[85] It is no coincidence that some parallels to such consideration can also be found in the context of Jan Mukařovský’s thinking, especially in relation to his reflections on the poetical, later even anthropologically based, rhythm. Initially, the rhythm was a basic form [Mukařovský, 1986: 118–120], that is the organizing principle of the individual components of a work of art (along with composition), later – under the influence of Phenomenology – one of the fundamental relationships of the human body to the world. The matter, originally given (as the principle revealed in a work of art), thus became a founding relationship, that is something – expressed in Husserl’s style – what is not fully out of the consciousness, but is also not purely psychological content of the consciousness. “Things” (phenomena) exist only in the relation to something that is just as related to a specific historical context[86]. The Archeology, as a specific method of analysis, which aims to uncover and identify primarily a set of conditions under which it is possible to determine certain mental concepts of development of theoretical thought, is not a substitute for the history of selected schools of thought or a theory. The Archeology is not a causal description of the development and its historical context, but it is primarily focused on the levels that can be meaningfully analyze, therefore demonstrate the dependence of specific conceptions to a set of certain assumptions, which have their own characteristic and logical structure. In its basic form it contains two complementary requirements: (i) If an object of the Archeologic description is a system of rules that allows the creation of objects in the space-time frame, then the object is associated with the central question of the legitimacy of rules governing the form of individual objectification in the process of their sharing/non-sharing, therefore the possibility of their existence/non-existence;[87] (ii) The system of sharing is essentially a system of norms operating in the context of specific social groups. The Archeology itself then becomes a historical-comparative method in which the priority is given to descriptions of the individual objectifications. It is not primarily the work of interpretation, which is though hidden in the base of each realized description. The task of the Archeology is to analyze selected structures of thinking and determine their rules.
On the basis of what has been said so far, we can determine three basic meanings of the Archeology as the method: (1) The Archeology is a description and analysis of a historical area within which ideas or knowledge are generated. (2) The Archeology is a method of analysis, which favors the description before the causality on the level of events or knowledge and uncovers the historical preconditions for certain configurations of knowledge than the knowledge itself. (3) The Archeology is specific method of analysis, which aims to uncover and identify a set of conditions under which it is possible to determine certain mental concepts of development of theoretical thinking, thus it is not a substitute for the history of a selected tradition of thoughts or a theory.
A discussion about the relationship between Czech Structuralism and the Russian School of Formalism is impossible to separate from the broader context of other controversies and polemics that took place, often simultaneously, in the thirties not only within the Prague Linguistic Circle, but also between representatives of the Czech Structuralism and their opponents. Some of the topics discussed in the context of polemics about the relationship between Czech Structuralism and Russian Formalism also appear in other contexts of different disputes. Each set of different discussions can be characterized by the relationship between a basic category, which is at the base of the whole set of various polemics, and the form that determines its realization. The summarization simplifies, of course, but each designation of the topic of various polemics, functioning as a kind of label, represents the central question that underlies all debates [Kříž, 2014].
A. A nature of Poetic Language (the category of “dominating factor”/Form: “deformation”);[88]
B. A relation of work of art to subject of “the author” in the process of literary communication (the category of “experience”/Form: “enjoyment”)[89];
C. Basic concepts of Czech Structuralism (function, structure, intention)[90]
D. Structural model of literary development (the category of “Selbstbewegung”/Form: “dual motivation”)[91].
The first set (A) of discussions is associated with the context of various considerations of the written/standard language; the set of polemics represents probably the most extensive context of various disputes in the thirties, in which not only theorist in the field of Linguistics and Literary Criticism (Aesthetics) have been involved, but also journalists, writers and wider public as well. The category of dominant occupies the central location within the set of polemics; the category that was systematically analyzed by Jan Mukařovský was applied to the discussed relationship between the poetic language and the standard/written language. The category of dominant together with the process of deformation, considered as a function of the category, represent the basic structure, which became a central perspective for described set of polemics that also appeared later in different kind of variations. The second set (B) of polemics was conducted mainly in the field of Literary Theory (Aesthetics) and its content gradually built up the structuralist concept of art (literature) as a specific type of communication, which is governed by autonomous rules. Even in that context of polemics we find topics resonated further in the development of Czech Structuralism (for instance the issue of the intentionality of an author). While the third set (C) of controversies is linked to the debate on basic principles and concepts of the Structuralism as the whole, the fourth set (D) of controversies, together with the first one, form most extensive “field of discussions” in the thirties. The structural model of the development originally proposed by Jan Mukařovský and primarily applied to the system of literature provoked a wide discussion on diachrony in the Humanities.
Variability in discussions about the relationship between Czech Structuralism and Russian Formalism is well detectable in the perspective of the two models, each of which describes a set of discussions and its relations to other sets of controversies. As indicated in connection with the characterization of the analysis as Archeology, individual arguments contained in various controversies enter into different relationships that can meaningfully be described as a structure of rules that are implemented in different variations. Both models have themselves been the subject of various discussions, but by its form they allow to analyze various conflicts not only on the basis of chronological order of their succession.
3.1 Isolation/Concentration Analysis
Individual views on the relationship (or on the category of continuity) between Russian Formalism and Czech Structuralism might be perceived as a certain figure of the double movement realized in the process of human reception. Individual interpretations intersect, as already indicated, other important debates such as discussions about (1) poetic language and the culture of language, (2) poetry or the art of literature respectively and the way how we can study both, and finally about (3) the form and character of literary history. The source of inspiration here was probably the Gestalt psychology, on the one hand, and traditional aesthetics of perception, on the other, which both coincidentally became a source for the concept, proposed by Jan Mukařovský, of mental processes of a perceiving subject in the context of the unifying principle of artistic creation [Schmid, 2011: 23–47]. The relationship of Russian Formalism and Czech Structuralism, previously suggested, becomes a secondary synecdoche of the larger controversy between representatives of structural thinking and their – speaking awkwardly – ideological opponents. The double movement lies in the application of the two-phase model to the empirical process of human perception, in which the base is the assumption that human consciousness accesses to external stimuli actively, which are the objects of perception; that means individual perceptions are actively reflected by the human consciousness. Leaving aside the historical and theoretical context of that account, the first phase is described as a particular isolation of the shaped outline in the context of other objects. The second concentration phase is focused on the already isolated scheme of shapes that is progressively re-instigated in different material variations by the consciousness, or is eventually corrected if any defect types are detected within the isolated scheme. The model of reception of the human consciousness is likely to become a model not only for Mukařovský in his consideration of rhythmic structuring of a work of art in the process of its perception but also for adjudicators in terms of the relationship between Russian Formalism and Czech Structuralism.