On the construction of fiction and the invention of facts

319

Poetics 18 (1989) 319-335 North-Holland

ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF FACTS Siegfried

J. SCHMIDT

OF FICTION

AND THE INVENTION

*

This essay explores the impacts of an empirical conception of literary studies in the framework of a constructivist theory of cognition, including the main epistemological, methodological, ethical and applicational aspects of such a new approach to literature seen as a social system.

1 This paper intends to provide material for discussion. Some aspects of a position held in the academic field of literary studies are displayed which, I think, are worth discussing. The ‘mood’ of my following presentation is neither controversial nor defensive; that means I am not (no longer?) interested in disputing whether or not an empirical approach is new, better than other approaches, completely different from all others, etc. Instead, I am interested in discussing how it works, what results it yields, and how it affects our way of thinking and feeling as a whole.

2 When, in the morning of 4 April 1985, David Bleich and I invented the title of our present Bloomington conference (and thereby became fully aware of the importance this conference was supposed to acquire) both of us agreed upon a non-positivistic stance towards ‘facts’ in literary studies. It seems to be a point of convergence in the international academic discussion that (what we call) ‘facts’ has to be related to social as well as individual contexts of activities and evaluations. Divergent, on the contrary, is the discussion of the degree of constitutivity (or constructivity) that has to be attributed to this context as well as of the way this constitutivity (or constructivity) of contexts is epistemologically explained. * Author’s address: S.J. Schmidt, Fachbereich Sprachund Universitlt/GH Siegen, P.O. Box 10 12 40, D-5900 Siegen 21, FRG.

0304-422X/89/$3.50

0 1989, Elsevier Science Publishers

Literaturwissenschaften.

B.V. (North-Holland)

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My own position in this debate refers to the concept of ‘ohseruer’ and to the paramount role the observer plays in cognitive processes. From A. Einstein’s, N. Bohr’s or W. Heisenberg’s research, at the latest, scientists know about the indispensable role the observer plays in all research processes. We cannot disregard the observer because everything perceived by an observer and everything said is said by an observer to another observer. Apart from the phenomenological evidence for this assumption we now have a neurophysiological explanation which has been developed in the context of biological theories of autopoietic systems. As this is a crucial topic for our discussion about concepts of ‘fact’ I shall briefly review this explanation (mostly relating to the work of G. Roth). The most fundamental argument in this framework reads as follows: perception does not take place in our sensory organs but in specific sensory domains of our brain which are responsible for the topological distribution of sensory ‘inputs’. Our brains see and hear, not our eyes and ears. Consequently perception has to be modelled in terms of attributing meaning to neuronal processes that, as such, are meaningless; i.e. perception is construction and interpretation (Roth (1987a, b)). Our brain is functionally closed and interacts exclusively with its own states. It is connected to ‘the world outside’ via sensory receptors which. due to environmental perturbations, undergo variations of their electric properties which are then transferred to the brain in terms of impulses (or signals). In other words: our sensory organs translate environmental events which are inaccessible to the (operationally) closed brain into the brain’s ‘language’. During this translation (and due to it) the ‘original’ gets lost. The brain is forced to rely on those principles and strategies of signal-processing and meaning-construction which have been developed during its ontogenetic and phylogenetic evolution (and which gestalt-theory has formulated since the twenties). That is to say: what becomes conscious has already been modelled and imprinted automatically by our brains. It follows from these assumptions that our brain is not able to mirror or to re-present ‘the reality’; it does not represent, it construes. As the brain has no direct access to ‘the reality’, it is ~ forming part of the and semantically closed, and, consequently, nervous system ~ cognitively self-referential and self-explaining (see already Metzger (1940)). It recursively operates on its own operations. All perceptions depend on processes of cognitive self-differentiating which are closely connected to processes of learning. Perception, in this approach, is theoretically modelled as a selfdescription of the brain. Roth proposes a very productive distinction between the real brain and the cognitive world. ‘The real organism is equipped with a brain which produces a cognitive world consisting of world, body and subject in such a way that this subject relates this world and this body to himself. This cognitive subject is, of

