Heidegger On Art

 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1997, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. Ratio (new series) X 2 September 1997 0034–0006

OVERCOMING ANTHROPOCENTRISM: HEIDEGGER ON THE HEROIC ROLE OF THE WORKS OF ART Abraham Mansbach Abstract In this paper I argue that although Heidegger’s Being and Time and ‘The Origin of the Work of Art,’ seem to deal with different topics, there is continuity between these two texts. In the latter Heidegger was trying to solve a central problem that arose in the former: how to account for authentic existence and at the same time overcome the anthropocentrism of traditional philosophy. In Being and Time Heidegger tries to overcome traditional philosophy, by redefining human existence in non-Cartesian terms. Yet, his treatment of the problem of the Self preserves one of the main tenets of that tradition: its anthropocentrism. This anthropocentrism is implicit in Dasein and further reinforced by the notion of the hero as the paradigm and channel of authentic existence. In ‘The Origin of the Work of Art,’ Heidegger solves that problem. Placing man at the periphery and the work of art at the centre of his endeavours, gives works of art a special status similar only to that of heroes. Works of art open up new horizons for generations to come by drawing in advance the paths for authentic behaviour. This shift is more than merely methodological. Heidegger overcomes not only the anthropocentrism of his previous analysis but also the instrumentality that derived from that anthropocentrism, thus revealing the essence of things.

One of the problems in analysing Heidegger’s philosophy is the absence of a unified picture. The variety of topics he treats and the variety of perspectives of his analyses give the impression that some of his writings are unrelated to others. This impression is especially strong when we compare Heidegger’s seminal work Being and Time with his post-1930 writings. The explanation generally given is that Heidegger’s thought took a turn (Khere) at this time which divided his philosophy in two main periods. One example of the discontinuity is the text ‘The Origin of the Work of Art,’ which was part of a series of lectures on art and the  Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1997

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work of art that Heidegger gave in 1935 and 1936.1 There is no evidence that Heidegger dealt with these questions before. It is thus reasonable to argue that he was trying to expand the range of his thinking by exploring a new field, namely aesthetics. Though this explanation is accurate it is also partial. In this paper I will show that there is continuity between Being and Time and ‘The Origin of the Work of Art.’ In the latter Heidegger was trying to solve a central problem that arose in the former: how to account for authentic existence and at the same time overcome the anthropocentrism of traditional philosophy. The scope of this paper does not allow us to ponder the effect of this continuity on the question of the turn. Nevertheless, our suggestion is that the view that Heidegger made a radical change at some point in the 1930’s should be tempered. In order to see how the question of anthropocentrism, a residue of Cartesianism, remains unsolved, let us take a brief look at Heidegger’s strategy to solve the problem of authentic existence. A major problem in Being and Time is that of the Self. In that work, Heidegger abandons the Cartesian substantial subject and deals with the problem of Being by analysing Dasein. The term ‘Dasein’ refers to the human structure to which the inquiry on Being in general – that is, the being of all entities including Dasein itself – is essential. Dasein is what Heidegger terms the clearing (lichtung, lumen naturalis): the place of ontological clarification where Being is revealed. But if Heidegger’s aim is, among other things, to account for entities in the world, the question of the individual person, the Self, must also be solved. Taking as the point of departure the general structure of human existence, Heidegger’s phenomenological analysis must account for the way the individual as such is constituted. Heidegger wrestles with this query throughout Being and Time, proposing the structure of mineness (Jemeinigkeit) as a means to 1 The first lecture was given on November 13, 1935, in Kunstwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft zu Freiburg im Breisgau. The second lecture, based on the first, was given in January 1936, at the University of Zurich, under the title ‘Vom Ursprung des Kunstwerkes.’ A third elaboration on the topic, based on a series of three lectures given at the Freie Deutsche Hochstif in Frankfurt am Main, in November and December 1936, was published for the first time in 1945 under the title ‘Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes.’ Heidegger added a postscript in 1956. This paper is based on Alfred Hofstadter's translation of ‘Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes,' which appeared as ‘The Origin of the Work of Art,' in Poetry Language and Thought, (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), pp. 15–87.

