Aesthetic Experiences and Their Objects

Abstract

This chapter discusses the basics of Blaustein’s aesthetics, which is seemingly one of the main fields of his original philosophical project. Some scholars, e.g., Roman Ingarden, Stanisław Pazura, Bohdan Dziemidok, or, more recently, Wioletta Miskiewicz and Zofia Rosińska, have claimed that Blaustein should be regarded first and foremost as an aesthetician. Indeed, aesthetics is not so much the terminus a quo of his philosophy but rather its terminus ad quem. In this regard, in Chap. 4, it was suggested that Blaustein redefined Kazimierz Twardowski’s theory of presentations to address the question of diverse aesthetic experiences. Moreover, Chap. 6 proposed the 1928 book on Husserl as the key to understanding Blaustein’s aesthetic theory, since in this book he argued that sensations are the basis of lived experiences, including aesthetic experiences. On the whole, aesthetics denotes a philosophical theory or theories concerning beauty and, for the most part, art. More specifically, it raises questions about, among other things, aesthetic values, taste, the aesthetic object and its relation to artworks, particular experiences that are described as aesthetic, or the attitude employed in such experiences; finally—starting from Immanuel Kant and his legacy—it asks about aesthetic judgment. Blaustein referred to a variety of traditional aesthetic topics, but all the listed topics were not equally important to him precisely because of the different traditions that inspired him. Whereas the question of aesthetic experience was central in his writings, the problems of aesthetic values or taste were rather marginal. Additionally, the issues of aesthetic objects and the specific attitude are important for understanding his approach. In turn, the topic of aesthetic judgment is simply absent in his writings. This clear shift in focus from beauty (as in the classic definition of aesthetics) and judgment (as in Kant’s philosophy) to an emphasis on experience seemingly followed from Blaustein’s theoretical background. The list of authors to whom he referred in his aesthetic writings is rich and diverse; in addition to Husserl, Ingarden, and Twardowski, he also mentioned, among others, Karl Bühler, Max Dessoir, Moritz Geiger, Karol Irzykowski, Konrad Lange, Zofia Lissa, Alexius Meinong, Stanisław Ossowski, Wilhelm Schapp, Emil Utitz, Johannes Volkelt, Mieczysław Wallis-Walfisz, Stefan Witasek, and Tadeusz Witwicki. More generally, Blaustein’s account of aesthetics was shaped in a critical discussion with different traditions: the Gestaltists (Bühler, Dessoir), German aesthetics (Lange, Utitz, Volkelt), the Graz School (Meinong, Witasek), phenomenology (Geiger, Husserl, Ingarden, Schapp), Polish aesthetics (Irzykowski) and, of course, the Lvov–Warsaw School (Lissa, Ossowski, Twardowski, Wallis-Walfisz, Tadeusz Witwicki). Admittedly, the contexts are varied, but two traditions seemed to be dominant: his references to the Brentanian tradition and the phenomenological heritage. The Brentanian line in his thought leads—through Twardowski and his students—to the theory of presentations as the basis of aesthetics. In turn, the phenomenological inspiration that came from Husserl and Ingarden covers the question of the ways of givenness (Gegebenheitsweisen) of the aesthetic object. Against this background, the aim of the present chapter is to discuss Blaustein’s aesthetics as a descriptive analysis of aesthetic experiences that are correlated with their object or objects. My ultimate task is to present his general model of aesthetic experience. I begin with the question of how Blaustein used descriptive psychology in his aesthetics. Next, I address the problem of understanding aesthetic objects. Before considering whether they are purely intentional or real, I analyze Blaustein’s a few exemplary descriptions of aesthetic experiences. Finally, I examine some detailed problems discussed by Blaustein, including the phenomena of perception, attitudes, the body, intersubjectivity, and judgments. In doing so, I attempt to present a model of aesthetic experience in Blaustein’s philosophy.

This chapter discusses the basics of Blaustein’s aesthetics, which is seemingly one of the main fields of his original philosophical project. Some scholars, e.g., Roman Ingarden,¹ Stanisław Pazura,² Bohdan Dziemidok,³ or, more recently, Wioletta Miskiewicz⁴ and Zofia Rosińska,⁵ have claimed that Blaustein should be regarded first and foremost as an aesthetician. Indeed, aesthetics is not so much the terminus a quo of his philosophy but rather its terminus ad quem. In this regard, in Chap. 4, it was suggested that Blaustein redefined Kazimierz Twardowski’s theory of presentations to address the question of diverse aesthetic experiences. Moreover, Chap. 6 proposed the 1928 book on Husserl as the key to understanding Blaustein’s aesthetic theory, since in this book he argued that sensations are the basis of lived experiences, including aesthetic experiences. On the whole, aesthetics denotes a philosophical theory or theories concerning beauty and, for the most part, art. More specifically, it raises questions about, among other things, aesthetic values, taste, the aesthetic object and its relation to artworks, particular experiences that are described as aesthetic, or the attitude employed in such experiences; finally—starting from Immanuel Kant and his legacy—it asks about aesthetic judgment. Blaustein referred to a variety of traditional aesthetic topics,⁶ but all the listed topics were not equally important to him precisely because of the different traditions that inspired him. Whereas the question of aesthetic experience was central in his writings, the problems of aesthetic values or taste were rather marginal. Additionally, the issues of aesthetic objects and the specific attitude are important for understanding his approach. In turn, the topic of aesthetic judgment is simply absent in his writings. This clear shift in focus from beauty (as in the classic definition of aesthetics) and judgment (as in Kant’s philosophy) to an emphasis on experience seemingly followed from Blaustein’s theoretical background. The list of authors to whom he referred in his aesthetic writings is rich and diverse; in addition to Husserl, Ingarden, and Twardowski, he also mentioned, among others, Karl Bühler,⁷ Max Dessoir,⁸ Moritz Geiger,⁹ Karol Irzykowski,¹⁰ Konrad Lange,¹¹ Zofia Lissa,¹² Alexius Meinong,¹³ Stanisław Ossowski,¹⁴ Wilhelm Schapp,¹⁵ Emil Utitz,¹⁶ Johannes Volkelt,¹⁷ Mieczysław Wallis-Walfisz,¹⁸ Stefan Witasek,¹⁹ and Tadeusz Witwicki.²⁰ More generally, Blaustein’s account of aesthetics was shaped in a critical discussion with different traditions: the Gestaltists (Bühler, Dessoir), German aesthetics (Lange, Utitz, Volkelt), the Graz School (Meinong, Witasek), phenomenology (Geiger, Husserl, Ingarden, Schapp), Polish aesthetics (Irzykowski) and, of course, the Lvov–Warsaw School (Lissa, Ossowski, Twardowski, Wallis-Walfisz, Tadeusz Witwicki).²¹ Admittedly, the contexts are varied, but two traditions seemed to be dominant: his references to the Brentanian tradition and the phenomenological heritage. The Brentanian line in his thought leads—through Twardowski and his students—to the theory of presentations as the basis of aesthetics.²² In turn, the phenomenological inspiration that came from Husserl and Ingarden covers the question of the ways of givenness (Gegebenheitsweisen) of the aesthetic object. Against this background, the aim of the present chapter is to discuss Blaustein’s aesthetics as a descriptive analysis of aesthetic experiences that are correlated with their object or objects. My ultimate task is to present his general model of aesthetic experience. I begin with the question of how Blaustein used descriptive psychology in his aesthetics. Next, I address the problem of understanding aesthetic objects. Before considering whether they are purely intentional or real, I analyze Blaustein’s a few exemplary descriptions of aesthetic experiences. Finally, I examine some detailed problems discussed by Blaustein, including the phenomena of perception, attitudes, the body, intersubjectivity, and judgments. In doing so, I attempt to present a model of aesthetic experience in Blaustein’s philosophy.

8.1 Remarks on the Use of Descriptive Psychology in Blaustein’s Aesthetics

In his philosophy, Blaustein developed aesthetics, as he put it, on the “border with psychology.”²³ It seems that this self-description is the key to understanding the basics of his theory of aesthetic experience and its object. Broadly speaking, Blaustein conceived this form of experience through the lens of his general theory of presentations. He comprehended the aesthetic experience as (1) intentional, (2) given in inner perception, and (3) as a whole or as a unity of different mental phenomena. Consequently, it was understood as a flow of complex acts or a combination of different presentations.²⁴ However, it is not just a mere collection or set of presentations; rather, it is a lived experience (Erlebnis), i.e., a whole of a higher order. While experiencing, one lives in relevant presentations, which are in turn based on sensations. In the field of aesthetics, sensations are apprehended by the act and thus function as the presenting content which intends its intentional object. Content, however, can present the act’s object in different ways, i.e., adequately, quasi-adequately, inadequately, or quasi-inadequately. This means that aesthetic experience is a combination of intuitive and non-intuitive elements. As a result, the aesthetic object has its unique “ways of givenness,” or “ways of manifestation.” One can, for instance, see something, think of it, or want it, but what makes these experiences aesthetic is “how” the object is presented. In aesthetics, this implies that while perceiving, say, a work of art, one perceives or perceptually presents the perceived object in a specific or unique way.

One of the key features of this type of experience is that it is founded on an adequate (intuitive) presentation, but it is further realized in the form of quasi-adequate and quasi-inadequate (unintuitive) presentations. According to Chap. 4, Blaustein enlarged Twardowski’s taxonomy of presentations by adding so-called imaginative, symbolic, and schematic presentations. Imaginative presentations are quasi-adequate, whereas symbolic and schematic presentations are quasi-inadequate. A presentation is quasi-adequate if it intends an object that is intuitively given, but the intention intends the object not as intuitively given but as distinct from the intuitively given object. As we will see in this chapter, Blaustein calls the former the “closer” or “proper” object, whereas the latter is referred to as “distant” or “improper.” In turn, a presentation is quasi-inadequate if it intends an object, but the object cannot be intuitively given; thus, it presents an artifact to intend the object. All these types of presentations are important in aesthetic experience and can also be at play in one’s everyday experience.

In this regard, in the 1930 Przedstawienia imaginatywne [Imaginative Presentations], one finds an interesting description of how one experiences his or her mirror image. Blaustein wrote:

Looking in the mirror I can adopt different attitudes. I can intend either objects that are outside me or my body or objects that are as if inside the mirror, in some peculiar world manifesting itself in the mirror in front of me. The first attitude is present when, for example, looking in the mirror I realize that my eyes are red; the other, when I jokingly wag my finger at my lookalike, who reciprocates the gesture. In the latter case, I do not see myself, but some other man, very similar to me, but not identical.²⁵

In this passage, Blaustein indicated two different attitudes which can be adopted by the viewer. Generally, if one looks in a mirror, one experiences something. In brief, this act is intentional. The first form of perception described by Blaustein is an intentional experience which intends its object—the body or the object reflected in the mirror. This form of perception seems to be founded on perceptual images which intend their objects adequately. The mirror image is here an appearance of the viewer standing in the front of the mirror. In this case, all of the elements of the presenting content refer to elements of the presented object; for instance, a blond color manifested on the mirror’s surface relates to the viewer’s blond hair, whereas green surfaces relate to the viewer’s eyes, etc. The second form of perception, however, enables one to apprehend the object in a different way: it does not intend the object adequately. One sees not oneself but a look-alike. The mirror image here becomes a different object than the viewer: it is “distant” from the viewer. By claiming this, Blaustein referred to a more general idea—discussed in Chap. 4 and Chap. 6—that acts intend their objects thanks to presenting content, which in turn functions as the appearance of the intended object. The first case described by Blaustein shows that the mirror image adequately presents its object, i.e., the body of the viewer. One may say that the mirror image here represents the person looking in the mirror. The second case, in turn, shows that there are elements in the mirror image (e.g., playing a role in front of the mirror) which do not correspond to the object or person presented in the mirror. Accordingly, the mirror image represents not the viewer but a character performed by the viewer. According to Blaustein’s theory of presentations, this kind of presentation is called imaginative: it is constituted on the basis of what is intuitively given (the mirror image which is actually perceived), but its object is not actually given—it is “distant” or “improper” (namely, no one threatens me). It is presented, as Blaustein put it, quasi-adequately. In addition, the look-alike is given only in a specific attitude.

Blaustein claimed that this form of perception, which is founded on imaginative presentations, is characteristic of aesthetic experience. He held that such presentations are the “psychic basis” of these experiences.²⁶ As such, they are non-self-sufficient (niesamoistny) in relation to perceptual images, meaning they are founded on perceptual experience.²⁷ In these experiences, one constitutes a relevant object, i.e., the aesthetic object; the viewer comprehends it as being equipped with aesthetic qualities. The example discussed above shows that aesthetic experiences can concern everyday life and indicate non-artistic objects such as a mirror image or a landscape.²⁸ However, Blaustein focused mainly on art. That said, the theory of presentations, including imaginative, symbolic, and schematic presentations, is used by Blaustein to describe the aesthetic experiences involved in, for instance, contemplating a painting, a sculpture, watching a movie, or observing a theater play. I will discuss these examples later since I first have to develop Blaustein’s theory of the aesthetic object. After all, according to the intentionality thesis, aesthetic experience “has” its unique object. For this reason, descriptive differences in lived experience are correlated with relevant differences in the aesthetic object.

