In this article we will talk about the cultural transition from 19th to the 20th century. Why was it so radical ? We will put the emphasis on philosophy and literature, the driving forces of though and its expression. These are seen as the pillars of the West around conceptualization
Timeline :
Aristoteles (384-322 BC) – Establishment of western culture tradition: Metaphysics, Ethics, Politics, Poetics, Logic, Science
Rene Descartes (1596-1650) – The Foundation of the Subject, reintegration of morality
Isaac Newton (1642-1726) – Establishment of classical mechanical physics
David Hume (1711-1776) – Skepticism, the problematic relation between the subject and reality
Emanuel Kant (1724-1804) – Reestablishment of the subject through transcendental idealism
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) – Disintegration of western morality and subjective rationality, the impossibility of reaching reality not through personal interpretation
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) – General relativity, redefining how we see time and therefore the coherence of reality, undermining classical mechanical physics, paradigm shift
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) – As a successor of Frege and Russel, Language is the tool that creates our world, no logic in the classical sense but rather a game of shared communal language
Glossary (over-simplified):
Subject and Object – Simply put : Subject is an individual, self. Object – entities in the world that have their own existence regardless to our conception – i.e. ‘the table’
Greek Aristotelian logic – Reality is open for objective investigation
Cartesian (Descartes) logic – Reality exists only within the subject
Kantian logic – Reality is transcendental – can be reached only by specific methods
Wittgenstein logic – There is no such things as logic, just a game within language
As a starting point : lets discuss Joseph Conrad (1875-1924), an author, which was innovatie in his use of narration in the 20th century. He was one of the authors who stylistically represent the 20th century in style, this style was formed by a particular use of set of ‘tools’. But despite his style, he still belongs to the writers of 19th century and only from one reason: he is a moralist. So he resembles a long line of writers: Samuel Butler, Theodor Fontane, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. They all lead the way towards modernity.
The protagonists in moralist literature fail, but the big message is that a person can recover himself – to rehabilitate. While Conrad can differ from Dostoevsky by the type of rehabilitation – respectfully transcendental by institutional religion while the other is coming from within. The type of rehabilitation offered by Conrad is something that starts as something very dim and evolves to be clear and self-imminent for the protagonist and for the reader. The object of morality is Integrity, one being vigilante, not allows himself to fall into temptation, while the classic tragedies hold an aristocratic model without the option of rehabilitation – one fall is one too many. Christianity is the one who brought repent, regret and remorse into use, also compassion and the ability to forgive and rehabilitate. we call it Redemption.
Being moralists, these writes all believe undoubtedly, in a person’s ability to find in himself morality and virtue, sometimes through other spheres, such as religious belief. Morality is a human sphere which can be put clearly to rules clearly by written form. There are ways to realize morality, the moralist authors are looking for them. This territory of morality belongs to the 19th (and 18th 17th) century. We soon go deeper why.
The complex transition from 19th to 20th century – In thinking : a radical epistemological change
Morality is actually an element created by western philosophy. The roots of it originated in Aristoteles, it was put to bed for around 1500 years from the beginning of Christianity (Scholasticism reign) and came back to view with people like Erasmus (1466-1536) one of the classical humanists of the 15th and 16th Century. Then morality was structured as project or a program for eternity for western culture by people like Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and most importantly Rene Descartes (1596-1650). It was a conscious explicit effort of the great figures of that time to offer a self-improvement doctrine which can be realized by a specific program (a design and not a theory or a methodology) – morality. This program kept developing in time by people like Emanuel Kant (1724-1804), more esoterically by Spinoza and Leibniz and later on the 19th century by empiricists which had more practical orientation like Auguste Comte and utilitarianists like Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. What gave shape to morality was always thought, as it expressed in philosophical texts, these texts built a model of reality, man, and the so called compulsive relation between the two.