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resolve it. Mineness is that existential structure which makes it possible for Dasein to question and to elucidate its own being. This elucidation reveals two modes of existence which constitute the Self: authentic and inauthentic. These are the confines of human existence along which the Self is shaped. Inauthenticity is due to the fact that Dasein is thrown into a world in which things, social norms and values, and institutions were already produced by other human beings in the course of history. That is, the world is already invested with meaning which originated in the activities and interpretations of Others. At the same time, the world is part of Dasein, even though it did not acquire its meaning through the activities of the individual, and Dasein obtains its meaning from those things which already have meaning. It adopts and projects onto the future a present which is not its own. Its existence is thus inauthentic. The inauthentic Self is the ‘they’ (das Man). Heidegger regards the authentic mode of existence as possible only after familiarity – the meaning of the everyday world – collapses and authentic selfhood is laid bare. In the authentic mode, human existence both gives meaning to itself from within itself and makes possible the disclosure of Being, which together allow man to fulfil his existential purpose of serving as the place where Being is manifested. There are three moments in which the possibility of authentic existence is disclosed – but not actually realized. These are facing death, anxiety, and the call of conscience. In these moments Dasein is transparent to itself. Yet, while these provide the basis for authenticity, they are insufficient to unravel Dasein from its inauthentic mode. When the human being discovers his own mortality, the world which has acquired meaning originating in Others is eclipsed, and death appears as one’s own, with no possibility of being usurped by Others. The realization that there is something that can be only one’s own allows Dasein to focus on itself as an individual and to realize that absorption into Others is not inevitable. Anxiety is a state-of-mind (Befindlichkeit) which does not originate in any specific thing, and thus reveals entities within the world to be meaningless. As a result, the world itself is perceived as completely lacking in significance: It collapses into itself. The possibility of self-understanding in terms of the world collapses as well, and a feeling of uncanniness (unheimlichkeit) seizes Dasein. Anxiety thus brings Dasein face to face with itself, the world, and  Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1997

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things as they are – that is, not independent realities but meaningful insofar as they are endowed with meaning by human existence. Yet, though this human endowed meaning constitutes the basis for authenticity, the possibility of authentic existence is undermined by what Heidegger says is ‘the dominance of the public way in which things have been interpreted.’ This, according to Heidegger, ‘has already been decisive even for the possibility of having a mood . . . The “they” prescribes one’s state-of-mind, and determines what and how one “sees.”2 The mood of anxiety, then, and the resulting lack of meaning are thus in some sense determined by the inauthentic they. Thus it follows that ‘authenticity is only a modification but not a total obliteration of inauthenticity.’3 This modification is made possible by conscience. Heidegger treats conscience as a kind of call by the anxious Self out of its feelings of uncanniness. Absorbed in the they and taking its possibilities from the inauthentic mode, Dasein listens to others and fails to hear its own Self. The call of conscience breaks into this inauthentic idle talk (Gerede) and, in the process, the inauthentic ‘they-Self is modified . . . so that it becomes authentic Beingone’s-Self.’4 But the problem of the inauthentic source of authenticity is not resolved by the call of conscience. Heidegger does not say that the call of conscience comes from the authentic Self; he is ambiguous and leaves the matter cloaked in mystery, telling us that ‘the call comes from me and yet from beyond me.’5 The impossibility of deriving authentic existence from the individual is not only due to the unidentifiable source of the call of conscience. Heidegger regards Dasein as being constantly with others, Dasein is Mitsein. Thus, he proposes that the only way for 2 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, translated by John Macquirre and Edward Robinson, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980), p. 213. 3 Martin Heidegger, Basic Problems of Phenomenology, translated by Albert Hofstadter, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), p. 171. See also Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 168. 4 Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 313. 5 Ibid. This interpretation of authenticity was exposed, along different lines, in Charles. B. Guignon, ‘Heidegger’s ‘Authenticity' Revised,' Review of Metaphysics, 38 (1984) pp. 321–339; Jay A. Ciaffa, ‘Towards an Understanding of Heidegger’s conception of the Inter-relation between Authentic and Inauthentic Existence,' Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 18 (1987), pp. 49–59; and Abraham Mansbach, ‘Heidegger on the Self,' in Iyyun, The Jerusalem Philosophical Quarterly, 40 (1991), pp. 65-91.

