Roman Ingarden developed and applied Husslerian phenomenology to the examination of literary works, including scientific works as a borderline case. His two books The literary work of art (1965) and The cognition of the literary work of art (1968) provide a powerful framework of conceptual and methodological tools with which he characterised literary works. His work was comprehensive and addressed the entire range of literary works, from classic literature to, in his words, ‘… the serialised crime novel or a schoolboy’s banal love poem’ (Ingarden, 1965, p. 8). Fortunately for this study, he also explicitly included ‘scientific works [which are] clearly distinguishable from the works of so-called belles-lettres … and yet frequently spoken of as having greater or lesser literary value or as being devoid of it’ (Ingarden, 1965, p. 9).
Ingarden proposed that literary works have a number of strata and that it is the characteristics of and diversity between strata that generate a polyphonic character to the work. These strata were described by him as:
the stratum of word sounds and the phonetic formations of higher order built upon them;
the stratum of meaning units of various orders;
the stratum of represented objectivities and their vicissitudes; and
the stratum of manifold schematised aspects and aspect continua and series.
In addition, he identified a fifth characteristic as being significant – the order of sequence of the literary work. Key in the examination of the various strata is identifying the connections between them. A detailed description of these strata and their various connections and contributions to the literary work of art is beyond the scope of this paper. It is important to note, however, that Ingarden saw these aspects as being applicable to scientific works. He proposed that scientific work differed in some elements of individual strata and the roles of the strata. The differences result from the role of scientific works in establishing the cognitive results attained and transmitting them to other conscious subjects. Ingarden (1965, pp. 329-30; 1968, pp. 146-53) identified five differences:
Sentences that appear in a scientific work are almost exclusively true judgments. Such sentences may be true or false, but they lay claim to truthfulness; for example, a paper may report ‘The management style of company A was undemocratic’, which is a result perceived as true by the author of the paper, and yet a second researcher may report a different result.
The structure of a scientific work naturally consists of purely intentional sentence correlates (almost exclusively states of affairs) and represented objectivities. This means that intentions are directed through the represented or portrayed objectivities on to objects independent of the scientific work (e.g. the real world).
Scientific works may, at the stratum of phonetic formations and the stratum of units of meaning, contain aesthetic value qualities. This is not essential and may be regarded as a dispensable luxury. The central purpose of a scientific work is cognitive exchange, and everything else must be subordinated to this central purpose. Ideally the portrayed objectivities are transparent to the reader and ontically independent objects are seen in the light of the meaning intention of the scientific work. For example, information technology is rich in accepted metaphor. The use of terms such as ‘viruses’, ‘windows’ and ‘mice’ in information technology literature assists in cognitive exchange.
Scientific works can contain, as a special stratum, manifolds of schematicised aspects held in readiness, provided the sentences refer to objects that can appear in manifolds of aspects. If they exist, their role is to assist in the transmission of cognitive results. The presence of decorative moments is dispensable and may be a hindrance.
The possible manifestation of metaphysical qualities is essential only when a given metaphysical quality is itself a subject of the cognitive result that is achieved and transmitted, or at least contributes to its transmission. In this case, they are not contributing to the aesthetic value of the scientific work in the way that they contribute to a literary work. Scientific literature tends to stick to facts.
From this discussion we can conclude three important things:
the journals and their articles are real (part of reality);
the articles contain true judgments of the authors; and
independent objects mentioned in articles are also real but must be understood from the perspective of the author and the intentions revealed in the work.
The approach taken by Ingarden is applicable to scientific works, including works in the field of information systems. This leaves the question of what is an appropriate reference ontology to provide a framework for linking the results of the analysis of the information systems literature – the real artefacts – with the perceptions and intentional acts of information systems researchers using these artefacts.