Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the
Spiritual
in Art and Painting in Partic- ular(1912; Engl, trans.
Niklas Luhmann - Art of the Social System
" 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. 1.
61. Gilles Deleuze, Logique du sens (Paris, 1969), pp. 37, 41.
62. We shall encounter this insight again under rhe name of "autopoiesis. " 63. Stephan Mussil, "Literaturwissenschaft, Systemtheorie und der Begriff der
Beobachtung," in Henk de Berg and Matthias Prangel, eds. , Kommunikation und Differenz: Systemtheoretische Ansatze in der Literatur- und Kunstwissenscha. fi (Opladen, 1993), pp. 183-202. Mussil points out correctly that the world prior to
all distinctions (for which Spencer Brown has no concept) must be distinguished from the "unmarked space" that emerges when a "marked space" is severed. Ini- tially, Spencer Brown uses only the second concept, which designates the space accessible from the marked space by crossing its boundary. This conceptual lim- itation, while it serves the purposes of a calculus, does not exclude an inquiry into
the state of the world that is severed by the injunction "draw a distinction. " Nor does it prevent us from thematizing the unity of the distinction between marked and unmarked space. Spencer Brown acknowledges this by introducing the con- cept of the "unwritten cross" during a later phase of his calculus. (Spencer Brown, Laws of Form, p. 7. ) See also, Matthias Varga von Kibed and Rudolf Matzka, "Motive und Grundgedanken der 'Gesetze der Form,'" in Dirk Baecker, ed. , Kalkul der Form (Frankfurt, 1993), pp. 58-85 (691". , 77); as well as Hegel's distinc- tion between the infinite as the opposite of the finite and as true infinity in his
Notes to Pages 30-31
327
Vorlesungentiberdie Philosophie der Religion I, quoted from Werke, vol. 16 (Frank- furt, 1969), pp. i78f. For the purpose of distinguishing these two concepts, we
shall speak of the unmarked state when referring to a state of the world prior to
all distinctions and of the concept of the unmarked space when referring to the opposite of the marked space.
64. "And, if such a verse as this/may not claim another kiss. " From "Claim- ing a Second Kiss by Desert," quoted from Ben Jonson, The Complete Poems (New Haven, Conn. , 1975), pp. i3if.
65. The internal rhetoric of the Art & Language Group uses the term re- description but primarily for styles or exemplary works. See Michael Baldwin, Charles Harrison, Mel Ramsden, "On Conceptual Art and Painting, and Speak- ing and Seeing: Three Corrected Transcripts," Art-Language, n. s. 1 (1994): 30-69. However, the full significance of a continual reactualization of "redescriptions" becomes apparent only when it is referred to individual acts arranged as a form. Then we recognize that we are dealing with attempts to objectify double contin- gency, to observe works of art as conversations. Baldwin et al. (p. 63) speak of a "dialogic aura" (where "aura" could be taken to imply a reference to the un- marked space). I am grateful to Christian Matthiessen for arranging a meeting with the members of the Art & Language Group.
66. For an analysis using modern theoretical means, see, e. g. , Friedrich Cramer, "Schonheit als dynamisches Grenzphanomen zwischen Chaos und Ordnung-- ein neuer Laokoon," Selbstorganisation 4 (1993): 79-102.
6j. Spencer Brown, Laws ofForm.
68. Michael Riffaterre, Semiotics ofPoetry (Bloomington, Ind. , 1978), p. 26, understands the poetic value of neologisms in terms of a "a relationship between two equivalent forms, one marked and one unmarked. The unmarked form an- tedates the text, the marked one does not. " See also his "Po&ique du n^olo- gisme," in Riffaterre, La production du texte (Paris, 1979), pp. 61-74.
69. RanulphGlanvilleandFranciscoVarelatackleasimilarquestionin'"Your
Inside Is Out and Your Outside Is In' (Beatles, 1968)," in George E. Lasker, ed. , Applied Systems and Cybernetics: Proceedings of the International Congress on Ap- plied Systems Research and Cybernetics (New York, 1981), pp. 638-41.
70. SpencerBrownbeginswiththephrase:"Wetakeasgiventheideaofdis- tinction and die idea of indication, and that we cannot make an indication without drawing a distinction" (Laws ofForm, p. 1).
