Raumaesthetik of Theodor Lipps

1

Invited Lecture at the 8th International Conference on Dialogical Self Den Haag, August, 21, 2014

The Raumaesthetik of Theodor Lipps as a Dialogical Research Programme

Jaan Valsiner ([email protected])

Niels Bohr Professorship Centre of Cultural Psychology Aalborg Universitet, Denmark

ABSTRACT. The German psychologist, aesthetician, and philosopher Theodor Lipps (1851-1914) was known at his time for his proposed alternative (« The Munich School of Phenomenology »), to Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology, and for his active opposition to efforts to reduce psychology to the study of elementary phenomena. He is the carrier of the notion of Einfühlung («feeling-in», or «sembling», partially known in English as « empathy ») from German 19th century aesthetics into psychology. Lesser known today are Lipps’ efforts to develop «aesthetic mechanics»-- a psychology of architectural forms that trigger affective oppositions in the viewers by way of contrast between the physical end of the forms and their implied continuity. This contrast links Lipps’ analyses of architectural forms—in the opposition of finite versus infinite feelings-- as a dialogical process with our contemporary Dialogical Self Theory (DST). Specific examples from Lipps’ analyses, re-formulated in terms of DST demonstrate how dialogicality is encoded into material relationships of human beings. Keywords: dialogue, semiosis, architecture, affect, Einfühlung, phenomenology

Can Dialogical Self be completely non-verbal? Can it be presented—by human beings to themselves—through organization and re-organization of the material objects among which we all live? Answers to these questions are crucial for specifying the outer borders of the dialogical approaches in human psychology. In case of positive answers to these questions any theory of Dialogical Self opens the door to understanding of human history across generations. Human beings and their living dialogues have no permanence, but the results of their actions become encoded in objects they create, and that survive their makers across history. If the structures of burial grounds, monasteries, fortifications, and dwellings could give us evidence of the dialogical nature of human actions, the possibilities of reconstructing the functioning of human selves across historical time can become possible. Methodologically, historical and archaeological research techniques

2

can then be included among the variety of approaches that have been established in the recent two decades in the study of dialogical processes within the self (Hermans and Gieser, 2012). My goal in this paper is to take a new look at the early perspectives on psychology of architecture that emerged in late 19th century in the context of German aesthetics and psychology. The work of Theodor Lipps is particularly interesting as an effort to bring a psychological phenomenological perspective to the analysis of architectural forms. Lipps’ work cannot in itself be considered dialogical in its core, yet his theoretical elaboration of relevant psychological concepts—Einfühlung, Gegenstand, and apperception—set the stage for further development of a research program on dialogical self, based on meaning oppositions encoded into architectural objects.

Where are we? We are here. The “here” may mean a great variety of places, yet for each and every person and at any time moment there is some “here” (“where I am”) that sets up the contrast with “out there”. Our lives involve the space between the position we are in, and the horizon we create outwards, starting from that position. That space is filled with objects that we encounter, some of which we have created ourselves. The luring snowy mountaintop—or the infinity of the ocean with no land in sight-- set the borders of our natural horizons for us. The cathedral or mosque at the end of a street is the horizon set up by human-made environment of a town. Architecture is the arena on which cultural meaning systems are introduced into our encounters with the Umwelt without a single word. Words are not needed when we experience macro-forms1 of human environments (Figure 1). Figure 1. Macro-forms of human-made environment (Dresdener Frauenkirche)

1 I distinguish macro- and micro-forms of environment in relation to the proportion of the observer’s body size. A human figure (e.g. that of Michelangelo’s David which in its height of 5.17 meters) can be an environmental macro-form for any regular-size human observer. Its desk copy of 20 cm of height is a micro-form of environment. Both kinds of forms saturate our culturally constructed human environments.

3

We may encounter the imposing architectural objects in awe that relates to the ruin, or to the precise reconstruction. Destruction and construction are equally powerful in triggering silence in our experiencing selves. Both the destroyed and reconstructed buildings are macro-forms that are experienced through the holistic (Ganzheit—see Diriwächter, 2013) systems of our meaning construction that proceed through the dominance of the pleromatic channel in the meaning-making process (Valsiner, 2006, 2014). That channel leads the affective meaning making through generalized abstraction to hyper-generalized feeling-into the object in which the verbal encoding of the experience becomes muted2. The dialogical nature of human meaning-making becomes freed from the verbal language imperative, giving way to the regulatory interplay of different levels of field-like signs (Valsiner, 2014).

Words are not necessary for the enjoyment of a sunset or of a music performance. There exist other ways in which human beings create understanding of their Umwelten through the dialogicality encoded into the human-made world. The basis for such meaning making is there in the non-human species (Uexkyll, 1982) yet it is developed in the human species through the invention and use of signs. The key to such development is the uncertainty of the immediate future consequences of one’s own actions that is being pre-emptively used through signs. All this happens in the process of movement—human beings move around and construct meanings as they encounter changes in their relations with the immediate environment (Kharlamov, 2012).