8.2 The Object(s) of Aesthetic Experience

8.2.1 Blaustein on Psychic Representations

Blaustein held that different types of aesthetic experiences are intentional. Thus, they indicate relevant objects, and they can also indicate either artistic or non-artistic objects. The former group encompasses works of art, such as paintings, sculptures, theater plays or films. The latter group encompasses objects which are not artworks, such as landscapes, natural events, actions, a bird’s song, technical tools, or a beautiful dress.²⁹ Therefore, one can aesthetically experience, for instance, a painting exhibited in an art gallery or a beautiful view of mountains during a walk. However, the object intended in the aesthetic experience, whether artistic or non-artistic, is not the only object involved here. Blaustein held that there are different types of objects involved in this form of experience. In general terms, he wrote about (1) reproducing (odtwarzający), (2) imaginative (imaginatywny), and (3) reproduced (odtworzony) objects. Group (1) includes objects such as paint on canvas, a piece of marble, phantoms displayed on the cinema screen, actors on the stage, outlines of lands on a map, and black shapes printed in a book. Group (2) includes objects such as persons in a painting, figures represented in marble, characters seen on the cinema screen, and characters performed by actors on the stage. Group (3) includes objects such as persons represented “in” a painting, someone who is represented by a sculpture, events presented in a movie, fictional or real persons described by the author of a theater play, real lands presented on a map, characters described in a novel, etc. While group (1) includes real objects, group (3) includes both real and non-real objects (e.g., fictional characters and historical figures). Blaustein explained:

Regarding the reproduced objects indicated by our intention when looking at portraits, photographs, film magazines, science films, etc., an explanation is unnecessary. They are, of course, people, things portrayed, photographed, etc. These objects are now or used to be objects that actually exist—elements of the real spatiotemporal world that surrounds us. It would be entirely wrong to suppose, however, that this is characteristic of or at least common to all reproduced objects. I can also focus on the reproduced object with my thoughts when I see a picture of a knight’s castle that has never existed but was painted by an artist solely out of fantasy.³⁰

The objects included in group (2) have a different status compared to the objects in groups (1) and (3): they are quasi-real objects. Quasi-real objects have features as if they were real, but they are not elements of the real spatiotemporal world.³¹ They form a distinct world which Blaustein called the “imaginative world,” which refers to a combination of imaginative objects; the “imaginative world” thus defined is inherent to the world of an artwork. In this context, he used the phrases “world of an artwork” and “imaginative world of art” interchangeably.³²

In general, Blaustein stated that the objects included in groups (2) and (3) are intentional objects of their basic images (wyobrażenia podkładowe) (Twardowski’s term).³³ Thus, imaginative and reproduced objects are given only on the basis of reproducing objects. In turn, reproducing objects can be either static or dynamic; the former encompasses such objects as buildings, mountains, paintings, or sculptures, whereas the latter encompasses such things as someone’s body while dancing, a piece of music, a film, or a radio drama.³⁴ Although static objects are given momentarily, they can require complex observation to comprehend their aesthetic qualities. In any case, static and dynamic artworks are given to the subject of aesthetic experiences, who adopts a relevant attitude. I will discuss the question of attitude later in Sect. 8.5.1. Now, let us turn to the relation between (1), (2), and (3), which is described by Blaustein as the relation of representation.

The concept of “representation” was widely discussed in Lvov by, for instance, Ingarden, Twardowski, and Tadeusz Witwicki (son of Władysław Witwicki,³⁵ who analyzed the function of representation);³⁶ however, even if Blaustein referred, for instance, to Tadeusz Witwicki,³⁷ he reformulated Witwicki’s ideas to incorporate them into the framework Blaustein was developing; in this vein, he used the notion of representation to address, for instance, the question of actors representing characters in a theater play. This, however, is not crucial here. The theory formulated in Blaustein’s Przedstawienia imaginatywne [Imaginative Presentations] and Przedstawienia schematyczne i symboliczne [Schematic and Symbolic Presentations] addresses aesthetic phenomena such as watching a theater play, reading a map, seeing a painting, or reading a book. In all these phenomena, different presentations are involved which function on their own as the basis of psychic representations. However, one may ask, what is the object intended by these presentations? Blaustein claimed that, here and in similar cases, aesthetic objects are indirectly intended via presentations (as their basis), i.e., they are represented.

In his books, Blaustein referred to the phenomenon of contemplating a woodcut by Hans Holbein the Younger, known as “The Abbot” (c. 1538) from the “Dance of Death” series: one sees or perceptually presents a skeleton, but the skeleton is not the proper object of the artwork since the skeleton symbolically presents its own death.³⁸ Put differently, shapes and colors are apprehended by the act in which the skeleton is intuitively given; nonetheless, death is non-intuitively experienced due to what is intuitively experienced. For Blaustein, the relation between the skeleton (a symbol) and death (the object indicated by the symbol or the symbolized object) is a relation of symbolic representation. Of course, the example of “The Abbot” is only one of the cases discussed in the book that exemplifies a symbolic representation. Blaustein’s Przedstawienia schematyczne i symboliczne [Schematic and Symbolic Presentations] contains a systematic account of the theory of so-called psychic representations. To be precise, a psychic representation is different from a logical representation, which occurs as a semiotic relation between the sign and its object. Blaustein was clear that the relation between the presenting content and the intended object is a relation of presentation, rather than representation. For him, the term “representation” is terminus technicus, which denotes a relation between two objects, whereas “presentation” denotes a relation between content and its object.³⁹ Blaustein discussed different examples of this relation: (1) the actor on stage in a theater play represents a character performed by him, (2) the globe represents the Earth, (3) the skeleton in “The Abbot” represents death, and (4) the word “God” represents God. These examples show four types of objects: (1) an imaginative object that represents the imagined object, (2) a schema that represents the schematized object, (3) a symbol that represents the symbolized object, and (4) a sign that represents the indicated object.⁴⁰ All of these examples show that the object is actually Janus-faced or divided into two objects, labeled by Blaustein as closer (bliższy) or proper (właściwy), and distant (dalszy) or improper (niewłaściwy).⁴¹ Therefore, strictly speaking, one presents what is intuitively given, i.e., the reproducing object that is the “closer” or “proper” object of the intentional experience; however, the object represents another object that is the “distant” or “improper” object of the intentional experience. The object is closer or proper (e.g., an actor, a globe, a skeleton, or a word) since it serves as a representation of the distant or improper object (e.g., a fictional character, Earth, death, or meaning). For this reason, as Blaustein wrote:

In all of the examples given, however, two things should be distinguished—a skeleton and death, the globe and Earth, […], etc. Similarly, the skeleton must be distinguished from the representation of death and the globe from the representation of Earth, etc. Since, as we have seen, we represent death or Earth with the help of a skeleton or a globe—apparently, the representation of death or Earth is based on the representation of the skeleton or the globe.⁴²

For Blaustein, then, the relation of representation occurs between two objects; however, from the point of view of the subject, representation is possible due to corresponding acts. These acts are named psychic representations.⁴³ Some presentations function as the basis for psychic representations; this means that their function consists in representing for someone the represented object via the representing object. Therefore, the phrase “A represents […] B for X, if X presents […] him or herself B due to A” should be read in Blaustein’s works as “X presents to himself or herself B using A in such a way that A is given (mostly intuitively) to X […] and that X comprehends B through the presenting content of A.”⁴⁴ In short, the fact that one object is represented by another is realized in a psychic act in which both objects are presented.

The relation of representation always has a basis or foundation. In this regard, Blaustein used the technical term “tertium comperationis,” which refers to the feature of the representing object that conditions its relation to the represented object.⁴⁵ Next, he stated that this foundation of the relation can be either natural or conventional. The foundation of the representation is natural if there is a similarity (in terms of appearance) between two related objects.⁴⁶ More precisely, the representation is natural if the representing object has features which can be intuitively given and which constitute a similarity to the represented object.⁴⁷ Blaustein offered to also use a technical term, “image” (obraz), in this context, but in the broad sense of the term.⁴⁸ Aleksandra Horecka explains that the natural representation between reproducing and imaginative or reproduced objects consists in the fact that “[…] the appearance of the reproducing object becomes for the subject the appearance of the imaginative or reproduced object.”⁴⁹ If this does not occur, i.e., if the reproducing object is not an image of the reproduced object, the foundation is conventional. In other words, if there is no natural correlation between two objects, there has to be a convention or a rule which binds these objects.

On this basis, Blaustein formulates four definitions of the different types of relations of psychic representations (i.e., the relation for a subject, X) between two objects, A and B:

• (1) “A imaginatively represents B for X if X grasps the content that presents A as an appearance of B; i.e., if B is intuitively given through the presenting content of A.”⁵⁰

• (2) “A schematically represents B for X if A naturally represents (reproduces intuitively) B for X, A is intuitively given and B is not, i.e., if A reproduces B intuitively for X and the presenting content of A is not included as the appearance of B.”⁵¹

• (3) “A symbolically represents B for X, if X presents B through A with the help of some foundations of representation, among which there are none that would be intuitively given and that would constitute a relation of similarity.”⁵²

• (4) “A signitively represents B for X, if A represents B for X and there is no foundation for representation.”⁵³

In conclusion, Blaustein stated that whereas imaginative and schematic representations are natural, symbolic and signitive representations are conventional. Neither conventional types of representation indicate intuition as its basis. For this reason, they require a certain rule or—as Blaustein put it⁵⁴—a directive as a feature which connects the reproducing object to the reproduced object. Overall, Blaustein formulated his theory of psychic representation in the following schema⁵⁵ (Schema 8.1):

Schema 8.1

Blaustein’s classification of representations in Przedstawienia schematyczne i symboliczne [Schematic and Symbolic Presentations]

To date, a representation in a strict sense is a two-term relation between objects, but it is experienced in corresponding (psychic) presentations: (1) imaginative, (2) schematic, (3) symbolic, and (4) signitive. In all these presentations, one constitutes closer or proper objects: (1) the imaginative object, (2) the schematizing object (or, in short, a schema), (3) the symbolizing object (or, in short, a symbol), and (4) the signifying object (or, in short, a sign). Through closer or proper objects (intuitively or non-intuitively given), one constitutes distant or improper objects: (1) the imagined object, (2) the schematized object, (3) the symbolized object, and (4) the signified object. From a descriptive-psychological point of view, what connects closer objects to distant ones are psychic representations lived through the subject of the experience. In more general terms, objects of such experiences can be understood (as mentioned in Sect. 4.1.5) as products (wytwory) in Twardowski’s sense—more precisely, as products of relevant psychophysiological actions or acts. Blaustein formulated this description while commenting on the objects of schematic and symbolic presentations.⁵⁶ Thus, these objects are psychophysical products which are produced by psychophysiological acts, i.e., corresponding psychic representations. Thus-defined schemas and symbols arise in certain acts, but they do (or at least can) exist independently of these acts. For instance, if one sees Hans Holbein the Younger’s “The Abbot,” one comprehends the skeleton as a symbol of death due to the psychophysiological act of perceiving; however, the product of this act, if constituted, can become either a non-durable or durable product: the former could be a verbal statement that the skeleton symbolizes death; the latter could be a written note that Holbein used as a symbol of death. If this is the case, the objects of such presentations are constituted due to the features or properties ascribed to distant or improper objects relating to the features or properties lived through while experiencing closer or proper objects.

8.2.2 Blaustein’s Analysis of Husserl’s Account of Dürer’s “Knight, Death and the Devil”

The theory of psychic representations provided Blaustein with a conceptual framework for the systematic description of different aesthetic experiences. After all, if an aesthetic experience, like any experience, is a presentation or a combination of presentations, one can describe how, say, a symbol or a schema is constituted. According to Blaustein’s theory, the phenomenon of reading a novel, for instance, can be described as living through signitive presentations which have found meaning due to the words or printed shapes one sees. Blaustein was perfectly aware that perceptual presentations ground or found whole complexes of presentations. Therefore, he was able to argue that, on the basis of reading a novel, one constitutes not only meaning but also symbols. This descriptive strategy functioned well in Blaustein’s analysis of Husserl’s interpretation (formulated in Ideen I) of Albrecht Dürer’s engraving “Knight, Death and the Devil” (1513).

In § 111 of Ideen I, Husserl discussed the question of different modes of presentation. He contrasted perception with fantasy: while the former grasps its object as “what exists,” the latter “neutralizes” the existential claim. Perception is an example of an act in which the object is given as something “existing”; here, the object is a correlate of the “positing” consciousness. In contrast to perception, fantasy does not “posit” anything; rather, it constitutes an object which is grasped in the neutrality modification of a “positioning” presentation. However, so-called pure fantasy cannot be identified with a neutrality modification. To explain this difference, Husserl distinguished between a mere fantasy (bloβe Phantasie) and the neutrality modification that is exemplified in a neutralized memory (neutralisierte Erinnerung).⁵⁷ Here, a mere fantasy is a universal reflection which grasps experiences as such. In turn, a neutrality modification is a property of some conscious acts, e.g., memory and negation. In the context of a neutrality modification, Husserl stated that “[w]e can persuade ourselves by an example that the neutrality modification of normal perception, positing in unmodified certainty, is the neutral picture–Object–consciousness which we find as component in normally considering the perceptually presentive depictured world.”⁵⁸ Against this background, he also referred to Dürer’s “Knight, Death and the Devil.” Husserl wrote:

In the first place, let us distinguish the normal perceiving, the correlate of which is the physical thing, “engraved print,” this print in the portfolio. In the second place, we distinguish the perceptive consciousness in which, within the black, colorless lines, there appear to us the figures of the “knight on his horse,” “death,” and the “devil.” We do not advert to these in aesthetic contemplation as Objects; we rather advert to the realities presented “in the picture”—more precisely stated, to the “depictured” realities, to the flesh and blood knight, etc. The consciousness of the “picture” (the small, grey figures in which, by virtue of founded noeses something else is “depictively presented” by similarity) which mediates and makes possible the depicturing, is now an example for the neutrality modification of perception. This depicturing picture-Object is present to us neither as existing nor as not existing, nor in any other positional modality; or, rather, there is consciousness of it as existing, but as quasi-existing in the neutrality modification of being.⁵⁹

The quoted fragment of Ideen I has to be read with context. From early on, when writing about acts of imagination, Husserl struggled to distinguish the internal form of pure imagination or mere fantasy from perceptually founded imagination, which is prototypically at work, e.g., with non-mental, physical pictures. In the quoted fragment, as in his early phenomenology of imagination, Husserl considered non-mental objects the basis for imagined objects. He basically distinguished three elements of the structure of image consciousness,⁶⁰ writing in his manuscripts:

[…] what stands over against the depicted subject is twofold: 1) The image as physical thing, as this painted and framed canvas, as this imprinted paper and so on. In this sense we say that the image is warped, torn or hangs on the wall, etc. 2) The image as the image object appearing in such and such a way through its determinate coloration and form. By the image object we do not mean the depicted object, the image subject, but the precise analogue of the phantasy image; namely, the appearing object that is the representant for the image subject.⁶¹

Thus, Husserl distinguished between (1) the image as the physical thing, e.g., the painted and framed canvas, (2) the image object, i.e., the image which appears through a certain constellation of colors and forms, and (3) the image subject, i.e., the object which is depicted. If one looks at the physical image, however, one experiences a “conflict” (Husserl’s term) or a significant difference between the apprehended image as an image object and the physical thing. The physical thing is a set of colors and shapes, but what one sees is not colors; rather, it is a child depicted in the image. In Blaustein’s language, colors are closer or proper objects, whereas a child is a distant or improper object represented by colors. For Husserl, what one experiences is in fact nothing. Therefore, although “[t]he surroundings are real surroundings, the paper, too, is something actually present,” the image object “conflicts with what is actually present. It is therefore merely an ‘image’; however much it appears, it is a nothing [ein Nichts].”⁶² To explain how the apprehension of the depicted object is possible, Husserl referred to the content–apprehension schema and claimed that due to a certain, i.e., imaginative, apprehension of contents, the image object is meaningful; i.e., it is indeed given, even if one experiences it as truly nothing.

