Subjectivity and the Limitations of Art

Can the modern individual understand the truth in Aeschylus' Agamemnon as the Greek of that era could? Can I understand the truth of Andrei Tarkovsky’s movie the Mirror as the citizen of a Soviet state? What is the truth in a work of art? Can that truth perish? How much of the art of the "other" in time and space is open to us?

An artwork is said to have no limitations, as it is, in essence, a presentation of the human condition. In this sense, art is said to transcend temporality and cultural divides. However, the tourist site that is the Greek temple or the deserted Hanging Gardens of Babylon or even a written work like the Epic of Gilgamesh presents a distant world[1] that no longer exists. I stand before a painting, a work of art, and it shines at me, but is it shining for me?

In the final sentences of Vladimir Nabokov’s  Lolita, the character of Humbert says quite hauntingly: “I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I share.”[2] Art, therefore, is considered to be an enduring presence, a testament to the past, beyond the ravages of time. It reveals something essential about the human condition (love, mortality, jealousy etc.). We can relate to artwork from disparate places in time and space, because it tells us something about our humanity. What is more, in the absence of immortality, the argument goes, art is redemption.

            Heidegger, on the contrary, consigns art to death. Artworks can perish. Not only can artwork perish, it is open only to a particular historical people. For Heidegger, the artwork in museums and art galleries lacks one of the necessary conditions of an artwork: it lacks a world. The world signifies the domain of human meanings (anything that means from death to love). Artworks in museums, before which we often stand in wide-eyed wonder, are problematic under this definition of art. We gaze at an absolute alterity, imposing our subjective rendition on something which has perished. In this sense, I believe, Heidegger’s conceptualization of art is both temporally and culturally specific.

 I stood once in an art museum in Basel and looked at a mask used in ritual practice in Indonesia – at that point I understood what Heidegger means. I could say what I wished about this mask, about the feelings it evoked in me or about the formal aspects of the work. We are all used to individualizing the work of art. But this, for Heidegger, would not constitute listening to the work, as he demands in the beginning of “Origins”. Far from it, it constitutes an assault, because here we attempt to force our private frameworks on a work which is, in Heidegger’s estimation, dead -- “the world of the work that stands there has perished.[3]” I could, therefore, argue the work resonates with me or my life, which it does, perhaps, at some level. What the work is, its meaning in its specific context, its truth, is dead to me. I can understand it outwardly and offer an art historical account – but I remain an outsider. Historical works of art are silent, venerated as they may be, for they present worlds which no longer exist. For these reasons, truth as alethia does not come to pass; an artwork which passes to history is essentially an artwork that is dead. The same argument could be made regarding artwork from other “cultures” – since I am not, for instance, a Russian person living during the Soviet era, I cannot apprehend the alethia of a Tarkovsky film. Heidegger puts these ideas in the following terms:

...Sophocles’ Antigone in the best critical edition [is]…torn out of [its] native sphere.  However high their quality and power of impression, however good their state of preservation, however certain their interpretation, placing them in a collection has withdrawn them from their own world. But even when we make an effort to cancel or avoid such displacement of works –when, for instance, we visit the temple Paestrum at its own site of the Bamberg cathedral on its own square – the world of the work that stands there has perished.[4]

Works of art “set up a world” – that is to say, they present the meanings of a people.[5] What is missing in these works of art is the world. Heidegger says: “The world is the self-opening openness of the broad paths of the simple and essential decisions in the destiny of a historical people.”[6] In other words, the world presents the limitations and domain of a historical people. Art work reveals the world. When the artwork is taken out of this configuration (“torn out of its native sphere” as quoted above), it has perished. Any attempt to hold it together merely preserves its outwardly character. When the historical people no longer exist or are separated from the work, the work dies. Notice, Heidegger could have used the term “cultural” instead of historical. I think his use of the term “historical” is significant, because it accentuates rootedness in past as it runs into the present and the future (resonating with other Heideggerian terms such as projection and throwness).

