PHAENOMENOLOGICA

COLLECTION FONDEE PAR H.L. VAN BREDA ET PUBLIEE

SOUS LE PATRONAGE DES CENTRES D'ARCHIVES-HUSSERL

99

JOSEPH J. KOCKELMANS

HEIDEGGER ON ART AND ART WORKS

Comite de redaction de la collection:

President: S. Usseling (Leuven)
Membres: L. Landgrebe (Köln), W. Marx (Freiburg i. Br.),
J.N. Mohanty (Oklahoma), P. Ricoeur (Paris), E. Stroker (Köln),
J. Taminiaux (Louvain-La-Neuve), Secretaire: J. Taminiaux
 HEIDEGGER ON ART
AND ART WORKS

JOSEPH J. KOCKELMANS

1986 MARTINUS NIJHOFF PUBLISHERS

a member of the KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS GROUP
DORDRECHT / BOSTON / LANCASTER tt
Distributors

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P.O. Box 322, 3300 AH Dordrecht, The Netherlands

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 84-22687

ISBN 90-247-3102-X (this volume)

ISBN 90-247-2339-6 (series)

First edition 1985

Second printing 1986

Copyright

© 1985 by Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical,
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PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS

 CONTENTS

List of Symbols Used IX

Preface XI

PART I. Some Observations on the History ofAesthetics and on the

Manner in which Heidegger Has Tried to Retrieve Some of its
Essential Moments 1

§ 1. Introduction. Aesthetics: The Discipline and the Name 3

CHAPTER I. The Classical Conceptions of Beauty and Art

§ 2. Plato's Conception of Beauty and Art 5
§ 3. From Aristotle to the Middle Ages 10
a) The Aesthetics of Aristotle 10
b) The Stoics and the Eclectics on "Aesthetics" 13
c) Plotinus IS
d) St. Augustine 16
§ 4. The Middle Ages and the Renaissance 17
a) Medieval Aesthetics. Aquinas 17
b) The Renaissance 20

CHAPTER II. Modern Aesthetics

§ 5. Baumgarten, Burke, and Herder 23
a) Rationalism. Baumgarten 24
b) Empiricism. Burke 26
c) Romanticism. Herder 27
§ 6. Kant and Goethe 29

CHAPTER HI. Hegel

§ 7. Hegel's Aesthetics. Aesthetics and Art History 35
§ 8. On Beauty and Art in Hegel 38
§ 9. The Beauty of Art and its Particular Forms 41
VI

CHAPTER IV. The Century after Hegel

§ 10. Richard Wagner 46
§ 11. Nietzsche's Concern with Aesthetics 48
a) Nietzsche's Metaphysics. Will-to-Power. The Basic Questions of
Philosophy 48
b) Five Basic Theses on Art and their Implication SO
§ 12. Nietzsche on the Essence of Art 52
a) On Rapture (Rausch) 54
b) Rapture and the Form-Creating Force 56
c) Art in the Grand Style 58
d) On Truth and Art 62
§ 13. Neo-Kantianism and the Hermeneutic Tradition 64

P A R T II. Heidegger's "On the Origin of the Work of Art" 69

Introduction 71

CHAPTER I. Introductory Reflections. - The Historical Context of the

Lectures. - Their Subject Matter and Method
Art. I. The Historical Context and the Character of the Lectures 73
§ 14. The Historical Context of the Holzwege Essay on Art 73
a) From Being and Time to "The Origin of the Work of Art" 73
b) The Epilogue and its Implications 78
§ 15. How Is Heidegger's Essay on the Art Work to B e Interpreted? 81
Art. II. The Subject Matter and the Method of the Lectures 88
§ 16. Origin and Coming-to-Presence. Hermeneutic Phenomenology 88
a) Origin and Coming-to-Presence. - The Question of Method 88
b) Destructive Retrieve 91
c) Phenomenology: The Method of Ontology 93
1. Phenomenon 94
2. Apophantic Logos and Truth 95
3. The Preliminary Conception of Phenomenology %
d) Hermeneutic Phenomenology 98
§ 17. The Hermeneutic Circle 100
a) From Work to Art and from Art to Work. The Circle 100
b) Understanding, Interpretation, and the Hermeneutic "As" 101
c) The Hermeneutic Circle in Being and Time 105
d) The Circle in Hegel and Heidegger 107

CHAPTER II. The Thing and The Work

Art. I. The Ontological Question Concerning the Thing-Being of
the Thing 110
§ 18. The Art Work Does Have a Thingly Character 110
a) Art Works Are Things 110
b) Traditional Interpretations of the Thing-Being of the Thing 112
 VII

§ 19. Toward the Genuine Origin of the Hylemorphic Structure. -

Retrospect 118
a) Equipment between Thing and Work 118
b) Retrospect on the Critical Reflections on the Three Thing-
Conceptions 122
Art. II. From Equipment to Work of Art 125
§ 20. Elucidation of the Equipment-Being of Equipment by Means of a
Work of Art 125
a) A Pair of Fanner's Shoes as an Example of a Piece of Equipment 125
b) The Illumination of the Equipment-Being of Equipment with
the Help of an Immediate Experience with a Work of Art: van
Gogh, Schapiro, Derrida 127
§ 21. The Truth Establishes Itself in the Work 132
a) Reliability and the Hylemorphic Structure 132
b) The First Characterization of the Work-Being of the Work: In It
the Truth Establishes Itself. On the Essence of Art and the Artis-
tically Beautiful 134
c) Summary and Prospect 135

CHAPTER III. Art Work and Truth

Art. I. Some Essential Characteristics of Art Works 138
§ 22. How to Unfold the Essential Characteristics of Works of Art? 138
a) The Art Work Stands on Its Own (Eigenständigkeit) 138
b) The Coming-to-Pass of the Truth of Beings in a Greek Temple 141
§ 23. The Setting-Up and the Opening-Up of a World 144
§ 24. The Second Characteristic of the Work-Being of the Work. - The
Unity of the Two Essential Characteristics 149
a) The Making-Present of the Earth 149
b) The Intimacy of the Battle between World and Earth 154
Art. II. The Coming-to-Pass of the Truth in the Work of Art 155
§ 25. Heidegger's Conception of the Essence of Truth 155
§ 26. Truth as Correspondence and Truth as Non-Concealment. Truth
and Work 163
a) Truth as Non-Concealment 163
b) The Strife between Truth and Untruth and the Battle between
World and Earth. The Beautiful versus the True 165
c) From Work and Truth to Truth and Art 166

CHAPTER IV. Truth and Art

Art. I. Artistic Production. The Work as Having-Been-Produced 168
§ 27. Artistic Production and the Clearing of the Openness in the Work 168
a) Toward the Essence of Artistic Production 168
b) The Establishment of the Clearing of the Openness of the Truth
in the Work 171
VIII

§ 28. The Coming-to-Pass of the Truth Is Fixed as Gestalt. Having-Been-

Produced 174
a) The Coming-to-Pass of Non-Concealment Becomes Fixed as
Gestalt 174
b) Having-Been-Produced Is an Integral Aspect of the Work of
Art 177
Art. II. The Art Work Is to Be Kept in the Truth 179
§ 29. Art Works Are to Be Preserved 179
a) Preservation as the Standing within the Coming-to-Pass of the
Truth 179
b) Preservation and Experiencing Works of Art 182
§ 30. Once More the Thingly Character of the Work 183
a) From the Thingly Character to the Earthy Character of the
Work 183
b) Why Does the Thing Belong to the Earth? 184
CHAPTER V. On the Essence of Art. Its Coming-to-Presence and Its
Abidance
§ 31. Toward the Essence of Art 186
a) Art as the Origin of the Work, the Artist, and the Preserver 186
b) Poetizing Is the Essence of Art 187
c) The Essence of Art, Language, and Truth 188
§ 32. On the Coming-to-Presence of Poetizing 190
a) Poetizing as the Originating, Founding, and Granting Institution
of the Truth 190
b) Art as Original Leap (Ur-Sprung) 192
§33. On Thinking and Poetizing 194
§ 34. The Relevance of these Reflections for Contemporary Art 202
Conclusion: Heidegger on Art 209

Notes 211

Bibliography 231

Index 239
 LIST OF SYMBOLS USED

1. Works by Heidegger

ED Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens

EM Einführung in die Metaphysik
FD Die Frage nach dem Ding
FW Der Feldweg
G Gelassenheit
GP Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie
GR Grundbegriffe
HB Brief über den "Humanismus"
HD Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins Dichtung
HW Holzwege
ID Identität und Differenz
KPM Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik
LFW Logik. Die Frage nach der Wahrheit
ML Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Logik im Ausgang von Leibniz
N Nietzsche
P "Vom Wesen und Begriff der Phusis"
PG Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs
SD Zur Sache des Denkens
SF Zur Seinsfrage
SG Der Satz vom Grund
SU Die Selbstbehauptung der deutschen Universität
SZ Sein und Zeit
TuK Die Technik und die Kehre
US Unterwegs zur Sprache
VA Vorträge und Aufsätze
W Wegmarken
WD Was heisst Denken?
WG Vom Wesen des Grundes
WM Was ist Metaphysik?
WmF Über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit
X

WP Was ist das - die Philosophie?

WW Vom Wesen der Wahrheit

2. Works on Heidegger

FvH F.-W. von Herrmann, Heideggers Philosophie der Kunst

WBH W. Biemel, Martin Heidegger. An Illustrated Study
WRH W.J. Richardson, Heidegger. Through Phenomenology to Thought
 PREFACE

This book grew from a series of lectures presented in 1983 in the context of the
Summer Program in Phenomenology at The Pennsylvania State University. For
these lectures I made use of notes and short essays which I had written between
1978 and 1982 during interdisciplinary seminars on Heidegger's later philosophy
in general, and on his philosophy of language and art in particular. The
participants in these seminars consisted of faculty members and graduate
students concerned with the sciences, the arts, literature, literary criticism, art
history, art education, and philosophy. On both occasions I made a special
effort to introduce those who did not« yet have a specialized knowledge of
Heidegger's philosophy, to his later way of thinking. In this effort I was guided
by the conviction that we, as a group, had to aim for accuracy, precision, clarity,
faithfulness, and depth, while at the same time taking distance, comparing
Heidegger's views with ideas of other philosophers and thinkers, and cultivat-
ing a proper sense of criticism.
Over the years it has become clear to me that among professional philoso-
phers, literary critics, scholars concerned with art history and art education,
and scientists from various disciplines, there are many who are particularly
interested in "Heidegger's philosophy of art". I have also become convinced
that many of these dedicated scholars often have difficulty in understanding
Heidegger's lectures on art and art works. This is'understandable. It is well-
known by now that Heidegger's later philosophy; to which his reflections on art
and.art works belong, are very difficult, indeed, and that they perhaps belong to
the most difficult works in philosophy ever written. Secondly, those who are
familiar with philosophical aesthetics and its history know that virtually all
philosophical works on art and art works are often difficult to understand,
simply because it appears not to be easy to speak about art and art works in a
manner which truly says something important about art; at any rate, in my
opinion the works on aesthetics by Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Wagner, and
Nietzsche are not easily understood either. Finally, Heidegger usually assumes
that his audience already has a broad and deep knowledge of the history of
philosophy, literature, art history, etc.; yet due to the enormous expansion of
knowledge over the past hundred years, and because of changes in our entire
XII

educational "system", such knowledge can no longer be universally assumed

today.
It is for this reason that I have made a serious effort here first to place
Heidegger's reflections on art in their proper historical context (Part I) and to
explain his own conception of the essence of art as clearly and faithfully as
possible (Part II). As for the latter, I have also discussed briefly the most
important ideas of Heidegger's fundamental ontology (Being and Time) as well
as some ideas of his later philosophy (world, truth, Being, etc.), insofar as they
appear to be immediately relevant to his "philosophy of art".
Heidegger has concerned himself with art and art works on several occasions.
The best known treatises on art and art works are the following: 1) the series of
three lectures, entitled "The Origin of the Work of Art" (1935); 2) the lecture
course "The Will to Power as Art" (1936-1937); 3) Heidegger's meditations on
and elucidations of the poems by Hölderlin, Rilke, George, and Trakl (1936-
1959); and 4) his lecture on the origin of art, delivered in Athens in April of
1967.' In this book I shall focus mainly on "The Origin of the Work of Art". For
the other essays, lectures, and lecture courses I must refer to some of my other
publications. Yet, as I have said already, in order to make Heidegger's position
outlined in the three lectures mentioned more understandable, I have made an
effort to place Heidegger's reflections in their proper historical and ontological
perspectives, and have added from other works what seemed to be relevant to
my main goal, namely, to give the reader a clear, concise, and responsible
account of Heidegger's conception of art and art works.2
As for Part I, in my brief overview of various aesthetic theories of the past I
have tried to do for Heidegger what Heidegger himself has done for Nietzsche,
that is to mention briefly those details of the history of aesthetics, which are
directly relevant to a proper understanding of Heidegger's own conception. In
so doing, however, I have used Heidegger's own account of this history to the
degree that this is available to us today. For those periods of the history of
aesthetics, not explicitly discussed by Heidegger, I have made use of other
sources. But even here I have tried to follow the "spirit" of Heidegger's own
approach. Thus instead of in those instances trying to give the reader a systema-
tic account of the origin, development, and history of "aesthetics", I have
dwelled only on those events and issues that are important to understand
Heidegger's conception of art, as well as the ideas of those authors from whose
works Heidegger himself takes his point of departure, and whose conception he
himself critically discusses; the latter is true particularly for the aesthetic
theories of Plato, Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche.
In this historical part I have made use mainly of Heidegger's Nietzsche
lectures, particularly of those from the Winter semester of 1936-1937 which, as
was said already, were devoted to "Will to Power as Art". In these lectures
Heidegger made a number of historical remarks of great importance (on six
major periods in the history of aesthetics, on Plato, Kant, Schopenhauer,
Wagner, and obviously Nietzsche himself)3 on which I have relied heavily in this
part of the present book. Yet for the third period of art history distinguished by
 XIII

Heidegger and for the period after 1830, as well as for the period between Plato
and Baumgarten, I have used ideas of Tatarkiewicz, Kuhn, Gilbert, Dilthey,
and Gadamer.4
Here the reader will wonder why I thought it to be important to add from the
history of aesthetics certain periods not mentioned by Heidegger himself.
There were two important reasons which have led me to the decision to include
a few brief remarks on Aristotle, the Stoa, Plotinus, St. Augustine, the Middle
Ages, the Renaissance, and on modern and contemporary aesthetics. First of
all in part I, I was not trying (as Heidegger's intention was in his Nietzsche
volumes) to introduce the reader to the thought of Nietzsche; rather it was my
intention to provide him with the kind of information that may be helpful in
understanding Heidegger's own position. Secondly, we shall see that Heideg-
ger's own position was deeply influenced by Hegel and Nietzsche and not, as
some might have expected, by Kant. To explain Nietzsche's position in regard
to the aesthetics of "Platonism" as well as to explain the origin of the aesthetics
of Kant on the one hand and that of Hegel on the other, it appeared necessary to
say something about the other periods mentioned. It should be noted, however,
that here I have limited myself to what I think is indispensable for a proper
understanding of what Heidegger tries to accomplish in his reflections on the
essence of art.
As for Part II, generally speaking, I have focused mainly on the three
lectures, entitled "The Origin of the Work of Art". First I have made an effort
to structure the text and to divide it into a small number of sections. In so doing,
I have made extensive use of the excellent commentary on these lectures by
F.-W. von Herrmann.5 Secondly, in each section I have provided the reader
with a paraphrase of Heidegger's text in which I have aimed first and foremost
at achieving accuracy, clarity, and completeness. Thus in each case I have
followed the text as closely as possible, even though I have not tried to translate
Heidegger's text. By the way, I find Hofstadter's translation excellent and,
thus, do not mean to suggest here that my paraphrase should be taken as a
replacement or substitute for the official translation; rather my paraphrase is
meant to clarify Heidegger's original text, i.e., the German as well as the
English text.
As everyone knows a translator often has to cope with very important and
difficult problems, about which someone who merely is concerned with giving a
paraphrase, does not have to worry. Contrary to the case of the translator,,the
one who gives a paraphrase can add to the text, omit certain passages, make
minor changes, elaborate, summarize, and explain. Where I have quoted
Heidegger literally I have indicated this in the usual manner with quotation
marks. As a rule I have then used the translation by Hofstadter, but I have had
access also to an unpublished translation made by Zygmunt Adamczewski. In
many instances I had to adapt the existing translations to the terminology used
in this book, which to a very high degree has been derived from Richardson's
book on Heidegger.6 Thirdly, in each section I have added reflections taken
from Heidegger's other works, from commentators such as von Herrmann,
XIV

Biemel, Birault, Richardson, Taminiaux, Gadamer, Derrida, and others, or

taken from other sources, including ideas of my own, which I thought could
help the reader understand Heidegger's text. And as I have indicated already,
the readers for which this book is meant primarily are not the very few
specialists in Heidegger's philosophy, but rather those philosophers, literary
critics, art historians, art educators, and scientists who, although they may not
be "specialists" in Heidegger's philosophy, have come to the conviction that
Heidegger has some very important things to say about the origin of the work of
art and particularly about the manner in which art comes-to-presence and
abides.
A few sections contained in this book appeared on a slightly different form in
two of my other publications on Heidegger. Thus I wish to thank the publishers
for their kind permission to make use of parts of the following sections of these
books:
"On the Essence of Truth", from On the Truth of Being. Reflections on
Heidegger's Later Philosophy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984),
pp. 6-15; "Destructive Retrieve and Hermeneutic Phenomenology", from
Heidegger and Science. Toward a Hermeneutic Phenomenology of the Sciences
(Washington D.C.: Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology and
University Press of America, 1985), section 6.

The Pennsylvania State University Joseph J. Kockelmans

 PARTI

Some Observations on the History of Aesthetics and on the Manner

in Which Heidegger Has Tried to Retrieve Some of its Essential
Moments
 3

,§ 1. Introduction. Aesthetics: The Discipline and the Name

Heidegger explains in a brief essay, "Six Basic Developments in the History of

Aesthetics" (1936),' that the term "aesthetics" is formed in the same way as the
terms "logic" and "ethics". To understand these terms one must always add the
word epistimi, knowledge. Thus logiki epistimi means the knowledge of
logos, the doctrine of judgment as the basic form of thought, the doctrine of the
form and rules of thought. Ethiki epistimi means knowledge of ethos, the
doctrine of the inner character of man and of the way in which it determines his
actions. Thus both logic and ethics refer to man's behavior and its lawfulness.
Aisthitiki epistimi, correspondingly, means the doctrine of human behavior
with respect to sensations and feelings and the knowledge of how these are to be
determined.2 Yet this term is of much later origin.
Since time immemorial it has been said in the West that thinking is "deter-
mined" by the truth, whereas the character and the behavior of man are
"determined" by the. good. On the other hand, it was assumed that man's
feelings are "determined" by the beautiful. Thus the true, the good, and the
beautiful constitute the objects of logic, ethics, and aesthetics.
Aesthetics is the study of man's state of feeling in regard to the beautiful and
it is the consideration of the beautiful insofar as this is.related to man's state of
feeling. By the beautiful one means here nothing other than that which, by
showing itself, brings forth this state, Since the beautiful pertains either to
nature or to art, aesthetics must concern itself with both the beautiful in nature
and the beautiful brought forth by the fine arts. Yet usually aesthetics is taken
to be that kind of consideration of the fine arts in which man's affinity to the
beautiful presented by the arts sets the standard for all definitions and explana-
tions concerning the beautiful. In these considerations man's state of feeling is
both the point of departure and the telos of the investigation. Art works flow
from certain feelings and are supposed to evoke feelings.
Since in aesthetics the art work is defined as the beautiful that has been
brought forth in the fine arts, the work is presented there as the bearer of the
beautiful as well as that which provokes the beautiful with relation to the state
of feeling on the part of the maker and the observe>*But in both cases the art
work is posited as an "object" for a "subject". Thus the subject-object relation
4

is constitutive for all aesthetic considerations; and in this case this relation is one
of feeling. The work becomes an object in regard to that dimension which is
accessible to man's "lived experiences".3
Just as the term "logical" refers to that form of behavior which satisfies the
laws of thought, in the same way the term "aesthetics" refers to what is
determined by the state of feeling as aroused by the beautiful. Thus here, too, a
designation which originally was meant to refer to some kind of examination
and investigation with respect to our feelings, is now applied to this kind of
behavior itself.4
The name "aesthetics" used to refer to meditations on art and the beautiful,
is of recent origin; it was used for the first time in the 18th century. Yet although
the name is of recent origin, the matter which it names is as old as meditations
on the beautiful and on art in Western thinking. Philosophical meditations on
the essence of the beautiful and the arts even began as aesthetics.
Today many people believe that all the aesthetic considerations and all the
investigations into art and the beautiful have really achieved nothing insofar as
they have contributed virtually nothing to artistic creativity and have helped
virtually nobody to gain access to art and to appreciate it. According to
Heidegger it may be the case that this is indeed true for most contemporary
investigations concerning art and the beautiful; yet, in his view, one cannot
generalize this and apply it to all considerations of this kind. For whether and
how an epoch adopts a stance toward art of an aesthetic nature, and in so doing
is committed to an aesthetics, is decisive for the way art shapes the history of
that epoch.5
In order to characterize the essence of aesthetics, its role and function in
Western thought, and its relation to the entire history of the West in greater
detail, it is perhaps important to describe briefly the most significant basic
developments in the history of aesthetics.
 CHAPTER I. THE CLASSICAL CONCEPTION OF BEAUTY
A N D ART

The Greeks had magnificent works of art, but they never developed an aesthet-
ics in the modern sense. In Heidegger's view, this does not mean that the
Greeks just wallowed in a murky brew of "lived experiences" which were
supported neither by knowledge nor by concepts. "On the contrary, they had
such an originally mature and luminous knowledge, such a passion for knowl-
edge, that in their luminous state of knowing they had no need of 'aesthetics' ".6
It is of some importance to note here that Heidegger does not mention the
Pythagoreans at all. Yet since antiquity many ideas about beauty and the arts
have been attributed to Pythagoras and his school. As is well known, and this
very fact may well have been one of the reasons why Heidegger did not mention
them, the Pythagoreans had a great interest in arithmetic, geometry, astron-
omy, and "music". It has been said many times that they learned to conceive of
the essence of things in terms of proportions. From this they were led to
speculations about the relationship between beauty and harmony, and about
the function of proper proportions in art works. Yet according to both philoso-
phers and science historians, very little is known with certainty about these
doctrines of the Pythagoreans. Furthermore, we have no direct, textual evi-
dence of their conceptions about beauty and art. Yet it is nonetheless the case
that many ideas about the relationship between beauty, harmony, and propor-
tion were somehow influenced by Pythagorean ideas;7

§ 2. Plato's Conception of Beauty and Art

According to Heidegger, aesthetics, in the sense of the critical and systematic

reflection on beauty and art, began in Greece at that moment when their great
art and the great philosophy thatflourishedat the same time, came to an end.
During the age of Plato and Aristotle, in connection with the organization of
philosophy for educational purposes, those basic concepts were developed
which set the boundaries for all future inquiry into art. One of these basic
notions is the conceptual pair of matter and form, huli and morphi, even
though these notions were at first not yet used in reflections on art, as we shall
6

see later. Be this as it may, this distinction has its origin in Plato's conception
according to which beings are to be conceived of with respect to their outer
appearance (eidos, idea). When beings are comprehended as beings and, thus,
distinguished from all other beings with regard to their outer appearance, the
articulation and demarcation of beings in terms of outer and inner limits
becomes important. Now for Plato, what limits is form, and what is limited is
matter. When a work of art is experienced and shows itself (phainesthai)
according to its eidos, it too can then be articulated with the help of these basic
concepts. The beautiful is for Plato the ekphanestaton, that which shows itself
properly as the most radiant of all. By way of the idea, the work of art appears
here thus under the name of the beautiful, taken as the ekphanestaton.9
In addition to the concepts of matter and form Plato also uses the term techni
to speak about art. This term is for us today very difficult to understand. First of
all, the Greeks used the term to refer to art as well as to handicraft. Secondly,
we tend to understand the word to refer to a mode of production. Finally, we
project into the idea all kinds of notions which have their origin in modern
technicity. For the Greeks techni is to be understood from phusis which is the
concept that properly counters it. Phusis is the first Greek name for the beings
themselves and for the beings taken as a whole. The being is that which
flourishes on its own without in any sense being compelled; it is that which rises
and comes forward, and goes back again into itself, and passes away. Now if
man tries to gain a foothold among beings (phusis) and proceeds to master them
in one way or another, then his advance against them is guided by a knowledge
of them which is called techni.
Originally the word did not have the connotation of making something or
producing something; rather it designated that kind of knowledge which sup-
ports every human concern in the midst of beings. Techni therefore often just
meant human knowledge without any further qualification. Yet techni also was
used for the kind of knowledge that guides humans when they produce some-
thing, utensils as well as works of art. But even in that case the word techni did
not mean the making or the producing as such; it meant then, too, the knowl-
edge which guides man in so doing. And since the making of utensils and the
production of art works, each in its own way, was an inherent element of the
immediate, everyday life, techni eventually came to mean the knowledge which
guides these procedures in a privileged way. Then the artist, too, is called a
technites, not because he is a handworker, but "because the bringing-forth of
art works as well as utensils is an irruption by the man who knows and who goes
forward in the midst of phusis and upon its basis".9
In Aristotle the word received already a more specific meaning; yet here too
it is still primarily a way of knowing.10 It is not impossible to take the term "art"
in the same broad sense in which the Greeks originally understood the word
"techni". Usually, however, we reserve the word today for the production of
beautiful things. Furthermore, reflections and meditations on art usually diver-
ted via the beautiful into the realm of aesthetics.
Heidegger concludes these reflections by saying that these remarks obviously
 7

do not do justice to the rich themes touched upon here. In particular, it is

impossible to show here how the distinction of matter and form which origi-
nated in the discussion about the manufacturing of tools and utensils, was later
transferred and applied to the realm of the fine arts." Yet before moving on to a
third period in the history of art we must dwell for a moment on an important
aspect of Plato's conception of art.
Heidegger tells us here first that for Plato art is mimesis. In the Republic Plato
describes mimisis as copying, i.e., as producing or presenting something in a
manner which is characteristic of something else. In his effort to explain what he
means by mimisis Plato refers to a multiplicity of the "same" utensils, all made
on the basis of one basic idea (eidos, idea). There may be many tables which are
all made according to one and the same basic idea. If we are confronted with
this multiplicity we "are accustomed to posing to ourselves [letting lie before us]
one eidos, only one of such kind for each case, in relation to the cluster of those
many things to which we ascribe the same name".12
In Heidegger's view, eidos does not mean here concept, but merely the
outward appearance of something. In its outward appearance, each concrete
thing does not come into presence in its individuality and particularity, but
rather as that which it is. By means of its outward appearance a thing is
apprehended in its Being. Thus in the case of many things of the same kind
there is only one outward appearance {eidos), and this is one, not only accord-
ing to number, but above all it is literally one and the same. It is the one that
continues to be one in spite of all changes in the individual "copies". This
implies that for Plato, Being includes permanence, whereas all that becomes
and suffers alteration, taken as such, has no Being. Being stands here in
opposition to becoming and to change."
The multiplicity of things which are copies of the same eidos is produced in
the case of utensils and tools by the dimiourgos, the person who makes things
for the sake of the demos, the people. Yet whatever the craftsman may
produce, he never produces the idea or eidos. Each craftsman looks to the idea
of what as craftsman he is supposed to make: tables, chairs, shoes; and each is
proficient to the extent that he limits himself purely to his own field. But could
there perhaps also be a man who produces everything that every single other
craftsman is able to make? In Plato's view there is such a man who produces
everything and anything. And he does not only produce utensils and tools, but
also what comes forth from the earth, plants and animals, and everything else,
and indeed himself too, and besides that also the earth and the heaven, even the
gods, and everything in the heaven and in the underworld. There is such a
dimiourgos who as a producer stands above all beings and even above the gods,
and he is nothing unusual because each of us is capable of achieving such
production as phainomena, ou mentoi onta ge pou tei alitheiai, "as something
that only looks like, but all the same is not, something present in unconceal-
ment".'4
Plato explains that each of us can produce all these things by just taking a
mirror and pointing it around in all directions. The mirror then accomplishes
8

the production of the outward appearances of all things and allows all beings to
become present just as they outwardly appear.15
The mirroring thus "produces" the being as something that shows itself, and
yet not as the being which as nondistorted is in non-concealment. Plato jux-
taposes here being as self-showing and being as undistorted. This is not the
opposition between semblance and Being-in-truth. In Plato's theory of mirror-
ing, in each case it is a matter of a being that is present, but it is present in
different ways of coming-to-presence. What becomes present in each case is the
same; yet its manner of coming-to-presence is different. In the one case this
house here is present by showing itself by means of the shiny surface of the
mirror, in the other case it is present by showing itself in stone and wood. It is
the self-same thing which shows itself in two different ways. Plato is concerned
here with discovering the way in which the being shows itself most purely, so
that it does not present itself by means of something else, but rather presents
itself in such a way that its outward appearance constitutes its true Being. Such
self-showing is the eidos as idea.16
The same house taken as idea shows itself in the mirror and in stone and
wood. Thus there are two kinds of presence involved and also two kinds of
production and two kinds of producers. Plato then states that the artist belongs
to the producers who produce things by means of mirroring and, thus, is a
special kind of dimiourgos. He does not bring forth what he produces as
unconcealed; yet the painter, too, produces a bedframe in a certain way at
least.17 Thus there are different tropoi according to which things can come-
to-presence: the tropos is in one case the mirror, in another the painted surface,
in still another the wood; and in all of them a bed can come-to-presence. It is not
correct to state that according to Plato some of these tropoi produce "apparent"
things, and others "real" things. One should realize that none of these tropoi
brings forward "the bed itself, for no human being produces the pure outward
appearance of the bed in itself. Ou to eidos poiei, he does not produce its what-
it-is as such, its essence, or quiddity. But if the human craftsman does not
produce the eidos of the thing, but merely looks at it in each case as something
that is already brought about and given to him, and if in addition the eidos is that
which is properly in being among beings, then no craftsman produces the Being
of beings.18
Plato is thus led to admit that one should distinguish between three different
kinds of beds or tables: first there is the bed or table as idea, the pure one-and-
the-same outward appearance (eidos), which is by nature and which as such is
made by the god. Then there is the bed or the table made by the carpenter from
bronze or wood. Finally, there is the bed or table brought forth by the painter.
"Thus the painter, the framemaker, the god — these three are those who
preside over the three types of the outward appearance of the bedframe"."The
god lets the essence emerge (phusin phuei); he is the phutourgos, the one who
takes care of the emergence of the pure outward appearance. The carpenter is
the dimiourgos klinis, who produces the bed according to its essence, by letting
it appear in wood. Finally, the painter is the copier (mimetes) of the things of
 9

which the others are the producers for the public (demiourgoi).** The artist is
thus engaged in the third way of bringing forth; in the hierarchy of bringing-
forth, the artist occupies the lowest place. Thus it is proper to, and characteris-
tic of, art that there is a position of distance with respect to genuine Being, i.e.,
to the immediate, undistorted, and unconcealed outward appearance, to the
idea. With respect to the opening up of Being and to the displaying of Being in
unconcealedness (a-litheia), art is subordinate to techni. "So, then, art stands
far removed from truth". Art does not produce the idea, nor the eidos in
matter, but merely an eidolon, a little eidos, which is but the semblance of pure
outward appearance.21
But this is not yet the last word about the relationship between truth and art.
We shall understand this when we turn to Plato's conception of the beautiful.
For Plato, every human soul, by nature, and as rising by itself, has already seen
beings in their Being; otherwise it never would have entered into this form of
life.22 But these beings could not show themselves to him as beings, if he did not
always a priori and ahead of time have Being itself in view by means of theöria.
Man's soul must have viewed Being, since Being cannot be grasped by the
senses. However, since the view upon Being is exiled in the body, Being can
now never be beheld purely in its unclouded radiance; we always encounter
Being in the form of this concrete being; we just barely view beings as such, and
only with effort.23 For most people Being is difficult to attain; in them the view
on Being does not achieve its end. They divert themselves from the effort to
gain a pure view upon Being; and in so turning away they are no longer
nourished by Being; instead, they make use of the nourishment that comes to
them thanks to doxa, i.e., what offers itself in some fleeting appearance which
things just happen to have at any given moment.24
Thus the majority of men in the everyday world fall prey to mere appearances
and the prevailing opinions concerning things; and the more comfortable they
become with them, the more Being conceals itself. Only a few remain who have
at their disposal the capacity to remember Being; but even they need help if
Being is to come to the fore for them. Even these men must constantly try to
recover Being again. Hence the need for whatever makes possible such recov-
ery and preservation of the view upon Being, which is and remains natural to
man.
This has to be something which in the immediate and fleeting appearance of
things encountered also brings Being, which is utterly remote, to the fore most
readily. This is the beautiful. To beauty alone has the role been allotted in the
essential order of Beings's self-manifestation to be the most radiant (ekpnan-
estaton), and also the most enchanting (erasmiötaton).
The beautiful grants entry into the immediate, sensuous appearance, and yet
at the same time it also draws man toward nonsensuous Being. The beautiful
allows Being to shine; since the beautiful is attractive, it draws man through
itself beyond itself to Being as such. The beautiful is that which makes possible
the recovery and the preservation of the view upon Being. Beauty brings about
the unveiling of Being. Thus for Plato truth and beauty are in essence related to
10

the selfsame, the coming-to-pass of Being itself. Truth and beauty belong
together in the one thing that is truly decisive: to make Being become manifest
and to keep it manifest. Yet in the very element in which they belong together,
they must also diverge for man. For truth as the openedness of Being can only
be a non-sensuous illumination, because Being itself is non-sensuous. For Plato
the opening-up of Being must occur at that place where, estimated from the
truth, the mi on or eidolon occurs, and this is the site of beauty. The beautiful
elevates us beyond the sensuous and bears us back into what is true.26

In the section of the Nietzsche lectures on the will-to-power as art, entitled "Six
Basic Developments in the History of Aesthetics", Heidegger turns immedi-
ately from reflections on Plato to a description of ideas developed in the era of
modern metaphysics.27 Thus he does not mention the aesthetic ideas of Aristo-
tle, the Stoa, Cicero, Plotinus, St. Augustine, the entire medieval tradition, the
Renaissance, and the so-called classical period in the arts. There are several
reasons why Heidegger must have decided to do so. First of all, he had no
intention to write a complete "history" of aesthetics. Secondly, in his view,
whatever happened in "aesthetics" between Plato and Baumgarten, it had no
direct influence on Nietzsche's thought on the will-to-power as art. Finally,
between Plato and Baumgarten very few truly original ideas about the arts were
proposed.
As I have mentioned already in the Preface to this book, in the sections to
come, I shall follow Heidegger in principle, and focus mainly on Kant, Hegel,
and Nietzsche. Yet it seems to me of some importance at least to touch on a few
ideas which Heidegger must have presupposed to have been known by his
audience. For the periods in the history of "aesthetics" not covered by Heideg-
ger himself, however, I shall limit myself to a few brief remarks which are meant
here mainly as a reminder and which are to bridge somewhat the large gap
between the basic developments discussed by Heidegger himself. My justifica-
tion for doing so is, as I have said already, the fact that these remarks are not
meant here as an introduction to Nietzsche's aesthetics, but to Heidegger's own
efforts to retrieve the aesthetics of both Hegel and Nietzsche. I myself, how-
ever, will just "report" here the most important "facts".

