Abstract
Introduction
Jeffrey Alexander's ‘aesthetics of iconicity’ offers a significant contribution to cultural sociology by providing a framework to understand how material objects and social performances acquire cultural meaning through aesthetic engagement. Alexander (2008) demonstrates that artworks, through their inherent aesthetic qualities, elicit a desire for interpretation, revealing deeper meanings that resonate with the viewer. His analysis of Giacometti's sculptures serves as an illustration of this phenomenon, showcasing how iconic experiences transcend mere intellectual comprehension. In these encounters, the perceiving subject experiences a deep, embodied immersion, a spontaneous merging with the artwork that unlocks broader cultural narratives.
This immersive experience, characterised by a merging of the perceiving subject with the object, serves not only to validate individual interpretations through shared aesthetic encounters within the art world but also extends its reach significantly beyond the conventional boundaries of traditional art objects. Indeed, Alexander's (2013) work effectively demonstrates how seemingly mundane, everyday material objects can also become powerfully imbued with iconic status, revealing the inherent capacity of aesthetic engagement to delve into and explore the multifaceted dimensions of human experiences, including even the darker and more unsettling aspects of existence. Ultimately, Alexander's ‘aesthetics of iconicity’ provides a compelling lens through which to understand that cultural meanings are not merely abstract concepts to be intellectually grasped and analysed; rather, they are deeply felt and profoundly embodied through transformative aesthetic experiences that resonate within the individual's lived world. This transformative power is often activated and amplified by situating iconic experiences within the dynamic context of social performances, where shared rituals and symbolic interactions further solidify their cultural significance (Alexander et al., 2006, Alexander, 2011, 2017).
However, to fully realise the theoretical potential inherent in Alexander's framework, this paper argues for an explicit and systematic acknowledgement of its underlying existential, hermeneutical and phenomenological presuppositions. Specifically, the existential aspect of our analysis will be manifested through interpretations that explicitly acknowledge the fundamental role of the lived body and its perceptual capacities in shaping the iconic experience; the hermeneutical dimension will be addressed through a consistent recognition of the crucial influence of the historical context in shaping both the creation and the interpretation of icons; and the phenomenological sensitivity will be foregrounded by paying close attention to the direct, pre-reflective engagement of subjects with iconic objects and performances as they are experienced in the world.
This paper clarifies Alexander's theory of iconic experience by emphasising that the semantic structures of meaningful discourses are intrinsically interwoven with the historical dynamics of social life. To strengthen the hermeneutic perspective already implicit within the cultural sociology (Alexander, 2003), this analysis draws upon Wilhelm Dilthey's connection between hermeneutics and the standpoint of life. It proposes that iconic experience should be explicitly interpreted as a parallel form of aesthetic and symbolic experience, thereby enriching our understanding of its complex interplay with historical and social forces.
Dilthey's (1989: 50, 468) concept of the flesh-and-blood, yet more-than-organic, historical human being provides a crucial starting point. By acknowledging the interconnectedness of interpreters and authors through a shared human nature and linguistic communion, Dilthey (1972) moved beyond individualist reductionism. His exploration of understanding, driven by a concern for the validity of historical knowledge, ultimately transcended epistemology, advancing into the realms of ontology and anthropology (Scharff, 1976). As Alexander's theoretical model of iconic experience transcends the relationship between the abstract individual subject and its own sense-based judgements, reflecting on Dilthey's broader insights can enhance Alexander's model by highlighting the hermeneutic significance of embodiment and historicity in shaping iconic experiences.
Hermeneutics, understood as a reflexive awareness inherent in historical inquiry, plays a crucial role in illuminating the nuanced interpretation of diverse objects, encompassing not only tangible artefacts but also intangible experiences and potent symbols, all within their specific and defining contexts. Serving as both a rigorous method for the close analysis of particular objects of inquiry and a broader theoretical reflection on the very nature of interpretation and the processes of human understanding as a whole (Seebohm, 2004), hermeneutics provides a critical lens for our investigation. Although cultural sociology frequently employs the compelling ‘reader’ metaphor to conceptualise social action as a form of text to be deciphered, this paper posits that the ‘audience’ metaphor, which foregrounds the inherently performative and deeply contextual aspects of meaning-making within social interactions, is an equally vital and insightful analytical tool.
