Imagine that someone has never seen an American home, and this person asked me what it was like. If I said it was a structure with four walls, a roof, and oh, it’s most important part is its strong foundation, I will have missed the point of the question. It would be better to define a home as a shelter, a place in which a family can live in comfort and security, where they can store their provisions and foster a community of love. I would be thought of as mental if I said a person was merely the makeup of his various body parts. This sort of definition entirely disregards the soul and the spirit, and reduces the man to a doll, a physical entity only. In the same way we should not define a written novel merely as the sum of its components. Elements exist, sure, without which the novel would not be a whole; but the whole is something more when it is complete than simply the agglomeration of its parts.
Theories that have developed in the study of the novel have ranged from defined linguistic analysis; to metaphysical assumption; to limited deductions of specific designs of the novel without any concern for meaning or significance. That last premise is a dangerous path toward reductionist reasoning and a disregard for established principles of art and humanity. To put it bluntly, theorists are forever trying to defy such established principles, and with a growing attention to reductionism in societal and scientific analysis, new and enticing venues have allowed for what may be considered innovative possibilities for novel theory.
The application of a reductionist view to all of life’s intricacies, which has been an age-long argument since the time of Plato and Aristotle, may reach even the elaborate model of the novel. Its bottom-up hypothesis suggests a solution to all of life. Since novels are a product of life in this world, it is no wonder theorists would find the application of reduction to the concept of the novel appealing. Yet in contrast to the optimistic view of discovery in light of reductionist theory, a close analysis of the novel’s many and diverse parts ought to produce a more defined understanding of author, art, and life in general.
Reductionism in the physical sciences suggests a close analysis of entities conclusively as the sum of their individual parts. This includes an understanding of levels, or layers, by which all of life is constituted. We might start from the work of someone with an MA in philosophy and a Ph. D in physics. Edward Mackinnon, writing for Philosophical Forum in 2008, stated matter-of-factly: “complex molecules and organic structures must rely on the familiar atoms and properties of the periodic table.”1 Everything comes down to the corresponding physics. Mackinnon explains further a new kind of reductionism that has been recently advanced by philosophers. Because global reductionism bumps into many problems when dealt with by “philosophical accounts of scientific theories,” reductionists have taken a turn back to a reliance on the familiarity of physics. So here we find an intersection between science and philosophy, a union that is capable of producing some very precarious ideas and conclusions. Unlike previous dealings with a myriad of levels and their relation to explain the complex whole, this concern with detailed scientific information provides a step-by-step reduction of its successive levels. An organism’s makeup is not particularly complicated, for what levels are known in enough detail to conduct a reduction are merely atoms, molecules, and condensed matter.2 These lower-level properties compose higher-level properties (scientific terms, not mine). Accordingly, the distinctive features of the complex whole can be explained in principle by the properties of its parts.
Physicists such as Mackinnon would claim that “multiple realizations” of these properties would lead to a digression into different philosophical “worlds.”3 New reductionism retreats to the known physics in order to solidify its claims. Naturalist philosophers assume that “physics is causally closed,” and that new reductionism is fundamentally naturalist. They also claim that fundamental physics explain the “unexplained.” But can it truly apply to sociology or psychology? Surely several ambitious attempts have been made to provide conceptual frames of these greater spheres by claiming “a hierarchy of relations.”4 At least from a limited standpoint that is my interpretation of a physicist-philosopher’s argument.
But now let’s throw another screwball into the mix, and touch on something of my own interest. A second intersection is made with the inclusion of narrative works. How does this conception of reductionism communicate current theories on literature? Philosopher Thomas Nagel wrote on bioethics that the philosophy of a reductionist worldview feeds on “the understanding of life through molecular biology.”5 To understand this connection, there needs to be a solid familiarity with emergent reality. Just as reductionism deals with the breaking down of the whole into its individual constituents, so emergence similarly maintains that each individual particle is the origin of every entity. It relies on the hierarchy of physical structure and causation. George F. R. Ellis is a contemporary theorist in the concept of emergence who defines it as a type of reductionism, though not a complete reduction because it includes, without denying, the mystery of conscious choice and the ability to reason logically.6 Granted, emergence varies in different contexts (non-living objects, living beings, and manufactured objects), although the impression remains the same. Its notions “must entail the full depth of humanity.” This includes human intelligence, rationality, self-understanding, self-esteem and mutual recognizance. It may be noted that any conception of the novel must entail a few principles of humanity, namely evaluating information and holding beliefs about the world and one’s place in it, acting rationally, recognizing one’s own value and intelligence, and respecting other people and one’s relationship with them. In this case, emergence and the concept of hierarchal systems, according to Ellis, “extend to the best literature and art in the world – Shakespeare, Dostoyoevsky, Michaelangelo, Rembrandt, etc., as well as the heights of generosity, love, and self-sacrificial moral endeavor.”7
The novel can be tentatively broken down into five elements: plot, characters, setting, action and dialogue. Does this mean these five elements are what a novel is? Could you take each of these things and scramble them whichever way you please and the result would be a genuine story? For now we will put these five elements together under the umbrella term plot. R. S. Crane, an influential theorist of the novel, offers three variations on the concept of plot: plots of action, plots of character, and plots of thought.8 All three are intertwined and serve each other to create something of uniqueness, complexity, and power. Plots of action cause the protagonist to be thrown into a situation that is drastically different from what it was before, “determined and effected by character and thought;” plots of character are “processes of change” in the quality of the protagonist, carried by action and made manifest in his manner; plots of thought are the inner struggles and processes that affect the thoughts and feelings of the protagonist, which are directed by and also the foundation to both character and action. All of these types of plot determine a greater distinctiveness and power than that which, as Crane asserts, “so many critics have tended to reduce to action alone.”9 In our evaluation, we cannot reserve giving credit to the father of poetic structure, Aristotle, who defines the plot as having a beginning, middle and end, an “imitation of an action that is complete, and whole, and of a certain magnitude.”10 Crane seeks to recover the Aristotelian validity of the word plot and to define it so as to distinguish it from its skeletal form of action.
