HEIDEGGER ON ART AND ART WORKS

PHAENOMENOLOGICA COLLECTION FONDEE PAR H.L. VAN BREDA ET PUBLlEE

SOUS LE PATRONAGE DES CENTRES D'ARCHIVES-HUSSERL

99

JOSEPH J. KOCKELMANS

HEIDEGGER ON ART AND ART WORKS

Comite de redaction de la collection: President: S. IJsseling (Leuven)

Membres: L. Landgrebe (Kaln), W. Marx (Freiburg i. Br.), J.N. Mohanty (Oklahoma), P. Ricoeur (Paris), E. Straker (Kaln),

J. Taminiaux (Louvain-La-Neuve), Secretaire: J. Taminiaux

HEIDEGGER ON ART AND ART WORKS

JOSEPH J. KOCKELMANS

1985 MARTINUS NIJHOFF PUBLISHERS ~. a member of the KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS GROUP 1111. DORDRECHT / BOSTON / LANCASTER .~

Distributors

jor the United States and Canada: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 190 Old Derby Street, Hingham, MA 02043, USA jor the UK and Ireland: Kluwer Academic Publishers, MTP Press Limited, Falcon House, Queen Square, Lancaster LAI lRN, UK jor all other countries: Kluwer Academic Publishers Group, Distribution Center, P.O. Box 322, 3300 AH Dordrecht, The Netherlands

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

ISBN-13:978-90-247-3144-2 DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-5067-2

Copyright

e-ISBN-13:978-94-009-5067-2

© 1985 by Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1 st edition 1985

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, P.O. Box 163, 3300 AD Dordrecht, The Netherlands.

CONTENTS

List of Symbols Used IX

Preface XI

PART I. Some Observations on the History of Aesthetics and on the Manner in which Heidegger Has Tried to Retrieve Some of its Essential Moments 1

§ 1. Introduction. Aesthetics: The Discipline and the Name

CHAPTER I. The Classical Conceptions of Beauty and Art § 2. Plato's Conception of Beauty and Art § 3. From Aristotle to the Middle Ages

a) The Aesthetics of Aristotle b) The Stoics and the Eclectics on "Aesthetics" c) Plotinus d) St. Augustine

§ 4. The Middle Ages and the Renaissance a) Medieval Aesthetics. Aquinas b) The Renaissance

CHAPTER II. Modern Aesthetics § 5. Baumgarten, Burke, and Herder

a) Rationalism. Baumgarten b) Empiricism. Burke c) Romanticism. Herder

§ 6. Kant and Goethe

CHAPTER III. Hegel § 7. Hegel's Aesthetics. Aesthetics and Art History § 8. On Beauty and Art in Hegel § 9. The Beauty of Art and its Particular Forms

3

5 10 10 13 15 16 17 17 20

23 24 26 27 29

35 38 41

VI

CHAPTER IV. The Century after Hegel § 10. Richard Wagner 46 § 11. Nietzsche's Concern with Aesthetics 48

a) Nietzsche's Metaphysics. Will-to-Power. The Basic Questions of Philosophy 48 b) Five Basic Theses on Art and their Implication 50

§ 12. Nietzsche on the Essence of Art 52 a) On Rapture (Rausch) 54 b) Rapture and the Form-Creating Force 56 c) Art in the Grand Style 58 d) On Truth and Art 62

§ 13. Neo-Kantianism and the Hermeneutic Tradition 64

PART II. Heidegger's "On the Origin of the Work of Art" 69

Introduction 71

CHAPTER I. Introductory Reflections. - The Historical Context of the Lectures. - Their Subject Matter and Method

Art. I. The Historical Context and the Character of the Lectures 73 § 14. The Historical Context of the Holzwege Essay on Art 73

a) From Being and Time to "The Origin of the Work of Art" 73 b) The Epilogue and its Implications 78

§ 15. How Is Heidegger's Essay on the Art Work to Be Interpreted? 81 Art. II. The Subject Matter and the Method of the Lectures 88

§ 16. Origin and Coming-to-Presence. Hermeneutic Phenomenology 88 a) Origin and Coming-to-Presence. - The Question of Method 88 b) Destructive Retrieve 91 c) Phenomenology: The Method of Ontology 93

1. Phenomenon 94 2. Apophantic Logos and Truth 95 3. The Preliminary Conception of Phenomenology 96

d) Hermeneutic Phenomenology 98 § 17. The Hermeneutic Circle 100

a) From Work to Art and from Art to Work. The Circle 100 b) Understanding, Interpretation, and the Hermeneutic "As" 101 c) The Hermeneutic Circle in Being and Time 105 d) The Circle in Hegel and Heidegger 107