Not only are human beings constantly moving themselves—some aspects of their environment are moving naturally in relation to them. Sun and moon are observed as if moving, rivers flow, rainstorms hit, and clouds move. It is a favourite pastime of young and old human beings to watch the movement of clouds, “seeing” in these various images that

…give the mind a sense of the reality of the tenuous; contribute to turn man’s thoughts and perhaps his prayers upward; and to give a sense of reality to heavenward things which a moon dweller would not know. Nothing makes the imagination so plastic; impels it through so polymorphic realms by suggestion. Cloud animals predominate for children, because animal shapes are more varied; but for youth, they more often suggest the many aspects of higher life. We also find here the same contrast between sentiment and science. The feelings are not edified by learning that clouds are aqueous vapor or by memorizing their names or studying their laws in meteorology. (Hall, 1903, p.100). The special relevance of creating meaning in the downward<>upward axis is

paralleled by that in the lateral extension. Human beings extend their cultural space outwards from their bodies—through creating clothes, dwellings and gardens (McGovern, 2004, Yoon, 1994)-- so that their ego-centered point of being (the central I-position of “myself here and now”) becomes expanded into the environment and creates the Umwelt.

2 Similar muting happens in the experiencing of music or art, entering into symbolic buildings like churches, mosques, as well as affective moments of grief.

4

By acting upon objects the persons create—through the resistance by3, and modifiability of, these objects—their life space.

Object versus Thing— contrast between Gegenstand and Ding

Psychology’s original operating language—German—has been replaced by

English through a sequence of historical circumstances. The result is the emergence of new perspectives, and loss of old ones, as the ways of thinking in psychology as science largely depend upon the common language. Nuances of German as that was the linguistic framework shaping psychology in the 19th century are lost in the English translation. Thus, in our ordinary translation, two German terms—Ding and Gegenstand—can be habitually considered synonyms and translated as “object” into English.

The contrast, however, is important. Things exist independently of actors, while objects imply particular relation with an actor. Objects “object” to human actions— as they are a part of the established relation Actor <> Object. Things do not have such relationship, they exist independently of the actor. Things can be made into objects—a thing that existed next to us for years may become relevant for some newly developed action plan, and turns into n object.

The notion of object was characterized in the 19th-20th Gernan language psychology by the old-fashioned German term Gegenstand. This objection can take different forms. It can be direct and passive (e.g. resistance of a locked door to our attempts to use the key), indirect and active (weeds growing in our garden can undermine our cultivation act), indirect and passive (the diminishing ozone layer of earth undermining our life quality), or direct and active (champage striving out in all directions, of the bottle we have just managed to open). It is particularly important in relations of the actor with the world of other living beings. Consider the example in Figure 2.

A man is kneeling down in the middle of the busy shopping street. The passers-by can notice him, and the meaning-making system is set into action (see Kharlamov, 2012). Possibly the man becomes recognized as a “beggar” (rather than: “a person in the middle of his prayers” or “a man fallen because of some neuromuscular insufficiency”). Through the immediacy of the interpretation by the passers-by the man previously not related to them (operating as Ding, located in the urban space, in between other “living things”—people) becomes related as an object—Gegenstand (Figure 3).

3 Such resistance is particularly noticeable in the case of gardening—where the cultural organization brought into the setting by the person is constantly being resisted by natural conditions of undesired growing plants (“weeds”), variable conditions of light and water, etc.

5

Figure 2. A scene in the middle of a busy urban shopping street

Figure 3. Making of the Gegenstand out of a Ding.

Gegenstand involves opposites (A and non-A) that co-exist at the same time (if A, then it is not true that non-A exists—in accordance with classical 2-valent logic). The opposites non only co-exist, but are mutually related as vectors oriented in non-concordant

A THING : Entity No internal structure No change

CAN BE RE-THOUGHT

AS GEGENSTAND

(includes process structure that grants

both stability and

change)

Dir A

Dir non-A

6

directions (Figure 3). The directions A (Dir-A) and non-A (Dir-non-A) are processes with opposing directions.

The beginning of relating-with the Ding leads to the Gegenstand—which is a dialogical relation set up by the actor in relation to the object. It is the meaning-maker (in the example—any passer-by) who sets up the dialogic relation:

“THIS IS A BEGGAR” <> AND HERE I AM MYSELF, FACING THE BEGGAR” As is obvious from Figure 2, the passers-by act precisely in their role (of passers-by)—they pass by the kneeling man.

The dialogical nature of the scene is not visible in Figure 2, but implied by us looking at the figure, projecting ourselves into the roles of people in the picture. The scene has created a challenge—a border—for our understanding of what is going on (Figure 4). The scene that looks straightforward—a man kneeling down in the middle of a public area— can become a dialogical puzzle within the self of a person who passes by.

The passer-by in the scene in Figure 2 has a number of ways to deal with the inherent dialogicality of the peripheral encounter (see NEGOTIATING BORDER CROSSING in Figure 4). The setting evokes some response—ranging from pretending not to notice the event, to negative stigmatization (“these beggars should not be allowed into public space”) to intensive personal soul-searching (“how could I, heartlessly, pass by that poor person, not giving him anything!”). Notice that all these options (and others, not listed many versions of response in between) are self-contemplative—they are freed from decision to act by the actor oneself4. The encounter is past— the passer-by by now has re-constructed an equilibrium that it triggered. Figure 4. Elaborated structure of Gegenstand

4 The person has not reported the “beggar” to city authorizes (to have him removed from public), neither has s/he returned to the spot to give some—conventionally small amount— to the “beggar”. As Theodor Lipps has formulated it succinctly, “Sympatiegefühl is Selbstgefühl” (1898, p. 223- “feeling of sympathy is feeling about one’s own self”)