In Blaustein’s view, Husserl was too hasty in claiming that Dürer’s copperplate represents, among other things, death since the decomposed body represents death only symbolically and not directly; nonetheless, symbolic presentation occurs on the basis (Blaustein speaks of “psychological foundation” or “basis” in this regard) of perceptual and imaginative presentations.⁶³ According to Blaustein, the particular experience described by Husserl in the context of Dürer’s “Knight, Death and the Devil” goes as follows: (1) one directly experiences sense data, which (2) is apprehended in perception as a shape. Nonetheless, (3) one sees not the shape (the closer or proper object) but through the shape one sees other objects, i.e., the decomposed body (a distant or improper object), possibly because imaginative presentations produce the improper object of intention. Finally, (4) one realizes that the decomposed body (the closer or proper object, or a symbol) symbolically represents death (the distant or improper object, or a symbolized object), and this is possible because of symbolic presentations. Levels (3) and (4) are connected to different presentations: whereas (3) concerns the imaginative presentation, and (4) is connected to the symbolic presentation as its foundation or basis. Here, (3) is founded on intuitively given elements (shapes and colors), and for this reason, it is an example of a natural psychic representation. In turn, (4) is founded on non-intuitively given elements (a convention or a cultural rule), and for this reason, it is an example of a conventional psychic representation.

Given Blaustein’s assessment of Husserl’s interpretation of the phenomenon of contemplating “Knight, Death and the Devil,” he drew a parallel between depicting picture-objects (abbildende Bildobjekt) and visual or phenomenal objects (Sehdinge), i.e., objects which can function as representations. However, Blaustein disagreed that these objects should be comprehended as imaginative objects, as defined in his theory of psychic representation.⁶⁴ The reason for this was that what constitutes the entire sense of aesthetic experience here is a different type of presentation than the imaginative one, namely, symbolic presentation. Paradoxically, however, Blaustein’s conclusion seems to correspond with Husserl’s criticism of the “image–theory” of immanent objects that was formulated by Husserl in his Logische Untersuchungen,⁶⁵ to which Blaustein referred in Przedstawienia schematyczne i symboliczne⁶⁶ [Schematic and Symbolic Presentations] but not in Przedstawienia imaginatywne [Imaginative Presentations]. Husserl was clear that resemblance between two objects is possible not because one is an image or an appearance of the other but only because a subjective act—in Blaustein’s words, a certain presentation—establishes or comprehends a representation or a correlation of both objects. Overall, Blaustein’s theory of psychic representations enlarges the perspective discussed by Husserl, at least in Ideen I.

8.3 Analysis of Blaustein’s Descriptions of Aesthetic Experiences

As already noted in Sect. 8.1, Blaustein used his general theory of presentations, especially imaginative, symbolic, or schematic presentations, when describing aesthetic experiences such as (1) contemplating a painting, (2) seeing a sculpture, (3) watching a movie, or (4) observing a theater play. I will analyze these descriptions in the present section by also taking into account the results of Sect. 8.2, namely, Blaustein’s view on the aesthetic object or objects constituted in these kinds of experiences. As we will see in what follows, Blaustein’s descriptive terms are efficient tools for drawing detailed nuances, as they add the kinds of subtleties that make his observations philosophically fruitful. However, his approach led to another theoretical problem regarding the ontological status of the aesthetic object, but this will be discussed later.

• (1) Therefore, at the beginning of his Przedstawienia schematyczne i symboliczne [Schematic and Symbolic Presentations], Blaustein considered an example of contemplating Hans von Marées’ painting “Die Lebensalter (Orangenbild)” (1877/87). He described the painting in the following way:

Against the background of a group of trees, we see a number of naked figures. To the far left, there is a pond or a lake; to the right, one sees a hill. A boy is sitting on the ground. Nearby, an old man sitting on a tree trunk is trying to pick up a piece of fruit that must have fallen from the tree. Behind the child is a pensive young man in a semi-walking posture. Right next to him is a female figure following him closely. Behind the old man, a mature man is looking seriously at the fruits of the tree; he is holding [fruits] in his upturned hands. If we abstract from the female figure watching the young man, none of the persons accepts the existence of the others; each behaves as if they were alone in the grove.⁶⁷

The basis of the aesthetic experience is perceptual presentations which adequately present their objects, i.e., color figures, marks, and shapes painted “on” canvas. In the strict sense, one intuitively sees only objects that are presented in perceptual images. Blaustein’s point is that the “naked figures,” “the pond,” “the hill,” “the male child,” etc. are not presented adequately: due to imaginative presentation, they are presented as objects “in” the painting. What is presented imaginatively, then, are objects “in” the painting. In other words, a group of colors, figures, marks, and shapes (which are given intuitively) are apprehended by the viewer as intending non-intuitive objects, i.e., “naked figures,” etc. For Blaustein, this means that in addition to perceptual presentations, imaginative presentations are also at play here. As a result, constellations of colors, marks, and shapes become, for the viewer, the appearance of the figures “in” the painting. Therefore, there is a natural representation between both objects. Nonetheless, the structure of the aesthetic experience is incomplete without noting that imaginative objects refer to reproduced objects, i.e., fictional characters. Therefore, Blaustein’s description mirrors the three-part structure of (a) reproducing objects (paint on canvas), (b) imaginative objects (presented “in” the painting), and (c) reproduced objects (characters represented by the objects “in” the painting).

To contemplate the painting, however, one must consider its symbolic meaning, which is announced by the title of the artwork. To do this, the phenomenon just described becomes a “psychic foundation” or “basis” for symbolic representation. Only by referring to the symbolic aspect of the painting does one see that the child symbolizes childhood age, which is free of any worries, the young man symbolizes mature age, which is full of strength, and the old man symbolizes a reflective summary of one’s life. Simply put, the painting contains symbolizing objects (or symbols), i.e., a child, a young man, and an old man, which function to represent symbolized objects, i.e., a carefree childhood, the strength of mature age, or a reflective summary of someone’s life. Overall, the lived experience here encompasses perceptual, imaginative, and symbolic presentations which build a whole lived experience as an aesthetic experience. Of course, every presentation has “its” object, which in the discussed example means that (at least) three objects are indicated: (a) a perceptual presentation indicates canvas and painted marks “on” it; (b) an imaginative presentation indicates the imaginative object “in” the painting; and (c) a symbolic presentation indicates a symbolized object “beyond” or “outside” the painting. Even if the symbol is accessible on the basis of the imaginative presentation, its distant or improper object is non-intuitive and thus abstract. For Blaustein, the described aesthetic experience is constituted in the form of overlapping presentations and objects.

• (2) Blaustein also described the phenomenon of contemplating a sculpture. In his Przedstawienia imaginatywne [Imaginative Presentations], as well as in Przedstawienia schematyczne i symboliczne [Schematic and Symbolic Presentations], he noted that sculptures are unique objects which represent real figures. Of course, sculptures are made of different materials, e.g., bronze, wood, or marble. For instance, if one sees a marble statue of a young man walking, one strictly speaking sees marble composed in a certain way. Therefore, the perceptual presentations adequately present only this closer or proper object of the intention. However, one also sees a young man “in” the marble. This young man is distinct from what is intuitively given; it is the improper object of the intention. Blaustein would say that the young man is presented in the relevant imaginative presentation and as such is constituted in the relevant aesthetic experience as the imaginative object. The difference between both objects (closer and distant) is clear. After all, it is inadequate to hold that the person in the sculpture is going in a direction which can be placed in the same world that surrounds the sculpture or statue.⁶⁸ Rather, the young man is going in a direction inherent to the world represented by the artwork. Blaustein was clear that one does not see marble here; one sees the young man or the character represented by the marble. He added that the plinth serves to emphasize that even if the marble is part of the same surrounding world as the world of the viewer, the figure represented in the marble is not part of the same world. The young man is part of the imaginative world that is represented by the statue. It is important to note that the young man is constituted as the imaginative object in the relevant imaginative presentation, which in turn establishes a natural representation between the reproducing object (marble) and the imaginative object (the young man “in” the marble). Here, the marble becomes for the viewer the appearance of the young man. Of course, the young man represents an object, which is either real (say, a real living person) or fictional (say, Achilles). All of these elements build a whole aesthetic experience.

In this vein, in Przedstawienia schematyczne i symboliczne [Schematic and Symbolic Presentations], Blaustein considered two other examples of sculptures: Constantin Meunier’s “The Smith” (1886) and Auguste Rodin’s “The Thinker” (1880).⁶⁹ These examples are important because they do not refer to concrete characters. He held that while looking at the former, one feels that the figure does not present an individual but rather a typical representative of smithing. In turn, the latter represents a typical thinker. How is this possible? For Blaustein, in both cases, one is directed toward typical rather than individual features. Of course, the characters represented by both sculptures are individuals, and as such, they are constituted as imaginative objects (as discussed above), but they have typical features. Blaustein stated that imaginative intuition becomes a psychic foundation or basis for another presentation, namely, schematic presentation. In Blaustein’s view, both of the discussed sculptures represent schematic meanings, i.e., schematized objects that are inherent to objects that represent typical features (e.g., the efforts of physical work, greatness of thought). In general, the schematizing object (or schema) is a representation of the schematized object (“typical” features). Both examples show that the three types of presentations (perceptual, imaginative, and schematic) build a whole aesthetic experience.

• (3) In the 1933 book, Przyczynki do psychologii widza kinowego [Contributions to the Psychology of the Cinemagoer], Blaustein descriptively analyzed the lived experiences of a cinemagoer. Of course, he was aware that a movie can be viewed as a non-aesthetic object, as in the case of a documentary. Contrary to this, he mainly analyzed, as he put it, “aesthetically valuable” movies which arouse “strong aesthetic feelings.”⁷⁰ He held that while watching a movie in the cinema, one sees groups of colors, lights, and marks on the cinema screen that are generally understood as phantoms,⁷¹ which are adequately presented in perceptual presentations. The phantoms, however, are apprehended as objects “on” the screen. Together with voices, the phantoms indicate objects which are inherent to the world represented “in” the movie. Here, phantoms and voices represent objects “in” the movie, since one apprehends reproducing objects (phantoms) as appearances of imaginative objects. The latter objects are distinct from the perceived colors, lights, and marks. For Blaustein, these objects are indicated in imaginative presentations, and as such, they are called imaginative objects, which are grouped in and ascribed to the world represented in the movie. Here, again, Blaustein used the idea of the imaginative world to refer to what is “on” the cinema screen.⁷² Phantoms and voices are reproducing objects, whereas the imaginative world is a set of reproduced objects, and as such, it is constituted on the basis of imaginative objects. In turn, the world represented in the movie binds perceptual, reproduced, and non-intuitive images. After all, the cinemagoer sees whole sequences of action, but these have gaps. For example, one sees a character driving a car in the movie, yet before that, there was no scene in which she got into the car. This shows that fantasy plays an important role by filling such gaps in the work. This analysis can be carried out in the case of symbolic or schematic presentations, which may be founded on imaginative ones. Despite this, once again, Blaustein accounted for the aesthetic experience as a combination of presentations which intend their objects.⁷³

• (4) In Przedstawienia imaginatywne [Imaginative Presentations], Blaustein considered another example from the field of theater. More precisely, he analyzed an exemplary experience of watching Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra.⁷⁴ During play, what one directly or perceptually experiences is something that is happening on stage. One sees someone talking to another person, moving in a certain direction, etc. These objects are adequately presented in perceptual presentations. However, when Caesar is talking with Cleopatra, one sees not meaningless events but, say, actors’ performances; here, the different roles are constituted not as objects which surround us in our everyday life. Strictly speaking, they are not real. One can touch an actor, but one cannot touch Caesar or Cleopatra. Blaustein described such objects as quasi-real or imaginative. In this example, the imaginative object (e.g., Caesar) is constituted in the imaginative presentation and is given at once as intuitive (the real movements and words happening on stage) and non-intuitive (Caesar meeting Cleopatra). Whereas the former is the closer or proper object of the perceptual intention, the latter is the distant or improper object of the imaginative intention. The difference arises at the descriptive-psychological level: the intuitive object has properties that are truly ascribed to it by the act (e.g., being a man or woman, having blond or dark hair), and the non-intuitive object has properties ascribed in the modus “quasi.” From a subjective viewpoint, Blaustein compared this experience with illusion; however, what differentiates the imaginative experience from the illusory experience is the lack of a belief that the object exists at all (in the case of an illusion, according to Blaustein, one has to believe that the illusory object is there). In addition to the perceptual object and the imaginary object, there is also Caesar who lived as a historical figure in ancient times. In this context, Blaustein referred to his three-part division of objects. Therefore, what is intuitively or perceptually given is only the reproducing object (events occurring on stage; an object or objects which have “truly” ascribed properties); this is the basis of a quasi-adequate presentation, i.e., a presentation which intends the imaginative object, which is non-intuitively given (actor apprehended as Caesar; object or objects which have quasi-ascribed properties). However, both refer to the reproduced object, either the real or the fictional one (Caesar as a historical person or, say, Pegasus; these objects can be situated “somewhere” and “sometime” in the real or fictional world).

