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In the previous essay, it was suggested that it is the conceptualisation of the world that gives rise to Dasein’s understanding of Being-in-the-world, rather than, as has been suggested, the imagination and its sensory “point of view”. The imagination, then, can provide us with a “representation” of lived time, a representation that certainly has a structural commonality with the temporality of actual lived time. We also suggested that the epistemological characterisation of fictional narrative, which prioritises its relation to particular states of affairs in the real actual lived world, is not helpful insofar as ontology is concerned—insofar, that is , that this approach will not enable us to arrive at an essence-specifying characterisation of narration. We maintained that the “historical voice” is probably being used in fictional narrative, and whilst the actual past may be the primary focus for the historian, it is a possible past and possible future, that is the focus of attention for the fictional narrator.
“Ordinary temporality”, Ricoeur argues, is refigured in fiction, in a process which he describes in terms of “imaginary variations”. We should recall, in the context of this discussion, the appeal in the previous chapter, to “games with time”, and the experimentation with rules that could even include “shattering” the normal temporal relation Dasein has to its world. In the world of the imagination, “everything is possible”, i.e. everything is a possible schema of something.
Ricoeur explores three works in order to illustrate this re-figuration of time and its “imaginary variations”, as part of the process of elaborating upon what he calls the hierarchical depths of temporal experience. Literature, Ricoeur argues:
“proceeds by way of imaginative variations.Each of the three works under consideration, freeing itself in this way from the most linear aspects of time, in return, explore the hierarchical levels that form the depth of temporal experience. Fictional narrative, thus detects temporalities that are more or less extended, offering in each instance, a different figure of recollection of eternity in or out of time, and, I will add, of the secret relation between eternity and death. Let us now allow ourselves to be instructed by these three tales about time.”(P.101)
The above reference to eternity, to a time that stretches beyond the scope of human sensibility, and therefore presumably of the sensory aspect of our imagination, must be something which is conceptualised, and therefore understood by the categorical part of our minds, interacting in accordance with the principles of the reasoning part of our minds. It is possible, of course, in the case of any concept, to discover in a process of conceptual analysis, the intuitive schema of that concept which, of course, is a construct of the power of the imagination. Referring to this in terms of “recollection”, and as a “secret relation between eternity and death”, appears to exclude conceptualisation and reasoning, thus leaving the imagination free to operate without constraint, and in the spirit of “everything is possible”(perhaps in relation to the rules of sensibility, whatever they may be).
Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs Dalloway” is the first “tale about time” Ricoeur consults. The description he provides of the events of the novel, however, in no way “shatters” the temporality of the represented time of the characters. Indeed the whole scene of the narrative appears to be a June day in 1923. Time is represented in the same way it would be in any report given by someone to someone else, of the activity of people they know on a particular summer day. The actions, thoughts, and emotions of the characters of Mrs Dalloway occur in a before-after sequence, and there is no difficulty with understanding the represented time of the narrative, which occurs in hearing distance of Big Ben—clocks and calendars appear to be functioning normally in the narrative in the same way in which they do in actual lived time. The above “dating”, anchors the represented time in the lived time of History, and the events and activities are all conceivable in the same way as they would be in a narrative report about the real events of that time.
The problem with attempting to define fictional narrative in terms of its epistemological correspondence with reality is that this kind of approach does not acknowledge Aristotle’s “many meanings of Being”, nor is there any acknowledgement of the Late Wittgenstein’s insistence that Language can indeed be used for saying how things are(even if there are many other uses as well). There are, as Wittgenstein perhaps misleadingly put the matter, “many different language games”, and language games are, on this account , intimately related to the Aristotelian sounding notion of “forms of life”(Psuche). Forms of life are obviously more related to practical activities than theoretical speculation, and the activity connected with the speaking of language moves, for Wittgenstein, from asking for the meaning of a word, to asking for how the word is used in a language game embedded in a particular form of life. Heidegger and Wittgenstein concentrate in their very different ways upon the representing of “possibilities”. For Heidegger, this concentration involves the representation of “possible ways to be”. The representation by Virginia Woolf of one day(in 1923) in the life of Mrs Dalloway represents possible human interactions on that day, but there is also involved in the creation of this work, an important universal dimension which intends to say something important and necessary about the characters of the novel and the time they lived in. We can see in this literary example, a startling similarity to the way in which language is used in Historical writings. The difference, between these two different forms of narration, relates to the the difference of intention with which historians write( attempting to provide knowledge of historical events) and the intention of a creative artist who is seeking to provide knowledge of a very different kind to their readers, e.g. knowledge of ethics and what ought and ought not to be done. In the case of the Historian, documentation from significant institutions of society, and evidence, form the scientific foundation for the judgements that are being made. Of course, it is true that the name “Mrs Dalloway” is not the name of a real person, and is not therefore connected in the normal way with an actual birth, childhood, adolescence, and adult life. Historical writings concern themselves with the real actions, thoughts, emotions, and judgements of real people.Fictional names have a complex logic of their own, but the logical relation between a real action and its reason in History, and a represented action and its reason in fiction, is the same: the same holds for represented judgement and the reasons for the judgment.