§ 3. From Aristotle to the Middle Ages

a) The Aesthetics of Aristotle28

The tradition attributes a number of treatises on the arts and on beauty to

Aristotle (384-322). Yet today only the Poetics is still available, and this treatise
is extant only in an incomplete form. The portion of this work which we still
 11

have, contains only his theory of tragedy and some general observations on
"aesthetics". Important remarks on art and beauty are found also in other
treatises of Aristotle, particularly in his Rhetoric, Politics, Metaphysics, the
Eudemian Ethics, and the_Nicomachean Ethics.
In developing his ideas on art and beauty Aristotle employed ideas from the
Pythagoreans, Democritus, Gorgias, and Plato. The thinker who influenced
him most deeply, as far as these topics are concerned, was obviously his master,
Plato, as we shall see shortly.
When Aristotle speaks about the "fine arts" he usually has concrete works of
art in mind: the poetry of Homer, Sophocles, and Euripides, the paintings of
Polygnotus, and Zeuxis, the sculpture of Phidias and Polyclitus, as well as the
music of his time. In other words, Aristotle focuses in his reflections on those
art works which in his time were generally accepted as such.
Whereas in Plato's "aesthetics" the concept of beauty occupies the privileged
position, in Aristotle's theory priority is given to the concept of art. Yet as far as
his conception of art is concerned, Aristotle accepted to a very high degree the
ideas which Plato had already developed before him. He mainly tried to define
and articulate these ideas more carefully and precisely. Speaking in general
terms, one could perhaps say that Aristotle was the first to treat these subjects
systematically.
Aristotle defines art as a human activity which is concerned with a kind of
knowledge which is not theoretical in character, and which pertains not so
much to the domain of action as to that of "production". Art thus ultimately
leads to a lasting product: a painting, a drama. As a form of production art
implies knowledge of the relevant rules and also some practical know-how.29 A
production which flows merely from "instinct" or from mere practice by trial
and error is thus not to be called artistic. In a derived sense one can also call the
ability to produce things, an art. Aristotle thus stresses in the concept of art the
following characteristics: it is a form of knowledge that is oriented toward
production; it also includes the use of rules and practice; it is a complex process
that has both a "physical" and a "psychical" dimension; in each art some
material is involved which is either altered in shape, or in size, or in disposition;
finally, art is in some sense to be placed opposite to'nature.30
Although according to Aristotle art is not just a question of talent and skill,
yet in his view efficiency and talent are certainly also required in the artist. Thus
in addition to the knowledge of the rules, the artist also needs talent and
practice. As a kind of knowledge, art is distinguishedfromscience (episteme) by
the fact that the former is concerned with what comes-to-presence, whereas the
latter deals with what is.31
In Aristotle's view all arts either complement nature or imitate nature. What
he calls the "imitative arts" comes close to what we today call the fine arts. By
imitative arts Aristotle understands painting, sculpture, poetry, and, to some
degree at least, also music. In employing the concept of mimesis in this context,
Aristotle appears to have been familiar with the conceptions of Pythagoras,
Democritus, and Plato. For Pythagoras mimesis is to be understood in the sense
12

in which an actor is said to imitate when he plays his part; Democritus under-
stood mimesis in the sense in which a student or disciple imitates his teacher or
master; finally Plato usually understands mimisis in the sense of copying.
Aristotle tried to combine all of these elements; yet he gave priority to the idea
of the Pythagoreans. Art thus indeed "imitates" nature, but it does so in the
sense that it is always a "free expression". It is thus no exaggeration to say that
for Aristotle mimesis really means the entire process of artistic creation.
Aristotle can therefore say that the artist may portray nature as it is, or as better
or worse than it is, or even as it should be. Polygnotus and Zeuxis painted
people as nobler than they really are, whereas Pauson painted them as less
noble; finally Dionysius portrayed them true.to life. Sophocles describes people
as they ought to be, whereas Euripides depicted them as they are in real life.32
Furthermore, art does not imitate nature in every respect. For it must present
things which have a "universal" significance and possess some form of neces-
sity, even though it is also true that "art is fond of luck".33 Finally, art must
represent nature in the proper proportion and in the proper harmony. It should
be noted here, that in Aristotle's view the concept of mimesis has a different
shade of meaning in the different imitating arts. This can be explained further
only by focusing on the individual arts, on what they try to portray, and on how
they actually depict this.34
In his definition of tragedy Aristotle mentions the fact that tragedy has to
effect the proper purgation (/catharsis) of the emotions of pity and fear. One has
tried to derive from this that for Aristotle katharsis is the aim of all art. Yet
Aristotle mentions this idea only in connection with tragedy and it is not totally
clear precisely how this expression is to be understood. Thus it has led to a long
discussion in which many commentators have participated. Today many schol-
ars claim that Aristotle meant to state that art discharges these emotions; it does
not ennoble or perfect them.35
Be this as it may, it seems reasonable to take the position that for Aristotle
the aim of art should not be defined in terms of the intention of the artist, but
rather in terms of the effect of his works. If one looks at the issue from this point
of view, then for Aristotle each art has its own aim; yet all of them have in
common that they contribute to the happiness of man. This aim may be
katharsis in one case, the promotion of pleasure, or the promotion of moral
good in others.36 Thus as far as this issue is concerned, Aristotle here, too, tried
to combine ideas suggested by Pythagoras, the Sophists, and Plato. Yet plea-
sure should not be understood here in the sense of hedonistic pleasure, but
rather in the sense otscholi (leisure) and diagöge (noble entertainment).37
According to Aristotle, the arts in general, and the imitating arts in particu-
lar, are autonomous and should not be reduced to philosophy, religion, or even
the moral order. However, if the arts are autonomous then they must also have
a "good" and a "truth" of their own. It is not impossible that Aristotle held the
view that one must make a distinction between scientific and artistic truth.38
As for the idea of beauty, Aristotle remained here also very close to Plato,
even though here, too, there are some elements which set his view apart from
 13

that of Plato. In the Rhetoric he defines beauty as that for which one may aim
for its own sake and"which at the same time gives us pleasure. In so doing
Aristotle merely articulated a widely held view more sharply. It should be
noted, though, that his definition of what is beautiful is not restricted to the
artistically beautiful, but includes every form of beauty. It is important to note
also that in his definition of beauty Aristotle makes no reference to the notion
of truth.39
Aristotle carefully distinguishes what is beautiful from what is useful. The
concept of beauty in his view implies order, proportion, harmony, and the
proper size.40 He furthermore adds to this that in order to be beautiful things
must be easily perceptible. For Aristotle all things are beautiful; this holds for
God, man, the.social order, for animals and plants, for natural bodies, and for
works of art. Beautiful in the strict sense are individual things more than
complex wholes. But in all cases, beauty is not a "subjective quality"; rather it is
an intrinsic property of things.41
Aristotle did not use special terms for what we call "artistic beauty", and
"aesthetic experience". Yet what we call an aesthetic experience was specified
by him by means of the following characteristics: a state of intense delight,
which is passive in nature, has a strength appropriate to the artistic work in
question, is proper to humans only, implies the use of the senses, and is such
that the delight arises from our contact with these works and not from what we
associate with our perception of them.42

b) The Stoics and the Eclectics on "Aesthetics"*3

The influence of the Stoic tradition on our Western world has been enormous;
this was to a great extent due to the fact that Christianity adopted several ideas
from the leading Stoic philosophers. This, is true also for the influence of the
Stoa on aesthetics.
Generally speaking one can say that the Stoics tried to subordinate art to the
moral order and beauty to virtue. This is true particularly for the so-calledpanu
stoikoi, the "radical" Stoics; Ariston and Poseidonius are exceptions.44
The Stoics made a distinction between moral and Bodily beauty; they did not
deny the importance of the latter but subordinated it to the former. This implies
that one had little respect and esteem for the artistically beautiful. There is
nothing more beautiful than virtue (Seneca). As far as beauty is concerned,
nature is the greatest artist, because it is ruled by order and proportion. The
world is simply beautiful and it should be respected as such.43
The Stoics stressed the concept of symmetry in the conception of what is
beautiful; beauty depends on measure and proportion. They also employed the
concept of what is proper (to prepon, decorum) in this connection, and claimed
that symmetry regulates the agreement of the parts among one another,
whereas to prepon, what is suitable, regulates the adjustment of the parts to the
whole. Both symmetry and decorum play important parts in what is beautiful;
yet symmetry is primary in natural objects, whereas what is suitable is mostly
14

important in things made by man. It was said there also that symmetry is a
question of thought and calculation, whereas toprepon, decorum, is a question
of talent, feeling, and taste.44
Most Stoics held with Plato and Aristotle that beauty is something that is
valuable in itself. We value beautiful things for their own sake, not for their
usefulness. Yet aesthetic beauty occupies in their view only a low place on the
scale of values. Thus beauty can never be an ultimate goal, and the arts can
never be fully autonomous.47
The Stoics were the first to stress the function of the imagination in the
production and the appreciation of art works. They also introduced the term
"phantasia". According to Philostratus "the imagination is wiser an artist than
imitation".48
The Stoics appear to have been more concerned with beauty than with the
arts. The arts were for them no more than roads which were to lead to a certain
goal; this goal was to be determined by morality. Thus they divided the arts in
vulgäres and liberales and the latter again into recreational (ludricae) and
educational {pueriles). Of the fine arts only music and poetry were listed among
the educational free arts. But even music and poetry were called beautiful only
to the degree that they increased the quality of the moral order. Poetry is
beautiful in particular when it contains wise thoughts and leads to philosophy.49
Yet there were some Stoics who also stressed the sensuous element of beauty
and art (Ariston, Diogenes). They developed the concept of suitability, de-
scribed the function of the imagination, and defended the view that man is
capable of immediately intuiting what is beautiful. Our relationship to the art
work is sensuous; thus art is not a question of reason or even feeling, but of
intuition.30
Under the direction of Panethius and Poseidonius the Stoic school began to
seek closer affiliation with the Peripathetic and the Platonic schools. This led to
some form of eclecticism which tried to combine ideas from Plato, Aristotle,
and the Stoa. Quintilian and Cicero belonged to this new school which was
guided by the principle: eligere ex omnibus optima (to select the best from every
source).51
Cicero was one of the best educated men of his time who had both a Greek
and a Roman education. He was an eloquent orator and a fine writer. He, too,
defined beauty in terms of order, measure, and the suitable arrangement of
parts (symmetria and decorum). Cicero agreed with Socrates and Plato that
beauty depends on utility and purpose, so that the most useful things have the
greatest dignity and pluchritudo. Beauty, furthermore, is a genuine and abso-
lute quality of beautiful things and, thus, does not depend on the attitude of the
beholder."
With some Stoics Cicero divided the arts into the servile and the liberal arts
and widened the concept of the liberal arts to such an extent that all fine arts
could be covered by the term.53 Yet it is not the case that only the fine arts
concern themselves with beauty; nature is the most beautiful of all, so that the
arts cannot do more than try to imitate nature.54 From Aristotle, Cicero
 15

accepted the idea that art is a question of the application of rules; yet he also
stressed the free impulse which flows from talent, while leaving ample room for
skill and practice. In his view, a good artist must have talent, he must have
acquired the proper skill, and he must know and learn how to apply the rules of
the arts. In all of this the artist is guided by reason, although he owes his
greatness to "inspiration".55
Like Aristotle and the Stoics Cicero maintains that the fine arts are typically
human abilities. Man and man only is capable of bringing about artistically
beautiful things, and man and man only is capable of appreciating beautiful
things. Man thus has a special sense of beauty and the beautiful works of art.
This sense is innate so that all humans have it, even the vulgus communis
imperitdrum.* One final note, Cicero places great stress on the element of
fiction in poetry.57

c) Plotinus58

Plotinus (203-270) plays a very significant role in the history of aesthetics. His
aesthetic conceptions are developed from the perspective of a rather personal
interpretation of the philosophy of Plato which makes a sharp distinction
between the world here and the world beyond.
As for the concept of beauty, Plotinus definitely rejects the idea that beauty
consists in or even implies symmetry. For if this were to be so, simple objects
could not be beautiful. Furthermore, things which today may look beautiful,
may not appear to be beautiful tomorrow, even though their proportions may
not have changed. Finally, there is often harmony in things and events that are
evil and ugly. Yet they cannot possibly be truly beautiful. Beauty, thus, cannot
consist in a relation; it must be an absolute and permanent quality of the
beautiful things. The source of this beauty must be found in the spiritual side of
things. The sensible world can be called beautiful to the degree that it reveals
the intellectual world; sensible things are beautiful because they are directly
connected with their ideal archetypes. Things that are beautiful do indeed often
show symmetry; but in that case the symmetry is merely the external manifesta-
tion of an inner and spiritual beauty.59
Only spiritual beings can perceive beauty. Thus in man only the soul can
apprehend and enjoy beauty. Furthermore, the function of the arts is not to
represent nature or anything else; art objects do not copy anything, either; they
simply reach out toward the principles of nature which are portrayed by the
ideas of the artist. Yet these ideas are not immutable and eternal; they are
merely temporal ideas which only reflect and mirror the eternal ideas. The
world of the arts, therefore, stands in between the eternal world and this world
here. Thus the arts have an inherently religious character; art objects express
the wisdom of the divine. They are to express beauty which in the final analysis
belongs to what is divine.40
Plotinus did not make an explicit distinction between the liberal and the fine
arts, and, thus, lists medicine, geometry, and politics among the arts. Yet he did
16

set the imitative arts apart from the mere crafts. Although different arts may
have different aims, they all finally function in the return of everything which
emanated from the One, to its origin.61
Plotinus' theory of art implies a definite program for the arts. This includes
the idea that everything that appears to be imperfect to our senses must be
avoided. Thus there should be no diminution of size in paintings, nor any fading
of colors to suggest depth. And since the spirit is light, shadow and vagueness
are to be avoided, also. It appears that the ideal which Plotinus describes here
was in fact materialized in many paintings of his time. One tried to eliminate the
perspective of the observer in order to be able to reveal all pertinent features of
the object in its full clarity. Furthermore, it was accepted there that objects so
depicted should not have any relationship to the earth; thus they should appear
as suspended in the air. Each object is to be presented in full detail, meticu-
lously and clearly. Since depth is avoided, real forms are usually replaced by
schematic forms and their geometrical parallels.
Plotinus was strongly opposed to Christianity. Although he tried to
strengthen his own convictions against the Christian view, nevertheless his
conception of painting had a great influence on early medieval painters.62

d) St. Augustine63

As far as aesthetics is concerned, St. Augustine (354-430) was educated in the

eclectic theories of which Cicero is a representative. Later he read Plotinus'
treatise On Beauty which immediately influenced him deeply because of the
manner in which it relates "aesthetics" and "ultimate questions".
In his mature view St. Augustine maintained that beauty is not "just in the
beholder", but rather a stable and permanent quality of things; but he was also
very much interested in the attitude which one has to adopt in regard to what is
beautiful and in the pleasure which one derives from this. Yet he always
maintained that beautiful things please us because they are inherently beauti-
ful.64 Beauty is the splendor of order and truth; this expression, created by
Albert the Great,65 describes St. Augustine's position very well.66 Following the
Pythagoreans and Plato, St. Augustine also maintained that beauty implies
harmony, order, and unity, and that measure and number ensure order so that
beauty ultimately implies measure, form (species), and order. With respect to
the notions of order and harmony he combined the ideas of the Pythagoreans
(quantitative conception) with the Stoic, qualitative interpretation thereof.67
In his opinion, in beautiful things rhythm also plays a very important part; it is
even the source of all beauty. He conceived of rhythm in a very broad sense so
that it could be applied to visual, bodily, and spiritual phenomena. Further-
more, although equality is important in beautiful things, beauty also must show
difference and contrast. St. Augustine distinguished the beautiful from what is
appropriate (aptum, decorum), on the ground that the latter is merely a relative
quality; something is appropriate in regard to something else. For the same
reason, the beautiful should also be distinguished from what is pleasant.68
 17

Although St. Augustine obviously never uses the expression "the aesthetic
experience", he made nevertheless a number of observations which immedi-
ately pertain to this modern conception. To some extent one might argue that
he wrote the first psychology or anthropology of the aesthetic experience.
Although he continued to maintain that aesthetic beauty is an abiding quality of
things, he nevertheless also maintained that an experience with a work of art
will not occur if the beholder is not properly related to the "aesthetic object".
He also felt that rhythm plays a vital part in the aesthetic experience, as it does
in the things' inner beauty.69
St. Augustine firmly believed that the entire world is just one beautiful poem.
In this conception he may have been influenced by Greek Church Fathers (St.
Basil). Ugliness was for him a lack; what is ugly lacks order, harmony, splen-
dor, and rhythm. In the final analysis, God is beauty and all the beauty in the
world and in the things ultimately derives from the divine beauty. Thus in our
admiration of the beauty of the world and of works of art, we should be led to
admiration of God's beauty.70
Every finite being and work is only imperfectly beautiful. Thus works of art
are only partly true; they are equally partly fake; truth and untruth go together
in every work of art. These ideas may have influenced Hegel in his Lectures on
Aesthetics.71
In his youth St. Augustine had contrasted love of beauty (philokalia) with the
love of wisdom {philosophia) and thus he had defended the complete autonomy
of the arts. Later he rejected these ideas, however. He then suggested that one
is to develop a separate theory for each art; for each art has its own domain,
aim, and character. In his opinion, music was the highest form of art. Later he
began to doubt the importance of these convictions; he then also began to value
the arts more negatively. He even began to treat poetry as false, because he
thought it to be unnecessary and sometimes even immoral. He condemned the
theatre because it arouses false emotions.72
In the theory of St. Augustine on beauty and the arts, the most important
ideas of ancient aesthetics come together in a harmonious unity. One has called
his theory the culmination of classical aesthetics. It certainly is the case that his
theory of beauty and the arts exerted a very deep influence on our Western
world, and that this influence was felt for more than one thousand years.73

§ 4. The Middle Ages and the Renaissance

a) Medieval Aesthetics. Aquinas74

What we call medieval "aesthetics" covers a period of about one thousand

years (400-1400). During this period, as in antiquity, aesthetics was not a
separate discipline. Aesthetic ideas about beauty and art were discussed usually
in the summaries of theology and philosophy, the so-called Summae, or in
technical treatises on the individual arts. Medieval aesthetics was Christian
18

throughout, and it remained exceptionally consistent. The basic ideas were

derived from the Pythagoreans, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, the Pseudo-Di-
onysius, Boethius, and St. Augustine. These ideas were usually passed on from
generation to generation. Thus it is not too difficult to describe some basic ideas
and assumptions that were quite commonly accepted then.
As had been the case in classical antiquity, it was also in the Middle Ages
common practice to divide reflections on beautiful things into two sets, one
devoted to the concept of beauty, the other concerned with the arts. As far as
beauty is concerned, it was quite generally accepted that those things are
beautiful which please us. Aquinas refined this conception, as we shall see
shortly. One calls those things beautiful which evoke a special kind of pleasure
that directly results from the perception or contemplation of certain things. The
term "beauty" was usually taken in a very broad sense; it included both bodily
and spiritual beauty. Many authors, who were influenced in this by the Stoa,
understood spiritual beauty in a moral sense; the Greek word kalon (the
beautiful) was often translated with Cicero by honestum. But for most authors
the notion of the beautiful also included supernatural things and especially God
Himself. Where bodily beauty was defined independently from spiritual beauty
it was often defined with Albert the Great as "in corporalibus pukhrum dicitur
splendens in visu", in material things we call those things beautiful which shine
brightly and have splendor when perceived. Yet speaking generally, one must
say that the concept of beauty was then closely related to the concept of the
good.
It was commonly held that beauty can be found everywhere in the world.
Everything "made by nature" is beautiful: pankalia. Yet most people under-
stood this to mean that natural things are beautiful to the degree that they
manifest order, harmony, proportion, and rhythm. Gradually the notion of
beauty was added to the list of the transcendentals: being, something, one,
true, good, and beautiful. Some authors, however, defended the view that the
good and the beautiful are really the same.
Beauty can be found both in nature and in art. Its essence consists in harmony
and clarity. The term harmony was understood in both a quantitative and a
qualitative sense, whereas the notion of clarity expressed the ideas that the
beautiful things should be easily perceptible, as well as that they should have
the character of splendor, brilliance, radiance, and effulgence.
Beauty is a quality of things in regard to a human subject. Only humans can
perceive the beauty of things. The perception of beauty arouses in man the state
of pleasure which however does not serve any function beyond itself. Thus the
experience of beauty implies a cognitive, emotional, and a bodily component; it
involves contemplation, feeling, disinterestedness, and rhythm.
The most beautiful being is God who is also at the root of all other beautiful
things.
With respect to the arts, one usually held the following theses:
An art is a human ability to make things according to rules. The term was
used in a very broad sense and included fine arts and crafts. Yet it was assumed
 19

that every art, because of the recta ordinatio rationis involved, aspires to
beauty. This may be one of the reasons why these authors did not treat the fine
arts as a separate group. Yet the question obviously still is to be asked: precisely
why did the ancient and medieval people not treat the so-called fine arts as an
individual group among the arts. The reason must have been that they never
learned to see them as being a separate group; at that time the fine arts just were
not yet set apart. The question now is: why was this so? Tatarkiewicz suggests
that the ancient and medieval artist did not yet conceive of himself as a special
person with a very special destination and obligation; the concept of genius was'
still alien to them. The artists then thought that they served God in bringing
about things as well as they could make them. They wanted their churches and
public buildings to be the most beautiful that they could produce. On other
occasions, they may have meant to make a contribution to the moral education
of future generations, to reveal the fundamental laws of being, or to symbolize
the heavens.
In the Middle Ages it was generally assumed that all arts are symbolic; in the
final analysis, the works of art are signs and symbols of the beauty, splendor,
and truth of God. Yet in the Middle Ages one does not find the idea that there is
a special kind of truth, an artistic truth, to be distinguished from other kinds or
forms of truth. One assumed that God created the world perfectly and that the
aim of the arts was to present that beauty as splendidly as possible. Many
authors continued to make a close connection between beauty and moral
goodness, so that the arts and their products were usually evaluated from a
moral point of view: beautiful are those things which promote goodness.
In the aesthetic theory of Aquinas we also find ideas of Aristotle, the Pseudo-
Dionysius, Augustine, and Albert the Great.73 Albert had introduced Aristo-
tle's concept of form into discussions about beautiful objects; Aquinas, too,
makes ample use of this concept in his reflections on art works. From neo-
Platonic sources Aquinas accepted the following ideas: 1) it is important to
make a distinction between bodily and spiritual beauty; 2) there is imperfect
and perfect beauty; the latter is found only in God; 3) the concept of the
beautiful implies the splendor of form (eidos), order, and beauty (St. Augustine
and Albert the Great); 4) imperfect beauty is the reflection of perfect beauty; 5)
the beautiful differs conceptually from what is good, but the two are not
different in re; all good things are beautiful and all beautiful things are good;
thus to be beautiful is a transcendental characteristic of all things; 6) beauty also
implies proportion and clarity.74
Aquinas gives two definitions of beauty: quae visa placenf and cujus ipsa
apprehensio placet.n Beautiful are those things which give pleasure on being
looked at. In these two definitions Aquinas uses visa and perceptio in an
analogous sense; thus videre does not only refer to seeing with the eye.
Furthermore, he meant to express that things are beautiful only in regard to
human beings.79
These definitions, which are often quoted, however do not refer to transcen-
dental beauty, but only to what is beautiful by nature or by art. Of beauty taken
20

in this sense one can say that it is the object of contemplation and not (as is the
good) the object of desire (Kant's disinterestedness).80
The idea that aesthetic beauty is a quality of a thing in regard to a contemplat-
ing subject was not yet found in classical antiquity; yet it was not an original idea
of Aquinas, either. It was suggested by Greek Church Fathers (St. Basil) and
later defended by a number of Western theologians, such as William of
Auvergne.81
The pleasure which artistic objects arouse in us has a character of its own. It is
not connected with our needs, nor with the preservation of life. It is a privilege
that only humans possess.82
Beauty has several characteristics: it implies proportion, clarity and integrity
or perfection. The first idea was known by the Greeks and defended by almost
all authors who have written on beauty. Aquinas uses the term in the broad
sense as St. Augustine had done. The term clarity was used in the sense of both
physical and spiritual radiance. Clarity refers to the fact that the essence of
things taken as form shines through their outward appearances. Finally, no
thing is truly beautiful if it lacks aspects or properties it ought to have; a
beautiful object should be perfect.8*
With respect to art, Aquinas revives the entire Greek conception of techni.
Art is the recta ratio factibilium. It implies knowledge of the proper rules, but it
also implies talent and practice. An art work is not beautiful because a great
artist made it; it is a great work when a great artist made it great. Thus the
objective qualities of the work determine its beauty in the final analysis. Art is
to be distinguished carefully from theory and speculation on the one hand, and
from moral praxis on the other. There are several kinds of arts; Aquinas uses
here the common divisions; yet he does not use the term "fine arts". He uses the
term "art" in a very broad sense which included most crafts.84
Although Aquinas defended the autonomy of the arts, he nonetheless also
claimed that in the final analysis they have a moral and religious aim. Further-
more, the arts do not really create anything; they are not creative but represen-
tational and transformational.85
Aesthetics occupies little space in the work of Aquinas. Yet what he has to
say is important in that it once more brought about a synthesis of the most
important ideas which Greek antiquity and the Christian world had to offer in
this regard. Furthermore, his ideas about beauty and the arts have remained
influential in some quarters to this day.86

b) The Renaissance87

By the period of the Renaissance we mean here the period from 1400 to 1700.
During this long period many new ideas began to manifest themselves in the
different arts, from architecture to poetry. Yet the theoretical treatises on art
and aesthetics remained remarkably traditional, even though it is the case that
one sees a clearly defined and deliberate turn away from the Middle Ages in the
direction of classical antiquity.
 21

It has been said that this period constitutes an enormous gap in the history of
aesthetics, in the sense that in this period great works of art were produced
whereas there were no new ideas in aesthetic theory. Although this view is not
without all ground, it is nonetheless not accurate either.8* For first of all, the
turn away from the medieval tradition implied the explicit rejection of ideas
which in the Middle Ages were cherished by many. The idea of an absolute
beauty, as well as the reference to supernatural beauty begins to disappear
gradually. Furthermore, the conception according to which everything is beau-
tiful (pankalia) is rejected. In addition, the theory according to which all works
of art are to be interpreted allegorically, is also universally given up. Finally,
most artists and authors objected to the notion that art works are to be
evaluated primarily from a religious, moral, or didactical point of view.
Yet it is obviously also true that in theoretical treatises on the arts written in
the era of the Renaissance many theses of medieval' aesthetics were still
maintained. This is obvious from the fact that the Renaissance implies a
deliberate effort to return to the ideals of classical antiquity, whereas the
medieval aesthetics to a very large extent was just "built-up" from ideas first
formulated in Greek antiquity. Most Renaissance authors still maintain that the
arts "imitate" nature, even though they do so in a free and creative manner.
The concept of form was thought to be an essential element in the theoretical
discussion of the nature of art works. It was commonly accepted that art implies
creativity and "inspiration", in addition to know-how and practice. Finally, it
was commonly held that beauty is not an absolute quality of things; things are
beautiful for humans. -
Thus although the development and evolution of the various forms of art in
that era passed through a series of transformations, the underlying aesthetic
theory remained stable and it itself developed only very gradually. Even toward
the end of the 17th century it was still quite common to see beauty defined in
terms of harmony, order, and splendor. It was then also still the case that most
authors did not yet explicitly separate the fine arts from the crafts, even though
many artists had suggested or even demanded that this be done.89
During the period of the Renaissance the development of the so-called
classical style took place in the various arts, soon to be followed by the baroque.
We speak of classical drama, classical music, classical sculpture, just as we also
speak about baroque music and baroque paintings. During these three cen-
turies in theoretical treatises a "classical aesthetics" was formulated from which
for each art general principles and rules could be derived. Yet the actual
development was such that in each art ever new forms and styles continued to
develop. Thus one found himself in that era in the position of realizing that
there were different arts and in each art different forms and styles, all of which
were nevertheless then explained in terms of one basic "classical" theory. That
this could indeed be the case without explicit contradiction and tension was due
to the fact that the general classical theory was very flexible and open-ended.
"For all its absolutist tendencies, and its strivings towards general rules and
formulae, classical aesthetics contained within itself a considerable capacity for
22

adaptation, expansion, and developmment".90 Yet it must be admitted that

there was also an important shift in the conceptual framework underlying
modern aesthetics. Perhaps the following ideas should be mentioned here.
In classical antiquity and in the Middle Ages reflections on aesthetics were
divided into two sections: reflections on beauty and reflections on the arts. In
the late Renaissance these two sections of aesthetics were brought much closer
to one another. One was convinced that beauty is the objective of all arts, but
particularly of painting and poetry. Thus even though it is obvious that there is
also beauty in nature, one began nevertheless to limit himself to what is
artistically beautiful.
In the Middle Ages one had always assumed that beauty, because it consists
in proportion and order, can be translated into rules and calculations. In the
-Renaissance the idea that proportion can be taken in a strictly quantitative
sense and, thus, can be subjected to rules was to some degree given up.
Furthermore, for centuries it had been assumed that we are pleased by what is
clear, transparent, and comprehensible. Yet it appeared now that obscure
things can also be beautiful, particularly if one can penetrate their mysteries.
Harmony is indeed pleasing, but so is tension and contrast.
Throughout the Middle Ages one had assumed that things, in order to be
beautiful, must be enduring and monumental. It appeared now that the lively
and vital can also be pleasing. Most medieval authors had taken it for granted
that in order to be pleasing things must be in harmony with reason. In the
Renaissance it appeared that emotion, love, and imagination are also essential
elements to be considered in beautiful things.
Since classical antiquity it had been said time and again that nature is the
model of beauty and that art, thus, had to imitate nature. In the Renaisance it
was gradually accepted that art which goes beyond nature can also be beautiful.
Thus one began to stress the elements of novelty, originality, individuality, and
creativity. The idea of the "creative genius" who is like a second god began to
arise.
It had been generally accepted for many centuries that beauty is an absolute
quality of the beautiful things. In the Renaissance it became clearer that
sometimes things are attractive because of the manner in which they have been
presented. They may even be presented such that they create an illusion; it is
this illusion or this fiction that makes them appear as beautiful. At first, beauty
and truth (taken in the sense of being in conformity with nature) were closely
related. It became clear, however, in poetry and drama that poetic fiction in
many instances can just not be brought into harmony with such a conception of
the relationship between beauty and truth. If there is a close relationship
between beauty and truth in the arts, truth must be understood in a different
way.
We can thus conclude that the classical theory of the arts appeared to be able
to adapt itself gradually to what was actually taking place in the arts.91
 CHAPTER II. MODERN AESTHETICS

§ 5. Baumgarten, Burke, and Herder1

The next development in the history of knowledge about the arts which
Heidegger discusses in his "Six Basic Developments in the History of Aesthet-
ics" coincides with the formation of modern aesthetics. This development again
did not originate immediately from art and from reflections on art. Rather it
involves our entire modern history and coincides with the beginning of the
modern age.
Man begins to conceive of himself as the center of the universe and the
measure of all things. In his unconstrained knowledge man himself decides how
beings are to be experienced, defined, and even shaped. Man posits how things
should be, so that his "taste" becomes the ultimate court of judicature over
beings. In metaphysics this is clear from the manner in which the certitude of all
Being and truth is grounded in the self-consciousness of the individual ego. The
cogito me cogitate, the finding myself before myself as the one who knows,
provides also the first "object" that is secured in its Being; I myself and my
"inner" states are the primary and true beings. Everything else that can be said
to be is to be measured against the standard of this quite certain being. The
various states in which I find myself play an essential part in defining how I find
everything which I encounter to be. It is thus understandable that meditations
on the beautiful in art begin to focus exclusively on the state of man's feeling in
regard to the beautiful object, aisthisis. This also explains why aesthetics
originated in this epoch, why the name only now came into use; aesthetics is to
be in the domain of sensuousness and feeling what logic is in the realm of
thinking. Aesthetics is the logic of sensuousness.2 Parallel to the development
of aesthetics and to man's effort to clarify the aesthetic state, another important
process unfolds here in the history of art. It is now believed and said that great
works are great because they accomplish an important task: "Art and its works
are necessary only as an itinerary and sojourn for man in which the truth of
beings as a whole, i.e., the unconditioned, the absolute, opens itself up to him".
Art thus is not great because of the high quality of its works, but rather because
it is an "absolute need".
24

Yet concurrent with the development of aesthetics in modern times we see

paradoxically also the decline of great art. This obviously does not mean that
the "quality" of the work is suddenly poorer and the "style" less imposing; it is
rather the case that art loses its essential meaning in that it loses its immediate
relation to the basic task of presenting the absolute, of establishing the absolute
definitively and as such in the realm of man's history. We shall see the implica-
tions of this much more clearly in the next phase of this development.3
But before turning to this phase we must first add a few words on the three
main trends which began to develop in the modern era. Perhaps it is even good
with Dilthey to distinguish three minor periods within the third phase dis-
tinguished here by Heidegger himself.4 For the main purpose of these historical
reflections is, as was mentioned earlier, not to make Nietzsche's conception of
art understandable, but rather to place Heidegger's own reflections on art in
their historical context. Now in view of the fact that Heidegger's own position
was certainly influenced by ideas of Kant, it seems worthwhile to dwell for a
moment on Kant's position and on the ideas which led to this view.

a) Rationalism. Baumgarten

The first period of this third phase is that of the rationalist approach to the arts
which understands what is beautiful as a manifestation of reason in the sen-
suous.5 Although Descartes himself never developed a systematic aesthetic
theory,6 this rationalist approach to the arts is nonetheless often called the
Cartesian conception. It is characteristic of the 17th century, but did not receive
its first systematic formulation until the 18th century. Until the 17th century
rules for the making of what later would be called "works of art" were usually
supported by the authority of philosophers (Aristotle), theologians (Au-
gustine), or by the models provided by classical authors. The Cartesian ap-
proach tried to give a rational justification for these rules by deducing them
from some basic and self-evident principles.
The most systematic account of this rationalist metaphysics of art is found in
Baumgarten's works7 which rest largely on ideas taken from Leibniz, and in
which the term "aesthetics" is used for the first time.
In 1735 Baumgarten (1714-1762) suggested that it would be necessary to
introduce a new discipline by the name of "aesthetics". (Meditationes phi-
losophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus.* In 1742 Baumgarten gave
lectures on aesthetics in Frankfurt; from these lectures his Aesthetica origi-
nated, which was published in 1750.' The ideas of Baumgarten were rapidly
promulgated by a work in two volumes which G.F. Meier published between
1754 and 1755 under the title Anfangsgründe aller schönen Wissenschaften.10
Meier added a number of personal ideas to those proposed by Baumgarten so
that it often was difficult to keep Baumgarten's own ideas separated from those
added by Meier. Yet the book contributed much to the propagation of modern
aesthetics.
Baeumler has called the origin of modern aesthetics an event of great
 25

importance." In this new discipline a number of philosophers tried to develop a

rational theory of the fine arts, built upon clear and distinct insights and ideas.
Those who engaged in this kind of reflection were convinced that in the fine arts
there is a form of truth to be found which lies outside the domain of classical
philosophy. In this new discipline, philosophy found itself confronted with
ideas which had originated earlier in France and in England. There the fine arts
had tried to free themselves from the domination of "pure reason" and to
achieve independence by separating themselves from the free and the mechan-
ical arts with which they officially had been combined until that time. It was
argued there that the fine arts are not bound by principles and laws as are the
mechanical arts; the fine arts are not concerned with reason, but with emotion
and the heart, and that they address themselves to a man's inner life and to his
feelings.12 In the works of Baumgarten we find already somehow the idea that
the work of art is the work of the creative genius (ingenium). It is clear that
Baumgarten's ideas were under the influence of the conception of the individ-
ual subject as formulated by Descartes and many modern philosophers of that
time.13 It was obviously one of Baumgarten's intentions to reconcile meta-
physics and aesthetics by showing that the truth brought to light by the fine arts
is not in contradiction to the truth discovered by reason. In so doing he used
ideas of Bouhours, Boileau, König, Pope, Crousaz, Breitinger, and Bodmer.14
In his effort to reconcile poetry and philosophy Baumgarten claims that aes-
thetics is the science of sensuous knowledge; it constitutes a gnoseology of
inferior order; it is a logic of an inferior kind; yet it does address truths which are
not contradictory to those discovered by philosophy and, thus, these truths can
be added to those brought to light by reason; it is possible to add our knowledge
of the aisthita to our knowledge of the noiia.a
In concerning himself with philosophical aesthetics Baumgarten thus hoped
that he eventually would be able to develop an organon for our sensible
knowledge which would run parallel to the organon of the sciences developed
by Aristotle and the Stoa. In this way Baumgarten set limits to purely rational
knowledge and he claimed that in and through the fine arts man is confronted
with a type of knowledge which addresses itself immediately to the emotional
side of man and which shows him truths which for his life as human are of great
importance.16
One finds in the works of Baumgarten ideas which one will encounter later in
a somewhat more sophisticated form in the philosophy of life. It is also clear
that several important ideas which one later finds in Hegel's aesthetics are
vaguely anticipated by Baumgarten. Yet it was never Baumgarten's idea that
the arts were to be taken up in religion and finally "overcome" by philosophy.
In his view, the human reality is so complex that in addition to religion and
philosophy (together with the sciences), there is a genuine need for the arts, if
humans are to remain human and humane. True, the arts are indeed in some
sense subordinated to religion and philosophy. Yet these two approaches to the
truth are to be complemented by the arts which show us a form of truth which
cannot be discovered in any other way.17
26