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Dasein to obtain authentic existence is within a group of individuals devoted to the same matter. Dasein must shape its world and make it its own together with the community. Heidegger terms the mode of behaviour in which the Self may attain authentic existence by acting in concert with its environment and Others resoluteness (Entschlossenheit). Moreover, since Dasein is a temporal entity and hence historical, authentic existence must be not only communal but also historical. To achieve authentic existence Dasein must consider both its own past and the past of the entire generation -- its heritage. To be authentic it must choose and appropriate a common heritage within a communal framework. But here, too, the possibility of authentic existence is called into question. Heidegger tells us that ‘even resolutions remain dependent upon the “they” and its world,’6 thus leaving a trace of inauthenticity in every human act and choice, including the decision made in selecting a past. Heidegger’s concept of the hero, even though he mentions it only twice in Being and Time, comes to tackle this impasse.7 As Heidegger depicts him, the hero is the only being who may perform some authentic acts. He is the only one for whom authenticity is not a mere possibility, but an actual mode of existence. From this, one may extrapolate that choosing and following a hero somehow do not entail the inauthenticity that is inherent in every other choice and act. To be authentic, to act resolutely, and to loyally follow ‘in the footsteps of that which can be repeated,’ Heidegger says, ‘Dasein may choose its hero.’8 The heroic action may be understood as a cultural-philosophical act which reveals Being, and the hero’s whole existence as identified with that revelation. The hero’s deeds thus open paths that become the destiny of a historical people. In choosing a hero Dasein chooses a role from among those which come down to it through tradition and history, makes an authentic past its own, and, with the community, projects that past onto the future. Yet though the concept of hero solves the problem of authentic existence, it raises doubts as to whether Heidegger succeeds in overcoming the shortcomings of traditional philosophy, which was one of his major motivations. As is well known, the focus on the meaning of Being in Being and Time is directed towards that Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 345–346. The term ‘hero' (Held) appears in Being and Time, on pages 422 and 437. 8 Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 437. 6 7

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end. Heidegger argues that this question has been forgotten in traditional philosophy, with a resulting distortion of the ontological picture. In positing Dasein as the starting point, Heidegger aims to provide a new and firm foundation for ontology. This is a unique foundation in the history of Western philosophy, for it contains no presuppositions at all about man and reality other than the possibility of ontology itself: the possibility of raising the question of Being. Heidegger thus erects a barrier between his fundamental ontology and the Cartesian-Kantian tradition, which posits as its starting point a subject with characteristics and boundaries. Yet although Heidegger overcomes substantialism by redefining human existence in non-Cartesian terms, his treatment of the problem of the Self preserves one of the main tenets of that tradition: its anthropocentrism. In positing Dasein as the starting point of his fundamental ontology, Heidegger attempts to depart from the traditional anthropocentric philosophical view. He describes Dasein’s basic attitude as that of questioning, thus it does not set up the world as does the cogito. Nonetheless, Heidegger does not entirely escape anthropocentrism, for it is through human existence in general and authentic existence in particular that Being is revealed. The questioning reveals that Dasein has an understanding of Being, and, as a result, that human actions are projections onto the world of this understanding; these actions give meaning to the world. In trying to come to grips with selfhood, Heidegger analyzes human and non-human entities so as to show how man is reflected in entities which he encounters in the world. Anthropocentrism is further reinforced by the notion of the hero as the paradigm and channel of authentic existence. The lecture ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’ comes to solve this problem. Here Heidegger invites us to ‘go to the actual work and ask the work what and how it is.’9 He calls on us to ‘ask the question of truth with a view to the work [of art].’10 Human existence is no longer the centre of the analysis, and no longer serves as the conduit of meaning. The focus is shifted to art and its product, the work of art. Using the work of art as a prism for his phenomenological analysis, Heidegger accords it a special status which sets it apart 9 10

Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 18. Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 41.

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from the entities in Being and Time. Heidegger had defined these entities as present-at-hand (vorhanden) and ready-to-hand (zuhanden). The work of art is neither, but rather an entity through which the truth of beings is disclosed. It has a privileged relation to Being, similar only to that accorded to Dasein. Like Dasein, the work of art generates truth by constituting the world, thereby permitting entities, including human beings, to be part of the world. Dasein shapes and structures the world through its constant involvement with other entities in a complex web of relationships. The work of art gives meaning to the space in which it appears and thereby creates a place where all entities are brought forth. Works of art have a thingly nature, while Dasein is existential. In placing man on the periphery and the work of art at the centre of his endeavours, Heidegger thus did more than make a merely methodological shift. He overcame not only the anthropocentrism of his previous analysis but also the instrumentality that derived from that anthropocentrism. Consistent with his rejection of the representational world view and adherence to the aletheiac conception of truth, Heidegger denies that the capacity of the work of art to disclose truth derives from its mimetic nature. He holds rather that the connection between the work of art and truth lies in the former’s being ‘the reproduction of the thing’s general essence.’11 The problem with Dasein based analysis is that it cannot fully reveal the essence of things, that is, the thingness of beings. Dasein encounters entities in the world through use, and thus reveals them either as beings that are ready-to-hand, when useful for some purpose, or presentat-hand, when they become un-ready-to-hand and cease to be useful for Dasein’s purposeful activity. In other words, when the lens is the structure of human existence, beings reveal only their instrumentality. Analysis based on the work of art allows the thingness of beings to be brought to light. The revelation of thinghood is made possible by the nature of the relationships between the artist and his creation and between the work of art and the being reproduced through it. The relation between the artist and his creation is not instrumental. Works of art, especially great ones, stand by themselves, unrelated to other entities or even to the artist who created them. The only aspect of the artist’s intention 11

Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 37.

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preserved in the work of art is its having been created to stand on its own. Standing by themselves, works of art have a unique relation to what is reproduced through them. Taking Van Gogh’s painting of a pair of peasant shoes as an example, Heidegger tells us that it ‘is the disclosure of what the equipment, the pair of peasant shoes, is in truth.’12 The relation between the painting and the pair of shoes allows us to see the latter within its environment. The painting brings its own world into the open, revealing the peasant, the field-path, ‘the dampness and richness of the soil,’13 and, most importantly, the thingly character of the thing: the earth which ‘vibrates’ in the shoes. More will be said shortly of the role of ‘earth.’ Here what is important to emphasize is that great works of art thus make the world, and this is the source of their power to reveal truth. Another important function of art lies in its historical dimension. Heidegger illustrates this historicity with the example of a Greek temple: It is the temple-work that first fits together and at the same time gathers around itself the unity of those paths and relations in which birth and death, disaster and blessing, victory and disgrace, endurance and decline acquire the shape of destiny for human being. The all-governing expanse of this open relational context is the world of this historical people.14 The temple opens up a world both for individuals and for the entire community: both are nourished by the history it evokes, by the heritage it transmits. But the temple is only a particularly clear example of the way in which works of art enable people to live a common present shaped by an acknowledged past and projected future. This is a major function of all works of art. Furthermore, in addition to constituting the world, the work of art also ‘sets forth’ earth. Earth and the world are the two ‘essential features in the work-being of the work [of art].’15 These two features make the revelation of thinghood possible. The addition of earth to Heidegger’s philosophical menu is more than a matter of terminology, but rather points to an important Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 36. Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 34. Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, pp. 41–42. 15 Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 48. 12 13 14