7

Figure 4 is a modified structure of Gegenstand that takes into account the cultural traditions of a given society together with personal construction of transformation of the object into a new form. The person relating—here and now- with some noticed aspect of everyday life (“event”) can create the boundary based on the internalized nature of the social norms (“this is X”—“but X is not allowed”), yet enters into negotiation (within oneself— as the DST has amply illustrated in many applications) of how to transcend that border and turn it into a new form (“I want X, X should be allowed”). The Gegenstand has a triadic structure—the two opposing (dialogical) components (“I act towards the boundary”) and its opposite (“the boundary resists my action”), together with the third component (“I want to pass through this boundary”). Each of these can be characterized as vectors (with direction), rather than point-like entities. The focus on triadic models within the DS Theory can allow the structure of the Self to acquire temporal dynamics (Ragatt, 2012, p. 42). Analyses of psychotherapy processes point to the need to bring the notion of dialogicality into a relationship with a third, direction-giving meaning structures (Gonçalves and Ribeiro, 2012). Dialogue is important as a process of transcending its own current form, through a trialogical structure.

By elaborating the structure of the Gegenstand (as in Figure 4) we will be able to bring back into psychology (and insert into the system of DS) a relevant psychological notion that scientific psychology has ignored for a century—the will. The will—depicted as a vector in the Gegenstand—is a crucial component for any transformations of the world. The person acts willfully to change natural objects into a culturally organized form—the hunter destroys nature (kills animals) in order to provide food to his or her family, Antoni Gaudi plans to build his La Sagrada Familia in a way that—even (or maybe because) as it stays unfinished—end up fascinating many people who visit Barcelona.

Some objects become generalized into a field-like form that loses concreteness—yet is used in everyday life practices. These generalized objects allow us to organize our daily activities precisely because they are “total objects” (Gesamtgegenstände—Lipps, 1907a, p. 141). “Weather” is perhaps the best example of such total object—it is nebulous (cannot be located in any particular place, but it seen everywhere), we are aware and interested in it (and its change), and can (sometimes endlessly) talk about it. We develop a special science—meteorology—to study its patterns, and employ beautiful announces of tomorrow’s weather forecast by TV stations. All these actions concerning the weather are real—yet the total concept of weather itself remains omnipresent yet nebulous. We cannot “get rid of the weather” as such (even after much complaining!), as it is a Gegenstand that relates us with the environment through our invented sign (the word “weather”) that organizes our relations with the world. Why Gegenstand is the central focus for human psychology Gegenstand is an object that is in relation with the actor, and can “stand against” the actor. It can be viewed as the constitutive unit of analysis of the Umwelt-- the two concepts go together. Umwelt of the human beings—part of the whole environment that is functionally linked with the actor—consists of a system of Gegenstands. It forms a sub-part of the total environment of the person which consists of things (Dinge). As long as we describe persons located in their environments, the persons and everything else in the environment are “things”. The very moment we start to think of person-environment relationships the “things” become objects. The Dialogical Self Theory is from the outset

8

based on Gegenstand (not Ding). In the tradition of the Dialogical Self Theory (DST) dialogicality can exist only in case of the Gegenstand (and not in the case of a thing that stands out exclusively separated from other things). Gegenstand is inclusively separated with an actor—real, or potential5. In a dialogue between persons, both participants act in the role of a Gegenstand in relation to each other—they relate, yet they resist the other’s ways of relating with them.

Psychology of Architecture: the object world of primary importance Next to our clothing, it is our places of dwelling that are of primary importance for the survival of the species of Homo sapiens. The contest here is more directly with climatic conditions than with dangerous predators of other species. Building dwellings for oneself, and for others, is a major step in the development of autonomy of the human beings. The dependence on natural shelters in the forms of caves is replaced by constructing buildings of whole variety of kinds and in many places. Looking at architecture is thus a theme for psychological investigation. It is also a topic for aesthetics—not only the immediate functional role of the dwelling is of importance, but its aesthetic qualities have major psychological relevance. It is in the context of second half of the 19th century in Germany that the specific interest in the psychological issues of architecture emerged. The leadership role in this was in the hands of aesthetics-interested philosophers and art historians—who nevertheless were learning from the psychologists of their time. Thus, Robert Vischer (in 1872- see Vischer, 1994, p. 92) introduced the notion of Einfühlung (“feeling-in”6) in the context of looking at external forms, largely borrowing from Wilhelm Wundt’s earlier writing in the 1860s. Later in that century the notion of Einfühlung became central in Theodor Lipps’ theorizing. It was Heinrich Wölfflin in the 1880s who introduced the notion of psychology of architecture. For him, different geometric forms used in architecture carried inherent meanings of affective kind, as result of the human dialogue with the material from which dwellings are created:

Matter is heavy; it presses down and wants to spread out formlessly on the ground. We know the force of gravity from our own body. What holds us upright and prevents a formless collapse? It is the opposing force that we may call will, life, or whatever. I call if force of form [Formkraft]. The opposition between matter and force of form, which sets the entire organic

5 James Gibson’s affordance concept is a partial illustration of the Gegenstand nature of objects. Objects

are characterized by affording some (rather than other) forms of acting to the person. They afford the action by resisting the action from moving off its afforded course. Using a fork (historically a compromise between a dagger and a spoon) as if were a spoon for eating soup might be possible, yet resisted by the specific form of the fork. Adding Gegenstand to affordance in this example entails the cultural notion that fork is a normatively inappropriate tool to use for eating soup. 6 Vischer contrasted Einfühlung with other directed feelings—Anfühlung (attentive feeling), Zufühlung

(immediate-feeling) and Nachfühlung (responsive feeling—Vischer, 1994, pp. 106-107). The need to distinguish these feelings can be seen as recognition of the boundary between past and present in the act of feeling into the world.