            The canonization of literary texts, their inclusion into editions and volumes under headings such as "ancient Greek literature" are telling. The play is translated, dissected, re-contextualized and much is gained. However, much is also lost. The work has been removed from its context and has been transplanted into the schema of scholarly investigation. What Antigone meant for the ancient Greek cannot mean in the same way for the modern individual. "World-withdrawal" has occurred; "world-decay" has come to pass. And, Heidegger says, "it cannot be undone."[7] Even when read with the sincerest of intentions, the work cannot possibly invoke the same sentiments in me as it would for an individual whose gods the work brings to life. The artwork, then, does not belongs to individual’s solipsistic interpretation of the work, but to individuals as embedded in a larger totality, that of the historical people.

            Thus, Heidegger is not concerned with the individualistic apprehension of art from which modern aesthetics begins. Modern subjectivity, grounded in Cartesian thought, inquires after most things from the standpoint of subjectivity. While this might seem to be the best place to begin (where else could one possibly begin?), Heidegger finds this fixation with subjectivity problematic. Why would Heidegger be opposed to a subjective account of artwork? Why instead of addressing the work of art via subjectivity would he reverse the relation? Indeed, Heidegger addresses artwork on the basis of its disclosive function, i.e. on the basis of its power to reveal the Being of beings (alethia). Instead of beginning with the subject, he begins with the work. As for the receiving end of this disclosure, it is not the individual, but the historical people. Perhaps this approach – that of undoing subjectivity – is part of Heidegger’s kehre, under which Dasein (Heidegger’s unique understanding of the subject) is relegated in favor of the disclosive function of the artwork. After all, Heidegger characterizes his turn as a reversal – whereas in Being and Time Heidegger addresses “man in relation to being,” subsequent to his kehre, he addresses “Being and its truth in relation to man”.[8] What would such a reversal mean in relation to “Origins”?

            In order to answer this question, we first need to understand what the kehre entails. We will proceed by deepening our understanding of the quote above. In Being and Time, Heidegger attempts to unravel and destroy binary oppositions perpetuated by eminent philosophers such as Descartes and Kant. The subject was interpreted as a neutral agent, the transcendental ego. For Heidegger, on the contrary, prior to the  philosophical enterprise is our primordial state of Being. Our Being is grounded in what Heidegger terms “understanding” –understanding presents beings qua beings.[9] If we see that this understanding is grounded in language and language differs, then we can make the argument that the understanding of beings differs under different languages. This view, I believe, is central to Heidegger’s orientation towards language – that in order to reveal the truth of beings, we need to turn to our language, because that is where our understanding of beings qua beings is located.      

            In thus marrying our context (our being-in-the-world, which includes language) to philosophy, Heidegger undermines the argument forwarded by the likes of Descartes that an amorphous ego, free of prejudice, and capable of making absolute judgments can exist. The place of the subject as the most obvious starting point, thus becomes more questionable – there is nothing given about the subject’s primacy. Indeed, Descartes’ pursuit for the certainty of the self bespeaks the orientation of his philosophy. “Mathematical knowledge,” Heidegger says, “is regarded by Descartes as the one manner of apprehending entities which can always give assurance that their Being has been securely grasped.”[10] In other words, Descartes views mathematics as the highest form of epistemological certainty, the most secure way towards knowledge. Under this approach, “the timelessness of mathematical propositions becomes a basic determination of truth.”[11] That is to say, for something to be considered true it must be ascertainable and supratemporal much like a mathematical axiom. In a sense, then, the self takes up the form of a mathematical axiom as well, not only absolutely certain, but also similarly timeless and neutral. For Heidegger, on the contrary, the self exists only in tandem with the world. This feature of his philosophy becomes more pronounced in his later work, where subjectivity is submerged, being negotiated on the basis of the disclosure of Being.

         In Being and Time, Heidegger says: “here it is not a matter of perceptually tracking down and inspecting a point called the ‘Self,’ but rather one of seizing upon the full disclosedness of Being-in-the-world throughout all the constitutive items which are essential to it, and doing so with understanding.”[12] In other words, a self, according to Heidegger, is not a point of detachment, a floating consciousness, but a seizing upon the wholeness of Being through understanding. Heidegger’s account of the subject as Dasein defies and opposes the construction of the subject as an isolated ego.

