KNOW THYSELF vs COMMON KNOWLEDGE :sx BLEICH'S EPISTEMOLOGY SEEN THROUGH TWO SHORT STORIES BY BALZAC .sx Reader-response theorists , still haunted by the spectre of the 'affective fallacy' , yet equally aware of the dangers of an objectivist stance , are faced with a problem of authority :sx who or what is the ultimate source of meaning ?sx At one end of the spectrum , authority may be invested in the actual author of the text , as in the theory of E. D. Hirsch ; at the other , meaning may be a function of the individual reader's identity , an approach favoured by Norman Holland .sx Other works , such as Wolfgang Iser's The Act of Reading , or Stanley Fish's Affective Stylistics , grant the written text a measure of authority by claiming that the reader's response is guided and limited by specific objective textual structures .sx Epistemologies may shift authority from the subjective to the intersubjective :sx meaning is a function not of the individual reader but of intersubjective communities .sx The later work of Stanley Fish , introducing the notion of 'interpretive communities' , falls into this category .sx David Bleich's Subjective Criticism , whilst appearing to favour the subjective end of the spectrum , also has something of the 'community spirit' .sx As will emerge , the relationship posited between individual subject and community is a problematic one .sx Reading the theory 'through' Balzac's Le Colonel Chabert and Adieu , I shall explore a number of problems surrounding Bleich's epistemology , and consider some of the wider implications arising from the concept of community .sx I. Bleich's Epistemology .sx According to Bleich , paradigms or world-views are set up to meet the epistemological needs of the present .sx The objective paradigm which he challenges is no exception :sx " The notion of objective truth has the epistemological status of God :sx it is an invented frame of reference aimed at maintaining prevailing social practices .sx " This paradigm , claims Bleich , has outlived its usefulness .sx Its epistemological presuppositions must be revised in the light of work carried out by figures such as Einstein , Heisenberg , and Gombrich .sx 'Facts' or 'knowledge' do not exist independent of the investigator :sx they are a function of his motives and the means of investigation .sx 'Facts' are not found , but made .sx Bleich's 'subjective paradigm' is intended to supersede the objective approach .sx How does this new epistemology operate in the field of reader-response ?sx According to Bleich , though the literary text has physical properties , its meaning depends entirely on a process which he calls 'symbolization' .sx Symbolization , the reader's initial response , can be defined as a peremptory perception and evaluation of the text .sx It is an imaginative interiorization which is differentiated from a purely sensorimotor response .sx Interpretation of the text is referred to as motivated 'resymbolization' , where resymbolization is defined as the mentation involved in a conscious response to the symbolization .sx It is a reframing of the symbolization which occurs when the present adaptive needs of the individual demand an act of explanation or interpretation .sx The interpretation should not be considered in terms of a true/false polarity , but rather in terms of validity or conviction .sx It is not concerned with a recovery of 'fact' or 'truth' :sx its success depends upon its meeting of present demands or adaptive needs :sx " The logic of interpretation is that its resymbolising activity is motivated and organised by the conscious desires created by disharmonious feelings or self-images ; the goal of these desires is increasing the individual's sense of psychological and social adaptability " ( Subjective Criticism , p. 83) .sx Central to Bleich's epistemology is the individual's capacity for reflective thought .sx Bleich refers to a 'subjective dialectic' , the individual's ability ( for example , when hearing a story ) to ask himself questions and receive answers .sx This activity is a sign that symbolization ( imaginative response ) , and not just a sensorimotor activity ( registering the visual stimuli of print ) , has taken place .sx In the context of the reading act , Bleich introduces a valuable hermeneutic tool :sx the 'response statement' .sx This is a recording by the reader of his subjective responses as he reads .sx The 'response statement' is used alongside the subject's 'meaning statement' or interpretation of a text , with a view to bringing to