "The Poem says what the poem says," and it cannot
be said in any other way. And p. 201: "to refer . . . to . . . a paraphrase of the poem is to refer . . . to something outside the poem. " In the meantime, this view
has advanced to the level of textbook knowledge. See, e. g. , John Ciardi and Miller Williams, How Does a Poem Mean? (1959; 2d ed. Boston, 1975).
50. See Christoph Menke-Eggers, Die Souveranitdt der Kunst: Asthetische Er- fahrung nach Adorno undDerrida (Frankfurt, 1988), pp. 4$ff.
51. Experts in modern literature are aware of explicidy unreadable texts. Such texts, however, only intensify a limitation that has always existed.
52. For an elaboration of this point, see Chapter 3, below.
53. See Dietrich Schwanitz, "Zeit und Geschichte im Roman--Interaktion
326 Notes to Pages 26-29
und Gesellschaft im Drama: Zur wechselseitigen Erhellung von Systemtheorie und Literatur," in Dirk Baecker et al. , eds. , Theorie als Passion (Frankfurt, 1987), pp. 181-213.
54. In order to elucidate the self-reference of poems (as opposed to hetero- reference), Earl R. Wasserman, The Subtler Language: Critical Readings ofNeo-
Classic and Romantic Poems (Baltimore, 1959), p. 7, speaks of "the interactive capacities of any of the properties of words . . . including connotation and the ca- pacity of a word to carry more than one reference as a symbol, metaphor, ambigu- ity, or pun; position and repetition; word order; sound, rhyme; even orthography. "
55. For an older formulation of this principle (comparing it to the oudine in the visual arts), see Moritz, Schriften zur Asthetik, pp. 99f.
56. Umberto Eco, for example, defines the concept of form as "un tutto or- ganico" {Opera aperta [1962; 6th ed. Milan, 1988], p. 22. )
57. See, e. g. , Abraham Moles, Information Theory and Esthetic Perception (Ur- bana, 111. , 1966), p. 57: "Byform (Gestalt) we mean here a group of elements per- ceived as a whole and not as the product of a random collection. More precisely,
a form is a message, which appears to the observer as not being the result of ran- dom events. "
58. Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art and Painting in Partic- ular(1912; Engl, trans. New York, 1947), p. 47.
59. Ciardi and Williams, How Does a Poem Mean? p. xxii (authors' emphasis). 60. Spencer Brown, Laws ofForm, p.
Self-Description
313
art with a certain style of self-description, with a reflection on unity
246 rather than a reflection on difference?
One must therefore ask oneself how and to what purpose one distin- guishes between reality and fiction, and what reality must be in itself that it can tolerate this distinction. The artificiality of this distinction becomes evident if one considers the difficulty of introducing it and rendering it plausible in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Statistics, which emerged roughly at the same time, was confronted with the same problem (the same distinction). Employing the distinction between real- ity and fiction begs the question of what reality itself must be like in order to assume both a real and a fictional form, while leaving open the possi- bility for crossing the internal boundary of this distinction. We have based our investigation on a theoretical concept capable of answering this ques- tion; we presupposed an operative system that draws this distinction and, in so doing, renders the world invisible. When communication (rather than perception, for example) is at stake, society is the system that makes it possible--for itself and for art--to distinguish between reality and fic- tion. One could then pursue the suggestion that art tests arrangements that are at once fictional and real in order to show society, from a position within society, that things could be done differendy, which does not mean that anything goes.
Along these lines, reality might still be defined in terms of a resistance,
which is no longer the resistance of the external world to attempts to grasp
it by knowing and acting, but a resistance, within one and the same sys-
tem, of internal operations to the operations of the system. In the system
of society, one might think of the resistance of communication to itself, a
resistance that ends up constructing a genuine reality (one must keep in
mind, of course, that there are structural couplings between communica-
tion and the perceptions of individuals and that individuals tend to inter-
vene in communication when claims are made that contradict their per-
247
ceptions ). In the art system, this resistance has to do, as we suggested
248
earlier, with incongruities in the formal arrangement of artworks or
with disturbances in communication through art and about art that can be traced to the lack of fit between the components of an artwork. If a work manages to pass this test, then it creates what we have called a fic- tional reality. The more demanding the manner in which the problem of form is posed, the more unlikely it becomes that communication occurs at all and the more impressive is the manner in which the work testifies to
314
Self-Description
249
the reality that is processed within the art system.
atic state of the current self-description of the art system, who would want to exclude the possibility that this might still happen in the future?