So what happened between Descartes and Henry Bergson (1859-1941) ? The way we concept time changed, the concept of objective coordinates become obsolete after the General theory of Relativity – there are no more objective coordinates. From a social view morality becomes suspicious, man starts defining himself in a different way in relation with his environment, and how he sees the environment as a playground for his actions.
further reading : Spengler – The decline of the West, which provides an aesthetic point of view about the different world feelings of western cultures and its development
In literature narration completely changed, the narrator was then being changed and defined, to that period actual conception of the subject. With that change, narration changed as well, the narrator came to be present by intonation, by organization of words etc. We are experiencing in literature before the 20th century, a solid world of which the narrator have complete knowledge about, it is coherent, it belongs to the Newtonian galaxy, but that is not the case with 20th century literature.
In the Newtonian world time is eternal and absolute, any event can be defined only by one coordinate on the linearity of time. A chronological sequence has only one form. In other words : Time in not dynamic, but static. Time is not a function in the equation, it is a constant that is taken for granted, outside equation. In 1905, Albert Einstein offered a different model in his Annus Mirabilis papers. Time become a factor in equations : there are no equation except from the ones in time. Every equation belongs to a specific moment – meaning : relative – time becomes dynamic. Relative of what ? to other equations – unlike the Newtonian universe there is no center. In the Newtonian universe Nothing transcends time which gives it its static nature, in General relativity time is dynamic, the chronology of events depends on the observer, that is quite a radical change because it has a lot of implications, we are now looking at a different world.
Paradigm shift as expressed in 20th Century literature
In 20th century literature the reader has to actively try to arrange the constantly changing retrospective time system offered by the author, but unlike before : a solid chronological order cannot be attained.
further reading : research of narratology – followers of Roman Ingarden, the ‘receptionists’ Wolfgang Iser, Stanley fish etc’ talking about filling the gaps
What happens with the 20th Century literature, the new narratology systematically rules out the Newtonian universe by the use of words, and even more to say there is no wish of going back the the Newtonian universe because there is a new type of universe that is created which need its own sensitivity, a new kind of beauty to be discovered, that has to do with the ability of the human mind to build new worlds by the use of words and thought: their ontology and reliability is much more intense that what we call reality in our daily life. We touch it with the chapter ‘The importance of aesthetics’.
One contingent (real-world) event becomes a kaleidoscope of impressions in the mind of a reader. While the essence of objects is not reachable in reality, the multitude of impressions surge as a wave of rich and tender private worlds. A limitless amount of possible descriptions with no hierarchy that would put one above the rest. Like Miguel de Unamuno’s (1864-1936) world, ours, is also a vague world (a world in the mist – see my other article in that subject), but that is also what gives it it charm, beauty and richness, it opens unprecedented freedom of one of being himself against the world, against the tyranny of light, because the world does not force itself upon one.
The last point which is quite paradoxical, and needs an article by itself : The conventions of the western culture has to be disregarded in order to cope with this new situation, though not without being informed or educated about them.
meaning : if we want to enjoy the freedom and limitless possibilities of the modern contemporary world by breaking out of tradition, we have to still be able to see our culture as a linear process and see ourselves as part of it. Instead of trying to start all over again it will would be better for us to learn from our mistakes and develop on top of that.
Think about music : we are still in the western paradigm (12 notes), but no longer playing classical boring two-scales-only music, complex as it might be, think about chromaticism and endless amount of scales, modes and rhythms.
To use an allegory from Wittgenstein – We have to climb the ladder and throw it away. I am also referring to our moralistic traditions from Aristoteles through Kant and until Bertrand Russel. We use them, but in essence they are obsolete by contemporary western culture.
Outdated epistemology
In Western culture we are talking about these traditions which are most visible in philosophy, these are polished schemes of concepts, of thought, they are doctrines :
The root of our Epistemology (Greek) is the clear distinction between Subject and Object. The question asked by the early western ontology was : in which way does the existing outer reality exists ? Epistemology was focused on the best way of reaching that reality. The idea (concept) of one ‘Truth’ was never put to doubt. It is there and its reachable. It is the lighthouse (which can be the symbol of western culture), it can change but its always there, it is called progress, improvement an ability to go TO … where ? this disposition was valid for 2300 years.