         The latter is made more evident, in Heidegger’s later philosophy, in works such as “Origins” in which the subject as Dasein is presented via the disclosure of beings. Thus, we do not only better understand Heidegger’s reasoning for starting with the artwork (its most obvious feature, i.e. thingliness), but also why Heidegger continues to suppress the individual’s place as paramount in the reception of artwork. The individual is enmeshed in its historical existence and cannot make any claim that is dispassionate and rootless. This is, indeed, what Heidegger expresses in “Origins” – there is no claim for the individual which is not historically grounded. Even the experience of artwork -- which we consider to be fundamentally individualistic -- centers on the concept of historical existence. Truth, as revelation of beings, is, then, also contingent on our historical existence. We asked in class how truth can happen – and this is our answer. Truth is not something out there, but changeable, on the basis of historical circumstance. Of course, it is important to keep in mind that Heidegger is not necessarily speaking of scientific truth or mathematical truth, but existential truth. That Heidegger is “inimical to rationality, science, logic, and mathematic” is a prejudiced account perpetuated by his opponents.                             

            Thus, Heidegger’s reasons for insisting on the work of art as being both temporally and culturally specific are deeply rooted within his general philosophy. After re-reading these passages from Heidegger’s “Origins”, I am somewhat distraught. The work of art does not shine for me, after all.  Instead, I look at it arduously, but it has withdrawn; I am closed forever to its alethia. Yet I wonder if Heidegger is right, if there is only one interpretation of how artwork works. Indeed, art could reveal the truth to a historical people, but does that have to be the only level at which artwork operates? Could one not argue that Heidegger is imposing metaphysical constraints on the work of art? Is Heidegger really letting the artwork speak or, in the midst of a politically charged period, attributing the significance of a work of art to its historical people. Even if Heidegger is correct, how would he explain the trembling upon looking at a Rothko painting? People claim to have religious experiences while looking at artwork, even if it proceeds from a different historical people. How would Heidegger account for that?

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[1] Heidegger employs the term "world" in a more specific sense. I will soon present his conception of world.

[2] Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, Lolita (New York: Vintage, 1997)

[3] Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings (London: Routledge, 2008),106.

[4] Ibid., 105-106.

[5] Ibid., 108.

[6]  Ibid., 111.

[7] Ibid., 106.

[8] Barash, Jeffrey Andrew. Martin Heidegger and the Problem of Historical Meaning. New York: Fordham UP, 2003. 192.

[9] Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. Malden (Mass.): Blackwell Publ., 2007. 182

[10] Ibid., 128.

[11] Brian Elliott, Phenomenology and Imagination in Husserl and Heidegger (London: Routledge, 2005) 96.

[12] Heidegger, Being and Time, 187.

[13] Käufer, Stephan. "Michael Roubach - Being and Number in Heidegger's Thought." Philosophical Reviews - University of Notre Dame. 10 Mar. 2010. Web. 01 Oct. 2010. .

Entry - 1

Heidegger and Humility

“[L]et us go to the actual work and ask the work what and how it is.”[1]

One of the things about reading Heidegger I enjoy most is the manner in which he uproots worn-out concepts and opens possibility. What does he mean when he says we should turn to the work and “ask the work what and how it is.” In this essay, I would like to reflect on Heidegger’s statement and the humility which is inherent of his approach to the world. In order to address how Heidegger’s position is different from the aesthetic arguments of his predecessors, I would first like to talk (very) briefly about Kant who has a remarkable influence not only on philosophy in general, but also aesthetics.

Kant talks about our relation to the object of artistic contemplation as one of disinterestedness – in order for an object to be purely aesthetic (concerning our perceptions) it must not be tainted with any other form of judgment, let us say, one concerning morality. In Kant’s Critique of Judgment, if my memory serves me right, we do not learn so much about the aesthetic object as about our own power of apprehending the beautiful and the sublime. The emphasis on the subject becomes especially apparent when we consider the notion of the sublime which, according to Kant, does not stem from the object, but from our own power of reflection when grasping the object against the backdrop of infinity. When I gaze at the stars, and I am filled with wonder, it is not because of the stars themselves, but because my mind is able to surpass every standard of sense and contemplate infinity.

But not once (so far) does Heidegger mention the self or subjectivity. Heidegger’s exploration of art does not exactly carry out a theoretical interrogation of the subjective processes involved in aesthetic experience. Perhaps Heidegger is trying to undo a way of looking at the world which sunders the world into binary oppositions (subject/object, appearance/reality, etc.). In this sense, Heidegger allows concepts to maintain their integrity.

