A leading Polish philosopher of the twentieth century, Roman Ingarden is principally renowned in Western culture for his work in aesthetics and the theory of literature. Jeff Mitscherling demonstrates, in this extensive work, how Ingarden's thought constitutes a major contribution to the more fundamental fields of ontology and metaphysics.<BR>Mitscherling provides a study of Ingarden's life, career, and works, and focuses on the genesis and development of this great thinker's philosophical position in relation to that of Edmund Husserl. He summarizes, explains, and illustrates a number of Ingarden's most important investigations presented in The Controversy Over the Existence of the World, a work clarifying the debate between realism and idealism in a more thorough manner than has ever been attempted. He continues by focusing on Ingarden's examination of various sorts of works of art in particular (the dramatic work, the musical work, the painting, and the architectural work) and on his contributions to aesthetics in general.