Embodiment functions as the crucial bridge that connects these two seemingly distinct metaphors, clarifying the transcendental conditions for meaning formation. Meaning arises not only through a process akin to ‘reading’ symbolic codes but also through the embodied experience of ‘viewing’ and ‘listening’ within specific social settings. By consistently acknowledging that these interpretive acts are fundamentally experiences undertaken by living, embodied subjects who are themselves situated within particular historical contexts, we can effectively trace the intricate and often subtle link between embodied perception – our sensory, moving and practical engagement with the world – the deeply felt realm of moral feelings, and the material objects that populate our social world.
Specifically, the cultural sociological interpretation of iconic experience, informed by a hermeneutical sensitivity to historical context and a phenomenological awareness of embodied perception, can disclose the fundamentally embodied and historically situated nature of both expression and reception. It allows us to understand precisely how interpretive communities' understanding and engagement with iconic material objects and performances are profoundly shaped by their collectively shared bodily experiences and their encompassing, historically and culturally specific background. Building upon this foundation, this paper will trace a critical dialogue between the phenomenologically available nexus of iconic consciousness – how they present themselves to our lived experiences – their hermeneutical interpretation through the lenses of cultural and historical mediation, and their attachment to processes of reification.
The phenomenologically available nexus of iconic consciousness
Disciplines such as architecture, heritage studies and archaeology have long recognised buildings, monuments and artefacts as powerful instances of symbolic condensation (Alexander, 2010a; Bartmanski, 2022). These tangible forms embody abstract concepts such as justice, solidarity and heroism. Examples such as Berlin's House of One (Burchardt, 2023), the Warsaw Ghetto Monument (Young, 1989) and indigenous memory sites (Rubertone, 2016) illustrate how material objects encapsulate and convey profound symbolic meanings. Cultural sociology has developed a research programme focused on how these objects acquire iconic meaning through our direct, sense-based interactions – iconic experiences (Alexander et al., 2012). Crucially, iconic experience transcends mere cognitive understanding or moral judgement; it fundamentally involves feeling the inherent aesthetic force of these objects. Understanding the experience of this aesthetic force is essential for disclosing the theoretical underpinnings of Alexander's aesthetics of iconicity.
Alexander's research on iconicity, emphasising the entanglement of meanings with moral feelings, embodied sensuality and material objects, invites us to move beyond purely semantic analysis prevalent in cultural sociology. While semantic analysis focuses on conceptual relationships, Alexander's approach admits a broader semiotic interpretation, encompassing linguistic and non-linguistic dimensions alongside affective resonances (Côté, 2023: 111).
Furthermore, Alexander's interpretations of the interplay between objects, meanings, sensory experience and moral feelings exhibit a distinct phenomenological orientation, contrasting with structuralist semantic frameworks. His analysis of how ‘stuff’ becomes meaningful material objects through narrative embedding prioritises clarifying meanings by reconstructing lived experiences, such as encountering a painting, navigating a significant building or wearing meaningful attire (Alexander, 2010a, 2010b, 2012). These embodied encounters form the basis of his phenomenological explorations.
However, Alexander's emphasis on lived experience in meaning-making does not negate semantics but highlights the inherently historically contingent nature of meaning. His framework treats aesthetic experiences and symbolic codes synthetically, as integral components of iconic experiences. These multifaceted experiences are best understood through the cultural pragmatics of social performances (Alexander et al., 2006), emphasising the dynamic interaction between cultural codes, social actors and the contexts where iconic meanings are enacted.
Creating a strict dichotomy between meaning-formation models that solely privilege either human embodiment (senses, feelings, perception) or human language (symbols, texts, discourse) constitutes a theoretical distortion (Vandenberghe, 2024a, 2024b). While the visual and acoustic qualities of iconic meanings necessitate reintroducing the lived, experiential situatedness of symbolic meanings (Bartmanski, 2014), iconic experiences are equally shaped by linguistic dynamics like textuality, metaphors and narratives. The tension between linguistic meaning and sense experience often stems from a deeper cultural level where abstract reasoning is institutionally privileged over feelings (Langer, 2004).
This tension manifests in reductionist formal-analytical approaches to aesthetic experience. One approach isolates the experiencing subject from social life's symbolic forms, reducing experience to mere sensations and bodily conditions, neglecting cultural framing. The other abstracts the iconic object from social life, focusing solely on its inherent sign-elements within a larger, decontextualised signifying system.