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development in Heidegger’s thought. Earth differs from world in a vital way. While the world consists of things that have meaning, earth consists of the totality of things that lack meaning and the vague aspects of entities which are part of the world of Dasein but cannot be fathomed. Among the latter are the colours of the painting, which are impenetrable in the form of colour as such but comprehensible in their embodiment in the painting, and the stones of the temple, whose thingness similarly becomes comprehensible only in the work of art. In contrast to the instrumentalities of anthropocentric analysis, earth is essentially irrational and incomprehensible. According to Heidegger, it retreats when we want to give it form; it withdraws when we attempt to appropriate it. Earth ‘shatters every attempt to break into it’; it is ‘essentially self-secluding (Sichverschliessende).’16 While the world consists of the familiar, earth represents otherness. ‘Earth’ represents the limitations of human existence, the difficulty and indeed the impossibility of making intelligible all the aspects of entities: ‘There is much in being that man cannot master. There is but little that comes to be known. What is known remains inexact, what is mastered insecure.’17 Analysis focused on Dasein ignores earth, since it treats entities as equipment and emphasizes their instrumental purposes. In that instrumentality, the material – earth – disappears into usefulness. In the production and use of a tool, material is secondary to design. We see a hammer as a tool, and not as a wooden handle with an iron head. Being set forth by a work of art does not make earth intelligible in and of itself. For instance, while it is possible to quantify the heaviness of the stone, still, ‘this precise determination of the stone remains a number, but the weight’s burden has escaped us.’18 To be set forth through art means to be laid bare as unintelligible. At the same time, Heidegger maintains that the work of art opens up a world but ‘does not cause the material to disappear;’ it rather ‘causes it to come forth for the very first time and to come into the Open.’19 ‘Material’ is used here in a broad sense, Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 47. Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 53. 18 Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 47. 19 Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 46. 16 17

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covering the paint of Van Gogh’s painting, the sounds of Beethoven’s Eroica, the words of Sophocles’ Oedipus, and the stones in a work of architecture. The work of art manifests the thingness of entities by revealing their earthly aspects. It is in these great works of art that the rock comes to be rock, colours come to glow, ‘tones to sing and words to speak.’20 And, in this sense, the artist uses colours, stones, voices and sounds, but they do not disappear (as they do in instruments), but are preserved in the work of art. Besides disclosing the line between the rational and the irrational, works of art are free of residual inauthenticity. This, for Heidegger, is the feature that makes them unique. It is also the feature that makes them very much like heroes. In analysing the Self in Being and Time, Heidegger reinterprets the traditional meaning of reflection. The traditional view holds that the ego or Self is known through reflection. Heidegger claims, however, that reflection is not to be understand as introspection, as ‘the ego bent around backward and staring at itself.’ Rather the ego ‘show(s) itself in a reflection from something.’21 In reflection, we ‘discover ourselves in things,’22 namely in things that have acquired meaning through our acts. By reflection, ‘Dasein gets its ontological understanding of itself . . . from those entities which it itself is not but which it encounters within the world.’23 Works of art, like other objects, are sources of reflection. But though Heidegger tells us that, like these other objects, the Greek temple ‘gives to things their look and to humans their outlook on themselves,’24 and in this sense has a thingly character, the work of art also functions like a hero. The disclosure generated by the work of art is unique. The work of art acts like anxiety except in that it is entirely authentic. Anxiety brings Dasein back from its absorption in Others. It causes everyday familiarity to collapse and Dasein to fail to understand itself and the world as interpreted by the anonymous ‘they.’ It makes it clear that what we are anxious about is not a thing, but does not have the character of any being at all and, in fact, is nothing. Just as anxiety discloses the nothingness behind all phenomena Ibid. Heidegger, Basic Problems of Phenomenology, p. 159. Heidegger, Basic Problems of Phenomenology, p. 161. 23 Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 85. 24 Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 43. 20 21 22