However, our description remains external and has no control over whether, and in what ways, the art system, together with its works and self-descriptions, will venture into this future. To do so, the art system will have to proceed in a manner specific to form, that is, by using distinc- tions. One will have to avoid the trap of identity. In this regard, at least, art must break with the kind of modernity envisioned by Adorno, or even the one propagated by Habermas. The future of art depends on whether it opts for difference and whether it can make use of constraints to expand the room for further distinctions.
VIII
We can summarize the results of our elaborate investigations in one question--a question that cannot be answered by sociology or by any other academic discipline, but only by art. Society has differentiated an art system at an operative and structural level. As a result, that system remains dependent on its social environment, and such dependencies (of an eco- nomic nature, for example) may increase. At the same time, however, the environment cannot determine what counts as art and how artworks will be judged. The overabundance of communicative possibilities that emerges from this state of affairs can be processed and put into form only within the art system. This includes the problem--which did not present itself until the twentieth century--of how the distinction between art and nonart is to be controlled; how, in other words, the paradoxical unity of art and nonart can be dissolved within the art system itself.
If this is the question, then everything depends on determining more precisely what contributes conceptually--eventually through the direct observation of artworks as "form"--to the operative closure of the art sys- tem. In this regard, highly abstract mathematical and systems-theoretical considerations suggest the need to pay attention to distinctions and to think of form as a boundary that separates two sides. This notion can be elaborated under a factual or a temporal aspect. Factually, each determi- nation of a form excludes something--the world, on the one hand, and the observer (the artist, the beholder) who uses the distinction, on the other. Under the title "conceptual art," the individual artwork, although
Given the problem-
Self-Description
315
indispensable, was relieved of the burden of answering for itself, and the problem was displaced onto the recursive network of the art system. In this situation multimedia modes of presentation flourished. But the ques- tion of how the work is made, how it is represented, remains. Temporally, each form determination generates an indeterminacy transcending the form, which, if one wants to retain the form (rather than destroying it and starting from scratch), can no longer be filled at will. Art therefore always demonstrates the arbitrary generation of nonarbitrariness or the emer- gence of order from chance. In addition,jit displays the difficulties that oc- cur in the creation of connecting forms, and it shows how established forms are altered by "redescriptions" Jof the sort suggested by the Art & Language Group.
An external (in this case sociological) description of the art system can
establish this much--and, if necessary, revise it in the course of further de-
velopment of the discipline. But such a description says nothing about
how the art system handles self-generated uncertainties and difficulties.
The avant-garde has raised the issue and put it into form. It remains to be
seen whether and how the art system will deal with this challenge. With
growing freedom, the uncertainty of criteria will increase, and distin-
guishing between success and failure in art will become more difficult.
Some may doubt whether the traditional task of creating more redun-
dancy for a greater amount of variety is still binding for art. However, so
long as the autonomy of the art system prevails, there will always be a
medium that motivates the search for convincing forms. If anything is
possible, then the criteria for selecting what is admissible must be tight-
ened. In the long run, handing out commuters' passes instead of a selec-
tion can hardly satisfy. Only the overcoming of difficulties makes a work
2i0 significant: Hoc opus, hie labor est.
Reference Matter
Notes
Preface
i. Niklas Luhmann, Soziale Systeme: Grundrifleiner allgemeinen Theorie (Frank- furt, 1984); trans, as Social Systems, trans. John Bednarz, with Dirk Baecker (Stan- ford, Calif. , 1995). Concerning the social system, currently only a short text writ-
ten for Italian universities is available; however, a more comprehensive publication
is in preparation. See Niklas Luhmann and Raffaele De Giorgi, Teoria della soci- eta (Milan, 1992).
? 1
1. This distinction has since been relativized on the basis of neurophysiological research. See Gerhard Roth, Das Gehirn und seine Wirklichkeit: Kognitive Neuro- biohgie undihrephilosophischen Konsequenzen (Frankfurt, 1994).