With this in mind, Blaustein noted an important nuance: perceptual acts found imaginative acts but only inasmuch as the presenting content in perceptual acts presents its reproducing objects adequately; the contents of imaginative acts cannot adequately represent the imaginative object.⁷⁵ If one sees the actor playing Caesar, the presenting content of this act refers adequately to the person as the person, but can we then say it represents the actor as Caesar either adequately or inadequately? As Blaustein put it, presenting content only quasi-adequately presents the object in imaginative presentations. The difference seems to be clear: the reproducing object is present in the same surrounding world as the viewer, namely, in the theater; the imaginative object is present in the world inherent to the work of art, such as Cleopatra’s Egypt. The reproduced object is not real, but it used to be real in the past. For example, Caesar’s conversation with Cleopatra is performed on stage not in a theater but in front of the Sphinx in Egypt, as Shaw wrote in his play. To explain how imaginative objects are given, Blaustein wrote of quasi-real objects.⁷⁶ For him, imaginative intuition is the act that creates quasi-real objects if the subject adopts an imaginative attitude. Blaustein characterized the object as being quasi-spatial and quasi-temporal.⁷⁷ In other words, what a viewer is looking at is simultaneously the stage in the surrounding world and the quasi-world, which Blaustein also calls the imaginative world. While being directed toward the imaginative world, one “forgets” about the real world; for Blaustein, this means that the imaginative presentation and the reference to the reproduced object are possible because the aesthetic experience does not contain the belief that the object of this presentation exists. In other words, the aesthetic experience distances one from the real world and enables one to “see” (only quasi-adequately) the non-real (imaginative) world. If so, the aesthetic experience distances one from one’s “natural” life; it enables one to “take a rest” from everyday life.⁷⁸

On the basis of different descriptions of aesthetic experiences, Blaustein introduces a threefold function of perception: (1) perceiving sensations, (2) presenting imaginative objects due to quasi-intuitive presentations, and (3) intending signitive objects. In “Das imaginative Kunstwerk und seine Gegebenheitsweise” [“The Imaginative Artwork and Its Way of Manifestation”], Blaustein bound these three functions of perception with different aspects of the constituted object and consequently with different types of art. He wrote:

In the receptive aesthetic experience, there are three modes of the givenness of objects. Natural phenomena, products of the arts, architecture, “non-object-like” plastic and most musical works are perceived and aesthetically enjoyed due to this type of perception. Paintings, sculptures, stage plays, films, radio plays, etc., are presented imaginatively. Literary works of art, on the other hand, are objects of signitive perception.⁷⁹

The same division can be found in the 1937 article, “Rola percepcji w doznaniu estetycznym” [“The Role of Perception in the Aesthetic Experience”].⁸⁰ The function of perceptual presentations consists in apprehending the properties of the representing object. For instance, one sees the actual movements of an actor on stage. This form of perception provides adequate presentations of the so-called closer or proper object. The function of the imaginative presentations that are given in imaginative perception consists in ascribing new properties to the represented object. Blaustein held that psychic representation (as described above in Sect. 8.2.1) plays a crucial role here. This form of perception provides quasi-adequate presentations of the distant or improper object. The object constituted in this form of perception is quasi-given, which means there is intuitive content which is apprehended and serves to ascribe properties not given in perceptual perception. Thus, a new object is constituted. Finally, the function of signitive presentations, which are constituted in signitive perception, consists in ascribing new properties to the represented object. Here, the new object is given non-intuitively; however, if perception is intuitive in general, is it at all appropriate to speak of signitive perception?

Blaustein considered this problem explicitly in the 1931 book, Przedstawienia schematyczne i symboliczne [Schematic and Symbolic Presentations], in which he accepted the hypothesis that aesthetic experiences can be founded on the basis of not only intuitive images but also non-intuitive presentations, e.g., schematic and symbolic presentations. In the aforementioned book, he considered the example (already discussed above) of the phenomenon of contemplating “The Abbot” from the “Dance of Death” series. This example shows that one sees or perceptually presents a decomposed body, but the body is not the proper object of the artwork since the decomposed body symbolically represents death.⁸¹ To phrase it differently, sensations are apprehended by the act of presenting shapes and colors; they, in turn, present the decomposed body, which is intuitively given. Death, which is symbolized by the body, is non-intuitively experienced due to what is intuitively experienced. In this context, signitive perception, which constitutes the meaning of the symbol, constitutes its object, i.e., the symbolized object, due to what is perceptually given. The object that is actually given is then the indirect object that mediates the aesthetic experience.

All the discussed examples that were analyzed and described by Blaustein present sophisticated nuances in both aesthetic experiences and their objects. However, they also present a challenge. In general, aesthetic experiences intentionally aim toward aesthetic objects. For Blaustein, however, the latter objects have to be decomposed into diverse but intertwined objects. This would suggest that one lived experience refers to many aesthetic objects, each of which has a different ontological status. For instance, whereas a painting on a canvas exists, the object “in” the painting and the represented objects can be either real or non-real. Does this mean that the aesthetic object exists and does not exist at once? If so, the consequences seem to be absurd. Next, one can ask what the relation is, according to Blaustein, between the aesthetic object and the art object. Are they identical or different? If they are identical, how should we understand that someone does not constitute the aesthetic value of a certain artwork? Horecka rightly notices that Blaustein explicitly declared that he was not interested in ontological issues.⁸² This, of course, does not mean that Blaustein is lacking the need to address this problem. On the contrary, his detailed descriptions of aesthetic experiences make the need to address the problem all the more evident.

8.4 Is an Aesthetic Object Real or Purely Intentional?

The question concerning the ontological status of the aesthetic object in Blaustein’s aesthetics was commonly discussed by scholars who drew a parallel or even a continuation between him and Ingarden, Blaustein’s Lvov teacher. In this regard, in his book on aesthetics during the interwar years in Poland, Dziemidok called Blaustein a “supporter” of Ingarden’s theory of the aesthetic object.⁸³ In Dziemidok’s opinion, Blaustein adopted the key idea that an aesthetic object is constituted by the subject rather than being ready or complete prior to the experience itself. Indeed, there are some clues which justify this thesis. After all, for Blaustein, an aesthetic object is the object intended in the relevant experience or—to employ the Brentanian language—the object is represented in certain presentations. Horecka, in turn, noted possible borrowings. She wrote:

Notably, the ideas on imaginary objects presented […] by Blaustein converge with the ideas by […] Ingarden on intentional objects. However, the treatise by Blaustein Przedstawienia imaginatywne […] (1930) was published a year before Ingarden’s Das literarische Kunstwerk (1931). Blaustein overtly draws upon Ingarden’s Das literarische Kunstwerk and O poznawaniu dzieła literackiego (1937) […] only in the tract O ujmowaniu przedmiotów estetycznych (1938). It is possible, though, that in 1930, Blaustein knew early ideas by Ingarden on the nature of intentional objects and he may have borrowed from these.⁸⁴

Of course, the Blaustein–Ingarden juxtaposition is complex. For instance, Blaustein accepted Ingarden’s view of a work of art as a multi-layered object, but he disagreed with the details of this theory.⁸⁵ It is evident that Blaustein was familiar with Ingarden’s theory as early as 1926, since he participated in lectures on aesthetics held by him; it was precisely during these lectures that Ingarden presented the basics of his later book.⁸⁶ On November 5, and later on December 3, 1926, Blaustein presented a talk during Twardowski’s seminar entitled “Subiektywny element w badaniach literackich” [“The Subjective Element in Literary Studies”], in which he identified three layers of the literary work of art: (1) language, (2) meanings, and (3) correlates of meanings.⁸⁷ Ingarden, in turn, adopted a four-layered concept of the literary work of art by including an additional layer, namely, the layer of schematized aspects.⁸⁸ However, even this element of Ingarden’s theory—omitted in the earlier talk—was included by Blaustein to some extent in his mature theory. For instance, he used Ingarden’s theory of spots of indeterminacy, i.e., formal elements of schematized aspects, to describe the aesthetic experience in general⁸⁹ and the experience of listening to the radio in particular.⁹⁰ In sum, he enlarged the earlier description with the fourth layer of the literary work of art, namely, the schematized aspects of represented objects.⁹¹ This fact and other parallels between both approaches justify asking whether Blaustein followed Ingarden in describing the ontological status of the aesthetic object. In Ingarden, one finds a coherent theory which differentiates the art object and the aesthetic object; whereas the former is real, the latter is a purely intentional object. With this in mind, one can ask: for Blaustein, is the aesthetic object real or purely intentional?

8.4.1 An Outline of Ingarden’s Theory of the Aesthetic Object

Ingarden’s aesthetics has been extensively discussed in the secondary literature.⁹² Given this, my aim here is not to reconstruct this complex theory. Instead, I want to highlight Ingarden’s account of the relationship between the work of art and the aesthetic object. The latter was famously defined by Ingarden as a so-called purely intentional object. In § 20 of Das literarische Kunstwerk, he wrote:

By a purely intentional objectivity we understand an objectivity that is in a figurative sense “created” by an act of consciousness or by a manifold of acts or, finally, by a formation (e.g., a word meaning, a sentence) exclusively on the basis of an immanent original or only conferred intentionality and has, in the given objectivities, the source of its existence and its total essence.⁹³

A purely intentional object is an object which does not build a whole with the act by which it is “created.” Its existence is dependent on the act, but it is not a part of the act since this would lead us back toward psychologism. Therefore, “creation” does not mean that one produces an object which exists independently of the act: it cannot be “created” outside the act; the object is rather heteronymous and exists only as an object of the act but not as part of it. For instance, if one thinks of Pegasus, this object exists purely intentionally, meaning it has “its source of existence” in the act of thinking; moreover, the imagined Pegasus has features ascribed only in this act, e.g., it has wings like an eagle, etc., but the object is not a psychic part of the act. Rather, it is transcendent as a purely intentional (not psychic) entity. This general theory is useful for understanding the existence of the aesthetic object: while contemplating, for instance, a painting, one constitutes this work of art in a purely intentional fashion, and on this basis, one can also constitute an aesthetic object, i.e., an object of aesthetic contemplation. Therefore, according to Ingarden, an aesthetic object is non-identical to any real object, such as a painting, sculpture, or literary work of art. One can destroy, for instance, a canvas, but the aesthetic object is different from a material thing. Following Ingarden, the aesthetic object is formed by successive encounters with the art object in a process which he called concretization.⁹⁴ This process involves the formation of an aesthetic object which is rendered purely intentional. To better explain the way in which the object exists, I will refer to several elements of Ingarden’s early ontology.

In Ingarden’s ontology,⁹⁵ which was formulated as early as the 1920s, i.e., before Das literarische Kunstwerk was published, one finds a precise description of four basic existential-ontological relations: (1) autonomy and heteronomy, (2) originality and derivativeness, (3) self-sufficiency and non-self-sufficiency (or separability and inseparability), and finally (4) dependence and independence.⁹⁶ Given this, a purely intentional object is (1) heteronymous, (2) derivative, (3) self-sufficient, and (4) dependent. Ingarden uses this description in the context of works of art and aesthetic objects. A work of art is constituted purely intentionally in an act that “creates” an object with certain properties, e.g., a painting with the property of presenting a landscape or being a portrait. This object is heteronymous because it is constituted by an act of apprehension that represents colors on canvas as a representation of the landscape. It is derivative because it is produced by an act of apprehension or as a result of an act of concretization. It is self-sufficient because it does not build a whole with the act, and thus, it is a transcendent, non-psychic, yet purely intentional entity, and as such, it is separable from the act. Finally, it is dependent because it requires the existence of a certain act, for instance, an act of concretization. To be clear, although the object is heteronomous and derivative, it is not reducible to mental experiences; just the opposite, it is transcendent through and through.⁹⁷

Furthermore, if one contemplates a work of art (or a different non-artistic object), one can create an aesthetic object that is a purely intentional object that has ascribed properties, such as qualitative equipment, i.e., qualitative harmony in the content of the aesthetic object. This object is heteronymous because it exists only due to an act of aesthetic contemplation, and without this act, there is no aesthetic object at all. It is derivative because it is created by an act of aesthetic contemplation. It is self-sufficient because it is a separable part of the entire act of aesthetic contemplation and has features—qualitative harmony—that are ascribed by the contemplating act. Finally, it is dependent because it requires for its existence an act of aesthetic contemplation.

To be precise, Ingarden’s description concerns both aesthetic objects (an object with ascribed qualitative harmony) and works of art (an object with ascribed artistic qualities), but his descriptions do not hold for real objects, e.g., the canvas of a painting or the marble of a sculpture. As claimed above, for Ingarden, a work of art or an aesthetic object is non-identical to any material object. An aesthetic object does not represent a material object but rather is a new, constituted (or “created”) object (like an art object is created by an artist). To expand upon this aspect of Ingarden’s aesthetics, we can refer to his analysis, formulated in “Vom formalen Aufbau des individuellen Gegenstandes,” which was originally published in 1935. Ingarden’s theory of the individual object refers to Aristotle’s hypokeimenon (ὑποκείμενον), i.e., an object understood as the subject of properties.⁹⁸ Although the properties of an object are non-self-sufficient or inseparable from the object, the object is a whole that is self-sufficient. As Ingarden stated, “[…] the subject of properties and the endless multiplicity of properties as properties are essentially connected.”⁹⁹ An individual object (1) is determined in all its properties and as such is self-sufficient, (2) it is a unity, i.e., a whole that cannot be divided, (3) if an individual object is divided, it is destroyed, so it stops existing, (4) two individual objects cannot have the same property, (5) the individuality of an object is undefined as such since it is a specific moment that is inherent to the way in which an object exists, and finally, (6) if an object is individual, everything that is part of this object is also individual, including its properties.¹⁰⁰ To adapt this ontological theory to aesthetics, it is instructive to comprehend works of art and aesthetic objects as ontologically founded on an individual object, e.g., a book or a block of marble. A material thing, say a book, a block of marble, etc., is autonomous, but both an artwork and an aesthetic object are heteronomous. As claimed, the formal structure of a real object (say, a canvas) is different from that of an aesthetic object (or an artwork): whereas the former, as an individual object, has all of its properties already determined, the latter contains so-called “spots of indeterminacy.”¹⁰¹ As early as 1925, Ingarden referred to the idea that some objects are to be understood as sketches (Skizze) or schemas, and as such, they have properties which cannot be determined.¹⁰² Spots of indeterminacy, as defined in Das literarische Kunstwerk, mirror this early concept. They are understood as gaps in content that cannot be filled by further acts.¹⁰³ In this context, an aesthetic experience can be described as an attempt to fill spots of indeterminacy by concretizing them, i.e., by the act of “creating” a new subject which would be the subject of aesthetic properties, including the qualitative harmony of aesthetically valuable properties. However, if this is indeed the case, concretization—contra Janusz Rybicki¹⁰⁴ and Dziemidok¹⁰⁵—is a strictly active aspect of experience since it “creates” a new object. However, these “spots of indeterminacy” form the content of a purely intentional object, so, as Ingarden put it, a work of art also “works on us” (auf uns wirken)¹⁰⁶ as it begins the process of the constitution or “creation” of the new, i.e., aesthetic, object.

Ingarden’s aesthetics enables one to draw clear-cut differences between an individual real object and a purely intentional object, such as a work of art (the subject of artistic properties) or an aesthetic object (the subject of aesthetic qualities). For Ingarden, a real individual object exists autonomously and as such can also be an “intentional” object; this means that it is the basis for the constitution of a purely intentional, i.e., heteronomous, object. Ingarden’s thesis that an aesthetic object can be an object of derivative intentionality means here that it is not founded exclusively on mental (or intentional) acts but also on individual, i.e., autonomous, objects: real objects. This is evident in Ingarden’s short analysis of a stage play: the people on the stage are individual and autonomous objects. Ingarden calls them “representing objects,” which “represent” purely intentional objects, i.e., “represented objects,” whereas performance is a certain concretization.¹⁰⁷ Here, the people on stage are ultimately determined to be equipped with relevant properties since they are autonomous and individual objects. Moreover, they are “also” intentional objects, but the objects they represent—the “represented objects”—are purely intentional, and as such, they are schematic. A represented object can be, for instance, a represented character’s psychic life or her existential dilemma. For this reason, not all of the details of the object represented in the stage play are represented by real representing objects. These clear-cut divisions became blurred in Blaustein’s aesthetics.