CHAPTER II. The Thing and The Work Art. I. The Ontological Question Concerning the Thing-Being of the Thing 110

§ 18. The Art Work Does Have a Thingly Character 110 a) Art Works Are Things 110 b) Traditional Interpretations of the Thing-Being of the Thing 112

VII

§ 19. Toward the Genuine Origin of the Hylemorphic Structure. -Retrospect 118 a) Equipment between Thing and Work 118 b) Retrospect on the Critical Reflections on the Three Thing-Conceptions 122 Art. II. From Equipment to Work of Art 125

§ 20. Elucidation of the Equipment-Being of Equipment by Means of a Work of Art 125 a) A Pair of Farmer's Shoes as an Example of a Piece of Equipment 125 b) The Illumination of the Equipment-Being of Equipment with the Help of an Immediate Experience with a Work of Art: van Gogh, Schapiro, Derrida 127

§ 21. The Truth Establishes Itself in the Work 132 a) Reliability and the Hylemorphic Structure 132 b) The First Characterization of the Work-Being of the Work: In It the Truth Establishes Itself. On the Essence of Art and the Artis-tically Beautiful 134 c) Summary and Prospect 135

CHAPTER III. Art Work and Truth Art. I. Some Essential Characteristics of Art Works 138

§ 22. How to Unfold the Essential Characteristics of Works of Art? 138 a) The Art Work Stands on Its Own (Eigenstiindigkeit) 138 b) The Coming-to-Pass of the Truth of Beings in a Greek Temple 141

§ 23. The Setting-Up and the Opening-Up of a World 144 § 24. The Second Characteristic of the Work-Being of the Work. - The

Unity of the Two Essential Characteristics 149 a) The Making-Present of the Earth 149 b) The Intimacy of the Battle between World and Earth 154 Art. II. The Coming-to-Pass of the Truth in the Work of Art 155

§ 25. Heidegger's Conception of the Essence of Truth 155 § 26. Truth as Correspondence and Truth as Non-Concealment. Truth

and Work 163 a) Truth as Non-Concealment 163 b) The Strife between Truth and Untruth and the Battle between World and Earth. The Beautiful versus the True 165 c) From Work and Truth to Truth and Art 166

CHAPTER IV. Truth and Art Art. I. Artistic Production. The Work as Having-Been-Produced 168

§ 27. Artistic Production and the Clearing of the Openness in the Work 168 a) Toward the Essence of Artistic Production 168 b) The Establishment of the Clearing of the Openness of the Truth in the Work 171

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§ 28. The Coming-to-Pass of the Truth Is Fixed as Gestalt. Having-Been-Produced 174 a) The Coming-to-Pass of Non-Concealment Becomes Fixed as G~~h 1~

b) Having-Been-Produced Is an Integral Aspect of the Work of Art 177 Art. II. The Art Work Is to Be Kept in the Truth 179

§ 29. Art Works Are to Be Preserved 179 a) Preservation as the Standing within the Coming-to-Pass of the Truth 179 b) Preservation and Experiencing Works of Art 182

§ 30. Once More the Thingly Character of the Work 183 a) From the Thingly Character to the Earthy Character of the Work 183 b) Why Does the Thing Belong to the Earth? 184

CHAPTER V. On the Essence of Art. Its Coming-to-Presence and Its Abidance § 31. Toward the Essence of Art 186

a) Art as the Origin of the Work, the Artist, and the Preserver 186 b) Poetizing Is the Essence of Art 187 c) The Essence of Art, Language, and Truth 188

§ 32. On the Coming-to-Presence of Poetizing 190 a) Poetizing as the Originating, Founding, and Granting Institution of the Truth 190 b) Art as Original Leap (Ur-Sprung) 192

§ 33. On Thinking and Poetizing 194 § 34. The Relevance of these Reflections for Contemporary Art 202