2. As Derrida has pointed out repeatedly, this move has turned the philosoph- ical tradition against itself. Assuming the primacy of thought, it treats writing as something external, although the tradition itself could only exist as writing!
3. We speak of "double closure" in the sense that the brain, in separating lev- els of operation, puts itself in a position to coordinate the coordination of its pri- mary processes. See Heinz von Foerster, "On Constructing a Reality," in his Ob- serving Systems (Seaside, Calif. , 1981), pp. 288-309 (304ff. ).
4. This reverses the common Cartesian doctrine (hetero-reference is doubtful; self-reference is certain). Kenneth J. Gergen, Toward Transformation in Social Knowledge (New York, 1982), p. 66.
5. Here and in the following, we disregard the neurophysiological correlates of perception. At this level, perception must be understood as a kind of mea- surement that functions selectively in that it cannot measure everything when it
519
32. 0 Notes to Pages 6-p
measures something. See Howard H. Pattee, "Cell Psychology: An Evolutionary Approach to the Symbol-Matter Problem," Cognition and Brain Theory 5 (1982): 325-41; A. Moreno et al. , "Computational Darwinism as a Basis for Cognition," Revue Internationale de systimique 6 (1992): 205-21. See also Roth, Das Gehirn
und seine Wirklichkeit. Regarding this process, consciousness begins with a der- ealization, that is, by erasing all information about the location where the per- ception actually takes place.
6. On this topic, see Heinz von Foerster, "Das Gleichnis vom Blinden Fleck: Cber das Sehen im allgemeinen," in Gerhard Johann Lischka, ed. , Der entfesselte Blick (Bern, 1993), pp. 14-47.
7. On space and time as media, see Chapter 3, section III, below.
8. One can arrive at different results only if one fails to distinguish between brain activity and consciousness. For a typical example in the realm of neuro- physiology, see Gerhard Roth, "Erkenntnis und Realitat: Das reale Gehirn und seine Wirklichkeit," in Siegfried J. Schmidt, ed. , Der Diskurs des radikalen Kon- struktivismus (Frankfurt, 1987), pp. 229-55. Roth even ascribes "semantic" capa- bilities to the brain.
9. One reason for this may be that the neurophysiologist occupies the posi- tion of an external observer for whom the internal/external difference defining
his object of research is already given. Then the only question remains how the brain enables itself to perform representational or semantic functions. On this topic, see: Paul M. Churchland, A NeurocomputationalPerspective: The Nature of Mind and the Structure ofScience (Cambridge, Mass. , 1989), esp. p. 77; Gerhard Roth, "Kognition: Die Entstehung von Bedeutung im Gehirn," in Wolfgang Krohn and Giinther Kiippers, eds. , Die Entstehung von Ordnung, Organisation und Bedeutung (Frankfurt, 1992), pp. 104-33. Consider further the distinction between "reality," from the perspective of an external (second-order) observer, and actuality, from the perspective of the brain or consciousness, in Gerhard Roth and Helmut Schwegler, "Self-Organization, Emergent Properties and the UnityoftheWorld,"Philosophical (1990):45-64(56ff. ).
10. See George Spencer Brown, Laws ofForm (1969; rpt. New York, 1979), pp. 56S. , 69fT.
11. For good reasons, Benny Shanon has argued against this prevailing view. See Shanon, "Metaphors for Language and Communication," Revue internationale de systemique 3 (1989): 43-59. In his theory of language, Maturana rejects the metaphor of transmission as well--but only because he conceives of language in terms stricdy internal to the organism as a structural coupling of the nervous sys- tem with itself (which may be justified but is of no help for a theory of social com- munication). See Humberto R. Maturana, Erkennen: Organisation und Verkor-
perung von Wirklichkeit: Ausgewdhlte Arbeiten zur hiologischen Epistemologie
(Braunschweig, 1982), esp. pp. 54ff. , I54f. On transmission as one of many meta-
Notes to Pages 10-12
321
phors that have influenced our understanding of communication, see also Klaus Krippendorff, "Der verschwundene Bote: Metaphern und Modelle der Kommu- nikation," in Klaus Merten, Siegfried J. Schmidt, and Siegfried Weischenberg,
eds. , Die Wirklichkeit der Medien: Eine Einfuhrung in die Kommunikationswissen- <<? /<</? (Opladen, 1994), pp. 79-113.