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course, not the producer of the cognitive world which is created by the real brain; instead the cognitive subject is a kind of “object of perception”, which experiences and undergoes perceptions. The real brain is just as little existent in the cognitive world as is the reality and the real organism’ (1987a; my translation). The cognitive world is the local and temporal reality of and for the cognitive subject. The categories developed in the cognitive world are not applicable to the real world which must be regarded as an absolutely necessary regulative or heuristic device but which can never be experienced by the cognitive subject. The real brain forms part of our body which can be described and explained as an autopoietic system. Our cognitive operations are determined by this biological basis but they are not identical with it. Apart from the innate mechanisms of checking our brain-produced worldknowledge we have to respect that the real brain produces individual knowledge according to social conditions. Though our brain has no window to the world outside, the reality it produces is a social reality. The cognitive world is the world of the ohseruer. Only the observer is able to distinguish and to describe something as something. Any description requires an observer; and the logic of description is isomorphic to the logic of the operations of an observer. From a philosophical point of view this constructivist theory of cognition provides a reformulation combined with an empirical foundation of I. Kant’s idea of transcendentality: our world is the world of our experience, not ‘the real world’. During the 1986 Gordon research conference on the Cybernetics of Cognition, Maturana reinforced his idea that we cannot distinguish experientially between perception and illusion. Instead, this distinction is a social distinction. As our language is a language of objects, we can speak about objects as long as we remain in our language. On the other hand, together with the rise of language the observer arises. The speaking, or - in Maturana’s wording - the ‘languaging’ observer is the source of objects because languaging means consensual coordination of actions and recursion on consensual coordination of actions. Maturana emphasizes that a validation of scientific explanations does not presuppose objectivity but only coherence (e.g. provided by the scientific method). Validation explains the experience of observers and not properties of an observer-independent reality. On the whole we live in a cognitive world consisting of different levels of coherence, models and descriptions. To make experiences and to construe levels of coherence presupposes interaction in consensual domains. That is the reason why we need the other to make our own experiences. Generating a concept of ‘object’ presupposes that we happen to impute our own experiences successfully to others (von Glasersfeld (1985)). Consensus and intersubjectivity thus provide what we

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experience as ‘objects’ or ‘facts’, not the ontological correspondence of our perceptions and experiences with the real entities. By transforming the concept of ‘ontological objectivity’ into that of ‘interactive intersubjectivity’, the epistemological attention shifts from ‘ the real world’ to norms and criteria for consensuality and intersubjectivity in a social group or in a society as a whole, and to the language by which observers operate on events and activities in their consensual domains.

3 At this point of argumentation two questions should be answered: (a) Isn’t constructivism solipsistic? (b) What does ‘empirical research’ mean in this approach? For two reasons constructivists do not belong to the esoteric family of solipsists: they neither deny the existence of reality, nor do they deny the existence of others. Constructivists explain why we can only describe our cognitive world of experience, not the real world. And they emphasize the view that consensual domains in which observers exist presuppose at least one other living system. In order to cope with the problem of empirical research on a constructivist basis, Rusch (1987) has introduced the distinction between ontological and empirical knowledge. ‘Ontological knowledge’ labels our knowledge of the cognitive world, conceptualized in our schemata, frames, etc. Empirical knowledge, on the other hand, is operational knowledge, bound to our actions or activities. It is acquired by trying out what sort of experience we can make when applying our ontological knowledge and how our actions concern our thinking- and acting-possibilities. Empirical knowledge is knowledge we can share with other people who are socialized more or less the same way we are and who are able to perform comparable operations to get comparable empirical experiences. Thus, in a constructivist view, empirical knowledge is related to the observer and his cognitive capacities and activities, not to the objective structure of Lthe reality’. Accordingly, constructivism must neither be confused with empiricism nor with positivism. To acquire empirical knowledge in a scientific manner presupposes the explication of intersubjective procedures, i.e. above all an explication of the methods applied, of the goals pursued, of the relations between the task and acceptable results. Maturana has proposed to follow the scientific procedure described as follows: ‘(a) observation of a phenomenon that, henceforth, is taken as a problem to be explained; (b) proposition of an explanatory hypothesis in the form of a deterministic system that can generate a phenomenon isomorphic with the one observed;

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(c) proposition of a computed state or process in the system predicted phenomenon to be observed; and (d) observation of the predicted phenomenon’ (1978: 28).

specified

by the hypothesis

as a

Accordingly, empirical science is not regarded as a domain of objective knowledge, but as a domain of subject-dependent knowledge (which is) defined by a methodology. The methodology determines the properties of the cognitive subjects. In other words: the validity of scientific knowledge is not based on on the cultural the reflection of an objective reality: instead it depends uniformity of the observers (= researchers specified and determined by the methodology) (Maturana (1982: 309)). Empirical research in literature on a constructivist basis of this kind means: methodical acquisition of intersubjective knowledge formulated in such an explicit way that it is - in principle - intersubjectively accessible (teachable and learnable), which can be examined by applying tests governed by criteria that are consensual among competent members of a community of investigators. The acquisition of empirical knowledge is motivated by and oriented towards applicability. ’