Cultural sociology, by strengthening its synthetic and dialectical interpretive approaches (Côté, 2023; Vandenberghe, 2024a, 2024b), offers a more holistic alternative. It provides the tools to interpret the aesthetic experience of iconic objects and performances comprehensively by locating meanings within the dynamic flow of social life, recognising the intrinsic interconnectedness of embodied senses and feelings with symbolic forms. This synthetic perspective allows us to disclose this fundamental interconnectedness.
The intricate connection between meaningful experiences and the embodied expression of feelings leads us to Wilhelm Dilthey's hermeneutics, which exemplifies a profound concern for social life's relevance in interpreting meanings (Dilthey, 2002: 88; Gadamer, 2003; Ricoeur, 1974a). While Dilthey (1989) sought to justify the validity of historical knowledge by uncovering its conditions of possibility, this epistemological debate was enabled by the 19th-century institutionalisation of historical knowledge (De Mul, 2004; Makkreel, 1992). Historical inquiry examined diverse traces of the past, such as chronicles, ruins and tales.
Dilthey focused on applying interpretive knowledge of sacred and ancient texts to historical inquiry, which aimed to understand the ‘texts’ formed by interconnected historical fragments, including material culture. His reflection on interpretive practices in historical inquiry engaged with archaeological objects and their interpretation. The coherence of historical fragments forming ‘texts’ and the coherence of parts forming old texts were treated analogously.
Similar to ancient texts whose coherence was conditioned by their
Seeking to understand how interpreting expressions reveals social life's historical dynamics, Dilthey (2002: 223–225) embarked on a significant intellectual move, strategically combining the seemingly distinct categories of force and meaning into a unified conception of the
Dilthey emphasised that expressing lived experience poetically requires imaginative forces rooted in the very living, embodied fabric of a speech, encompassing its concrete sensuous qualities, including the sound-producing and rhythm-generating forces. He acknowledged that literary texts are enabled by the concrete sensuousness of words without prioritising their specific poetic diction, their inherent sonic textures and rhythmic patterns over the semantic qualities that drive discursive meaning formation (Mueller-Vollmer, 1963).
Even Romantic efforts to elevate feelings did not necessarily oppose language. The Romantic concept of a living language, unlike structuralist abstractions, embraced the embodied creative process, including discursive expression. This aligns with Dilthey's poetics, where new symbolic meanings in poetry are tied to the power of imagination. Debates on sensory experience and imagination revealed the cooperative relationship between sensory input and symbolic meanings emerging from living language.
For Dilthey (2002, 2010: 87), meaning is derived from and is a category of life, which he considered the ultimate, inescapable context of embodied expression and understanding. The movement towards past and future is crucial for understanding life's force and its entanglement with meaning. Echoing Kant, Dilthey saw the subject (individual or collective) as the source of meaning, ordering the world through productive imagination. This creates a direct link between life-force and meaning, where meaning is the expression of life's dynamism, history itself (Mannheim, 1964). Dilthey's hermeneutical perspective suggests that iconic power is inseparable from life's historical forces.
Dilthey's (2010: 25, 68–71) hermeneutical perspective suggests that iconic power cannot be simply attached to the materiality of objects and thereby artificially separated from the fundamental historical forces of life that imbue them with significance. The inherently embodied character of aesthetic experience signifies that it constitutes a vital modality through which lived experience finds its expression. It is a process where expression actively manifests an embodied experience, or, conversely, a vibrant and living expression makes it possible for a lived experience to fully manifest itself and become accessible to understanding. This deep concern with the fundamentally living, embodied character of aesthetic experience creates a fertile ground where the seemingly distinct philosophical domains of hermeneutics and phenomenology can effectively blend and mutually enrich one another (Shusterman, 2000; Shusterman and Tomlin, 2010).
Iconic, symbolic and metaphoric meanings involve entangled layers and a dynamic relation between meanings and their origins in lived experience. However, this inherent dynamism cannot be reductively explained solely by their genesis in individual lived experience; it also extends to the crucial sense of rendering the very subject of experience – that is, its processes of thinking, the creative power of its imagination and the very nature of its existence – fundamentally dynamic and open to ongoing transformation (Ricoeur, 1997; Vandenberghe, 2024a, 2024b). The phenomenon of polysemy, the capacity of a single sign to bear multiple meanings, manifests this dynamic multiplicity of meaning in a particularly potent way (Ricoeur, 1976). It encompasses not only the emergence of novel layers of meaning that become attached to signs already established within a linguistic or cultural system, forging new connections between a signifier already linked to a specific signified and a new, emergent signified, but also the generation of inherent tensions, potential for misunderstandings and the ongoing societal need for clarification and negotiation of these multiple meanings. Hence, iconic, symbolic and metaphoric meanings, in their inherent complexity and dynamism, ultimately reveal that both perception and language are far more than a mere instruments for representing or describing a pre-existing and static reality; they are an active and constitutive forces.