8.4.2 Blaustein on Ingarden’s Theory

In the three reviews of Ingarden’s Das literarische Kunstwerk, which Blaustein published in different journals from 1930 to 1937, one finds a detailed assessment of the project formulated in Ingarden’s book. In general, Blaustein appreciated Ingarden’s detailed analysis of the literary work of art, which, in his opinion, was one of the most valuable aesthetic theories in the philosophical literature of that time. More specifically, he seemed to accept the following five ideas of Ingarden’s theory:

• (1) His refutation of psychologism in the literature, which would reduce the literary work of art to the psychic life of the reader; by showing that the intentional object is transcendent through and through, Ingarden does not fall into psychologism.¹⁰⁸

• (2) His theory of meaning, according to which meaning is irreducible to the psyche or to ideal entities, and as such, it is heteronomous in relation to acts of understanding.¹⁰⁹

• (3) A clear division between an act, the content of the act, and the represented object, all of which are key notions in understanding what a literary work of art is.¹¹⁰

• (4) As a consequence of point (3), Ingarden’s emphasis on intentional objects, which are schematic and purely intentional¹¹¹; in this context, although Blaustein did not adopt Ingarden’s phrase “purely intentional object,” he was aware that the theory of purely intentional objects—understood as quasi-real objects—corresponds with his original theory of imaginative objects.¹¹²

• (5) Finally, the Ingardenian view of a literary work of art as a multi-strata object.¹¹³

Given these similarities, one might wonder whether Blaustein actually comprehended the aesthetic object as purely intentional, as did Ingarden. At first glance, the answer to this question seems to be positive. After all, Blaustein referred to Ingarden’s general ontological idea that an aesthetic object is a combination of properties; put simply, he comprehended the object as such, following Ingarden, as the subject of properties. For both Blaustein and Ingarden, an aesthetic object is an object constituted in corresponding acts that serve to ascribe certain properties. For Blaustein, some properties of an aesthetic object are ascribed on the basis of the experienced object given in an experience (mainly in perceptual experiences). To use the technical vocabulary from Sect. 8.2.1, one can apprehend a distant or improper object (which is constituted by the founding closer or proper object) as an aesthetic object as such. Here, aesthetic objects have different properties than the objects that found them. For instance, the above example of the skeleton from “The Abbot” has the property of a certain organized combination of shapes, and this object is the closer or proper object of the intention; however, it founds a distant or improper object, which in this case is death. Here, the property of being a symbol of death is seemingly purely intentional. This property is different from the properties of the initially perceived object. For this very reason, Blaustein was clear that the intended object in an aesthetic experience does not have to exist.¹¹⁴ He coined a term for this object, “the imaginative world of art,” to emphasize that it is not identical to the world of natural experience. In short, it is a non-real object. “After all,” as Blaustein put it, “the imaginative world is in neither the same time nor space in which the experiencing subject is present.”¹¹⁵ In the natural attitude, the world is posited as existing, while in the aesthetic attitude, the aesthetic object and the imaginative world are neutralized; to phrase it differently, the aesthetic object is constituted without a belief concerning its existence,¹¹⁶ or without any about the real existence of the object.¹¹⁷ The object, then, is neither real nor ideal. Rather, the aesthetic object is quasi-real or fictional. In his Przedstawienia imaginatywne [Imaginative Presentations], Blaustein claimed that the aesthetic object can indeed be fictional, but it can simulate the existence of a real object, e.g., one sees the character performed by the actor on stage even though the character is fictional: one experiences the appearance of it being real or being quasi-real.¹¹⁸

Nonetheless, the positive answer to the above question—of whether Blaustein actually comprehended the aesthetic object as purely intentional as Ingarden did—was misleading. Even though Blaustein used (to some extent) Ingarden’s idea of objects as described in Das literarische Kunstwerk, including the notion of the non-real, quasi way of existing, he in fact confused Ingarden’s clear-cut definition of the purely intentional object.¹¹⁹ Problems arise mainly with Blaustein’s theory of psychic representations. This theory divides the object given in an aesthetic experience into a few distinct yet connected objects. In an aesthetic experience, there is a perceived object, which reproduces or represents another object, i.e., the reproduced object or the represented object; however, this object is quasi-real and is given as an imaginative object. Moreover, the represented object can be either real or fictional. For instance, in a historical drama, one assumes that the character performed by an actor truly lived in the past; at the same time, there are fictional characters that do not refer to real persons. Overall, three theoretical problems seem to arise in this context. First, (1) the object of aesthetic experience is divided by Blaustein into a few parallel objects. Next, (2) Blaustein used the term “quasi” to describe the status of the object of an aesthetic experience; however, this term is not discussed in greater detail, and for this reason, his description becomes unclear. Finally, (3) the existential status of the aesthetic object is obscure.

• (1) To begin with, in his text “Rola percepcji w doznaniu estetycznym” [“The Role of Perception in the Aesthetic Experience”], just after emphasizing the non-real status of the aesthetic object, Blaustein claimed that the object is also experienced as real. He wrote:

In contrast to the widespread view that we do not perceive the object of aesthetic experience as real, I think that this holds only for the imaginative perception of the imaginative world and the signitive perception of the fictional world. In a perceptive experience, I perceive the object of the aesthetic experience as real, which is no different than in the case of imaginative and signitive perception, while I am focused on representing objects; however, I must state my reservation that I do not recognize the representing objects in these last two situations as existing hic et nunc.¹²⁰

From reading this passage, one might conclude that according to Blaustein, the object of aesthetic experience is divided into a few distinct but correlated objects. The existential status of these different objects depends on the viewer’s attitude toward the object. For instance, the actor is given in perceptual intuition as real; moreover, if the represented object does exist now, it is also perceived as real. However, if the represented object used to exist in the past, it and the imaginative object are perceived as non-real. Here, then, one intends at least three different objects. Taking this into account, the following problem arises: which of them is the aesthetic object? If one claims that it is the (real or non-real) represented object, this suggests that aesthetic experience is non-intuitive, which is false. In this regard, Blaustein was clear that even non-intuitive images (e.g., symbolic or signitive ones) are psychologically based or founded on intuitive ones. If one claims that the aesthetic object is the (real) representing object, this would mean that the aesthetic object stops existing if the representing object stops existing, e.g., if one destroys the canvas. However, if this is indeed the case and there is no aesthetic object, one cannot live in the relevant (intentional) act. This consequence, however, is absurd. Rather, the aesthetic experience can be lived even if the (real) representing object stops existing. For instance, if one watches a theater play, the aesthetic experience does not disappear when the actors stop playing their roles. If one claims that the aesthetic object is the (non-real) imaginative object, this means that one cannot perceive it as real because it is non-real. However, this contradicts Blaustein’s explicit claim, quoted above, that one perceives the object of aesthetic experience as real. The aesthetic object—as described by Blaustein—seems to combine properties of Ingarden’s purely intentional object with an individual autonomous object which can also be an intentional object: it is both real and non-real at once. Thus, in contrast to Ingarden, Blaustein’s theory blurs clear-cut ontological categories.

• (2) To defend Blaustein, one can hold that he understood the terms “real” and “non-real” not as features of the object itself but as features ascribed to the object by the viewer. Here, both terms seem to refer to the way of experiencing. If so, the terms “real” and “non-real” can be rephrased in terms of “presence for the experiencing subject,” and ultimately, they can be replaced with “(intuitive) presence” and “quasi-presence,” respectively. Accordingly, the phrase “one perceives the object as real” means “the object is (intuitively) present for the viewer.” Analogously, the phrase “one perceives the object as non-real” means “the object is quasi-present for the viewer.” After all, this is imaginative intuition, which is understood as perception, which in turn makes the object quasi-present. Blaustein explained that this form of perception enables one to comprehend the imaginative object “as not existing hic et nunc,” which seems to suggest, for instance, that one does not see the performed character as such but the actor; the character is rather the distant or improper object of perception. Moreover, Blaustein wrote that quasi-real objects have features as if they were real; in this regard, he wrote about a quasi-spatiality and a quasi-time which are ascribed to such objects as their properties, which are in quasi-cause-and-effect relationships.¹²¹ However, Blaustein’s definitions are indirect (i.e., “quasi” is understood as not “existing hic et nunc”) and vague (i.e., “quasi” is understood as somehow similar to “real”). Horecka noted that in Blaustein’s aesthetics quasi-features were not features, and quasi-relations were not relations; she added that Blaustein mentioned only a few quasi-features and left open the question of whether every (real) feature has a quasi-correlate.¹²² For Ingarden, to whom Blaustein seemed to refer in outlining his theory of quasi-objects, the difference is clear: whereas some objects are real, others are purely intentional. The former can be an individual object which is determined by all of its properties; the latter is created in a relevant act and, as such, is fully determined by it, i.e., it has the features ascribed by the act. For Ingarden, then, quasi-objects are purely intentional. By contrast, Blaustein does not adapt Ingarden’s theory of purely intentional objects; however, he refers to the idea of “quasi” features. As a result, Blaustein’s theory is inconsistent and unclear.

• (3) As shown above, the aesthetic object was divided by Blaustein into a few correlated objects that are present only in relation to a certain attitude of the subject. Blaustein addressed the problem of plural objects in the following description: “When I look at 10 photographs of a person I know, there are 10 reproducing objects in front of me, and with their help, I can grasp 10 imaginary objects but only one reproduced object.”¹²³ In this example, there is one aesthetic experience that is very complex. It includes 10 (real) reproducing objects, 10 (non-real or quasi-real) imaginative objects, and only 1 (real) reproduced object. In her commentary on this passage from the 1938 essay O ujmowaniu przedmiotów estetycznych [On Apprehending Aesthetic Objects], Horecka attempted to draw a dual parallel between Blaustein and Ingarden. First, she noticed that Blaustein seemed to suggest that the imaginative object corresponds to Ingarden’s represented object.¹²⁴ After all, the imaginative object is “in” the world of art. However, I think that Horecka’s suggestion is misleading since Blaustein explicitly wrote about represented objects as being different from imaginative ones. Second, Horecka considered understanding the imaginative object as an object constituted in the relevant concretization (Ingarden’s term).¹²⁵ As such, it would be equivalent to Ingarden’s schematized aspects, which is seemingly more accurate than the first interpretation. But even if this reading is correct, for Ingarden, the ontological status of schematized aspects in a literary work of art was well defined, whereas for Blaustein, it was unclear. Are imaginative objects fully determined by the relevant act or by the presenting content? For Ingarden, who used a theory of derivative intentionality, one can explain why purely intentional objects can be determined by both the act in which the object is created and by its real foundation. By contrast, for Blaustein, who emphasized the viewer’s attitude, the ontological status of the aesthetic experience became unclear. After all, in the example discussed by Blaustein, in one experience, there are 10 reproducing (real) objects, 10 imaginative (non-real or quasi-real) objects, and 1 reproduced (either real or non-real) object.

Blaustein’s break with Ingarden’s theory of purely intentional objects followed from a critical assessment of the eidetic method, as presented in Chap. 5. Blaustein offered to understand phenomenology as a descriptive and empirical discipline rather than as an eidetic discipline. This important shift in methodology had far-reaching consequences for the Ingarden–Blaustein juxtaposition. Whereas Ingarden’s aesthetics was developed mainly as the phenomenology and ontology of the aesthetic experience, Blaustein’s approach seemed to be descriptive-psychological rather than ontological. As a result, whereas Ingarden spoke of lived experiences and their objects, Blaustein preferred the language of presentations, representations and complexes or combinations of presentations and representations. Thus, although they both referred to the notion of “constitution” to describe the aesthetic experience in relation to the aesthetic object, they understood it differently: for Ingarden, constitution was the “creation” of a purely intentional object; on the other hand, for Blaustein, constitution meant a “combination” of different presentations. Moreover, Blaustein accepted the Twardowskian notion of the aesthetic object as a psychophysiological product which is rendered in a certain act or experience. As such, of course, it is real.

In this regard, one may argue that Blaustein was not fully consistent in following Twardowski’s division between the content of presentations and the object of presentations.¹²⁶ As shown above, Blaustein claimed that presenting content can be either adequate or quasi-adequate in the sense that it becomes the phenomenal or visual thing (Sehding), which in turn represents the distant and improper object. However, if so, the presenting content claims to be the object. Therefore, what is in fact experienced in the aesthetic experience? Are these sensations or rather the object itself? In his 1935 essay, “Vom formalen Aufbau des individuellen Gegenstandes,” Ingarden called the theory which reduces the object to a combination of presentations a “phenomenalistic theory of the object.”¹²⁷ He argued against this theory by claiming that the object here is heteronomous. To use this criticism in the context of Blaustein’s aesthetics, one can hold that if any art object, such as a canvas or a book, is presented, it becomes the reproducing object, but at the same time, it loses its existential autonomy since it becomes constituted in relevant presentations. However, this consequence is absurd. To avoid these problems, Blaustein held that aesthetic objects are not purely intentional but rather real. However, this solution is only partial. For Blaustein, the aesthetic object is real since it is presented (or represented) in a relevant act; in brief, it is real because of the real act. If so, Ingarden’s diagnosis that Blaustein had finally fallen into the fallacy of psychologism as he had reduced the object of consciousness to a mere mental image seems to be accurate.¹²⁸

All in all, Blaustein’s central reconsideration—if it is not a misreading of Ingarden’s aesthetics—came from a different attitude, namely, reading Ingarden’s idea of purely intentional objects in a descriptive-psychological fashion, i.e., understanding these objects as psychologically founded or, in other words, describing how one experiences these objects. In contrast to Ingarden, phenomenology (in a broad sense) for Blaustein, i.e., the way one experiences an object, determines the ontological theory or, to phrase it differently, presentations determine objects. In consequence, even if Blaustein provided some indications in favor of interpreting the imaginative object as a purely intentional one that hides or conceals its true nature, i.e., as purely intentional, Blaustein obscured Ingarden’s clear relation between three objects: an “also” intentional object, a purely intentional object, and the real object.¹²⁹ By employing the theory of representations, he reduced the real object to a complex of sensations that are absolutely adequate. However, if sensations are indeed the basis of the aesthetic experience, as Blaustein held, the aesthetic object loses its purely intentional status in favor of being real. Therefore, paradoxically, Blaustein’s attempt to reexamine Ingarden’s aesthetics was only partial since it misread, to some extent, the theory of intentional objects. As a result, it would be wrong to hold that the aesthetic object was purely intentional for Blaustein. Rather, it seems to be real since the psychic presentations that build the relevant aesthetic experience are also real.