4 An important consequence of this conceptualization of ‘empirical’ and ‘scientific’ is that it principally and fundamentally relates knowledge to man and not to ‘the reality’. This dethroning of objectivity enthrones responsibility and applicability. Any research activity has to justify its relevance for human life, its superiority to other activities in terms of higher orientational effects with regard to the acquisition of empirical knowledge. The ethical consequences are evident: if knowledge is related to man instead of to absolute reality, man can neither possess absolute knowledge nor absolute truths or values. Accordingly, neither truth-terrorism nor cultural imperialism can be justified scientifically. In addition: as knowledge is subject-dependent, there is no justification whatsoever for any attempt to sacrifice the individual to allegedly higher (social, political, religious, etc.) interests. The consequences for the political aspects of research should be obvious. Orienting the acquisition of empirical knowledge towards applicability implies a remarkable metatheoretical shift. Finke recently presented the provocative idea that literary scholarship belongs to those disciplines which are plagued by an uncomfortable neurosis ’ This definition covers the metatheoretical values of theoreticity, empiricity, and applicability, developed in the Empirical Theory of Literature (cf. Schmidt (1982). Finke (1982)).

as

caused by a feeling of futility. ’ In his view, literary scholarship must enter an intensive discussion about the pros and cons, about the advantages and dangers of present (and past) research in literature. An explicit and consequent reflection of the applicational dimension would - and I do agree with his ideas ~ change literary scholarship more thoroughly than even the efforts to increase the exactness of its theories and methods. As soon as a conception of literary scholarship sincerely plans to incorporate the dimension of application into its metatheoretical framework, it must fulfil some important requirements: ~ it must be able to produce empirical knowledge which alone can serve as a basis for responsible practical activities; _ it must meet the theoretical exigencies of the production of empirical knowledge and must reach this elaborated status of an empirical theory (or a theory-net); ~ it must develop a metatheoretical framework containing a matrix of research-guiding concepts including those for the applicational domain; i.e. the domain where application-strategies can be developed systematically: ~ it must ~ first of all, or finally ~ be willing to offer its services to the literary system and to society as a whole ~ to society, which, in the last analysis, supports its research. An explicit foundation of these ideas can be found in Finke’s philosophical sketch of Constructive Functionalism (1982). It is his conviction that a scientific theory (or a discipline) which restricts its intentions to descriptions and explanations cannot reach practical application. ‘The practical. justification of scientific activity’, Finke writes, ‘cannot be found outside its theoretical rationality; on that basis, however, it can be realized in principle, wherever explanatory fact-knowledge becomes the basis of action-orienting knowledge, knowledge, which is not oriented towards explication but towards change’ ((1986) my translation). The difference between Finke’s theory of application and concepts that, in any event, take into account that knowledge produced in research might uftetwards be applied by someone else, consists in the following: in Finke’s framework the so-called ‘applicational matrix’ belongs to the metatheoretical basis. This means that the problem of application is incorporated from the start into all theoretical and empirical reflections. The scientific process in this type of literary theory is only complete when a domain of potential and actual application has been realized. In other words: a conception of science that possesses high theoretical and empirical qualities but lacks a systematically circumscribed domain of application must be regarded as scientifically inadequate. The sort of application intended depends upon the conception of literary studies. i.e. the conception that displays and confines the domain of * See the contribution

by Finke to NIKOL

(ed.), 1986.

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application. In the Empirical Study of Literature (ESL), due to the empirical theory of literature, it advocates that the most fundamental intention of application concerns the removal of all sorts of restrictions from literary actions and literary processes within literary systems in order to maintain or to recover an optimum of acting possibilities in literary systems. Restrictions of freedom in literary systems are of fundamental relevance: they damage one of the basic values of literary systems, and thereby, in principle, its very sense; they reduce creativity, fluctuation, and evolutionary processes of self-organization and co-evolution with other social systems (cf. Schmidt (1987b)). A praxis-oriented conception of literary scholarship is not only responsible for orienting its research and classroom-instruction towards application with the aim of optimizing the status of the co-present literary system. It is also obliged to make a substantial contribution towards solving the problem of academic unemployment. To be sure, literary scholars can’t solve the problem alone; but they should realize that they themselves must start with a therapy of this discipline in order to provide it with the prerequisites which a not only praxis-oriented but practicable discipline demands. And above all, they must change their own minds: it is not enough to produce more knowledge about literary texts. Literary scholars must produce empirical knowledge about all aspects of literary systems, which may serve as a basis for activities intended to optimize the literary system.