In the second half of the 19th Century Westen culture experienced a serious of shocks in its discourse, which were raising doubts concerning the foundations of our culture. The cracks began to show in the old paradigm and it began to dissolve. The major move was the one that that removed the distinction between Subject and Object.
Main Figures and movements in enlightenment and post enlightenment philosophy
Descartes tried to bring reality to the status it had in the Aristotelian times, to be solid and clear and rational, then he had located it inside to subject. Descartes understood that the actuality of outside reality is not accessible to man, then reality was conceptualized only to exist within man. Afters Descartes ‘Meditationes de Prima Philosophia’ Western culture entered the territory of the subject.
After Descartes philosophy, in literature the subject becomes the protagonist. We witness the appearance of Romance in place of the short story & drama. Adventure natives becomes then focused around the subject and so on. Philosophy was a base point for writers to formulate another type of writing, they developed new methods and new tools that were characterized by that time’s actuality.
David Hume was an expression of the culmination of the questions regarding – what happens within the subject ? The substance of making of the subject was questioned. It resulted in philosophical suspicion and skepticism.
Emanuel Kant‘s starting point was Hume’s skepticism, again the idea was to restore the state of reality to be solid, clear and accessible. That resulted in Transcendental Idealism (his book : Critique of Pure Reason). Over-simplified: reality was to be seen as Transcendental – beyond human logic and inaccessible to man in its raw form, only through certain moves we can then put the puzzel of what reality really is.
Friedrich Nietzsche more or less attacked all the methods the came before him and with such power and intelligence that his idea of trans-valuation of all values became a fact for western society. His idea had profound impact on Existentialism, post modernism and post structuralism, he himself knew he was way ahead of his time.
In the 20th century we are entering a period of modernism : Reflecting on their period, the modernists and impressionists would say that the substance of the subject is a collection of insightful moments which combust and fade out rapidly. This expressed itself in art as impressionism, The stream of consciousness (literature style) or Tropisms (a term coined Nathalie Sarraute) etc. It is the quantum-mechanic principle which makes reality so slippery, what makes it so difficult to be captured by language and empirical means. Measurement already pre-supposes, the act of measurement already changed to result, that is our touch with reality.
Zeitgeist and style
The style of expression in art in a specific time should match its cultural context, the way that humanity, at that same period, looks upon the world or understand one’s mode of existence or individuality.
The literature in the beginning of the 20th century became complicated and was forced to deal with certain insights of western culture, in particular science. It had to invent a new style of writing to become adequate with the new ways we were looking at the world. One cannot write about an age which has the theory of general relativity in the same way that Balzac wrote about Paris of the 1830. Although there can be such literature that would describe something modern or contemporary with a style that does not belong to his time – for example Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – The first circle.
Another example is taken from another aesthetic field: music – the music that is written today cant be judged in the same parameter of the music of 100 years ago -there is a linear chronological process of thinking which evolves around philosophy and science which influences how we see the world (to use the word paradigm or model) and while the contingent world stays the same humanity always paints the world with different colors – to say evolutionary or theological or anthropomorphic etc’. Bach might be brilliant, but his music is outdated compared to pop music, it is boring, the same goes for philosophy and science, Pythagorean and Newtonian theories can be used but not to achieve complicated actions.
There is a linear chronological process that we in the west call progress, it allows us to set and achieve certain goals, to see the world in better ways and experience it, to invent, to not stay in place, to discover, to model and to conceptualize. Deep conceptual thinking is what the west have, a dying Faustian soul, that is western culture.
Further reading : The Story of ArtBook by Ernst Gombrich
The importance of aesthetics
All art is quite useless
Oscar Wilde
To reflect on some thoughts of Oscar Wilde (which was considered to be a pre-modernist): Reality and actuality exists for us humans, in the sphere of man made thoughts. Art and Aesthetics are the culmination of being human, because it is uniquely human. It is the territory which man lets his power reign supreme, his concepts, his rules, because the aesthetic domain is completely autonomous.