The Kantian analysis of aesthetic judgment refers to the idea of exemplary universality and it is this type of universality that is operating in the realm of the aesthetic choices being made by Woolf in the creation of the characters for her novels. This, of course, is not the same form of universality the Historian is aiming for, in the production of their writings. The skill of both types of narrators lies in their use of language to accomplish the different goals that arise from these different forms of life. In the case of Virginia Woolf the aesthetic quality of her work will largely be determined by her skillful use of the language she uses to represent the characters and the time and place they live in. The temporal structures that are represented, accord well with the temporal structures of our life-worlds. Big Ben signals the time in this “possible world”, in exactly the same way as it does in our actual real world.
It is only if one is a prisoner of an epistemologically oriented theory of language(which claims that the “actual” existence and description or naming of this existence, is the primary use of language overshadowing all other uses of language) that one can allow oneself to believe that “everything is possible” in fiction, even the dissolution of temporality. The mere potentiality of the fictional medium to conceptualise possible pasts and possible futures, maintains the structure of a coherent past-present-future continuum. The language of fiction is embedded in a human form of life in the same way as our everyday language is embedded in our everyday forms of life. The account of a character committing suicide is not significantly different to the real account of a real suicide and the one account could never be confused with the other, because we know that in the case of fiction we are dealing with mimesis(imitative representation). If, for example, Mrs Dalloway sat on a pin, her behavioural reaction will be evaluated in exactly the same way as it would in an everyday context in which we express sympathy. If she cries out in pain we understand that the pin was the cause. If she sat on a pin and did not respond at all, we would understand that there was a reason for the inhibition of a reaction.
Ricoeur claimed that there was a refiguration of time occurring in fictional narrative. It is not clear what is meant with this term. All that appears to be happening is that we are encountering “time represented”. We suggested in the last part of this review, that the term “point of view” may be playing a supporting role for Ricoeur’s epistemologically oriented theory. This is contained in Ricoeur’s concluding remarks about Mrs Dalloway:
“This experience of time is neither that of Clarissa nor that of Septimus: it is neither that of Peter nor that of any other character. Instead, it is suggested to the reader by the revelation of one solitary experience in another solitary experience. It is this network taken as a whole, that is the experience of time in Mrs Dalloway”(P.112)
This notion of a “point of view” and its connection to “solitary” or solipsistic experiences, is a clear reference to the interiorisation of experience that occurred as a consequence of the epistemological discussions of the 20th century. Once this interiorisation of experience has established itself in our theoretical speculations, there can be no other explanatory/justificatory appeal than to mythical ideas of a whole created by the sum of its parts: or a whole view created by the sum of the points of view involved. We do not need to return to Gestalt Psychology to realise that the whole is more than the sum of the parts, or rather, that it is something completely different—something like the meaning of Being.
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann is, Ricoeur argues, a novel about time(P.112,) but the analysis is once again steered by this solipsistic idea of “point of view”, applied collectively to both those that live on the Magic Mountain, and those that do not. The mountain-dwellers that live in the sanitorium do not, Ricoeur claims, follow the rhythm of clocks and calendars, and this is sufficient for him to invoke a dialectical method which emphasises the discordance in the two “points of view”, and also to take a discordant view of Time which discards the Time of the Philosophers(Aristotle and Kant). The principal scene of the action is the Berghof sanitorium, which treats patients suffering from tuberculosis–a deadly sickness in the early 1900’s. Time, sickness, and a nihilistic view of Western Culture are the three dimensions Ricoeur fixates upon in order to dialectically interpret this work. We see this dialectical approach at work in his concluding remarks, suggesting we divide the internal from the external in order to set up an Augustinian discordance:
“As the relations between those down below and those up above are weakened, a new space of explanation unfolds, one in which the paradoxes brought to light are precisely those that afflict the internal experience of time, when it is freed from its relation to chronological time.”(P.130)
Proust’s work, “Remembrance of Things Past”, is the third novel Ricoeur consults in his attempt to illustrate what he calls the “refiguration” process that is taking place in fictional narratives. Ricoeur claims that what is at stake in this work, is a search for the truth. Whether or not the idea of “lost identity” is really the central theme of “Remembrance” is an issue for Ricoeur, who claims that this may not be the best description of what is going on in this work. Ricoeur suggests instead, the alternative, the “search for lost unity”:
“The question is then no longer how the philosophy of lost unity could have degenerated into a quest for lost time but how the search for lost time, taken as the founding matrix of the work, accomplishes through strictly narrative means, the recovery of the Romantic problem of lost unity.”(P.133)
Proust is obviously exploring the power of memory in relation to the problem of which memories can become available to consciousness, and which cannot . The physical image Ricoeur uses to elaborate upon this theme is that of the archipelago—a group of separated islands symbolising incommunicability. This, of course, in turn is an effective symbol of the difficult quest for truth in relation to the past:
“One must give up the attempt to relive the past if lost time is ever, in some as yet unknown way, to be found again.”(P.141)
This must invoke a remembrance of Freud’s work in which what was once “lost” to the unconscious realm of our existence, is recovered by the special techniques of psychoanalysis. The realm of knowledge here, however, is not that of the past of the historian, but rather that of the the realm of self knowledge, so valued by the Delphic oracle and serious writers.