5 Literary scholars are oriented towards literary texts and their understanding; most of them label their work as hermeneutic. What does ‘understanding’ mean in a constructivist context? To answer this question we first have to clarify the notion of ‘communication’. From a constructivist point of view communication is neither conceived of as instruction nor as an exchange of pre-existing or prefabricated bits and pieces of information; instead, communication is viewed as a parallel construction of information in the cognitive domain of interacting individuals who have already developed a consensual domain of interaction. In other words: communication does not provide a new consensual domain but it leads to permutations of states in a pre-existing (closed) consensual domain (Maturana (1982)). Linguistic hehuoior equals orientational behavior, i.e.: system A tries to orientate system B towards certain operations in B’s cognitive domain. How B performs the orientation is exclusively left to him. Though these processes are strictly subject-dependent, a cognitive parallelisation of communicating individuals is possible due to their equivalent biological equipment and due to comparable processes of socialization (or history, in general).

If these general hypotheses are taken for granted, we have to replace the traditional concept of ‘text’ by a distinction between text as a physical object (materialized in a certain medium) and the processes oriented towards these objects (plus their results) in the cognitive domain of individuals. In order to cover this distinction terminologically, I have proposed to call the physical item TEXT, and to term the cognitive processes including their results as KOMMUNIKAT (cf. Schmidt (1982)). According to these assumptions a text in a natural language does not interact with readers/listeners by virtue of its own activities and does neither contain nor transport information. Instead, communicating individuals construe KOMMUNIKATS from TEXTS they perceive and treat as ‘TEXT in a natural language’ in their cognitive domain by applying the linguistic norms and conventions they have internalized in the process of socialization in their respective social groups. A relation between linguistic expressions on the one hand and non-verbal entities on the other is created exclusively by the interactive cooperation of cognitive systems (cf. Rusch (1986a)). It follows from these assumptions that the socialized individual has to be regarded as the empirical instance of meaning production. The individual communicates linguistically by following rules, applying conventions, and making use of stereotypes that are shared by other individuals with whom he/she has built up a consensual domain. Let us regard some of the conclusions that can be drawn from these assumptions: _ According to the distinction between ‘TEXT’ and ‘KOMMUNIKAT’ meanings are not regarded as subject-independent objective givens but as items in the cognitive domains of individuals. Consequently, no objective proof of meaning-descriptions is possible by recourse to TEXT-objects (cf. Heringer (1984)). Nevertheless it is usual that different subjects, according to the conventional routines they internalize during their socialization. normally attribute the same or comparable TEXT-features (e.g. syntactic ones) to a certain TEXT (cf. Herrmann (1985)). _ TEXTS in a natural language trigger constructive processes in the cognitive domains of individuals. The results of these processes are comparable because human beings are biologically similar and have (in the process of socialization) acquired comparable routines of KOMMUNIKAT-producand -elaboration. Therefore I advocate the view that tion, -reception, theories of ‘understanding’ built upon models of an interuction or even a dialogue between TEXT and reader (i.e. dualistic models) are implausible. (TEXTS neither speak nor act.) _ A natural language has no referential function in terms of ontological designation but only in terms of specific cognitive operation classes. (The domain of language is closed.) The general hypothesis concerning ‘reception’ that can be based on these assumptions as well as on psychological theories (far away from constructivist

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convictions) as e.g. advocated by Herrmann (1985) then reads as follows: ‘reception’ should be conceived of as a complex innersystemic process occasioned by the perception or recognition of a TEXT. This process cannot be regarded as an exclusively linguistic process or as a process of language- or information-processing (in the psychological and AI-sense of the term). It is stimulated by a linguistic activation but it cannot completely and strictly be confined to it because potentially the whole cognitive ‘machinery’ including ‘intellectual’ as well as ‘affective’ components, is activated, and not only its language-processing components. In other words: we cannot claim a (linear) cuusal relation between a TEXT and the resulting cognitive operations it triggers (a KOMMUNIKAT). Our psyche is quite evidently not adequately describable in terms of an input-output-model alone, but also involves selfreferential processes. Consequently, the TEXT loses its paramount role in the process of ‘reception’: It triggers and specifies the construction of KOMMUNIKATS, but it does not fully determine this process which has its own dynamics. This dynamics depends on the receiver’s affects and knowledge, his/her interests, goals, capacities, on his/her (internal) self-representation and the representation of respective communicators, on constraints of the reception-situation, etc. One of the most important distinctions introduced by Maturana is that between ‘system’ and ‘observer’. Taking this distinction for granted it seems possible to regard ‘receiving’ or ‘understanding’ as obseroer-categories. Our brain does neither ‘receive’ nor ‘understand’. But it is not even reasonable to conceive of ‘understanding’ as a category of the internal observer; instead we have to attribute it to the external observer for the following reasons: as has been explained earlier, linguistic behavior can be described as orientational behavior. When A tries to orient B towards a certain goal, not any reaction of B will signal A that his orientating behavior has been successful. Instead, only then will A deem B’s reaction appropriate when B behaves according to A’s expectations. Exclusively with regard to such expectations A can mean something by performing a certain orientating behavior. As soon as B’s reaction fits into these expectations, A will say that B has understood him. ‘Understanding’, according to an argument of Rusch’s (1986a: 59) does not properly label the psychic process of comprehension; instead it labels the fact (which is positively marked in orientational interaction) that the oriented person behaves according to the orientator’s expectations. This is the reason why non-linguistic components play such an important role in face-to-face-communication. A and B use them as cues for deciding whether or not the other has ‘understood’. ‘understanding’ terms an interactive Following this line of argumentation, process on the observer-level. Strictly speaking, it would therefore be nonsensical to ask whether or not a recipient who silently reads a book, ‘understands’ it. (‘I understand’ is a meaningless phrase.) Nevertheless we all know that we do ask ourselves ‘Do I understand the book?’ According to Rusch, this case