9

world in motion, is the principal theme of architecture. (Wölfflin, 1994/1886, p. 159)

This opposition is easily observable when human beings are fascinated by the lightness of the appearance of Gothic churches that guide our psyche upwards, and completely overlook the massive nature of the stones that are used to build such “light construction.” (Figure 5). The massive nature of the building materials is turned by the architect into a huge cathedral or a mosque with the resulting feeling of lightness. Figure 5. Antwerpen Cathedral

Architect’s dialogue – making the heavy material take macroscopic forms that leave the impression of lightness—is perhaps best exemplified in the construction of water fountains (Figure 6). A fountain is an effort of cultural reversal of a waterfall—to set up conditions for the water to flow against the forces of gravity. Whichever engineering solution to this task may be put to practice, it is the psychological function of being able to

10

see streams of water bursting upwards—only to end up falling back onto the ground. The particular aesthetic feeling for the observers is created by the flow. Figure 6. The dialogue of the upwardly striving water with natural gravity

From Architecture to Psychology: Theodor Lipps’ phenomenological program The German psychologist, aesthetician, and philosopher Theodor Lipps (1851-1914) was known at his time for his proposed alternative (« The Munich School of Phenomenology »), to Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology, and for his active opposition to efforts to reduce psychology to the study of elementary phenomena. It is in his work that the notion of Einfühlung -- used in the architectural discourse of Vischer—acquires central role for psychology. Yet—even as known in history of the discipline as the primary promoter of the Einfuhlung concept—it was not the central feature of his theory. Einfühlung was the axiomatic grounds for developing an account of apperception in the context of personal aesthetic feelings. It is through the systemic link of these two notions that Lipps’ intellectual contributions become linkable with our contemporary DST. Lipps’ main work was closely linked with München, where he was professor of philosophy for two decades-- from 1894 until the end of his life (1914—Anschütz, 1915 ; Bokhove and Schulmann, 1991). It was in the 1890s that München became an European centre of arts (Jugendstil activities of artists were taking place in Schwabing). Prior to that Lipps had held professorship in Breslau (Wroclaw, 1890-1894), as well as being

11

extraordinarius at University of Bonn (1884-1890). His original education was in mathematics, theology and philosophy— not an unusual combination for scholars in the 19th century. The philosphical direction was dominated by his interest in aesthetics, while his style of thinking in his later work could be viewed as mathematical. His main way of argumentation was to analyze key phenomena as those felt through his intuition.

Lipps in his student years migrated through four substantive European universities— first in Erlangen and Tübingen (where he studied Protestant theology) followed by , Utrecht , and, finally, Bonn. It was in Bonn that he graduated with a thesis on Herbart (Lipps, 1874), and became Privatdozent in 1877. In order to eaern his income he worked as the private tutor (Hauslehrer) in the family of the famous chemist Kekulé. and wrote his major work Die Grundtatsachen des Seelelebens (Lipps, 1883). His interests moved from psychology into aesthetics and ended up in the last decade of his life in basic issues of philosophy. Yet the main issue—phenomenology of « feeling into the world » (Einfühlung) remained his identifying term all through his life.

It is precisely in the late 1880s and early 1890s—at his transition from Bonn to Breslau—that Lipps became interested in the psychological analysis of architectural forms. This happened in parallel with his interest in phenomena of tragedy (Lipps, 1891a) and humor (Lipps, 1898). The first sketches on different architectural forms were published in his Breslau period (Lipps, 1891b), followed six years later already in München (Lipps, 1897). The publications of 1891 and 1897 can be considered as prelimanry sketches for further generalization that came in early 1900s—in his major work on Einfühlung (Lipps, 1903a) and aesthetics (Lipps, 1903b, 1906b). In accomplishing the theoretical innovation of his system of phenomenology, Lipps had to deal with issues of space (Lipps, 1907b, 1907c, 1907d). His illness that struck him down from 1908 onwards prohibited him from further progress in his ideas, and let to his giving up his popular lecturing practice. He was first of all an introspective scientist who reflectively anlyzed his own experiences, looking for generealized theory. After his death, a retrospect on him in the American context expressed this succinctly :

He was by temperament logician rather than psychologist ; but a streneous logic is indispensable to psychological theory; and Lipps’ criticisms were always of positive value, though his constructive work- ingenious and suggestive as it undoubtedly was—did not find general acceptance. (American Journal of Psychology, 1915, p. 160) Of course as psychology was moving in the direction away from a focus on

subjective phenomenology, Lipps’ work remained largely abandoned in psychology before World War I even in Germany, and were not developed further later. He was appreciated—not without criticisms (Wörringer, 1908)—in the art circles and aesthetic philosophy (e.g. Lee, 1907).

For Lipps, aesthetics was psychology. This idea came from the belief that the subject matter of all psychology was human conscious awareness (“Die Bewusstseinerlebnisse sind das Gegenstand der Psychologie”—Lipps, 1907a, p., 2). Such awareness was to be viewed at the link of two basic processes—Einfühlung and apperception—both operating through the structure of Gegenstand. That makes the Gegenstand operate in time—albeit, interestingly, not in irreversible time. Lipps could have adopted Henri Bergson’s introduction of the notion of irreversible time, which

12

became available in the 1890s, but he did not. Lipps’ phenomenological perspective, even if including dynamic aspects, remains principally ontological. That ontology did include the contrast between what is not yet and what is to be—through the notion of apperception.

