Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T01:28:49.052Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Aesthetics and Ethics in Gadamer, Levinas, and Romanticism: Problems of Phronesis and Techne

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

David P. Haney
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Aristotle's distinction between phronesis, or ethical knowledge, and techne, or productive knowledge, is relevant both to Romantic and to modern discussions of the relations between aesthetic and ethical experience. Wordsworth and Coleridge try in different ways to negotiate between the two kinds of knowledge, advocating the ethical force of poetry while acknowledging its status as techne; in contrast, modern criticism tends either to accept the ubiquity of techne or to revive phronesis while undervaluing the tension between the two. Hans-Georg Gadamer and Emmanuel Levinas provide a way to link phronesis to aesthetic autonomy through the means-end unity of phronesis and the ethical claim of the other, although Gadamer overemphasizes the autonomy of the artwork and Levinas under-emphasizes the ethical possibilities of the aesthetic. Wordsworth and Coleridge present the ethical encounter with the other as in tension with techne, but they also show that tension itself to be ethically significant.

Type
Special Topic: Ethics and Literary Study
Information
PMLA , Volume 114 , Issue 1: Special Topic Ethics and Literary Study Introduction by Lawrence Buell , January 1999 , pp. 32 - 45
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Altieri, Charles. Canons and Consequences: Reflections on the Ethical Force of Imaginative Ideals. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1990.Google Scholar
Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. Irwin, Terence. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1985.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Illuminations. Trans. Zohn, Harry. New York: Schocken, 1969. 217–51.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Richard J. “From Hermeneutics to Praxis.” Hermeneutics and Praxis. Ed. Hollinger, Robert. Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame P, 1985. 272–96.Google Scholar
Booth, Wayne C. The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction. Berkeley: U of California P, 1988.Google Scholar
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. Aurora Leigh. Ed. Reynolds, Margaret. Norton Critical Ed. New York: Norton, 1996.Google Scholar
Cavell, Stanley. In Quest of the Ordinary: Lines of Skepticism and Romanticism. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1988.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Biographia Literaria. Ed. Engell, James and Bate, W. Jackson. 2 vols. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1983. Vol. 7 of Coleridge, Collected Works.Google Scholar
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Bollingen Series 75. 13 vols. to date. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1969–.Google Scholar
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Lectures 1808–1819 on Literature. Ed. Foakes, R. A. 2 vols. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1987. Vol. 5 of Coleridge, Collected Works.Google Scholar
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Vol. 2. Ed. Coburn, Kathleen. New York: Bollingen Foundation, 1961.Google Scholar
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Poetical Works. Ed. Ernest Hartley Coleridge. 1912. London: Oxford UP, 1967.Google Scholar
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Table Talk. Ed. Woodring, Carl. 2 vols. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1990. Vol. 14 of Coleridge, Collected Works.Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles, and Guattari, Félix. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Hurley, Robert et al. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983.Google Scholar
Eagleton, Terry. The Ideology of the Aesthetic. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990.Google Scholar
Ellison, Julie. Delicate Subjects: Romanticism, Gender, and the Ethics of Understanding. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1990.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Frances. “Coleridge and the Deluded Reader: ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.‘” Post-structuralist Readings of English Poetry. Ed. Machin, Richard and Norris, Christopher. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1987. 248–63.Google Scholar
Figal, Günter. “Phronesis as Understanding.” The Specter of Relativism: Truth, Dialogue, and Phronesis in Philosophical Hermeneutics. Ed. Schmidt, Lawrence K. Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1995. 236–47.Google Scholar
Foster, Matthew. Gadamer and Practical Philosophy: The Hermeneutics of Moral Confidence. American Academy of Religion Studies in Religion 64. Atlanta: Scholars, 1991.Google Scholar
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. “Hermeneutics and Logocentrism.” Michelfelder and Palmer 114–25.Google Scholar
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. The Idea of the Good in Platonic-Aristotelian Philosophy. Trans. Smith, P. Christopher. New Haven: Yale UP, 1986.Google Scholar
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. “Letter to Dallmayr.” Michelfelder and Palmer 93–101.Google Scholar
