Ferrara, Chapter 5 "Heidegger's Philosophy of Art"

Summary

After Heidegger's Dasein, as revealed in Being and Time, he turns to a more poetic prose and develops the idea of resoluteness, or waiting, as an essentiality of Being and openness. To be open, one waits for an object, work, etc. to show itself.

Heidegger plans to extricate himself from Western Metaphysical tradition (reality's transcendence of scientific principles) through interpretations of Kant, Hegel, Neitzsche, etc. He soon discovers that Being and Time was trapped in this metaphysical paradigm. In order to 'undercut that tradition', Heidegger stripped the 'technical and manipulative style' of Dasein. Only through a radical leap from metaphysical to a more meditative and poetic stance could the philosopher break new ground.

Meditative thinking, Heidegger says, positions one to wait for Being, or for something to come into unconcealment. The idea of waiting upon comes from pre-Socratic philosophers (Anaximander, Heraclitus, Parmenides). This is opposed to the later Platonic forms which "provide representations of actual things as ideas". To be direct, or to engage a thing directly, we are being open. Greek thinking is characterized by Heidegger as "gathering, or 'apprehension and collection'". The philosopher reasserts, "In waiting we leave open what we are waiting for because waiting releases itself into openness," to which Ferrara adds, "one does not experience a thing by re-presenting it through an inserted idea."

"The Origin of the Work of Art" begins by a definition of art. It encompasses all art form: visual, music, architecture, sculpture, poetry, etc. Heidegger relates that the artist is the origin of the work, and conversely the work is the origin of the artist.

If art is a "thing", what distinguishes it from other things? Heidegger, in Being and Time, specifies three types of beings:

1. Ready-to-hand (equipment, i.e., automobile)

2. Present-to-hand (junk, i.e., pile of leaves)

3. Dasein (human existence)

Additionally there are three interpretations of what things are:

1. Substance (bearing characteristics)

2. Collection of sensory data

3. Formed matter

Heidegger dismisses all three. "Thing-theories" bring us no closer to the thingly element in art. To elaborate, he studies a pair of shoes from the Van Gogh painting "Les Souliers". Instead of approach the shoes as equipment, or what they're made of, he focuses on what the shoes are made for. In this case, it is for the peasant woman, and their usefulness lies within that meaning. 

The shoes' ability to service, or by Heidegger's term- "reliability", do not present the essential being. It is when the foot wear becomes hidden in life, then exposed through art, does their truth (aletheia in Greek) or unconcealedness come forward. "By revealing the being of the shoes, this work establishes the truth of shoes." A truth is otherwise hidden before being exposed by art. Heidegger's conception of truth departs from traditional art theory in that art typifies beauty, whereas logic speaks of truth.

On the other hand, art works have a sense of actually, of being things. In this way, they share a "thingly character" with the things in which the art may represent. Thus begins a discussion of earth, in reference to the work materials of art, and of world, which extends beyond Husserl's life-world to include the world of the artist (or onto-historical world). Heidegger says, "to be a work means to set up a world." The artist brings his earth (materials) and world (onto-historical) into transcendance through a work. The setting of an ontological world places things into an openness where it can show itself, be unconcealed, and Be.

Reaction

Phewww... Heidegger V was a tough pill to swallow, but watching "Being There" (once the weekend before class, then during) helped enormously to conceptualize the idea of engaging something directly, and letting it reveal itself. Chauncey maintained Dasein through his throwness into the world, his direct engagement (using no preconceptions or prior knowledge), his realization of death. The meaning the rest of the characters attached to Chauncey's words remind me of the discussion in Chapter 5 of the tree falling in the forest, and how it does make a sound (like a fox hears it) and but it means nothing... humans construct meaning. Does that make meaning unnatural, or against nature? The ability of the human species to attach meaning and socialize is what has positioned us (atleast in our minds!) above other animals. It is fundamentally a survival technique, but has brought on changes throughout the world, both good and bad. Man has shaped the world, it's buildings, structures, institutions, and it's inhabitants. Speaking of world, I think Heidegger's discussion of transcendance is particularly illuminating. An artist really does use his world and his materials to express or preserve ideas/images/etc., which transcend their lifeworld and live on for others to experience.