12. See, e. g. , Paul de Man, Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric ofCon- temporary Criticism, 2d ed. (Minneapolis, 1983), pp. 232f. --but in a somewhat different terminology, replacing reference by constitution.
13. See Roth, Das Gehirn und seine Wirklichkeit, pp. 25off.
14. For Husserl, as we know, this meant that conscious activity and phenom- enon were strictly the same thing (this is why he called his philosophy "phe- nomenology") and that intention was the form of the act that continually re- produced this unity.
15. From this insight follows an epistemological "constructivism" thatfindsits equivalents in the realms of biology and psychology--that is, in the world of Jean Piaget, Humberto Maturana, and Heinz von Foerster. See Niklas Luhmann, Erkenntnis als Konstruktion (Bern, 1988); Luhmann, "Das Erkenntnisprogramm des Konstruktivismus und die unbekannt bleibende Realitat," in Luhmann, So- ziologische Aufkldrung, vol. 5 (Opladen, 1990), pp. 31-58 (trans, as "The Cognitive Program of Constructivism and a Reality That Remains Unknown," in Wolfgang Krohn et al. , eds. , Self-Organization: Portrait ofa Scientific Revolution [Dordrecht, 1990], pp. 64-85); and Luhmann, Die Wissenschaft der Gesellschafi (Frankfurt, 1990); see further Helmut Wilke, "Systemtheoretische Strategien des Erkennens: Wirklichkeit als interessierte Konstruktion," in Klaus Gotz, ed. , Theoretische Zu-
mutungen: Vom Nutzen der systemischen Theoriefur die Managementpraxis (Hei- delberg, 1994), pp. 97-116.
16. Quite differently, Wil Martens, "Die Autopoiesis soziale Systeme," Kolner Zeitschrififur Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 43 (1991): 625-40. See also the sub- sequent discussion in Kolner Zeitschrifi 44 (1992): 139-45.
17. See Heinz von Foerster, "Fur Niklas Luhmann: Wie rekursiv ist Kommu- nikation? " Teoria Sociologica 1/2 (1993): 61-85. His answer is that communication is recursion or, more accurately, that "Kommunikation ist das Eigenverhalten in einem rekursiv operierenden, zweifach geschlossenen System" (p. 83).
18. The significance of the "unfinished" in Leonardo da Vinci and Michelan-
gelo was already debated in the sixteenth century. On the intentional use of am- biguity, often to the point of infinite interpretive possibilities, see Umberto Eco, Opera aperta (1962), 6th ed. (Milan, 1988). See also the notion of "blanks" [Un- bestimmtheitsstellen] in Roman Ingarden, Das literarische Kunstwerk (1931), 4th ed. (Tubingen, 1972), pp. 26iff; see further William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930; 2d ed. Edinburgh, 1947).
19. On the Parsonsian distinction between simple and double contingency,
322 Notes to Pages 13-16
see James Olds, The Growth and Structure ofMotives: Psychological Studies in the Theory ofAction (Glencoe, 111. , 1956).
20. For a similar argument, see Peter Fuchs, Moderne Kommunikation: Zur Theorie des operativen Displacements (Frankfurt, 1993), pp. i$ff.
21. The notion of "reading" may become questionable here, although it gen- erally includes reading poetry. At any rate, artistic perception blocks our habit- ual, hasty, carefree reading, or we are not reading the text as literature.
22. "See"Bliithenstaub,"no. 19:"DerSitzderSeeleistda,wosichInnenwelt
und Aufienwelt beriihren. Wo sie sich durchdringen, ist er in jedem Punkt der Durchdringung," quoted from Hans Joachim Mahl and Richard Samuel, eds. , Novalis: Werke, Tagebiicher und Briefs Friedrich von Hardenbergs, vol. 2 (Darm- stadt, 1978), p. 233.
23. When guided by thought, perception can distinguish between movements and changes. While driving to the gas station, I see someone climbing a ladder and changing the price tag. The man's movements are one thing, his changing of the price, in relation to before/after, is another. The man might fall off the lad- der, the prices cannot. But both can be seen! The same capacity for discrimina- tion must be present whenever we participate in communication and, once again, already at the level of perception.