It would help to weigh plots of action against the ontological study of reductionism. Reductionism is “based on the concept of an isolated system.” Physicists isolate the individual constituents to “understand the fundamental causal elements underlying physical reality.”11 There is a hierarchy of complexity in which each level links to the one above: chemistry links to biochemistry, to cell biology, physiology, psychology, to sociology, economics and politics. What does this say? It infers that man is a machine, limited by his cellular makeup alone. In the novel, plots of action could be seen in light of its isolated constituents: from characters, cause and effect (or motivation), to emotions, and even trivial factors such as movement or accidents, to individual words. These we might define as causal elements that bring about the greater design, where there is a hierarchy of one level linking to another in a bottom-up activity, and the result is a plot. Take for example the whale in Moby Dick. It destroys Captain Ahab’s boat and bites off his leg by natural propensity to protect itself, which then raps Ahab’s emotions so that he responds with an endeavor for revenge. This may spark a plot, but can we honestly say that it is a plot in itself?
The problem at hand is one of perspective. It is not a bottom-up hypothesis that constitutes the novel. Rather, it must be seen from the top-down. Developmental biology is a top-down process “from the developing organism to the cell.” Each cell is told where to be in the developing body and what it should be (“forming blood, bone, hair, neurons, etc”). Ellis elucidates this top-down action in terms of human framework, occurring from the mind first to the body, and the body interacts consequently with the physical world.12 There is no way of predicting the behavior of the human mind from the underlying physical properties. Physics, Ellis tells us, “fails to explain the outcomes of human purpose, and so provides an incomplete description of the real world around us.”13 Captain Ahab’s behavior on account of the whale is to be traced from the author’s desire to express true human qualities in an elaborate and complex world.
Norman Friedman, a strong advocate of Crane’s work, attempts a response to that looming question: what is the whole of a written work that holds the pieces together? He seeks to discover that “principle of unity which governs the selection and arrangement of parts and their embodiment in language.” There is no way of determining the “relevance and efficacy” of its parts and their manner of presentation without an understanding of the “end effect aimed at.”14 Each part plays a role in the power and effectiveness of the whole.15 The goal of analyzing the plot is to “grasp its artistic organization;” in other words, the categories of a plot exist not as definitive limitations of the plot, but suggestions of the many varieties of plots.16 It is Friedman’s definition of the whole which makes relevant the interpretation of the techniques. There is something the parts and devices of a given plot “are relevant to and effective for.” Formulas such as purpose, passion and perception, or tension, conflict and resolution account for an authentic plot design. Crucial to the matter is that everything corresponds to the “sensibility of the author” and his “ability to recognize and represent the complexities of the human situation.”17 In this way every word has a purpose.
Plots of character have to do not only with the action, but also with conscious motives, various perspectives, and the imitation of humankind in the real world. A character’s reality is established through a variety of perspectives, as theorist W. J. Harvey terms a “web of human relationships.”18 The depth of a character lies in his connection to a world of other human beings, seen however briefly. Dostoyevsky and Proust are masters of this technique. Readers have the knowledge of a range of perspectives, even one from each character individually, and in them can find motives and perhaps determine the future toward which they move. This knowledge is called dramatic irony, in which the most important perspective is the reader’s own. The reader will perceive things that perhaps none of the characters know. None of the characters can aspire to the reader’s “wholeness of vision.”19 From his own perception, the reader will discover that most of the protagonist’s actions are guided by their relationships with other characters.