Lipps particularly emphasized the apperception of Gegenstand (Gegenstandsapperzeption—Lipps, 1902, p. 16). With Einfühlung as the basis for relating with the world, leading to construction of an object (Gegenstand) out of a thing (Ding), it was the process of prehensive recognition of the action possibilities (object conditions) and anticipating the outcomes. In that, the dialogical nature of all encounters with the environment is hidden. To attempt a synthesis of ideas across the 20th century—Lipps’ theory (developed between 1883 and 1908) can offer the subjective and constructive complement to James Gibson’s affordance perspective (developed between 1960 and 1979). The useless rift between “direct” and “constructive” nature of perception (and action) would be overcome by such construction. Psychologists all too often create unnecessary fights around their own invented ideological oppositions, mistaking theoretical juxtapostioning of ideas for fierce fights between ideologies. The role of the Other Lipps’ axiomatic basis in Einfühlung made the role of the Other—person and nature—inevitably relevant for his theory. The Actor (self) feels into something (or somebody), and through that—into oneself. The apperceptive movement into the Other entails feeling oneself in that other7. In accordance with his phenomenological focus, Lipps (1900) insisted on the self-centered nature of Gestatqualität—the Gestalt is not in the world, but in the self relating with the world. The affective nature of encountering a Gestalt—not only visual but primarily musical—leads to taking over that experience for oneself—the Gestalt quality becomes, according to Lipps, Self-Quality (Ichqualität8). The pleasure of hearing a musical composition is created within the self in relation with the music—not in the melody as it exists, neither in the person who exists autonomously9. While for Lipps (1907d) the Self (Ich) was undoubtedly the central point of all experience, it is the flow of encounters with the innumerable objects outside if the Self that allow the Self to develop. Sympathy with other selves (fremden Ich) works for the Self itself (Lipps, 1907e)—“I feel with you in order to feel myself”—could be the general notion that specifies Lipps’ look at the relevance of the Other. The Other need not be a person (whom one “understands”, “sympathizes” with, or chats with on social occasions), but any object of aesthetic kind. The decoration of one’s home with flowers, a domestic animal, a fictional character in a novel, or watching a full moon are all parts of the Other10.

7 The meaning of Einfühlung is in the “Objektivirung meines Selbstgefühl”— “mich Fühlen in einem Andere” (Lipps, 1903b, p. 237) 8 The pleasure “ist nicht eine Qualität der Melodie oder irgend eines gegenständlichen Bewusstseininhaltes, sondern eine Qualität meiner, eine Ichqualität. Ich fühle jederzeit mich, und niemals eine Melodie, lustgestimmt, sowie ich jederzeit nur mich und niemals eine Melodie strebend, hoffend, fürchtend, bejahend, verneiend. Überrascht, etttäuscht, etc. fühle” (p. 385) 9 The focus on “internal” and “external” I-positions in DST is directly parallel to Lipps’ perspective 10 Lipps’ Einfühlung was axiomatically linking person with all objects, human, animal, or inanimate. Psychology has mispresented the concept—especially in its English translation as empathy—as if it pertains

13

Lipps’ typology of objects For Lipps, as well as for his contemporaries, the notion of Gegenstand was generic11. Possibly its width of usages, together with gradual disappearance of the relationship focus from psychology Lipps (1902, pp. 7-8) offered a typology of four kinds of objects. That typology reflects the various theoretical « voices » of the turn of the 19th/20th centuries :

1. The empirically real Gegenstand (empirisch-reale Gegenstande)-- an object that exists and is available for the actor through one’s sensory systems.

2. The intuitive Gegenstand-- an object that a person constructs in one’s thought (mathematical notions, numbers, colors, continuity of tones (melody) or colors

3. Fantasy Gegenstand -- objects that are made up by the mind from real elements into non-real wholes. Images of the Devil are of such kind.

4. Imaginary Gegenstand – objects one can think of, but cannot imagine (e.g. round quadrangle12) (Lipps, 1902, pp. 7-8)

Lipps and Raumaesthetik The general issue of space was crucial for Lipps all through his life (Lipps, 1891a, 1907c). All architectural wholes are created in space, and through filling the space with solid constructs interspersed with openings. Yet what matters for the human beings is the highest—aesthetic – constitution of space. The issue involved for humans is the inner freedom of form (Innere Freiheit der Form—Lipps, 1903b, p. 245) Lipps claimed that his efforts were meant to create a theoretical system of “Aesthetic Mechanics” (Ästhetische Mechanik -Lipps, 1903b, 1906b). This was meant to find elementary forms that are parts to the whole in the objects that persons affectively relate with and play a role in supporting the feelings that the conscious experiencing unfolds. Hence the interest in architecture—here we have human-built forms that suggest to the persons to feel into them in some general direction. The direction could be encoded in the fixed form, its actual evocative power of feelings is of course up to the experiencing person.

to other human beings. That presentation eliminates Lipps’ main focus on looking at apperceptoive processes in person-environment encounters. 11 This took the form of statements like “Gegenstand an sich ist alles, was fur mich Gegenstand werden

kann” (Lipps, 1907a, p.21). By claiming the centrality of the person’s construction of the borders of the object—fully in line with the role of the experiencing Subject—the theoretical value of the concept was muddles for 20

th century psychology where precise objective definitions of terms were appreciated. Yet

Lipps’ seemingly “voluntaristic” claim can be seen as a counter-claim to Kant’s “Ding an sich” notion , and has defined borders through the human use of sign systems. For him, the object cannot go beyond what is thinkable ( Die “Undenkbarkeit” ist ein Verbot des Gegenstandes - ibid,p. 62).