Conclusion: Heidegger on Art 209

Notes 211

Bibliography 231

Index 239

ED EM FD FW G GP GR HB HD HW ID KPM LFW ML N P PG SD SF SG SU SZ TuK US VA W WD WG WM WmF

LIST OF SYMBOLS USED

1. Works by Heidegger

Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens Einfahrung in die Metaphysik Die Frage nach dem Ding Der Feldweg Gelassenheit Die Grundprobleme der Phiinomenologie Grundbegriffe Brief aber den "Humanismus" Erliiuterungen zu HOiderlins Dichtung Holzwege Identitiit und Differenz Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik Logik. Die Frage nach der Wahrheit Metaphysische Anfangsgrande der Logik im Ausgang von Leibniz Nietzsche ''Vom Wesen und Begriff der Phusis" Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs Zur Sache des Denkens Zur Seinsfrage Der Satz vom Grund Die Selbstbehauptung der deutschen Universitiit Sein und Zeit Die Technik und die Kehre Unterwegs zur Sprache Vortriige und Aufsiitze Wegmarken Was heisst Denken? Vom Wesen des Grundes Was ist Metaphysik? Ober das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit

x

WP Was ist das - die Philosophie? WW Vom Wesen der Wahrheit

2. Works on Heidegger

FvH F.-W. von Herrmann, Heideggers Philosophie der Kunst WBH W. Biemel, Martin Heidegger. An Illustrated Study WRH W.J. Richardson, Heidegger. Through Phenomenology to Thought

PREFACE

This book grew from a series of lectures presented in 1983 in the context of the Summer Program in Phenomenology at The Pennsylvania State University. For these lectures I made use of notes and short essays which I had written between 1978 and 1982 during interdisciplinary seminars on Heidegger's later philosophy in general, and on his philosophy of language and art in particular. The participants in these seminars consisted of faculty members and graduate students concerned with the sciences, the arts, literature, literary criticism, art history, art education, and philosophy. On both occasions I made a special effort to introduce those who did not yet have a specialized knowledge of Heidegger's philosophy, to his later way of thinking. In this effort I was guided by the conviction that we, as a group, had to aim for accuracy, precision, clarity, faithfulness, and depth, while at the same time taking distance, comparing Heidegger's views with ideas of other philosophers and thinkers, and cultivat­ing a proper sense of criticism.

Over the years it has become clear to me that among professional philoso­phers, literary critics, scholars concerned with art history and art education, and scientists from various disciplines, there are many who are particularly interested in "Heidegger's philosophy of art". I have also become convinced that many of these dedicated scholars often have difficulty in understanding Heidegger's lectures on art and art works. This is understandable. It is well­known by now that Heidegger's later philosophy, to which his reflections on art and art works belong, are very difficult, indeed, and that they perhaps belong to the most difficult works in philosophy ever written. Secondly, those who are familiar with philosophical aesthetics and its history know that virtually all philosophical works on art and art works are often difficult to understand, simply because it appears not to be easy to speak about art and art works in a manner which truly says something important about art; at any rate, in my opinion the works on aesthetics by Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Wagner, and Nietzsche are not easily understood either. Finally, Heidegger usually assumes that his audience already has a broad and deep knowledge of the history of philosophy, literature, art history, etc.; yet due to the enormous expansion of knowledge over the past hundred years, and because of changes in our entire

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educational "system", such knowledge can no longer be universally assumed today.

It is for this reason that I have made a serious effort here first to place Heidegger's reflections on art in their proper historical context (Part I) and to explain his own conception of the essence of art as clearly and faithfully as possible (Part II). As for the latter, I have also discussed briefly the most important ideas of Heidegger's fundamental ontology (Being and Time) as well as some ideas of his later philosophy (world, truth, Being, etc.), insofar as they appear to be immediately relevant to his "philosophy of art".

Heidegger has concerned himself with art and art works on several occasions. The best known treatises on art and art works are the following: 1) the series of three lectures, entitled "The Origin of the Work of Art" (1935); 2) the lecture course "The Will to Power as Art" (1936-1937); 3) Heidegger's meditations on and elucidations of the poems by H6lderlin, Rilke, George, and Trakl (1936-1959); and 4) his lecture on the origin of art, delivered in Athens in April of 1967.1 In this book I shall focus mainly on "The Origin of the Work of Art". For the other essays, lectures, and lecture courses I must refer to some of my other publications. Yet, as I have said already, in order to make Heidegger's position outlined in the three lectures mentioned more understandable, I have made an effort to place Heidegger's reflections in their proper historical and ontological perspectives, and have added from other works what seemed to be relevant to my main goal, namely, to give the reader a clear, concise, and responsible account of Heidegger's conception of art and art works.2

As for Part I, in my brief overview of various aesthetic theories of the past I have tried to do for Heidegger what Heidegger himself has done for Nietzsche, that is to mention briefly those details of the history of aesthetics, which are directly relevant to a proper understanding of Heidegger's own conception. In so doing, however, I have used Heidegger's own account of this history to the degree that this is available to us today. For those periods of the history of aesthetics, not explicitly discussed by Heidegger, I have made use of other sources. But even here I have tried to follow the "spirit" of Heidegger's own approach. Thus instead of in those instances trying to give the reader a systema­tic account of the origin, development, and history of "aesthetics", I have dwelled only on those events and issues that are important to understand Heidegger's conception of art, as well as the ideas of those authors from whose works Heidegger himself takes his point of departure, and whose conception he himself critically discusses; the latter is true particularly for the aesthetic theories of Plato, Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche.