Ricoeur claims that a death of desire is involved in this process: a death that must have wider consequences. Only the revelations of art can prevent the more extreme consequences of the death of desire, which presumably also entails a dimming of the light of consciousness for those phenomenologically-inclined investigators. Literature, Ricoeur argues, is ” a rediscovery of the real”(P.151). In spite of this, however, Ricoeur notes that life is a work destroyed by death(P.152). This accords with the Freudian view that the artists work is not fuelled solely by conscious memory, but also by the power of the defence mechanism of sublimation. Sublimation, was as we know, defined by Freud as a nonsexual form of substitute satisfaction, and it was a form or vicissitude of the life-instinct that makes a compromise with the death instinct in the wake of the suffering of the artist. This kind of compromise, nevertheless aims at happiness, and an expanded enjoyment of life that opens a window onto the world. For Kant, this artistic endeavour appeals to the appreciator, and encourages a response in which both the imagination and understanding are involved in the production of a pleasure related to that which we experience when we learn something. Perhaps we learn that memory has lost contact with some regions of our past, and that therefore sublimation is needed as a substitute form of satisfaction in which learning about oneself is a necessary precondition for opening the window onto the world. Once “past things” are restored, perhaps a firmer grasp on reality supervenes.
The above digression via Freud and Kant would, needless to say, by rejected by Ricoeur on the grounds of a rejection of their rationalistic views of understanding and reasoning: views that rely on principles(arché) and laws. Aristotle, Kant, and Freud all believed in the explanatory power of the categories of the understanding and the principles of knowledge and they would not have shied away from any of the metaphysical implications flowing from such a belief.
Ricoeur concludes Volume Two with some reflections upon his use of the term “narrative”. He asks himself whether he has illegitimately confined his remarks to the diegetic mode of the novel, to the exclusion of the dramatic mode of mimetic representation. In defence of his account, he points to the fact that both muthos and action have the same “scope”. He notes, in connection with this that the idea of plot seems to cover the activity of both Homer and Sophocles. The problem, put simply, is that in identifying these two modes in terms of “Points of view” and “voice”, which Ricoeur admits has not been proven to be present in dramatic works, the real philosophical issues become marginalised. His dialectical reflections lead him to wonder whether in fact the novel is an “antigenre genre”(P.154). It ought also to be pointed out that Ricoeur does not identify the novel with the classical format of “epic”. Epic narrative consequently becomes a problem because , as he claims, it appears to create a “distance” between the author and the public, which he wishes would disappear. Historically, critics like Goethe and Schiller, divide literature into the categories of epic, drama and lyric. Part of Ricoeur’s problem in achieving clarity over these issues, is that he does not provide us with a clear account of the relation between the world of the text and the life world. This problem , Ricoeur claims can only be addressed when:
“The world of the text is confronted with the world of the reader.”(P.160)
This is not an epistemological issue but requires arguments with ontological commitment. Yet Ricoeur persists in claiming that what we are dealing with here is the issue of “reference” or “referential intentions”(P.160). He uses this term which is a part of the analytical apparatus of Sense and Reference, that has its origins in the work of Frege. This combined with a commitment to the “descriptive theory” of Husserlian phenomenology, helps to create the conceptual framework which resulted in an analytically inspired solipsism that is the theoretical inspiration to the concept of “point of view” and “voice”. Neither of these concepts can easily be used in the context of explanation/justification, or indeed, in any context where principles and laws are used rationally and universally. The question remains as to whether a “voice”(incapable of understanding universal or general conceptual truths), is capable of communication at all. Kant taught us that intuitions without concepts are blind, and that consequently even the simple act of pointing out what one refers to, probably also requires a conceptual framework connected to categories and principles. Wittgenstein taught us that Names do not constitute a language, but rather presuppose a language-framework. A language is certainly required to constitute a linguistically structured point of view. A window that opens out onto the world is also more than a “point of view”, yet it is a good metaphor for the relation between the “point” that is looking out the window onto a world that is so much more than an analytical collection(sum of the parts) or totality of states of affairs that can be pointed to.
Aletheia is the term Heidegger would prefer to use in the context of this kind of discussion, and it has the advantage of emphasising the moment of unconcealment or revelation that occurs in the “window onto the world” metaphor. The window becomes a symbol of the conceptual framework needed for revelation of the truth to occur. Aletheia can occur in many different ways including narrative accounts of History as well as the fictional narrative accounts of characters exploring their memories.