Overcoming Metaphysics

7/30/2019 Overcoming Metaphysics

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Overcoming Metaphysics, overcoming Aesthetics? Art and truth in Heidegger

During the last decades, we have seen the world being continuously challenged by human

activities, not always in a good manner. We witness how in many ways world is deteriorating,

becoming just a resource available for man to exploit and consume. Environment, as well as

political systems, economics circuits and social welfare, is permanently exposed to the risk of

collapse. We live in a time that seems to confirm Nietzsches diagnosis of nihilism as the disease

that afflicts Western culture. In this context, we might resign ourselves and accept what the status

quo provides us, remaining indifferently focused on the ordinary course of the simple day-to-day.

But there is another possibility: despite of the stubborn appearance of the present order of things,

we might ask ourselves if there is any chance of changing the way we inhabit the world.

I think that we may find an answer to this question in the work of XX Century German philosopher

Martin Heidegger. One of Heideggers main concerns is to show that our comprehension of the

world that seems for us natural and inalterable- is in fact historic, and that it coexists and has

been preceded by many different traditions. He also thinks that the problem with western

comprehension of Being -that is what he calls metaphysics- is that it has placed itself as the

ultimate and more accurate comprehension of things. In fact, metaphysics has come to think that it

is the onlyand unique legitimate conception. Therefore, Heidegger believes that it is necessary to

limit the aspirations of metaphysics through an overcoming of current thinking.

Having in mind these considerations, in the following project I present an interpretation of Martin

Heideggers The origin of the work of art, from the perspective of heideggerian proposal of

overcoming metaphysics. My main thesis indicates that the link Heidegger establishes

between art work, truth and poetry is essential in order to overcome metaphysical thinking,

because poets can provide an authentic comprehension of Being.

During my investigation, I will examine Heideggers interpretation of metaphysics as an epoch of

the History of Being. I will focus on the German philosophers description of modern metaphysics


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and its development in technology. Then, Ill begin the analysis of The origin of the work of art, in

order to show that Heidegger proposes not an aesthetical, but a phenomenological approach on

art, as he considers the work of art to be something in which the truth is set to work. Finally, Ill

intend to expose how Heideggers considerations on the connection between art, truth and poetry

may lead us to a non-metaphysical experience of Being.

In order to introduce the main thesis of this project that is, that Heideggers meditation on art

should be read in connection with his regards on the overcoming of metaphysics-, I will start my

investigation with a general introduction to some of the main topics of Heideggers philosophy.

Heidegger describes metaphysics as a Western conception that has identified Being ( Sein) with

beings (Seiende). The German philosopher thinks this is a misunderstanding of the true nature of

Being: Being, he says, is not any kind of being, but that which brings beings into presence. But as

man has a difficulty in comprehending what is fleeting, metaphysics has also tended to think being

against time. Thus, the overcoming of metaphysics points to an authentic experience of the relation

of Being and time, so that Being is no longer conceived as a metaphysical substance but as event

(Ereignis).

In the 1938 conference The age of the World Picture, the German philosopher states that

modernity is the age in which the entire world turns into a picture, that is, in the object to a subjects

representation. Therefore, man places himself as center and measure of the universe, and he

begins to see beings as something that is available to satisfy his needs.

This conception extends to present times, in the form of modern technology. Technology

understands beings as Gestell, mere framework ready to be consumed. In the shape of modern

technology, metaphysics no longer thinks Being, but reduces everything to the character of thing.

In consequence, technology eliminates any remaining possibility of experiencing Being, not even in

a metaphysical way. This is why Heidegger considers contemporary times as the epoch of the


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ending of metaphysics. But, as Heidegger observes in The question concerning technology, that

makes our own time the moment in which we can go beyond metaphysics: the ending of

metaphysics gives us a chance to overcome metaphysical thinking.

The precedent considerations will serve as an introduction and contextualization of my analysis of

The origin of the work of art. I will sustain that this piece should not be read as an aesthetic

treatise, but as a work focused on the question about truth. I will show that, in fact, Heidegger

rejects an aesthetic approach on art, for he considers aesthetics to be a modern, metaphysical

discipline. He will sustain an idea of art in which it is no longer attached to a subjective

interpretation (linked to the experience of the observer), but to a phenomenological one: the

function of the work of art is to let the beings disclose in what they are, by themselves. Well see

that this position implies a way-out of modern distinction between subject and object, and therefore

affirms art as a fundamental topic in the path to an authentic experience of Being.

Indeed, as Heidegger conceives the work of art as a place in which the truth is set to work, he

introduces a non-metaphysical notion of truth. Metaphysics conceive truth as the adaequatio of

knowledge and facts. Heidegger thinks this is just a derived understanding of the essence of truth,

because truth as correspondence presupposes the revelation of things as they really are. Hence

he states that truth, from an original point of view, is what the ancient Greek called altheia:

unconcealedness (Unverborgenheit), a disclosure that, even though its revealing nature, always

refers to an aspect that remains hidden.

The origin of the work of artstates that this original comprehension of truth is intimately linked to

art, for art is the highest manner in which truth obtains existence for itself. The work of art is the

happening of truth. From this perspective, Heidegger is able to reunite two aspects that in the

aesthetical approach on art remain detached, beauty and truth: the connection between art and

truth is the connection between truth and beauty. At this point, however, Heideggers

argumentation takes a twist, as the philosopher proposes that even though art manifestations as

architecture, sculpture or music are ways of happening the truth- poetry occupies an outstanding


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place in the totality of art, because Poesy (Dichtung) is what makes the essence of art; or, as

Heidegger puts it, all art, as the letting happen of the advent of the truth of what is, is, as such,

essentially poetry.

To understand this statement, I must bring into consideration that according to Heidegger, truth as

unconcealedness of beings happens in human being. Man is the only being that is, in his being,

open to Being; man is essential for the disclosure of things. This means that man has a great

responsibility in order to reach an authentic experience of Being. Its in this point that Heidegger

relates truth and poetry, for he thinks poets are those human beings that can guide us in the path

to such an authentic experience. Poetry is an authentic dialogue between man and Being; poets

are the ones in charge of an original disclosure and founding of things, because they name things

as what they really are: shelters of the truth of Being.

I think the latter reflections prove that the thoughts presented by Heidegger in The origin of the

work of artare profoundly connected to his idea of overcoming metaphysics. Certainly, Heidegger

considers that if we persist to comprehend Being, things and even ourselves from a metaphysical

point of view, we will remain imprisoned by technological interpretation of beings as Gestell, which

would only lead to an increasing devastation of earth. From this perspective, poets role as guides

towards an original understanding of Being is revealed crucial in order to experience a new way of

dwelling in the world. For this reason, I will end my research with a discussion of Heideggers

conference Poetically man dwells concerning Hlderlins poetry; to make, then, a final

approach to Heideggers 1951 treatise Building, dwelling, thinking.

----Philosophy is not just an inquiry, but a way of living, a way of dwelling the world. Philosophy, or-as Heidegger would rather say in his latter years- meditative thinking has a task today, and that


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task is to show us another way of dwelling our world. That is also a task for the poets. Because, asHeidegger says,

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Overcoming Metaphysics