Thus, Art, stands way above the idleness, triviality and the imminent disgrace of every practical use that makes reality instrumental to us men. The true reality according to Oscar Wilde in the one found in pictures and words, art and music.
Mimesis : representation of reality by the west
It is claimed by scholars like Erich Auerbach, that the west is obsessed with the representation of reality in art- aesthetics ( Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature). The stylistic tools of art have to be symptomatic to the time, because time cannot be represented mimetic-ally as actual through tools which are obsolete : meaning do not belong to their time. This point is critical.
The greatest artists are always a product of their time. he can deny his time, be he is responsible and would not be able to disconnect from the context of his time, he has to belong to his time and respond to it as well. Unlike the philosopher or historian he has to react with a set of tools which are contemporary to his time.
The tools can be symptomatic to a time, although they are not obliged to be so to if they are only to reflect on “real” (non-aesthetic) events to describe them accurately, as with author A.Solzhenitsyn. They can describe reality within or outside our limits of style. The great artists or writers of a time can be traced by their style directly to their period of time.
A style has tools that expresses its zeitgeist, here is a few examples of how non-linear time systems is expressed in literature :
1. The system of reference is composed out of fragments which each, individually, claim for autonomy.
2. Multiple time frames which makes the observer change his perspective or reference as he goes along (in literature William Faulkner, Hermann Broch)
3. Inherit contradiction or conflict which do not resolve, or unable to be resolved – this is achieved as a use of language, and as a inherit problematic property in language (Kafka, Conrad)
Those are only a few examples. Kafka’s style indicated an inherit serious problem in language which the dealing of was prominent throughout the whole 20th century in philosophy and culture in general. This is how culture is related to science, philosophy and art.
Conclusions
So now that we have an insight about the radical change that took place passing from the 19th century towards the 20th century, what should we actually do with this knowledge ?
My opinion is that this radical change brings us one main challenge : Nihilism. In this case I am one with Nietzsche. The danger is there because the shift in paradigm brings a paradox : The breaking free of tradition towards a new paradigm, which has to keep to old tradition. The new paradigm stems from the old, therefore: we can only break free of it through the old paradigm. Confused ?
Wittgenstein described it as climbing the ladder and then throwing it away. His works are the expression of this paradox, a new paradigm described in the way of the old, and then undermines the old, a logical way to say there is no logic. It is actually not the saying that is important : but the showing.
In the sea of endless possibilities we are swimming. Some people tend to see it as *post-modernist* freedom – sometimes it would be like dropping a man in the middle of the ocean and tell him – “here you go, you are free, now swim !”, it is really not a wise thing to do.
My opinion is one with Oscar Wilde in regards to culture and art, the only thing I have to add is this:
Wittgenstein himself said that Philosophical problems do not really exist, there are only problems of language. While this suggests to some people that we should completely disregard philosophy and maybe art with good justification I will say we should not forget that those mistakes are the things that shaped our culture for the last 2300 years. Maybe this is what Spengler predicted, but knowing a bit of Spengler’s and Wittgenstein’s own biography as highly educated and intelligent people, I think they would never disregard culture, but they would know that we have to keep it in order to keep on progressing and developing, this is the only way to break from tradition and to get our freedom.
Reading list, writers and works :
Virginia Woolf – To the lighthouse, The waves
Joseph Conrad – Heart of darkness, Lord Jim, Nostromo, Victory
James Joyce
Thomas Mann
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
William Faulkner
The works of Bloomsbury Group
Ford Madox Ford
E. M. Forster
Samuel Butler – Way of all flesh
H.G. wells
Henry Bergson
George Bernard Shaw
Franz Kafka
Herman Broch
Robert Musil
Herman Hesse
Karel Čapek – Tales from Two Pockets
Laurens Darrel – The Alexandria Quartet
Italo Svevo
Scott Fitzgerald- Tender is the night
Credits : Lectures of Dr. Henry Unger