reflective attention the subjective stratum of response , and thereby acknowledging its influence on the apparently objective 'meaning statement' .sx The reading subject is , we might say , answerable to and for himself ; he is responsible for his reading .sx The important thing is to know that you know .sx Knowledge , however , does not stop with the individual subject and his reflective powers :sx it must be 'negotiated' in a community :sx " To know anything at all is to have assigned a part of one's self to a group of others who claim to know the same thing .sx ... The degree to which knowledge is not part of a community is the degree to which it is not knowledge at all " ( Subjective Criticism , p. 296) .sx The community is also deemed to have reflective powers , to be conscious of , and able to articulate its own motivation for knowledge-seeking .sx It , too , is answerable to and for itself ; it , too , is responsible .sx Bleich considers this new epistemology to be ethically superior to its objective counterpart :sx operating according to the rules of the latter , the subjective stratum of any knowledge-seeking act goes unnoted and probably unnoticed .sx Interpretation operating under the objective paradigm has no authority :sx authority requires a hermeneutic moment which reveals the interests or motivations of the seeker of knowledge or explanation .sx II .sx Balzac and Bleich .sx Both Le Colonel Chabert and Adieu represent characters prompted by their present adaptive needs to engage in knowledge-seeking acts , and to form some kind of intersubjective or community relationship .sx Both texts , to a certain extent , play out or dramatize some of Bleich's ideas .sx Tompkins has noted that Bleich's privileging of self-knowledge , manifested in the 'subjective dialectic' and 'response statement' , marks an inconsistency in his epistemology .sx I shall show that Le Colonel Chabert dramatizes the very epistemological issues at stake .sx Both short stories , in fact , not only 'stage' some of the theoretical concepts ; they also serve to challenge the theory and to reveal some of the implications which arise from the relationship between individual subject and intersubjective community .sx Le Colonel Chabert tells the tale of a Napoleonic colonel injured and left for dead after the battle of Eylau .sx Suffering from a severe head-wound , the colonel digs his way out of a mass grave , recovers his health and memory , and returns to what is , by then , Restoration Paris .sx There he enlists the help of the solicitor Derville , in an attempt to regain public recognition .sx After a crucial meeting with Chabert , his wife , since remarried , realizes that his physical appearance has so altered as to render him unrecognizable to the public .sx After a series of manoeuvrings , she successfully thwarts Chabert's attempts , and the colonel fades into obscurity .sx Le Colonel Chabert prompts several questions about the nature of self-knowledge .sx For example , can the individual's grasp of self-identity be challenged by an external authority ?sx Early in the short story , one of Derville's clerks vouches for the authority of the subject :sx " Je l'appelle pour lui demander s'il est colonel ou portier , il doit savoir , lui " ( p. 31 , my italics) .sx As far as Chabert is concerned , his self-knowledge , his knowledge of who he is , is , quite literally , self-evident .sx There can be no question of intersubjective negotiation :sx -Il faudrait peut- e-circ tre transiger , dit l'avou e .sx -Transiger , r e p e ta le colonel Chabert .sx Suis-je mort ou suis-je vivant ?sx ( p. 58 ) .sx To this extent , Bleich's privileging of knowledge of self seems to find literary support .sx However , Chabert's self-knowledge is challenged and indeed denied by the 'comtesse' , a representative of the community which is Restoration society .sx As Chabert discovers , even self-knowledge is negotiable :sx " tout se plaide " ( p. 72) .sx Derville , using terms which would not be out of place in Bleich's own work , makes the point that self-knowledge becomes knowledge only if and when negotiated in a motivated community :sx " Vous e-circ tes le comte Chabert , je le veux bien , mais il s'agit de le prouver juridiciairement , a-grave des gens qui vont avoir int e r e-circ t a-grave nier votre existence " ( p. 70 , my italics) .sx This raises a number of points which are inadequately covered by Bleich .sx Exactly how does his epistemology reconcile self and community ?sx On the one hand , it seems impossible to deny