Although Baumgarten often speaks about man's appreciation of what is

beautiful without explicitly making a distinction between the beauty of natural
things and the beauty of works of art, he nevertheless started with reflections on
the artistically beautiful and seems to have envisaged also special sciences for
the artistically beautiful distinct from the science concerned with our knowl-
edge of the beautiful in nature.18
In Baumgarten's theory the concept of "form" plays a very important part.
Man's aesthetic experience and feeling represent the world in the manner of
"form". Once the "genius" has so represented the world, the aesthetic form
can then evoke similar experiences and feelings in other human beings. Beauti-
ful thus is that which can arouse experiences and feelings in a man's heart;
beautiful is that which pleases. Yet Baumgarten explicitly expanded this con-
ception in order to make room for our experience of whatever is beautiful in
nature. Aesthetics then becomes simply the metaphysics of the beautiful.
Among the characteristics of the beautiful Baumgarten includes perfection,
harmony, and order; these characteristics are in his view no more than reflec-
tions of the infinite perfection, harmony, and order of God.14
These ideas first proposed by Baumgarten were then developed further by
authors such as K. von Dalbert, J. Eschenburg, J. Eberhard, J. Sulzer, and
others. Eventually they would evoke opposition from the side of those who
were in the process of laying the foundation of what eventually would become
art history. In this connection the work of K. Heydenreich, J. Winckelmann,
Herder, Lessing, and many others is to be mentioned.20
In Dilthey's opinion, Baumgarten subordinated sense to logic and sacrificed
the spontaneity of the emotional impulse to the will for perfect order. Further-
more, his aesthetics was basically normative, because it focused primarily on
the ideals of a system of art at the expense of psychological and historical
factors, and then attempted to give these ideals a metaphysical foundation
which makes them appear as being absolute. In this aesthetics any real auton-
omy is denied to the imagination of the individual artist; even the freest
expression of the imagination is regulated here by rules which are finally
grounded in the rational order of the universe.21

b) Empiricism. Burke

During the second period of the third phase, modern aesthetics was theoretical
and explanatory in character. It was influenced then by British empiricism and
tried to analyze the idea of beauty in terms of subjective impressions. Empiri-
cist theories of aesthetics are mainly concerned with the psychology of the arts,
i.e., the creative process of the artist and the effects of art works on the
beholder. They give to the imagination a central role in the artistic creation and
try to examine its mode of operation systematically; in so doing they make
ample use of Hume's conception of the imagination in the association of ideas
and his view on the need for a standard of taste. Although for Hume there is no
objective standard by which one can resolve rationally differences in matters of
 27

taste, it is nevertheless rational to seek for such a standard by which aesthetic

preferences can be evaluated. The criteria for the judgments of taste are to be
established by inductive inquiry into the aesthetic qualities which enable works
of art to please a "qualified" beholder.
The empiricist theories of aesthetics originated in part from Locke's philoso-
phy which influenced Addison, Hutcheson, Kames, and Hume; but in part they
were inspired also by ideas from Shaftesbury who had been inspired by neo-
Platonism. The empiricist movement in aesthetics, thus created, led then to a
number of important works on aesthetics. In addition to the philosophers just
mentioned the following authors should be mentioned also: Alexander Gerard,
Hugh Blair, Thomas Reid, Edmund Burke, and Richard Price. In -these
treatises an attempt was made to explain aesthetic phenomena systematically
by means of an appeal to the empiricist conception of association; in this way
the authors of these treatises were able to specify the so-called aesthetic
qualities in greater detail, develop a theory of the nature of "genius", and
justify certain critical principles in terms of knowledge that can be derived from
experience.22
Most of these authors had based their theories on a "psychology" of the
individual. Burke is an exception in this regard insofar as he relates beauty to a
social instinct of mankind. His theory is also more anti-rationalistic in as much
as he tries to reduce the aesthetic process to "passion", which is quite indepen-
dent of reason and the rational will. Beauty is for him a social quality that is
intimately connected with a social instinct in man. There are different species of
beauty which correspond to different species of thte social instinct. Burke
distinguished in this regard three species of social instinct: sympathy, which
explains our pleasure in tragedy; imitation, which is at the root of our pleasure
in painting, sculpture, and poetry; and finally ambition or emulation which is
related to the sublime.23
According to Dilthey, the atomistic nature of this approach makes it incapa-
ble of explaining all contextual aspects of aesthetic experiences; furthermore,
many of the seemingly "natural" responses of feeling are historically con-
ditioned. On the other hand, this kind of research has obviously its positive
side, also. Empiricist aesthetics initiated a much needed analysis of human
feeling; furthermore, psychological investigations concerning aesthetic experi-
ences are important in that they provide us with numerous details of thte kind of
experience, even though they cannot account for the unity of meaning which
characterizes a work of art as such.24

c) Romanticism. Herder

The third period of the third phase began with the historical approach which
was prevalent particularly in Germany during the later part of the 18th century.
The classical ideal of universal standards for aesthetic phenomena was chal-
lenged. The empiricist theories had already questioned the metaphysical foun-
dation of the classical norms of art proposed during the first period, but they
28

had never denied the universality of these norms; they had limited themselves
merely to replacing a rational justification of agreement in matters of taste by
some form of empirical explanation. The Romantic movement, on the other
hand, focused on the existence of fundamental, historically conditioned differ-
ences in taste which reflect differences in "national genius".
According to the Romanticist historicists the classical rules for works of art
can be broken, as long as the art works remain true to the world in which they
originate and genuinely express the spirit of the particular epoch of the nation's
development and, thus, as long as they truly grow from the soil of the nation.
These works can be properly appreciated by people of other nations or other
times once this peculiar context has been adequately described and explained.
According to this view, the imagination of the artist is bound by the historical
context in which he finds himself; he merely recreates what is already "uncon-
sciously' ' present in the spirit of a people. Hegel made the creativity of the artist
even more limited by interpreting art as the "product" of the absolute Spririt.25
Some of the basic doctrines of the Romanticists were anticipated by Hamann
(1730-1788) and Herder (1744-1803). As a young man Herder had defended the
view that it must be possible to come to a genuine philosophical aesthetics. To
achieve such a "scientific" theory of what is beautiful it is necessary to make a
clear distinction between the aesthetic event and the aesthetic recognition.
Furthermore, philosophical aesthetics must be understood from the much
broader perspective of a general philosophical anthropology in which man is to
be conceived as an indivisible unity of body and soul, which unity itself in turn is
to be understood as an essential "element" of a much larger whole, nature.26
To give to his "metaphysical" speculations about art and beauty a solid
foundation Herder begins with empirical inquiries which focus on the concrete
manner in which man encounters what is beautiful through sight, hearing, and
touch. In this aesthetic phenomenology, which only was developed in rudimen-
tary outline, Herder hoped to come to grips with the entire aesthetic sensibility.
He also thought that in this way it would be possible to develop a universal
standard of appreciation which would help us to appreciate beauty in such a
way that we are no longer hindered by national or personal differences con-
cerning matters of taste, regardless of temporal and spatial distance. However,
in the discovery and justification of such a universal standard, philosophical
anthropology has an essential task, also.27
In his aesthetic phenomenology Herder was not primarily concerned with the
sensuous appearance as such, but rather with its symbolic character. Just as in
his view nature is an expression of the divine Spirit, so in the same way is the
work of art a preeminent expression of the spirit of the artist. This symbolic
theory of the art work was justified by Herder by means of his metaphysical
conception of nature, in which nature as a whole is interpreted as a process of
evolution, as well as by his conception concerning the origin of language,
according to which the speaker expresses his inner thoughts and feelings by
means of his speech. In developing his views on the symbolic character of the art
work Herder sometimes compared the aesthetic experience with the mystic
 29

experience. This led him to the view that works of art show us the most inner
thoughts of the artist, and through him, the thought of the peoples through the
ages. But at the same time works of art also show us, albeit in an obscure and
enigmatic manner, the traces of "God's walking through history".28 It is clear,
here more than elsewhere in his work, that Herder tried to enrich his aesthetic
sensualism by means of some form of aesthetic neo-Platonism.29

§ 6. Kant and Goethe

Both Schelling and Hegel were convinced of the importance of Kant's reflec-
tions on aesthetics. Hegel even wrote that "Kant spoke the first rational words
on aesthetics".30 Many English and some continental European authors, on the
other hand, have claimed that in his aesthetics Kant owes nearly everything to
English writers; he merely systematized the main ideas which had been de-
veloped in England and Scotland during the first three quarters of the 18th
century.31
It is now generally accepted that Kant indeed did make a careful study of
English (and German) works on aesthetics and that, indeed, he did borrow
many ideas developed in these works. Yet is should be observed that Kant gave
to these ideas a place within a systematic framework which was totally original
on his part and which gave them a significance and meaning which they had
never had before.
Kant did not turn to a critical reflection upon our judgments of taste before
he had first completed his critique of pure reason, his critique of practical
reason, and the greater part of his metaphysica specialis, namely the meta-
physics of morals and the metaphysical principles of the natural sciences. In the
first introduction to the Critique of Judgment (1790) Kant tried to explain why
the methods of earlier writers on taste seemed to be unsatisfactory. He crit-
icized the rationalist approach of Baumgarten on the ground that he conceived
of taste as a form of confused knowledge of perfection; in Kant's own opinion
this approach to aesthetic phenomena has nothing to do with the basic concern
of aesthetics, because confused knowledge is-not intrinsically related to pleas-
ing forms, whereas perfection, too, is as such not necessarily related to what is
beautiful; that a thing is complete does not make it beautiful, and that a thing
fulfills its purpose does not make it beautiful either. On the other hand, the
empirical approach of Burke, Kames, and Addison equally fails in that it
cannot account for the typical universality and "necessity" of our judgments of
taste. Judgments of taste are aesthetic judgments of reflection which as such do
not say how people actually judge, but rather how they should judge. Psychol-
ogy can deal with what people actually do, not with what they should do,
because the latter necessarily implies some principle a priori.32
In the Introduction to his Critique of Judgment Kant mentioned the fact that
in his philosophy as a whole there is need for some principle of connection, at
least on the part of the human mind, between the world of natural necessity and
30

the world of freedom. The gulf between the domain of the concept of nature
and that of the concept of freedom cannot be bridged by the theoretical use of
reason. Thus there are indeed two separate worlds of which the one can have no
influence on the other. Yet the world of freedom must have an influence on the
world of nature, if the principles of practical reason are to be materialized in
action. Thus it must be possible to think nature in such a way that it is
compatible with the possibility of the attainment in nature of ends in accord-
ance with the principal laws of freedom. Kant sees the connecting link between
theoretical and practical philosophy in a critique of judgment which is a means
to unite in one whole the two parts of his philosophy.33
In a table which is placed at the end of the Introduction Kant distinguishes
three faculties of the mind together with their principles a priori and their
products. From this table it becomes clear that feeling (Gefühl) must somehow
mediate between cognition and desire (Begehrung) and, thus, that the power of
judgment (Urteilskraft) must somehow mediate between pure understanding
and practical reason, in the same way that the principle of purposiveness must
mediate between the principle of the conformity of law and that of obligation,
and art must somehow mediate between nature and morals.34
Kant calls a judgment that pronounces a thing to be beautiful the judgment of
taste (GeschmacksurteU). The ground of this judgment is subjective. A rep-
resentation is referred by the creative imagination to the subject, i.e., to his
feeling of pleasure or displeasure. Thus the ground of our judgment that a thing
is beautiful or ugly is the way in which our power of feeling and judgment is
affected by the representation of the object. The aesthetic judgment expresses
feeling, not conceptual knowledge. Yet even though beauty cannot be ex-
pressed in concepts, and even though beauty can thus not be regarded as an
objective quality of an object without a relation to the subjective ground of the
judgment that the object is beautiful, there is still room for an analytic of the
beautiful, because our aesthetic judgment is not a statement about our private
feelings, but about the beautiful thing.
In his Critique of Judgment Kant thus takes his point of departure in the
empiricist theories of art and beauty and focuses particularly on the question of
how judgments of taste are possible at all. Before trying to answer this question
Kant first explains the peculiar characteristics of our judgments of taste as far as
their quantity, quality, relation, and modality are concerned. Judgments of
taste, unlike theoretical judgments, do not subsume a representation under a
concept, but merely state a relation between a representation and a special
"disinterested" satisfaction which is independent of all desire and personal
taste. Furthermore, although judgments of taste are always singular in form
("This painting is beautiful"), they nevertheless lay claim to universal accept-
ance; in this they differ thus from a report on mere sensuous pleasure ("I like
this cake"). Yet they do not claim to be supportable by universally acceptable
reasons. Moreover, aesthetic satisfaction is evoked by an object that is purpose-
ful in its form, although it appears not to have any purpose beyond itself; it is
purposiveness without purpose. Finally, the judgment of taste claims that the
 31

beautiful has a necessary reference to aesthetic satisfaction; if I find myself

being moved by a beautiful object, I cannot claim that all other human beings
will be equally moved by this object, but I can legitimately claim that they ought
to have the same satisfaction as I have. These four aspects of the judgment of
taste inevitably give rise to the philosophical problem of how such judgments
can lay claim to necessity and universality and how this claim can be justified.35
Heidegger has correctly observed that most people have misunderstood the
third Critique in which Kant presents his aesthetics in a systematic fashion. This
is true particularly for Schopenhauer who in The World as Will and Represen­
tation seems to affiliate himself with Kant, in order then to severely criticize the
position of Hegel. Yet Schopenhauer thoroughly misunderstood Kant and this
misunderstanding later, in turn, influenced a great number of other scholars,
including Nietzsche.36
The basic misunderstanding of Kant's aesthetics involves his claims about the
beautiful. In the Critique of Judgment" Kant states that the beautiful is what
purely and simply pleases; it is the object of sheer delight. Pure delight, in which
the beautiful shows itself to us as beautiful, is, as we have just seen, for Kant
"disinterested". Our aesthetic behavior which is our comportment toward the
beautiful, is thus "a delight devoid of all interest".3* Schopenhauer interpreted
this to mean that the aesthetic state is one in which the will is put out of action,
one in which all striving is brought to a standstill; it is pure rest, a state of simply
wanting nothing more, sheer apathic drift. Nietzsche followed Schopenhauer in
this interpretation and then objected to Kant's position by saying: "Since Kant,
all talk about art, beauty, knowledge, and wisdom has been smudged and
besmirched by the concept 'devoid of interest'"."
According to Heidegger, neither Schopenhauer nor Nietzsche realized that
for Kant "interest" means that which is important to man in light of something
else. Thus the beautiful for Kant is that which never can be considered in
function of something else (at least as long as it is taken as the beautiful). Thus
our comportment toward the beautiful is for Kant unconstrained favoring. Such
favoring is not at all the putting out of action of the will, but rather the supreme
effort of our essence, and the liberation of our true selves for the release of that
which has proper worth in itself. Thus the interpretation of Kant, promulgated
by Schopenhauer, is wrong in at least two respects. First of all, Schopenhauer
takes Kant's remark about disinterestedness, which Kant made in passing in a
still preparatory reflection, to be the only and definitive statement about the
beautiful.40 Secondly, the definition of the beautiful itself is misunderstood and
not thought through in terms of the content that remains in each aesthetic
behavior when "interest" in the object falls away. The misinterpretation of the
term "interest" suggests erroneously that with the exclusion of all interest every
essential relation to the object is also suppressed. For Kant just the opposite is
the case. By suppressing all interests which place the beautiful object in
function of something else, one can bring into play the essential relation to the
object itself. When all such interest is suppressed, the object comes to the fore
as pure object. Such coming forth into appearance is the beautiful. The word
32

"schön" (related to scheinen, to shine) means appearing in the radiance of such

coming to the fore.41
Be this as it may, Kant's reflections on the beautiful in nature and in art thus
rest on his conviction that our judgments of taste imply an a priori element
which goes beyond a merely empirical universality. Thus in our aesthetic
judgments a super-empirical norm appears to be operative. Although judg-
ments of taste do not impart knowledge, the feeling of pleasure which is
connected with these judgments is nevertheless not just simply a subjective
reaction as is the reaction to what is pleasant to the senses. The judgment of
taste is reflective and it implies the free play of imagination and understanding.
Since for Kant there is no essential difference between a judgment of taste
concerned with nature and that concerned with works of art, the Critique of
Judgment cannot be called a philosophy of art.*1
Reflecting on the distinction between the beautiful in nature and in works of
art, Kant makes a distinction between the ideal of beauty toward which every
judgment of taste strives according to its very nature, and a normative idea of
beauty. As an autonomous phenomenon, the art work does not present the
ideals of nature, but rather constitutes the self-encounter of man in nature and
in the human historical world. Thus art is for Kant the beautiful presentation of
some form, and through it, the presentation of an aesthetic idea which lies
beyond the realm of the concepts and the categories. Through this beautiful
presentation of an aesthetic idea the artist infinitely expands a given concept
and, thus, encourages the free play of our mental faculties. This implies that art
really lies beyond the realm of reason and that the beautiful is conceptually
incomprehensible. The irrationality of the artist who freely creates ever new
models and refuses to adhere rigidly to rules, explains why it is impossible to lay
hold of the meaning of the work of art except through the work itself and, thus,
why the language of the arts can never be fully expressed by any other lan-
guage.43
Every art necessarily presupposes rules by means of which a product, if it is to
be artistic, is represented as possible. But in the case of the beautiful arts these
rules cannot have a concept as their determining ground. The beautiful art
cannot itself devise the rules according to which its products are to be produced.
Now since a product can never be called artistic without some precedent rule,
Nature gives the rule to art by means of a special disposition of the artist. The
innate mental disposition through which Nature gives the rule of art is genius.
Thus, the beautiful arts must necessarily be considered as arts of genius.44
To make certain that the art of genius continues to stand under the guiding
rule of beauty, Kant subordinated the creativity of genius to the judgment of
taste. In cases of conflict between creative freedom and taste, taste must
prevail. Yet it remains the art of genius to make the free play of our mental
faculties communicable through the aesthetic ideas which it invents, guided by
good taste. Thus Kant can ultimately still say that works of art are works of
genius.45
Whatever one thinks about the relationship between Goethe (1749-1832) and
 33

German idealism, one will readily admit that he never denied the inscrutable
sphere of what transcends us and nevertheless encompasses the sphere of our
experience. In one of his essays on literature he once wrote: "I do not dare to
speak about the Absolute in the theoretical sense; yet I maintain that he who
has been able to recognize it in the appearances and keeps his eye constantly
fixed on it, will derive a great benefit from it".46 Yet Goethe's own interest was
not in what is beyond our experience. Whereas most German thinkers of his
Urne tried to reach the beautiful from what is transcendent and invisible and
thus had great difficulty in reaching the sensuous appearance of beauty, Goethe
immediately concerned himself with the world as it appears. His main interest is
with experience and with what is given in experience, not with a transcendental
and critical analysis of this experience. The world of the immediately given
phenomena is to be accepted gratefully and one takes possession of it by means
of intuition (Anschauung). Contrary to the reflexive, intellectual intuition of
Fichte and Schelling, Goethe's intuition faithfully submits itself to what is
intuited.
What Goethe analyzes are not just any experiences; rather they are his own
experiences, those which he had as an artist. His aesthetic theory is to a large
extent some form of self-explication which he has communicated only in a
fragmentary manner by means of incidental remarks and observations. These
observations seldom reflect passively his own creative experiences; nor are they
concerned-with the detached analysis of the object that came to be in these
experiences. These observations speak about his thoughtful reflection that
accompanied his artistic creation and in some instances may even have ad-
vanced it. Thus these observations somehow reveal Goethe himself, engaged in
the process of his own self-formation (Bildung). By means of this process of
self-formation man learns to enter a world in which moral excellence, ra-
tionality, and the aesthetic activity grow together, in order so to constitute the
domain of what is universally human.47
For Goethe there is no opposition or conflict between philosophy and art,
nor is there any conflict between the creative and cognitive faculties in man.
Goethe discovered at the very heart of his being an active impulse toward
creative shaping (ein poetischer Bildungstrieb), which is neither an artistic nor
just a theoretical faculty, but a combination of both these faculties; it is even
more than this, insofar as it embraces the whole domain of his conduct as an
artist and refers to all those human activities that elicit order out of chaos and
discover form, law, relationship, and meaning.48 It is important to note here
that the word "poetisch" is meant by Goethe in its original Greek meaning
which is derived from the verb poiein, to make, to bring about, to create.
Heidegger also uses this word usually in that meaning.49
The active impulse toward creative shaping, however, is at work not only in
the fine arts; one can find it also in the domain of the sciences. Goethe himself
followed this creative impulse where he devoted himself to scientific research in
optics, anatomy, meteorology, etc. But this implies that Goethe was convinced
that the artist, no less than the scientist, "is a student of nature intent upon
34

revealing truth that eludes the superficial observer" .* Yet the idea that both the
artist and the scientist make a contribution to the truth, did not lead Goethe to
the idea, often defended, that art is merely an anticipation of rational knowl-
edge. Art is indeed, in his view, in some sense at least an anticipation of rational
knowledge, and taken as such it may very well be overcome by science and
philosophy. Yet if taken in its essence, a work of art anticipates something that
eternally continues to elude all verification through experience. The artist
cannot really change nature; and yet he is not bound by nature either. The
genuinely creative process, thus, for Goethe "develops as a play of action and
counter-action between nature and the artist".51
 CHAPTER III. HEGEL

In a recent essay Taminiaux has shown that in his lectures on "The Origin of the
Work of Art" Heidegger was certainly in several respects inspired by Hegel's
treatise on aesthetics. Thus it seems advisable to dwell for a moment on this
monumental work.1
Hegel delivered his lectures on aesthetics in Berlin in the 1820's. These
lectures were published posthumously in 1835 by Hotho. The work contains
more than 1200 pages.2 It is preceded by an introduction in which Hegel tries to
justify his project, explains the method to be used, discusses recent works in the
field, and provides an authoritative summary of the entire series of lectures.
In the pages to come I shall make an effort to mention a few basic ideas which
Hegel develops in this preface, because it seems to me, too, that these ideas,
discussed at greater length in the lectures themselves, did indeed influence
Heidegger's own conception concerning the origin of the work of art. Ob-
viously, I shall limit myself here, too, to what appears directly relevant to the
main goal of this book.

§ 7. Hegel's Aesthetics. Aesthetics and Art History

Hegel begins his reflections on art by observing that his lectures will be
concerned with "aesthetics", i.e., "the spacious realm of the beautiful". Thus
the domain of the lectures is that of the fine arts. The label "aesthetics" is in
Hegel's view not totally satisfactory, insofar as a treatise on the fine arts is not
really concerned with the science of sensations and feelings (aisthisis). The
term originated in the school of Wolff where people were trying to develop a
philosophical discipline of the fine arts during a period in Germany when works
of art were treated with regard to the feelings they were supposed to arouse.
But although the name is thus questionable, it is still advisable to maintain it.1
Hegel then decides not to speak about Jhe beauty in nature, even though this
has been included in most aesthetic treatises from the very beginning in anti-
quity. His reason for not including the beauty of nature is that in his view the
beauty of art is higher than nature, because it is beauty "born of the spirit and
36

born again". The term "higher" refers here to the fact that the spirit alone is
what-is-true, comprehending everything within itself, so that everything beau-
tiful is truly beautiful only to the degree that it shares in the spirit and is
generated by it.4
Hegel next turns to some objections one might raise against the idea of
devoting a scientific treatise to the fine arts. For one thing it seems to be
inappropriate and pedantic to treat with scientific seriousness a subject which is
not itself serious in nature.5 Also, if one were to argue that the arts are means
toward more lofty goals, then it still would be the case that art uses deception to
achieve these aims. For the beautiful has its Being in pure appearance and
semblance (Schein), as Plato, Kant, and Schiller already have observed. Finally
the arts seem to flow from some kind of play; but play does not seem to deserve
a serious treatment, either.6
Furthermore, there is a second set of reasons why the arts should not be
treated scientifically. For beauty presents itself to sense, feeling, intuition, and
imagination, not to reason. Also, art is the product of freedom, not the result of
principle, law, or rule. The true source of art works is the free activity of the
imagination which in its activities is more free than nature.7
Hegel mentions some other reasons why the fine arts should not be treated
scientifically and then states that he prefers not to dwell any further on the
reasons for this claim, because one can read them in virtually every older
treatise, particularly in French ones.8 Instead he decides to focus briefly on a
refutation of these "objections".
Hegel does not deny that art can be used for purposes other than itself: play,
pleasure, recreation, ornamentation, entertainment, decoration, etc. What he
wants to consider, however, is art that is free both in end and means.".. .in this
freedom alone is fine art truly art; and it only fulfills its supreme task when it has
placed itself in the same sphere as religion and philosophy, and when it is simply
one way of bringing to our minds and expressing the Divine, the deepest
interests of mankind, and the most comprehensive truths of the spirit". For the
nations have deposited their richest ideas and institutions in works of art; and
art is often one, if not the, key to understand their religion and philosophy. "Art
shares this vocation with religion and philosophy"; but it does so in a very
special way, insofar as it and it alone displays the highest in a sensuous form. In
this manner art displays the depth of a suprasensuous world which thought
penetrates and first posits as something that is beyond, and in contrast with,
immediate consciousness and actual feeling.9
Hegel then points out that for many people the word "Schein" has merely a
negative meaning; yet in his view, Schein (taken in the sense of both appearance
and semblance) is essential to essence. Truth would not be truth if it were not to
show itself, i.e., if it were not the truth for someone, for itself, as well as for the
spirit. In the fine arts there is not mere appearance, but a very special kind of
appearance in which art gives actuality to what is inherently true. Furthermore,
Hegel states, one should realize here that the so-called real world, the outer
world of physical things and the inner world of feelings, are Schein in a sense
 37

that is more negative than the one in which art works are Scheut, because they
are even farther away from true reality, i.e., spirit. On the other hand, art
"liberates the true content of the phenomena from the semblance (Schein) and
deception of this bad, transitory world, and gives them a higher actuality, born
of the spirit".10
Art works cannot even be called more deceptive than the presentations of
historiography. For the subject of historiography is not the spirit, nor even
immediate existence, but only the mere, spiritual appearance thereof with its
-contingency and individuality. Yet compared with philosophy one could call art
works deceptions; and the same is true if they are compared with religion and
the moral order. But compared with the appearance of immediate actuality and
of historiography the appearance of art has the advantage that it points beyond
itself and hints at something that is spiritual of which it is to give us an idea,
whereas immediate appearance does not even present itself as deception, but
rather as that which is actual and true."
The fine arts are indeed limited insofar as they neither in content nor in form
constitute "the highest and absolute mode of bringing to our minds the true
interests of the spirit". Because of its form, art is limited to a specific content
which is such that it can be presented to the senses. For the gods of Greece this is
still the case; but the Christian conception of God can no longer be presented by
the fine arts. And this means also that the peculiar nature of art and art works
no longer fulfills our highest need. For us works of art are no longer divine.
"Thought and reflection have spread their wings above the fine arts".12
It is certainly true that today art "no longer affords that satisfaction of
spiritual needs which earlier ages and nations sought in it", when art and
religion were still very closely related. "The beautiful days of Greek art, like the
golden age of the later Middle Ages, are gone".13 The conditions of our present
time are not favorable to the fine arts. "In all these respects art, considered in its
highest vocation, is and remains for us a thing of the past. Thereby it has lost for
us genuine truth and life, and has rather been transferred into our ideas..."
Works of art now arouse in us today not just immediate enjoyment, but also our
judgment, insofar as we subject to our intellectual consideration the content of
art, the works' means of presentation, and the degree of appropriateness of
both to one another. "The philosophy of art is therefore a greater need in our
day than it was in days when art by itself as art yielded full satisfaction".14
After briefly discussing a third objection against the attempt to make a
scientific study of the fine arts,15 Hegel states that works of art can be treated
scientifically in more than one way. In section four of the Introduction he
briefly discusses two of these. First there is the history of art which concerns
itself with actual works of art from the outside. This is the indispensable road
for anyone who wants to become a scholar in the field of the fine arts. On the
other hand, there is the philosophy of what is beautiful. As for the latter Hegel
mentions a few classical treatises: those by Aristotle, Longinus, Horace, Lord
Kames, Batteux, Ramler, Meyer, Hirt, Goethe, Mengs, and Winckelmann.
He concludes these reflections with the remark that the mode of reflecting on
38

art, which is characteristic of these classical treatises on aesthetics, has now

become out of date. Today, he continues, only the scholarship of art history still
retains its abiding value.16 Via a brief examination of Plato's reflections on
beauty Hegel is then led to ask the question concerning the concept of the
beautiful in the fine arts.17

§ 8. On Beauty and Art in Hegel

In the fifth section of the Introduction Hegel turns to the question of how one is
to approach the concept of the beautiful in a truly scientific treatise of the fine
arts.18 In his view, in every science one must discuss two issues with respect to its
subject matter: 1) that such a thing indeed is, and 2) what it is.
As Hegel sees it, every philosophical science encounters great difficulties in
regard to these two issues. And this is so particularly in the case of the fine arts,
because the beautiful has often been regarded as not being absolutely necessary
for our ideas, but rather as being purely subjective pleasure. Furthermore, each
science must also prove the necessity of its subject matter. And anyone who
wants to exhibit the necessity of the beauty of art, has to show that the
artistically beautiful is a necessary result of an antecendent which, considered
according to its true concept, is such as to lead us with scientific necessity to the
concept of fine art. But since we begin here with art, we have to begin with an
assumption, which remains outside our consideration and whose scientific
treatment really belongs to another philosophical discipline. Thus the only
thing we can do here is to take the concept of art lemmatically, i.e., under the
assumption that it has already been demonstrated, and this is the case with all
particular philosophical disciplines if they are treated one by one. For, in
Hegel's view, it is only the whole of philosophy that is knowledge of the
universe as being in itself that one organic totality, which develops itself out of
its own concept and which, in its self-relating necessity, withdrawing into itself
to form a totality, closes with itself so as to form one world of truth. In the little
circle of this scientific necessity "each single part is on the one hand a circle
returning into itself, while on the other hand it has at the same time a necessary
connection with other parts". Each part has something that stands behind it and
from which it is derived, and something to which it pushes forward. It is the task
"of an encyclopaedic development of the whole of philosophy and its particular
disciplines, to prove the idea of the beautiful with which we began". In other
words, in the lectures on aesthetics the concept of the beautiful and that of art
are presuppositions taken over from the system of philosophy, taken as a
whole.'9
In the sixth section Hegel critically discusses three common conceptions
about the arts: 1) the work of art is not a natural product, but brought about by
human activities; 2) it is made in order that man can apprehend it by means of
the senses; and 3) it has an end or aim in itself.20
As for the claim that works of art are products of human activities, Hegel
 39
briefly discusses critically three aspects of this claim, before he turns to a brief
reflection on the question of why human beings have a need for art works in the
first place. In his view, the thesis that a work of art is just the outcome of the
application of rules, is to be rejected on the ground that it is one-sided.
Secondly, there is the claim that the work of art is just the outflow of talent,
genius, and inspiration. If this is taken to mean, as the young Goethe and
Schiller at first have suggested, that genius and inspiration mean to go against
the application of rules, then this leads to nonsense. Genius and inspiration
need practice and skill, as well as the application of some rules. This is the
reason why the works which Goethe and Schiller produced as mature authors
are so beautiful and important for the entire German nation: they reflect
genius, inspiration, experience, thoughtfulness, practice, and skill, as well as a
respect for certain "rules". Thirdly, there is the view that art works somehow
are to be related to things "made by nature". One has also said here that works
of art cannot possibly equal God's work in nature. Hegel rejects one of the
underlying tacit assumptions of these theses; in his view it is not correct to
assume that God works only without involving man. One should realize that
God also works in and through the artist. What the artist then produces is
"better" than what was produced naturally in nature.
Hegel then finally turns to the question as to why human beings have a need
for works of art. Why do artists produce works of art and why do others try to
preserve them? Hegel states that he is unable to answer these questions at this
time. Yet he makes a few brief observations on the issue. The need from which
art flows has its origin in the fact that man is a thinking being, a thinking
consciousness; man draws out of himself and "puts before himself what he is
and whatever else is". Man is not only, like other beings, a part of nature; but he
also duplicates himself and thus is for himself.21 It is in the strength of this active
placing himself before himself that he is spirit. He acquires consciousness first
theoretically and then practically. From this it follows that man wants to
produce himself as self in that which he is not, but in which he then can
recognize himself. "This aim he achieves by altering external things whereon he
impresses the seal of his inner being... Man does this in order, as a free subject,
to strip the external world of its inflexible foreignness and to enjoy in the shape
of things only an external realization of himself \ Man can do this in many ways.
Yet the universal need for art is "man's rational need to lift the inner and outer
world into his spiritual consciousness as an object in which he recognizes again
his own self'.22
Hegel now turns to the second major thesis, according to which art works are
to be apprehended by the senses. Many authors have tried to articulate this
thesis by appealing to feelings. Hegel rejects this approach because it leads
really nowhere, insofar as "feeling is the indefinite dull region of the spirit",
about which not much is known.23 Feeling as such is an entirely empty form of
subjective affection. The entire approach does not get beyond vagueness. It
never immerses itself "in the theme at issue, i.e., in the work of art, plumbing its
depths ..."»
40

Others have therefore focused on a very particular feeling, namely the

feeling of the beautiful which reflects itself, as sense of beauty, in good taste.
These authors have tried to promote such a good taste by means of education.
But this education likewise "got no further than what was rather vague". The
talk about good taste, too, remains "silent when the thing at issue comes in
question".25
Still others have turned to serious scholarship in art history. This is indeed
important; yet it cannot be a substitute for a theory about the art work. Art
history as such has "little notion of the true nature of the art work .. .',2*
Hegel finally tries to formulate his own view on the issue and articulates it
briefly from the perspective of the work, the artist, and the content of the work.
In order to be a work of art, the art work must present itself to sensuous
apprehension; it is there present to sensuous feeling and open to sensuous
intuition. Yet at the same time it is there for spiritual apprehension. Now the
sensuous can be related to the spirit in more than one way. There is the merely
sensuous looking-at, there is the theoretical apprehension, and in between
these two there is the artistic apprehension. In the first case, there is barely any
activity of the spirit involved; in the second case, the sensuous is used merely as
a means to proceed to the spiritual; in the latter case, the sensuous appears as
the surface of the spiritual and thus really "as a pure appearance [Schein] of the
sensuous".27 In other words, the artistic apprehension constitutes the middle
between immediate sensuousness and ideal thought. In it sensuousness is
spiritualized.
Looked at from the perspective of the artist, we find here something similar.
The production of the art work is different from purely mechanical work as well
as from pure theory as we find it in science. Hegel appeals here to the doctrine
of the creative imagination which is a gift and a talent, but at the same time is to
be perfected by practice. Hegel here refers thus to the common doctrine of the
creative genius.
Finally, looked at from the perspective of the content, it should be clear that
only such content can be selected which lends itself to such sensuous presenta-
tion.28
Hegel finally turns to the aim of art. He first discusses the imitation of nature
as the aim of art.29 Then he considers the thesis according to which art is to bring
to our senses, our feeling, and our inspiration everything that has a place in the
human spirit; in this theory art has predominantly an educational aim. Hegel
particularly dwells on the view that art is supposed to mitigate the ferocity of the
human emotions, to purify the passions (/catharsis), and to contribute to our
moral development. All these views, once held in the past by Plato, the Stoa,
the empiricists, Kant, and others, are rejected. Hegel discusses his own view in
a special section.30
Section seven of the Introduction is devoted to the historical deducation of
the true concept of art. Here Hegel concentrates his efforts on a careful analysis
of the conceptions of art which were current in his own era: the views of Kant,
Fichte, Schelling, Schiller, Winckelmann, von Schlegel, etc., but he also dis-
 41

cusses the ironic conceptions of Solger and Tieck which in the final analysis
were derived from that of Fichte.31 On the one hand, this section is one of the
most illuminating of the entire Introduction; on the other, it is also one that
often is very difficult to understand, due to the fact that Hegel approaches the
views of these authors constantlyfromhis own perspective, according to which
art presents the Absolute in sensuous form. Since this section contains little that
throws light on Heidegger's conception of art and art works, I shall proceed at
once to section eight in which Hegel explains how he plans to divide the subject
matter to be studied in his lectures on aesthetics.
Hegel begins this section with the remark that after all these introductory
reflections, it is now time to go on to the study of the subject itself. Yet since we
are still in the introductory part of the lectures, he feels that he can do no more
than just give a brief sketch of what is still to come.32

§ 9. The Beauty of Art and its Particular Forms

Since we have spoken of art as itself proceedingfromthe absolute Idea, and we

have even pronounced its end to be the sensuous presentation of the Absolute
itself, we must now proceed by showing in outline, how the particular parts of
this subject matter emerge from this conception of artistic beauty as the
sensuous presentation of the Absolute.33
The content of art is thus the Idea; and its form is the configuration of the
sensuous material. Art therefore must harmonize these two sides and bring
them to some totality. This means first that the content should be such that it
indeed qualifies for such presentation. In other words the content must be such
that it can be adapted to the sensuous form.
The second requirement is that the content cannot be something totally
abstract; it must be concrete, not in the sense of the sensuous, but in the sense in
which spiritual and intellectual things are said to be (in part at least) concrete.
Hegel derives from this that it was for this reason that the Jews could not
present God, whereas the Christians could.
The third requirement is that the content thus must be individual. Hegel
illustrates this by pointing to the fact that in a work of art, as in each human
being, body and spirit must constitute an individual totality; thus the elements
out of which it developed must both be individual: this body and this spirit.
Hegel concludes this part of his reflections with the following statement.
"But since art has the task of presenting the Idea to immediate perception in a
sensuous shape and not in the form of thinking and pure spirituality as such,
and, since this presenting has its value and dignity in the correspondence and
unity of both sides, i.e., this Idea and its outward shape, it follows that the
loftiness and excellence of art in attaining a reality adequate to its concept will
depend on the degree of inwardness and unity in which Idea and shape appear
fused into one".34 Hegel then derives from the insights contained in this
statement the division of the subject and, thus, of his entire lecture course.
42

First, there will be a universal part that is concerned with the universal Idea of
artistic beauty as the Ideal insofar as this Ideal relates to nature on the one
hand, and to the subjective, artistic production on the other. Then there will be
a part on the three basic forms of artistic configuration as we find them
historically over time. Finally, there will be a long part in which the individual-
ization of artistic beauty into different arts from architecture to poetry will be
considered.35
In part one Hegel first relates the arts to religion and scientific philosophy and
thus describes their position in relation to the finite world. Then he explains
what he means by the Idea, the concept of the beautiful as such, how beauty is
found in nature, and what is to be said about the beauty of art as the Ideal.
Toward the very end of this part he speaks about the artist: creative imagina-
tion, genius, inspiration, objectivity of presentation, manner, style, and orig-
inality.
In part two Hegel speaks about three important art forms: the symbolic form
of art. the classical form of art, and the romantic form of art.
Finally in the last part Hegel is concerned with the individual arts, which he
divides into architecture, sculpture, and the "romantic arts", painting, music,
and poetry.
As for Part I Hegel observes that the Idea, as the beauty of art, is not the Idea
as such, in the manner in which metaphysical logic must try to grasp it as the
Absolute, but the Idea made into reality and as having advanced to immediate
unity and correspondence with this reality. The Idea as such is the absolute
Truth as such, i.e., in its not yet objectified universality. On the other hand, the
Idea as the beauty of art is the Idea which is individual reality as well as some
individual configuration of reality which is destined essentially to embody and
reveal this Idea. Hegel calls the Idea taken as reality which is shaped in
accordance with the Concept of the Idea, the Ideal.
He then continues that the problem of such correspondence might in the first
instance be understood quite formally in the sense that any Idea at all might
serve, if only the actual shape (no matter which) presented precisely this
specific Idea. But in that case the demanded truth of the Ideal would be
confused with the mere correctness which consists in the expression of some
meaning or other in an appropriate way.36 For any content can be presented
quite adequately, without being allowed to claim the artistic beauty of the
Ideal. Furthermore, only "in the highest art are Idea and presentation truly in
conformity with one another, in the sense that the shape given to the Idea is in
itself the absolutely true shape, because the content of the Idea which that
shape expresses, is itself the true and genuine content".37 Hegel gives as an
example that the Christian imagination was able to present God himself in
human form and its expression as spirit, simply because God himself is here
completely known in Himself as spirit.38
As for Part II Hegel briefly tries to characterize the three basic art forms that
developed over time. These different forms find their origin in the different
ways of grasping the Idea as content.
 43