12 Examples of such objects were crucial in the ontological discussions of the Graz School of Alexius Meinong at the time

14

Between late 1880s and second half of the 1890s Lipps undertook a systematic effort to analyze a selected set of architectural forms (Lipps, 1891a, 1897a). Not surprisingly the ones that caught his eye were vertically oriented forms (church towers, columns) as well as extensions in the horizontal direction (“bulges”). His work on these forms entailed careful examination of various feelings that he himself—as his main and only research participant—projected into these forms. Coincidentally the various architectural forms allowed for demonstration of various visual perception illusions, that, after the description of the Müller-Lyer illusion (1889) led to many experimental efforts to look at human perception. Illusions were popular among psychologists at the time—yet their functions in everyday life were not considered. Demonstrating experimentally that ab optical illusion exists led psychologists to discuss the reality or non-reality of perception as such, rather than the role of such illusions in human experiencing. Simple tricks in interior design such as covering walls of a small room with mirrors—to create the illusion of a larger room—have been used over centuries. Lipps took an experiential rather than experimental approach to optical illusions, demonstrating their dependence on the inclusion of Gestalts (Figure 7). Figure 7. Analogue of the length illusion embedded into forms used in design

The most crucial focus in Lipps’ “architectural sketches” of the 1890s is the focus on the end of the contour. It is here where all dialogicality of architectural forms begins. The ongoing continuous phenomena is given an end—yet the allgemeine apperzeptive Einfühlung (Lipps, 1903b, p. 241) leads the person to attempt to move beyond the marked ending. The result is a dialogical opposition—tension between the <End> and <non-End>. Lipps was eager to find out how such end symbols are set up in architectural objects.

15

The End Symbol (Endigungssymbol) Our lives are filled with markings of endings—of sentences in written texts (e,g. punctuation marks at the end of written sentences), routines of ending telephone conversations. Lipps expanded that notion to architectural forms. The central assumption of such extension is the person’s active exploration of the architectural forms—the movement that is “felt into” the static form that is given to the experiencing person. Looking at simple geometric forms (Figure 8) illustrates his idea Figure 8. Creating an end to a form 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Figure 8.1. and 8.5, illustrate upwardly open movement that is supported by the end symbol of each case. Forms 8.2-8.4 entail ending symbols that stop the upward movement, yet in different ways. The dialogical movement starts at the end symbols (Figure 9) and builds up affective tension about upward movement. Lipps’ emphasis on the upper end of buildings (Der Spitze) was linked with the look for endings of forms. Figure 9. Lipps’ schemes of contrasting Spitze of buildings (Lipps, 1897b, p. 379)

16

Figure 10. The end symbol of the human self-presentation (Femme au Chapeau, Henri Matisse, 1905

End symbols are constructed in the case of all human-made forms—sometimes in excessive forms. Hats (Figure 10) or soldiers’ boots – in contrast with high-heeled shoes—set up the affective Endigungsymbol for the human body in its various social presentations. The tension that such symbols evoke can be illustrated by archaic forms of human construction such as a Stonehenge (Figure 11)

17

Figure 11. Dialogical tension created by an Endigungsymbol

Situating a horizontal slab of stone on top of two vertical ones puts an end to the upward direction of movement in our experience and re-directs it back towards the base. Yet the space above the Endigungsymbol remains free for our imagination to wander. The result is a dialogical tension in our experience, guided by the physical form. Psychology of columns Much of Lipps’ contemplation about architectural forms concentrated in the classic Greek columns. Columns (Säule) are architectural elements of both physical function, and carry with them social suggestions. How the latter are encoded into the forms of the columns was a question that fascinated the early scholars of the psychology of architecture. Thus, Heinrich Wölfflin characterized the classic Greek Doric order (see also Figure 12):

The whole lower half of the temple, from the capital downward, displays no decorative forms; neither the stylobate nor the column shaft carries a decoration. In the case of the stylobate, we have the raw mass lying heavily on the ground, scarcely achieving the simplest form; in that of the shaft, we expect the effort and concentrated strength that the fluting clearly expresses…. What happens above the columns? The entablature, which is the load to be carried, is a massive horizontal member. (Wölfflin, 1994/1886, p. 179)

LOCUS OF EMERGENCE OF THE DIALOGICAL TENSION

18

Figure 12. Columns of Doric order (Paestum)

Lipps was particularly interested precisely in the top part of a Doric column. Here two psychological processes enter into a dialogical relation-- the column in our perception extends vertically upward, while its massiveness lets us trace the power of gravity that extends vertically downward. In addition, the column extends horizontally—yet in ways that leave the feeling of compression. The vertical upwards<>downwards “dialogue” within the architectural whole of the building in which the column is a part becomes. coordinated with the restricted horizontal extension. Lipps subjected the top parts of the column—the triglyph in the Doric columns, and volute in the Ionian ones—to his phenomenological analysis. The contrast between Doric and Ionic columns has been the target of interest for most 19th entury aesthetic philosophers, who would even anthropomorphize the columns— very much along the lines of Lipps’ favorite notion of Einfühlung:

19

Figure 13. Ionic columns

With Ionic architecture… a striving toward freer movement asserts itself. There is no longer a desire to carry such a heavy load. The column is unburdened and the lighter impression is principally achieved by having it discharge its excess of force into the volutes … In comparisons of the Doric and Ionic orders, I have often heard it said that the Ionic holds its head freely upright, whereas the Doric bends the head down. (Wölfflin, 1994/1886, p. 180)

The specific architectural details of the top parts of the two column types that were analyzed by Lipps are outlined in Figure 14. The echinus <> triglyph suggestions of movement in the Doric case, and the elaborate horizontal extension of the volute in the Ionian case were the particular details that caught his eye. What is at stake here is the direction of the dialogical tension of the observer’s experience through these details. The Doric order suggests a way outwards—upwards- through the curvature of the echinus combined—further up—by the triglyph. The rest of the direction of movement is in the reverse- downwards. The massive order of columns orients upwards so as to return downwards, to the base, with an experience of power.