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. “On the Contribution of Poetry to the Search for Truth.” Gadamer, Relevance 105–15.Google Scholar
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. “On the Truth of the Word.” Trans. Lawrence K. Schmidt and Monika Reuss. The Specter of Relativism. Ed. Schmidt, . Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1995. 135–55.Google Scholar
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. “Poetry and Mimesis.” Gadamer, Relevance 116–22.Google Scholar
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. “The Relevance of the Beautiful.” Gadamer, Relevance 3–53.Google Scholar
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. “The Relevance of the Beautiful” and Other Essays. Ed. Bernasconi, Robert. Trans. Walker, Nicholas. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986.Google Scholar
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. “Reply to Jacques Derrida.” Michelfelder and Palmer 55–57.Google Scholar
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. “Text and Interpretation.” Michelfelder and Palmer 21–51.Google Scholar
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. 2nd rev. ed. Rev. trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall. New York: Crossroad, 1990.Google Scholar
Greenblatt, Stephen. “Towards a Poetics of Culture.” The New Historicism. Ed. Veeser, H. Aram. New York: Routledge, 1989. 1–14.Google Scholar
Haney, David P. “Poetry as Super-genre in Wordsworth: Presentation and Ethics.” European Romantic Review 5 (1994): 73–89.Google Scholar
Haney, David P. ‘“Rents and Openings in the Ideal World’: Eye and Ear in Wordsworth.” Studies in Romanticism 36 (1997): 173–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haney, David P. William Wordsworth and the Hermeneutics of Incarnation. Literature and Philosophy Series. University Park: Penn State UP, 1993.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin. “Building Dwelling Thinking.” Poetry, Language, Thought. Trans. Hofstadter, Albert. New York: Harper, 1971. 145–61.Google Scholar
Levinas, Emmanuel. Otherwise Than Being; or, Beyond Essence. Trans. Lingis, Alphonso. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1981.Google Scholar
Levinas, Emmanuel. “Reality and Its Shadow.” The Levinas Reader. Ed. Hand, Seán. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1989. 129–43.Google Scholar
Levinas, Emmanuel. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Trans. Lingis, Alphonso. Duquesne Studies Philosophical Series 24. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP, 1969.Google Scholar
Levinson, Marjorie. Wordsworth's Great Period Poems: Four Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986.Google Scholar
Lockridge, Laurence S. Coleridge the Moralist. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1977.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. 2nd ed. Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame P, 1984.Google Scholar
Marshall, Donald G. “Dialogue and Ecriture.” Michelfelder and Palmer 206–14.Google Scholar
McGann, Jerome J. “The Meaning of the Ancient Mariner.” Spirits of Fire: English Romantic Writers and Contemporary Historical Methods. Ed. Rosso, G. A. and Watkins, Daniel P. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 1990. 208–39.Google Scholar
McGann, Jerome J. The Romantic Ideology: A Critical Investigation. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1983.Google Scholar
Michelfelder, Diane P., and Palmer, Richard E., eds. Dialogue and Deconstruction. SUNY Series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy. Albany: State U of New York P, 1989.Google Scholar
Miller, J. Hillis. The Ethics of Reading. New York: Columbia UP, 1987.Google Scholar
Moorman, Mary. William Wordsworth: A Biography. The Early Years, 1770–1803. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1957.Google Scholar
Newton, Adam Zachary. Narrative Ethics. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1995.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha C. Love's Knowledge: Essays on Literature and Philosophy. New York: Oxford UP, 1990.Google Scholar
Ricoeur, Paul. Oneself as Another. Trans. Blarney, Kathleen. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1992.Google Scholar
Rorty, Richard. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Barbara Herrnstein. Contingencies of Value: Alternative Perspectives for Critical Theory. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1988.Google Scholar
Williams, Bernard. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1985.Google Scholar
Wordsworth, William. The Fourteen-Book Prelude. Ed. Owen, W. J. B. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1985.Google Scholar
Wordsworth, William. Poems in Two Volumes, and Other Poems, 1800–1807. Ed. Curtis, Jared. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1983.Google Scholar
Wordsworth, William. The Prose Works of William Wordsworth. Ed. Owen, W. J. B. and Smyser, J. W. 3 vols. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1974.Google Scholar
Wyschogrod, Edith. “The Art in Ethics: Aesthetics, Objectivity, and Alterity in the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas.” Ethics as First Philosophy: The Significance of Emmanuel Levinas for Philosophy, Literature, and Religion. Ed. Peperzak, Adriaan T. New York: Routledge, 1995. 137–48.Google Scholar