In the symbolic form of art there is a disproportion between content, and

form. There the Idea is still taken in its indeterminacy and obscurity, or even in
its bad and untrue determinacy; this is then made the content of specific and
concrete artistic shapes. But being indeterminate, the Idea does not yet possess
in itself that individuality which the Ideal demands. Thus its outward shape is
somewhat arbitrary and defective. The first form of art is more a search for
portrayal than a capacity for true presentation. The Idea has not yet found the
form even in itself. One takes shapes of natural things which one then relates to
the Idea because of the fact that these objects have a quality by which they
indeed can present a universal meaning. One paints a lion and claims that
strength is meant.
Since in this case the Idea has no natural reality to express itself, it launches
out in various shapes, "seeks itself in them in their unrest and extravagance, but
yet does not find them adequate to itself. So now the Idea exaggerates natural
shapes . . . . it staggers round in them, it bubbles and ferments in them, does
violence to them, distorts and stretches them unnaturally, and tries to elevate
their phenomenal appearance to the Idea by the diffuseness, immensity, and
splendor of the formations employed". The reason for this is that the Idea is still
indeterminate whereas the chosen forms are thoroughly determinate in their
shape.
In this case, there is tension between content and form; the relation of Idea to
objective world is a negative one. The content appears here as the sublime
which really remains high above all this multiplicity of shapes which do not
really correspond to the Idea. The meaning is raised here far above all mundane
content. "These aspects constitute in general the character of the early artistic
pantheism of the East, which on the one hand ascribes absolute meaning to
even the most worthless objects, and, on the other, violently coerces the
phenomenon to express its view of the world whereby it becomes bizarre,
grotesque, and tasteless . . . " "
In the classical form of art this double defect of the symbolic form is ex-
tinguished. As we have seen, the symbolic form is imperfect because 1) in it the
Idea is presented as indeterminate or as only abstractly determined, and thus 2)
the correspondence between meaning and shape is defective. The classical art
form is the free and adequate embodiment of the Idea in its essential nature.
There is now a complete harmony between Idea and sensuous shape. The
classical art form is thefirstto produce the completed Ideal and to present it as
actualized in fact.
Classical art accomplishes this by choosing as its shape which the Idea as
spiritual is to assume, the human form. "But the human body in its forms counts
in classical art no longer as a merely sensuous being, but only as the existence
and natural shape of the spirit; it must therefore be exempt from all the
deficiency of the purely sensuous and from the contingent finitude of the
phenomenal world". Thus first the shape is purified in order to be capable of
expressing in itself a content adequate to itself; then, to guarantee the proper
non-formal correspondence between content and shape, the content itself must
44

be of such a kind that it can express itself completely in the natural human form,
without towering beyond and above this expression. Therefore the spirit is here
at once determined as particular and human, i.e., not as absolute and eternal;
for as absolute the spirit can express itself only as spirituality. This constitutes
the imperfection and defect of classical art which will only be overcome in
romantic art.40
The romantic artform cancels again the completed unification of the Idea and
its reality; it differentiates and opposes the two again as was the case in symbolic
art, where the opposition remained unconquered. Thus what is defective in
classical art where the opposition was overcome in a harmonious unity, is art
itself and the inner restrictedness of the sphere of art. This restrictedness lies in
the fact that art takes as its subject matter the spirit (which is universal, infinite,
and concrete in its very nature) in a form which is sensuously concrete; classical
art presents the unification of the two as the perfect correspondence of the two.
Yet here the spirit is obviously not presented in its true nature. For spirit is the
infinite subjectivity of the Idea.
Romantic art cancels the classical principle and with it the undivided unity of
classical art. It does so because it has won a content which goes above and
beyond the classical form of art in its mode of expression. This content "coin-
cides with what Christianity asserts of God as a spirit, in distinction from the
Greek religion which is the essential and most appropriate content for classical
art".41
In classical art the concrete content is only implicitly the unity of the divine
nature with the human; because this unity is immediate and still implicit, it can
adequately be manifested in an immediate and sensuous way. The Greek god is
and remains the object of naive intuition and sensuous imagination. Thus his
shape indeed is the shape of man. The range of the god's being and power is
finite, particular and individual. The god is a substance and power with which
the individual human being's inner being is only implicitly at one without
possessing this oneness as inward subjective knowledge. Now the knowledge of
that implicit unity which is the content of the classical art form, and which as
implicit can be presented perfectly in bodily shape, constitutes a higher state.
In romantic art, that which was implicit in classical art, i.e., the unity of divine
and human nature, is raised from an immediate to a known unity. The true
element for the realization of this content is no longer the sensuous immediate
existence of the spiritual in the bodily form of man, but rather the inwardness of
self-consciousness. "Now Christianity brings God before our imagination as
spirit, not as an individual and particular spirit, but as absolute in spirit and in
truth. For this reason it retreats from the sensuousness of imagination into
spiritual inwardness and makes this, not the body, the medium and the exist-
ence of the content of truth. Thus the unity of divine and human nature is a
known unity, one to be realized only by spiritual knowing and in spirit*. The
new content is not tied here to sensuous presentation, but is precisely freed
from this immediate existence, which henceforth must be set down as negative
and thus as to be overcome, i.e., as to be reflected into the spiritual unity. In this
 45

way romantic art is the self-transcendence of art, but one that remains within its
own sphere and remains in the form of art itself.42
At this third stage the subject matter of art is free, concrete spirituality, which
is to be manifested as spirituality to the spiritually inward of the heart. Thus art
can now no longer work for sensuous intuition; rather it must now work for the
inwardness which coalesces with its object as if with itself; it must work for inner
depth, for reflective emotion, for feeling which, as spiritual, strives for freedom
in itself, and seeks and finds its reconciliation only in the inner spirit."This inner
world constitutes the content of the romantic sphere and must therefore be
represented as this inwardness and in the pure appearance of this depth of
feeling".«
Romantic art, too, needs an external medium for its expression. As in
symbolic art, the sensuous externality of shape is presented here as something
inessential and transient; and the same is true for the particularity of the finite
spirit involved. "The aspect of external existence is consigned to contingency
and abandoned to the adventures devised by an imagination whose caprice can
mirror what is present to it, exactly as it is, just as readily as it can jumble the
shapes of the external world and distort them grotesquely. For this external
medium has its essence and meaning no longer, as in classical art, in itself and its
own sphere, but in the heart which finds its manifestation in itself instead of in
the external world ..."** Thus the separation of content and form, Idea and
shape, their indifference and inadequacy, come to the fore again, as in symbolic
art. Yet there is an essential difference: the Idea which in symbolic art itself was
presented as indeterminate which, in turn, brought with it a deficiency of shape,
has now to appear perfected in itself as spirit and heart. Because of this higher
perfection, it is no longer susceptible to an adequate union with the external;
this it can achieve only within itself.
Formulated briefly, one could say that these three main forms of art consist in
the striving, the attainment, and the overcoming of the Ideal as the true Idea of
beauty.45
Finally, there is part HI, in which Hegel speaks about the system of the
individual arts. But this, too, need not occupy us here further.
 CHAPTER IV. THE CENTURY AFTER HEGEL

§ 10. Richard Wagner

After these long digressions, we can now again return to Heidegger's own
essay, "Six Basic Developments in the History of Aesthetics".1 In it Heidegger
says that in the modern era art begins to lose its immediate relation to the basic
task of presenting the absolute in the history of man. Thus concurrent with the
foundation of aesthetics we see the decline of great art.
At the moment that aesthetics achieves its greatest height, breadth, and rigor
of form, great art comes to an end. The achievement of modern aesthetics
derives its own greatness from the fact that it recognizes the end of great art as
such and brings this into language; the greatest aesthetics in the Western
tradition is that of Hegel which is contained in his famous Lectures on Aesthet­
ics. To illustrate the point Heidegger quotes the following passages in which, as
we have just seen, Hegel's intention comes to light quite clearly:"... yet in this
regard there is at least no absolute need at hand for it to be brought to
representation by art".2 "In all these relations art is and remains for us with
regard to its highest determination, something past".3 "The magniflcient days
of Greek art, like the golden era of the later Middle Ages, are gone".4
One might be tempted, Heidegger continues, to object to Hegel's view and
point to the fact that since 1830 great works have been produced. Hegel
obviously had no intention of denying that in the future great works of art could
be produced and that they also as such would be judged and esteemed. The fact
that there are such individual works and that they are still enjoyed by a few
sectors of the population, does not refute Hegel's thesis, but rather speaks for
his opinion. It proves that art has lost its power to present the absolute and,
thus, has lost its absolute power. It is clear then that the position of art and the
kind of knowledge concerning it are to be redefined. We see efforts in this
regard in the later part of the 19th century.5
In the 19th century some people realized the decline of art from its essence,
and developed a conception of "collective art" to undo this development. This
effort is related to the name Richard Wagner. It is no mere accident that
Wagner attempted to produce something that legitimately could be called a
 47

collective art work; he tried to give an account of such works in several treatises
such as Art and Revolution (1849), The Artwork of the Future (IS50), Opera and
Drama (1851), German Art and German Politics (1865).'
Heidegger writes that it is impossible in the context of the present reflections
to give an adequate explanation of the complicated and confused intellectual
and historical milieu of the middle of the 19th century. This can be understood
only from the century as a whole and the latter can be understood only from thr
last third of the 18th and the first third of the 20th centuries. A few general
remarks must suffice here.
With reference to the historical position of art in this era, the effort to
produce a so-called "collective.art work" is essential. The name means that the
arts can no longer be realized independently from one another; they must all
again be conjoined in one work. Furthermore, this one work should be the
celebration of the national community; finally, it itself should be the religion.
Theoretically, music was to be a means for achieving effective drama; yet in
Wagner, music, in the form of opera, becomes the authentic art to which
drama, architecture, painting, and sculpture are to be subordinated and re-
lated. What Wagner really wanted here was the complete domination of art as
music and, thus, also the domination of the pure state of feeling. The "lived
experience" becomes all-important. Theater and orchestra determine what art
really is. Art is once again to become an "absolute need", but now the absolute
is experienced "as sheer indeterminacy, total dissolution into sheer feeling, a
hovering that gradually sinks into nothingness".7 Wagner was "inspired" here
by the works and ideas of Schopenhauer, particularly his World as Will and
Representation.*
In Heidegger's view Wagner's attempt had to fail, not only because of the
predominance of music with respect to all other arts, but particularly because of
his "conception and estimation of art in terms of the unalloyed state of feeling
and the growing barbarization of the very state to the point where it becomes
the sheer bubbling and boiling of feeling abandoned to itself'.9 True, many
people took such arousal of frenzied feeling as a rescue of life, in view of the
growing impoverishment of life caused by industry, technology, and finance
and in view of the depletion of all constructive forces of knowledge and
tradition, to say nothing about the lack of all goals for human existence. "Rising
on swells of feeling would have to substitute for a solidly grounded and
articulated position in the midst of beings, the kind of thing that only great
poetry and thought can create".10
Thus in the middle of the 19th century a new phase in the development of art
was propagated. The essence of this phase consists in the fact that the answer
for the question of whether and how art is still known and willed as the
definitive formation and preservation of the beings as a whole, was thought to
be the development of a collective art work. During the same period we find a
growing incapacity for metaphysical knowledge; knowledge of the arts is
transformed into art history. What in the age of Herder and Winckelmann still
stood in the service of a magnificient self-meditation on man's historical exist-
48

ence is now changed into an academic discipline which is carried on for its own
sake. The examination of literary works now becomes philology. Aesthetics
becomes psychology and the latter proceeds in the manner of the natural
sciences: states of feeling are now taken to be just facts that originate of
themselves and may be subjected to observation, measurement, and experi-
mentation.11 History of literature and the history of the fine arts in general
become "genuine" sciences and both, science and art, are to be taken as
cultural phenomena. Where the aesthetic does not become an object of scien-
tific research and is taken rather as something that determines the character of
man, the aesthetic state becomes immediately one among other possible states,
such as the scientific or the political. It is assumed that there must be culture,
because otherwise man no longer would progress. Progress in what direction?
No one knows and no one is seriously asking any more. Furthermore, there still
is Christianity and the Church, even though these, too, are already becoming
more political than religious institutions.12
Thus the entire world is examined and evaluated on the basis of its capacity to
bring about the aesthetic state. The aesthetic man, who really is a nineteenth-
century hybrid, believed himself to be justified and protected by the whole of
his culture. Although there still is in all of this some ambition and labor, and
sometimes even good taste and true challenge, nevertheless this is really the
beginning of what Nietzsche calls nihilism. This brings us finally to Nietzsche's
conception of art as will-to-power.,3

§ 11. Nietzsche's Concern with Aesthetics

What Hegel claimed about art, Nietzsche asserts about the "highest" values,
namely religion, morality, and philosophy. Whereas for Hegel it is art that fell
victim to nihilism and thus became a thing of the past, for Nietzsche art becomes
that which must be pursued as the counter-movement to nihilism. According to
Heidegger, Nietzsche's position in regard to art is still somehow determined by
Wagner's will to the collective art work. Whereas for Hegel art (as a thing of the
past) became an object of the highest speculative knowledge and, correspon-
dingly, aesthetics assumed the form of a metaphysics of the spirit, Nietzsche's
meditations on art become a mere physiology of art: "... aesthetics is nothing
eise than applied physiology",14 investigations of bodily states and processes.15
But to understand Nietzsche's position it is necessary that one gradually learns
to see the genuine meaning of the conceptions which are employed here in his
effort to combine a concern for art as a counter-movement to nihilism with the
idea that knowledge of art is to be achieved through "physiology".16
 49

a) Nietzsche's Metaphysics. Will-to-Power. The Basic Questions of

Philosophy

In a lecture course of 1936-1937 which was delivered shortly after Heidegger

had completed his lecture on the origin of the work of art, Heidegger made an
effort to explain in what sense for Nietzsche will-to-power is art. To achieve this
goal Heidegger began the lecture course with a brief introduction to Nietzsche's
metaphysics taken as a whole. In Heidegger's view, just as in every form of
metaphysics, so too in Nietzsche's metaphysics we must distinguish five basic
themes: 1) the beingness of the beings, i.e., that because of which a being is as
such; 2) the whole of the beings, i.e., that which accounts for the fact that and
how the beings are in the whole; 3) the mode of Being of the truth; 4) the history
of the truth; and 5) the human community which has been placed in this truth to
preserve it. In Nietzsche's metaphysics will-to-power is the expression for the
Being of the beings taken as such, their essentia; nihilism is the expression for
the history of the truth of the beings which are so determined; eternal return of
the same signifies the manner in which the beings are in the whole, their
existentia; superman indicates the relevant kind of humanity which is sum-
moned by this whole; and finally, justice is the essence of the truth of the beings
which are taken as will-to-power.17
In the lecture course, "The Will to Power as Art", Heidegger tried to
articulate Nietzsche's metaphysics by focussing mainly on the relationship
between art, will-to-power and truth; this was done concretely by means of
reflections which explain in what sense for Nietzsche will-to-power as art is the
expression for the Being of the beings (their essence) on the one hand, and by
means of a brief essay on Nietzsche's conception of truth, on the other. As for
the will-to-power, Heidegger stressed that for Nietzsche will-to-power is never
the willing of a particular being. Will-to-power involves the essence, the Being
of the beings. Will-to-power is the Being of the beings. Nietzsche speaks about
will-to-power and not just about will, in order to stress the enhancement in the
will; will-to-power is "creative" in the sense that the will implies an increase in
power. But Heidegger immediately adds that what is decisive here "is not
production in the sense of manufacturing but taking up and transforming,
making something other than . . . . other in an essential way". For the same
reason destruction also belongs to this kind of production. And since destruc-
tion implies the contrary, the ugly, and the evil, the latter are thus of necessity
proper to this form of production and even to will-to-power, also. But this
means that the contrary, the ugly, and the evil belong to Being itself. To the
essence of Being, i.e., to the manner in which Being comes-to-presence and
abides, nullity belongs as an all-overpowering "no".18
Heidegger adds to this that one perhaps could clarify Nietzsche's conception
of will-to-power with the help of Aristotle's reflections on dunamis, energeia,
and entelecheia, as the highest determinations of Being. But in that case, one
obviously must make an effort to go beyond the common interpretation of
Metaphysica IX."
50

As for Nietzsche's conception of truth, Heidegger states first once more that
the chief question of Western metaphysics is the question concerning the beings
as such. This chief question Heidegger calls the guiding question, even though it
is only the penultimate question. The ultimate and in a sense also the first
question is: what is Being itself? This is the grounding question of philosophy
insofar as it inquires into the ground of beings as ground, inquiring at the same
time into its own ground and into grounding itself. Modern philosophy tried to
approach this latter question via epistemology, i.e., via a certain conception of
consciousness. In this way, however, it is and remains on a path that leads us
only to the anteroom of philosophy and, thus, prevents us from penetrating to
the very core of philosophy. What we have called the grounding question is as
foreign to Nietzsche as it had been for Plato and the great thinkers between
Plato and Hegel.
If we relate the guiding question properly to the grounding question we are
led to the opening-up of the beings taken as a whole and to Being itself. The
beings are to be brought into the open region of Being, and Being itself is to be
brought into the open that arises in its own coming-to-presence (Wesen). The
openness of the beings Heidegger calls their non-concealment, their a-litheia,
their truth. The guiding and grounding questions, taken together, thus ask what
the beings and what Being in truth are. By asking about the coming-to-presence
of Being in this manner, nothing is left outside the question, not even nothing.
Thus the question of what Being in truth is must at the same time ask what the
truth, in which Being itself is to be cleared, really is. In other words, the
questions concerning the beings and Being itself are intimately related to the
question concerning the coming-to-pass of the truth. The question of Being and
the question of truth, if they are properly developed, will show that Being and
truth are united in essence, although they are also foreign to one another. The
proper development of these questions, Heidegger says, will also show us in
what domain Being and truth somehow belong together and what this domain
really is. Heidegger admits that these questions deal with issues not examined
by Nietzsche himself. Yet in his view, these questions must be asked if we are to
bring his thought into the open and make it fruitful to our own thinking.20

b) Five Basic Theses on Art and their Implication

After these preparatory reflections Heidegger turns to an attempt to give a first

and provisional characterization of what Nietzsche understood to be the es-
sence of art. He derives this first characterization from a brief reflection on five
statements on art that one can derive from Nietzsche's The Will to Power: 1) Art
is the most perspicuous and familiar configuration of the will-to-power. 2) Art
must be grasped in terms of the artist. 3) Art is the basic occurrence of all the
beings; to the extent that they are, the beings are self-creating. 4) Art is the
distinctive countermovement to nihilism. And 5) art is worth more than "the
truth".
Heidegger explains first that according to Nietzsche, in the artist we encoun-
 51

ter the most perspicuous mode of the will-to-power. In his view, what is decisive
in Nietzsche's conception of art, is the fact that he sees art in its essential
entirety in terms of the artist. And Nietzsche does this consciously "and in
explicit opposition to that conception of art which represents it in terms of those
who 'enjoy* and 'experience' it".21 The guiding principle of Nietzsche's teaching
on art focuses on those who artistically produce art works and not on those who
receive them. In The Will to Power Nietzsche state» that "our aesthetics
heretofore has been a woman's aesthetics, insofar as only the recipients of art
have formulated their experiences of 'what is beautiful'. In all philosophy to
date the artist is missing . . . "
What Nietzsche wishes to develop instead is a "masculine" aesthetics.22 This
is an aesthetics in which the question of art primarily is the question of the artist,
as the one who artistically produces the work; only his experience of what is
beautiful can provide us with the standard.
This implies for Nietzsche that all other configurations of the will-to-power
(such as religion, morals, society, knowledge, science, and philosophy) are to
be viewed from the perspective of what is essential to the artist as such. This, in
turn, means that all the beings which the artist himself does not artistically
produce, have a mode of Being that corresponds to the work of art that the
artist does produce. In this way Nietzsche extends the concept of art to every
ability to bring-forth, and the concept of the art work to everything that is
broughfeforth. In so doing Nietzsche remains in harmony with what was com-
mon up until the last quarter of the 18th century. Up to that time craftsmen,
statesmen, educators, etc., were called artists. Nature, too, was then called an
artist. The meaning of the word "art" was then, as we have seen already many
times, not yet reduced to that of "fine art".
If we limit ourselves to the artist, taken in the narrow sense of the term in
which it refers to the person who produces something artistically, then it is
understandable why Nietzsche can call the artist only a preliminary stage,
namely a stage from which we have to proceed to one that implies all things.
Thus Nietzsche can then claim that art is the basic happening of all beings; to the
degree that they are at all, beings are self-creating and created.23
Art taken in the broad sense is what is truly creative; it constitutes the basic
character of the beings. And since for Nietzsche will-to-power is essentially
creating he can then say that art is will-to-power. Art in the narrow sense of fine
art is that activity in which creative production emerges for itself and becomes
most perspicuous. Fine art is not just one configuration of the will-to-power
among others, but the supreme configuration. Thus here the will-to-power
becomes truly visible as art. Now will-to-power is the ground on which all future
valuation depends; it is the principle of the new valuation that has to take the
place of the valuation formerly promoted by religion, morality, and philoso-
phy. Religion, morality, and philosophy are forms of decadence. To the degree
that these three maintain that this sensuous world is worth nothing and that
there must be a better world, they are inherently Platonism and, thus, nihilism
in the true sense of the term. For Nietzsche art whose true element is the
52

sensuous, not the supersensuous world, is the only superior counterforce

against every will that negates life; art is inherently anti-Christian, anti-Buddh-
ist, and anti-nihilist.24 This is the reason why Nietzsche can conclude that art is
the distinctive counter-movement to nihilism.
From this conception of the artist and art it follows at once that all activities
and particularly the highest ones must be determined by the artistic activity.
This is true also for man's philosophizing. Philosophy can no longer be defined
as that which teaches a morality that posits a higher world in opposition to this,
presumably worthless, sensuous one. Against the nihilistic philosopher we
must pose the artist philosopher. Such a philosopher is an artist insofar as he
gives form to the beings as a whole and insofar as he begins where they reveal
themselves, namely with man.
Speaking about art in the narrow sense, Nietzsche usually considers it as that
which says "yes" to the sensuous world, to semblance, to what is not "the true
world", to what is not "the truth". But this implies that in art a decision is made
about truth; and this for Nietzsche always means about true beings. Now in
view of the fact that for Nietzsche "the truth" always refers to the "true world"
in the sense of Plato and Christianity, and in view of the fact that art is the
distinctive countermovement to every form of nihilism (which is Platonism in
whatever form one may find it), it becomes finally understandable why and in
what sense Nietzsche can claim that art is worth more than "the truth". Art is
the privileged configuration of the will-to-power and as such it is the greatest
stimulant of life.23

§ 12. Nietzsche on the Essence of Art

Thus far we have seen that for Nietzsche art is the privileged configuration of
the will-to-power. Art, therefore, is that from which we must try to understand
what Nietzsche means by will-to-power taken in its essence, and what he
understands by the beings as such and taken as a whole. We must thus try to
penetrate more deeply into Nietzsche's conception of art. But in so doing we
shall soon run into the seeming contradiction which we have encountered
already. On the one hand, Nietzsche calls art the countermovement to nihilism
and the establishment of the new, supreme values which will set the standard
and ground the laws for a historical mode of Being for man which can be full of
"esprit"; yet on the other hand, Nietzsche claims that art can be properly
understood only by means of physiology.26
Both these two claims seem to indicate that Nietzsche's position in regard to
art is nonsensical and, thus, also nihilistic in the full sense of the term. For if art
is just a matter of physiology, art, taken in its essence, dissolves into mere
processes of the nerve cells. But taken as such, it obviously cannot be that which
grounds and determines the new and decisive valuation. According to Heideg-
ger, it will not be easy to resolve the seeming contradiction and to show that
Nietzsche's claims mean something "altogether different" than they seem to
 53

mean at first sight. This is due to the fact that there is indeed "a perpetual
discordance prevailing in what he achieves, an instability, an oscillation be-
tween these opposite poles", — a state of affairs which is even aggravated by
the fact that Nietzsche never completed his project, left us with some fragmen-
tary observations, and even never formulated a provisional outline of his
aesthetics as a whole. To be sure, in The Will to Power, there is a brief sketch
which contains a list of seventeen "theses" about what was to develop into a
physiology of art; but this sketch is just a list, and its items are listed in such a
way that they do not seem to be ordered according to some definite principle or
guideline. It just contains a multiplicity of different points of inquiry, without
any blueprint, outline, or structure. It is true also that on two occasions we find
in his work sets of short essays and observations that clarify the seventeen
points mentioned. But these short essays and observations, too, just present
possible points of inquiry, and they do not give us a clear indication of the
context in which they were to find their place. Yet in Heidegger's opinion, it is
possible to come to a better understanding of Nietzsche's position, provided
one succeeds in bringing coherence to these materials with the help of two
important clues: 1) all Nietzsche's claims must fit within his conception of the
will-to-power taken as a whole; 2) in making the claims we find in his works
Nietzsche was engaged in a dialogue with the major doctrines of classical
aesthetics with which he was fully familiar.27 Thus in order to come to some
understanding of Nietzsche's effort to develop a "physiology" of art sys-
tematically, which legitimately can claim to be a genuine countermovement to
nihilism, Heidegger first focuses on what Nietzsche calls the phenomenon of
artistic rapture (Rausch). In an effort to explain how rapture and art are to be
related, Heidegger then briefly speaks about Kant's conception of the beautiful
and about the misinterpretation of this conception by Schopenhauer and
Nietzsche. Rapture can then finally be defined as the force that brings forth the
form, but also as the fundamental condition for the enhancement of life. It
should be noted here that Nietzsche defines the essence of the will-to-power in
terms of enhancement and heightening. Finally, Heidegger then tries to show
how for Nietzsche form constitutes the actuality of art in the "grand style"; in
these reflections it becomes clear how the apparent contradiction between
physiological investigations and the celebration of art as the countermovement
to nihilism can be resolved. It appears here that Nietzsche's physiology is
neither biologism nor positivism, and that Nietzsche carried the concept of
aesthetics to its extreme, so that his aesthetics is no longer an aesthetics in the
classical sense. Heidegger concludes these reflections with an attempt to an-
swer the question of whether Nietzsche's five basic statements or theses on art
can indeed, be defended. In Heidegger's opinion it may be possible to give a
justification for Nietzsche's first two theses. The last theses cannot be accepted
because they imply conceptions of Being and truth that show that Nietzsche
really did not succeed in his effort to overcome classical metaphysics. These
reflections finally lead Heidegger to examine the question of precisely why
Nietzsche found himself in the state of "holy dread" before the raging discord
54

between truth and art.28

In the pages to come I shall not follow Heidegger in every step he takes, but
limit myself only to a few brief remarks which appear to be essential to
understand Heidegger's position in regard to Nietzsche's aesthetics, and to
come to a better understanding of Heidegger's own conception of art and art
works.

a) On Rapture (Rausch)

As far as Nietzsche's conception of rapture is concerned, Heidegger points out

first that Nietzsche's inquiry into art remains within the aesthetic tradition.
Thus it is understandable that in trying to comprehend the aesthetic state of the
artist Nietzsche turns to that state of feeling in man that corresponds to the
production and the enjoyment of the beautiful. Furthermore, when Nietzsche
tries to understand this aesthetic state by means of physiology, he means indeed
to stress that this state is a bodily state. But he obviously does not mean to
exclude the "psychical" or even the "spiritual", and it is certainly not his
intention to reduce the aesthetic or artistic state to chemical or biological
processes in the nerve cells. Here. too. Nietzsche still tries to take distance from
what he calls Platonism. and in which he thought to find the essence of man in
his being a soul. The aesthetic state does not consist in having theoretical
thoughts or ideas, but in finding oneself in a state or disposition which involves
the entire human reality, so that it correctly can be called a "bodily state".
With respect to the state of rapture Heidegger then tries to answer two basic
questions: 1) In what does the essence of rapture really consist? And 2) in what
sense is rapture indispensable if there is to be art?3* As for the first question,
Nietzsche claims that what is essential to rapture is "the feeling of enhancement
of force and plenitude".1" Heidegger explains this claim by observing that
feeling means the way in which we find ourselves to be with ourselves, with
others, and with all the other beings. Furthermore, such a feeling is inherently
bodily. It is not correct to think that "there is a bodily state housed in the
basement with feelings dwelling upstairs". "Feeling, as feeling oneself to be, is
precisely the way we are bodily". To be bodily does not imply that there is a soul
that also carries with it a hulk which one calls the body. In feeling oneself to be,
the body is already implied inherently in the self in such a way that the body in
and through its states permeates the entire self. Our body does not accompany
the soul, nor do we really have a body; we are bodily. Feeling, in the sense of
feeling oneself to be, belongs to the essence of a being that is bodily. And
because feelings, as feeling oneself to be, implies a feeling for the beings taken
as a whole, every bodily state implies some way in which things surrounding us
and our fellow men do or do not lay claims on us. As "rational" and "free"
beings we have some control over these feelings; one can try to suppress a bad
mood, but we cannot directly awaken a countermood. A mood is something in
which one "finds oneself to be". From what Heidegger says about moods and
feelings it is clear that what is stated here about Nietzsche's conception of
 55

rapture, in his view, is to be understood ontologically from the perspective of

what was said in Being and Time about "Befindlichkeit", primordial mood, and
not from the perspective of biology or even psychology, taken as natural
sciences.31
Heidegger then explains that rapture is a very special feeling or mood. He
mentions three characteristics stressed by Nietzsche: rapture is the feeling of
enhancement of force; rapture is the feeling of plenitude; and rapture implies
the reciprocal penetration of all forms of enhancement of every ability on the
part of man to do, see, apprehend, address, communicate, and achieve release.
In other words, rapture implies the capacity to extend beyond oneself to all
beings m a relation in which these beings are experienced as being more fully in
being than would have been the case without this feeling. And the feeling of
plenitude is above all some form of attunement which is so disposed that
nothing is foreign to it.32
Heidegger feels that we are not yet in a position to answer the second
question raised earlier: In what sense is rapture indispensable if there is to be
art? For such an answer presupposes that the following questions are to be
answered first: What and how is art? Is art primarily in the production by the
artist, or in the enjoyment of the beholder, or in the work-Being of the work
itself, or perhaps in all three together? Precisely how and where is art? Is there
something at all that one could legitimately call art itself, or is the word "art"
merely a collective noun to which nothing corresponds? But as long as these
questions remain unanswered, everything that we have said about rapture
remains obscure and ambiguous. As far as rapture is concerned, we are thus left
with a host of questions for which we still do not yet have proper answers.33
We have seen that in his reflections on the artist and on art Nietzsche remains
within the general framework of classical aesthetics. There it was generally
accepted that just as the true determines our behavior in knowledge, and just as
the good determines our ethical behavior, so the beautiful determines the
aesthetic state. We must therefore now raise the question of what Nietzsche
says about the beautiful. According to Heidegger, in his conception of the
beautiful, Nietzsche was deeply influenced by his criticism of Schopenhauer
without realizing that Schopenhauer's own position is thwarted by the fact that
it originated in a misconception of the position of Kant. Schopenhauer in his
reflections on aesthetics tried to refute the aesthetics of Schelling and Hegel,
and to show the greatness of Kant's conception of aesthetics. But in view of the
fact that he thoroughly misunderstood Kant's position in regard to what is
beautiful, Schopenhauer's own aesthetics is a complete failure. However, the
issue need not occupy us here further, in view of the fact that what Nietzsche
himself tried to say about the beautiful is not at all, as he thought under the
influence of Schopenhauer, different from what Kant had already argued. If
Nietzsche had studied Kant's third Critique, instead of just relying on
Schopenhauer's criticism of this view, "he would have had to recognize that
Kant alone grasped the essence of what Nietzsche in his own way wanted to
comprehend concerning the decisive aspects of the beautiful".34 Let us there-
56

fore return to how Nietzsche himself tries to determine what is beautiful.

Nietzsche defines the beautiful as that which pleases. What pleases a human
being is what corresponds to him and speaks to him. But this is somehow
codetermined by, and depends on, who this human being is to whom that which
pleases speaks and corresponds. Who this human being is, is determined by
what he demands of himself. Thus we can call beautiful whatever is in corre-
spondence with what we demand of ourselves, and this demanding, in turn, is
measured by what we take ourselves to be, what in truth we are able to do, and
what we dare as our extreme challenge.35 The beautiful for Nietzsche is thus
what determines us, our behavior, our capabilities, to the degree that we can
ascend beyond ourselves. "Such ascent beyond ourselves, to the full of our
essential capability, occurs according to Nietzsche in rapture."36 Thus the
beautiful is disclosed in rapture, and the beautiful itself is that which transports
us into the feeling of rapture, which is not mere turbulence and ebullition, but
rather an attunement in the sense of the supreme and most measured deter-
minateness."

b) Rapture and the Form-Creating Force

Heidegger now proceeds to show how for Nietzsche rapture is a form-creating

force. Once the aesthetic state is clarified by means of an explanation of what is
beautiful, we can determine more carefully the domain over which this state
ranges. This can be done by means of a careful study of the modes of behavior
that are operative in the production by the artist and the reception by those who
preserve works of art.
For Nietzsche artistic production consists in the rapturous bringing-forth of
what is beautiful in the work. The work of art is realized only in and through the
artist's creation. But this implies that the mode of Being characteristic of artistic
creation is dependent upon the mode of Being characteristic of the work of art.
And this means that the creative process can be understood only from the Being
of the work. Even though the artistic creation creates the work, it is nonetheless
the case that the mode of Being of the work constitutes the origin of the mode of
Being of the creative process. If we ask what Nietzsche has to say about the
mode of Being characteristic of the work, we find no answer. Nietzsche never
explicitly inquired into the work-Being of the work as such. That is the reason
that we find virtually nothing here about the essence of creation either. There
are a few brief statements in which Nietzsche speaks about the artistic creation
in biological terms. According to Heidegger these statements show us only one
side of the creative process. The other dimension comes to the fore only when
we recall what was said about rapture and beauty. There we saw that rapture is
a going beyond oneself. "By such ascent we come face to face with that which
corresponds to what we take ourselves to be", and in this way we are led to the
insight that creation implies decision, standard, and order. Creation is a process
that to some degree brings about an idealization. Idealization does not mean
here abstraction, but rather a focussing on what is essential; it consists in a
 57

"sweeping emphasis upon the main features". In that sense creation is a seeing
more simply and more strongly.38
As for the aesthetic state of the observer, we must say that Nietzsche tries to
understand it from the perspective of the artist. The function of the art work is
to re-awaken and evoke the aesthetic state of the artist in the observer:"... the
effect of art works is arousal of the art-creating state, rapture".38 Thus the
observation of art works is merely a derivative form of the artistic creation. To
enjoy a work of art is to take part in the creative state of the artist.40
In Heidegger's opinion, Nietzsche's philosophy of art is defective in several
respects here. Nietzsche does not unfold the mode of Being that is characteristic
of the work of art. This is the reason why he fails to elucidate fully the mode of
Being of the artistic creation. Nietzsche is also unable to distinguish artistic
production from the bringing-forth of utensils through handicraft. Finally,
artistic observation remains undefined. Yet all of this can be shown to be so
only in an approach that begins from the art work. But Nietzsche virtually says
nothing about the art work itself. Yet, Heidegger continues, this does not mean
that there are not some very important insights present in Nietzsche's reflec-
tions. These will come to the fore when we turn once more to the state of
rapture and in so doing focus mainly on what the mood of rapture defines in our
attunement. Nietzsche tries to describe this by making use of the concept of
"form", that was used universally in classical aesthetics.
A fundamental characteristic of the artist in Nietzsche's view is that he
"ascribes to no thing a value unless it knows how to become form".41 Nietzsche
explains that by "becoming form" he means that the thing surrenders and
abandons itself, while making itself manifestly public. In Heidegger's view,
Nietzsche's definition of form, which at first sight is very strange, nonetheless
remains in harmony with the original conception of form as it developed in
ancient Greece. Without going into details Heidegger briefly indicates that
morphe {forma, form) is the "enclosing limit and boundary", that brings a
being into that which it is, so that it now can stand in and by itself. Whatever
stands in this way is what each being shows itself to be; it is its outward
appearance (eidos) through which and in which it emerges, places itself there as
publicly present for everyone, and begins to radiate and to shine. The artist
does not relate to form as to something that still has to express something else.
Rather the comportment of the artist to form is nothing but love of form for its
own sake, i.e., for what it is as such.
Form is that which allows what we encounter to radiate and shine. As such
form brings the mode of behavior which it determines, into a direct relation
with the beings. Form displays this relation itself as the festive state in which the
beings themselves in their essence are celebrated and, thus, for the first time are
placed in the open. Form delineates for the first time the domain in which the
state of the growing force and the plenitude of the beings come to fulfillment. In
other words, form founds the domain in which rapture as such becomes
possible. Wherever form holds sway effectively, there is rapture.42
From this description it should be clear that Nietzsche never opposes form to
58

content. For him what is called form here, is the only true content of a work.43
Here it is obvious again that Heidegger makes an explicit effort to show that for
Nietzsche the essence of art can most certainly not be sought in a theory that
must appeal to some idea concerning a surplus of meaning which the work
never makes present but merely refers to. In other words, both the symbolic
and the metaphorical or allegoric interpretations are rejected. As we shall see
later this is essential also to understand Heidegger's conception of the art
work.44
Heidegger now briefly summarizes what we have thus far discovered. We
have taken rapture, the basic aesthetic state, as our point of departure; we then
turned to beauty; from beauty we went back to artistic creation and reception;
from those we finally advanced to the concept of form and to the pleasure that is
derived from order as a fundamental condition of embodying life. But with this
we have returned to where we started: for life is enhancement of life, and
ascending life is rapture. One could say that the entire domain in which rapture
and beauty, creation and form, form and life are related to one another,
remains totally undefined in this way. According to Heidegger this is indeed
true as long as one conceives of art in terms of its being no more than a collective
noun. But for Nietzsche art is much more than that: it is a configuration of the
will-to-power. The indeterminateness of the domain just mentioned can be
removed by considering will-to-power, provided we carefully try to avoid the
pitfalls implicit in any effort to speak about art and art works in terms of the
subject-object-opposition. Rapture is nothing subjective and beauty is nothing
objective. For Nietzsche beauty and rapture are reciprocally related: rapture is
the basic mood and beauty does the attuning. There is no rapture without
beauty and there is no beauty in itself. Heidegger admits that Nietzsche himself
was never able to formulate all of this very clearly and distinctly; in his view
even Kant remained trapped within the limits of the modern conception of the
subject. Be this as it may, both "basic words of Nietzsche's aesthetics, rapture
and beauty, designate with an identical breadth the entire aesthetic state, what
is opened up in it and what pervades it".45

c) Art in the Grand Style

Heidegger finally turns to another important issue before he brings this inves-
tigation to a conclusion by means of a critical reflection on the five statements
about art with which he began his investigation of Nietzsche's aesthetics. In the
section, entitled "The Grand Style" (der grosse Stil), Heidegger states that
wherever Nietzsche speaks about that in which art comes to its own essence, he
has in mind that entire domain in which art is actually at work. He calls this "the
grand style". But here, too, we immediately encounter great difficulties. For
one thing, Nietzsche really never explains what he means by "style". Every-
thing that is named in the word "style" belongs to what is most obscure in
Nietzsche's reflections. And yet what he says about the grand style throws an
unexpected light on all we have said thus far about Nietzsche's aesthetics.
 59