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has to be modelled as a transposition of an interactive process onto an internal level (i.e. as a sort of simulation). The simulation works because the actionschemata of/for ‘understanding’-actions (in Piaget’s sense) which have been internalized can be applied to inner-systemic processes, too: the internal observer is therefore able to attribute to him-/herself ‘understanding’ and to analyse and evaluate it according to those criteria which belong to the subject’s very own schemata of/for understanding which have been developed in the course of interactions. Accordingly, the self-attributing of understanding can only be as sure and as reliable as the subject’s criteria for ‘understanding’. A proof of these criteria cannot be afforded in termsof the truth of the subjective ‘understanding’-schemata, but only in terms of their intersubjectivity. In this theoretical framework, ‘reading a text’ cannot be defined as a communicative act; the touchstone for ‘the correctness’ of a reading is therefore not to be found in an objective meaning of the TEXT but in the degree of plausible intersubjectivity the reader can achieve in subsequent communicative interactions. These in turn are processed in terms of operational interaction together with the observation of understanding indicators.

6 After having presented in some (necessary) detail my epistemological stance towards the concepts of ‘reality’, ‘TEXT’/‘KOMMUNIKAT’. ‘fact’ and ‘understanding’, I now turn to the consequences of this position with regard to the subject-domain and the research-goals of literury studies. The epistemological emphasis put on the indispensable role of the observer brings about a remarkable shift of attention from TEXTS to TEXT-focussing activities, from structures to functions and processes, from isolated objects to systems and relations. As I have extensively argued elsewhere (Schmidt (1982)) the subject-domain of literary studies in an empirical approach can be displayed as follows: activities focussing literary TEXTS, or, in short, literary actions, are subsumed under four basic roles, viz. the production, mediation or distribution, reception, and post-processing of phenomena actors deem literary. Sequences of literary actions are conceptualized as literary processes. The netting of literary processes in social groups constitutes what I call a literary system. Regarding literary systems we have to distinguish explicitly between two kinds of attitudes: observation and undysis of the literary system, and participation in the literary system. It should be evident that literary scholarship belongs to the analytical operations although its results (e.g. ‘interpretations’) may become elements of activities of participants in the literary system.

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Among other social systems like politics, economy, education, religion, etc., a literary system forms part of a society. A society is theoretically modelled as a network composed of social systems. As concerns the demarcation line between literary systems and all other social systems (at least in functionally differentiated modern societies) I advocate the hypothesis that this line is drawn by special macro-conventions 3 which specify the kinds of literary phenomena that are produced, mediated, received and post-processed. Activities in the framework of the four acting roles which are socially accepted as appropriate have to be learnt. Modern societies have developed a special type of socialization, viz. literary socialization, in order to prepare 3 I try to give a short survey of these conventions. (0) aestherlc convention. It is common knowledge in our society