Cultural and historical mediation
Iconic experiences, while rooted in embodied feelings and sensory perceptions, also illuminate the dynamic nature of language. Jeffrey Alexander's cultural sociology engages the structuralist view of language as a rule-governed system with the hermeneutic perspective emphasising its creative force. Alexander's (2004, 2014) cultural pragmatics acknowledges language's semantic structures but highlights how social actors adapt and modify linguistic meanings in social performances to express experiences and engage with their world. Performances like theatre involve iconic experiences arising from the interplay of stage artifice and audience catharsis. This emphasises the co-creation of meaning between performers and audience.
However, the hermeneutic view of living language extends beyond individual instrumental application. While language expresses and comprehends experiences, their emergence and immediate comprehension are not fully within individual control. Pre-reflective dimensions shape our articulations. Alexander's (2004: 547–549) cultural pragmatics integrates this by thematising the re-fusion of performance elements. Meaning projection depends on emotional connection. Performative success is not mechanical, relying on both performer skill and audience experience. Dramatic techniques generating symbolic condensations of cultural meanings through choreographed assemblages are also conditioned by audience reception, aiming for iconic experiences. This incorporation of iconic experience into social life's living language can be seen as a form of implicit recognition inherent in hermeneutic understanding, acknowledging another's expressed meaning beyond explicit language.
Dilthey's hermeneutics reveals that understanding another's words, onstage or off, involves implicitly recognising both the content and their attempt to express it. For Dilthey (2002, 2010), expression extends beyond speech to writing, dance and sculpture, which objectify inner life. Our inner life is inseparable from lived experiences where others’ objectifications play a crucial role. Understanding involves the interpreter grasping the intended meaning of another's expressions. Whereas epistemological debates focused on empathy and re-experiencing, Dilthey's methodology reveals presuppositions about shared human nature and cultural contexts enabling understanding. Comprehending objectified meanings and expressive efforts is possible through shared cultural background and common humanity. Dilthey's expressions presuppose a ‘commonality of human nature’ beyond cultural objectification, connected to life itself.
Language is one sphere of shared world objectification carrying understandable meanings. Sidestepping language's privileged status, Dilthey highlights that understanding speech implicitly recognises the speaker's intentionality. Interpreting documents, ruins or paintings implicitly acknowledges humans trying to express meaning. Objectifications allow us to recognise the humans behind them with their inner worlds, lived experiences and expressive capacities – recognising their life behind their expressions and, by extension, the historical dynamics of their social life.
Dilthey's (2002: 226–241; 2010: 24–25, 2019) emphasis on understanding expressions within shared social life suggests a theoretical model where texts, performances and material culture function as indispensable media through which individual human beings establish connections and mutually understand each other's expressions of lived experiences and goal-directed actions. Alexander (2012: 27) acknowledges the social impact of iconic objects but stresses the historically and situationally changing nature of their power. Their performative agency is interpreted in terms of their contribution to the persuasive and motivational impact of social performances.
However, even analytically isolating the iconic object leads back to cultural pragmatics’ concern with mediations between projected meanings (of the iconic object) and audience reception. The initially intended meanings, meticulously incorporated into the very design and material form of the iconic object, are invariably mediated by the diverse means and specialised skills involved in symbolic production, including, for instance, the strategic use of lighting that makes possible its effective staging and presentation.
Among the array of mediating elements, Alexander (2012) highlights ‘hermeneutic power’ as a key mediator, activating background meanings through evaluative interpretations of the iconic object for the audience. Critics, commentators and influencers wield interpretive power by offering public judgements that implicitly mediate between the immediate experiences of the aesthetic surface of the iconic object, on the one hand, and the deeper, often more abstract, meanings associated with particular moral narratives and deeply held feelings, on the other.
