Chris,
Unfortunately I am not familiar with the Tanagra figurines; so I wonbt comment about that. b Truth establishing itself in the workb . I would interpret b workb as the process and as the phenomenon, not as the result of the process (the object). A fad would be the focus on objects. What is important is not the pair of shoes (the object per se) but what it reveals; the marks it left on the soil, the marks the peasant left inside the shoes, for example. What it evokes. Here essence has to be taken in the phenomenological sense of eidos; it is not something you can touch. The un-veiling of the essence is a process; the b praxis process of artb is part of the un-veiling of essence. It could be helpful to complement phenomenology with hermeneutics so you could place the description of the process of un-veiling in a context (Greek context for example) Knowing social practices helps us understand the essence of the Being. This knowledge opens a Lichtung (clairiere-clearing)where things are given to us. Heidegger was interested in understanding the Being, and the passage thru art was his way to that understanding. Reproduction; yes, it is a concern. See the writings by Walter Benjamin on the subject (and also H. Arendt or even Kant for the difference/separation between art and craft industry). But again, I believe we must remember that Heidegger was a phenomenologist. We cannot deny a certain fascination for the Greek civilization. We cannot deny that the search for "the" essence has lead us to wars and intolerance - see the 19th centrury in Europe, see Wagner's operas. Luc www.lucdelannoy.com ----- Original Message ---- From: Chris Miller <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2009 8:01:35 AM Subject: Re: Heidegger and techne Given every ancient Hellenic artifact available to us today, did Heidegger really believe that each and every one them exemplified "truth establishing itself in the work"? Wouldn't some of them have been reproductions of work that had already been done -- just as one peasant shoe is quite likely made from a pattern used many times before ? I happen to be a big fan of what are often called "Tanagra figurines" -- i.e. small ceramic figures made in the 4th C. BCE in the region that includes Tanagra. (they were first dug up in the late 19th C. and became a big hit with European art lovers in the decades that followed. I'm sure that Malraux, for example, had something to say about them) Have you ever seen such things ? I spent a few happy hours last year going through several hundred pictures. They were mass produced from molds, but more than that, they are often so similar, that evidently some were made in imitation of others. I.e. -- I very much doubt that "truth was establishing itself" for the first and only time in any of one of those figures that I saw. I happen to have zero aesthetic interest in about 90% of them -- but whether the ones I like are more original than the others - well, who can say ? A kind of naturalism was achieved in some ancient Greek sculpture that has been very important in several periods of European civilization that followed - but the Tanagra style is no more naturalistic than some earlier Mediterranean styles that preceded it - or from pieces found elsewhere around the world: China, Meso-America etc. Classically educated Europeans of his time shared a Romantic fascination with ancient Greece that Heidegger expresses in the quote that Luc has offered:"In Greece, at the outset of the destining of the West, the arts soared to the supreme height of the revealing granted them. They brought the presence (Gegenwart) of the gods, brought the dialogue of divine and human destinings, to radiance" Today, we would call such enthusiasm a "fad" - and I'm doubting that all them (especially Heidegger) looked carefully at very many examples of work -- either from Ancient Greece, or from all the other places that produced similar things. *************** Luc wrote: >Techne: may I suggest the reading of The Question Concerning Technology by the same Heidegger, Harper Torchbooks. 1977. I quote from page 34: "In Greece, at the outset of the destining of the West, the arts soared to the supreme height of the revealing granted them. They brought the presence (Gegenwart) of the gods, brought the dialogue of divine and human destinings, to radiance. And art was simply called techne. It was a single, manifold revealing. It was pious, promos, i.e., yielding to holding.sway and the safekeeping of truth. .... Why did art bear the modest name techne? Because it was a revealing that brought forth, and hither, and therefore belonged within poiesis." ____________________________________________________________ Get a life insurance quote online. Click to compare rates and save. http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/fc/BLSrjnxcDYWYe29T5OA7qjrnO5QBD8 H1QpUHlZpjHDaHSclXaSSSVfkpu9q/