Yet the counterargument that fires at all cylinders is that of epistemological reductionism, which says that “genes develop a brain capacity to learn language and then results in adaption of the brain to that specific language.” That language then becomes the foundation for understanding and perception, and which taken in a social context will “guide future actions.” Strong reductionist claims ignore the “overall rich causal matrix” of humanity while narrowing down to the “physical elements of causation.”20 What horror this idea comes out to! And pity on whoever believes it. The mind operates on rationality and reason, and if the mind replies only to “the commands of its constituent electrons and protons,” then rationality and reason are simply “the inevitable outcomes of micro-physics.”21 This fails to capture what is meaningful about the possibilities of the human capacity. Harvey explains that art in the novel involves “an exercise in contrast and comparison, a variation on the whole theme of unity in variety, of similitude in dissimilitude.”22 A multiplicity of characters can more vividly define one protagonist. Like all human beings, so much of what a character is can only be defined in terms of his relations with other people. Protagonists “incarnate the moral vision of the world inherent in the total novel.”23
For a novel to be whole, it must contain a linear structure. Yet it is not enough to say that all the parts relate to all the other parts and that the whole equals this relationship. There needs to be a sense of the whole as an end and the parts as means in order for there to be a developmental progression. Parts and devices not only exist to relate, but to forward a purpose. The end, or form, is the driving force behind the author’s purposes for where to begin, how much to include and in what order, where to emphasize and where deemphasize, as well as where and how to end.24 It is the underlying groundwork of the entire novel. To borrow again from Aristotle, a beginning follows nothing; instead, it is the causal grounds for what is to come next – it necessitates a plot. The middle is what follows, carrying the progression of the plot and its characters. The end is that which follows the middle, but has nothing following it. The end brings to a close the current plots of action, character, and thought which have been established. A well structured plot, Aristotle claims, “must neither begin nor end at haphazard, but conform to these principles.”25
The greatest literature in history explore plots that provoke in the reader a sense of attachment, or engagement, which stimulates emotion. As the reader becomes involved, he will either wish good or ill of the characters depending on their situations. The characters evolve from being remote products of an author’s pen to morally differentiated companions of the reader that interact with his desires and expectations. The novel ought to contain the combined elements of action, character, and thought in such an arrangement that carries the protagonist on the journey through his own situation as well as the reader’s aspirations. To this end Crane designates the form of the plot as a distinctive “working or power” that enables a prevailing connection to the reader. It is not enough that a plot be judged “in terms of the unity of its action, the number and variety of its incidents, or the extent to which it produces suspense and surprise.” These are merely “properties of its matter” that are necessary but not sufficient conditions of a good plot.26 If I may quote from the great Joseph Conrad and adopt a bit of his philosophy, the novel speaks to the reader’s “capacity for delight and wonder,” to his sense of pity, beauty, pain, joy, sorrow, hope, and fear that “binds together all humanity.” The temperament that the novel appeals to must create the “moral, emotional atmosphere” of the plot from which all of the more subtle temperaments arise.27 This measures up to Aristotle who established the tragedy as “an imitation not only of a complete action, but of events inspiring fear or pity.” It is greater to establish that tragic wonder by design of the inner structure than if it were to happen of itself or by accident.28 The novel ought to provoke an understanding of reality outside itself, and offer the reader a better understanding of himself.
The reductionist view attempts to reach all areas of life, not just the physical aspects of material things. Yet it does so in and through the material. The question arises, then: can a reductionist view be applied even to the whole of the universe? Here is what Ellis has to say on the matter:
The historical rise of these complex emergent features on a planet that comes to existence in the expanding universe occurs through spontaneous self-organization of structures, with gravitational attraction leading to planets, molecular and chemical evolution leading to living cells and life, and then a Darwinian process of natural selection acting on living systems to create high level functionality. The process can be regarded as selective amplification of favorable lower level causal processes.29
It would not do us any good to go on about the consequences of this destructive philosophy. I will instead conclude with the third and final category of plots. The novel will succeed where the method of reductionism falls short. It is not just “a mathematical order of things in place and time;” it is a representation of everything that spurs from human consciousness, thought, purpose, and will. This has to do with Crane’s third category of plots: plots of thought. Underneath the action and the characters is a psychological matrix of consciousness, motives and values that give the plot power and meaning. The novel conveys meaning when it has a clear relationship between the fictional world created by the author and the real world. It may contain elements that remind the reader of an aspect of reality, or it may be an attempt of the author to replicate actuality just as the images in certain paintings may. It may present aspects of historical, psychological, or sociological truth, or it may refer, by way of demonstration, to ethical and metaphysical truth. It may be psychological or sociological, or both. The plot portrays what already exists in the inner thoughts, motives and life of the author. This appeals to the ultimate purpose of Aristotle’s definition of the plot. In his view, “plots are either simple or complex, for the actions in real life, of which the plots are an imitation, obviously show a similar distinction.”30
Life is not as simple as the amalgamation of molecular structure, and so we must see in the novel, as a portrayal at least of some segment of life’s intricacies, its primordial spirit.