If we consider subjectivity, it is more or less absent in Heidegger’s account. He asks us, instead, to be silent and listen. In my mind, Heidegger is a patiently listening philosopher, instead of a philosopher who breaks things apart, placing them into tidy categories. And this approach is captured wonderfully when Heidegger says, “let us go to the actual work and ask the work what and how it is.”[2] The maxim zu den Sachen Selbst, to the thing itself, is central to the phenomenological tradition from which Heidegger proceeds. It asks philosophers to go to the fundamental experience of a thing suspending any prejudices which could act as interpositions. Heidegger is not satisfied with the kind of philosophical hubris which creates dichotomies, splitting subject/object, bringing the entire world before a cold theoretical lens. This is, I believe, why Heidegger repeatedly turns to the place of things in our own lives, as beings embedded in our interests – he will do the latter most expressly in his consideration of the peasant shoes. After all, when it comes to matters in our lives, we hardly sustain a cold theoretical stance. When an artwork affects us, it is not because we consider it theoretically – something else, something more visceral is at work.

            Under Heidegger’s philosophy, the “thing,” as well, is allowed to maintain its integrity. Heidegger presents three interpretations of the thing (substance theory, bundle theory, form/matter), but rejects each of them. He charges these theoretical approaches as constituting an assault on the thing, of doing violence to the thing. Heidegger mentions violence when he interrogates dominant interpretations of the thing. He says our theoretical descriptions of the thing constitute an “assault upon the thing.”[3] What he says here will help explicate what I mean when I speak of Heidegger’s humility. In speaking of the thing as essential substance (hypokeimenon) around which properties gather, we carve up the thing, quite unnaturally, into substance and aggregates. This latter designation is not the way a thing appears to us naturally. When I look at the glass before me, I do not recognize it as an essential substance (glassness) around which properties have gathered. Besides, where is this essential substance? Can someone point it out? No? I didn’t think so. So, this philosophical description of the thing is essentially empty.

            Then, there is the thing as a bundle of aggregates. The glass is not an essential substance, but a set of properties (hard, see-through, etc.). But this interpretation of the thing errs as well. I do not first see hard, see-through etc. and then see a glass. A thing does not appear to me in parts, but with an integrity, as a whole. Heidegger forwards a longer critique of the thing as formed-matter which I might address in detail for a future entry.

            Heidegger is not satisfied with such an approach towards the thing. In all cases, traditional interpretations of the thing carry out an assault on the thing, creating unnatural categories which do not capture our authentic experience. Heidegger sees that the only way we can avoid an assault on the thing is “by granting the thing…a free field to display its thingly character directly.”[4] In other words, only if we set the thing free of our concepts, only if we wait for it to show us what it is, do we arrive at an authentic understanding. What do I mean when I say “an authentic understanding”? I mean an understanding which does not hurriedly cleave the thing apart in a bid to understand and dominate it.

We want to understand things, so we treat things as objects of calculation, only understanding them outwardly. We describe the work of art by its outwardly character, addressing the form, the content, the brushwork, etc. We then place the work of art in a gallery, and each person relates to the work subjectively. A work can be anything you want it to be. Additionally, art is not for the common person, and develops, at least where I come from, connotations with the “cultured elite” who can afford to buy it. Heidegger, I think, finds this attitude objectionable. He places the work in the matrix of our lives as historical beings – thereby, criticizing the subjectivization of art. This, he does, not by addressing the outward character of the work, but by examining how it is present in our lives -- the peasant shoes in the life of a peasant woman.

This latter approach is one which demands humility. Because in order to examine how something exists in such a matrix, we need to let the thing speak for itself. Indeed, Heidegger never does come up with a clear definition of the thing, but lets it remain “self-contained” (someone in class provided us with the Dutch translation, “resting-within-itself”).[5] For Heidegger (and not all philosophers appreciate this, certainly not of the analytic camp), “attentive dwelling” brings us closer to our object of inquiry. Heidegger asks us to take a stance of humility and let things shine in their freedom.