Nietzsche once wrote that "the 'masses' have never had a sense for three
good things in art, for elegance, logic, and beauty...; to say nothing of an even
better thing, the grand style. Farthest removed from the grand style is Wagner
. . . " According to Heidegger by the "masses" Nietzsche here means the
so-called educated people, those who created and sustained the Wagner cult.
With respect to the question of what the grand style precisely is, Nietzsche
himself says that it consists in contempt for the small and ephemeral beauty; it
consists in a sense for what is rare and lasts long.'16 In The Will to Power he
claims that one finds in the grand style a triumph over the plenitude of living
things; measure becomes master there; we find there that peculiar tranquility
which only lies at the base of a strong soul, a soul that is slow to be moved and
resists what is too lively. In the grand style the rule is emphasized, the exception
is thrust aside, and every nuance is obliterated.47
What Nietzsche calls the grand style has much in common with what we
usually call the classical style.48 The grand style is the highest feeling of power.
From this it is clear that when Nietzsche says that art is a configuration of the
will-to-power, art is always meant in its highest and essential stature. Further-
more, if art is taken in the grand style it is capable of harboring incompatible
elements. Thus a proper understanding of art in the grand style will help us
resolve the seeming contradiction which we have encountered earlier, namely
that for Nietzsche art is the object of a "physiological" aesthetics, and that art is
a countermovement to nihilism. If we come to a proper understanding of art in
the grand style we shall learn to see that these seemingly contradictory aspects
of art include rather than exclude one another. Yet Heidegger does explicitly
admit that Nietzsche often got entangled in conceptions and views which he
really was trying to overcome, and that he often used a language which suggests
that in his thought he was fatally diverted into purely physiological and natu-
ralistic assertions about art. But all of this, Heidegger continues, does not
change the fact that Nietzsche was on the way to overcoming the aesthetics of
his time and that he was fully aware of the enormous difficulty of such a task.49
What Nietzsche calls grand style has many things in common with what we
call the classical style, but it is not to be confused with what we generally call
classicism. In contrast to classicism, the classical style implies the view that
nothing can be immediately divined from a particular past period of art. As a
matter of fact it makes no sense to try to return to what has been. The
"classical" is rather a basic structure of Dasein, which itself first creates the
conditions for such periods. But the fundamental condition is an equally
original freedom in regard to the extreme opposites, namely chaos and law.
What is typical for the classical is "not the mere subjection of chaos to a form,
but that mastery which enables the primal wilderness of chaos and the primor-
diality of the law to advance under the same yoke, invariably bound to one
another with equal necessity".50
It is obvious that such a conception of the classical sets Nietzsche's con-
ception of art immediately in opposition to that proposed by Wagner. But
insofar as Nietzsche believes that art is will-to-power, his conception of art is
60

also altogether different from that of Schopenhauer. For Nietzsche the artistic
states are nothing else than will-to-power. Art is the great stimulant of life. And
the word "stimulant" here means that which leads one into the sphere of
command of the grand style. Art is not as Schopenhauer thought a sedative of
life. The reversal of Schopenhauer's statement about art does not just consist in
the fact that a sedative has been changed into a stimulant. The reversal rather
constitutes a complete transformation of the essential definition of art. This
kind of thinking about art is philosophical thought which sets the standards
through which historical confrontation comes to be, and which prefigures what
is to come.31 What Nietzsche says here makes us wonder whether his thinking
about art still fits within the framework of classical aesthetics.
Furthermore, where Wagner demands a complete dissolution of style; and
the abolishment of rules and standards, and above all the elimination of all
efforts to ground such laws, there Nietzsche demands rules, standards, and
foundation. According to Nietzsche, art "is not only subject to rules, must not
only obey laws, but is in itself legislation. Only as legislation is it truly art". Art
that dissolves style in sheer ebullition of feelings misses the mark altogether.32
Yet even Nietzsche never fully overcame aesthetics. Such overcoming re-
quires a still more basic change of our Dasein and of our thinking; Nietzsche's
own reflections prepare for such a change only indirectly. At first sight,
Nietzsche's thinking about art is aesthetical; yet according to its innermost will
it is metaphysics insofar as it tries to define the true Being of beings. The
historical fact that every form of aesthetics, including that of Kant, explodes
itself shows clearly that even though aesthetics did not come about by accident,
aesthetic inquiry is nevertheless not essential.
We have seen that for Nietzsche art is the essential way in which the beings
are created (geschaffen) to be beings. What matters in art first and foremost are
its creative, legislative, and form-grounding aspects. Thus in each given histor-
ical instance we can aim at the essential definition of art by asking what the
creative aspect of art was at that time. The issue here is not about the psycholog-
ical motivations which may have propelled the artistic creativity at any given
time, but rather the question concerning the creative aspect is meant to decide
where, when, and in what way the basic conditions of art in the grand style
indeed were present. Nor is Nietzsche concerned here with art history in the
common sense of the term; one could say that Nietzsche here is concerned with
the "history" of art taken in an essential sense in which the question is raised
about the formation of the future history of Dasein.53
The question about what has become creative in art, leads immediately to
many other questions: What is in each case the stimulant that properly stimu-
lates? What possibilities are present in each case? How is the configuration of
art determined on the basis of such possibilities? How is art the awakening of
the beings as such and to what extent is it will-to-power? Nietzsche thinks about
these questions where he tries to make a distinction between classical and
romantic art.34
Here Heidegger decides to limit himself to the question of how Nietzsche, by
 61

means of an original determination of the distinction between classical and

romantic art, defines more precisely the essence of art in the grand style. This
also helps him to clarify Nietzsche's statement that art is the stimulant of life.
According to Nietzsche a romantic is an artist whose great dissatisfaction with
himself makes him creative; he is more concerned with what has been than with
what is.55 The source of the romantic's creativity is discontent and desire for
something novel. A classical artist, on the other hand, is one who creates out of
plenitude not out of a lack, full possession not a search, a dispensing not a
craving, superabundance not hunger. It is not very helpful to define the
difference between classical and romantic art by means of the distinctions
between the active and the passive, because one should then also say that the
classical artist is concerned with Being and the romantic artist, who wants
change, with becoming. Yet it is quite clear that the longing after Being, the will
to eternalize, may flow also from the possession of plenitude and from thankful-
ness for what is, just as the perduring and binding may also be erected as law
and compulsion by the tyranny of a willing that wants to get rid of its inmost
suffering. According to Nietzsche one finds the latter in Wagner's romantic
pessimism.
* It seems therefore as if for Nietzsche classical art and art in the grand style
coincide with one another. It may very well be that Nietzsche never fully
succeeded in clearly distinguishing these two "styles". That is the reason why
our interpretation, Heidegger feels, must try to say what remained unsaid by
Nietzsche. This is permissable in view of the fact that a great thinker is always a
step ahead in his thinking over and above what he is able to say. In Heidegger's
view, what Nietzsche meant to express is that the grand style always prevails
wherever abundance restrains itself in simplicity.36 One could say that this is
true also for the classical style; and that is correct. And even if one were to say
that the greatness of the grand style consists in that superiority which compels
everything strong to be teamed with its strongest antithesis under one yoke,
that, too, would also apply to the classical style, as Nietzsche explicitly says.17
Yet a style which keeps its own antithesis merely beneath or outside it, as
something that is to be overcome or negated, cannot be great in the grand style,
because it lets itself be guided by what it rejects. Thusit remains reactive. In the
grand style, on the other hand, the nascent law grows out of an original action
which is itself the yoke just mentioned. "The grand style is the active will to
Being, which takes up becoming into itself. Art in the grand style does not just
hold its antithesis down and suppress it, but rather it assimilates its sharpest
antithesis; in that case the antithesis does not disappear, but rather comes to its
essential unfolding. What Nietzsche says about the classical style is meant to
clarify what he is trying to say about art in the grand style.
But we must still ask the question of how Nietzsche tries to define what is
creative in art. Nietzsche tries to do this by showing how Being and becoming
truly belong together and how the active and the reactive cannot be without
each other. One sees this in the Greek definition of dunamis and energeia on the
one hand and kinisis or metaboU on the other. Now if the essence of the grand
62

style is indeed determined by these basic and final metaphysical connections,

then we must encounter them wherever Nietzsche makes an effort to compre-
hend the Being of the beings.
We have seen already many times that Nietzsche interprets the Being of the
beings in terms of will-to-power. Art is for him the supreme configuration of the
will-to-power. For him the proper essence of art is exemplified in the grand
style. Now if the grand style is to be a unity such that in it the active and the
reactive, as well as Being and becoming grow together, and if all art is the
supreme configuration of the will-to-power, then the unity referred to must be
carried out in the will-to-power. But for Nietzsche will-to-power is an eternal
recurrence in which Being and becoming, action and reaction grow together in
an original unity. In this way we have reached a view on the metaphysical
horizon upon which one is to project and think what Nietzsche means by the
grand style and by art in general.58
The grand style is the highest feeling of power. Where romantic art springs
from deficiency and dissatisfaction and thus is wanting to be away from oneself,
art in the grand style is a wanting to be oneself, provided this is properly
understood. This wanting to be oneself implies transcendence. Such a will is
will-to-power, but power is not compulsion or violence. Will-to-power is prop-
erly there where power no longer needs whatever is characteristic of battle and
strife. When we are able to understand what Nietzsche tries to think with regard
to the grand style, we have reached the peak of Nietzsche's aesthetics. But then
we shall also see that his philosophy of art has really gone beyond classical
aesthetics.59

d) On Truth and Art

Heidegger finally returns to the five basic statements on art with which he began
his investigations about Nietzsche's conception of art. He explains that even
though the first two statements perhaps could be justified, the last three cannot
be given a proper ground. This is due to the fact that the fifth statement
according to which art is worth more than truth cannot be grounded. But if the
fifth statement is without sufficient ground, then the third and the fourth are
equally groundless. For then it is difficult to see how one could possibly claim
that art is the basic occurrence within the beings as such and taken as a whole
and that art and art only is the counter-movement to nihilism.40
But be this as it may, it is nonetheless still of the greatest importance that in
his reflections on art Nietzsche is led to the point where he has to establish a
relationship between art and truth. But in Nietzsche's view, the issue must be
raised of precisely what it is, in the essence of art, that calls forth the question
concerning truth? In 1888 Nietzsche wrote the following statement: "Very early
in my life I took the question of the relation of art to truth seriously; and even
now I stand in holy dread in the face of this discordance".41 But how can
Nietzsche claim that the relation between art and truth is one of discord, and
why is it that discord arouses dread? To answer these questions we must try to
 63

comprehend what Nietische understands by truth.62

The word "truth" is a basic word of thought, as is Being, history, freedom,
beauty, and art. Such basic words are in need of a careful explanation because
the essence of what is named in these words is concealed. Furthermore, one
must always carefully pay attention to the manner in which such basic words
vary in meaning.
The basic, philosophical word "truth" is used in several meanings. We say
that the assertion "Newton is the author of the Principia", is true. But we also
say that the assertion 2 x 2 = 4 is true. Thus there are many truths of many
kinds. Yet, on the other hand, one can also say the following: just as we call the
essence of the just "justice", and the essence of what is beautiful "beauty", so
we must call the essence of the true "truth". But truth taken in the sense of the
essence of what is true, is solely one and unique; it makes no sense then to speak
about many truths.
According to a common conception of essence, which is neither the sole nor
the original conception, one can say that the essence of a thing is that which may
be attributed to anything that satisfies the essence of that thing. If one restricts
himself to this conception of essence, one can say that what is true is a truth.
Thus truth means the one essence and also the many which satisfy the essence.
When we refer to something true, we always understand the essence of truth
along with it. This explains why the name for the essence of a thing can glide
unobtrusively into our naming such things that take part in such an essence.
Such a way of doing is even aided by the fact that for the most part we let
ourselves be determined by the beings, not by their mode of Being.
Now the manner in which in philosophy one examines such basic words as
truth, Being, and beauty, can lead along two different paths: the path of the
essence and the path of that which takes part in it; the latter path leads away
from the essence and yet is related to it. According to the classical conception of
Western grammar and logic, the essence, that which makes a thing be what it is,
because it is valid for many things, is what is universally valid. The truth as the
essence of what is true, is the universal. This is correct; yet one should note that
the fact that in certain realms (not in all) the essence of something holds for
many particular things, is a consequence of the essence, but it does not charac-
terize its essentiality as such.
The equating of the essence with the character of the universal would not
have been so fatal; had it not for centuries barred the way to a decisive question,
namely the question concerning the Being of the truth. It is said first that the
true is in each case something various, but that the essence, as the universal
which is valid for many, is one. The expression "universally valid" is said later
to mean that which is always and everywhere valid in itself, immutable, eternal,
beyond time and history. Thus one proceeds from "being valid for many cases"
to the immutability of the essence itself, in this case the essence of truth. The
proposition may be correct logically; metaphysically it is not true. Essences are
subject to change, even though that which changes over time is still a "one"
which holds for "many", for the transformation need not disturb that relation-
64

ship. What is preserved in the metamorphosis is what is unchangeable in the

essence. "The essentiality of essence, its inexhaustibility, is thereby affirmed,
and also its genuine selfhood and selfsameness." But the latter must be care-
fully distinguished from the selfsameness of the universal.
These few remarks must suffice here for our attempt to clarify Nietzsche's
conception concerning the relationship between truth and art. Nietzsche never
arrived at the proper question of the truth taken in the sense of the question
about the essence of what is true. He presupposed that the essence of what is
true is evident. "For Nietzsche truth is not the essence of the true, but the true
itself, which satisfied the essence of truth". Nietzsche never poses the question
of truth in the proper way, i.e., the question concerning the essence of truth and
the truth of essence; he also never asked the question about the possibility of
truth's essential transformation. Nietzsche does not even stake out the domain
of this question. The fact that the question of the essence of the truth is missing
in Nietzsche's philosophy, is an oversight, but an oversight that cannot be
compared with any other; it pervades the entire history of Western philosophy
since the time of Plato.63
Many philosophers have concerned themselves with the concept of truth; and
many philosophers, such as Descartes, Kant, and Hegel have even said very
important things about truth. Yet it is and remains true that none of them, and
Nietzsche is no exception, has touched on the essence of the truth itself, on the
manner in which truth comes-to-presence and abides.
Obviously much more can and should be said about Nietzsche's conception
of the relationship between art and truth. Precisely why does he think that art is
worth more than the truth? Why does he experience the relationship between
art and truth as one of discordance? These questions would lead us to questions
about the relationship between truth and knowledge,64 about the manner in
which Nietzsche in this regard tried to overcome Platonism, according to which
all knowledge has to measure itself against the supersensuous.65 In the final
analysis these questions would lead us to the point where Nietzsche's thought is
to be retrieved. But this path would lead to the basic issues which Heidegger
discusses in his own lectures on the origin of the work of art as we shall see
later.66

§ 13. Neo-Kantianism and the Hermeneutic Tradition

In the neo-Kantian philosophy art received the privileged position over judg-
ment of taste and, thus, the concept of genius began to occupy the central
position in reflections on art. Although Hegel had strongly objected to this
move by claiming that art is not the art of genius, and that each work is to be
understood as a manifestation of the truth, the neo-Kantians maintained the
concept of genius and with it the idea of the creative. Their concern to give
aesthetics an autonomous base freed from the criterion of the concept, and,
thus, their decision not to raise the question of truth jn art, but to base the
 65

aesthetic judgment on the subjective a priori of our feeling of life,, led them to
the idea of giving the concept of Erlebnis the central part in reflections on art
works.67
The term "Erlebnis" was used to refer to the immediate experience of
something which is thought to be of lasting importance and is in need of
interpretation and communication.68 Dilthey in particular has contributed
much to giving this expression its precise meaning. Yet for Dilthey the concept
of Erlebnis is still an epistemological notion: the primary function of an Erlebnis
is to "give" meaning in a primordial way. As such it is also the ultimate to which
one can go back. If something is presented in an Erlebnis, its meaning is
presented as one significant whole; such an experience has a lasting meaning for
the one who has it. The meaning which has been presented in this way can never
be fully exhausted by what can be conceptually grasped as its content and by
what one can thus say about it.69
It is thus understandable that in this conception there is a close affinity
between the structure of the Erlebnis and the mode of being of the aesthetic
experience, and why the concept of Erlebnis becomes a determining feature in
the foundations of art. "The work of art is understood as the perfecting of the
symbolic representation of life, towards which every experience tends."70 The
aesthetic experience presents us with a work that is a world in and for itself, so
that what aesthetically is experienced in an Erlebnis, is removed from all
connections with the actual. The work of art takes the person experiencing it
out of the context of life and yet somehow relates him back to the whole of his
existence.71
In this theory it is thus assumed that the art work itself is an expression of an
Erlebnis and that it is intended to lead to an aesthetic Erlebnis in the beholder:
the art work is due to an Erlebnis of inspiration of the artist's genius who creates
the work which then leads to an Erlebnis for those who are exposed to it. But if
these assumptions are questionable and together with them the idea that art is
some form of language, it is no longer adequate to define the art work in terms
of the symbol-making activity of the human mind. One must then even ask the
question of whether the concept of aesthetic consciousness itself is not doubtful
and whether the aesthetic attitude in regard to the work is indeed the appropri-
ate one. If the idea of aesthetic Erlebnis were to be essential, what then is one to
say about those ages in the history of the Western world in which people
surrounded themselves with human creations whose religious or secular mean-
ing was immediately understood, without any concept of "art", and without
any "aesthetic consciousness" in the modern sense of these terms being in-
volved?72
Those who subscribe to the concept of aesthetic consciousness oppose art as
appearance to reality, as Kant had done. In this theory art becomes a stand-
point of its own and establishes its own autonomous claim to supremacy; where
art rules reality has been transcended. It is this "kingdom" which is to be
defended against all limitations, even against the moralistic guardianship of the
state and society. The modern phenomenological movement has shown the
66

error in every attempt to conceive of the mode of aesthetic being in terms of our
experiences of reality or a modification thereof. The theory of aesthetic con-
sciousness implies that with respect to art one must speak of imitation, ap-
pearance, irreality, illusion, fiction, etc.; these expressions suggest that the
aesthetic is to be related to something which it itself is not and never will be; this
is the true reality. The phenomenological conception of the aesthetic experi-
ences shows that one cannot think here in terms of such a relationship and that
one must see actual truth in the experience which one has with a work of art.
Once aesthetic consciousness had become independent, it no longer permit-
ted any criterion outside itself. This implies that the connection between the
work of art and the world in which it originates is to be dissolved: the aesthetic
consciousness itself is the experiential center from which everything considered
to be art is to be measured. By disregarding everything in which the art work is
rooted, i.e., the world in which it originated and the religious and cultural
function which gave it its original significance, the work itself becomes visible as
a pure work of art. Thus it is the process of abstraction, which Gadamer calls
"aesthetic differentiation", which shows us what a pure work of art really is and
allows it to exist in its ownright.Once the work has lost its place in the world to
which it belongs, through the aesthetic differentiation which is the work of
aesthetic consciousness, the artist, too, loses his place in the world; commis-
sioned art is to be discredited, because a true artist must create out of free
inspiration. At the same time the artist begins to bear the burden of having a
"vocation": he becomes the secular savior in a culture that has fallen away from
its religious and moral tradition. In this manner this conception is a witness to
the disintegration which in our modern world gradually began to take place.73
The concepts of aesthetic consciousness, aesthetic differentiation, and the
aesthetic itself are not without serious difficulties. It can easily be shown that an
abstractive process that would leave behind nothing but the purely aesthetic,
given in the immediacy of an Erlebnis, leads to serious difficulties in that it
implies the negation of the intrinsic historicity of man. If it is to do justice to art,
aesthetics must go beyond the purity and immediacy of the aesthetic. Kant tried
to achieve this by the transcendental function of the concept of genius. But if
one rejects Kant's solution as a false form of romanticism, and thus no longer
can say with Kant that a work of art by definition is a work of genius, how then is
one to define the work of art? It makes no sense to transfer the function of
genius to the observer: art is what one observes as the work of genius. A
consistently developed theory of the aesthetic consciousness leaves us with no
criterion on the basis of which one can distinguish a work of art from all other
things made by man.
One should realize that the aesthetic experience which one has with a work of
art is a form of understanding in which something is understood a s . . . Further-
more, each work of art inherently belongs to a world; the work gives us a
possibility of learning to understand ourselves through this world. Thus it is
necessary to adopt an attitude toward art and works of art that does not just lay
claim to immediacy, but respects the historical reality of the art work and of
 67

man who is a Being-in-the-world. Finally, one should realize that the aesthetic
experience legitimately lays claim to truth, even though this truth is not that of
the sciences or that of perception, or even that of our moral knowledge. We
cannot ask our experience with the work to tell us how it thinks of itself; but we
may ask why it is in truth and what its truth is; we also may ask why it is that the
experience which it induces in the beholder, changes him and how it changes
him.74
The relationship between art work, world, truth, and the typical form of
understanding which every encounter with the work implies, has been ex-
plained in a remarkable way by Heidegger in "The Origin of the Work of Art"
in which he tries to show that art is an inherent element in the effort on the part
of man to come to genuine self-understanding. The claim is made there that the
origin (i.e., that which makes it possible for a thing to rise up as what it is) of
both the art work and the artist is to be found in art. To answer the question of
what art is, Heidegger turns to an examination of that being in which art holds
sway and manifests itself, and this is the work of art. He then shows first that the
classical determinations of what a thing is, are inadequate to determine what
things really are, and that they certainly are inadequate to define what a work of
art is. By using an example he finally shows that art works reveal to us what and
how beings are. Thus in a work of art the truth of beings comes-to-pass.75
The art work is not an object, but something that stands in and by itself. It
also belongs to a world; as standing in and by itself it is also that in and through
which this world is present. Each art work opens its own world; standing in and
by itself the work opens a world. The concept of genius is no longer necessary to
account for the art work. In order to be able to understand the very Being of the
work independently of the subjectivity of both the artist and the beholder,
Heidegger turns to the tension between earth and world. A world opens itself,
the earth shelters and closes; both are present in the art work. Furthermore, the
work does not refer to something else as a sign or a symbol does, but it presents
itself in its own Being and invites the beholder to dwell and while with it. It itself
is present in such a way that it gives the earth (materials, color, sound, words)
the chance to be present as what it really is. As long as the earth is used for
something, it is not present as what it truly is. The earth is thus not primarily
material and source of resources, but that out of which everything comes for
man and into which everything eventually returns. Finally, the Being of the
work is not to be found in the fact that it can become an experience; it is what it
is in and through its own self-presentation. It is an event which overturns and
upsets what is common and ordinary, and in which a world opens itself which
without the work would not have been present. And yet this event (Ereignis) in
which earth and world are in constant tension brings it about that the work can
present something in an abiding manner.76
The truth which the work of art reveals in this way is a finite truth. In
depicting some being or beings, the work reveals the truth of the whole of
beings by opening up the world while reposing it in the earth. Although world
and earth are complementary, in the art work they are nonetheless in continu-
68

ous contention. The earth permeates world, and world is grounded in earth,
only insofar as truth, the primordial discord between clearing and concealment,
comes-to-pass in the work. Thus the truth which comes-to-pass in the work
does not consist in a meaning which lies in the open in an articulated form, but
in a meaning which is fathomless and deep. In its essence it is the strife between
world and earth, between rising and sheltering.
That in the work truth is at work in a finite manner is due to the inventive
effort on the part of the artist who produces the work as such. The artist
stabilizes the basic contention between earth and world by making it manifest
by means of the work's Gestalt. By setting the truth to work in the art work, the
artist makes it possible for the work to bear witness to the fact that it is and
surprises the beholder with the startling revelation of itself as the coming-
to-pass of finite truth. That in the work truth is at work also implies the
conserver who is startled and whiles in the openness that pervades the art work.
In other words, in order for truth to come-to-pass in a work of art, conservation
is as essential as invention. The art work comes genuinely to pass when truth
advancing in a project which comes from one direction is met by another
project advancing from the opposite direction.77
That both the artist and the conserver or beholder can let truth come-to-pass
is ultimately due to the fact that Being addresses itself to them in and through
the world in which they stand. Now in view of the fact that Being as logos is
language, there is thus a profound relationship between art and language. But
Being as language "speaks" in and through the work only to those who come to
meet it in a "poetizing" form of thought. The thinking of Being in which
language first comes to its essence is the original way of poetizing; the thinking
which tries to think all art as poetizing must maintain itself in the domain of the
language of Being and is as such always still on the way to language.78
We must now turn to a more careful and systematic analysis of Heidegger's
lecture on "The Origin of the Work of Art". This will be our task in the second
part of this book.
 PART II

Heidegger's "The Origin of the Work of Art

 Introduction

As I have indicated I would do in the Preface to this book, in the pages to follow I have limited
myself as a rule to giving a free paraphrase of Heidegger's essay on the origin of the work of art.
Wherever it appeared meaningful. I have added clarifying remarks, for which I often have made use
of essays and books by commentators and critics. Furthermore. I have also frequently added ideas
taken from other works by Heidegger himself: these I have given a place where they appeared to
belong. In many instances these remarks are taken from Being and Time and other works of the
same period.
To structure the paraphrase and commentary as clearly as possible I have followed yon Herr-
mann by dividing Heidegger's text into a number of sections and by giving these sections an
appropriate title. In selecting these titles I have often followed von Herrmann's suggestions, also.
One final introductory remark is in order here. I hope that the reader will not give this paraphrase
any other meaning than the one it manifestly is supposed to have. It is meant to be an elucidation of
Heidegger's essay on the origin of the work of art. If my efforts have been successful, they must at a
certain moment make this paraphrase superfluous and lead the reader back to Heidegger's own
reflections. I hope that he or she at that point will have a very rewarding experience with this
remarkable essay.
 CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY REFLECTIONS
THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF THE LECTURES
THEIR SUBJECT MATTER A N D METHOD

ART. I. THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND THE CHARACTER OF

THE LECTURES

§ 14. The Historical Context of the Holzwege Essay on Art

a) From Being and Time to "The Origin of the Work of Art"

According to Gadamer1 the period between the two World Wars was one of
extraordinary spiritual fertility. The economic, social, and political disaster
which, particularly in Germany, followed World War I completely destroyed
the optimism and idealism prevailing in the liberal era that preceded the first
World War. There were very few people in Germany who still believed that the
future holds nothing but progress. During the same period the neo-Kantian
philosophy which had become dominant in Germany during the last quarter of
the 19th Century, suddenly began to appear to many as being no longer
acceptable. Several authors spoke about a complete breakdown of German
Idealism and some even felt that a general decline of Western civilization was
imminent (Paul Ernst, Oswald Spengler). This criticism of neo-Kantianism was
prepared by Nietzsche's attack on Platonism and historical Christianity as well
as by Kierkegaard's criticism of absolute Idealism. The first traces of this
critique, however, were not found in philosophy, but rather in the so-called
dialectical theology.
The main reasons why in philosophy many thinkers turned away from neo-
Kantianism are the following. Gradually it began to become evident that
neither life nor history can be said to be rational in the sense in which Idealism
had defined the term "rational". Inspired by ideas formulated first by
Nietzsche, Dilthey, and Bergson, it was claimed that life and history cannot
possibly be fitted into a "rational" system of the kind neo-Kantianism was
trying to develop. Furthermore, it is incorrect to try to reduce philosophy to
some general methodology, or to defend the view that philosophy is identical
with philosophy of science.2
74

Among the philosophers who began to adopt a critical attitude in regard to

the neo-Kantian philosophy taught in most universities in Germany, Heidegger
occupied a very important and prominent place. Those who openly protested
the leading conceptions of the preceding era were then quite commonly
grouped together under the label: Existenzphilosophie, philosophy of exist-
ence. Although Heidegger was also included among the existentialists, he
himself did not really feel at home in this popular movement, and gradually
made an effort to distance himself from their ideas. Yet in the beginning
Heidegger certainly shared their critical attitude in regard to the educational
ideals of the preceding generation, as well as in regard to the leading conception
of our Western culture as a whole. Like many other philosophers of the new
movement, Heidegger, too, rebelled against the fundamental positions of the
commonly shared tradition, and particularly against all levelling tendencies of
our modern technical society with its new means of communication. In the
opinion of many, our modern industrialized society inevitably leads to inauth-
encity. This explains why in Heidegger's first great work, Being and Time,
claims about the "they", "idle talk", ambiguity, curiosity, and empty gossip
occupy an important place. Heidegger, therefore, posed an authentic Dasein
opposite to the inauthentic mode of Being which our industrial society imposes
on us, a Dasein which is fully aware of its finitude, temporality, and historicity,
and resolutely accepts this radical finitude. This also explains why Heidegger
systematically focused on man's death and concerned himself consistently with
such issues as decision, choice, truth, freedom, and conscience.3
Yet the main goal which Heidegger tried to achieve in Being and Time was to
be sought elsewhere. In Being and Time Heidegger began his philosophical
reflections with a concerted effort to explain that philosophy's main concern is
to be found in the question concerning the meaning of Being. This question
must be dealt with in a general ontology; this ontology is to be prepared by a
fundamental ontology which must take the form of an existential analytic of
man's Being, a mode of Being which itself is to be understood as Being-in-the-
world. It is particularly in this fundamental ontology that the hermeneutic,
phenomenological method is to be employed.4
In Being and Time Heidegger makes it clear already at the very outset that
what is to be understood by hermeneutic phenomenology is not identical with
Husserl's transcendental phenomenology. He explicitly claims the right to
develop the idea of phenomenology in his own way, beyond the stage to which
it had been brought by Husserl himself. On the other hand, it is clear also that
Heidegger sees the indispensable foundation for such a further development in
Husserl's phenomenology. The reason why Heidegger was unable to follow
Husserl more closely is to be found in Husserl's conception of the transcenden-
tal reduction, and in his idea that the ultimate source of all meaning consists in
transcendental subjectivity which as such originally is world-less. This explains
why Heidegger tries to conceive of man's Being as Being-in-the-world.5
As the title of the book suggests the concept of time occupies an important
place in Being and Time. Already in the brief prefaoe to the book Heidegger
 75

indicates how Being and time are to be related. "Our aim in the following
treatise is to work out the question concerning the meaning of Being . . . Our
provisional aim is the interpretation of time as the possible horizon for any
understanding whatsoever of Being".6
In the first division of Part I Heidegger takes as his guiding clue the fact that
the essence of man consists in his ek-sistence; that toward which man stands out
is the world; thus one can also say that the essence of man is Being-in-the-
world. The main task of this first division is to unveil the precise meaning of this
compound expression; but in so doing the final goal remains the preparation of
an answer for the question concerning the meaning of Being. Heidegger
justifies this approach to the Being question by pointing out that man taken as
Being-in-the-world is the only being who can make himself transparent in his
own mode of Being. The very asking of this question is one of this being's
modes of Being; and as such this being receives its essential character from what
is inquired about, namely Being itself. "This entity which each of us is himself
and which includes inquiring as one of the possibilities of its Being we shall
denote by the term 'Dasein'".1 Thus the technical term "Dasein" which usually
is left untranslated, refers to man precisely insofar as he essentially relates to
Being.
The preparatory analysis of Dasein's mode of Being can only serve to
describe the essence of this being; it cannot interpret its meaning ontologically.
The preparatory analysis merely tries to lay bare the horizon for the most
primordial way of interpreting Being. Once this horizon has been reached, the
preparatory analysis is to be replaced by a genuinely ontological interpretation.
The horizon referred to here is temporality which thus determines the meaning
of the Being of Dasein. This is the reason why all the structures of man's Being
exhibited in the first division are to be re-interpreted in the second as modes of
temporality. But in interpreting Dasein's Being as temporality, the question
concerning the meaning of Being is not yet answered; only the ground is
prepared here for later obtaining such an answer. Being and Time was thus
meant to lay the foundations for any ontology (metaphysics) and with Kant to
stress the finitude of man in any attempt to found metaphysics.
In Being and Time Heidegger uses the phenomenological method.8 For him
phenomenology (legein ta phainomena: to let what shows itself be seen from
itself) is that method by means of which we let that which of its own accord
manifests itself, reveal itself as it is. The "thing itself to be revealed in Being
and Time is man taken as Dasein. Thus Being and Time attempts to let Dasein
reveal itself in what and how it is, and the analysis shows concretely that the
genuine self of Dasein consists in the process of finite transcendence whose
ultimate meaning is time.
Characteristic for Dasein is its comprehension of Being and this is the process
by which Dasein transcends beings in the direction of Being and comprehends
all beings, itself included, in their Being. This explains why the essence of
Dasein can also be defined as transcendence.* It should be stressed here at once
that the process of transcendence is inherently finite. For, first of all, Dasein is
76

not master over its own origin; it simply finds itself thrown among beings
(thrownness).10 Secondly, thrown among beings, Dasein must concern itself
with these beings, and, thus, has the tendency to lose itself among them
(fallenness),11 and to forget its ontological "destination". Finally, transcen-
dence is a process which inherently is unto Dasein's end, death.12 The ground of
the negativity which manifests itself in these modalities is what Heidegger calls
"guilt" which is here thus not to be understood in a moral sense.13
The basic structure of finite transcendence consists of comprehension (Ver­
stehen), i.e., the component in and through which Dasein projects the world,14
ontological disposition or mood (Befindlichkeit), i.e., the component through
which Dasein's thrownness, fallenness, and the world's non-Being are dis-
closed,15 and logos (Rede), i.e., the component through which Dasein can
unfold and articulate "in language" what comprehension and original mood
disclose.16 These components constitute a unity insofar as transcendence essen-
tially is care (Sorge): ahead of itself Being already in the world as Being
alongside beings encountered within the world.17 When this unity is considered
as a totality, Dasein is understood as coming to its end, i.e., to its death. Finally,
that which gives Dasein to understand its transcendence as well as its finitude
and "guilt" and, thus, calls it to achieve its own self is what Heidegger calls the
voice of conscience.18 To achieve itself Dasein must let itself be called toward its
genuine self, i.e., the process of finite transcendence. The act in and through
which Dasein achieves authenticity is called resolve (Entschlossenheit).19
Heidegger finally shows how care itself is founded in time insofar as the basic
components of care, namely ek-sistence, thrownness, and fallenness, inher-
ently refer to the three ekstases of time: future, past, and present. By tran-
scending beings toward Being Dasein comes to its true self (Zu-kunft, future),
but this self is always already as having been thrown forth (past), and con-
cerning itself with beings, thus making them manifest and present (present).
Interpreted from the perspective of temporality, resolve manifests itself as
retrieve (Wiederholung); it lets the process of finite transcendence become
manifest as historical. By fetching itself back time and again, Dasein lets its own
self be in terms of its authentic past; in addition, it also is as constantly coming
toward its authentic self. It is thus in this complex process that Dasein hands
over to itself its own heritage and thus "finds" its true self.20
In his later works (1935-1976), i.e. the period of the "turn" (Kehre), Heideg-
ger continues to think the basic relationship between Being and man, but
whereas in Being and Time he seems to give the privileged position in this
relation to Dasein, the later works grant this to Being itself. Being, which
originally was described in terms of world, is now shown primarily as the
process of the coming-to-pass of the truth (a-litheia). Being is shown as sending
itself towards Dasein; it sends itself in different epochs in different ways which
consign Dasein to its privileged destiny which is to be the "shepherd of Being".
In each individual epoch Being both reveals itself and conceals itself. As
intrinsically finite. Being itself can reveal itself only by revealing beings; thus it
can never be grasped by itself, in view of the fact that ititself is not a being; thus
 77

it must also somehow conceal itself in the beings which it makes manifest. The
finitude of Being also explains why Being must send itself in each epoch in a
different way and why no single sending can ever exhaust the power of Being to
reveal itself. The totality of these different ways in which Being sends itself and
to which different epochs of thinking correspond, is what we call "history".
The function of thought consists in this that it must bring the relation between
Being and man to fulfillment; in so doing thought brings Being to language and
Dasein to its proper and authentic self. Heidegger tries particularly to explain
precisely how in the relation between Being and man, in each epoch the
ontological difference between being and Being, thing and world, comes to
pass and how it is brought into language. This explains his constant concern
with the great thinkers of the past from Parmenides and Heraclitus to Hegel and
Nietzsche. It also explains why he is led time and again to meditate on our
current condition, the era of technicity and the atomic age. It should be evident
that a thinking which tries to do just this, and thus has the character of a
meditative recollection, has nothing in common with the calculating way of
thinking we encounter in modern science and technology. Rather it is intrin-
sically poetizing in its docile response to the language of Being.21 - But let us
now return to Heidegger's reflections on art.
In 1935 Heidegger delivered a lecture on the origin of the work of art which
from the very start was very well received. He expanded the original lecture and
eventually developed it into three lectures which he presented on various
occasions with great success.23
According to Gadamer, these lectures caused a real sensation, not only
because they made the claim that art is an inherent element in the effort on the
part of man to come to genuine self-understanding and the claim that the
"poetic" form of thought is often at the root of the foundation of the historical
world of a people, but also because of the entirely new "terminology" em-
ployed in the essay.23 The essay does not speak about art works in terms of
matter and content; it does not mention the concept of genius; the term
"aesthetic experience" is never used; the term "emotion" is avoided; there is
no theory about judgment and taste. Instead, the lectures articulate a con-
ception of the origin of art works in terms of the concepts "world" and "earth"
and the "battle" that in the work is waged between them, when the "truth" sets
itself into the art work.24
Gadamer correctly observes that in 1935 the concept of "world" was well
understood. Heidegger had explained his conception of world in Being and
Time15 and later in Vom Wesen des Grundes he had made an effort to compare
his ontological conception of world with other conceptions of world.26 Heideg-
ger explained there that for him "world" means the totality of all beings. "As a
totality, world 'is' no particular being but rather that by means of, and in terms
of which Dasein gives itself to understand what beings it can behave towards and
how it can behave towards them. That Dasein gives 'itself to understand in
terms of 'its' world means, then, that in approaching beings through the world,
Dasein temporalizes itself as a self, i.e., as a being which is free to be. For the
78