that all actors

in literary

systems

must be willing and able _ to extend their action potential (or the action potential of other participants in the literary system) beyond the usual criteria of true/false or useful/useless, and to orient themselves towards expectations, norms, and criteria which are deemed aesthetically relevant in the respective literary system; _ to designate communicative actions intended as literary by appropriate signals during production, and to follow such signals during reception; _ to select as a frame of reference for expressions in literary texts not just the socially established world model he/she is accustomed to in his/her respective social group but virtually all constructible frames of reference; _ to de-emphasize the fact convention. (Far conventron: It is common knowledge in our society that communicative objects, especially texts, should permit reference to the world model accepted in that society, such that people can decide if the assertions conveyed by the text are true and what their practical relevance is.) (b) polyvalence conventron. It is common knowledge among all actors in literary systems in our society that _ text producers are not bound by the monovalence convention; (monovalence convention: It is common knowledge in our society that (i) text producers are expected to shape their texts in such a way that different people at different times can assign them a constant kommunikat; (ii) text receivers are expected to strive for the assignment of a single kommunikat to the texts.) _ text receivers have the freedom to produce different kommunikats from the same text in different times and situations ( = weak version of the polyvalence convention hypothesis) or in the same reading process ( = strong version of the polyvalence convention hypothesis). and they expect others to do likewise; _ text receivers rate the realization of different cognitive. emotive, and moral reading results on different levels of reception as optimal corresponding to their needs, abilities, intentions. and motivations, though the reasons for such rating may differ among participants and situations; _ text-mediators and text-processors should not counteract these realizations. The relation between the two conventions might be described as follows: The aesthetic convention seems to be logically prior to the polyvalence convention. By suspending the true-false and useful-useless frames it enables an orientation towards poetic norms, expectations. and criteria; it fosters the multi-readability of literary texts. and enables a subjective optimizing of the process of kommunikat-construction: it thus comprises the polyvalence convention. Up to now empirical research has provided some evidence for the actual efficiency of these two (macro-)conventions. (See Hintzenberg et al. (1980) and Meutsch and Schmidt (1985)).

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actors for their future participation in literary systems. Literary socialization is one example for the connection of the interaction between the literary system and other social systems. Basically, the literary system is interrelated with virtually all other social systems and is co-evolving with them in the network ‘society’ although, on the other hand, it is characterized by a certain degree of autonomy, which is, at least partially, called for by the two macro-conventions mentioned above. This interrelation can be explained by the ‘fact’ that actors acting in the literary system belong to and act in other social systems as well. Accordingly, the experiences and knowledge they acquire in one system are necessarily and automatically ‘transported’ into all other systems they are acting in. Though the literary system is autonomous in that it requires a type of activity unacceptable and unproductive in all other social systems, it is not at all isolated. As is the case in all other social systems the sociul dynamics in literary systems can perhaps best be explained in terms of three concepts borrowed from Luhmann’s (1985) system theory: differentiation, interpenetration, and reflection; where ‘differentiation’ means ‘rise of complexity’, ‘interpenetration’ an interaction of different systems leading to a generation of sense in the interacting systems through internal self-organization, and ‘reflection’ a system’s orientation towards its own constitutive conditions. Hejl (1987) has convincingly argued that the constitution of a social system presupposes consensuality among all members of this system in regard to the world-model they adopt and towards which they orient all their activities: social systems are syn-referential. Accordingly, all relevant changes in worldmodels lead to social changes. Members of different social systems must be able to balance differences in the world-models consensually adopted in the different systems, otherwise they run the risk of losing their social identity. I suppose that the specific impact of literary activities can best be explained by the high degree of independence in the creation and manipulation of worldmodels in modern literary societies. 4

7

The constitution of research-goals dependent on this shift of attention concerning the research-domain can be formulated as follows: Literary studies aim at a description and explanation of literary actions, processes, and systems in synchronic as well as in diachronic respects in order to obtain empirical knowledge which is apt to be applied in the literary system as well as in other social systems.

4 A

first

sketch

of a constructivist

theory

of genre

(Schmidt

(1987~1))

supports

this

hypothesis

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As soon as the question of application is touched, problems of norms and values automatically come into play. I try to explain my position ’ in terms of six short statements: ~ Norms and values are not regarded as autonomous entities. They are developed historically as cognitive constructs. Their contingency does not necessarily affect their efficiency and their consensual applicability. _ In processes of evaluation three items have to be distinguished: the one who valuates; the domain of evaluation; and the context of evaluating acts. _ Foundations of norms and values have to respect historical and pragmatic reasons. An ultimate foundation is both unnecessary and impossible. _ Consensus in norm-discussions can argumentatively be established by applying the principles of generalization and self-application. ~ Norms can be accounted for (context-dependently!) by means of purposive rationality of argumentation. Hereby the practicability and plausibility of norms as well as the consequences and side-effects of activities governed by the norm in question have to be scrutinized. This argumentation should be performed rationally and on the basis of empirical knowledge concerning consequences and side-effects as well as needs, interests, wishes, etc. of the actors. _ Value judgements are by necessity rational and subject-dependent. They consist of descriptive elements (concerning the empirical context and the consequences of actions), formal elements (concerning the logical structure), and normative elements (concerning the norm applied). The constructivist approach which regards norms and values to be relational and historically contingent does not fall prey at all to a relativism of values. Instead it proposed to empiricize and to humanize norm-discourses. Norm-discourses serve the purpose of maintaining humaneness in cases where traditions stop working and norms contradict one another. Then we have to prove what kind of justification of a certain norm is meaningful and open to consensus, and what consequences the realization of that norm will have according to our present knowledge. The more empirical knowledge of social processes, socialization, individual decision-making, legitimatory processes and the like is available, the more acceptable rational argumentations relating goals and means might become. Here we encounter the moral responsibility and the utopian potential of scientific activities. If ‘the reality’, ‘the truth’, and ‘the value’ are not accessible to us we have to strive the more to develop and to realize efficient world-models, consensual truths, and human values. As concerns the domain of value-problems in literary studies I recognize three different levels: _ the level of metatheoretical values which govern the conception and application of object-theories. 5 For a substantial