71. Hegelraisesasimilarissue--thatoneneedstodistinguishoneselfinorder
to distinguish--but he treats the problem as the beginning of universality and
in this specific sense as the beginning of a reflection that, in its final stage of Spirit, reaches a perfection that no longer has an outside. See, e. g. , Hegel's Vorle- sungen iiber die Philosophie der Religion I, p. 125: "In der Tat aber ist diese Entz- weiung, dafi ich Subjekt gegen die Objektivitat bin, eine Beziehung und Iden-
328 Notes to Pages 32-33
titdt, die zugleich unterschieden ist von diesem Unterschiede, und es beginnt darin die Allgemeinheit. "
72. For an elaboration of this point, see Niklas Luhmann, "Die Paradoxic der Form," in Dirk Baecker, ed. , Kalkiil der Form, pp. 197-212; trans, as "The Para- dox of Form," in Baecker, ed. , Problems ofForm, trans. Michael Irmscher, with Leah Edwards (Stanford, Calif. , 1999), pp. 15-26.
73. See Elena Esposito, L'operazione di osservatione: Costruttivismo e teoria dei sistemi sociale (Milan, 1992).
74. That the exclusion can be observed or can captivate a narrator's interest to the point where he makes it collapse by intervening as narrator into his own nar- ration only affirms the necessity of exclusion. According to the well-known pre- sentation of this problem in Lawrence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, the intervening narrator must be distinguished from the narrator who narrates the narrator's in- tervention. It seems no accident that Jean Paul's Die unsichtbare Loge--an early work in which the narrator is identical with the protagonist's educator and in- terferes with the action in all sorts of ways--remained unfinished, and that the problem is toned down in his following work, Hesperus. On this problem and on Jane Austen's solution via stylistic forms that combine self-reference and hetero- reference, see Dietrich Schwanitz, "Rhetorik, Roman und die internen Grenzen der Kommunikation: Zur systemtheoretischen Beschreibung einer Problemkon- stellation der 'sensibility,'" Rhetorik 9 (1990): 52-67. See also Schwanitz, Sys-
temtheorie und Literatur: Ein neues Paradigma (Opladen, 1990). Only writing leaves the narrator free to appear in his narration or refrain from doing so. In oral narration, the author is present anyway.
75. A variation on this drawing of a boundary can be found in opera perfor- mances, when ovations interrupt a scene and bring the performance to a halt while the audience is in an uproar. The reason why this tends to happen in opera is that the actor's vocal performance can easily be separated from his role in the play. After all, it is remarkable that an experienced opera audience is not both- ered by the sudden change from the most delicate music or bravura to the noise of clapping hands, whereas one would expect a frightened reaction from an au- dience participating in the mode of everyday experience.
j6. "Signature Event Context," in Jacques Derrida, Margins of Philosophy (Chicago, 1982), pp. 307-30. Signing the text (in print) is of little help in this matter.
77. In literary theory, Paul de Man expounded the idea that the unity of the
world is unattainable and nonrepresentable--but through textual analyses rather
than an elaborated conceptual vocabulary. See Paul de Man, Blindness and In- sight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism (1971; 2d ed. Minneapolis, 1983), and his The Rhetoric ofRomanticism (New York, 1984).
78. See Eva Meyer, "Der Unterschied, der eine Umgebung schafft," in ars electronica, eds. , Im Netz der Systeme (Berlin, 1991), pp. 110-22.
Notes to Pages 33-37
329
79. See Bernard Willms, "Politik als Erste Philosophic oder: Was heifit radi- kales politisches Philosophieren? " in Volker Gerhardt, ed. , Der Begriffder Poli- tik: Bedingungen und Griinde politischen Handelns (Stuttgart, 1990), pp. 252-67 (260, 26j? ).
80. See Yves Barel, Le paradoxe et le systeme: Essai sur le fantastique social, 2d ed. (Grenoble, 1989), pp. yif. , i8jf. , 302f.
81. See, e. g. , David Daube, "Dissent in Bible and Talmud," California Law Review 59 (1971): 784-94; or Jeffrey I. Roth, "The Justification for Controversy under Jewish Law," California Law Review 76 (1988): 338-87.
