To Martin Weatherston,
" I don't see where Heidegger "restricts" the permissible meaning
"of aletheia here. Please expand on this.
H lists three ways traditionally used to expose the truth
of a "thing": 1) substnace/accidents, 2) matter/form, and
3) physis (i.e., concrete presence). I abridged the list
slightly to correspond with the dialectic: abstraction-intuition.
H uses a list of pejoratives: metaphysical, derivitive,
etc., in re the former, pronouncing them a "covering"
of being. He restricts authentic truth to the latter,
which he later illustrates with his his little expositions
on the Van Gogh and the Gk temple.
" As for the suspension of the
""critical faculty," I don't think Heidegger is out of line with the main
"stream of aesthetic theory in thinking that critical judgment (as in the
"sense of "This is good/bad/derivative/etc.") is at best subsequent to the
"initial experience of art.
I was using the term, critical faculty, interchangeably with abstractive
faculty, not evaluative.
" My impression of Heidegger's treatment of Wagner is that he was
"very likely completely ignorant of his art, and simply adopted
"Nietzsche's cheapest jibes. I'm afraid I don't understand your last
"sentence. Are you equating the presencing of being and cheap sex, or
"contrasting them?
I didn't mean to suggest any H'ian position here, only to illustrate
with a notorious example of bad art how a non-dialectical aesthetic
(i.e. absent the perception of abstract forms) approach leads to
gross error, as in the mistaking the pre-eminently ontical Eros
for "ek-stasis". Which I take to be the case with Wagner enthusiasm...
mysticism generally...and H putatively.
" Surely Heidegger's point is at least partly that the beauty of the
"temple is not at all "adventitious". The gods would not essence in any
"old shack, but precisely where there is beauty, the gods essence most
"forcefully.
" However, your suggestion that the temple is "equipmental" is
"interesting. Presumably you are saying that art is "authentic". Can we
"work out a conception of art that is non-equipmental? Could we, for
"instance, say that by immersing oneself so fully in equipment we in a
"sense 'transcend' it? (I suspect this doesn't work.) I couldn't say
"offhand whether we can understand Heidegger's treatment on art in this
"context at all.
He speaks of the "world" embodied in a work of art
and illustrates with his little impressionistic disquisition
on the temple, assuming the perspective of the living context
of the work. ... isn't this dubious classicism?
(1) He claims it is a non-representational work....
Isn't it originally a mausoleum, a house for the dead parent?
(2) He indicates that the temple produces or brings the god
to residence. But isn't this backward? Doesn't the "cleft
rock", i.e. the sign of the presence of a deity, determine
the location and precipitate the building of the temple?
as it were, we've found the residence of a preternatural agency,
let's build him a commodius dwelling to ingratiate ourselves
(perhaps "meritricious" would better capture the utilitarian
essence of the beauty of the work) and
provide ourselves a locus for accessing this agency? And (3) he
views it ontologically, opposite to "equipmentality"; where
it was precisely in the same utilitarian category
as the peasants shoes and plow: the god who cleft the rock
when properly treated provided rain and sun, made the cows
calve, etc
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
" I don't see where Heidegger "restricts" the permissible meaning
"of aletheia here. Please expand on this.
H lists three ways traditionally used to expose the truth
of a "thing": 1) substnace/accidents, 2) matter/form, and
3) physis (i.e., concrete presence). I abridged the list
slightly to correspond with the dialectic: abstraction-intuition.
H uses a list of pejoratives: metaphysical, derivitive,
etc., in re the former, pronouncing them a "covering"
of being. He restricts authentic truth to the latter,
which he later illustrates with his his little expositions
on the Van Gogh and the Gk temple.
" As for the suspension of the
""critical faculty," I don't think Heidegger is out of line with the main
"stream of aesthetic theory in thinking that critical judgment (as in the
"sense of "This is good/bad/derivative/etc.") is at best subsequent to the
"initial experience of art.
I was using the term, critical faculty, interchangeably with abstractive
faculty, not evaluative.
" My impression of Heidegger's treatment of Wagner is that he was
"very likely completely ignorant of his art, and simply adopted
"Nietzsche's cheapest jibes. I'm afraid I don't understand your last
"sentence. Are you equating the presencing of being and cheap sex, or
"contrasting them?
I didn't mean to suggest any H'ian position here, only to illustrate
with a notorious example of bad art how a non-dialectical aesthetic
(i.e. absent the perception of abstract forms) approach leads to
gross error, as in the mistaking the pre-eminently ontical Eros
for "ek-stasis". Which I take to be the case with Wagner enthusiasm...
mysticism generally...and H putatively.
" Surely Heidegger's point is at least partly that the beauty of the
"temple is not at all "adventitious". The gods would not essence in any
"old shack, but precisely where there is beauty, the gods essence most
"forcefully.
" However, your suggestion that the temple is "equipmental" is
"interesting. Presumably you are saying that art is "authentic". Can we
"work out a conception of art that is non-equipmental? Could we, for
"instance, say that by immersing oneself so fully in equipment we in a
"sense 'transcend' it? (I suspect this doesn't work.) I couldn't say
"offhand whether we can understand Heidegger's treatment on art in this
"context at all.
He speaks of the "world" embodied in a work of art
and illustrates with his little impressionistic disquisition
on the temple, assuming the perspective of the living context
of the work. ... isn't this dubious classicism?
(1) He claims it is a non-representational work....
Isn't it originally a mausoleum, a house for the dead parent?
(2) He indicates that the temple produces or brings the god
to residence. But isn't this backward? Doesn't the "cleft
rock", i.e. the sign of the presence of a deity, determine
the location and precipitate the building of the temple?
as it were, we've found the residence of a preternatural agency,
let's build him a commodius dwelling to ingratiate ourselves
(perhaps "meritricious" would better capture the utilitarian
essence of the beauty of the work) and
provide ourselves a locus for accessing this agency? And (3) he
views it ontologically, opposite to "equipmentality"; where
it was precisely in the same utilitarian category
as the peasants shoes and plow: the god who cleft the rock
when properly treated provided rain and sun, made the cows
calve, etc
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---