discussion

see Schmidt

(1986)

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~ the level of evaluations of literary phenomena, _ the level of value-orientation by applying knowledge of literary systems in various domains. ’ The mere fact of concentrating on questions of applicability implies two important consequences: (1) We become aware that we. as literary scholars. are responsible for the state of the literary system we are engaged in. as well as for the state of literary studies. (2) Our involvement in the literary system oriented towards change (or amendments) can deploy otherwise hidden insights into its ‘mechanisms’. The construction of new problems may help us to get rid of reductive conceptions of literary processes. Two questions should be answered at the end of this paragraph: ~ What kinds of changes should literary scholars propose? ~ How can the proposals be justified? The general answer to the first question should be clear after what has been said in the previous paragraphs: literary scholars should advocate only such suggestions as can be justified by consensual value-judgements on the basis of empirical knowledge that can specify as many consequences and side-effects as possible. As is generally known, it is very difficult to foresee such consequences and side-effects, especially with regard to complex social systems like literary systems. To improve the research in this field. Rusch has proposed to establish a branch of experimental literary research in order to investigate by means of simulation models what might happen in the course of planned changes in a literary system (1986b). An answer to the second question makes use of the shift of attention of empirical studies of literature to a broader research-domain: the literary system. Literary scholars who are interested in literary systems concentrate their interest on TEXT-action-syndromes, on the conditions and dynamics of literary processes, i.e. on what people &I with TEXTS they deem literary. Consequently they become interested in the social conditions of acting in the literary system and aware of shortcomings in these conditions which call for change or amendment. In other words: they are not only interested in the description and explanation of the literary system; they realize that they, too, are responsible for the state and evolution of the literary system. Therefore they abandon the odd dualism of ‘pure research’ and ‘application’ and learn that the very presence of academic knowledge already implies effects and taking sides. To sum up: scientific or academic activities of literary scholars without responsibility are as impossible as responsibility without science. We need rational, complex and application-oriented literary research which does not only perform the research of ‘facts’ but also of consequences.

’

I

can’t

Schmidt

go (1984.

into

details

1986).

here;

for

further

discussion

of

normative

problems

see

Finke

(1982),

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333

8 What is the bearing of these reflections on the daily work of literary scholars? First of all it is evident that an empirical approach concentrating on textfocussing activities in the framework of literary systems offers a wider range of research topics compared to the text-oriented approaches. In addition, it encourages literary scholars to include sociological and psychological methods the empirical approach of necessity is into their methodological arsenal: interdisciplinary. The cooperation with other disciplines is remarkably facilitated in an empirical framework which has overcome the traditional bipartition of the academic sphere into sciences and humanities, which is now crosscut by the division of research activities into those which are scientific (= theory-guided and methodologically performed) and those which are not. Consequently, differences in scientific status are not assigned to abstract academic areas or whole disciplines but have to be settled with regard to particular procedures. This decision implies a plea for a more detailed discussion instead of the barren global juxtaposition of hermeneutics vs. empirical studies of literature. The same holds true for the dualistic view of ‘naming’ and ‘counting’. In my view empirical research in literature can neither be equated with counting (statistics) nor with the great number (samples instead of individuals). It always depends on which research-goals and research-strategies are at stake. Theory is the pivot of all empirical research activities in literary studies! Without a complex and explicit theory, which has to include an imaginative heuristic phase, it is impossible to develop a feasible operationalisation of a hypothesis. Any reasonable selection, application, or further development of methods presupposes a clearcut and powerful theory. In my view it is one of the crucial drawbacks of positivist and empiricist scientists that they underestimate the role of theories. Consequently, many of them have carried out a lot of detailed research-work (so-called ‘fly leg counting’) the results of which are of no use because they do not fit into a properly defined position in a theoretical framework. The function of theories in literary studies consists in explicitly spelling out the relevant presuppositions that bear on the research-topic (be these presuppositions heuristic, theoretical or empirical); in providing an explicit and intersubjectively understandable formulation of the hypotheses which are to be tested; in justifying the selected methodical tools; and in explicitly interpreting the data produced by applying the respective methods. Complying with rigid metatheoretical constraints has no value in itself. Instead it opens the possibility for cooperation, teamwork, interdisciplinarity, and the application of further development of research-results. Scientific research procedures in literary studies promote the accessibility of the procedures as well as of the results. Both become teachable and learnable. In