82. So in Jacques Derrida, "Form and Meaning: A Note on the Phenomenol- ogy of Language," Margins ofPhilosophy, pp. 155-73, p. 172, n. 16. On the notion of "ichnography," see also Michel Serres, Genese (Paris, 1982), pp. 4off. and fre- quently throughout. One could cite further evidence for this basic idea, which underlies the critique of ontological metaphysics and its dependence on the premise of presence.
83. See Arthur C. Danto, The Transfiguration ofthe Commonplace: A Philoso- phy ofArt (Cambridge, Mass. , 1981).
84. Friedrich Schlegel emphasized the work's isolation as the essential step on which everything else depends: "Das Wesendichste sind die bestimmten Zwecke, die Absonderung, wodurch allein das Kunstwerk Umrifi erhalt und in sich selbst vollendet wird" {Gesprachtiberdie Poesie, pp. 157O.
85. According to the "law of crossing" in Spencer Brown, Laws ofForm, p. 12: "The value of a crossing made again is not the value of the crossing," and "for any boundary, to recross is not to cross. "
86. In response to questions raised by Georg Stanitzek at the Center for In- terdisciplinary Research, Bielefeld: "Was ist Kommunikation? Vorlage fur das Kolloquium 'Systemtheorie und Literaturwissenschaft'" (January 6-8, 1994).
87. David Roberts, "The Paradox of Form: Literature and Self-Reference," Poetics 21 (1992): 75-91.
88. See Theodor W Adorno, Asthetische Theorie, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 7 (Frankfurt, 1970). See also Chapter 7, section V, below.
89. For more on this, see Niklas Luhmann, "Zeichen als Form," in Dirk Baecker, ed. , Probleme der Form (Frankfurt, 1993), pp. 45-69; trans, as "Sign as Form," in Baecker, ed. , Problems ofForm, trans. Michael Irmscher, with Leah Ed- wards (Stanford, Calif. , 1999), pp. 46-63.
90. See also Stanley Fish's critique of a "reception theory" which, despite its proclaimed emphasis on one side, has failed to disengage itself from its oppo- site--production--and is therefore unable to make distinctions. "Why No One's Afraid of Wolfgang Iser," in Stanley Fish, Doing What Comes Naturally:
Change, Rhetoric, and the Practice of Theory in Literary and Legal Studies (Oxford, 1989), pp. 68-86. Fish's critique falls short, however, because of its own reluc-
tance to make distinctions.
33Q
Notes to Pages 37-40
91. "We see now that thefirstdistinction, the mark, and the observer [whom we had assumed "outside," N. L. ] are not only interchangeable, but, in the form, identical" (Spencer Brown, Laws ofForm, p. 76). We are dealing here with the "reentry" of the form into the form and, in this sense, with a binding of the imaginary space that cannot be thematized.
92. There is no need to derive this--by no means novel--insight from the radicalism of Spencer Brown's formal calculus. Husserl analyzed how determina-
tion is gained through a variation of shades, and these analyses, too, ground a common precondition of experiencing and acting in the conditions of possibility
for determination. See especially ? 41 in Edmund Husserl, Idem zu einer reinen Phanomenologie und phanomenologischen Philosophie, vol. 1, Husserliana, vol. 3 (The Hague, 1950), pp. 9iff. See further his Erfahrung und Urteil: Untersuchun-
gen zur Genealogie der Logik (Hamburg, 1948), and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenominolope de la perception (Paris, 1945), esp. his analyses of C&sanne on the search for identity, pp. 372ff. On the same topic, see Gerard Wormser, "Merleau- Ponty--Die Farbe und die Malerei," Selbstorganisation 4 (1993): 233-50.
93. For fitting formulations, see Lodovico Dolce, Dialogo della Pittura (1557), quoted from Paola Barocchi, ed. , Trattati d'arte del cinquecento, vol. 1 (Bari, i960), pp. 141-206 (170). For an overview, see Luigi Grassi, "I concetti di schizzo, abozzo, macchia, 'non finito' e la costruzione dell opera d'arte," in Studi di onore di Pietro Silva (Florence, 1957), pp. 97-106.
94. While this recognition does not put an end to the elaborate and rather confusing debate concerning a reader-oriented text theory, it does displace its problematic.