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and thereby gives new meaning to phenomena, so too does the work of art. When placed in a designated setting -- or erected, as in the case of the Greek temple -- it radiates a light, opening up a clearing which gives new meaning to its surroundings: Thought of in reference to what is, to beings, this clearing is in a greater degree than are beings. This open centre is therefore not surrounded by what is; rather, the lighting centre itself encircles all that is, like the Nothing that we scarcely know.25 Until they are integrated into the new world constituted by the work of art, beings lose their meaning and slide into nothingness. The clearing which the work of art creates makes authentic existence possible. For it discloses the nature of all entities and thus ‘grants and guarantees to us humans a passage to those beings that we ourselves are not, and access to the being that we ourselves are.’26 Works of art counter inauthenticity. For in containing the opposition between earth and world, each work of art opens up a world which is ‘the clearing of the paths of the essential guiding directions with which all decision complies.’27 Dasein’s choice can be guided by the paths cleared by works of art, just as it can be guided by adopting the hero’s past as its own. Great works of art are analogous to heroes in placing the newly-generated world within the historical perspective of a nation giving birth to history: ‘Wherever art happens . . . a thrust enters history, history either begins or starts again.’28 By giving historical significance to their environment, they provide Dasein with a heritage, a past that can be appropriated to shape an authentic future, making authentic existence possible. The work of art, like the hero, acts historically in a dual manner: it inaugurates history and it also endures throughout history for generations to come. The world generated by the work of art is not absorbed and exhausted within one generation; it is not revealed once for all time. The earth within the work of art challenges each successive generation anew to realize, preserve and interpret its inexhaustible meaning. The work of art determines in advance the future that coming generations must appropriate and preserve. In the work of art, says Heidegger, ‘truth is thrown toward the coming preservers, Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 53. Ibid. 27 Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 55. 28 Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 77. 25 26

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that is, toward an historical group of men.’29 This group consists not of the entire community, but of the preservers who appreciate the historical and artistic value of the work of art and the truth it generates. They are the interpreters and readers of the great works of art, not necessarily academics or experts. These preservers mediate the relationship between the community and the work of art. It is not enough that a work of art is created. It must function as a projected truth which engenders new concepts with historical meaning for future generations. The role of the preservers is similar to that of the artists, for ‘what is created cannot itself come into being without those who preserve it.’30 The work of art discloses Being and enables authentic selfhood. This happens when ‘we remove ourselves from our commonplace routine and move into what is disclosed by the work, so as to bring our own nature itself to take a stand in the truth of what it is.’31 Like the heroes in Being and Time, works of art open up new horizons for generations to come by drawing in advance the paths of authentic action. Through art, history becomes ‘the transporting of a people into its appointed task as entrance into that people’s endowment.’32 Any attempt to draw narrow political conclusions from Heidegger’s short discussion of heroes would be mistaken. Heidegger’s concept of history, as it evolves from our examination, would fall under what Nietzsche calls ‘monumental’ history. Heidegger regards history as a chain of human creations, each one arising as a monument and representing a new era. Each monument opens up a new perspective from which to look at things, human beings, and history, and thereby throws new light on the past and confers new meaning on the future. Unlike Nietzsche, however, Heidegger does not think of history as serving life and an unhistorical power, but rather as disclosing Being. His concept of the hero is not romanticism in a new garb. It does not point to the man behind the creation, but to the creation itself, which makes the disclosure possible. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Ber-Sheva, Israel Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 75. Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 66. Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 75. 32 Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 77. 29 30 31

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