Hermeneutic power mediates the performativity of iconic objects by these critics communicating their lived experience as if educating the public about the object's qualities, like an iconic building or sculpture, that has so profoundly impacted their own experience. Interpretive accounts blend descriptions of unique qualities with typification, ascribing deep meaning through comparative and metaphorical language. However, critics and influencers are also influenced by audience reception; their interpretive authority depends on public recognition. Thus, their expressions, like theatrical performances, require implicit justification from shared background understanding. For instance, the specific metaphors strategically employed by critics to subtly suggest the link between the immediately perceptible aesthetic surface of an iconic object and its underlying moral depth gain their cultural relevance and resonance for the audience precisely through the activation of shared cultural narratives and collectively experienced understandings of an interpretive community.
Dilthey (2002) understood the entanglement of lived experience's linguistic and embodied expressions with their cultural relevance by noting art's orientation to broader validity. Artwork expressions contain more than individual experience, describing something typical that resonates with audiences. These crafted expressions of lived experiences possess the remarkable capacity to be understood and appreciated by readers, listeners and viewers as something more than the purely particular; as showing something typical, something that points beyond the confines of an isolated situational instance. This inherent typifying character of expressions and the corresponding understanding they evoke are not necessarily confined to the purely conceptual realm but are also deeply intertwined with our human capacity for visualising and perceiving recurring figures, recognisable situations and discernible patterns within the complex tapestry of social life as being indicative or typical.
The cultural relevance of these expressions is grasped through public recognition of visualised and conceptualised types arising from expressive reconstructions of individual experiences. While our spontaneous and often immediate feelings undeniably possess the power to transform the meaning of images and other forms of expression, these feelings disclose far more than mere embodied aesthetic dispositions; they also serve as potent manifestations of learned and deeply ingrained
Hermeneutics shows that not only speech or writing but also things and events carry symbolic meanings. Religious and political symbolism uses diverse signs. The rich and multifaceted symbolism that permeates religious and political life vividly gathers a diverse array of symbolic signs, ranging from nature (such as linden trees and majestic mountains) and auditory expressions (like songs) to human-made artefacts (including sculptures of powerful eagles and evocative paintings) and embodied practices (such as ritualistic dances). Like spoken symbolic expressions, these events and things can be interpreted as carrying multiple meanings. However, the mere fact that a particular sign possesses the capacity to carry multiple layers of meaning does not automatically qualify it as a potent symbol within a specific historical world. Synonyms, for instance, do not always function as symbols.
Symbolic objects emerge through the intricate connection between their meaning layers (Ricoeur, 1974b). Interpretation of symbolic meanings identifies analogous or distorted connections between primary and secondary meanings, a surplus of meaning or polysemy (Ricoeur, 1974c). Psychoanalysis offers an example of interpretation conceiving the connection between primary and secondary meanings dynamically. Within this framework, the secondary, often metaphoric meaning is understood as being constituted by a specific kind of
Alexander (2010a, 2010b) identifies celebrities as powerful contemporary icons. Celebrity-icons, through photographs, media coverage and resembling appearances, generate both aesthetic and moral appeal. As Alexander meticulously explicates through the compelling case study of Audrey Hepburn's iconic dress, the act of wearing an article of clothing previously used by a celebrated figure constitutes a deeply mimetic experience. The wearer does not become the celebrity but experiences similarity, sharing a quality like elegance. This quality is transmitted not only by the original but also by copies and typified versions sharing similar features. This highlights the role of resemblance and imitation in circulating iconic meaning.
Experiencing oneself as belonging to a specific type of persons is linked to public recognition of one's appearance resembling an appearance transmitting a specific quality. Our internal sense of belonging is conditioned by public recognition of appearance styles, configurations of similarities into types. As Alexander (2010a, 2010b: 330) insightfully posits, the very act of experiencing the aesthetic surface of an iconic representation or style inherently conflates perceived similarities of outward appearance with the subjective feeling of similarities in social belonging: the act of sharing a particular style of dress, for instance, is often equated in mundane reasoning with the notion of participating in the shared moral ethos of a specific social group. Modern uniforms, like primitive tattoos, function as totems entangled with aesthetic meanings and feelings of solidarity or hostility.
Iconic consciousness and reification
Iconic experience involves a synthetic intertwining of the perception of an iconic surface with a cognitive and affective grasp of its shared symbolic meaning within a specific cultural context. The power of iconic experiences to mobilise and motivate social actors depends on their subjective experience of this fusion of aesthetic surface and moral depth as authentic (Alexander, 2004). This efficacy is significantly conditioned by a reified consciousness, a mode of understanding that does not readily reflect on the synthetic, artificial and socially conditioned nature of this seemingly seamless unity (Alexander, 2012: 25–35).