Instead of providing a theoretical analysis of the thing, Heidegger asks, “can it be that this self-refusal of the mere thing, this self-contained, irreducible spontaneity, belongs precisely to the essence of the thing? Must not this strange and uncommunicative  feature of the essence of the thing become intimately familiar to thought that tries to think the thing? If so, then we should not force our way to its thingly character.”[6] In other words, the thing resists any kind of penetration into its essence; the thing withdraws mysteriously. If we cleave the stone apart, we do not reach into an essence. Even if we weigh the stone, “we merely bring the heaviness into the form of a calculated weight.”[7] We do not know by such measurements what a rock is. We know, merely, its measurements, nothing more. The heaviness hides behind the measurement. The shining of a rock retreats when we examine it in terms of its measurements. For Heidegger there is something undisclosable about earth, something mysterious. Any attempt to unravel this mystery is destructive, even if it is clothed in the notion of progress or science. To be sure, there is nothing problematic about the scientific outlook in itself. I think what Heidegger attempts to suggest to us is that the problem arises when a particular outlook dominates our understanding, obliterating the other ways in which beings can exist. Heidegger lets the mystery remain, because anything else, any other approach which would do violence. This is not lazy philosophy (which refuses to pry), but one which understands that a being is not only an object of calculation and control -- that there are other renditions of being which are suppressed by dominant ways of thinking.

For these reasons, I see Heidegger as a philosopher of humility. A philosopher who does not carry out a heavy-handed inquiry, but proceeds gradually, with a good amount of poetry, bringing down colossal ideas and concepts which are seemingly self-evident. This is the project of philosophy, indeed, to uproot and destroy the erroneous in order to build anew.

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[1] Heidegger, Martin. Basic Writings (London: Routledge, 2008), 90.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., 98.

[4] Ibid., 95.

[5] Ibid., 94.

[6] Ibid., 99.

[7] Ibid., 110.

Philosophy, what are you?

What is philosophy? Is it a science as analytic philosophers suggest? Does it reveal the Truth? If so, why are philosophers still asking the same questions that have been asked for centuries without coming any closer to the truth? For my MA thesis, I have worked through some of these ideas. My thesis concerns faith and reason -- a confrontation between the two revealed how philosophy has attempted to deal with its other -- and Kant's arguments against metaphysicians who wrangled endlessly about transcendental entities such as God and the soul, brought to light, the anxiety of philosophy as it attempts the truth in the face of natural sciences which were once a part of it. In the natural sciences, intersubjective assent is possible and the best argument wins through a formal method of inquiry (the scientific method). Philosophy is different.

Swedenborg, a mystic and scientist who claimed to speak to angels, described the condition of philosophy to the angels. He said that human beings have made little progress in reaching truth, “beyond terms, and certain shifting rules,” and that they continue to debate such basic questions as the nature of “form,” “substance,” “mind,” “soul” (Swedenborg, Arcana Coelestia, 175). At this, the spirits tell Swedenborg that such “artificial rules” render the subject senseless, and that essentially, the metaphysicians with their bickering “drag down the understanding into the dust,” and that such disputes are merely “feculent froth” (175). At times, despite the manner in which philosophy has changed me, I do feel its attempts to reach the truth are futile. Hegel writes a book, a book is written about the book, another book about that book, and another...and still, we ask what does Hegel really mean. Hegel meant X, but so what? What does that change? What is philosophy for?

Here, I am reminded of Hayden White who argues historians, like the scientists of yesteryear, have not decided upon what constitutes the proper historical enterprise. There are numerous interpretations of a particular historical event, depending on the diversity of the nomological-deductive arguments historians employ, and thus, there are numerous renditions of what the actual task of the historian constitutes. History, according to White, is in the same state of conceptual anarchy as were the natural sciences during the 16th century. Is this true of philosophy?