Being of Dasein lies in its Being-able-to-be".27 Heidegger goes on to say there

that in some sense Dasein, whose Being is such that its Being-able-to-be is an
issue, exists for the sake of the world, whereas it obviously also exists for itself.
We must thus conclude that world belongs to selfhood; world is essentially
related to Dasein. World is the totality of what exists for the sake of Dasein at
any given time. Dasein projects and throws the projected world over beings so
that the beings can manifest themselves as what they in truth are. Dasein thus in
some sense constitutes and forms world, in the sense that it lets world happen
and through the world provides itself with an original view which, although not
explicitly grasped itself, nevertheless serves as a pre-view for all manifest
beings, Dasein itself included.2" Thus there is no way that the beings, i.e.,
nature in the widest sense, might become manifest if they could not find the
opportunity to enter a world.24
It should be noted that, as we mentioned before, Heidegger here gives the
primacy to Dasein in the projection of world, whereas in his later works the
priority in this process is given to Being. Suffice it to observe that for Heidegger
"world" does not mean the ontic totality of all ontic, natural things, but rather
the totality of all possible meaning in regard to all ontic things, insofar as this
totality is the concrete historical structure in which Being itself shows and hides
itself at the same time. —We shall return to this in § 23.
Whereas in 1935 "world" was a well-known concept whose precise ontologi-
cal meaning Heidegger had already discussed on different occasions, the con-
cept of "earth" was totally new, not only within Heidegger's philosophy, but
even in our entire philosophical tradition. The term "earth" has a mystic and
even gnostic ring to it and seems to belong in theology and poetry rather than in
philosophy. Heidegger must have discovered the importance of this concept for
his own thinking in his meditations on Hölderlin's poems in which he was
deeply engaged during that period. Heidegger describes the earth as in conflict
with world. At first many philosophers found it difficult to understand how
Dasein, taken as Being-in-the-world, which as such is the new radical starting
point for all genuinely transcendental questioning,30 can be brought into an
ontological relationship with something like earth. It is equally difficult to see
what earth has to do with the basic ek-sistentials which Heidegger had unfolded
in Being and Time.3'
These and other difficulties can be understood only when one reads Heideg-
ger's essay on the origin of the work of art in light of our entire Western,
"aesthetic" tradition and tries to understand it as an attempt to retrieve the
metaphysical aesthetics of Hegel. - But let us turn now to the Epilogue and its
implications.32

b) The Epilogue and its Implications

In 1935, the year in which Heidegger delivered the lecture course, An Introduc­
tion to Metaphysics, he presented a lecture in Freiburg on the work of art which,
as we have seen already, he later developed into three lectures; it finally
 79

appeared in the latter form in Holzwege in 1950.33

As far as we know, this is the first time that Heidegger focused systematically
on art works as such. The reflections on the history of aesthetics which we
discussed in the preceding part were part of a lecture course delivered in 1936-
1937. In 1935 Heidegger also delivered a lecture in Rome on "Hölderlin and the
Essence of Poetry" which later (with other essays on poems by Hölderlin)
would appear in Hölderlin und das Wesen der Dichtung (1936).34 The essence of
poetry is also discussed in several other later works of Heidegger, notably in On
the Way to Language (1959).M In these latter essays and lectures the stress is not
directly on the Being of the work of art, but rather on the essence of poetizing. I
plan to include some of the ideas developed in these later lectures in Chapter V.
Thus I shall limit myself here mainly to some reflections on the origin of the
work of art.
The essay, "The Origin of the Work of Art", contains in its present form a
brief introduction in which Heidegger explains in what sense art is the origin of
both the artist and the work of art, three major sections, entitled "Thing and
Work", "The Work and Truth", and "Truth and Art", respectively, a brief
Epilogue in which Heidegger relates his own thoughts to modern aesthetics,
and finally an Addendum of 1956 in which he adds important clarifications, tries
to prevent misconceptions from occurring, and corrects certain errors made in
the first version of the essay.
In this section I shall begin with the ideas developed in the Epilogue; then I
shall turn to the content of the three lectures, starting with the introduction; the
observation made in the Addendum will be incorporated in the sections of the
lectures to which they pertain.36
In the Epilogue, about which Heidegger only writes that in part it was written
later than 1936," he first states that these reflections on art are concerned with
theriddlethat art itself is; it does not solve theriddle;it merely makes an effort
to begin to see the riddle.
The riddle consists in this that it is not at all clear precisely how art today
comes-to-pass and abides among us (wie die Kunst west). There was a time in
which this was quite clear, namely in Greek antiquity and in the Middle Ages.
Be this as it may, it is not Heidegger's intention in these lectures to solve the
riddle; he merely wants to explain in what thisriddleprecisely consists in the era
of technicity, i.e., the era of the Ge-stell, the era of the com-positing. In
Heidegger's view, this is a first, but necessary step in any effort to cope with this
riddle.38
Specialized and systematic thinking about art and artist, Heidegger con-
tinues, is of relatively late origin and so is the name for this kind of thinking,
namely aesthetics. Aesthetics treats the art work as an object, as the object of
aesthesis, of sensuous apprehension in the wide sense. Most people call this
apprehension experience today, Heidegger says. Aesthetics claims that the
manner in which man experiences art gives us information about the essence of
art. Experience is understood here as the source and the standard, not only for
the appreciation of art, but also for the making of art. Heidegger disagrees with
80

this view and suggests that it perhaps very well may be the case that experience
understood in this sense is the element in which art really dies. The dying of art
occurred so slowly that it has taken a few centuries and very few people have
noticed it. To be sure, people often speak today about important art works, and
most are convinced that art is of eternal value. Yet these claims are very vague
and suggest that today people are afraid of thinking. These half-baked cliches
about immortal works and eternal value belong in Heidegger's view to an age in
which great art, together with its essence, has departed from among us.39
Heidegger then quotes a few passages from Hegel's Lectures on Aesthetics in
which it is stated that art no longer counts for us as the highest manner in which
truth obtains actuality for itself, that the form of art has ceased to be the highest
need of the spirit even though art may very well continue to perfect itself, and
that with respect to its highest vocation art is something past.40 We have already
met one of these statements in Heidegger's reflections on art history and, as he
did there, he observes here again that Hegel does not claim that there will be no
great works of art and no great movements in art; rather he claims that from
now on art no longer is a necessary and essential way in which that truth which is
decisive for our historical Being, comes-to-pass. It is this claim that the present
series of lectures wishes to discuss.
But, Heidegger continues, this issue can be treated only after we have first
considered the essence of art. We shall attempt a few steps in that direction by
asking the question concerning the origin of the work of art. In so doing it is
essential that we stress the work-character of the work. What is meant here by
origin will be unfolded by way of the essence of truth.41
The truth referred to here does not coincide with what is generally recognized
under this name. Usually the true refers to knowledge and science in order to
distinguish it from the beautiful and the good which are the names for the
correlates of our non-theoretical activities.42
Truth is the non-concealment of that which is, taken as such. Above all truth
is the truth of Being. Beauty is not found alongside and apart from this truth.
When truth is at work in the work, it appears; appearance taken as the Being of
truth in the work, is beauty. The beautiful belongs to the coming-to-pass of the
truth. Thus beauty is not merely relative to pleasure; it certainly is not purely as
its object. It is not incorrect to say that the beautiful lies in form, but then one
should realize that forma once took its light from Being as the "isness" of what
is. In other words, one should realize then that Being first came to be as eidos;
then idea fitted itself into morphe; then the unitary whole of W e and morphe,
i.e., the ergon, began to be as energeia. Energeia then became the actualitas of
the ens actu (Aquinas). Then actualitas became realitas, reality (Suarez), and
reality objectivity (Descartes). Finally, objectivity became experience (Kant).
In the manner in which in the Western world being is related to what is real,
there is concealed a peculiar connection between beauty and truth: the history
of Western art corresponds to a change in the conception of the essence of
truth. But this means that art cannot really be understood in terms of either
beauty or experience.43
 81

Some of the ideas suggested here are difficult to understand. Heidegger is

fully aware of this; and, as we shall see, he will return to some of them in the
reflections to follow where he will make a special effort to develop these ideas
in a more systematic manner.

§ IS. How is Heidegger's Essay on the Art Work to Be Interpreted?

In his book, Der Denkweg Martin Heideggers, Otto Pöggeler writes that
Heidegger's essay, "Hie Origin of the Work of Art", does not contain a
philosophy of art. Pöggeler tries to justify this claim with the help of a reference
to a passage in the Addendum which in 1960 was added to the Reclam edition.
Heidegger says there that the lecture on the art work left several issues
unresolved, one of these is the problem of the meaning of Being as well as that
of the ontological difference. One should realize, Heidegger continues, that the
entire essay on the art work moves "deliberately but tacitly" on the path of the
question of precisely how Being comes-to-presence and abides. Thus the
determination of what art itself is, is thought there only from the perspective of
the question concerning the truth of Being. Art is thus not considered here as a
domain of cultural achievement, nor as an appearance of the spirit; rather it is
shown to belong to the event of appropriation, from the perspective of which
the meaning of Being only can be defined. What art itself is, is one of the
questions to which no answer is given in the essay.44
Later in his book Philosophie und Politik bei Heidegger Pöggeler returns to
Heidegger's essay on the art work in a brief discussion of Schwan's book on
Heidegger's political philosophy. There he says again that it is impossible to
defend the view that the Holzwege essay on the art work gives us the outline of
Heidegger's philosophy of art. In Pöggeler's view the essay belongs to a
"romantic" position which Heidegger later abandoned. Furthermore, Heideg-
ger later had plans to write a new essay in order to show how art is still possible
in a technical world. According to Pöggeler, Heidegger turned to reflections on
art after his painful experiences in the area of politics; thus his concern with
language and art in that period constitutes really a flight from the political
reality.45
von Herrmann has discussed these views of Pöggeler critically in great detail
in the introduction to his book, Heideggers Philosophie der Kunst.46 von Herr-
mann rejects Pöggeler's position altogether and maintains that the Holzwege
lecture indeed contains an outline of Heidegger's philosophy of art. In this
opinion he finds himself in the company of several other commentators on
Heidegger's philosophy and notably that of Walter Biemel.47 To substantiate
his own position von Herrmann re-interprets the passage from the Addendum
quoted by Pöggeler and shows that by asking the question of what art is in the
perspective of the question concerning the truth of Being, Heidegger meant to
indicate that he intended to develop the outline for a philosophy of art which is
to be distinguished from similar efforts on the part of rationalists, empiricists,
82

Kant, and notably Hegel. In other words, if it is the case that the question
concerning the truth of Being is the central question for philosophy, then it
follows that the question concerning the meaning of art is to be asked from that
overall perspective.48 von Herrmann also explains that he had the opportunity
to discuss the art lecture with Heidegger himself in weekly sessions over a
period of four years (1971-1975). In these discussions it was obvious to him that
Heidegger at that time still subscribed to the basic ideas contained in the essay,
and that he even completely identified himself with it until the last day of his
life.49 Finally, if one makes a careful study of Heidegger's manuscripts one will
see that Heidegger did not conceive of the Holzwege essay as something with
whose ideas he no longer could identify. To the contrary, the essay was and
remained one of Heidegger's favorites.30
I tend to agree with Biemel and von Herrmann and am thus convinced that
the Holzwege essay on the work of art is an important essay in Heidegger's
oeuvre as a whole, that this essay contains an outline of Heidegger's philosophy
of art. and that Heidegger never retracted the basic theses developed there.
von Herrmann discusses several other objections which one might wish to
raise against Heidegger's approach to the "essence" of art. Some people have
pointed to the fact that Heidegger really never gets to the question concerning
the place of art in our technical world, von Herrmann does not agree with this
opinion either. In his view, it is indeed true that Heidegger does not explicitly
speak about the place of art in our contemporary world; yet it is equally true
that in his analysis Heidegger nevertheless is able to bring to light characteris-
tics that because of their formally general character will recur in an appropriate
manner in each epoch, von Herrmann suggests that it is a task for an original
thinker to bring to completion what Heidegger has started here. It seems to me
that one perhaps could say that even though Heidegger does not explicitly
discuss the place and function of the arts in our contemporary world, he
nevertheless puts us on the proper way to ask the pertinent questions and deal
with them effectively.51
It has also been said many times that Heidegger selects his examples one-
sidedly from architecture, painting, and poetry. It is really amazing that music is
never mentioned, von Herrmann accepts the facts pointed to here; yet he feels
that one cannot legitimately expect to find in Heidegger's essay of about SO
pages all the ideas one can find in Hegel's aesthetics which is more than 1200
pages long. Furthermore, anyone who selects examples, takes them from the
domain that is clearest. Now it is well-known that it is extremely difficult to
meaningfully speak about musical works of art. Thus it is not amazing that
Heidegger selects examples from architecture, painting, and poetry. Yet von
Herrmann suggests that here, too, there is a task waiting for a creative thinker.
As far as Heidegger himself is concerned, he was of the opinion that the formal
claims made in the essay indeed hold for all forms of art. Furthermore,
Heidegger must one day have answered a person who explicitly asked him why
he had never written on music, that he thought this to be too difficult. Be this as
it may, it seems to me that Heidegger's essay indeed leaves a number of
 83

questions unanswered and a great number of issues untouched; but this was to
be expected from the character and the size of the essay. Yet I agree with von
Herrmann that this essay certainly is on the way to the manner in which the arts
come-to-presence and abide historically, "unterwegs zum Wesen der Kunst".52
It seems to me that one of the most thoughtful forms of questioning Heideg-
ger's approach to the essence of art is found in Taminiaux's publications,
particularly in his essay, "Heidegger's Overcoming of Aesthetics and Hegel's
Heritage".53 In this essay Taminiaux begins with a critical reflection on the first
sentences of the Epilogue. There Heidegger says, as we have seen, that the
essay is concerned with theriddlethat art itself is, although no effort is made to
solve theriddle;the genuine task here is to learn to see the riddle. It is difficult
to bring this claim into harmony with Heidegger's effort in the essay to make a
positive contribution to our understanding of the essence of art. Yet that
Heidegger wishes his claim about the riddle that art is to be taken seriously is
clear from the Addendum where he writes that what art is, is one of the
questions to which no answer has been given in the essay; what gives us the
impression of such an answer are just directions for further questioning.54
Heidegger thus invites us in our reading of the essay to constantly keep an eye
on the ambiguity implied in the claims that 1) an attempt is made to approach
theriddleand 2) an effort is made to render a contribution to our understanding
of the essence of art. But how is one to do this concretely? Heidegger himself
gives us two hints that are of importance. The first has to do with the origin of
modern aesthetics, whereas the second is concerned with the destiny of West-
ern art.55
As for'the first point, Heidegger reminds us that aesthetics is a very young
philosophical discipline which takes the work of art as an object, namely as the
object of aisthesis, of sensuous apprehension in the broad sense. It is claimed
there that the way in which humans experience (erleben) art is supposed to give
us information on the essence of art. Experience (Erlebnis) is thus the source
and measure not only for our appreciation of art but also for its artistic
production.56 In Heidegger's view, on the other hand, experience is the element
in which art slowly dies. For aesthetics threatens to resolve theriddlethat art is.
Aesthetics speaks about experiences; it does not show at all how a work works.
Yet the true riddle and enigma that art is, is precisely the question of how the
work of art works. One should note here that when Heidegger reflects on
world, thing, space, time, language (Sprache), the genuineriddlealways is how
the world governs as world (weiten), how the things beg (dingen), how space
makes room for (räumen), how time temporalizes (zeitigen), how language
speaks (sprechen), how Being comes-to-presence and abides (wesen). In all of
these cases Heidegger tries to show how world, thing, space, time, language,
Being, and the art work come-to-presence and abide. Now aesthetics resolves
the riddle that art is, by dissolving the enigmatic consistency of the art work's
identity and difference and by melting the work away in experiences which
consist in pleasure, joy, emotion, or vital excitation. In this way modern
aesthetics, by merely focusing on the subject that broadens its domain and
84

increases its self-assurance, immediately raises the question of the aim of art.
But by raising the question about the aim and the destiny of art one is
immediately led to Hegel's claim that for us art is, on the side of its highest
vocation, something past.57 Anyone who is confronted with this thesis and
thinks about works of art merely in terms of experiences which humans have,
must admit that Hegel's claim is unavoidable. For if it indeed is true that in
aesthetics the experience, taken as "Erlebnis", reigns, and if it is true also that
in this experience the enigma is resolved, then indeed it follows that for us art is
something past.58
According to Taminiaux, in this claim the ambiguity that was mentioned
earlier begins.to become more articulated. We have seen on the one hand that
to recognize the riddle that art is, is tantamount to attempting to overcome
aesthetics as a form of modern metaphysics. Yet on the other hand, it is clear
that Heidegger has a very positive opinion about Hegel's Lectures on Aesthet­
ics. He calls it the most comprehensive reflection on the essence (Wesen) of art,
i.e., on the manner in which art comes-to-presence and abides, that the West
possesses. To recognize that the governance of the subjectivity over art is not an
invention of aesthetics, but merely its expression of the principle that reigns
over our entire modern era, is to confirm Hegel's aesthetics, which is aesthetics
in its most metaphysical form.59
Thus we are led to a very difficult question: how can Heidegger still escape
from Hegel's conclusion and thus from Hegel's entire position? Heidegger fully
realizes these implications: "And yet the question remains: is art still an
essential and necessary manner in which the truth happens that is essential and
decisive for our historical existence? Or is art no longer this manner?"60 In
Heidegger's own view, the truth of Hegel's judgment has not yet been decided;
for our entire Western thinking since the Greeks stands behind this statement,
and this thinking corresponds to the truth of the beings that has already come-
to-pass. In his opinion, a decision on Hegel's judgment will be made (if it is ever
going to be made), from the truth of the beings, and it will be a decision about
this truth. Until that time Hegel's judgment stands and remains in force. The
question, however, is one of whether the truth which Hegel's statement articu-
lates is definitive and final, and of what will happen if it is. These questions can
be answered only after the question of the "essence" of art has been asked. The
lectures on the art work take a few steps in that direction by bringing to light the
work-Being of the work.61
To fully realize Heidegger's position in regard to Hegel it is important that
one notice the essential difference between truth taken as non-concealment
(a-letheia) and truth as absolute certainty of self, between history as the advent
of the absoluteness of the spirit and the history of Being. The problem thus is
how Heidegger in the lectures on the art work can relate to Hegel in such a
manner that he succeeds in thinking about art in a non-metaphysical and non-
aesthetical manner, while at the same time maintaining the (provisional) valid-
ity of Hegel's metaphysical position. That Heidegger has no intention of
repeating Hegel's position is obvious from the concluding lines of the Epilogue.
 83

In the manner in which for the Western world the beings constitute what is
actually real (Wirklich), there is concealed a special coming-together of beauty
and truth. The history of the coming-to-presence and the abiding of art corre-
sponds to the change in which the truth comes-to-presence and abides. Art can
no more be understood in terms of beauty taken by itself, than it can be
understood in terms of Erlebnisse, assuming for the moment that the meta-
physical conception of art indeed does capture something of the manner in
which art comes-to-presence and abides.62
From this it seems to follow according to Taminiaux that the truth that has
come to be for modern man, is effectiveness, actuality in the sense of
Wirklichkeit. Wirklichkeit is to be taken here in the strict sense and thus means
that which has been worked, made, produced. Hegel had taken it in this sense,
also. For Hegel, everything that has been brought forth by the Spirit is wirklich.
For him that is completely wirklich, which is completely effective, that in which
the Spirit finds nothing that opposes its influence, that in which the Spirit finds
nothing but itself; it is that in which the worker, the worked, and the actual
working have become completely identical. Thus Heidegger pronounces a
typically Hegelian statement when he claims that for the modern world the
beings manifest their Being only insofar as they are actually effective.63 It is
clear then also why Heidegger can say that this preoccupation with the effective
implies a confluence of truth and beauty. This was so for Hegel, also, insofar as
for him this confluence can be taken as evidence of the maturity of the
effectiveness which the West had reached in his time.
At the beginning of the history of the West we find the Greek world. There,
too. Being was understood as effectiveness, but in a manner that is quite
different from that found in the 19th century. The Greeks, too, understood the
beings as the work of "the Spirit"; for Hegel this is clear from the fact that they
livedin an artistic world, so that they could understand the Being of the beings
in terms of a work of art. For Hegel, the Spirit understood its own working in
the Greek era in the form of art and art works. In his view, this at once shows
the deficiency of the Greek world; for effectiveness is seen there in terms of
phusis, nature, immediacy, sensuousness. Furthermore, for the Greeks, too,
the genuine truth of the effectiveness is the identity of the worker, the worked,
and the actual working. But in the Greek world this identity had not yet been
achieved: the Greeks were unable to overcome all the differences with which
they were confronted. The Greek world is for Hegel abundant in beauty, but
still poor as far as truth is concerned. In the Greek world beauty and truth have
not yet come together. For the Greeks beauty is the veil that hides the truth.
Hegel finds the same state of affairs elsewhere in Greek philosophy, par-
ticularly in Aristotle's conception of Wirklichkeit as energeia and enteUcheia, in
itself goal and realization of the goal. In his view of energeia Artistotle under-
stands in his own way the speculative identity of the effectiveness as "pure
Wirklichkeit which has its source in itself, as pure negativity merely relating to
itself.64 But since Aristotle remained caught in a philosophy of nature which was
only positive, his conception of Wirklichkeit remained inadequate insofar as it
86

lacks negativity and mediation. Aristotle's thought constitutes only the first
step in the self-movement of the Spirit.65
In Hegel's view, once this first step was overcome together with its imme-
diacy and its inherent sensuousness, a process of development began, at the end
of which Wirklichkeit, now taken in its modern form, accomplished its truth,
i.e., the self-certainty of the Spirit's self-realization. From truth taken in the
sense of agreement with nature-that-is-given, one has now moved to truth as
absolute certainty of self. At the end one finds there, too, the complete
confluence of truth and beauty. But the modern world is particularlyrichas far
as truth is concerned, so that beauty can now move into the background.
Beauty is now no more than an elementary modality of the certitude of self.
According to Hegel one can see this in all modern forms of art.66
Seen from this perspective, Heidegger can thus state that the history of art in
the West corresponds to the history of the truth. Yet he says also that one
should realize that neither beauty as an abstract concept, nor the effects which
the works transfer into the lived experiences of the individuals, constitute the
true essence of art.67
But it still remains very difficult to bring the seemingly conflicting tendencies
in Heidegger's essay on art into harmony with one another. How is one to
combine the claim about the enigma that art is with a theory concerning the
essence of art? How is one to unite the overcoming of aesthetics with the
coming-to-completion of metaphysics in Hegel's speculative dialectic? How is
one to relate Heidegger's history of Being with Hegel's history of the Spirit? As
far as the essence of art is concerned, what constitutes the link between
Heidegger's setting-into-the-work (energeia) of the truth as a-letheia and the
setting-to-work of Hegel's absolute Spirit?68
There cannot be any doubt that in writing his lectures on the essence of art
Heidegger was inspired by Hegel, not by Aristotle or Kant; Heidegger seriously
tried there to retrieve Hegel. According to Taminiaux, it is important to ask
here the question of in how far Heidegger succeeded in his effort. To what
extent did this Hegelian approach to art negatively affect Heidegger's own
conception of the essence of art?
In Taminiaux's view, the question must be asked in view of the fact that the
similarity of the approaches of Heidegger and Hegel is not limited to the few
essential themes mentioned above; there are also many other, more formal,
parallels. Both Hegel and Heidegger begin their investigations with reflections
on the circle that methodologically any effort to say something about the
essence of art appears to imply. Furthermore, both Hegel and Heidegger
explicitly limit their reflections to "great art", i.e., to Greek and Medieval art; a
piece of sculpture from Aegina, the Antigone of Sophocles, the temple of
Poseidon in Paestum, and the cathedral of Bamberg are mentioned. Both
authors explicitly state that great art "has been". With Hegel, Heidegger claims
that their world has withdrawn from these works and that this world-with-
drawal can never be undone. "The works are no longer the same as they once
were". We obviously still encounter these works themselves; and yet they
 87

themselves have gone by. They now merely stand over against us in the realm of
tradition and conservation. From now on they are merely permanent entities
that stand opposite to us Gegenstände. "Their standing before us is still indeed
a consequence of, but no longer the same as, their former self-subsistence. This
self-subsistence has fled from them".69
Obviously, one should not exaggerate the similarities and parallels; for there
are also important and even essential differences between the views of Hegel
and Heidegger. What Heidegger states about earth and phusis, about the
relationship between earth and world, and about the relationship between the
battle between earth and world on the one hand and the battle between the
untrue and the true in non-concealment (a-litheia) on the other, -all of this has
no place in Hegel's aesthetics. Furthermore, the example of van Gogh's shoes
does not fit the Hegelian framework of great art at all. How is one to relate such
a painting to a people and its destiny? Also, the insights which Heidegger
derives from the analysis of the temple are not in harmony with Hegel's ideas,
either.
But, even more importantly, it should be noted that there is no way in which
one could ever bring Hegel's conception of truth into harmony with Heideg-
ger's conception of truth as non-concealment, even though they may not be
totally unrelated either. We are also far away from the Hegelian conception of
art and truth, where Heidegger speaks about the having-been-made of the art
work, the simple/actam est, and about the Eigenständigkeit of the work that has
been "fixed in the Gestalt". Finally, Taminiaux thinks that one finds the same
tension^in the manner in which Heidegger tries to determine the threefold
meaning of poetizing and the manner in which Hegel stipulates the three
conditions of art in his speculative theory.
In the concluding section of his essay Taminiaux writes that in his view the
shadow of Hegel's asthetics weighs heavily on Heidegger's analysis of the origin
of the art work. There are two other texts of Heidegger's in which this becomes
evident, also. Both in his lecture presented in Athens in 1967 and in the
interview with Der Spiegel Heidegger claims that art today is held within the
spell of modern technicity, by the Ge-stell which is said to be determined by
modern metaphysics. Yet in the lecture on technicity it is also claimed that art
may have a very important place in the overcoming of the Ge-stell that results
from modern metaphysics. It is not at all clear how these seemingly contradic-
tory statements can be brought into harmony with one another. At any rate, in
Taminiaux's view, Heidegger certainly evaluates contemporary art much too
negatively.70 Finally, Heidegger's criticism of modern aesthetics, too, is much
too negative. Taminiaux is of the opinion that there is much more in Kant's
aesthetics than Heidegger is willing to leave room for. It is just not true that
when art comes into the purview of aesthetics, art begins to decline because it
can no longer live up to its true essence, which is the setting of the truth into the
work.
In order to be fair to Heidegger, Taminiaux does mention the fact that in the
Nietzsche lectures Heidegger states that Kant's aesthetics escapes from the
88

verdict just passed.71 Yet Taminiaux continues to wonder why Heidegger never
tried to incorporate this "deep" reading of Kant into his own conception of the
art work. It is Hegel and Hegel only whom he takes as his guide here. In
Taminiaux's view a careful retrieve of Kant's third Critique might have opened
up new avenues toward a resolution of the riddle that art is.72
Although I have high esteem for Taminiaux's essays on aesthetics, I never-
theless tend to disagree with him on this last issue. Heidegger explains in detail
why he believes that any effort to understand the essence of art in terms of a
theory of beauty and a theory of the arts is inadequate. Also, it is impossible to
conceive of beauty-for-itself; it is to be related to what is and to truth. Further-
more, it is equally impossible to understand the essence of art in terms of
experiences, and thus also in terms of a transcendental theory of our judgments
of taste in which, according to Kant, these experiences come to their fulfill-
ment. I think that Heidegger was firmly convinced that in his reflections on art
Kant remained locked up in the empiricist tradition with which he started his
research, without realizing that in art works the truth is at work. Once Heideg-
ger opted for the latter view, it was understandable why he felt drawn to Hegel's
Lectures on Aesthetics where this view, alluded to before, for the first time finds
a clear expression. Heidegger does not repeat Hegel; he tries to retrieve his
great ideas; in so doing he could also make use of a number of ideas first
proposed by Kant, but these ideas now appear in a completely new context. - 1
plan to return to some of the issues raised by Taminiaux in the sections to
follow.

ART. II. THE SUBJECT MATTER AND THE METHOD OF THE

LECTURES

§ 16. Origin and Coming-to-Presence. Hermeneutic Phenomenology

a) Origin and Coming-to-Presence. - The Question of Method

The lecture series itself begins with a brief section in which Heidegger explains
that both the work of art and the artist have their origin in art. To show this he
takes his point of departure in a brief reflection on the relationship between the
meaning of "Ursprung" (leap from, origin) and " Wesen" (essence and coming-
to-presence).
Origin, Heidegger explains, means here the source from which something
springs; it is that which makes it possible for a thing to rise up as what it is and
how it is. It is that by and through which something is what it is and as it is. That
which something is, taken in the way it is, we call its essence. Thus the origin of
something is the source from which its essence originally springs. The question
concerning the origin of the work of art therefore asks how its essence springs
forth; thus it asks about the source of its coming-to-presence.
 89

But whence is it that the work of art springs forth? One is inclined to say that
it arises from and by means of the activity of the artist. Yet the artist himself is
an artist only by virtue of the work of art that he has produced. Artists are those
who bring forth works of art. But this means that in a sense the work is as much
the origin of the artist as such, as the artist is the origin of the work. Both appear
to spring from a source that is more primary than both and this source is art
itself.
But what then is art itself? Can art be the origin of anything at all? Where and
how is art? Could it be that "art" is just a word to which today nothing actual
corresponds any more? Could it be that the word "art" just refers to a collective
idea in which we bring together that which alone is truly real in the domain of
the arts: art works and artists? What is art itself, taken as something that is
distinct from the work in which it is found and from the human being who
produces it? Can one meaningfully speak about "art as such" at all? It appears
that as long as it must remain an open question as to whether and how art
comes-to-presence, the only way to find the essence of art is to examine that
being in which art undoubtedly holds sway; and this is the work of art.71
Heidegger thus begins the introduction to the lecture series with an elucida-
tion of the title of the lecture series; this elucidation explains the ti.tle only with
respect to its formal aspects. To fully understand Heidegger's claims it is
important that one realizes that the German word Ursprung means origin,
source, inception, beginning, cause, etc. It comes from the verb erspringen, to
spring forth from; er- and ur- often mean from; ur-, in the sense of aboriginal,
primitive, original, is of later date. Someone who today looks at the German
word understands that its "original" meaning is that from which something
originally springs forth. Heidegger will later use the word Ursprung also in the
sense of "original leap".74
A r for the German word "Wesen", Heidegger uses it in two different but
related senses. Often he uses it as a "technical" term in the sense of essence.
Yet the word is used in many instances in a verbal sense. The German verb
wesen means to stay, dwell, to last, endure, happen, come-to-pass. Thus the
word expresses two seemingly contradictory ideas: to happen as well as to
abide. I usually translate Wesen by coming-to-presence: it refers to something
whose mode of Being is a continuous coming-to-presence. In other words, the
word then combines the meaning of issuance and abidance. Heidegger some-
times uses the verb währen (to endure, last) to explain the meaning of wesen.
Heidegger briefly dwells on the common conception concerning the origin of
art works. One usually says that art works originate from and through the
activity of the artist. This conception originated in and was promoted by
modern aesthetics. It finds its crowning point in the history of aesthetics in the
works of Kant and Schopenhauer, and from there it finds its way into most
modern and contemporary philosophies of art. An art work is that which flows
from the creative activity of the genius. In Heidegger's view this conception of
the origin of the art work rests on a subjectivist interpretation of all artistic
creativity that became dominant in modern philosophy, which gives the subjec-
90

tivity of the human subject the privileged position in metaphysics.

In order to be able to explain that this conception, which today seems so
obvious and self-evident, is really questionable, Heidegger shows that the
question concerning the origin may be asked also for the artist. Now if one asks
what makes the artist an artist, it appears that the work does; for only the work
lets the artist appear as the master of his art. The artist is the origin of the work
and the work is the origin of the artist. The one can never be without the other.
The work and the artist are in themselves and in their mutual relationship
thanks to a "third" that actually is first. That from which both artist and art
work obtain their name is art.
Heidegger is provisionally led to the following conclusions: 1) the artist lets
the work spring forth, 2) the work lets the artist spring forth, and 3) art is that
from which both the artist and the art work spring forth. The lecture series will
thus have to focus on art, on the manner in which art comes-to-presence and
abides. Yet in order to be able to speak in a meaningful manner about art,
Heidegger feels he nevertheless has to take his point of departure in a reflection
on the art work, because it is in the art work that art resides. What then is and
how is a work of art?75
Neither in the introductory section of the essay, nor in the essay as a whole
does Heidegger make an explicit statement about the method he is using here in
his reflections on art and art works. Yet from the manner in which he proceeds
and from the very few indirect remarks which he makes in the introductory
section as well as in the first and the third parts of the essay, it is clear that as far
as method is concerned he still subscribes to the views developed in Being and
Time and in lecture courses of the same period. In his book Heideggers
Philosophie der Kunst von Herrmann stresses on several occasions the her-
meneutico-phenomenological character of the method used in the Holzwege
essay.76 It thus seems desirable to say a few words about Heidegger's con-
ception of hermeneutic phenomenology.
Reflections on method occupy a very important place in Heidegger's earlier
works. Heidegger defends the view that ontology which must concern itself
with the question concerning the meaning or the truth of Being, must make use
of the phenomenological method, whereas in fundamental ontology which
deals with the mode of Being of Dasein, one is to employ a hermeneutico-
phenomenological method. As for phenomenology proper, Heidegger usually
claims that it implies first a turn from the beings to Being (phenomenological
reduction). Secondly this method involves the procedure through which Being
as a free projection becomes brought to the fore; Heidegger calls the projection
of the pregiven beings upon their Being and its intrinsic structures the phe-
nomenological construction. Finally, phenomenology also implies destruction,
i.e., the destructive retrieve of the insights concerning Being which are with
necessity always already implied in any pre-ontological understanding of
Being.77
In Being and Time itself, immediately after explaining that ontology is
concerned with the Being question and is to be prepared by a fundamental
 91

ontology which takes the concrete form of an analytic of Dasein's Being,

Heidegger turns next to the question concerning "therightway of access" to the
primary subject of investigation, namely Dasein. He stresses the point that this
issue is a very difficult one, because Dasein is to be taken as something already
accessible to itself and as something yet to be understood. We must thus be able
to explain how and why Dasein itself can be grasped immediately, although the
kind of Being which it possesses is not to be presented just as immediately, but
as tobe mediated by explanation and interpretation.18
Dasein is in such a way that it is capable of understanding its own Being; yet it
has the tendency to do so in terms of those beings toward which it comports
itself proximally. And this means that its "categorial structure" remains to
some degree concealed. Thus the philosophical interpretation of Dasein's
Being is confronted with very peculiar difficulties. Furthermore, Dasein has
been made the subject of both philosophical and scientific investigations. Thus
there are already many ways in which Dasein has been interpreted. It is not
clear how all of these interpretations can go together. This complexity makes
the problem of securing therightaccess which will lead to Dasein's Being even a
more burning one. We have norightto resort dogmatically to constructions and
to apply just any idea of Being to Dasein, however self-evident such an idea may
be, nor may any of the "categories" which such an idea prescribes, be forced
upon Dasein without proper ontological consideration.19

b) Destructive Retrieve

In Heidegger's view temporality constitutes the meaning of Dasein's Being.80

Temporality is also the condition which makes historicity possible as a temporal
mode of Being which Dasein itself possesses. Historicity stands here for the
state of Being which is constitutive for Dasein's coming-to-pass as such. Dasein
is as it already was and it is what it already was. Dasein is its past, not only in the
sense that it possesses its own past as a kind of property which is still present-
at-hand; Dasein is its past particularly in the way of its own Being which comes-
to-pass out of its future on each occasion. Regardless of how Dasein is at a given
" time or how it may conceive of Being, it has grown up both into and in a
traditional way of interpreting itself; in terms of this tradition it understands
itself proximally and, to some degree at least, constantly. Its own past, which
includes The past of its generation, is thus not something which just follows
along after Dasein, but something which already goes ahead of it.81
But if Dasein itself as well as its own understanding are intrinsically histor-
ical, then the inquiry into the meaning of Being (= philosophy) is to be
characterized by historicity as well. The ownmost meaning of Being which
belongs to the inquiry into Being as an historical inquiry, points to the necessity
of inquiring into the history of that inquiry itself. Thus in working out the
question concerning the meaning of Being one must take heed of this pointing,
so that by positively making the past his own, he may bring himself into full
possession of the very possibility of such inquiry.
92

When a philosopher turns to philosophy's own history he must realize that

this tradition constitutes that from which he thinks as well as that from which
he, to some degree at least, must try to move away. Yet Dasein is inclined to fall
prey to its tradition. This tradition often keeps Dasein from providing its own
guidance whether in inquiring or in choosing. When a tradition overpowers
one's own thinking it often conceals what it really tried to transmit. Dasein has
the tendency to take what the tradition hands down to it as being self-evident.
This blocks the access to those primordial sources from which the categories,
concepts, and views handed down have been drawn. Dasein is in fact so caught
in its own tradition that in philosophy it often confines its interest to the
multiformity of the available standpoints of philosophical inquiry; but by this
interest it seeks to hide the fact that it has no ground of its own to stand on. The
state in which philosophy's concern about the Being question finds itself today,
is the clearest evidence of this tendency.
Thus in the inquiry of the question concerning the meaning of Being one has
to have a ground of his own and yet one's thought must carefully heed its own
philosophical tradition. Both these demands are met in the "destructive re-
trieve". One must "destroy" in the tradition what is philosophically unjustifia-
ble and maintain those primordial experiences from which any genuine philo-
sophical insights ultimately flow. The meaning of the retrieve is not to shake off
the philosophical tradition, but to stake out the positive possibilities of a
tradition and keep it within its proper limits.82 "By the re-trieving of a funda-
mental problem we understand the disclosure of its original potentialities that
long have lain hidden. By the elaboration of the potentialities, the problem is
transformed and thus for the first time conserved in its intrinsic content. To
conserve a problem, however, means to retain free and awake all those inner
forces that render this problem in its fundamental essence possible".83
It is obvious that in these reflections Heidegger takes a critical stance with
respect to Descartes, Kant, and Husserl whose positions in regard to the
philosophical tradition are too negative. In this regard Heidegger's position is
closer to that adopted by Hegel. The only point in which he does not follow
Hegel in this respect consists in the fact that Hegel saw the various philosophical
perspectives developed in the past as elements of an organic unity or system and
that, thus, some form of necessity is constitutive for "the life of the Whole". In
Heidegger's view, philosophy's history does not bind the philosopher who lives
today with the necessity of the unbreakable laws of the Hegelian dialectic;
rather, the philosophical tradition, like every other form of tradition, delivers
and liberates man. The answer to a philosophically relevant question consists in
man's authentic response to what in philosophy's history is already on the way
to him. Such a response implies, at the same time, his willingness to listen to
what is already said and the courage to take distance from what one has heard.
This makes a certain criticism of the past necessary in philosophy. Yet such a
criticism should not be understood as a break with the past, nor as a repudiation
of philosophy's history, but as its adoption in the form of a transformation and
adaptation to the requirements of the world in which weiive and of what in this
 93

world has been handed down to us. Heidegger, thus, does hot deny the
necessity to re-think every "experience", to mediate it, and transcend it. Yet he
does deny that this should be done from the perspective of the absolute
knowledge of the Absolute. In his opinion, each "experience" is to be mediated
from the perspective of Being. It is in this/wire perspective that man under-
stands his own Being in its full potentialities so that he can compare each mode
of Being, present in each "experience", with the whole of possibilities and thus
understand its genuine, limited meaning. Furthermore, it is within this finite
perspective that one can "let things be seen from themselves and in them-
selves", because within this perspective, one can show them in their full
potentialities so that the concrete mode of givenness as found in a given
"experience" can appear in its true and limited sense.84
Heidegger obviously maintains that the philosophical reflection should be
methodical and critical. Although he rejects presuppositionlessness (Husserl)
and absoluteness (Hegel), he does not reject method and rigor. Thus he
recommends that the first, last, and constant task of our philosophical reflec-
tion is never to allow our pre-judgments to be dominated by merely arbitrary
conceptions, but rather to make the relevant themes secure scientifically
by working out our anticipatory conceptions in terms of "the things them-
selves".85 In other words, the destructive retrieve is guided by a hermeneutic
phenomenology which in each case allows for a careful comparison of the
claims made by thinkers of the past with the "things" to be reflected upon.86
I shall return to the relationship between retrieve and phenomenology in
section c, 3.
*
c) Phenomenology: The Method of Ontology

In Heidegger's view the question of the "right approach" to ontology is a very

important one.87 Ontology must deal with its subject matter by employing the
phenomenological method. The concept "phenomenology" is, however, no
more than a methodological concept; it thus does not characterize the subject
matter of ontology, which is the meaning or truth of Being. What is meant by
phenomenology can be explained by means of a reference to the maxim: Zu den
Sachen selbst. In Heidegger's interpretation, Husserl's maxim: To the things
themselves, implies that ontology avoids all free-floating constructions, all
artificial and accidental findings, all seemingly justified conceptions, and all
adherence to pseudo-problems. Heidegger admits that this first characteriza-
tion of the phenomenological method is almost trivial and that perhaps it can be
applied to any concrete method to be employed in any type of scientific
research. It appears that Heidegger deliberately tried to keep his remarks on
phenomenology as formal as possible, in order to avoid giving the impression
that the term "phenomenology" is to be taken here to refer to a historical
position in philosophy.88 This must also have been the reason why Heidegger
decided to explain the meaning of the method of ontology with the help of some
very brief comments on the expressions phenomenon and logos of which the
94

compound expression appears to consist: phenomenology is the science of the

phenomena. But is it really? To answer this question we must try to character-
ize what phainomenon and logos meant originally.