The mediating role of cultural critics exemplifies this. Their reviews are often perceived as immediate and personal aesthetic judgements, obscuring the complex cultural and historical influences shaping their perspectives. However, reflexive engagement with the pervasive influence of hermeneutic power can reveal how these textual mediations subtly prepare individuals for an iconic experience characterised by absorption and uncritical acceptance. This dependence of iconic experience on reified consciousness clarifies iconic meaning formation, a process often invisible to ordinary awareness. Everyday objects are seen as mere ‘things’, not as ‘material objects’ with aesthetically formed surfaces and culturally constructed depths. As Alexander (2012: 26) notes: ‘Everyday consciousness is reified: it seamlessly naturalizes arbitrary meaning structures as it essentializes historically contingent aesthetic forms.’ This consciousness takes socially constructed meanings and historically specific aesthetic conventions as inherent and unchanging object qualities.
Moving beyond this reified experience of beautiful things carrying inherent moral meaning requires more than detached observation. Even interpretations viewing iconic things as material objects with aesthetic form and moral content tend to naturalise the aesthetic expression of moral meaning as intrinsic to the object's material qualities. The challenge, therefore, lies in discerning how we can effectively move beyond this pervasive reified experience.
Alexander suggests achieving this by adopting a reflective interpretation that transforms iconic experience into a consciously apprehended
The hermeneutical perspective illuminates the situatedness and historical contingency of understanding, asserting that there is no act of expression or interpretation that can occur in a vacuum, devoid of pre-existing assumptions or from a completely neutral and objective standpoint. Hermeneutic phenomenology further extends this insight to the realm of perceptual experience, making visible the inherent situatedness and historical contingency of our very sensory engagements with the world, arguing that that even sense experience is always mediated by the subject's engagement within a specific historical world.
The conceptual duality of historical and non-historical contingency has roots in Kant and was re-appropriated by Dilthey. Kant's transcendental philosophy, although rigorously emphasising the necessary and universal a priori structures of the human mind that condition the very possibility of experience, concurrently acknowledges a distinct form of contingency that operates within the empirical realm of our sensory encounters. Hence, the enduring Kantian tradition establishes a crucial distinction between transcendental, necessary conditions of experience – such as the fundamental categories of understanding and the a priori forms of intuition (space and time) – and empirical contingency.
This empirical contingency, the fundamental ‘that it is so, and not otherwise’ of our sensory intake, could be also conceived as fundamentally non-historical in the specific sense that it primarily pertains to the immediate, given nature of ‘raw sensory input’, rather than being directly determined by the complex social dynamics and unfolding narratives of human history. From Dilthey's standpoint, it is particularly significant that the subsequent neo-Kantian perspective placed a strong emphasis on the formative role of shared values and established cultural forms in actively shaping the very contours of our understanding.
However, the neo-Kantians often embarked on the intellectual project of identifying underlying universal principles that they believed to be operative within these seemingly contingent forms, aiming for a systematic form of rational reconstruction that could reveal these enduring structures. Within this framework, fundamental values could be theoretically considered as non-historical in the specific sense that they represent the necessary preconditions that ultimately render the emergence and intelligibility of diverse cultural forms possible.
Facing this complex duality – between Kant's concept of empirical contingency, primarily related to the immediate givenness of sensory experience, and the neo-Kantian understanding of contingency, deeply tied to the historical variability of shared values and evolving cultural forms – Dilthey himself also drew a significant distinction between different forms of contingency. He differentiated between those forms of contingency that are inextricably linked to the dynamic unfolding of historical life and those that are not directly determined by historical forces.
Specifically, Dilthey (2010: 25) distinguished between the contingency of historical life, encompassing the unpredictable nature of social events and cultural shifts, and the contingency of immediate lived experience, the raw and subjective quality of our individual bodily encounters with the world. While Dilthey consistently emphasised the fundamentally historically embedded character of all forms of human understanding, he also profoundly recognised the unique and inherently unpredictable nature of individual subjective experience, an autonomous realm of feeling, thought and perception that cannot be entirely reduced to or explained by the forces of history.