24. A longer quotation is warranted here. In Jonathan Richardson, A Dis- course on the Dignity, Certainty, Pleasure and Advantage of the Science ofa Con- noisseur (1719), quoted from The Works (London, 1773; rpt. Hildesheim, 1969), pp. 241-346 (247), we read that works of art are suited "to communicate ideas;
and not only those which we may receive otherwise, but such as without this art could not possibly be communicated; whereby mankind is advanced higher in
the rational state, and made better; and that in a way easy, expeditious, and de- lightful. " See also p. 250: "Painting is another sort of writing, and is subservient
to the same ends as that of her young sister. " Richardson goes on to emphasize
the temporal advantage of painting over the much slower sequentiality of words.
25. Baumgarten, the founder of aesthetics as a special branch of philosophy, in- troduces the topic as follows: "Aesthetica (theoria liberalium artium, gnoseologia inferior, ars pulchre cogitandi, ars analogi rationis) est scientia cognitionis sensiti- vae. " Alexander Gotdieb Baumgarten, Aesthetica (Frankfurt/Oder, 1750), ? 1, p. 1.
Baumgarten considered beauty the goal and perfection of sensuous knowledge (as
if we looked into the world to discover beauty, and only occasionally encountered deformities)--a figure burdened with tradition that propelled aesthetics toward its later development. See Aesthetica, ? 14, p. 6: "Aestheticesfinisest perfectio cog- nitionis sensitivae qua talis, ? 1. Haec autem est pulchritude" Baumgarten does consider other possible orientations of perception, but when sensuous cognition searches for its own perfection, beauty is the exclusive goal.
26. See also Moreno et al. , "Computational Darwinism. "
Notes to Pages 16-20
323
27. See also Niklas Luhmann, "Wie ist Bewufitsein an Kommunikation be- teiligt? " in Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer, eds. , Materialitdt der Kommunikation (Frankfurt, 1988), pp. 884-905 (trans, as "How Can die Mind Participate in Communication? " in Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer, eds. , William Whobrey, trans. , Materialities ofCommunication [Stanford, Calif. , 1994], pp. 371-87); and Luhmann, Die Wtssenschaft der Gesellschaft, pp. nff.
28. We are not investigating, in Kantian fashion, the conditions of possibility for language, nor are we conducting a Darwinian inquiry into the evolution of language.
29. In the realm of alphabetic writing. Ideographic writing in China and Japan has preserved the connection between art and writing in the form of a cherished artistic genre.
30. See Horst Wenzel, "Visibile parlare: Zur Representation der audiovisuel- len Wahrnehmung in Schrift und Bild," in Ludwig Jager and Bernd Switalla, eds. , Germanistik in der Mediengesellschaft (Munich, 1994), pp. 141-57.
31. See Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, "Stimme als Form: ZurTopik lyrischer Selb- stinszenierung im vierzehnten und funfzehnten Jahrhundert," ms. 1992.
32. This idea is not entirely new, as a quotation from David Hume would show. Compare Peter Jones, "Hume and the Beginning of Modern Aesthetics," in Peter Jones, ed. , The "Science ofMan" in the Scottish Enlightenment: Hume, Reid, and Their Contemporaries (Edinburgh, 1989), pp. 54-67. See also n. 24 above.
33. "Bliithenstaub," no. 23, Novalis, Werke, p. 237.
34. For variations on this problem, see Niklas Luhmann and Peter Fuchs, Re- den und Schweigen (Frankfurt, 1989).
35. See esp. Pierre Bourdieu, La distinction: Critique sociale du jugement de gout (Paris, 1975); Bourdieu, Ce queparler veut dire: L'economie des ichanges lin- guistiques (Paris, 1982).
36. In other words, Bourdieu's analyses make it possible to converse about Bourdieu and his analyses--but in the host's home we would be reluctant to comment on Diirer's rabbits hanging above the piano.
37. Heinz von Foerster calls this capacity "memory. " See his "What Is Mem- ory That It May Have Hindsight and Foresight as Well? " in S. Bogoch, The Fu- ture ofthe Brain Sciences (New York, 1969), pp. 19-64.
