In contrast to contemporary tendencies to individualize the aesthetic inquiry, Ingarden considers aesthetics as an integral part of philosophical investigations. More specifically, he centers on the ...one hand upon the nature, existential status, and cognition of the literary work of art as forming a specific sector of 'regional ontology', and on the other hand the so-conceived aesthetic inquiry plays a major role in the other sectors of Ingarden's philosophical inquiry. Indeed, Ingarden stresses that his aesthetic theory is not merely an analysis of art but it is meant to deal with some basic philosophical issues. Yet, so far with very few exceptions, this philosophical core of Ingarden's work has remained unexplored; it is mainly as a clarification of specific problems in the theory of art and literature that his aesthetics is being evaluated. Prof. Tymieniecka argues, first, that in his aesthetic theory Ingarden sets out to resolve some crucial difficulties of Husserl's phenomenology by an aesthetic investigation as outlined in Moritz Geiger's work. Secondly, she analyses in some detail three main features of Ingarden's aesthetic theory: (1) the conception of the many-layered structure of the literary work of art as differentiating existential realms; (2) the correlation between the structure of the object and its cognition ('concretion') by the subject; (3) the mediating role of the aesthetic value in constructing the 'aesthetic object'. The question remains open whether Ingarden's primary intention — to lay down the groundwork for a new and more promising philosophical edifice than Husserl's — has been fulfilled. This paper suggests some points toward such a discussion.