To develop an epistemology of historical knowledge, Dilthey (2002) needed to construct a theory of pre-methodical understanding, further distinguishing its elementary and higher modes. Elementary understanding is deeply intertwined with actions, involving the immediate application of deciphered meanings of expressions. While an observer might recognise that social life enables elementary understanding, those directly involved in it do not thematise this condition of possibility from their first-person perspective. For Dilthey, this awareness of social life as an enabling condition differentiates higher understanding from its elementary foundation. This lack of thematisation in elementary understanding resembles the reified consciousness discussed earlier, where the underlying social and historical conditions of meaning-making remain unacknowledged.
The awareness of our dependence on social life, even in higher understanding, can manifest in various interpretations of the interrelation of parts and a whole, as seen in autobiographies, biographies, social institutions, or literary works. The transition from elementary to higher understanding occurs when our immediate involvement in the former is interrupted, leading us to become aware of our own or others’ lives in their dependence and connectedness to social life as a whole. This interruption of immediate engagement parallels the moment when the seemingly natural connection between an iconic object's aesthetic surface and its moral meaning is questioned, potentially disrupting a reified consciousness.
Thus, when Dilthey (2002) considers the methodical guidance of higher understanding through re-experiencing and empathic relationships, he seeks to replicate the awareness that arises from a spontaneous interruption of elementary understanding. This path leads to methodically guided interpretation, which is hermeneutics. The interpreter's awareness of our dependency on social life remains crucial at this stage. Methodical guidance involves not only applying interpretive rules but also possessing a general knowledge of social life's dynamics. Methodical, hermeneutic interpretation necessitates knowledge of the interpreted text's context; the substantial knowledge of this particular social context enables the interpretation of a specific text. This contextual knowledge directly counters the decontextualised and ahistorical perception inherent in reified consciousness.
Higher understanding, emerging spontaneously, can articulate a consciousness of our dependency and the situatedness of our understanding, although initially perhaps through mythical or theological symbolic forms and narratives. These symbolic forms can be interpreted as providing a concealed mode of consciousness of our dependency on social life and a concealed mode of reflection on the historical situatedness of understanding (Vandenberghe, 2001). However, reflecting on our historical situatedness in terms of our dependency on the historical dynamics of social life, rather than on divine or mythical forces, is relevant from a sociological perspective.
Hence, iconic material objects and performances, as effects of collective effort, express meanings that may not align perfectly with any single intended performative design, because their experience and understanding is shaped by living aesthetics of human embodiment and broader historical contexts. Dilthey (2002) offers an alternative to a purely instrumental view of collective action, particularly in cases of collective or cooperative forms of practice. Rather than simply dismissing purposiveness, Dilthey emphasises the productive and expressive nature of cooperation. Whereas individuals contribute only a portion of their lives to these organised practices, no collective organisation can be fully reduced to the specific purposes attributed to it by interpretations. Dilthey argues that these sets of purposive practices are better understood as productive forms of cooperation that may possess a sense of purpose without necessarily fulfilling any specific, implicit goal. These cooperative practices can be seen as producing objectifications that express meanings of social life, including intentions, leaving open the question of the extent to which these purposes and functions are actually achieved. The key aspect lies in how these meanings are expressed by these cooperative practices and how their meaning is understood and interpreted.
Dilthey's insights also reveal the relevance of our practical participation in moods for the reified character of iconic experiences. While we can collectively experience a mood in formal settings like a concert hall or a demonstration, we also do so in everyday activities such as cooking or working. We experience joy or anxiety regardless of our conscious understanding of their causes. Being in a specific mood cannot be reduced to merely thinking about it or forming a judgement about it. The experience of being affected by a mood underscores that our engagement with the world is not solely cognitive; the world affects us aesthetically and emotionally at a pre-reflective level. While we can offer rational interpretations for someone's mood, being affected by joy or dread is distinct from possessing factual information about their origins. Similarly, interpreting and acquiring knowledge about the sacred differ fundamentally from being emotionally affected by it.
Dilthey's emphasis on the aesthetic and affective dimension of experience connects with Alexander's aesthetic force of iconic objects, which evokes feelings that precede purely intellectual understanding. This affective engagement with iconic material objects can be seen as a form of pre-reflective understanding, akin to Dilthey's elementary understanding, that often operates beneath the surface of conscious interpretation and can be deeply intertwined with reified perceptual experiences.