Aristotle’s thesis expands to the idea of an antireductionist view in order to better explain the beauty of plot. A beautiful object, whether a “living organism” or “any whole composed of parts,” must not only have an “orderly arrangement of parts,” but also be a certain magnitude, for “beauty depends on magnitude and order.” He says a very small organism cannot be beautiful, for “the view of it is confused,” since it is seen in an almost imperceptible moment of time. Therefore animate bodies and organisms must contain a certain magnitude which can be “easily embraced in one view.” So too in a plot, a certain length is necessary so that the reader can see it in one view – as a whole.31 Unity of plot does not hinge on the protagonist, whose possibilities are endless; but the plot as an imitation of action must consist of a structural union of its parts such that, “if any one of them is displaced or removed, the whole will be disjoined and disturbed.”32 The novel is not art if it does not provide an elaborate arrangement of transitions, its setting is not strong, and its purpose does not pertain to a broader truth beyond its pages. That truth may be an illusion, but its power exceeds the basic compilation of its parts. Conrad delineates art as “a single-minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the visible universe, by bringing to light the truth…underlying its every aspect.” It is an attempt to find in its forms, as they relate to the facts of life, what is truly enduring – their “illuminating and convincing quality.” Art possesses an authority that appeals to our common sense, intelligence, our desire for peace or unrest. It reaches our prejudices, our fears, and also our credulity. The observer offers reverence to its words, for they are concerned with significant things: with “the cultivation of our minds and the proper care of our bodies, with the attainment of our ambitions, with the perfection of the means and the glorification of our precious aims.”33 Claiming that a novel exists simply as words on the page leaves no room for originality, thought, emotion, or any truth relating the reader to the real world. It begins with an idea: an idea wrought from the mind of the author pertaining to the life he knows. As a top-down concept, it emerges as a response to the author’s need to tell “a particular story in a particular way.” The author’s concerns control “the structure and even the moral force” of the novel. The novel demands reverence, for it is influential, compelling, and spawns new avenues of thought where the reader may not have ventured before.34
References 1. Edward Mackinnon, “The New Reductionism,” Philosophical Forum 39.4 (Boston: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008), p. 443. 2. Ibid., p. 441. 3. Ibid., p. 440. 4. Ibid., p. 455. 5. Richard J. Neuhaus, “The Politics of Bioethics,” Human Dignity and Bioethics: Essays Commissioned by the President's Council on Bioethics, ed. Adam Schulman (Washington, D.C.: President's Council on Bioethics, 2008), p. 27. 6. George F. R. Ellis (1), “On the Nature of Emergent Reality” (Web: http://www.JourneyintoWholeness.org/news/nl/vl1n3/index.shtm), p. 1. 7. Ibid., p. 12. 8. R. S. Crane, ”The Concept of Plot,” The Theory of the Novel, ed. Philip Stevick (New York: Free Press, 1967, 141-45), p. 141. 9. Ibid., 142. 10. Aristotle, Poetics, trans. S. H. Butcher (Web: Project Gutenberg, Nov., 2008, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1974/1974-h/1974-h.htm), p. 10. 11. George F. R. Ellis (2), “Physics and the Real World,” Physics Today 58 (2005, 49-54) 12. Ellis (1), p. 9. 13. George F. R. Ellis (3), “Physics, Complexity and Causality,” Nature 435.7043 (June, 2005), p. 743. 14. Norman Friedman, “Forms of the Plot,” The Theory of the Novel, ed. Philip Stevick (New York: Free Press, 1967, 145-166), p. 149. 15. Ibid., p. 153. 16. Ibid., pp. 155-6. 17. Ibid., p. 147. 18. W. J. Harvey, “The Human Context,” The Theory of the Novel, ed. Philip Stevick (New York: Free Press, 1967, 231-51), p. 232. 19. Ibid., p. 233. 20. Ellis (1), p. 17. 21. Ellis (2) 22. Harvey, p. 233. 23. Ibid., p. 235. 24. Friedman, p. 148. 25. Aristotle, p. 10. 26. Crane, p. 143. 27. Joseph Conrad, “The Highest King of Justice to the Visible Universe,” The Theory of the Novel, ed. Philip Stevick (New York: Free Press, 1967, 399-403), p. 400. 28. Aristotle, p. 12. 29. Ellis (1), p. 13. 30. Aristotle, p. 12. 31. Ibid., p. 10. 32. Ibid., p. 11. 33. Conrad, p. 399. 34. Jay Parini, “Theory and the Novel,” The Chronicle Review (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 2012, Books & Arts sec., B12-13), p. B13.