On the one hand, I think, philosophy should be as the analytic philosophers understand it. They claim to care about the truth (see: http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/~swb24/reviews/Heidegger.htm). Heidegger and his ilk, the dreaded post-modern philosophers, deal with the truth too loosely. They don't seem to carefully reason through to their claims, their language is extremely difficult, they use concepts loosely, and such lack of clarity seems irresponsible -- but it isn't. These philosophers (more precisely Heidegger and Derrida whom I have read sufficiently enough to make a claim about, I hope), do not see concepts as the German Begriff entails, suggesting the physical act of grasping. Sometimes, the truth cannot be arrived at directly. One must be humble, merely hinting at it, instead of saying, "here, this is the truth." Such a position falls in line with the kind of humility I find in Heidegger. To this extent we can turn to his "Question Concerning Technology" --

Heidegger's discussion in the essay concerns the essence of technology -- what I understand as its nature, i.e. what is technology, at bottom? He says the contemporary understanding of technology is an entrapment. According to Heidegger, the common (and commonsensical) understanding of technology views it as a means, an instrument. Anything from a pen to a tractor is an instrument of use. Heidegger refers to this as the instrumentalist rendering of technology. According to Heidegger, the belief that technology is merely a means, neutral in itself, is an entrapment that places itself between us and the true nature of technology, successfully obstructing its essence. This notion of technology goes back to language and our understanding of causation, and later to the view of nature as something calculable and controllable which is the hallmark of modernity.

Heidegger explains we cannot control technology as the instrumentalist definition suggests; technology, far from being an object of control, is in reality a revelation of our being: it shapes our being and also reveals our reality in certain ways – technology “determines how reality is viewed and how man views himself” (Smith 179). Man fashions technology, but technology fashions man. So the "Rhine itself appears to be something at our command" as we build structures to control the flow of water, and so the natural world, as well, becomes a resource for our use. But doesn't this view of things change us as well? If technology changes us in ways we can hardly begin to  trace, we delude ourselves when we assume these "instruments" are neutral objects of our control. Far from being autonomous characters, according to Heidegger, we are determined by previous ages. Our present understanding of technology, as well, is a continuation of the logic of the past. In other words, “Every man is determined by a prior revelation of reality, hence incapable of the autonomy that could willfully master the reigning revelation of reality” (169). We are shaped by existing paradigms of both language and thought. Each age reveals itself differently than prior ages, yet it is, nonetheless, a continuation of what came before. We are bound to work within the inner logic of what comes before.

What is wonderful about Heidegger is that he shows us the tenuousness of ideas we take for granted. Yes, this is generally what philosophers do, but Heidegger's interpretation reverses, radically, common ideas, such as the understanding of technology as neutral, as a mere instrument. He humbles us, because he says, no, technology changes you. In America, you change technology. In Soviet Russia, technology changes you. Terrible joke. Moving on. The point he makes is that we, under the inner logic of the Enlightenment, the dichotomy of subject/object, are in the habit of assuming we are the masters of things, in control of technology -- but we are mistaken. Similarly, in the "Origin of the Work of Art," he argues that art works on us, that it is not a mere object, but is like an organic being, emerging from a struggle between its materiality and its meaning.

But when we look at the world through the lens of absolute scientific certitude, as Descartes did, and argue anything that does not survive the rigors of science and reason is dispensable, then, yes, Heidegger and his ilk seem deserving of ridicule, silly obscurantists. When, however, we understand what Heidegger is really saying, that the truth hides when we approach it as the sciences do, we begin to appreciate the kind of philosophy Heidegger upholds. As, he says, in "Origins," we can cleave a rock apart, measure the wavelengths of light and color, but by doing this, can we come to understand what a rock means? Are we brought any closer to the essence of a rock if we know its measurements and its numerical characteristics, how much it weighs etc.? An entirely different kind of truth is involved when we ask such questions.  

So, Heidegger's inquiry is on a different plane. He is not asking after scientific certitude. 

To be continued...

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Smith, Gregory Bruce. Martin Heidegger : Paths Taken, Paths Opened. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, Incorporated, 2007, 169.


Swedenborg, Emanuel. Arcana Coelestia. N/A: Forgotten, 2008. Vol. 1, 175.

*I promise I will add proper citations soon...

**And I will qualify my arguments carefully in future re-writes.

Yes.

Come join me on my peripatetic wanderings. Among other things, I will work through my ideas on reason and faith as articulated by Kant and Swedenborg, the nature of existential truth, the primordiality of faith, Abraham and Isaac, Heidegger's mustache, which philosopher has the most expansive forehead (a resonating "KANT!" is heard), why Sartre threw away the roses,"feculent froth", modern warfare, Tarkovsky, Levinasian ethics, suffering, Kierkegaard, wisdom, and the transcendental perch...