38. This conclusion is supported by quite different theoretical foundations. For Lyotard, a "phrase" is a language event that makes a difference and vanishes
if it is not linked to other events (enchainement). See Jean-Francois Lyotard, Le differend(Paris, 1983). Regarding the consequences for aesthetics, see, e. g. , the es- say "Newman: The Instant" in Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Inhuman: Reflections on Time (Stanford, Calif, 1991), pp. 78-88. There is no need for a subject that "supports" and "grounds" the event. It realizes itself: "Occurrence is the instant which 'happens,' which 'comes' unexpectedly but which, once it is there, takes
324
Notes to Pages 21-23
its place in the network of what has happened. Any instant can be the beginning, provided that it is grasped in terms of its quod rather than its quid" (ibid. , p. 82).
39. An entirely different question is whether there is a kind of meditation, a motionless standstill of consciousness without reference that refrains from mak- ing distinctions--e. g. , in the perception of artworks, in the gardens of Zen monasteries, or in the contemplation of landscapes. But none of these types of meditation would qualify as communication related specifically to art.
40. This crucial difference between communication through art and com- munication about art is often overlooked (e. g. , by Gerhard Plumpe, Asthetische KommunikationderModerne,vol. 1,VonKantbisHegel(Opladen,1993). Asare- sult, the differentiation of an autonomous art system is treated only in terms of
the differentiation of a particular topic of communication about art.
41. Compare Kritik der Urteilskraft, ? 21-, which is a strange text in need of
clarification. On the one hand, the text glosses over the question ofwhether per- ceptions are communicable, or, to put it differendy, how that which is commu- nicable can be sorted out of what is perceived. Furthermore, the text leaves open what is currendy discussed under the topic of intersubjectivity, namely, the ques- tion concerning the transcendental conditions of possibility of an alter ego. In both respects, the text operates naively. It almost looks as if transcendental con- trols could not be introduced at all via the inner reflection on facts of conscious- ness but Only by (reflecting on) how and in what ways these facts are mediated. Let me provide an excerpt: "Erkenntnisse und Urteile miissen sich, samt der Oberzeugung, die sie begleitet, allgemein mitteilen lassen; denn sonst kame ih- nen keine Obereinstimmung mit dem Objekt zu; sie waren insgesamt ein blofi subjektives Spiel der Vorstellungskrafte, gerade so wie es der Skeptizismus ver- langt. " The problem of perception is covered up by Kant's sole concern with the (even more problematic) communication of a mental state, that is, with "die Stimmung der Erkenntniskrafte zu einer Erkenntnis uberhaupt, und zwar die- jenige Proportion, welche sich fur eine Vorstellung (wodurch uns ein Gegen- stand gegeben wird) gebiihrt, um daraus Erkenntnis zu machen. "
42. For an older account of the disposition concerning awareness/unaware-
ness in museums, see Roger de Piles, Course de peinture par principes (Paris, 1708), pp. 12-13. The painter gets annoyed or specializes in capturing the viewer's attention. In a similar vein, and roughly at the same time, Jonathan Richardson complains that gendemen "overlook the beauties which they do not expect to
find" and searches for a new science of connoisseurship that would rectify this problem. A Discourse on the Dignity, Certainty, Pleasure andAdvantage ofthe Sci- ence ofa Connoisseur (1719), quoted from The Works (London, 1773; rpt. Hilde- sheim, 1969), pp. 241-346 (244). Baudelaire begins his famous essay "Le peintre
de la vie moderne" with exactly the same observation about preinformed ob- servers (CEuvres completes, Plelade ed. [Paris, 1954], p. 881).
Notes to Pages 23-26
315
43. On the notion of the "in sich selbst Vollendete" and the idea of purpose without purpose, see Karl Philipp Moritz, Schriften zurAsthetik undPoetik: Kri- tische Ausgabe (Tubingen, 1962), p. 6. Moritz retains the category of purpose be-
cause "das Unniitze oder Unzweckmafiige [kann] unmoglich einem vernunftigen Wesen Vergniigen machen. " The naturalized anthropology of teleological orien- tation does not keep up with the development of the art system. Giving up this view would require a radical revision of what it means to be human.