the privileged nature of self-knowledge , specifically , of the reflective ego :sx to do so would be to deny the basic ontological structure of the self .sx The 'comtesse' sees only a part of the problem when she tells Chabert that " renoncer a-grave vous-m e-circ me " would mean " commettre un mensonge a-grave toute heure du jour " ( p. 107) .sx To deny the reflective ego is , ultimately , to deny life itself .sx Chabert himself touches on the problem when he expresses a desire for the ontologically impossible :sx " Je voudrais n' e-circ tre pas moi .sx " In the closing pages of the text , his attempted self-renunciation hints at the fact that to abolish the reflective ego is to cease to be a human subject :sx " Pas Chabert !sx pas Chabert !sx .sx .. Je ne suis plus un homme , je suis le num e ro 164 , septi e-grave me salle " ( p. 121) .sx If self-knowledge is an ontological necessity , how can it be integrated into an epistemology such as Bleich's , which insists on the intersubjective negotiation of all knowledge ?sx Self-knowledge is by definition solipsistic .sx If " tout se plaide " , how can proof be offered to a third party ?sx How can Chabert's reflective awareness of himself become material which is accessible to intersubjective negotiation ?sx This problematic relationship between transcendent subject and community is briefly raised by Tompkins , who compares Bleich's concept of community to that of Stanley Fish :sx Both statements suggest that individual or subjective knowledge exists prior to the formulation of publicly shared assumptions and that membership in an interpretive community is a conscious act entered into freely by each individual .sx ... This description [of the interpretive community] stands Fish's concept on its head .sx Instead of the individual's being constituted by the assumptions of the group , the group is formed by individuals who then negotiate its assumptions into existence .sx ( p. 1073 ) .sx The conflict appears to be irreconcilable .sx One can adopt Fish's stance , whereby the subject is constituted by group assumptions and correlatively loses the freedom of the self-reflective , transcendent self .sx In this case we can no longer talk of authority or responsibility :sx the subject is not answerable to or for himself .sx Alternatively , one can seek to preserve , as Bleich does , the freedom of the transcendent self , in which case we cannot accept that all knowledge is negotiated in a community .sx Le Colonel Chabert plays out this epistemological conflict to perfection .sx In Chabert's case , joining the community represented by the 'comtesse' would mean denying his own existence ; it results in an ontological impasse .sx Extending this , and taking Chabert's case as exemplary , we might ask how can individuals be convinced to join a particular community ?sx Thomas Kuhn , referring to paradigm switches and communities of scientists , suggests that persuasion can go only so far :sx " The transfer of allegiance from paradigm to paradigm is a conversion experience that cannot be forced .sx " Richard Norman , considering a similar problem in terms of seeing 'gestalt' figures ( duck/rabbit ; old/young woman ) , states :sx " I cannot 'choose' or 'decide' to see the figure in a certain way .sx If I am able to see it as a picture of an old woman , this is because that way of seeing forces itself upon me .sx We can speak of the dawning of an aspect .sx " Proffered 'proof' about the 'gestalt' figure ( 'here is the nose , here the chin' , etc. ) is proof only to one who is already in-context :sx " The 'evidence' each gives will be understood in the relevant way only by one who is already convinced " ( p. 335) .sx Neither Fish , who takes the same line ( the subject is always-already sic !sx in context ) , nor Bleich considers in sufficient detail the processes of joining and leaving communities .sx The conflict between Chabert and the 'comtesse' , a spokeswoman for the Restoration community , extends the issue into the domain of ethics :sx what happens when there is a conflict of interests between communities ?sx How are differences settled ?sx How , exactly , does communication and negotiation take place ?sx In the case of Chabert , the innocent victim seems to fall prey to an anonymous corporate body .sx Bleich notes :sx " If there is no external standard , collective interests are the highest authority , and knowledge depends ultimately on how individuals form groups and circumscribe the existence of other groups " ( Subjective Criticism , p. 264) .sx