1. Phenomenon. Heidegger begins his explanation of what is to be understood

by phenomenology with a brief reflection on the meaning of the term "phe-
nomenon".
The concept of phenomenon is first determined purely formally as "that
which shows itself, the manifest. Now a being can show itself in many ways,
depending in each case on the kind of access one has to it. Furthermore, a being
can show itself as something which in itself it is not. Then it looks like something
else; but it is not this being. This kind of showing-itself is called semblance. It is
important to observe that when phenomenon signifies "semblance", the pri-
mordial signification of the term (namely phenomenon as the manifest) is
already included as that upon which the second signification is founded.89
Both phenomenon and semblance must be distinguished from what is called
appearance. When we speak about an "appearance" we are not speaking about
something which shows itself, but about something which announces itself in
something else which shows itself, although that which so appears does not
show itself. Examples of appearances are for instance: symptoms, signs, sym-
bols, etc. In this case, too, that which announces itself is never a phenomenon,
although its appearing is possible only by reason of the showing itself of
something else and, thus, by reason of a phenomenon in the proper sense of the
term.90
Until now we have limited ourselves merely to defining the purely formal
meaning of the term phenomenon and distinguishing phenomenon from sem-
blance and appearance. We have not yet specified which entities we consider to
be phenomena and have left open the question of whether what shows itself is a
being or rather some characteristic which a being has as far as its Being is
concerned. In order to be able to answer this question, Heidegger makes a
distinction between the ordinary and the phenomenological conception of
phenomenon, both of which are then defined with an explicit reference to Kant.
Phenomenon in the ordinary sense is any being which is accessible to us through
the "empirical intuition". Formulated again within the perspective of the
Kantian framework the phenomenon in the phenomenological sense is that
which already shows itself in the appearance as prior to the phenomenon in the
ordinary sense and as accompanying it in every case. Even though it shows itself
unthematically, it can nonetheless be brought to show itself thematically. Thus
the phenomena of phenomenology are those beings which show themselves in
themselves, Kant's forms of intuition. In other words, the phenomena in the
phenomenological sense refer to the conditions of the possibility of the objects
of experience.91 In section c, 3 to come I plan to clarify these references to Kant
from Heidegger's own perspective.
 95

2. Apophantic Logos and Truth. In the introduction to the section on method

Heidegger stresses the point that the element "-logy" in the expression "phe-
nomenology" refers to the scientific character of-the investigation concerning
phenomena. In an essay on method, therefore, the scientificity of phenomenol-
ogy is to be made thematic. One may thus say that phenomenology does not
merely indicate the approach to, but also the clarifying mode of determination
of, the subject matter of ontology. In other words, two elements are contained
in the concept of phenomenology: one dealing with the question of how the
things are to be discovered and another concerned with the question of when
such discovery may be taken to be adequate, i.e., when a discovery may be
taken to be true. Thus we may expect that Heidegger's reflection on method
contains a provisional analysis of die concept of truth. To this end Heidegger
turns toward Aristotle who in his opinion originally conceived of truth as the
non-concealment of what is present, its unveiling, its manifesting-itself.92 The
analysis shows that the phenomenological conception of phenomenon implies a
conception of truth which is notably different from the one found in Kant as
well as from that developed by Husserl. Heidegger contends that the classical
definition of truth as agreement is concerned with the derivative conception of
truth, whereas Husserl's thesis that truth is to be defined in terms of perfect,
i.e., apodictic and adequate evidence,91 is unacceptable.94
Section 7B of Being and Time begins with a reference to the fact that for Plato
and Aristotle the concept "logos" had many, competing significations, none of
which at first sight seems to be primordial. And yet the term appears to have a
basic meaning in light of which all other, derivative meanings can be under-
stood. One could perhaps say that the basic signification of logos consists in
articulating discourse (Rede). But such a translation remains unjustified as long
as one is unable to determine precisely what is meant by this expression and
indicate how from this basic meaning all other significations of the term can be
derived.95
Logos is related to legein which means to make manifest what one is talking
about. As such it has the same meaning as apophainesthai. Logos lets some-
thing be seen, namely what the talk is about; and it does so for those who are
somehow involved in the discourse. Logos furthermore lets something be seen
from the very thing the talk is about. In logos as discourse (apophansis) what is
said is drawn from what the talk is about, so that discursive communication, in
what it says, makes manifest what the talk is about and makes it accessible to
others. When in this context logos becomes fully concrete, then discoursing, as
letting something be seen, has the character of speaking.96
Furthermore, because logos is a letting something be seen, it can therefore be
true or false. But it is of the greatest importance to realize that truth cannot be
understood here in the sense of an agreement between what is and what is said.
Such a conception of truth is by no means the primary one. The Greek word for
truth is alitheia and this means non-concealment. The being-true of the logos as
alitheuein means that the beings about which one is talking must be taken out of
their original hiddenness: one must let them be seen as something unhidden
96

(a-lethes); this means, the beings must be discovered. And only because the
function of the logos as apophansis lies in letting something be seen by pointing
it out, can it have the structural form of a synthesis. Here "synthesis" does not
mean a binding together of representations or the manipulation of psychical
occurrences from which the pseudo-problem arises of how these bindings, as
something inside, agree with something physical outside. Synthesis here means
letting something be seen in its togetherness with something, letting it be seen
as something. When something no longer takes the form of just letting some-
thing be seen, but always harks back to something else to which it points, so that
it lets something be seen as something, it thus acquires a synthesis-structure.
And with this it also takes over the possibility of covering up. Being-false
amounts to deceiving in the sense of covering-up: putting something in front of
something else in such a way as to let the former be seen, thereby passing the
latter off as something which it is not.97
Seen from the perspective of the enormous task in regard to the tradition,
particularly in regard to Aristotle, Kant, and Husserl, which Heidegger appears
to have set for himself here, section 7B seems to be disappointing.98 Yet one
should realize once more that section 7 contains merely the provisional con-
ception of phenomenology, which later is to be developed further, once the
analytic of Dasein has reached its conclusion. Secondly, what Heidegger sug-
gests in section 7B is to be understood from the perspective of what will be said
later in Being and Time about the precise function of theoretical knowledge,99
about 'reality',100 and particularly about disclosedness and truth.101 Finally
Heidegger explicitly indicates that the reflections contained in section 7B were
inspired by a careful study of Aristotle.102
When all of this information is taken together it becomes clear that the real
meaning of section 7B consists in the following: a being, whose ontological
conception becomes manifest to Dasein (alithes), is, as far as its mode of
becoming manifest (logos apophantikos) is concerned, dependent upon Da-
sein's disclosure. The identity expressed in the apophantic logos rests on the
synthesis a priori (the truth of Being) and at the same time presupposes a
difference with which Dasein's disclosure is concerned and which accounts for
the fact that all finite letting something be seen really is a letting something be
seen as.103

3. The Preliminary Conception of Phenomenology. From the interpretation of

the words "phenomenon" and "logos" it becomes clear that there is an inner
relationship between the things meant by these words. Taken as legein (= apo-
phainesthai) ta phainomena, the expression "phenomenology" means: to let
that which shows itself be seen from itself the very way it shows itself. This is the
formal meaning of the term "phenomenology" which expresses the same thing
as the maxim formulated earlier: to the things themselves.104
But what is it that phenomenology is to "let us see"? We have seen already
that this question must be answered if we are ever to be able to go from the
common conception of phenomenon to the phenomenological conception.
 97

What is it, therefore, that by its very Being must be called a "phenomenon" in a
distinctive sense? What is it that is necessarily the theme whenever we try to
exhibit something explicitly? Obviously, it is something that proximally and for
the most part does not show itself; it is something that lies hidden in contrast to
that which proximally and for the most part does show itself. Yet at the same
time it must be something that belongs to what thus shows itself, and it must
belong to it so essentially as to constitute its very meaning and ground.
History of philosophy shows us that that which remains hidden in a specific
sense, which relapses and gets covered up time and again, is not this or that
being, nor this or that kind of beings, but rather the Being of these beings.
Being can even be covered up so extensively that it becomes forgotten and there
no longer is any question which arises about it and its ultimate meaning. In
other words, that which demands that it become a phenomenon, and which
demands this in a distinctive sense and in terms of its ownmost content as a
thing, is precisely that which phenomenological philosophy wants to make the
very subject matter and theme of its own investigations. But if phenomenology
is Dasein's way of access to what is to be the theme of ontology, it is clear that
the phenomenological conception of phenomenon as that which shows itself
must refer to the Being of the beings, to its meaning, its modification, and its
derivatives.105
For phenomenology to be possible and necessary, something must be man-
ifest and something else, inherently connected with the manifest, must still be
hidden. That which is manifest essentially implies both truth as non-conceal-
ment and immediacy. Thus a being, taken as phenomenon, means that being
taken in immediate non-concealment. In view of the fact that each being can
show itself in different ways, depending upon Dasein's manner of approach,106
the showing-itself always and necessarily implies some form of mediation in
that the manner of approach to the things appears to be constitutive of what will
show itself as the manifest. Therefore, phenomenology means the methodical
mediation of the immediacy of the truth of the phenomena.
Here Heidegger takes his point of departure in the conviction that before
things appear to us, they obviously "are" already. The basic question is not
whether there are "real" things; there obviously are "real" things, because
otherwise nothing at all would appear to us. The fundamental question is
connected rather with the necessary conditions which must be fulfilled in order
that things can appear to us the way they do, so that it will be possible to ask the
question of what their appearance precisely means. When beings appear to us,
they always appear as either this or that. They can appear to us in many ways;
how they in fact will appear to us depends upon the kind of access we have to
them in each case. In the final analysis, the question of how a being will appear
to us, depends upon the a priori synthesis from which this being is taken in each
case; all letting be seen as presupposes some synthesis a priori.'"' When a being
appears to us in its "genuine" mode of Being, when it appears to us "the way it
really is", it appears to us from the perspective of the transcendental synthesis a
priori, which consists in the meaning or the truth of Being. Thus the expression
98

"to show itself can be applied meaningfully in ontology to both a being and to
its Being. Thus we can now determine the concept of phenomenon more
adequately: phenomenon in the ordinary sense of the term is not a being, but
the showing-itself of a being; phenomenon in the phenomenological sense of
the term is not the Being of a being, but the showing-itself of this Being in light
of the truth of Being. The immediacy of Dasein's relation to a being is to be
mediated by the truth of Being; for a being to show itself to Dasein, there must
be a transcendental, a priori horizon which consists in the truth of Being. In
other words, the showing-itself of the beings is conditioned by the truth of
Being. There is a showing-itself of a being (phenomenon in the ordinary sense)
if and only if there is an a priori horizon within which this being can show itself
as that which it really is. This showing-itself of beings is precisely the immediacy
which every methodical mediation must presuppose; that which is mediated by
the method is the phenomenon in the phenomenological sense of the term. Yet
there can be an explanation of phenomena (phenomenology) only if there is a
transcendental ontological synthesis, i.e., the truth of Being. Thus it is clear
that phenomenology is possible only as ontology.108

d) Hermeneutic Phenomenology

The ontological problematic which is concerned with the conditions of the

possibility of the being's showing-itself, i.e., with the truth of Being, requires
that the reflection on method not limit itself to determining the way in which the
meaning of Being can be investigated (ontology); it must explain also how
Dasein is to be examined in its relation to the things in the world. Thus a treatise
on the method of ontology demands on transcendental grounds that an intro-
ductory analytic of Dasein be developed. "Because phenomena, as understood
phenomenologically, are never anything but what goes to make up Being, while
Being is in every case the Being of some being, we must first bring forward the
beings themselves if it is our aim that Being should be laid bare; and we must do
this in the right way".109
With respect to the subject matter of phenomenology one could say indeed
that phenomenology is the science of the Being of beings; it is in this sense that
phenomenology may be called ontology. Yet in explaining the task of ontology
we have already referred to the necessity of a fundamental ontology which has
to take the form of an ek-sistential analytic of Dasein. Fundamental ontology
must prepare our investigation of the question concerning the meaning of
Being. Thus that which phenomenology is concerned with first is the Being of
Dasein. This Being which is now concealed, was once revealed; it has slipped
back into oblivion; it is revealed now again, but in a distorted fashion so that
man's Dasein now seems to be what in fact it is not. It is precisely inasmuch as
Being is not seen that phenomenology is necessary. For Dasein to reveal itself
of its own accord as that which it is and how it is, it must be submitted to
phenomenological analyses in which one must make an effort to lay the Being
of Dasein out in full view. Such a laying-out necessarily takes the form of an
 99

interpretation; this is the reason why phenomenology is essentially hermeneuti-

cal.no
The term "hermeneutic" seems to have its historical origin in biblical ex-
egesis. Later it was applied to the interpretation of the meaning of historical
documents and works of art. As the expression is used by Heidegger in Being
and Time it no longer refers to documents and results of man's artistic activities,
but to man's own Being. But what does it mean to interpret a non-symbolic fact
such as man's Being? Interpretation focusses on the meaning of things; it
presupposes that what is to be interpreted has meaning and that this meaning is
not immediately obvious. Dasein obviously has meaning and this meaning
allows for interpretation. For as ek-sistence Dasein is essentially related to its
own Being as that which continuously is at stake for it. In view of the fact that
Dasein as ek-sistence is oriented toward possibilities which reach beyond itself,
Dasein is capable of interpretation. But Dasein's Being also requires interpreta-
tion. For just as Being has the tendency to fall into oblivion, so man's Being has
the tendency to degenerate.
The phenomenology of Dasein is even hermeneutic in three different senses.
It is hermeneutical first because (as we have just seen) in this particular case, in
which one looks at Dasein exclusively from the perspective of Being itself, the
phenomenological description has the character of being an Auslegung, an
unfolding and an explaining interpretation which looks at Dasein from this
particular perspective. This phenomenology is also "transcendental" in the
sense of Kant, insofar as it concerns itself with the conditions of the possibility
of our ontological knowledge as such. Thus it is hermeneutic in the sense that in
it the conditions on which the possibility of any ontological investigation
depends, become worked out. Finally, this hermeneutic phenomenology has
also the character of an analytic in the sense of Kant. As the interpretation of
Dasein's Being from the perspective of the truth of Being, hermeneutic phe-
nomenology has the specific meaning of being an analytic of the ek-sistentiality
of Dasein's ek-sistence, of Dasein's standing out toward the world. Thus
fundamental ontology is a transcendental analytic which methodically is phe-
nomenological and hermeneutical in character.1"
From a purely methodical point of view we can say the same for Heidegger's
reflections on the origin of the work of art. In the art lectures Heidegger
consistently uses the hermeneutico-phenomenological method in an effort to
interpret the essence of the art work from the perspective of the coming-to-pass
of the truth of Being, which, as we shall see later, appears in these lectures
under the guise of "the open". In so doing, Heidegger tries to retrieve basic
ideas first developed by Hegel; yet in many instances Heidegger also tries to
retrieve ideas from other thinkers, notably from Plato and Nietzsche.
100

§ 17. The Hermeneutic Circle

a) From Work to Art and from Art to Work. The Circle

What art is, Heidegger says, can be derived from the art work. On the other
hand, what the work is can be learned only from the essence of art. The
attentive reader will have observed that we are obviously now moving in a
circle, for it is said here that we come to know what the art work is from the
essence of art, and that what art is should be inferred from the work. One may
wish to demand that such a circle be avoided because it appears to violate the
laws of logic. Yet it is not difficult to show that the circle cannot be avoided
here. For it is the case that in order to be able to distinguish works of art from
other things, one must know what art is, whereas what art is can be gathered
only from a comparative consideration of available art works. How can one be
certain that to start such a consideration he does indeed take up genuine works
of art, unless he already knows what art is? If it were to be impossible to get to
art's essence through the available art works, it would be equally impossible to
derive the essence of art from some higher concept; for such a derivation would
have to presuppose that one knows precisely those characteristics he needs to
see in advance, the moment he is to decide what we are to accept as works of
art. Thus it appears that we have to enter the circle and to carry it out. This is
neither a make-shift nor a lack or deficiency. To enter this road is the strength of
thought and to remain on it is truly the feast of thought. As we shall see, it is not
only the step from work to art and from art to work that is circular; even every
single step we take here revolves in this circle.112
We have seen already that in his Lectures on Aesthetics Hegel, too, mentions
a circle in the introductory sections of his lectures.113 It is not impossible that
Heidegger was in part influenced by this passage when he raised the issue of the
circle in the introductory section of his own lectures on the art work. Yet in
Heidegger's view, the circle which we encounter here in the lectures on the
origin of the work of art, is really rooted in the circular character of all human
understanding, as we shall see shortly.
As for the concept of the hermeneutic circle, Schleiermacher credits
Friedrich Ast (1779-1841) with formulating the basic principle of the circle. In
Ast's view, if in the historical sciences, one tries to understand the spirit of an
epoch, one must keep in mind that the mark of the spirit as a whole is found in
the individual parts and, thus, that the parts are to be understood from the
whole, and the whole from the inner harmony of the parts. The hermeneutic
circle then became an integral part of the 19th century treatises on hermeneu-
tics. Heidegger was familiar with classical hermeneutics through his study of
history and theology. Inspired by this tradition he was led to develop an
ontological conception of the hermeneutic circle. Gadamer has corretly ob-
served that Heidegger went into this basic issue of historical hermeneutics and
criticism only "in order to develop from it, for the purposes of ontology, the
fore-structure of understanding"."4
 101

In view of the fact that a proper understanding of Heidegger's conception of

understanding and of the hermeneutic circle is important for our efforts to come
to grips with his lecture on the origin of the work of art, it seems to be desirable
to say a few words about the manner in which Heidegger developed his ideas in
this regard in Being and Time.

b) Understanding, Interpretation, and the Hermeneutic "As"

According to Heidegger the relationship between man and the world which
manifests itself in man's concernful dealing with things, implies a kind of
knowledge, but this knowledge, originally at least, is not yet theoretical knowl-
edge. In trying to explain man's primordial way of knowing, namely that which
is inherent in Daseiris concern, Heidegger describes man's Being as a structural
unity which implies three different elements: mood (Befindlichkeit), under-
standing (Verstehen), and logos. We must now turn to a brief reflection on two
of these "ek-sistentials" which constitute Dasein's "There".
It is not easy to say what the ontological structure of "original mood"
precisely is because our thematic knowledge of all that is connected with man's
"emotional life" is rather vague. Undoubtedly, mood communicates to us
something about our own mode of Being in relationship to the world. But it is
difficult in each case to determine why one is disposed or "tuned" in a determi-
nate way, and what this disposition tells us about ourselves and about the
world. Original mood informs man about his position in the midst of things in
the world. Different elements which can be distinguished are contained in this
"insight".«First of all, in his mood man is aware of his own being. Without
wanting it, and without freely having chosen it, man is. His being appears to him
as a being-thrown; he appears to himself as thrown among things. In mood,
man not only becomes aware of the fact that he is, but also of the fact that he
"has to be", that his being is to be realized by himself as a task.
Secondly, the determinate mood a man is in depends on the modalities of the
involvement which he always has with things in the world. Thus mood is an
implicit, but continuous "judgment" regarding his own self-realization. Hence
" man can be disclosed to himself in a more primordial way through mood than
through theoretical reflection. However, if it is true that man ek-sists and is as
Being-in-the-world, then mood must also disclose to him his relationships with
other merP&nd with things. And as far as the latter are concerned, this is true
particularly for works of art.
Thirdly, in his everyday concern man encounters intramundane things as
emerging from the horizon of the world, taken as a referential totality. But this
is possible only if the world has already been disclosed as such beforehand. It is
precisely because the world is given to man beforehand, that it is possible for
him to encounter intramundane things as such. This prior disclosedness of the
world is constituted by one's mood; that man is openness in the direction of the
"other" in the world is given to him in the most original way through that
fundamental feeling of his "Being there".113
102

Man not only possesses an existential possibility of being always in a mood,

his mode of Being is determined equiprimordially by his understanding {Ver­
stehen). Understanding is not to be conceived of here as a concrete mode of
knowing, but precisely as that which makes all concrete modes of knowing
possible. On the level of our everyday life this primordial understanding is
always present in mood, and all understanding in its turn is connected with
mood.
Thus, original understanding has not so much reference to this or that
concrete thing or situation as to the mode of Being which is typical for man as
Being-in-the-world. In original understanding the mode of Being characteristic
of man manifests itself as "Being-able-to . . . " However, man is not something
present-at-hand that possesses its Being-able-to . . . by way of an extra; he
himself is primarily a Being-able-to-be. This Being-able-to-be, which is essen-
tial for man, has reference to all the various ways of his being concerned for
others and with things, and of his concern for the world. But, in all this, man
always realizes in one way or another his Being-able-to-be in regard to himself
and for the sake of himself.
Original understanding thus always pertains to man's Being-in-the-world as a
whole. That is why man's moodful understanding brings to light not only man
himself as Being-able-to-be, but also the world as a referential totality. By
revealing the world to man, his primordial understanding also gives him the
possibility of encountering intramundane things in their own possibilities.
Accordingly, primordial understanding always moves in a range of pos-
sibilities; it continuously endeavors to discover possibilities, because it pos-
sesses in itself the existential structure of a "project". In his primordial under-
standing man projects himself onto his ultimate "for the sake of which"; but this
self-projection necessarily implies at the same time - and equally primordially -
a world-projection.
In his original understanding man thus opens himself in the direction of his
own Being but, at the same time, also in the direction of the world. For this
reason primordial understanding implies essentially an antecedent view, an
anticipating "sighting" of things, of fellow-men, of the world as a whole, and
obviously also of his own mode of Being. To the extent that man's view is
concerned with equipment, things, works, fellow-men, himself, or the world as
a whole, this antecedent and anticipating "sight" can appear in different
modalities. The important point here is to note that for Heidegger Verstehen
implies first of all that the one who understands, grasps by anticipation the
structure of a being still to be encountered and, secondly, that during the
encounter the grasp which was anticipated is explicitly achieved according to
the predetermined plan as dictated by the primordial constitution of Dasein
itself."*
Primordial understanding, which is inseparably connected with mood, al-
ways has the character of an anticipating, interpretative conception in which
man discloses himself as Being-able-to-be in the different modalities that are
possible for him, modalities to which different possibilities correspond with
 103

respect to his equipment, things, works, fellow-men, or the world. But this
interpretative conception is as such not yet explicitly articulated in understand-
ing. However, it can develop in that direction by means of Auslegung, a term
which means explanation as well as interpretation. In and through interpreta-
tive explanation man's understanding appropriates comprehendingly that
which is already understood by it. Interpretative explanation is the develop-
ment of the possibilities that in anticipation were projected in understanding
itself.»7
What is meant here can perhaps be explained best by taking one's point of
departure in man's everyday concernful dealing with things. Suppose we enter
the workshop of a carpenter who is in the process of making a table. In his work,
i.e., his concernful dealing with the intramundane things found in his work-
shop, the carpenter is guided by a certain kind of understanding to which
Heidegger refers with the term "circumspection". His circumspection dis-
covers the intramundane things in the shop by setting them apart and interpret-
ing them. What originally was ready-to-hand circumspectively in its ser-
viceability, i.e., in its "in order to", is to be set apart and to be taken as this or
that. That which has been set apart in this way in regard to its "in-order-to",
thereby receives the structure of "something taken as something". To the
circumspective question as to what this particular ready-to-hand thing may be,
the circumspectively interpretative answer is that it serves such and such
purpose. By explicitly pointing to what a thing is for, we do not simply designate
that thing; what is so designated is understood as that as which we are to take
that particular thing. This hermeneutic as constitutes the structure of the
explicitriess of each thing that is circumspectively understood. In other words,
the hermeneutic as is the constitutive element of what Heidegger calls inter-
pretative explanation. If in dealing with what is environmentally ready-to-hand
we interpret it circumspectively, we take it, we "see" it as a hammer, the top of
the table, the drawer. However, what is thus interpreted need not necessarily
be taken apart in an explicit enunciation (Aussage). Any mere prepredicative
using and thus "seeing" of what is ready-to-hand is in itself already something
that understands interpretatively. The articulation of what is understood in the
interpretation of each intramundane thing with the help of the clue "something
as something" is there before any explicit statement is made about it. Thus the
hermeneutic as does not emerge for the first time in the explicit statements we
make about things, the as gets merely expressed and enunciated in them.11*
If we never perceive intramundane things which are ready-to-hand without
already understanding and interpreting them, and if all perception lets us
circumspectively encounter something as something, does this not mean that at
first something purely present-at-hand is experienced and is later interpreted as
a hammer, a top, a table? Evidently this is not the case. Man's interpretation
does not throw meaning over some naked thing that is merely present-at-hand,
nor does it place a value on it. The intramundane thing that is encountered as
this or as that, in our original understanding which is characteristic of our
concernful dealing with things, already possesses a reference that is implicitly
104

contained in our co-understanding of the world; that is why we can articulate

and interpret it as this or as that. In our original understanding what is ready-
to-hand is always already understood from a totality of references which we call
our "world"; but this relationship between what is ready-to-hand and the world
need not be grasped explicitly in a thematic interpretation and explanation,
although such an interpretative explanation is evidently, in principle, always
possible. If such a thematic interpretation occurs, it is always on the basis of our
original understanding. Thus we may say that the fact that we "have" intramun-
dane things, that we take and "see" them in this way or in another, and
"conceive" of them on the basis of our interpretation of them, must be founded
in an earlier "having", an earlier "seeing", and an earlier "conception" which
are constitutive for our original understanding. Heidegger refers to this fact
with the expression: our hermeneuticsituation. Since the hermeneutic situation
plays an important role in his conception of the hermeneutic circle, I shall
return to it in 17C."9 Suffice it to note that what has been said here about a piece
of equipment is mutatis mutandis true also for works of art, as we shall see later.
We have seen that in the pro-ject (Ent-wurf) characteristic of our original
understanding, a thing becomes disclosed in its possibilities. The character of
these possibilities corresponds in each case to the mode of Being of the thing
which is so understood. Intramundane things are necessarily projected upon
the world, i.e., upon a whole context of meaning, a totality of references to
which man's concern as Being-in-the-world has been tied in advance. When an
intramundane thing is discovered and comes to be understood, we say that it
has meaning. But what is understood is, strictly speaking, not the meaning but
the thing itself. Meaning is that in which the intelligibility of something main-
tains itself. Thus, meaning is that which can be articulated in the disclosure of
man's understanding. The concept of meaning contains the formal framework
of what necessarily belongs to that which can be articulated by our interpreta-
tive understanding. Meaning is a project's "upon-which", that can be struc-
tured by our understanding and from which each thing as this or that can be
understood. Meaning is therefore the intentional correlate of the disclosedness
which necessarily belongs to our original understanding. Thus, strictly speak-
ing, only the mode of Being characteristic of man "has" meaning, insofar as the
disclosedness of Being-in-the-world can be "filled" by the things which are
discoverable in that disclosedness. In other words, there can be a question of
meaning only within the dialogue between man and the things in the world.
This is also why in each understanding of the world man's ek-sistence is
co-understood and vice versa.00
All interpretative explanation is rooted in the original understanding charac-
teristic of man's concern. That which is articulated in interpretative explanation
and thus was already predelineated in the original understanding as something
that can be articulated, is what Heidegger calls "meaning". Insofar as enuncia-
tion as a derivative mode of interpretative explanation is also grounded in our
primordial understanding, it too has meaning.
Concluding these reflections we may say that in «Heidegger's opinion all
 105

understanding (Verstehen) is interpretation. The interpretation may be implicit

as in our concernful dealing with things, or explicit as in our interpretative
explanation and enunciation. The deepest root of the hermeneutic character of
all human understanding is to be found in the fact that all understanding
necessarily takes place in the hermeneutic situation. For man understanding is
impossible except on the basis of a fore-having, a fore-sight, and a fore-
conception because of the fact that his transcendence is inherently finite and
temporal. Furthermore, Heidegger argues, anyone who wishes to give a justi-
fication for his interpretation must do so by clarifying the "presuppositions"
which are inherent in the hermeneutic situation, both in a basic experience of
the thing to be disclosed, and in terms of such an experience.121

c) The Hermeneutic Circle in "Being and Time"

Most logicians adopt a negative attitude in regard to the circle as a mode of

thought. Their attitude is completely justified as long as one limits himself to a
circle occurring in a formal argument or to the circle in our defining of concepts.
Those who adopt a more positive attitude in regard to the circle usually limit its
use to cases in which a study is to be made of phenomena which appear to imply
antinomic oppositions. If opposites are to be overcome and, thus, some identi-
fication is to be accomplished, the combination of the antinomic elements can
generally be attempted from the viewpoint of one member as well as from that
of the other; then circular propositions often emerge. In Heidegger's case the
circle becomes a structural element of each human act of understanding as such.
The henneneutic circle is an inherent element of any attempt to interpretatively
understand human phenomena. For the interpretative explanation of such
phenomena is possible only insofar as the one who understands brings with him
from his own point of view a certain preunderstanding of this phenomenon and
of the context in which it manifests itself. By interpreting the new phenomenon
from this perspective an understanding of this phenomenon can be achieved
which in turn will change and deepen the original perspective from which the
interpretation was made. Here Heidegger applies insights which Schleier-
macher had suggested in connection with the question concerning the condi-
tions of text interpretation, to the act of human understanding as such and to
our philosophic understanding in particular.122
Already on the very first pages of Being and Time Heidegger brings up the
hermeneutic circle as an essential element of philosophical discourse. There he
states that he wishes to work out the question concerning the meaning of Being,
but that this can be done only by first giving a proper explanation of a being,
namely Dasein, with regard to its mode of Being. After making this statement
he continues: "Is there not, however, a manifest circularity in such an undertak-
ing? If we must first define a thing in its Being, and if we want to formulate the
question of Being only on this basis, what is this but going in a circle?"123
Heidegger points out first that there is no circle at all in formulating his basic
concern as he has described it. For one can determine the mode of Being
106

characteristic of a thing without having an explicit concept of the meaning of

Being at one's disposal. For if this were not the case, no ontological knowledge
would ever have been possible. But the fact that there has been such knowledge
cannot be denied. In all ontology "Being" has obviously been presupposed, but
not as a concept at one's disposal. "The presupposing of Being has the character
of taking a look at it beforehand, so that in the light of it the things presented to
us get provisionally articulated in their Being. This guiding activity of taking a
(provisional) look at Being arises from the average understanding of Being in
which we always operate and which in the end belongs to the essential constitu-
tion of Dasein itself'.124
On several occasions throughout Being and Time Heidegger returns to the
problem which the hermeneutic circle seems to cause. We have already pointed
to the fact that in Heidegger's view any genuine act of understanding implies
interpretation and that interpretation is impossible except on the basis of
certain 'presuppositions'. These presuppositions which constitute the her­
meneutic situation, are characterized by the technical terms "fore-having",
"fore-sight", and "fore-conception". Anyone who tries to understand a human
phenomenon, necessarily presupposes a totality of meaning or "world" within
which in his view this phenomenon can appear as meaningful (fore-having).
Secondly, he assumes a certain point of view which fixes that with regard to
which what is to be understood is to be viewed and interpreted (fore-sight).
Finally, one tries to articulate one's understanding of that phenomenon with
the help of concepts which are either drawn from the phenomenon itself, or are
forced upon it as it were from the outside. In either case, the interpretative
understanding has already decided for a definite way of conceiving of it (fore-
conception).125 The important point, in Heidegger's view, is that an interpreta-
tion is never a presuppositionless apprehending of something presented to us.
Our interpretation does not "constitute" the meaning which things and phe-
nomena have for us; but the meaning of things receives its structure and
articulation from our fore-having, fore-sight, and fore-conception.126
One of the basic characteristics of philosophical discourse is that, although it
itself, too, is subject to the hermeneutic situation, it conceives of its task as to
clarify and give a foundation to the totality of the presuppositions which
constitute our hermeneutic situation in each case. But if this is indeed so, then it
is obvious that philosophy itself will again encounter the circle. As Heidegger
sees it, if the problematic of ontology is to have its hermeneutic situation
clarified, one has to ask the question of whether its method implies a circular
argument. One could argue that using a type of circular interpretation implies
that one presupposes the idea of Being and that Dasein's Being gets interpreted
accordingly so that then the idea of Being may be obtained from it. Heidegger
does not deny that in his analysis he presupposed some understanding of
Dasein's Being and Being itself, but he denies that this process implies positing
one or more propositions from which further propositions about Dasein's Being
and Being itself are to be deduced. On the contrary, "this pre-supposing has the
character of an understanding projection", and this projection makes possible
 107

an interpretation which lets "that which is to be interpreted put itself into words
for the very first time, so that it may decide of its own accord whether as the
being which it is, it has the state of Being as which it has been disclosed in the
projection as far as its formal aspects are concerned". In other words, in an
existential analytic one cannot but avoid the logical circle and a circular proof
for the simple reason that such an analysis does not do any proving at all by the
rules of logic.
Furthermore, Dasein is primordially constituted by care; but as such it is
already ahead of itself. It has in every case already projected itself upon definite
possibilities; and in such existential projections it has, in a pre-ontological
manner, also projected its own mode of Being and Being itself. And yet,
Heidegger continues, we object to the circle not only on logical grounds; we
also object to it in that it seems contrary to our common sense conception of
what it means to "understand something". But, he continues, "when one
speaks about the 'circle' in understanding, one expresses the failure to recog-
nize two things: 1) that understanding as such makes up a basic kind of Dasein's
Being, and 2) that this Being is constituted as care. To deny the circle... means
finally to reinforce this failure. We must rather endeavor to leap into the
'circle', primordially and wholly, so that even at the start of the analysis of
Dasein we make sure that we have a full view of Dasein's circular Being. If, in
the ontology of Dasein we take our departure, from a worldless T in order to
provide this T with an object and an ontologically baseless relation to that
object, then we have presupposed not too much, but too little [Husserl]. If we
make a problem of 'life* and then just occasionally we have regard to death, too,
our view is too short-sighted [Dilthey]. The object we have taken as our theme
here is artificially and dogmatically curtailed if 'in the first instance* we restrict
ourselves to a 'theoretical subject', in order that we may then round it out 'on
the practical side* by tacking on an 'ethic*. This may suffice to clarify the
existential meaning of the hermeneutic situation of a primordial analysis of
Dasein .. ."U7
It seems to me that in these passages Heidegger has convincingly shown not
only that the hermeneutic circle is essential to all ontological inquiry, but also
that the circle does not have to lead to relativism in that ontology makes it its
task to clarify and give a radical foundation to the totality of presuppositions
which constitute our hermeneutic situation in each case.