95. See Henri Focillon, The Life ofForms in Art (New York, 1992), p. 103.
96. According to a formulation of Z.
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. 1.
61. Gilles Deleuze, Logique du sens (Paris, 1969), pp. 37, 41.
62. We shall encounter this insight again under rhe name of "autopoiesis. " 63. Stephan Mussil, "Literaturwissenschaft, Systemtheorie und der Begriff der
Beobachtung," in Henk de Berg and Matthias Prangel, eds. , Kommunikation und Differenz: Systemtheoretische Ansatze in der Literatur- und Kunstwissenscha. fi (Opladen, 1993), pp. 183-202. Mussil points out correctly that the world prior to
all distinctions (for which Spencer Brown has no concept) must be distinguished from the "unmarked space" that emerges when a "marked space" is severed. Ini- tially, Spencer Brown uses only the second concept, which designates the space accessible from the marked space by crossing its boundary. This conceptual lim- itation, while it serves the purposes of a calculus, does not exclude an inquiry into
the state of the world that is severed by the injunction "draw a distinction. " Nor does it prevent us from thematizing the unity of the distinction between marked and unmarked space. Spencer Brown acknowledges this by introducing the con- cept of the "unwritten cross" during a later phase of his calculus. (Spencer Brown, Laws of Form, p. 7. ) See also, Matthias Varga von Kibed and Rudolf Matzka, "Motive und Grundgedanken der 'Gesetze der Form,'" in Dirk Baecker, ed. , Kalkul der Form (Frankfurt, 1993), pp. 58-85 (691". , 77); as well as Hegel's distinc- tion between the infinite as the opposite of the finite and as true infinity in his
Notes to Pages 30-31
327
Vorlesungentiberdie Philosophie der Religion I, quoted from Werke, vol. 16 (Frank- furt, 1969), pp. i78f. For the purpose of distinguishing these two concepts, we
shall speak of the unmarked state when referring to a state of the world prior to
all distinctions and of the concept of the unmarked space when referring to the opposite of the marked space.
64. "And, if such a verse as this/may not claim another kiss. " From "Claim- ing a Second Kiss by Desert," quoted from Ben Jonson, The Complete Poems (New Haven, Conn. , 1975), pp. i3if.
65. The internal rhetoric of the Art & Language Group uses the term re- description but primarily for styles or exemplary works. See Michael Baldwin, Charles Harrison, Mel Ramsden, "On Conceptual Art and Painting, and Speak- ing and Seeing: Three Corrected Transcripts," Art-Language, n. s. 1 (1994): 30-69. However, the full significance of a continual reactualization of "redescriptions" becomes apparent only when it is referred to individual acts arranged as a form. Then we recognize that we are dealing with attempts to objectify double contin- gency, to observe works of art as conversations. Baldwin et al. (p. 63) speak of a "dialogic aura" (where "aura" could be taken to imply a reference to the un- marked space). I am grateful to Christian Matthiessen for arranging a meeting with the members of the Art & Language Group.
66. For an analysis using modern theoretical means, see, e. g. , Friedrich Cramer, "Schonheit als dynamisches Grenzphanomen zwischen Chaos und Ordnung-- ein neuer Laokoon," Selbstorganisation 4 (1993): 79-102.
6j. Spencer Brown, Laws ofForm.
68. Michael Riffaterre, Semiotics ofPoetry (Bloomington, Ind. , 1978), p. 26, understands the poetic value of neologisms in terms of a "a relationship between two equivalent forms, one marked and one unmarked. The unmarked form an- tedates the text, the marked one does not. " See also his "Po&ique du n^olo- gisme," in Riffaterre, La production du texte (Paris, 1979), pp. 61-74.
69. RanulphGlanvilleandFranciscoVarelatackleasimilarquestionin'"Your
Inside Is Out and Your Outside Is In' (Beatles, 1968)," in George E. Lasker, ed. , Applied Systems and Cybernetics: Proceedings of the International Congress on Ap- plied Systems Research and Cybernetics (New York, 1981), pp. 638-41.
70. SpencerBrownbeginswiththephrase:"Wetakeasgiventheideaofdis- tinction and die idea of indication, and that we cannot make an indication without drawing a distinction" (Laws ofForm, p. 1).
