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(Mansbach) Heidegger On Art (B-Ok - Xyz) PDF
(Mansbach) Heidegger On Art (B-Ok - Xyz) PDF
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
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 prob-
lem. 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 authen-
tic behaviour.
This shift is more than merely methodological. Heidegger over-
comes not only the anthropocentrism of his previous analysis but
also the instrumentality that derived from that anthropocentrism,
thus revealing the essence of things.
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.
things as they are – that is, not independent realities but mean-
ingful insofar as they are endowed with meaning by human exis-
tence.
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, accord-
ing to Heidegger, ‘has already been decisive even for the possi-
bility 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 oblitera-
tion 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 possi-
bilities 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 Being-
one’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.
6
Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 345–346.
7
The term ‘hero' (Held) appears in Being and Time, on pages 422 and 437.
8
Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 437.
12
Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 36.
13
Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 34.
14
Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, pp. 41–42.
15
Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 48.
16
Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 47.
17
Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 53.
18
Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 47.
19
Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 46.
29
Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 75.
30
Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 66.
31
Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 75.
32
Heidegger, Poetry, Language and Thought, p. 77.