8.5 Some Developments of Blaustein’s Aesthetics

8.5.1 Perception and Its Role in Aesthetic Experience: The Theory of Attitude

Our analysis presented in Sect. 8.3 suggests that perception has a threefold function in aesthetic experience: receptive, imaginative, and signitive functions. Generally, according to Blaustein, perception serves to present the intuitive and non-intuitive aspects of an object. In his aesthetics, he struggled with the widespread view that aesthetic experience is mainly passive. Contrary to this view, he argued that perception is active since it enables one to constitute an object as a combination of intuitive and non-intuitive elements. The active role of the subject of a given aesthetic experience is to be understood here as a matter of adopting different attitudes toward what is experienced. Hence, both topics (perception and attitude) seem to be connected. However, what does it mean that perception is active or that attitude directs the subject toward the aesthetic object? I will discuss these questions first.

At the very beginning of the 1937 essay “Rola percepcji w doznaniu estetycznym” [“The Role of Perception in Aesthetic Experience”], Blaustein attempted to describe the role that perception plays in the aesthetic experience. He wrote:

Analysis of the aesthetic experience demonstrates that its central point is a strongly emotionally tinged perception of the object of experience. This perception and the emotions connected to it are the fundamental components of the aesthetic experience, which itself is an experiential unity of a higher order, whereas judgments and experiences involving volition—if they appear at all in the aesthetic experience—are of secondary importance.¹³⁰

In a general sense, receptive perception is the class of experiences that provides intuitive presentations. For Blaustein, perception is an act that serves to apprehend sensations, which in turn are understood as absolutely adequate presentations. Put differently, perception serves to present what is actually experienced, and as such, it does not create its object but is passive or receptive. According to Blaustein, given the passive character of perception, aesthetic experience, which is dominated by perception, is also mainly passive.¹³¹ Aesthetic experiences seem to be a reaction to what is perceptually given, but this form of experience combines perception with feelings and not so much with judgments or volitional acts; all these elements—perception, feelings, judgments, and volitional acts—constitute the subject’s reaction to the aesthetic object. Blaustein stated that perception always co-constitutes aesthetic experience, even if the emotional reaction seems to precede perception.¹³²

More importantly, although aesthetic experiences seem to be mainly passive, the subject who lives in them is, as Blaustein put it, exceptionally active (wybitnie czynny).¹³³ As a result of this activity, one constitutes the aesthetic object. Therefore, the object is not given simpliciter: it arises in correlation with the subject’s reaction. However, if a presentation is not a simple reception of what is experienced, then perception seems to be active. In the 1938 essay O ujmowaniu przedmiotów estetycznych [On Apprehending Aesthetic Objects], one reads:

Admittedly, the aesthetic experience is first and foremost a passive experience, an apprehension and perception of aesthetic objects. In addition to the perception of an object, we can also find in it a rich source of experience in which we react to what is given to us in perception. We experience feelings in aesthetic experiences; judgments occur rarely, e.g., in the form of aesthetic assessments; acts of will appear very rarely. However, the activity of the aesthetically experiencing human being is manifested not only in these reactive components of the aesthetic experience but also in its perceptive components—in those in which a seemingly only passive reception of the aesthetic object is present.¹³⁴

The description of the aesthetic experience as passive must be corrected since perception is an active process. More importantly, Blaustein’s view of perception as strictly active is connected with the fact that aesthetic experience is temporal. After all, perception initiates the aesthetic experience, which occurs within a period of time. This preliminary receptive perception changes over time, depending on the aspect which is constituted in the experience. The aesthetic object given in the relevant experience happens over time; it is not given as a whole in one moment. Rather, the aesthetic object is constituted on the basis of objects that are perceptually given at the beginning of the aesthetic experience. Here, perception provides some intuitive presentations. Nonetheless, the object includes different aspects and non-intuitive elements, e.g., a symbolic meaning. For this reason, Blaustein wrote about different “ways of givenness” or “ways of manifestation” (Gegebenheitsweisen) of the object.¹³⁵ These modes, however, are not passively given but are constituted in corresponding experiences. Thus, perception is active because it is involved in the entire process of the aesthetic experience; second, it is ambiguous since it designates different types of perception, which all constitute aesthetic objects. Depending on the relevant attitudes adopted by the subject, these types of perception differ.

The concept of attitude is central to Blaustein’s aesthetics. In this context, Miskiewicz wrote, “[…] what is interesting and truly original about Blaustein is his observation that whether an object or one of its determinations is effective or fictive, for instance, is a function of the way in which the matter of the act specifies the qualities of the object, that is, it is a function of the ‘grasping attitude’.”¹³⁶ In general terms, the function of an attitude consists in apprehending what is experienced: one can adopt different attitudes toward an object. The example analyzed by Blaustein in his Przedstawienia schematyczne i symboliczne [Schematic and Symbolic Presentations] (as was discussed in Sect. 8.2), namely, that a mirror image intends either the real or the imaginative object, shows that what is perceived depends on someone’s attitude toward the object. The object of the aesthetic experience, then, is accessible due to a specific attitude. It is true that, following Miskiewicz, “[f]or Blaustein, perceiving an object is always observing an object with a certain attitude.”¹³⁷ Blaustein differentiates between (1) natural,¹³⁸ (2) imaginative, and (3) signitive attitudes.¹³⁹ Here, one comprehends the object (1) as reproducing (or as the closer and proper object), (2) as imaginative, and (3) as reproduced (or as the distant and improper object), respectively. For instance, if one observes Cleopatra in the theater, then one can focus on (1) the actor as an actor, (2) the actor as Cleopatra, or (3) Cleopatra as an entity that does or does not exist in the real world.

The three forms of attitude described by Blaustein are, of course, involved in the aesthetic experience. After all, a certain attitude constitutes the object as perceived in the corresponding aspect. Blaustein noted that “[w]e live through imaginative presentations in the theater, but our attitude can change at any time, which can cause the focus of our attention to shift to the perception of the actor (the reproducing object); this happens when an actor’s performance is noticeably poor.”¹⁴⁰ Here, the change in attitudes enables one to aesthetically evaluate the object as such. Thus, the phenomenon of an aesthetic attitude is crucial to aesthetic experiences. This also shows that what is experienced is constituted by whole complexes of specific qualities. Here, Blaustein referred to the concept of perception as something focused on certain wholes. When writing about perception in Przedstawienia imaginatywne [Imaginative Presentations], he emphasized that in addition to colors, one is also given “Gestalt qualities.”¹⁴¹ This means the entirety of specific qualities that are given in perception in a certain order. Importantly, however, perception captures not elements of the Gestalt but the entirety of their arrangement precisely as they are arranged. Blaustein stressed that the subject anticipates such wholes. Blaustein understood this “anticipation” or “attitude” as a psychic disposition of referring to complexes of psychic facts.¹⁴² Thus, a given object may be accounted for in different ways, depending on the attitude of its perceiver. Blaustein used a similar description to explain changes in the attitude of a subject to an object that, although unchanged, is captured differently depending on the attitude. One example of this type of perception is accounting for a person on the stage as an actor, another time as, for instance, Shaw’s Cleopatra.

The aesthetic attitude, then, enables one to comprehend some Gestalt qualities, e.g., the harmony of shapes and colors, as the “psychic basis” for aesthetic experience. By claiming this, Blaustein was inspired by Gestalt psychology, but first and foremost, he followed Ingarden, for whom aesthetic experience is directed toward Gestalt qualities.¹⁴³ Blaustein also accepted Ingarden’s view that the aim of aesthetic experience is to constitute a “polyphony” or an organized whole of aesthetic value qualities (on different levels or layers of a work of art). However, contrary to Ingarden,¹⁴⁴ Blaustein did not hold that aesthetic experience is possible only due to some initial emotion. For Blaustein, emotion is possible due to a certain attitude which enables one to anticipate or expect an aesthetically valuable object. In his analysis of the perception of a radio broadcast, he stated that someone’s attitude toward an object determines one’s (anticipated or expected) aesthetic experience:

The expected aesthetic experience may or may not appear; it may be incomplete; it may—despite proper perception and constitution of the aesthetic object—lack aesthetic emotion; it may appear at a lower intensity than expected, e.g., when we perceive the same or similar aesthetic object for the tenth time, when an advertisement or an announcement is superstitious, etc. Thus, expectations that are too high determine the appearance of emotions […].¹⁴⁵

Given that the aim of aesthetic experience is to constitute an aesthetically valuable object, i.e., an object that provides aesthetic pleasure, it is necessary to adopt an adequate attitude. Here, aesthetic perception is possible due to an aesthetic attitude. This attitude situates one outside the surrounding world and allows one to focus on certain Gestalt qualities. In this context, Blaustein wrote about the “isolation” of the aesthetic object: the object given as the aesthetic object is perceived as isolated from the world, i.e., the aesthetic experience presents Gestalt qualities which are not directly given in the perceptual experience.¹⁴⁶

In sum, the role of perception in aesthetic experience is threefold: it determines the form of perception in regard to what is experienced, e.g., perception can apprehend either intuitive or non-intuitive elements; it determines one’s attitude toward the object; and finally, a certain type of perception determines the constitution of the aesthetic object.¹⁴⁷ In contrast to Ingarden, Blaustein held that perception is always necessary for aesthetic experience. Even preliminary emotions are anticipated or expected on the basis of a certain perceptual experience. For Blaustein, then, there is no aesthetic experience without a kind of perception.

Overall, the model of aesthetic experience discussed here has to take into account its temporal nature. The model has to include a few phases: (1) perceptual anticipation or expectation, (2) preliminary emotion, (3) constitution of Gestalt qualities ascribed to aesthetic objects, and (4) aesthetic pleasure or cognitive pleasure as the aim of the experience. The model is presented in the following schema (Schema 8.2):

Schema 8.2

Blaustein’s phasic (temporal) model of aesthetic experiences

For Blaustein, there is no aesthetic experience without preliminary perceptual anticipation of what is given in this experience. Thus, without perception, there is no aesthetic experience at all. By stating this, Blaustein disagreed with Ingarden’s thesis that emotions are the proper source of aesthetic experiences. By contrast, for Blaustein, emotions arise after perceptual anticipation. The next phase consists in ascribing relevant Gestalt qualities to the object; as a result, a viewer “sees” “polyphony” or an organized whole of the aesthetic qualities of the object. This leads to the final phase of the aesthetic experience, which consists in living through aesthetic or cognitive pleasure. Of course, each phase described here can endure relatively long, depending on many factors, e.g., the viewer’s knowledge of the object or the audience’s reaction to the presented object. As such, the model can refer to non-subjective elements. We now discuss two of these factors: the body and intersubjectivity.

8.5.2 The Body and Intersubjectivity

Blaustein’s analysis of the body, its role in aesthetic experience, and its connection to joint or intersubjective experiences is mirrored by the original meaning of “αἴσθησις” (aisthēsis). As Jagna Brudzińska remarked, “[t]he Greek concept of aisthēsis refers to both phenomena of sensuous perception that relate to the five senses and to sensuousness in general.”¹⁴⁸ Indeed, the Greek noun “αἴσθησις” originates in the verb “αἰσθάνομαι” (aisthánomai), which literally means “to perceive.” Brudzińska, then, rightly connected this meaning with perception and sensuousness. However, as she continued, some phenomenologists enlarged the narrow meaning of perception that was formulated by early modern empiricists, who reduced this phenomenon mainly to (passive) sensations. In turn, from a phenomenological point of view, the meaning of “αἴσθησις” also covers the phenomenon of original experience and—as is crucial for aesthetics—phantasmatic and kinesthetic sensations. This description also holds for Blaustein, who understood sensuousness in his aesthetics in the broad context of bodily movements. Blaustein elaborated this general concept at three intertwined levels: (1) the body as the central point of aesthetic perception, which enables the constitution of the aesthetic object by the ongoing perception of it from different perspectives; (2) the body projected into the so-called imaginative world of art; and (3) the body of another subject, which is the basis for empathic perception of the other’s psychic life.

Level (1) is connected to the spatiality of perceived art objects and, more generally, to the phenomenon of the perspectivity of perception. Blaustein emphasized that perception involves different perspectives, and this is possible due to the body of the viewer. In Przedstawienia imaginatywne [Imaginative Presentations], he presented a general description of this phenomenon in the following words:

Whenever I perceive the world around me, I only perceive one part of it. There are other imperceptible parts of this world beyond what I can perceive. The part I am able to perceive, in which I exist at the moment, is filled with a larger or smaller number of spatial objects. My body is, of course, one of these objects. I get bored with the world around me, so I escape from it. After a while I am in a totally different part of it, which is filled with totally different spatial objects. One object in particular was there, however, and must be here too. And that object is my body, which I could not escape from even if I tried. Consequently, my body occupies the central position in the apprehension of any of my spatial relations. Something is behind something else and something is in front of it, something is to the left and something is to the right, depending on the position my body occupies.¹⁴⁹

Blaustein’s description concerns a few aspects of perception: (1) the phenomenon of the perspectivity of perception, (2) the spatiality of a perceived object, (3) the spatiality of the body, and (4) a strict connection between perception and the body, since spatial objects are given in different orientations (back-front, left-right), thus, (5) the body is the zero-point of different orientations because, as Blaustein put it, “I cannot escape from [my body].” It is striking that Blaustein’s analysis mirrored Husserl’s investigations from his Ideen II, in which one reads about the body as the zero-point of spatial orientations¹⁵⁰; however, the book had not yet been published in 1930, when Blaustein published his Przedstawienia imaginatywne [Imaginative Presentations]. It is probably not possible that he had an opportunity to read the text during his stay in Germany. It is arguable that this account is his original contribution to aesthetics. In any case, for Blaustein, the body is the zero-point of the perceived orientations of spatial objects. This, of course, also holds for artworks. In this context, Blaustein drew a parallel between the perspectivity of perception in general and the perspectivity of the artist’s perception: the artist has to find an optimal position while perceiving objects to be depicted or presented in an artwork. This is crucial for the painter since, following Blaustein’s Przyczynki do psychologii widza kinowego [Contributions to the Psychology of the Cinemagoer], “[t]he painter must take a position sufficiently distant from the painted object or objects to capture the entirety of their shape in a single glance, otherwise the painting will be unclear in terms of spatiality.”¹⁵¹ Of course, the zero-point of these artistic orientations or perspectives is the body of the painter or, more precisely, the embodied painter. Analogically, someone who perceives a painting, i.e., the subject of a corresponding aesthetic experience, should find an optimal position while contemplating the artwork. Overall, one has to explore a given space with one’s body to determine which position of the body is optimal for perceiving the artwork. Of course, sometimes an object does not require such movements, e.g., a panorama of mountains which surround the perceiver; however, this is an example which still shows that the body is the zero-point of all orientations, even if positioning movements are unnecessary.

