processes of differentiation and combination. This position endows them with all their
references and enables them to establish their own individual stability. As Husserl once
put it, the position in time is "the fountain-head of individuality."
2" This position can
-'Ilm!., p. 66.150 Phenomenology of Reading
never be subject to any frame of reference, because it only comes about by way of the reciprocal spotlighting of imaginary objects. As the time position is not in itself determinate, it provides the foundation necessary for the individuality of each meaning realized. This structure and this process will always be the same—it is the product of each realization that is unique and unrepeatable. And, in turn, this structure-determined ume-peatability of meaning is precisely what conditions the
repeatability of the newness of the identical text. It can never be the same twice over.
The temporal character of the reading process acts as a kind of catalyst for the passive syntheses through which the meaning of the text forms itself in the reader's mind. It has already been pointed out that passive differ from predicative syntheses in that they are not judgments. Unlike judgments, which are independent of time, passive syntheses take place along the time axis of reading. Now the
acceptance and composition that took place automatically below the threshold of consciousness. Our schematic description of the constitutive process has revealed the extent to which the reader is involved in composing images out of the multifarious aspects of the text by unfolding them into a sequence of ideation and by integrating the resulting products along the time axis of reading. Thus text and reader are linked together, the one permeating the other. We place our synthetizing faculties at the disposal of an unfamiliar reality, produce the meaning of that reality, and in so doing enter into a situation which we could not have created out of ourselves. Thus the meaning of the literary text can only be fulfilled in the reading subject and does not exist independently of him; just as important, though, is that the reader himself, in constituting the meaning, is also constituted. And herein lies the full significance of the so-called passive synthesis.
This experience is what underlies the reader's desire to comprehend the significance of the meaning. The ceaseless and inevitable quest for the significance shows that in assembling the meaning we ourselves become aware that something has happened to us, and so we try to find out its significance. Meaning and significance are not the same thing, although the classical norms of interpretation—as was pointed out in an earlier chapter—would have us believe they are. "The fact that one has grasped a meaning does not yet make it certain that one has a significance."30 The significance of the meaning
can only be ascertained when the meaning is related to a particular reference, which makes it trans- 30G. Frege, "Ober Sinn und Bccleutung," Zeitschrift fiir Pltilosaphie tind phihso-phische Kritik 100 (1892): 28.
Passive Syntheses in Reading 151
latable into familiar terms. As Ricoeur has written, with regard to ideas advanced by Frege and Husserl: ". . . there are two distinct stages of comprehension: the stage of 'meaning' . . . and the stage of 'significance', which represents the active taking-over of the meaning by the reader— i.e., the meaning taking effect in existence."31
It follows that the intersubjective structure of meaning assembly can have many forms of significance, according to the social and cultural code or the individual norms which underlie the formation of this significance. Now subjective dispositions play a vital role in each realization of this intersubjective .structure, but every subjective realization remains accessible to intersubjectivity precisely because it shares this same intersubjective structure as its basis; however, the significance ascribed to the meaning, and the subsequent absorption of the meaning into existence, can only become open to intersubjective discussion if the codes and conventions which have guided the interpretation of the meaning are revealed. The first instance (the intersubjective structure of meaning-production) relates to a theory of literary effect, the second (the significance ascribed to meaning) to a theory of reception, which will be rather more sociological than literary.
In either instance, the distinction between meaning and significance makes it clear that classical norms of interpretation rob the reading experience of a vital dimension in equating meaning with
significance. The equation was only appropriate so long as art was regarded as representing the truth of the whole, so that the reader was expected to do nothing but contemplate and admire. The resultant search for meaning that has clogged approaches to post-classical literature has caused a great deal of confusion, precisely because the distinction between meaning and significance has been overlooked. It is scarcely surprising that so many disputes should have arisen over the 'meanings' critics have found in specific works, since by 'meaning' they have in fact meant 'significance', and this has been guided by so many different codes and conventions. Consequently, they have been challenging each other's significances, mistakenly dubbed as meanings. It is important, however, that the distinction should be maintained for, as Ricoeur has said, they are two separate stages of comprehension. Meaning is the referential totality which is implied by tlu! aspects contained in the text and which must bo assembled in the course of reading. Significance is the reader's absorption of the meaning into his own existence. Only the two together can guarantee the effectiveness of an experience which entails the reader constituting himself by
constituting a reality hitherto unfamiliar to himself. »
'"Ricoeur, Hermeneutik und Slntkturalisnuu, p. 194.