However, the hermeneutical relevance of elementary understanding does not imply neglecting the human capacity for explicit, interpretive understanding of iconic phenomena. Despite the fact that much of our understanding is tacit and unthematic, we are never entirely without explicit, concrete and thematic interpretations of ourselves and the world. Moreover, meanings disclosed through interpretation can become integrated into the tacit contexts of intelligibility, shaping our background understanding and aesthetic experiences. In this sense, explicit interpretations can have transformative effects on our pre-reflective understanding, potentially challenging and altering reified iconic consciousness.
For the reflective awareness incorporated into an iconic experience, acknowledging a form of contingency arising from immediate lived experience is crucial. However, it is equally important to recognise that our individual lived experiences are also invariably shaped and conditioned by our encompassing historical context. Indeed, lived experience extends beyond mere inner experience, crucially incorporating our past engagement with the world (Makkreel, 1982; Schatzki, 2003). The nexus of lived experience, therefore, forms a background against which new iconic experiences can emerge.
Instead of seeking a non-symbolic sensual origin of iconic power in the abstraction of materiality (Bartmanski, 2016), Alexander's historical and hermeneutical dialectics, like Dilthey's, acknowledge both the empirical contingency of individual lived experience and the historical contingency of social life, cultural forms and events. The immediate and unpredictable nature of lived experiences is tied to human history and the influence of the past on the present. The immediate and often deeply unpredictable nature of our inner experiences, our fleeting feelings and our subjective perceptions are inextricably tied to the complex social dynamics of human history and the enduring influence of past events that continue to shape the present. This fundamental contingency of origins and the inherent variability of human experience across different historical periods find a compelling parallel in the immediate and often inexplicable feeling of joy or profound sadness that can arise within us, seemingly unbidden, yet always within a broader context of biographical and collective history.
Conclusion
Iconic experiences present a complex challenge for cultural sociology because of their parallel aesthetic and symbolic character. While semantic analysis can illuminate the double meanings inherent in experiences of iconic material objects interpreted as symbols, particularly through the lens of literal and metaphorical relationships, such a focus risks obscuring the hermeneutical relevance of aesthetic-symbolic objectifications as expressions of life forces. However, acknowledging the symbolic dimensions of iconic experiences need not necessitate the bracketing of the non-linguistic elements that constitute their embeddedness within the world. Indeed, the parallel aesthetic and symbolic character of these experiences offers a crucial path for understanding how social forces, as contents, are transfigured into meaningful forms. This process resonates with Aristotelian theories of meaning formation, emphasising the dynamic interplay between content and form (Reed, 2011).
From a cultural sociological perspective, the connection between perceiving iconic surfaces and feeling moral depth can be understood as an entanglement of aesthetic experiences and symbolic meanings with the historical dynamics of social life. This approach moves beyond purely semantic interpretations, acknowledging that symbolic meaning, although conditioned by language, cannot be reduced to it. Instead, it prompts a re-evaluation of the relationship between the interpretation of symbolic meanings and the interpretation of fully objectified textual meanings. Both forms of interpretation operate through the disclosure and clarification of the relational network within which meaning is embedded, be it within a linguistic text or a broader cultural ‘text’ comprised of knowledge, narratives and rituals.
The tendency to interpret symbolic meanings solely through a linguistic lens, particularly by equating them with metaphorical meanings, risks segregating them from the historical dynamics of non-linguistic forces. This approach, which treats polysemy as a purely semiotic phenomenon, can obscure the crucial role of social life in shaping symbolic meaning. As Ricoeur (1976) suggests, the transfer from expressive life forces to symbolic meaning is evident in the polysemic nature of signs. This necessitates an interpretive framework that acknowledges the potential presence of non-linguistic forces alongside linguistic structures.
Therefore, the central question for cultural sociology is not whether the aesthetics of lived experiences can be articulated independently of symbolic discourse, but rather how symbolic discourse intersects with and presupposes meanings constituted by lived experiences. Rather than displacing symbolic meanings with lived experiences, the cultural pragmatics of social performances, as articulated by Alexander, can reveal their intricate entanglement. This perspective highlights that the interpretation of signs must account for the non-linguistic forces that often contribute to their meaning. This approach recognises that not all instances of signification are purely symbolic, urging a more nuanced understanding of the complex relationship between the aesthetics of lived experience, symbolic discourse and the historical struggles that shape social life.
Footnotes
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