Level (1) corresponds with the most basic experience of the body. It also determines level (2), i.e., the phenomenon of projecting the body (rzutowanie ciała) into the so-called imaginative world of art. In two essays from 1935 and 1938, “O imaginatywnym świecie sztuki” [“On the Imaginative World of Art”] and O ujmowaniu przedmiotów estetycznych [On Apprehending Aesthetic Objects],¹⁵² Blaustein referred to a painting by Jacob van Ruisdael in which one sees a windmill by a river.¹⁵³ He claimed that the landscape represented by the painting contains a series of spatial characteristics. “After all, in Ruisdael’s painting, some objects are higher, others lower, one behind the windmill, the other in the front of the windmill, one closer, the other far away, one to the right, the other to the left.”¹⁵⁴ In other words, the objects represented by the artwork are oriented as if they were in the world that surrounds us. Given, however, that the zero-point of all orientation in the surrounding world is the body, the body is also the zero-point of orientation in the imaginative world, i.e., the world imaginatively presented or perceived by imaginative perception. The objects represented in an artwork are therefore oriented in relation to the body, yet the body here is understood as being projected into the world of the artwork. Therefore, the objects represented “in” the painting are oriented in relation to the ego or to “my body,” i.e., the center of all orientations: objects seem to be placed closer or farther from “me,” meaning “my (projected) body.” The same holds for the experience of watching a movie. The camera occupies a certain point in space, which seems to be the zero-point of orientation, i.e., the body of the perceiver: some objects move closer to “me” or “my body,” whereas other objects are farther from “me” or “my body.”¹⁵⁵ Thus, as Blaustein wrote:

I shall say that this house, this bridge, these towers and mountains group in front of my body, but not before this [body] here sitting on a chair at a desk, but as if projected into this world, which reveals itself when looking at the painting. I am there, but I am invisible. I can even specify the exact place that I project myself. On that side of the bridge, which I cannot see, where a photographer or painter would stand, wanting to photograph or paint the objects I see.¹⁵⁶

For Blaustein, the objects represented by an artwork have a property of quasi-spatiality, i.e., they are interrelated as if they were real objects in the surrounding and spatial world. Given this, however, a crucial question arises: how does one experience these quasi-spatial objects? Blaustein’s key insight in this regard lies in his description of projecting one’s own body into the quasi-world: the objects of the world are organized as if oriented in relation to the projected body. However, the body is “invisible,” since—as already shown in the above analysis of level (1)—it is the zero-point of all orientations; as such, it is not given but enables or gives other objects.

Blaustein’s idea of projecting the body describes the phenomenon of the perspectivity inherent to artworks, including paintings, movies, or theater plays. For him, the aesthetic experience is embodied in at least two senses: (1) it is constituted in corporeal movements, and (2) it changes the way one experiences oneself as the embodied subject. The former is clear if one keeps in mind the situation described above. The latter, however, is more complex: while perceiving a certain artwork, one projects the body into the world represented by the artwork, i.e., the imaginative work of art. Here, the experience of the body divides one’s own body into the body of the perceiver of the artwork and the body projected into the artwork as if one were “there.” Blaustein went even further by claiming that the body can be divided not only into two objects but also into three or more parts. In this regard, he considered the phenomenon of perceiving a photograph of the photographer himself. He wrote:

My body can be divided not only into “two objects” but also into “three objects,” etc., for example, when perceiving my own photograph, when I intend to the imaginative object. It is necessary to distinguish here: a) my body in real space, b) my body as an imaginative object, and c) my projected body; a is given in the perception, b in the imaginative presentation, and c is not given to me at all and cannot be given. If I created them in fantasy while determining the imaginary world, I would have to project my body again, but then it [i.e., the body] would go back and this fourth body d would no longer be given; c would become the subject of creative presentation, but d would take the place of c, and so ad infinitum.¹⁵⁷

Both described levels of experience, (1) and (2), concern the subjective or egocentric mode of embodied experiences, which are focused on “my” body or—to employ Husserl’s language—on a living or subjective body (Leib). Level (3) mainly concerns the phenomenon of perceiving the other’s body—in Husserl’s terminology, a physical or objective body (Körper)¹⁵⁸—and constituting the other’s psychic life on the basis of perceiving a mere physical body. In other words, level (3) concerns the phenomenon of empathy (Einfühlung). In general terms, this phenomenon has to do with the problem of understanding others or the question of social cognition.¹⁵⁹ In the context of art, this phenomenon concerns the problem of understanding the characters represented in a work of art. Blaustein claimed that empathy is crucial for describing aesthetic experience. In O ujmowaniu przedmiotów estetycznych [On Apprehending Aesthetic Objects], he held:

The objects of aesthetic experience are often psychophysical beings or things which do not have a psyche but which are “spiritualized” by us. The perception of such objects requires, among other things, empathy for the states and mental experiences expressed by these beings. Therefore, understanding the expression of a face “on” a screen, the voice of a radio play character, the utterances produced by a character in a novel, etc., depends on the subtlety of the subject’s empathy for the other’s psyche. The subject of aesthetic experience can have this ability to various degrees, and the accuracy and richness of his or her perception of mental states and experiences depend on it. This is a rich source of its [i.e., subject’s] active influence on the shaping of the object of aesthetic experience, whereby, for example, an oversight or misinterpretation of what the subject expresses is often also an oversight of its aesthetic values.¹⁶⁰

When reading this fragment, it comes as no surprise that for Blaustein the perceived physical or objective body of the other is a “psychophysiological” object which is “spiritualized” by the subject in a given aesthetic experience. If one sees a person depicted in a painting or a person filmed in a movie, this person is apprehended as having his or her own psychic life, i.e., as a “spiritual” being or person. The perception of the body is crucial here. In Blaustein’s writings, one finds dozens of examples of this empathic perception; for example, in Przedstawienia schematyczne i symboliczne [Schematic and Symbolic Presentations], he analyzed Hans von Marées’s painting (discussed earlier in a different context in Sect. 8.3) “Die Lebensalter (Orangenbild)” (1877/78): the body of the child there expresses corporeal inactivity; the body of the young man expresses his work and efforts; and the body of the old man expresses a reverie about life, yet this mental state is expressed in the face (i.e., in the body) seen in the painting.¹⁶¹ Interestingly, Blaustein held that empathy is not limited to psychic life; as a more general ability, it can be useful in describing the phenomenon of feeling the emotional atmosphere of an artwork¹⁶² or the phenomenon of feeling that one fictional character empathically has for another fictional character’s psychic life. For example, in Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra, Act I, one sees Cleopatra’s anger at Cesar, who is now dreaming.¹⁶³

Blaustein’s description of empathy as founded on the experience of the body was connected with Ingarden’s idea of “spots of indeterminacy” (Unbestimmtheitsstellen).¹⁶⁴ Here, the psychic life at issue is not given or determined in its properties on the basis of what is given; rather, it has to be constituted. As already stated, empathy for Blaustein is an important element of a given aesthetic experience; without empathy, some “spots of indeterminacy” (in Ingarden’s sense) would remain empty, and thus, the aesthetic experience would remain unfulfilled. All in all, to use Blaustein’s technical language, one can claim that the phenomenon of empathy is an example of a schematic representation. The perceived body is the representing (or closer and proper) object, whereas the psychic life of the character animating that body is the represented (or distant and improper) object; the relation between the body perceived in a work of art and the psychic life ascribed to this body is the relation of a schematic representation. The psychic life cannot be given, though it is projected or empathically perceived while perceiving the image of a body. The depicted body itself is understood here as the imaginative object, which is in turn constituted on the foundation of the apprehended sensations. In sum, one “reads” someone’s psychic life, including the characters represented in a work of art, because one emphatically feels that someone’s life. In his 1932 essay on Goethe’s psychological insights, Blaustein called this ability “understanding” psychology (psychologia “rozumiejąca”), which refers to introspection and understanding other persons.¹⁶⁵

In his 1937 text on the use of psychology in the social sciences, Blaustein was clear that psychology cannot ignore the fact that solitary human psychic life and communal lived experiences are divergent. He explicitly claimed that one experiences differently while being alone or in a well-organized community; he referred to the following observations: “[…] a human being thinks less independently and critically in a crowd; one’s beliefs become fairly fluid; their dependence on feelings and wishes becomes greater; affects grow stronger; self-confidence, wildness, sensitivity, courage, self-sacrifice increases, etc.”¹⁶⁶ However, Blaustein did not stop there. He stated that there are unique common experiences which are shared by many experiencing subjects. For instance, the phenomenon of a collective panic or an audience’s enthusiasm for a sporting event is not a sum of individual or solitary experiences. Rather, following Blaustein, these experiences shape a new form of collective experience. He described the phenomenon of collective experiences as living through in the same way as other individuals (przeżywa tak jak inne jednostki), which means—regarding lived experiences—that one has collective mental content that connects the individuals at issue.¹⁶⁷ Here, one acts jointly (działa wspólnie) and cooperates to produce joint products. Thus, for Blaustein, one’s psychic life is co-constituted by others.

In an appendix to the 1938 essay O percepcji słuchowiska radiowego [On the Perception of Radio Drama],¹⁶⁸ Blaustein considered the idea of joint or shared aesthetic experiences by focusing on the question about the subject of a radio broadcast: is it a solitary subject who aesthetically experiences the broadcast, or is one justified in considering the audience a group of subjects sharing a “common” experience?¹⁶⁹ Blaustein accepted that one has, as he put it, an “isolated aesthetic experience,” but these experiences can be determined by a group or community of subjects. Therefore, there are indeed subjective aesthetic experiences, but there are also “joint” (wspólne) lived experiences which can be determined by their intensity, quality, or duration. In a radio broadcast, this phenomenon is possible not because of a joint aesthetic object which is subjective through and through but because of a joint emotional attitude which is built in joint actions, such as in the applause heard in a radio broadcast. The influence of a community on a solitary subject of an aesthetic experience can be complex: Blaustein noted, for instance, the phenomenon of one’s attention being shaped by others, he stated that young people can shape older people’s contemplation of a work of art, the entire audience can wait for something to be presented in a radio broadcast, or there can be a certain “atmosphere” or “mood” (nastrój) that is shaped by the entire audience.¹⁷⁰ He emphasized that such aesthetic experiences share a joint intention. He was aware that there is no strict influence or causal link between a community and a solitary subject; however, he noticed strong “suggestions” or “motivations,” which are constituted on the basis of communal or joint experiences:

[…] the influence of the audience can affect the very course of experience and not just its external expressions. It can cause new phenomena, e.g., seeing beauty, or it can change the intensity of experiences, e.g., weaken admiration and even modify the quality of experiences. A viewer who does not like something at first may like it because of a suggestion made by the environment.¹⁷¹

Blaustein held that these descriptions are also adequate for an audience in a cinema or theater, where a solitary experience is shaped by joint emotional reactions, such as laughing together at an actor’s joke.¹⁷² In sum, one can argue that for Blaustein, the subject of aesthetic experience is both embodied and embedded in a community.

8.5.3 Judgments in Aesthetic Experience: Blaustein’s Disagreement with Filozofówna

Aesthetic experience consists in a complex act which binds presentations with judgments and volition.¹⁷³ This claim seems to correspond to Brentano’s general idea that every mental phenomenon includes presentations (as its basis), judgments, and emotions.¹⁷⁴ As already stated in Sect. 3.1.2, in the 1874 book, Psychologie, one finds the thesis that “[…] the three classes are of the utmost universality; there is no mental act in which all three are not present.”¹⁷⁵ While discussing this thesis earlier, I suggested that Blaustein rejected it and instead held that there are mental acts—aesthetic experiences—in which only presentations are at play; of course, a judgment can be part of this type of experience, but it is not necessarily part of these lived experiences. For him, one can judge, for instance, an aesthetic object as beautiful, yet one may also contemplate it without any judgment; to employ Brentano’s language, in Blaustein’s aesthetics, one does not accept or reject any presentations in aesthetic experiences. Blaustein presented his position in detail in an interesting polemic with Irena Filozofówna. In Sect. 5.3.2, I discussed their debate as focused on methodological issues. Now, I will discuss the question of the place of judgments in aesthetic experience.

First, however, let me note that Filozofówna’s criticism of Blaustein’s aesthetics was connected with her descriptive-psychological studies on actors’ performances. In her early writings, she referred to Alexius Meinong’s idea of assumptions (Annahmen), i.e., fantasy experiences placed between presentations and judgments, to describe how an actor performs her role.¹⁷⁶ Filozofówna understood that judgments are object-directed mental phenomena which are determined by the relevant conviction that the object exists or not; in turn, assumptions lack that moment of conviction. For her, assumptions are in fact “pretended” (na niby) judgments. Filozofówna recognized that her use of the phrase “pretended judgments” (sądy na niby) was in accordance with Władysław Witwicki.¹⁷⁷ For the latter, such “pretended” judgments are lived, for instance, by the reader of a novel: while reading a novel, one does not live through beliefs about the existence of the described events; rather, one only lives through judgments regarding these events.¹⁷⁸ Filozofówna stated that the same holds for an actor who does not have to live in real emotions but only in “pretended” judgments. Nevertheless, “pretended” judgments or assumptions are similar to “real” judgments, as they are either affirmative or negative.