71. Hegelraisesasimilarissue--thatoneneedstodistinguishoneselfinorder
to distinguish--but he treats the problem as the beginning of universality and
in this specific sense as the beginning of a reflection that, in its final stage of Spirit, reaches a perfection that no longer has an outside. See, e. g. , Hegel's Vorle- sungen iiber die Philosophie der Religion I, p. 125: "In der Tat aber ist diese Entz- weiung, dafi ich Subjekt gegen die Objektivitat bin, eine Beziehung und Iden-
328 Notes to Pages 32-33
titdt, die zugleich unterschieden ist von diesem Unterschiede, und es beginnt darin die Allgemeinheit. "
72. For an elaboration of this point, see Niklas Luhmann, "Die Paradoxic der Form," in Dirk Baecker, ed. , Kalkiil der Form, pp. 197-212; trans, as "The Para- dox of Form," in Baecker, ed. , Problems ofForm, trans. Michael Irmscher, with Leah Edwards (Stanford, Calif. , 1999), pp. 15-26.
73. See Elena Esposito, L'operazione di osservatione: Costruttivismo e teoria dei sistemi sociale (Milan, 1992).
74. That the exclusion can be observed or can captivate a narrator's interest to the point where he makes it collapse by intervening as narrator into his own nar- ration only affirms the necessity of exclusion. According to the well-known pre- sentation of this problem in Lawrence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, the intervening narrator must be distinguished from the narrator who narrates the narrator's in- tervention. It seems no accident that Jean Paul's Die unsichtbare Loge--an early work in which the narrator is identical with the protagonist's educator and in- terferes with the action in all sorts of ways--remained unfinished, and that the problem is toned down in his following work, Hesperus. On this problem and on Jane Austen's solution via stylistic forms that combine self-reference and hetero- reference, see Dietrich Schwanitz, "Rhetorik, Roman und die internen Grenzen der Kommunikation: Zur systemtheoretischen Beschreibung einer Problemkon- stellation der 'sensibility,'" Rhetorik 9 (1990): 52-67. See also Schwanitz, Sys-
temtheorie und Literatur: Ein neues Paradigma (Opladen, 1990). Only writing leaves the narrator free to appear in his narration or refrain from doing so. In oral narration, the author is present anyway.
75. A variation on this drawing of a boundary can be found in opera perfor- mances, when ovations interrupt a scene and bring the performance to a halt while the audience is in an uproar. The reason why this tends to happen in opera is that the actor's vocal performance can easily be separated from his role in the play. After all, it is remarkable that an experienced opera audience is not both- ered by the sudden change from the most delicate music or bravura to the noise of clapping hands, whereas one would expect a frightened reaction from an au- dience participating in the mode of everyday experience.
j6. "Signature Event Context," in Jacques Derrida, Margins of Philosophy (Chicago, 1982), pp. 307-30. Signing the text (in print) is of little help in this matter.
77. In literary theory, Paul de Man expounded the idea that the unity of the
world is unattainable and nonrepresentable--but through textual analyses rather
than an elaborated conceptual vocabulary. See Paul de Man, Blindness and In- sight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism (1971; 2d ed. Minneapolis, 1983), and his The Rhetoric ofRomanticism (New York, 1984).
78. See Eva Meyer, "Der Unterschied, der eine Umgebung schafft," in ars electronica, eds. , Im Netz der Systeme (Berlin, 1991), pp. 110-22.
Notes to Pages 33-37
329
79. See Bernard Willms, "Politik als Erste Philosophic oder: Was heifit radi- kales politisches Philosophieren? " in Volker Gerhardt, ed. , Der Begriffder Poli- tik: Bedingungen und Griinde politischen Handelns (Stuttgart, 1990), pp. 252-67 (260, 26j? ).
80. See Yves Barel, Le paradoxe et le systeme: Essai sur le fantastique social, 2d ed. (Grenoble, 1989), pp. yif. , i8jf. , 302f.
81. See, e. g. , David Daube, "Dissent in Bible and Talmud," California Law Review 59 (1971): 784-94; or Jeffrey I. Roth, "The Justification for Controversy under Jewish Law," California Law Review 76 (1988): 338-87.