20

Figure 14. The dialogue in stone that starts at the top

Figure 15. The spiral horizontal extension in the Ionic order

Lipps analyzes the spiral endings of the forms of the volute (Figure 15) . The spiral form is nteresting from the point of view of its dialogicality—in contrast with a straight line that ends as drwn (CONTINUE<> non-CONTINUE opposition), the spiral ending (as an extension of the straight line) creates the dynamics of movement of restricted lateral extension (Figure 16). It is restricted (as the volute ends at certain extension from the

21

base of the column, and at the same time—guides the feeling of movement precisely into the point of ending of the spiral (which can be seen to extend to infinity in its depth.) Figure 16. Lipps’ focus on spiral endings

Beyond Raumästhetik: The dialogical extensions in the Corinthian Order Interestingly, Lipps was not interested in the Corinthian order—the third of the “classic three13”. Working on the implications of the Doric and Ionic capitals was sufficient for his theoretical purposes of demonstrating how apperception works in the creation of Gegenstand. The inherent dialogicality of that process is pre-given by the axiom of Einfühlung—feeling in another necessarily requires the other that relates to the self. If we were to continue from where Lipps finished in around 1906-8 and develop a coverage of classic column types within the DS framework a century later, it is the Corinthian in all of its highly varied transformations14 that would be of interest as a Gegenstand for the DS. Attributed to the Corinthian architect and sculptor Callimachus (5th century BC), the

13 All the three emerged and developed in parallel: the Doric (located in middle of mainland Greece) and Ionic (located in Asia Minor, Anatolia of today) orders can be traced back to 6

th century B,C. and represent

the two major mutually competitive ancient Greek ideologues. The Corinthian order can be traced to the city state of Corinthus in the 5

th century BC.

14 Extending to as far as the Hellenistic expansion to Gandhara and syntheses with Indian architecture

22

Roman philosopher Vitruvius (ON ARCHITECTURE Book 4) provides a possible account :

“It is related that the original discovery of this form of capital was as follows. A freeborn maiden of Corinth, just of marriageable age, was attacked by an illness and died. After her burial, her nurse, collecting a few little things which used to give the girl pleasure while she was alive, put them in a basket, carried it to the tomb, and laid it on top thereof, covering it with a roof-tile so that the things might last longer in the open air. This basket happened to be placed just above the root of an acanthus. The acanthus root, pressed down meanwhile though it was by the weight, when springtime came round put forth leaves and stalks in the middle, and the stalks, growing up along the sides of the basket, and pressed out by the corners of the tile through the compulsion of its weight”

The story focuses on the dialogical relation between life and death, and between nature and human construction- all through the experiencing of the other through the experience of a tombstone (taken over by nature). The abstracted result becomes encoded as the Corinthian capital (Figure 17). It can include the spiral forms of Ionic volute, in addition to a variety of floral forms. Figure 17. The Corinthian capital

23

The interweaving of the dialogical oppositions HORIZONTAL <> VERTICAL movement feeling as encoded in the form of the column with the NATURAL <> CONSTRUCTED opposition (as encoded into the form of capital ornamentation) makes the Corinthian capital most fitting for the basic investigation into DS—of course not of the DS of the columns (which are just particular sculpted stone constructions) but of the people who plan, construct, and appreciate the columns. The locus of the capitals is set from the beginning to be in the peripheral field (vertical position) which nevertheless can easily become focus of attention (looking upwards).

General Conclusion: The silent dialogue with oneself—stones in tension As we can learn from Lipps’ efforts to develop his “aesthetic mechanics”, architectural forms used in building construction encode dialogicality in their suggested ways of experiencing. Constructing buildings has not only been functional for what is to happen inside , but also what kinds of directed experiences are possible for people who observe them from the outside. The DST may benefit from extension of its theoretical focus onto the material perceivable worlds of human construction. Psychology at large is moving towards renewed interest in the analysis of iconic images (Wieser and Slunecko, 2013), and dialogicality can be discovered in our experiencing stone constructions—or their destructions 15 —in everyday lives. Different I-positions can be viewed as temporarily binding with different objects in everyday lives. Such encounters—by their implicit dialogicality encoded in the environment—would amplify or attenuate the ongoing processes of self-regulation. The person—the Dialogical Self—gets constant triggering for further dialogicality by experiencing the immediate environment. Both the Self and the material world are ready for development through their dialogical encounters with each other. Acknowledgment. The preparation of this paper was made possible by the Niels Bohr Professorship grant from the Danish Grundforskningsfond of the Danish Ministry of Science and Technology. References American Journal of Psychology (1915). Theodor Lipps. Vol 26 no 1 p. 160 Anschütz, G. (1915). Theodor Lipps. Archiv für die gesamte Psychologie, 34, 1-13. Bokhave, N. W., and Schuhmann, K. (1991). Biografie der Schriftens von Theodor Lipps.

Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, 45, 1, 112-130. Diriwächter, R. (2013). Structure and hierarchies in Ganzheitspsychologie. In L. Rudolph

(Ed,.), Qualitative mathematics for the social sciences.( pp. 189-226). London: Routledge.

15 The experiencing of ruins (Simmel, 1959/1908; Wölfflin, 2004) is an interesting example of how human experiencing can include romantization of buildings that are in a state of decay.

24

Gonçalves, M., and Ribeiro, A. P. (2012). Narrative processes of innovation and stability within the dialogical self. In H. Hermans and T. Gieser (Eds.), Handbook of dialogical self theory (pp. 301-318). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Hall, G. S. (1903). Note on cloud fancies. Pedagogical Seminary, 10, 96-100. Hermans, H. J. M., and Gieser, T. (Eds.) (2012). Handbook of dialogical self theory.

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Kharlamov, N. A. (2012). The city as a sign: A developmental-experiential approach to

spatial life. In J. Valsiner (Ed.), Oxford Handbook of Culture and Psychology (pp. 277-302). New York: Oxford University Press.

Lee, V. (1907). La sympathie esthetique. Revue Philosphique de la France et de l`Etranger, 64, 614-631.

Lipps, T. (1874). Zur Herbart’schen Ontologie. Bonn: Karl Georgi Lipps, T. (1883). Grundtatsachen der Seelenlebens. Bonn: Max Cohen & sons. Lipps, T. (1891a). Der Streit über die Tragödie. Hamburg Lipps, T. (1891b). Ästhetische Faktoren der Raumanschauung. Hamburg-Leipzig:

Leopold Voss. Lipps, T. (1897a). Raumästhetik und geometrisch- optische Täuschungen. Leipzig: J. A.

Barth.: Lipps, T. (1897b). Zur Psychologie der Suggestion. Leipzig: J. A. Barth. Lipps, T. (1898). Komik and Humor. Hamburg-Leipzig: Leopold Voss. Lipps, T. (1900). Zu den “Gestaltqualitäten.” Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie

der Sinnesorgane, 22, 383-385. Lipps, T. (1902a). Einheiten und Relationen. Leipzig: J. A. Barth. Lipps, T. (1902b). Vom Fühlen, Wollen und Denken. Leipzig: J. A. Barth. Lipps, T. (1903a). Einfühlung, innere Nachahmung und Oreganempfindungen. Archiv für

die gesamte Psychologie, 1, 185-204. Lipps, T. (1903b). Ästhetik: Psychologie des Schönen und der Kunst. Hamburg-Leipzig:

Leopold Voss. Lipps, T., (1903c). Leitfaden der Psychologie. Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann. Lipps, T. (1906). Die ästhetische Betrachtung und die bildende Kunst. Hamburg-Leipzig:

Leopold Voss Lipps, T. (1907a). Bewusstsein und Gegenstände, Psychologische Untersuchungen, 1,

1-203. . Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann. Lipps, T. (1907b). Die physikalische Beziehungen und die Einheit der Dinge.

Psychologische Untersuchungen, 1, 560-606. . Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann. Lipps, T. (1907c). Zur Frage der Realität des Raumes. Psychologische Untersuchungen,

1, 607-640. . Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann. Lipps, T (1907d). Das Ich und die Gefühle. Psychologische Untersuchungen, 1, 641-693.

Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann. Lipps, T. (1907e). Das Wissen von fremden Ichen. Psychologische Untersuchungen, 1,

1-203. . Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann. McGovern, S. (2004). The Ryoan-Ji Zen Garden: Textual meanings in topographical form.

Visual Communication, 3, 344-359. Ragatt, P. T. F. (2012). Positioning in the dialogical self: recent advances in theory

construction. In H. Hermans and T. Gieser (Eds.), Handbook of dialogical self theory (pp. 29-45). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

25

Simmel, G. (1959/1908). The ruin. In K., Wolff (Ed.), Georg Simmel, 1858-1918 (pp. 259-266). Columbus, Oh.: Ohio State University Press.

Uexkyll, J. (1982). Theory of meaning. Semiotica, 42/1, 25-82. Valsiner, J. (2006). The overwhelming world: Functions of pleromatization in creating

diversity in cultural and natural constructions. Keynote lecture at International School of Semiotic and Structural Studies, Imatra, Finland, June, 12.

Valsiner, J. (2014). Invitation to cultural psychology. London: Sage. Vischer, R (1994/1873). On the optical sense of form: A contribution to aesthetics. In

Empathy, form, and space (pp. 89-123). Los Angeles, Ca.: Getty Center for the History of Art.

Wieser, M., and Slunecko, T. (2013). (Theories are) more than words: Why images are significant to theoretical psychology. In A. Marvakis, J. Motzkau, D. Painter, R. Ruto-Korir, G. Sullivan, S. Trilivia and M. Wieser (Eds), Psychology under new conditions (pp. 299-306). Concord, Ontario: Captus.

Wölfflin, H. (1994/1886). Prolegomena to a psychology of architecture. . In Empathy, form, and space (pp. 149-190). Los Angeles, Ca.: Getty Center for the History of Art.

Wölfflin, H. (2004). Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Basel: Schwabe. Wörringer, W (1997/1908). Abstraction and empathy. Chicago: Elephant Publishers Yoon, H-K. (1994). The different geomentalities, two different gardens the French and the

Japanese. GeoJournal, 33.4, 471-477.