In her debate with Blaustein, Filozofówna generalized these claims and held that every experience includes judgments; even if the judgments are not explicit, they are present as “vague” judgments or as assumptions. She used this idea to describe the way in which an actor performs “pretended” emotions on the stage. With this in mind, Filozofówna asserted that Blaustein’s theory of presentations bore the mark of a fundamental mistake: he confused presentations with judgments which—according to Brentano and Twardowski—form distinct classes of mental phenomena. She specified that Blaustein did not extract presentations, i.e., simple intentional acts, from complex acts which combine, among other things, judgments. Consequently, he ascribed features that are typical of judgments to presentations. In her commentary on Blaustein’s Przedstawienia imaginatiwne [Imaginative Presentations] and “W sprawie wyobrażeń imaginatywnych” [“On Imaginative Presentations”], she wrote:

Dr. Blaustein claims that in presentations we grasp the presented object as this particular object [jako ten właśnie] and as such and such [jako taki a taki]; the related judgments or suppositions which are connected in some cases with presentations are the result of this and no other approach to the object due to the matter of the presentation, which already attributes something to the object, yet less clearly. I suppose that this view came from the fact that there were also other elements besides presentations which were used in the analysis of the structure of presentations. They were not extracted from mere complex experiences that included them, and they were not completely separated from their related judgments. As a result, researchers consider pure presentations as attributed with such properties as “ascribing” features to the object, “interpreting” them, “attributing” features to the object, even “thinking” of it as such and such [jako o takim a takim]. The use of these expressions to determine the functions of presentations is suspicious to me, even if not done in a literal sense. It is as if I wanted to describe the act of judging in detail and could not say they [i.e., these expressions] describe that in the act of judging, I “present” something to myself. I believe that presentations are qualitatively different from judgments, that they only present something whereas judgments grasp this something as such and such; judgments can grasp something falsely or truly. These are features of psychological facts called judgments.¹⁷⁹

In light of the passage, one might see that Filozofówna commented on Blaustein’s idea that judgments (and assumptions) are based upon presentations. Presentations, in turn, serve to present the relevant object as this particular object (jako ten właśnie) and as such and such (jako taki a taki). In short, the object is presented as determined by all its properties; thus, it is already equipped with an entire set of properties. However, in Filozofówna’s view, that presentations have a dual function of accepting or rejecting is questionable; instead, it is typical of judgments, which accept or reject relevant presentations. For her, judgments enable one to accept or reject the relevant object, which is given as being equipped with certain features; while judging, one “ascribes” features to the represented object, or one “interprets” the object as being such and such. Consequently, without this, the object cannot be presented as such and such. Thus, Blaustein seemed to confuse the “presenting” function of presentations with the “ascribing” or “interpreting” function of judgments. In her commentary, Filozofówna held that the function of intending objects as such and such, i.e., the intentional directedness of any presentation, is possible not because of the matter of the act (as Blaustein held) but because of judgments. To justify her view, she referred to the example of mistaken identity: imagine that one sees someone walking down the street and taking them to their friend, but this person later turns out to be a stranger, and one has to recognize the initial belief as false; although the viewer has the same perceptual presentation in both cases, i.e., seeing a person before and after the mistaken recognition, as well as the same presenting content, the content is apprehended or interpreted differently. Filozofówna claimed that the difference lies in different judgments: the initial affirmative judgment (“I do see a friend of mine”) and the final negative judgment (“I do not see a friend of mine”).¹⁸⁰ All in all, she held that presentations are about their objects, whereas judgments interpret or apprehend them.¹⁸¹ Filozofówna concluded that it is wrong to accept imaginative presentations as a separate class of presentations since Blaustein’s idea can equally well be described within Twardowski’s (and Brentano’s) theory, namely, as a combination of basic presentation and relevant judgment.

In her review published in Polskie Archiwum Psychologii [Polish Archive of Psychology] in 1932, Filozofówna formulated an analogical argument against Blaustein’s theory, which was discussed in Przedstawienia schematyczne i symboliczne [Schematic and Symbolic Presentations]. She summarized Blaustein’s position with the example of looking at a map: initially, one has a perceptual presentation of an undefined object, but after being informed that the object is a map, one has a schematic presentation of the schematized land. These presentations, in turn, may serve as the basis of relevant judgments; however, for Blaustein, judgments are possible only on the basis of presentations and not vice versa.¹⁸² The same holds for symbolic presentations. For Blaustein, both types of presentations are sui generis presentations and are thus irreducible to perceptual presentations or, more importantly, to other types of mental phenomena, including judgments. By contrast, for Filozofówna, schematic and symbolic presentations are not simple acts but complex acts which combine perceptual presentations with judgments.¹⁸³ For Blaustein, if they were a combination of basic presentations and judgments, one should accept an additional judgment which would indicate a parallel or similarity between the presented (a schema or a symbol) and represented objects (a schematized object or a symbolized meaning). This, however, does not account for the aesthetic experience, in which one presents the symbol and its represented meaning in one act without an additional judgment. Filozofówna disagreed with Blaustein, and she held that judgment is always present in such an experience yet as a mere assumption that is not explicitly present. These assumptions are present, as Filozofówna put it, “on the fringe of consciousness” (obwód świadomości).¹⁸⁴ This, however, does not mean that they are different from experience; rather, they build a complex experience composed of basic perceptual images and non-intuitive judgments. Therefore, in Filozofówna’s view, Blaustein was wrong in claiming that one has to actively judge the similarity; judgment is always present in these experiences, but it is only passive: it is not an actual experience.

In his reply to Filozofówna’s criticism, Blaustein held that her reconstruction of his theory put forward in Przedstawienia imaginatiwne [Imaginative Presentations], as well as in Przedstawienia schematyczne i symboliczne [Schematic and Symbolic Presentations], is inadequate.¹⁸⁵ In this regard, he formulated six counterarguments. (1) Her thesis that Blaustein held that matter is the main element which determines the intentional relation was wrong. Blaustein’s taxonomy is based instead on different relations between presenting content and the object of presentation. (2) Blaustein’s main idea cannot be reduced to the parallel between perception and judgment, understood as the parallel between the functions of presenting and apprehending. In other words, Filozofówna’s main argument that Blaustein obscured the nature of imaginative, symbolic, and schematic presentations, all of which, for her ought to be founded on judgments, did not take into account the clear difference in experiencing different objects. He held that if one accepts Filozofówna’s view, one cannot understand the difference in experiencing, among other things, a painting, a sculpture, a movie, a theater play, etc. For Filozofówna, they are all combinations of perceptual presentations and judgments. By contrast, Blaustein stated that the differences here are unique (swoiste), and he suggested that they are founded in various ways or modes of presentation. These different modes are evident and, as Blaustein put it, intuitively unquestionable (intuicyjnie niewątpliwe).¹⁸⁶ (3) Filozofówna’s position is problematic; if only judgments enable one to ascribe a feature to the object given in a presentation, then one has to make an endless number of judgments before the relevant experience takes place since an object is attributed with all its features at the very beginning of the experience.¹⁸⁷ For this reason, presentations enable judgments, but not vice versa. Next, (4) Filozofówna’s view that one is initially directed toward something the features of which are undetermined and that only judgments determine these features is problematic. This would suggest that judgments are preceded by undefined or general presentations, but judgments require rather concrete presentations.¹⁸⁸ (5) Presentations cannot be true or false: only judgments can be either true or false. Contrary to Filozofówna, presentations are adequate or inadequate, and they may otherwise be quasi-adequate. Finally, (6) Filozofówna’s example of illusory experience, i.e., the example of mistaken recognition, presupposes that image does not change what is problematic; moreover, it does not explain the motive for the change in judgment or the change in attitude. Overall, Filozofówna was wrong in claiming that judgments are necessary in aesthetic experience.

Filozofówna’s criticism can be clarified in Blaustein’s technical language as follows: she confused two forms of representation (described above in Sect. 8.2.1), i.e., logical and psychological representations. Whereas the former is a logical or semiotic relation between a sign and its object, the latter lies in subjective experience. For instance, the judgment “S is P” can be either true or false, yet if one does not represent S as P, the judgment is incomprehensible for the subject; S is not given as P. Therefore, paradoxically, if Filozofówna is indeed right and experience is determined by judgments, one falls into the fallacy of logical psychologism, which consists in reducing propositions (judgments in a logical sense) to mere (psychic) presentations. Blaustein, in turn, while he emphasized a clear distinction between logical and psychological representations, can abandon the charge of logical psychologism. Judgments, then, are made on the psychic basis of presentations, yet they are irreducible to presentations.¹⁸⁹ In addition, following Blaustein’s critical comment on Tadeusz Witwicki’s book on representations that was published in Polskie Archiwum Psychologii [Polish Archive of Psychology], it is false that experiences necessarily include judgments.¹⁹⁰ Of course, they can justify judgments, yet they are not possible due to judgments.

Blaustein’s discussion with Filozofówna can also be read in the wider context of the Brentanian tradition; namely, it enables one to define his position within the psychological trend of the Lvov–Warsaw School and his view on the Graz School. As already stated, Filozofówna referred to Władysław Witwicki in arguing that judgments are parts of aesthetic experiences. This argument was based on Witwicki’s theory of perception. In the first volume of his Psychologia [Psychology], he adopted the Brentanian idea that perception provides perceptual images, but it is accompanied by the belief that the perceived object exists; as he insisted, the belief is a “new psychic element,” which is understood as a judgment.¹⁹¹ The fact that a perceptual image can be true or false stems from this very part of the mental phenomenon and not from presentations. Consequently, Witwicki understood perceptions (spostrzeżenia) as wholes composed of perceptual images and judgments.¹⁹² In Blaustein, as shown above, one finds the opposite view that perceptions can be composed solely of relevant presentations, with judgments being unnecessary. In his review of the commemorative book that was devoted to Witwicki, Blaustein criticized the view that apprehension of the relevant object given in perception is based on both presentations and judgments; instead, one has to take into account the function of the act’s content. More importantly, Blaustein held that judgments are not introspectively given in perception. Furthermore, it is wrong to claim that one comprehends an object in the world as real because of judgments which concern individual objects but because of a general attitude toward the world. Finally, every perceptual act would require an infinite sequence of judgments to comprehend an object.¹⁹³ In this regard, it is arguable that Blaustein’s assessment of Filozofówna’s position can be regarded as a consequence of his critical view of Witwicki’s theory. It is worth noting that Witwicki was the supervisor of Filozofówna’s doctoral dissertation; therefore, one can draw a line within the psychological trend of the Lvov–Warsaw School, at least in the context discussed here.

As noted above, Filozofówna also referred to Meinong’s theory of assumptions. She held that even if one does not explicitly live in relevant judgment, there are assumptions which are always present in one’s experience and which function as judgments. Blaustein rejected this view, but his view of Meinong and Witasek (who was a member of the Graz School) is complex. For instance, in Przedstawienia imaginatiwne [Imaginative Presentations], he stated that imaginative presentation can serve as a psychic basis for fantasy emotions, which are understood as emotional correlates of the relevant assumptions in Meinong’s sense.¹⁹⁴ In this vein, he held that a viewer in a theater can have assumptions (in addition to imaginative presentations) but not judgments.¹⁹⁵ Additionally, in a cinema, a viewer understands the perceived objects due to assumptions, not judgments.¹⁹⁶ Furthermore, Blaustein accepted Meinong’s and Witasek’s idea of “judgment-feelings” (Urteilsgefühle) as feelings based on judgments as their psychological foundation.¹⁹⁷ However, he disagreed with Witasek, who held that assumptions and judgments are always present in aesthetic experience.¹⁹⁸ It is worth noting that Witasek, while discussing the example of perceiving a picture of a sphere, identified the following elements in perceptual experience: perceptual presentation (Wahrnehmungsvorstellung), assumption (Annahme), judgment (Urteil), the presented object, and pleasure (Lustgefühl).¹⁹⁹ In Blaustein’s opinion, Witasek’s description can be simplified if one includes imaginative presentations instead of combinations of presentations, assumptions, and judgments. With this in mind, one can argue that Blaustein’s criticism of Filozofówna incorporated his attitude toward the Graz School; after all, he generally accepted the theory of assumptions, but he disagreed that assumptions should be understood as necessary parts of aesthetic experience. In this regard, he comprehended his original theory of imaginative presentations as being consistent with the theories of Meinong or Witasek. However, if Filozofówna attempted to reduce imaginative (and consequently schematic and symbolic) presentations to combinations of presentations and judgments or assumptions, he questioned this kind of reduction. Therefore, from a broader perspective, the discussion with Filozofówna illustrates to what extent Blaustein accepted the theories of Meinong and Witasek.***

Blaustein’s aesthetics is, of course, a complex theory. It is based on the general theory of presentations discussed above in Chaps. 4 and 6. According to him, aesthetic experience has to be understood as a complex act which combines different mental phenomena, presentations, judgments, or volitions, yet presentations play a central role here. The subject who lives through (durchlebt) relevant presentations constitutes the aesthetic object. Blaustein was clear that although the preliminary phase is passive, the subject is strictly active in adopting adequate attitudes toward the object. Next, the aesthetic object may be constituted on the basis of either artistic (e.g., a painting, a theater play) or non-artistic objects (e.g., a mirror image, a view of mountains). His detailed descriptions of different types of aesthetic experience show that he was sensitive to their complex structures and thus to many purely descriptive nuances.

To conclude this chapter, it should be noted that Blaustein’s original contribution to aesthetics consists in his theory of different types of aesthetic experiences—founded on different types of perception—which are correlated with different types of aesthetic objects, including (1) imaginative, (2) schematic, and (3) symbolic objects. Blaustein held that all types of aesthetic experiences are founded on unique (1) imaginative, (2) schematic, and (3) symbolic presentations, which are irreducible to either perceptual presentations, or creative or reproduced presentations (in Twardowski’s sense, as discussed in Sect. 4.1.2). To show this, Blaustein analyzed a variety of aesthetic phenomena, such as seeing a painting, contemplating a sculpture, watching a movie, or a theater play, not to mention everyday experiences, all of which intend a dual object: either (1) the closer and proper object that is actually given in the aesthetic experience or (2) the distant and improper object that is indirectly given or represented in the aesthetic experience. The main problem inherent to Blaustein’s idea of representing and represented objects lies in the ambiguous connection to the real and (purely or also) intentional object (in Ingarden’s sense). For Blaustein, a certain object is given to the subject only if she adopts an adequate attitude. The phenomenon of an attitude shows that while adopting an attitude, one grasps the object in a certain way or “as” something.

Overall, the model of the aesthetic experience formulated by Blaustein has to include (1) the act, which synthesizes (2) presenting content which, in turn, is given in a triple attitude toward (a) the real object, grasped “as” (b) the reproducing (closer and proper) object or (c) the reproduced (distant and improper) object. The real object becomes the reproducing object if one adopts an attitude toward, following Blaustein, the “imaginative world of art.” Of course, the character of (b) depends on the type of art: it may be a group of colors and shapes on canvas or phantoms on the silver screen. Therefore, the model of aesthetic experience in Blaustein’s philosophy can be presented in the following schema (Schema 8.3):

Schema 8.3

The model of aesthetic experience in Blaustein’s philosophy

This model, of course, presents a general structure which, again, can vary depending on the artistic (and, consequently, depending on the type of art in question) or non-artistic object that is intentionally given in the aesthetic experience. This model can be found in the background of many of Blaustein’s detailed descriptions, and as such, it presents the theoretical basis of his descriptive aesthetics.