Was bedeutet ›Literaturtheorie‹ heute?

Abstract I outline a conception of literary theory according to which it is concerned with explicating the very concepts used to describe literature or our engagement with literature. Literary theory, then, is a ›second-order‹ activity aimed at conceptual explication, and it is subject to specific norms governing such activity. One such norm is the criterion of theoretical fruitfulness. A concept is theoretically fruitful if it embodies an empirical generalization. Such empirical generalizations depend on empirical research. Thus, in order to produce theoretically fruitful conceptual explications, one needs to draw on empirical research that yields empirical generalizations. The relevant expertise in the methodology of conceptual explication lies in philosophy, whereas the expertise required for empirical research aimed at empirical generalizations lies in disciplines such as psychology, the social sciences, and Digital Humanities. While this conclusion marks literary theory as a genuinely interdisciplinary endeavor, I also suggest a conclusion concerning the professional ethos of the literary theorist. Drawing on an ethics of knowledge transmission that reaches back to Plato’s reflections on why the poet is not a reliable source of knowledge, I suggest that the literary theorist has no choice but to remain silent on subjects on which they are not expert.