44. ThismaybewhyHegelconsideredaconceptofimmediacyindispensable, although in retrospect, immediacy presents itself to thinking always as mediated. 45. "Erst durch das Kunstwerk erfahrt er [der Kiinsder, N. L. ], was er mit
seiner Thatigkeit gewollt hat," we read in Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand Solger's Vor- lesungen uberAsthetik, ed. Karl Wilhelm Ludwig Heyse (Leipzig, 1829; rpt. Darm- stadt, 1973), p. 115. And on p. 122: "Dem Kiinsder entstehtdas Kunstwerk mehr, als es von ihm gemacht wild. Er lernt seinen vollen Vorsatz und seine Idee selbst erst dann ganz kennen, wenn das Kunstwerk vollendet ist. "
46. Using Franz Erhard Walther's conception of art as example, Michael
Lingner shows that artists themselves not only see but also want to see their role
in such terms. "Kunst als Projekt der Aufklarung jenseits reiner Vernunft," in
Michael Lingner, ed. , Das Haus in dem ich wohne: Die Theorie zum Werkentwurf 2
von Franz Erhard Walther (Klagenfurt, 1990), pp. 15-53 (4 ff-)- See also the other contributions in the same volume.
47. Specifically on this point, see Winfried Menninghaus, "Genie und Un- sinn: Zur Poetik Immanuel Kants und Ludwig Tiecks," quoted from ms. , 1994. 48. According to Friedrich Schlegel, poetry, too, ought to be treated as art.
See his Gesprdch uber die Poesie, quoted from Werke in zwei Banden (Berlin, 1980), vol. 2, p. 155. Obviously, Schlegel's demand does not go without saying, or else there would be no need for it.
49. Cleanth Brooks arrives at this conclusion on the basis of thoroughgoing interpretations. See his The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure ofPoetry (New York, 1947). For a summary of Brooks's position, see pp. i92ff; for an ab- breviated version, see p. 74: "The Poem says what the poem says," and it cannot
be said in any other way. And p. 201: "to refer . . . to . . . a paraphrase of the poem is to refer . . . to something outside the poem. " In the meantime, this view
has advanced to the level of textbook knowledge. See, e. g. , John Ciardi and Miller Williams, How Does a Poem Mean? (1959; 2d ed. Boston, 1975).
50. See Christoph Menke-Eggers, Die Souveranitdt der Kunst: Asthetische Er- fahrung nach Adorno undDerrida (Frankfurt, 1988), pp. 4$ff.
51. Experts in modern literature are aware of explicidy unreadable texts. Such texts, however, only intensify a limitation that has always existed.
52. For an elaboration of this point, see Chapter 3, below.
53. See Dietrich Schwanitz, "Zeit und Geschichte im Roman--Interaktion
326 Notes to Pages 26-29
und Gesellschaft im Drama: Zur wechselseitigen Erhellung von Systemtheorie und Literatur," in Dirk Baecker et al. , eds. , Theorie als Passion (Frankfurt, 1987), pp. 181-213.
54. In order to elucidate the self-reference of poems (as opposed to hetero- reference), Earl R. Wasserman, The Subtler Language: Critical Readings ofNeo-
Classic and Romantic Poems (Baltimore, 1959), p. 7, speaks of "the interactive capacities of any of the properties of words . . . including connotation and the ca- pacity of a word to carry more than one reference as a symbol, metaphor, ambigu- ity, or pun; position and repetition; word order; sound, rhyme; even orthography. "
55. For an older formulation of this principle (comparing it to the oudine in the visual arts), see Moritz, Schriften zur Asthetik, pp. 99f.
56. Umberto Eco, for example, defines the concept of form as "un tutto or- ganico" {Opera aperta [1962; 6th ed. Milan, 1988], p. 22. )
57. See, e. g. , Abraham Moles, Information Theory and Esthetic Perception (Ur- bana, 111. , 1966), p. 57: "Byform (Gestalt) we mean here a group of elements per- ceived as a whole and not as the product of a random collection. More precisely,
a form is a message, which appears to the observer as not being the result of ran- dom events. "
58. Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art and Painting in Partic- ular(1912; Engl, trans. New York, 1947), p. 47.
59. Ciardi and Williams, How Does a Poem Mean? p. xxii (authors' emphasis). 60. Spencer Brown, Laws ofForm, p.