82. So in Jacques Derrida, "Form and Meaning: A Note on the Phenomenol- ogy of Language," Margins ofPhilosophy, pp. 155-73, p. 172, n. 16. On the notion of "ichnography," see also Michel Serres, Genese (Paris, 1982), pp. 4off. and fre- quently throughout. One could cite further evidence for this basic idea, which underlies the critique of ontological metaphysics and its dependence on the premise of presence.
83. See Arthur C. Danto, The Transfiguration ofthe Commonplace: A Philoso- phy ofArt (Cambridge, Mass. , 1981).
84. Friedrich Schlegel emphasized the work's isolation as the essential step on which everything else depends: "Das Wesendichste sind die bestimmten Zwecke, die Absonderung, wodurch allein das Kunstwerk Umrifi erhalt und in sich selbst vollendet wird" {Gesprachtiberdie Poesie, pp. 157O.
85. According to the "law of crossing" in Spencer Brown, Laws ofForm, p. 12: "The value of a crossing made again is not the value of the crossing," and "for any boundary, to recross is not to cross. "
86. In response to questions raised by Georg Stanitzek at the Center for In- terdisciplinary Research, Bielefeld: "Was ist Kommunikation? Vorlage fur das Kolloquium 'Systemtheorie und Literaturwissenschaft'" (January 6-8, 1994).
87. David Roberts, "The Paradox of Form: Literature and Self-Reference," Poetics 21 (1992): 75-91.
88. See Theodor W Adorno, Asthetische Theorie, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 7 (Frankfurt, 1970). See also Chapter 7, section V, below.
89. For more on this, see Niklas Luhmann, "Zeichen als Form," in Dirk Baecker, ed. , Probleme der Form (Frankfurt, 1993), pp. 45-69; trans, as "Sign as Form," in Baecker, ed. , Problems ofForm, trans. Michael Irmscher, with Leah Ed- wards (Stanford, Calif. , 1999), pp. 46-63.
90. See also Stanley Fish's critique of a "reception theory" which, despite its proclaimed emphasis on one side, has failed to disengage itself from its oppo- site--production--and is therefore unable to make distinctions. "Why No One's Afraid of Wolfgang Iser," in Stanley Fish, Doing What Comes Naturally:
Change, Rhetoric, and the Practice of Theory in Literary and Legal Studies (Oxford, 1989), pp. 68-86. Fish's critique falls short, however, because of its own reluc-
tance to make distinctions.
33Q
Notes to Pages 37-40
91. "We see now that thefirstdistinction, the mark, and the observer [whom we had assumed "outside," N. L. ] are not only interchangeable, but, in the form, identical" (Spencer Brown, Laws ofForm, p. 76). We are dealing here with the "reentry" of the form into the form and, in this sense, with a binding of the imaginary space that cannot be thematized.
92. There is no need to derive this--by no means novel--insight from the radicalism of Spencer Brown's formal calculus. Husserl analyzed how determina-
tion is gained through a variation of shades, and these analyses, too, ground a common precondition of experiencing and acting in the conditions of possibility
for determination. See especially ? 41 in Edmund Husserl, Idem zu einer reinen Phanomenologie und phanomenologischen Philosophie, vol. 1, Husserliana, vol. 3 (The Hague, 1950), pp. 9iff. See further his Erfahrung und Urteil: Untersuchun-
gen zur Genealogie der Logik (Hamburg, 1948), and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenominolope de la perception (Paris, 1945), esp. his analyses of C&sanne on the search for identity, pp. 372ff. On the same topic, see Gerard Wormser, "Merleau- Ponty--Die Farbe und die Malerei," Selbstorganisation 4 (1993): 233-50.
93. For fitting formulations, see Lodovico Dolce, Dialogo della Pittura (1557), quoted from Paola Barocchi, ed. , Trattati d'arte del cinquecento, vol. 1 (Bari, i960), pp. 141-206 (170). For an overview, see Luigi Grassi, "I concetti di schizzo, abozzo, macchia, 'non finito' e la costruzione dell opera d'arte," in Studi di onore di Pietro Silva (Florence, 1957), pp. 97-106.
94. While this recognition does not put an end to the elaborate and rather confusing debate concerning a reader-oriented text theory, it does displace its problematic.
95. See Henri Focillon, The Life ofForms in Art (New York, 1992), p. 103.
96. According to a formulation of Z.
