Inner form is a hermeneutic concept, not a positivist truth.

Evidence

The concept of an “inner form,” as it was developed by Goethe and Wilhelm von Humboldt out of Plotinus, recommends itself to us in several ways. It is, first of all, a hermeneutic concept, that is, it does not imply a truth of a positivistic kind somehow timelessly associated with its object, like the laws of the natural sciences; rather, it emphasizes the operation of interpretation itself, as it moves in time from outer to inner form as from one moment to another in a dialectical process. Thus the critic is recalled to his own procedures, as a form unfolding in time but also reflecting his own concrete social and historical situation. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 765

Categorization

• XREF: The Goethean/Plotinian ‘inner form’ concept connects to Benjamin’s notion of form as process and to Adorno’s aesthetic formalism — a key node in the Frankfurt lineage. — connects to: Deconstruction is a demand for a new hermeneutic model, not a rejection of interpretation. — Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 264; The private inner mind is a historically recent construct rather than a universal — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 427
• QUESTION: Worth chasing how ‘inner form’ as dialectical process relates to the traditional organicist reading of Goethe (i.e., whether Jameson is recuperating a Romantic concept for dialectical ends).

Broader Connections

• Deconstruction is a demand for a new hermeneutic model, not a rejection of interpretation. #complicates (0.75) — Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 264
• The private inner mind is a historically recent construct rather than a universal #expands (0.75) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 427