In this historical part I have made use mainly of Heidegger's Nietzsche lectures, particularly of those from the Winter semester of 1936-1937 which, as was said already, were devoted to "Will to Power as Art". In these lectures Heidegger made a number of historical remarks of great importance (on six major periods in the history of aesthetics, on Plato, Kant, Schopenhauer, Wagner, and obviously Nietzsche himself)l on which I have relied heavily in this part of the present book. Yet for the third period of art history distinguished by

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Heidegger and for the period after 1830, as well as for the period between Plato and Baumgarten, I have used ideas of Tatarkiewicz, Kuhn, Gilbert, Dilthey, and Gadamer. 4

Here the reader will wonder why I thought it to be important to add from the history of aesthetics certain periods not mentioned by Heidegger himself. There were two important reasons which have led me to the decision to include a few brief remarks on Aristotle, the Stoa, Plotinus, St. Augustine, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and on modern and contemporary aesthetics. First of all in part I, I was not trying (as Heidegger's intention was in his Nietzsche volumes) to introduce the reader to the thought of Nietzsche; rather it was my intention to provide him with the kind of information that may be helpful in understanding Heidegger's own position. Secondly, we shall see that Heideg­ger's own position was deeply influenced by Hegel and Nietzsche and not, as some might have expected, by Kant. To explain Nietzsche's position in regard to the aesthetics of "Platonism" as well as to explain the origin of the aesthetics of Kant on the one hand and that of Hegel on the other, it appeared necessary to say something about the other periods mentioned. It should be noted, however, that here I have limited myself to what I think is indispensable for a proper understanding of what Heidegger tries to accomplish in his reflections on the essence of art.

As for Part II, generally speaking, I have focused mainly on the three lectures, entitled "The Origin of the Work of Art". First I have made an effort to structure the text and to divide it into a smalI number of sections. In so doing, I have made extensive use of the excelIent commentary on these lectures by F.-W. von Herrmann. s Secondly, in each section I have provided the reader with a paraphrase of Heidegger's text in which I have aimed first and foremost at achieving accuracy, clarity, and completeness. Thus in each case I have folIowed the text as closely as possible, even though I have not tried to translate Heidegger's text. By the way, I find Hofstadter's translation excellent and, thus, do not mean to suggest here that my paraphrase should be taken as a replacement or substitute for the official translation; rather my paraphrase is meant to clarify Heidegger's original text, i.e., the German as well as the English text.

As everyone knows a translator often has to cope with very important and difficult problems, about which someone who merely is concerned with giving a paraphrase, does not have to worry. Contrary to the case of the translator, the one who gives a paraphrase can add to the text, omit certain passages, make minor changes, elaborate, summarize, and explain. Where I have quoted Heidegger literally I have indicated this in the usual manner with quotation marks. As a rule I have then used the translation by Hofstadter, but I have had access also to an unpublished translation made by Zygmunt Adamczewski. In many instances I had to adapt the existing translations to the terminology used in this book, which to a very high degree has been derived from Richardson's book on Heidegger. 6 Thirdly, in each section I have added reflections taken from Heidegger's other works, from commentators such as von Herrmann,

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Biemel, Birault, Richardson, Taminiaux, Gadamer, Derrida, and others, or taken from other sources, including ideas of my own, which I thought could help the reader understand Heidegger's text. And as I have indicated already, the readers for which this book is meant primarily are not the very few specialists in Heidegger's philosophy, but rather those philosophers, literary critics, art historians, art educators, and scientists who, although they may not be "specialists" in Heidegger's philosophy, have come to the conviction that Heidegger has some very important things to say about the origin of the work of art and particularly about the manner in which art comes-to-presence and abides.

A few sections contained in this book appeared on a slightly different form in two of my other publications on Heidegger. Thus I wish to thank the publishers for their kind permission to make use of parts of the following sections of these books:

"On the Essence of Truth", from On the Truth of Being. Reflections on Heidegger's Later Philosophy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), pp. 6-15; "Destructive Retrieve and Hermeneutic Phenomenology", from Heidegger and Science. Toward a Hermeneutic Phenomenology of the Sciences (Washington D.C.: Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology and University Press of America, 1985), section 6.

The Pennsylvania State University Joseph J. Kockelmans