334

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offimn

addition, the whole research process will get more creative: not only successful projects will contribute to our knowledge of literary systems; but also failures may yield remarkable insights because they tell us step by step which approach does not work and why it fails (a knowledge which may sometimes be even more worth knowing than fine results). Research work which has been performed in a scientific way allows for rational and intersubjective criticism and amendment of procedures and results. This characteristic, together with the possibility of teamwork and interdisciplinary research, leads literary scholarship out of its academic ghetto. and emphasizes the social character of research. Scholars are able and required to collaborate in a community of researchers, and the discipline as a whole is prepared to integrate researchers from all other disciplines into its scientific discourse. Literary scholarship has to give up its splendid isolation. Nowadays we have to realize that literary texts are no isolated aesthetic items. Instead they are unsolvably attached to and dependent on activities of actors in social systems. Accordingly, their (scientific) investigation has to be realized in the framework of a social science (in the broadest sense). This social science cannot restrict its interest to the medium ‘book’. Instead it has to explore the whole field of social interactions by means of media. Thus, finally, an empirical approach to literature leads to an institutional consequence: it transforms literary studies into social science focussing social actions by means of media, including print-media.

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Meutsch, D. and S.J. Schmidt, 1985. On the role of convention in understanding literary texts. Poetics 14. 557 -574. NIKOL (ed.), 1986. Angewandte Literaturwissenschaft. Braunschweig/Wiesbaden: Vieweg (Konzeption Empirische Literaturwissenschaft. Vol. VIII). Roth, G., 1987a. Erkenntnis und Realitlt. Das reale Gehirn und seine Wirklichkeit, 2299255. In: S.J. Schmidt (ed.), 1987a. Roth, G.. 1987b. Autopoiese und Kognition. Die Theorie Maturanas und die Notwendigkeit ihrer Weiterentwicklung, 256-286. In: S.J. Schmidt (ed.), 1987a. Rusch, G., 1986a. Verstehen Verstehen Ein Versuch aus konstruktivistischer Sicht. 40-71. In: N. Luhmann and K.E. Schnorr (eds.). Zwischen Intransparenz und Verstehen. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Rusch, G., 1986b. Anwendungsorientierte Literaturwissenschaft. Probleme und Perspektiven eines Innovationsversuches, 153-169. In: NIKOL (ed.), 1986. Rusch, G., 1987. Erkenntnis, Wissenschaft, Geschichte. Von einem konstruktivistischen Standpunkt. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Schmidt, S.J., 1980. GrundriB der Empirischen Literaturwissenschaft, Teilband 1: Der gesellschaftliche Handlungsbereich Literatur. Braunschweig/Wiesbaden: Vieweg. Schmidt, S.J., 1982. Foundations for the empirical study of literature. Transl. Robert A. de Beaugrande. Hamburg: Buske. Papers in Textlinguistics, Vol. 36. Schmidt, S.J., 1984. Werturteile in der empirischen Literaturwissenschaft: Thesen und Kommentare, 240-247. In: P. Finke and S.J. Schmidt (eds.). Analytische Literaturwissenschaft. Braunschweig/Wiesbaden: Vieweg. Schmidt, S.J., 1986. Wertaspekte einer anwendungsorientierten Empirischen Literaturwissenschaft, 263-301. In: NIKOL (ed.), 1986. Schmidt, S.J. (ed.). 1987a. Der Diskurs des Radikalen Konstruktivismus. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Schmidt, S.J., 1987b. Der Radikale Konstruktivismus. Ein neues Paradigma im interdisziplinaren Diskurs, 11-8. In: S.J. Schmidt (ed.). 1987a. Schmidt, S.J., 1987~. Towards a constructivist theory of media genre. Poetics 16, 371-395. Schmidt, S.J., 1987d. Kunst: Pluralismen, Revolten. Bern: Benteli.