Teorije književnosti: metarefleksija in rešitev
Ključne besede:
filozofija znanosti, literarna teorija, znanstvenost, empirična literarna veda, metodologija, teorija aktualizacijePovzetek
Lahko literarne teorije sploh označimo za znanstvene? Navsezadnje je to cilj vseh teorij. Na podlagi kategorizacije znanstvenih teorij, ki jo je razvil profesor matematike na oxfordski univerzi, Robert Penrose, lahko teorije razdelimo v tri kategorije: 1) odlične, 2) uporabne in 3) provizorične. Ob pregledu številnih literarnih teorij, predlaganih v zadnjih desetletjih, lahko ugotovimo, da nobena ne spada v prvo kategorijo. V drugo kategorijo naj bi spadala samo ena teorija, in sicer teorija aktualizacije (foregrounding). (Predstavljen je kratek pregled dokazov, ki podpirajo to teorijo.) Kaj pa »provizorične« teorije? To so teorije, ki jih ne podpira veliko empiričnih dokazov. Spadajo tudi literarne teorije v to kategorijo? Avtor je za jasnejšo razlago dodal še eno kategorijo, in sicer kategorijo zgrešenih teorij. To so teorije, ki nimajo potrebnih dokazov za to, da bi bile kredibilne, obenem pa celo »nočejo« sodelovati pri empiričnem testiranju svojih trditev. Avtor to ponazori s tem, kako poskušajo feministične literarne teorije doseči svoje cilje. Kljub pomembnosti feminističnih tém jih je le malo predmet znanstvenih raziskav. Večina trditev na tem področju temelji le na ugibanju. To preseneča, glede na to da so metodološka orodja (npr. pri kvantitativnih analizah velikih korpusov) za preučevanje tovrstnih trditev na voljo vsakomur, ki je pripravljen vložiti vsaj malo truda v raziskovanje. Poleg tega je to tudi žalostno, saj zaradi zanikanja te možnosti področje feministične literarne teorije nima nikakršne resne vsebine. Še huje, ko postanejo te trditve predmet strogih znanstvenih postopkov – denimo v primeru dela Özena Odağa (Jakobova univerza, Bremen) ali Janet Hyde (Univerza Madison, Wisconsin) – se preprosto izkažejo za lažne. Na podlagi te analize avtor ugotavlja, da gre pri feminističnih literarnih teorijah za zgrešene teorije. Potemtakem je stanje v literarni teoriji precej skrb vzbujajoče. Kljub razpoložljivosti potrebnih metod je le malo dela usmerjenega v razvoj teorij, ki bi bile podprte z znanstvenimi dokazi. Največja kritika, ki jo lahko usmerimo na to področje, pa je, da literarni teoretiki po navadi svojih trditev preprosto nočejo prepustiti neodvisnim testiranjem. To pa zajamčeno vodi v nadaljnjo znanstveno ignoranco.Literatura
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