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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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