d) The Circle in Hegel and Heidegger

We have already observed several times that in his Lectures on Aesthetics

Hegel, too, mentions a circle. He writes there that it is only the whole of
philosophy which is knowledge of the universe as being in itself that one organic
totality, which develops itself out of its own concept and which, withdrawing
into itself to form a whole, closes with itself to form one world of truth. "In the
circlet of this scientific necessity each single part is on the one hand a circle
returning into itself, while on the other hand it has at the same time a necessary
108

connection with other parts".128

Hegel thus uses the circle to explain why and in what sense his Lectures on
Aesthetics are not strictly philosophical in character, not truly "scientific". In a
genuine science one never does what one does in ordinary life. In the latter it is
quite common to begin with a reference to concrete things at hand in order then
to proceed toward an effort to uncover their essence. But the encyclopedia of
all philosophical sciences cannot begin by taking concrete and contingent facts
as unquestioned "absolutes". The philosopher must somehow give a proof as to
why there must be works of art. But such a proof must flow from the concept of
art and in the final analysis from the Spirit itself, certainly not from contingent
facts. The lectures of aesthetics would become truly scientific if and only if one
were able to show that art in all its forms flows with necessity from the self-
development of the Spirit.129
Hegel uses the circle also in another context. In the Phenomenology of Spirit
Hegel claims that finite consciousness seems to be unable to determine the
purpose of its own actions before its actions have taken place. Yet before the
action occurs consciousness must have the act in front of itself as entirely its
own, i.e., as its purpose. "The individual, therefore, who is going to act seems
to find himself in a circle, where each moment already presupposes the others,
and hence seems unable to find a beginning .. ."m
It seems to me that Heidegger tries to retrieve both of these ideas in his
lectures on the origin of the work of art and to incorporate them in his
ontological interpretation of the hermeneutic circle. For like Hegel, Heidegger,
too, maintains that what is actually happening in his treatise on art, is not yet the
genuine philosophical task. Like Hegel, Heidegger, too, will begin with com-
mon conceptions, i.e., with common conceptions of works of art, taken as
things, made by artists. Like Hegel, Heidegger, also, accepts that a careful,
critical reflection on these common conceptions leads to a rejection of both the
empiricist and the rationalist conceptions of art. The empiricist gets entangled
in "psychology" and, thus, never gets to the "essence" of art, whereas the
abstract idea of Beauty as such is not relatable to beautiful works of art.131 And
perhaps there are even other parallels between Hegel's and Heidegger's con-
ceptions of the circle.
Yet one must also admit that the circles referred to here are completely
different from one another, and that it is completely impossible to identify
Hegel's "speculative circle" with what Heidegger calls the hermeneutic circle. I
am convinced that Taminiaux is correct where he states that Hegel's speculative
circle has at least three characteristics which Heidegger's conception of the
hermeneutic circle precisely excludes. First of all, Hegel's circle implies that the
present has a privileged position. Thus for Hegel there is no room for what
Heidegger calls a "destructive retrieve". In Hegel there is no Wieder-holung,
no fetching back or retrieve, but only Er-innerung or interiorizing re-
membrance. In Hegel's philosophy there is always a determined order of time
in which the present is privileged in the process of progress; the present is for
Hegel always "better" than what has been. Furthermore, the circle for Hegel
 109

implies the idea of totalization, i.e., the idea that the truth is the whole of this
becoming, as well as the idea of the totalization of the entire historical process
with its institutions. Finally, Hegel's circle implies the possibility of complete
fulfillment, saturation, and identity; for Hegel difference is not an ultimate.132
Be this as it may, we must now return to the text of Heidegger's lectures on
the origin of the work of art, where he focuses on the thingly nature that we
discover in every work of art.
 CHAPTER II. THE THING AND THE WORK

ART. I. THE ONTOLOGICAL QUESTION CONCERNING THE

THING-BEING OF THE THING

§ 18. The Art Work Does Have a Thingly Character

a) Art Works Are Things

In § 17 we have seen that Heidegger had reached the point where it became
clear that the question concerning the essence of art is to be approached by
means of a careful study of the work of art. One of the first things which
everyone immediately notices when confronted with works of art is, in Heideg-
ger's view, that they are things, things not made by nature but by man. Yet most
aesthetic theories pass by this aspect of the work of art in silence. One is
convinced that even though it is indeed true that art works are things made by
man, nonetheless it is true also that what makes them be the beautiful works
they are, consists in something else. In other words, most aesthetic theories give
some kind of symbolic interpretation of art works and claim that in each work of
art there is something else over and above the thingly feature of the art work. It
is thus understandable that in these theories one will make a distinction
between some material substrate and a form, some material element and some
formal element, between sensuous material and some "idea", or between form
and content.
Heidegger mentions these conceptions only to take distance from them "And
yet - this well-known path of all aesthetic theories we prefer not to follow in this
essay on the origin of the work of art".1 Instead, Heidegger will try to bring the
immediate and full Being of the art work itself to light first. But this does indeed
imply that one must begin by paying attention to the thingly character of the
work.2 With these observations in mind, let us now return to Heidegger's own
text in order to see how he himself states his case.
Heidegger begins his reflections on the thingly character of the work by
observing that everybody is familiar with at least some works of art. We find
 Ill

many works of art in public places; many cities and towns have beautiful
churches, palaces, and public or private buildings; in many churches, palaces,
and private homes we find beautiful pieces of sculpture or paintings. Works of
art of different ages are often displayed in collections and exhibitions. Anyone
who takes these works as they immediately present themselves will admit that
works of art are as naturally present as all other things. The picture hangs on the
wall like a cap or a rifle. Paintings, such as the one by van Gogh that shows a
pair of farmer's shoes, are shipped from one exhibition to another. Works of art
are often transported like coal from the Ruhr district or trees from the Black
Forest. During World War I soldiers often packed Holderlin's poems in their
bags together with cleaning equipment. Works by Beethoven and Goethe lie in
the storerooms of publishing companies like potatoes in the cellar.
All works do indeed have a thingly dimension. What would they be without
their thingly characteristics? Perhaps one finds it objectionable to approach
works of art in such a crude and superficial manner. Such ideas about art works
may perhaps be found among workers in a warehouse or among people who
clean in a museum. Philosophers should take the works as they are encountered
by those who experience and enjoy them. But even those who appeal to
aesthetic experiences (Erlebnisse) cannot deny the thingly character of art
works. There is stone in a work of architecture. There is wood in a sculpture,
and color in paintings. In literary works there are sounds, and there are tones in
a musical composition. The thingly character is so irremovably found in the
work of art that we perhaps should say conversely that architectural works are
in stone, carvings in wood, paintings in colour, poems in sound, and composi-
tions in tone. Perhaps one will say now that all of this is obvious and, thus, need
not be mentioned here explicitly. This is true; but the question still is in what the
thingly character of the thing precisely consists.
One might argue, Heidegger continues, that it is superfluous and even
confusing to inquire into this aspect of the art work, in view of the fact that the
work of art as such is obviously something else over and above its thingly
character. This something else makes it into a work of art. It is indeed true that a
work of art is a thing that has been made; yet as a work of art it says something
more, something other than the mere thing itself is (allo agoreuei, in public to
say something other). The thing makes public something that is other than
itself; it makes something else manifest; it is an allegory. In other words, in the
work of art something else is brought together with the thing made. In Greek to
bring together means sumballein; the art work is a symbol.
Allegory and symbol are the concepts which one has used for a long time to
describe what is essential to a work of art as such. Yet it still is the case that in
the work of art the one element to which then another element is to be added, is
and remains the thingly character of the work. One might be inclined to say that
the thingly character of the work constitutes the substructure or foundation
upon which that which is truly characteristic of the work is built. And is it not
this thingly character or feature that the artist really makes in exercising his
craft?
112

Heidegger concludes these provisional reflections on the thingly character of

the work by observing that we wish to arrive here at the immediate and full
reality of the work of art; for only in this way can we discover in it the real art. In
order to achieve this it is necessary that we first make an effort to find out with
sufficient clarity what a thing really is. For then and only then can it be decided
whether the art work is indeed a thing, albeit a thing to which something else
still belongs, or whether perhaps the work of art as such in the final analysis
appears to be something else and not a thing at all.3

b) Traditional Interpretations of the Thing-Being of the Thing

As Heidegger sees it, in our effort to determine the thing-character of the work
we must first turn to the ontological question concerning the thing-Being of the
thing. What is truly a thing, taken insofar as it is a thing? What is the way of
Being characteristic of the thing? What constitutes the thingness of the thing?
In order to come to know the thingness of the thing, we must first familiarize
ourselves with the domain to which all those beings belong which we call things.
Heidegger makes a list: stones, lumps of earth, furrows in the soil, wells, jugs,
water or milk, clouds, thistles, hawks. All these beings must indeed be called
things, if the word is even applied to that which, contrary to the beings just
mentioned, does not show itself, i.e., does not appear. For Kant the totality of
the world and even God Himself are things of this kind, things that do not
themselves appear, things-in-themselves. Thus in the language of modern
philosophy both the things-in-themselves and the things-that-appear (phe-
nomena, appearances), i.e., all beings that in any way are, are called things.
But if the word "thing" can be used for all these beings, even including the
planes and the radios and all other things made by man, as well as even the
so-called "ultimate things", i.e., death and judgment, then the word "thing"
appears to designate everything that is not simply nothing. But taken in that
sense it is of no use to us anymore here where we are making an effort to
understand the difference between thing and art work. Furthermore, Heideg-
ger continues, it is not proper to call God a thing; it does not even seem correct
to call humans things. Many will even hesitate to call a deer a thing, or the
beetle in the grass, or even the blade of grass itself. We feel less uncomfortable
when we call a hammer, a shoe, an axe, or a clock, etc., a thing. But even these
are not just mere things. As mere things we only accept the stone, the lump of
earth, the piece of wood. Yet if we limit ourselves to common usage we may
perhaps say that by things we mean the non-living beings of nature and all
objects of use. Thus "natural things and utensils are the things commonly so
called".
In this way we return from the wider scope in which everything can be called a
thing (thing = res = ens = being), including even the highest and the last things,
to the narrow domain of the mere things. The word "mere" means here first:
the pure thing that is simply a thing and nothing more; secondly, it also means
that which is only a thing taken in an almost pejorative sense. In that case only
 113

mere things, excluding even objects of use, count as things in the strictest sense
of the term. We must now ask the question of what the thingly character of
these things precisely consists in. The answer to this question will help us to
characterize the almost palpable reality of works of art, in which however
something else still resides.4
Heidegger makes here thus a distinction between "thing" taken in a very
broad sense (including all beings taken as phenomena as well as beings-
in-themselves), and "things" taken in a rather narrow sense. To introduce this
distinction he mentions things that belong to different types: inanimate natural
things (this stone), inanimate man-made things (this cup), inanimate things
which are not of a solid or permanent nature (water, milk, cloud), animate
things (deer, grass, a blade of grass), Kant's "thing-in-itself", i.e., something
that never shows itself (such as the whole of the world and God), all beings,
regardless of whether they show themselves as such or not, and finally the "last
things" (death, final judgment). Heidegger then reduces these types to two: the
inanimate things of nature and the inanimate man-made things. By things in the
strict sense of the term we mean only the former, the inanimate things of
nature. Art works are obviously things in the sense of inanimate things made by
man, but they "contain" things in the strict sense of the term as the "material"
out of which they have been made.5
Heidegger now turns to the three leading interpretations of the thingness of
things which have been given in our tradition. The question concerning the
thingness of things has been raised since antiquity; this was due to the fact that
from the very beginning it was assumed that among all beings, the things occupy
a privileged position, so that when people began to wonder about the Being of
beings, they really began to inquire into the question concerning the thingness
of things. In its long history philosophy has given different answers to the
question of what constitutes the essence of things; these can be reduced to the
following: for some a thing is the composition of substance and accidents; for
others, it is the unity of a manifold of sensible properties; for still others, it is a
unity of matter and form.6
Heidegger then describes how in Greek philosophy a distinction was made
between hupokeimenon and sumbebekota, a distinction which later in Latin
was translated into substantia and accidentia, substance and accidents. He
exemplifies the distinction with the help of a piece of rock, a thing that is hard,
heavy, extended, bulky, of irregular shape, rough, grey, partly dull and partly
shiny. These characteristics refer to something that is proper to the stone itself.
They are its properties. The thing itself is not just the aggregate or the sum of
these properties. The thing itself is, as everyone thinks he knows, that around
which the properties have gathered. One could speak about the core of things.
One often claims that the Greeks called this core the hupokeimenon. For them
this core of the thing was something lying on the ground, something that is
always already present. On the other hand, they called the characteristics the
sumbebekota, that which always turns up along with the core as soon as the
latter appears; it is that which occurs together with the core.
114

In Heidegger's view these terms are not just arbitrary names. The basic
Greek experience of the Being of beings as such still speaks in them; but this,
Heidegger feels, is something that cannot be discussed here further. It is in and
by these determinations, however, that the interpretation of the thing-Being of
the thing became established which from then on would become dominant, and
the Western interpretation of the Being of beings became fixed. In Heidegger's
view, this process began when the Greek terms were translated into Latin and
thus appropriated by Roman thought. Hupokeimenon became subjection,
hupostasis became substantia, and sumbebikota became accidentia.
Heidegger immediately adds here that this translation of Greek names into
Latin was by no means as harmless a process as one has considered it to be until
this day. This seemingly literal and faithful translation nevertheless covers up a
transposition of the Greek experience into an alien mode of thinking. Roman
thought takes over the Greek words without being able to take over the
corresponding, authentic experience of what they say; thus they took over the
words (Wörter) but they were unable to take over what they say (Worte). As
Heidegger sees it, the rootlessness of Western thought has its origin in this
translation.
In describing these views of the tradition it is clear that Heidegger does not
agree with the common interpretation of the issue he is concerned with. What
Heidegger describes here is the opinion held for a very long time in our Western
tradition. This opinion is based on Aristotle's Categories and his Metaphysics, if
not on Plato's Sophistes and Theaetetus. What Aristotle (or Plato) claimed in
these treatises is usually interpreted in the manner typical of the leading Greek,
Arabic, and Latin commentaries. It is the latter interpretation, particularly that
of Aquinas and Scotus, which has become dominant in the West ever since. In
Heidegger's view, in this interpretation the basic Greek experience of the Being
of beings as such (phusis, logos, alitheia) that once still spoke in them, is lost. In
order not to interrupt the train of thought which is oriented toward an explana-
tion of the origin of the work of art, Heidegger, however, decides not to dwell
on this subject here.7
Instead, he focuses the attention of the reader on the fact that according to
the common opinion, this determination of the thingness of the thing as the
substance with its accidents seems to correspond to our natural view of things. It
is not surprising then that in our attitude toward things, and in our speaking
about them, we have learned to adapt ourselves to this common view. We say
accordingly that a simple proposition consists of the subject and the predicate;
subject is here the Latin translation and, thus, also already a re-interpretation,
of the Greek hupokeimenon; a predicate is taken to be that in which a charac-
teristic of the thing is stated. Who would dare to deny the thesis that there is a
close relationship between the structure of the thing and the structure of the
simple proposition? Yet, Heidegger continues, we must nonetheless ask the
question of whether the structure of the simple proposition (the combination of
subject and predicate) is indeed just the mirror image of the structure of the
thing (the union of substance and accidents). Could it.perhaps be the case that
 115

the structure of the thing is a reflection or projection of the structure of the

sentence? Many will be inclined toprefer the latter alternative over the former;
for what is more obvious than that one transposes the propositibnal<way of
understanding things into the structure of the thing itself. Heidegger rejects this
view which.is only seemingly critical; actually it is premature and ill-considered;
for it would have to explain first how such a transposition of the structure of the
sentence into that of the thing is supposed to be possible without the thing
having already become visible: One must not forget here that the structure öf
the thing becomes visible in our speech. .
The question as to whether the sentence structure or the thing structure
comes first'here, remains undecided to this day« In Heidegger's own opinion it
is very doubtful whether the question, as long as it is formulated in this form, is
even decidable. He himself is convinced that neither one of the two is primary,
neither one of the two can be taken as the standard. Both the structure of the
sentence and that of the thing derive, in their typical form and their possible
mutual relationship, from a more original source which they both have in
common.8
Heidegger again refrains from going deeper into this important issue. He
concludes his reflections with the remark that it is in any case clear by now that
the first interpretation of the thingness of things, according to whichthe thing as
substance is the bearer of its characteristic traits, it not as natural as it appears to
be, even though it is indeed a very common one. "What seems natural to us is
probably just something familiar to a long tradition that has forgotten the
unfamiliar source from which it arose. And yet this unfamiliar [source] once
struck man as strange and provoked him to think and to wonder''.9
Finally, Heidegger turns to some critical reflections on this conception of the
thingness of the thing. First of all, our confidence in this common interpretation
of the thing is only seemingly well-founded. Secondly, this conception of the
thing holds not only for mere things in the strict sense, but also for any being
whatsoever. Thus it can never be used to distinguish between beings that have a
thingly character and those which do not. Yet apart from all other objections, if
one carefully looks at the entire matter it becomes clear soon that this con-
ception does not faithfully capture the thingly character of things, its indepen-
dence and its self-contained character. Heidegger continues his reflections by
observing that one sometimes has the feeling that for a long time violence has
been done to the thingness of the thing and that thought has played an
important part in this. Some people have for this reason disavowed thought
instead of making an effort to render it more thoughtful. One might perhaps
think that feeling has no place here and that thought alone has therightto speak
in these matters. Yet, Heidegger continues, could it not be that what we call
feeling here or mood is more reasonable and more intelligently perceptive
(because more open to Being) than that form of reason that meanwhile has
become ratio, the logical, calculative way of thinking? One might object that
this remark implies a preference for irrationalism. Heidegger obviously rejects
this implication, but does not discuss this matter further.10
116

Be this as it may. in Heidegger's view it certainly is the case that this first
conception of the thing-Being of the thing can indeed be applied to all things,
even though it does not grasp the things' genuine mode of Being."
Before we move on to the second conception of the thingness of things, I
should like to make two comments. First, Heidegger indicates in his discussion
of the first conception of the thing's thingness that eventually it will be neces-
sary to move on to a completely new conception of the thing-Being of the thing.
As we shall see later, the concept of earth plays an important part here. It will
become clear there also that things have as peculiar characteristics that they
"grow of themselves", they are eigenwüchsig; in addition they fully rest in
themselves. Secondly, Heidegger's remark that Befindlichkeit (mood) and
understanding are interwoven, and the observation that concern has priority
over theoretical knowledge obviously refer to Being and Time where these
themes are developed in great detail. Later it will become clear that both these
remarks are important the moment one wishes to approach the immediate and
full Being of the work of art.13
Heidegger now turns to the second conception of the thing which suggests
that the thingness of the thing consists in the unity of the manifold of what is
given in the senses. Some authors have conceived of this unity as sum, others as
totality, and again others as form. The manner in which one conceives of this
unity, however, does not change the characteristic trait of this conception of
things.
In Heidegger's opinion, this conception of the thingness of the thing is as
correct and as provable in every respect as the first one. This should already be
sufficient to make us suspicious of its truth. Furthermore, this conception, too,
leaves us again helpless, if we focus on what we are really searching for here: the
thing-Being of the thing. Contrary to what Hume and others have suggested,
we never really first perceive a number of sensations, as this conception of the
thing claims we should. One does not see patches of blue, nor does one hear
tones or noises; rather "we hear the storm whistling in the chimney, the three-
engine plane, we hear the Mercedes in immediate distinction from the Volks-
wagen".13 The things themselves are much closer to us than any mere sensa-
tions.
Anyone who is willing to analyze the phenomena as they themselves immedi-
ately give themselves and, in so doing, is willing to abide by the basic principles
of the phenomenological movement, will soon see that it is impossible to
conceive of sense impressions as primary and primarily given data.14
Heidegger again concludes these reflections on the second thing conception
with a remark on the source of the inadequacy of this conception. It is not so
much an assault upon the thing (an assault which we discovered in the first
conception), as rather an inordinate effort to bring it into the greatest possible
proximity. Whereas the first interpretation kept the thing much too far from us,
the second tries to bring it much too close. In both instances the thing itself
disappears. We must thus try to avoid the exaggerations of both these efforts.
We must learn to accept the thing itself in its self-containment and its constancy.
 117

In Heidegger's opinion, this is what the third interpretation, which is just as old
as the first, tries to do.15
That which gives things their constancy and core, but at the same, time is also
the source of their sensuous pressure is the material element in things. The
moment we think things in terms of matter (huli) we posit form (morphi) at the
same time. What is constant in the thing and what gives it its peculiar consis-
tency lies in the fact that matter stands together with a form. The thing is formed
matter. This interpretation invokes the immediate view (Anblick) with which
the thing confronts us in its own outlook (eidos). In this synthesis of matter and
form we find a conception of the thing which applies equally to things of nature
and to things of use.
As Heidegger sees it, this conception also enables us to answer the question
concerning the thingly character of the work of art. The work's thingly charac-
ter obviously is to be found in the matter of which it consists. Matter appears to
be the substrate and the domain for the formation by the artist. One might ask
here why this familiar and convincing conception of the thingly character of the
thing was not mentioned at the outset? The reason for this, Heidegger says, is
that this conception of the thing's Being cannot be accepted either.
One will object that the concepts of matter and form are usually employed in
the domain which we have set out here to explain. Heidegger does not deny that
this pair of concepts, used in a variety of ways, is indeed the primary conceptual
schema in all modern theories about the arts and particularly in aesthetics. Yet,
in his view, this fact still does not prove that this pair of concepts rests on
adequate grounds; nor does it prove that the distinction between matter and
form beldhgs originally to the domain of the arts. Furthermore, Heidegger
continues, this pair of concepts has for a very long time been applied far beyond
the realm of the arts. Matter and form are concepts under which everything can
be subsumed. Finally, if form is identified with the rational and the logical, and
matter with the irrational and illogical, and if in addition the subject-object
relation is conjoined with the concepts of matter and form, then one has at one's
command a conceptual machinery that nothing can withstand.
But if all of this is the case, how is one then to employ this pair of concepts to
get access to the mode of Being characteristic of mere things by contrast to all
other beings? One could try to avoid the difficulty hinted at here by using the
two concepts in their strict sense. But this would presuppose that we know in
what domain of beings they truly fulfill their defining power. That this domain is
the domain of mere things is just an assumption. Does the frequent use of the
concepts of matter and form in aesthetics not suggest that these concepts were
used in their primary sense to characterize the mode of Being of works of art?
Be this as it may, Heidegger concludes, it appears that it is not at all clear where
the matter-form structure has its true origin.16
118

§ 19. Toward the Genuine Origin of the Hylemorphic Structure. —

Retrospect

a) Equipment between Thing and Work

In this section Heidegger tries to show that the matter-form structure was
developed originally not to give an account of the thingly character of the art
work, and even less of the essence of the work of art; it was not even developed
to account for the thingness of things; it was introduced rather to describe the
typical mode of Being that is characteristic of tools or pieces of equipment,
where the form always determines the kind of matter that will be used, whereas
at the same time the form itself is determined by the purpose which the piece of
equipment is to serve.
In developing his conception of the mode of Being of equipment, Heidegger
presupposes the phenomenological analysis of the mode of Being of equipment
worked out in Being and Time.11 He maintains the results of this analysis here
but adds an element, not mentioned in Being and Time. In view of the fact that
this new element, namely the equipment's reliability, plays an important part in
the discussion to follow, I think that it is of some importance to return to
Heidegger's original description of the mode of Being of equipment developed
in Being and Time in order then to place the new element added here in its
proper context.
In Being and Time the analysis and description of the essence of equipment is
meant to prepare the ontological-existential conception of world. In other
words, to explain what is meant by "world" Heidegger turns to an analysis
which is meant to answer the following question: what is characteristic of
equipment as such, what makes equipment equipment?"1
Heidegger first observes that one should realize that there is no such thing as
an isolated piece of equipment. To the mode of Being characteristic of any
piece of equipment there always corresponds an equipmental totality in which
this particular piece of equipment can be what it is. For equipment is essentially
something that is to be characterized by its in-order-to. A piece of equipment is
what it is because of its belonging to other pieces of equipment with which it
constitutes a totality. Wood, screws, nails, glue, hammer, screwdriver, saw,
etc., these things never show themselves proximally as they are "in them-
selves", so that they then later can be added up to a sum of real things and form
a carpenter's workshop. What we encounter as closest to us, although not
necessarily as something that is explicitly taken as a theme, is the workshop.
Thus before a piece of equipment can show itself as that which it is, a totality of
equipment must already have been discovered in advance.19
Furthermore, in our practical dealing with a piece of equipment such as a
hammer, for instance, the equipment is not grasped thematically as something
that is objectively present at hand. In addition, using the hammer I do not
increase my theoretical knowledge of the'hammer's physical characteristics,
but I certainly appropriate it in a way which could not'possibly be more suitable
 119

to a-given task at hand. In using the hammer, I subordinate my concern to the

in-orderrto which is constitutive for the tool; The more I employ the hammer
properly, the more I discover its manipulability (Handlichkeit); this term
clearly indicates the hammer's relation to the hand. A piece of equipment is a
thing that is ready-to-hand. Heidegger suggests that we call the mode of Being
characteristic of the equipment as such its readiness-to-hand. •
If we look at things in a merely theoretical manner, we can do quite well
without understanding their readiness-to-hand. But when we deal with them by
manipulating them, our manipulation possesses its own kind of "seeing" which
shows us the piece of equipment in its readiness-to-hand and which immedi-
ately discovers the fundamental assignment of each piece of equipment, its
peculiar reference to its in-order-to. It is this kind of seeing that Heidegger calls
circumspection, in contradistinction to the seeing that is characteristic of our
merely theoretical knowledge.20
However, the readiness-to-hand of a piece of equipment is not explicitly
evident in our concernful dealing with it. For in his concern man is not primarily
occupied with his equipment as such, but with the work to be done. That with
which man- concerns himself primarily is the work to be done, and this is
somehow ready-to-hand, too. It is the work to be done which carries with it the
referential totality within which the equipment is encountered as such.
The work to be done, as the toward-which of the piece of equipment
employed in its production, also has the mode of Being characteristic of
equipment; it too, is meant for something and serves some purpose-. But in the
work to be done we do not only discover a constitutive reference to its toward-
which, ifs usability, but also a reference to the materials which man uses* thus a
reference to its where-of. Furthermore, in the work to be done we find in
addition to the toward-which of its usability and the where-of of the materials of
which it consists, a reference to the person who is to use or to wear it. Thus side*
by-side with the work to be done, we encounter not only things which are ready-
to-hand, but also beings which have the mode of Being proper to man himself,
beings for which, in their own concern, the product becomes'ready-to-hand.
And in company with these beings we encounter the world in which wearers
and users live.*1
The structure of the Being of what is ready-to-hand as equipment is deter-
mined by references and assignments; this is the general conclusion of the
preceding descriptive analysis. For the most part, however, we are not explicitly
aware of all these references and assignments in our everyday- concern. The
reference-structure of a piece of equipment comes to the fore explicitly under
special .circumstances. This is the case when a certain piece of equipment
appears to be unusable or not properly adapted for the task on hand. The tool
may turn out to be damaged or the materialinappropriate. We realize this not
by means of theoretical reflection, but by means of our practical circumspec-
tion. At' any rate, when its unusability is discovered, equipment becomes
immediately conspicuous as such.22
In our concernful dealings with things, however, we encounter not only
120

unusable things; sometimes we discover that certain things are missing. In that
case we may be unable to accomplish our task. Then all other pieces of
equipment and the materials that are available, immediately begin to appear in
the mode of obtrusiveness. Finally, sometimes it happens that things that are
available just stand in the way. Then they appear as things to which our concern
refuses to turn, as that for which we now have no time, as something that
disturbs us, and lets us see the obstinacy of what we must concern ourselves
with at this particular moment.23
The conspicuousness, obtrusiveness, and obstinacy which make themselves
felt when equipment for some reason cannot be used at a certain moment,
imply that the constitutive assignment of the in-order-to to a certain towards-
which has been disturbed. In our everyday concern these assignments are not
observed explicitly; but when an assignment has been disturbed, it becomes
immediately explicit. When an assignment to some particular towards-which
has thus been circumspectively aroused, we catch sight of this towards-which
itself, and along with it of everything connected with the work to be done, and
of the whole workshop as that wherein concern always dwells. Thus the
equipment context is illuminated, not as something never seen before, but as a
totality constantly sighted beforehand in circumspection.
When something ready-to-hand is found to be missing, though its everyday
presence has been so obvious that we have never really noticed it, this makes a
break in the referential contexts which circumspection in each case discovers.
Our circumspection encounters then emptiness, and now sees for the first time
what the missing artifact was ready-to-hand with and what it was ready-to-hand
for. The environmental world proclaims itself anew.24
In Being and Time Heidegger obviously has much more to say about equip-
ment and world. Yet the preceding survey seems adequate for our present
purposes. Let us therefore now return to Heidegger's lectures on art.
As we mentioned before, Heidegger is trying to show here that the matter-
form structure was developed originally to give an account of the mode of Being
of a piece of equipment. To that aim, he takes his point of departure in a
description of a piece of rock. This rock is something material and it has an
irregular form. Form means here shape, the distribution and the arrangement
of its parts in different locations, which yields its particular outline. Yet a cup,
an axe, and a shoe are equally "formed matter". In this case the form, taken in
the sense of shape, is not the consequence of a prior distribution of the relevant
material; rather, in this case, the form determines the arrangement of the
material parts. It even prescribes in each case the kind of matter to be used. For
a cup one needs something that is impermeable, for an axe something that is
very hard, and for a shoe something that is firm and yet very flexible. The
intertwining of form and matter is in each case furthermore prescribed by the
purpose which the equipment is to serve. Thus this usefulness is never added on
afterwards to a being of equipment. Yet it is neither something that somehow
hovers over it.25
Usefulness or serviceability is that fundamental feature through which every
 121

such being faces us and presents itself to us as this being. It is this serviceability
which in each case determines the form or shape, the material to be used, and
the manner in which the material and the form are to be intertwined. A being
that has the character of equipment is always the result of some form of
production and as a piece of equipment it is always made for some particular
purpose. The matter and form structure has its proper place in the description
of the manner in which equipment comes-to-presence and abides (im Wesen des
Zeuges).16
Once a piece of equipment is finished it obviously is also something that from
now on is self-contained like a mere thing; yet it does not have the character of
having taken shape by itself (eigenwikhsig) like the piece of rock. On the other
hand, a piece of equipment also shows an affinity with the work of art, insofar as
both are made by man. However, as far as its self-sufficiency is concerned, the
work of art is more similar to a mere thing. And yet, we do not count art works
as mere things. As a rule we take things that are useful to be the nearest things,
the most proper things. Thus the piece of equipment stands halfway in between
the mere thing and the art work; it has definitely a thingly character and yet it is
something more; it has much in common with a work of art and yet it is less,
because it lacks the independence and self-sufficiency of the art work.27
Yet although the matter-form structure was first developed to give an ac-
count of the mode of Being of equipment, it can nonetheless easily be applied to
our understanding of all kinds of other beings, because man can now employ his
conception of the beings in whose coming into being he was able to participate,
in his effort to understand the manner in which other things come-to-presence.
Furthermore, in view of the fact that equipment has a position intermediate
between thing and work, one feels inclined to comprehend non-equipmental
beings (mere things, works of art, and ultimately everything that is) with the
help of the matter and form structure which determines the mode of Being of
equipment.28
The inclination to apply the hylemorphic structure to our effort to under-
stand the Being of all beings received an additional impulse from the biblical
faith which presents the totality of all beings in advance as something that is
created, made by God. The philosophy of this faith obviously assures us that
God's creative act cannot really be compared with the productive activity of the
human craftsman. However, if this philosophy, as is the case in Thomistic
philosophy, tries to understand the ens creatum in terms of the hylemorphic
structure, matter and form, then this faith is illuminated with the help of a
philosophy whose truth lies in a non-concealment of beings which is different in
kind from that found in the world of the believer.29
When in the Renaissance and in the modern era the idea of creation, which
originally arose from faith, lost its power for guiding our knowledge about the
beings as such and taken as a whole, the conception which views the world in
terms of matter and form remained in force. Modern metaphysics still rests on
the hylemorphic structure as this was understood in the Middle Ages. And
although the matter-form structure was introduced in Greek philosophy, both
122

medieval and modern philosophy were unable to do more than just recall in
words what the Greeks once thought originally when they spoke of hule and
eidos.x
Kant later gave a transcendental interpretation of the matter-form structure
in his Critique of Pure Reason. Today the interpretation of the thing in terms of
matter and form, whether it is taken in its original or in its Kantian interpreta-
tion, has become current and is taken to be self-evident. Yet nevertheless it is
the case that it is and remains an encroachment upon the thing-Being of the
thing, no less than the other interpretations of the thingness of the thing which
we mentioned earlier.
The true state of affairs becomes clear as soon as we begin to speak of things
in the strict sense of the term as "mere things". The adjective "mere" is
supposed to remove the usefulness as well as the being-made. The mere thing is
a piece of equipment that is deprived of its equipment-Being. Its thingness
merely consists in what is left over. Yet what is so left over is in this way not
actually defined in its ontological status. It is doubtful whether one finds the
thingly character of the thing by stripping away everything that is characteristic
of a piece of equipment. This is the reason why the effort to define the thingly
character of the thing by means of the hylemorphic structure turns out to be
another assault upon the thing.31

b) Retrospect on the Critical Reflections on the Three Thing-Conceptions

As we have seen, in the first part of his essay Heidegger tries to give an account
of the work-Being of the work of art. In view of the fact that works of art
manifest themselves as things, things of a particular kind, Heidegger first tried
to explain the typical thing-Being of the thing. This led him to a critical
reflection on the three leading conceptions of the thingly character of the thing
that have been proposed in our tradition. After discussing the three con-
ceptions in detail, Heidegger looks back once more on the path covered thus
far, before proceeding to the next issue to be discussed: the path from equip-
ment to work.
The three conceptions of the thing's Being define the thing as a bearer of
characteristic properties, as the unity of a manifold of sensations, and as formed
matter. In the course of the history of the truth about the beings as such and
taken as a whole, these interpretations have sometimes entered into combina-
tions. As a matter of fact in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason one can find all three
of them: the thing as the unity of matter (sensuous impressions) and form
(space and time), the object of experience as the unity of the multiplicity of
sense impressions, and the concept of subsistence.32 It was particularly in this
combined form that they gave rise to a mode of thought by which one has tried
to explain the mode of Being of things, equipment, works of art, and eventually
even all beings in general. This long-familiar way of thinking now universally
functions as a fore-conception that precedes every immediate experience of
beings. This fore-conception even bars for us all access'to the mode of Being of
 123
any given being. In this way the prevailing conceptions of the thing's Being
really make it impossible for us to genuinely think the thing-Being of the thing,
the equipmental character of equipment, and above all the work-Being of the
work of art.
Although our reflections on these three conceptions did not directly lead to
the goal we try to reach here, nonetheless this "destruction" of these classical
views on the thing's Being is an integral part of the phenomenological method
employed here. It .is necessary to know these conceptions,'their origin, their
limitless presumptions, and their semblance of self-evidence, if one -is ever
going to bring to light the thingness of the things, the equipmental character of
equipment, and the work-Being of the work.- If one wishes to be successful in '
these efforts, he will have to learn to take distance from all these-preconcep-
tions and exaggerations of the modes of thought discussed above, and to let the
thing itself rest in its own thing-Being. One may be inclined to think that it is
easy, to let a being be just the being that it is. Actually, this turns out to be the
most difficult task of all. This is so particularism light of the fact that this effort
to let the beings be as they are, appears to constitute the-opposite of the
indifference which simply turns its back upon the 4>eings themselves in favor of
the unexamined conceptions of being. "We must turn toward the being, think
about it in regard to its'Being, and in so doing we must make an. effort to let it
rest upon itself in its very own Being".33
This effort of thought encounters its greatest resistance- where one tries to
define the thingness of the thing. For how can one otherwise explain the failure
of the three conceptions discussed.above. The "unpretentious" thing keeps
evading-thought most stubbornly. Or could perhaps this holding-back and this,
self-refusal of the. mere thing, this self-contained independence,,belong to the
very mode of Being of the. thing? If this were to be the case, we shall never reach
the-Being of the- thing: by forcing our way toward its thingness. .
That the thingness of the thing is very difficult to articulate is clearly docu-
mented by the history of its interpretation alluded to above. This history
coincides with the destiny in accordance with which in the West thought has
tried to think the Being of beings. While we establish this point, we discover at
the same time in this history an important hint. Is it just an accident that in the
interpretation of the thingness of the thing the matter-form structure acquired
dominance? For this particular interpretation in the final analysis is xooted.in
the interpretation of the equipment-Being of equipment. Nowsince pieces of
equipment are made by human beings, it is understandable that they are very
familiar to our thinking. At thesame time equipment has, as we have seen also,
a typical intermediate position between thing and art work: We must now
follow this clue and, thus, look first at what is essential for a piece of equipment
as such. Once we have discovered this with greater clarity and precision, we
may be able to discover something about the thingly character oftilingsand the
work-Being of the work of art. In so doing, however, we must avoid making
thing and work a subspecies of the species "equipment". We disregard here the
possibility that in the manner in which equipment is as such, different distinc-
124

tions are to be made which are intimately connected with the manner in which
the Being of equipment historically has come-to-presence.
The first question we must ask now is which path will lead us to what is
essential for equipment as such? How are we to discover what a piece of
equipment truly is as such? The phenomenological method which we are
employing here makes it impossible for us to introduce again uncritically the
encroachments of the common interpretations. The phenomenological method
suggests that we are best protected against this danger if we just limit ourselves
to a simple description of some piece of equipment without any philosophical
theory.34
It is important to note here that even though Heidegger himself does not
explicitly state this in this essay, he certainly is still subscribing to and also
applying the hermeneutico-phenomenological method which he had described
provisionally, but very carefully in Being and Time and The Basic Problems of
Phenomenology. The careful reader will have realized that Heidegger explicitly
makes use of the distinction, introduced explicitly in 77«* Basic Problems of
Phenomenology between the phenomenological reduction, destruction, and
construction.33 Furthermore, Heidegger explicitly makes use also of the idea
that in any effort to interpret the mode of Being of something one finds himself
in a hermeneutic situation in the sense that there always already are some
interpretations available, each having its typical fore-structure which implies
fore-having, fore-sight, and fore-conception.36 Thus in every truly philosophi-
cal interpretation of the Being of a thing one will have to bring to light these
fore-structures and examine them critically.37
One could say that all of this is just superimposed on Heidegger's text and
that in the text itself there is no explicit evidence for this claim. Yet if one takes
the German text one will see a number of typical expressions, used in Being and
Time and The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, which indeed justify our
claim. In the Holzwege essay Heidegger uses the following expressions: "die
unmittelbare Erfahrung des Seienden", "der Vorgriff', "versperren", "Schein",
"im Blick und zum Wort bringen", "das Seiende Sein lassen so wie es ist", "das
Vorhaben", "es in seinem Wesen auf sich beruhen lassen", "das unscheinbare
Ding entzieht sich", "das Sichzurückhalten des Dinges", "das Verschlossene im
Wesen des Dinges", etc.38 From these expressions it is clear that in this passage
Heidegger is concerned with the way which is to lead to the revealment of
something that originally was still concealed, even though there were already in
our Western tradition several interpretations of the "things" under consider-
ation. From these expressions it is clear also that Heidegger conceives of truth
in terms of non-concealment, a-litheia, although the common conception of
truth as correspondence is obviously not excluded.
Finally, it is important to note that when he uses the term "Vorstellen"
Heidegger does not mean re-presentation, but rather any form of human
conception which does not let a being be what it is "in truth".39
 125

ART. II. FROM EQUIPMENT TO WORK OF ART

§ 20. Elucidation of the Equipment-Being of Equipment by Means of a

Work of Art

a) A Pair of Farmer's Shoes as an Example of a Piece of Equipment

We come now to a number of passages in Heidegger's essay which often have

been misunderstood. This misunderstanding, it seems to me, was due to the fact
that the commentators or the critics did not pay careful attention to the manner
in which Heidegger proceeds here. Let us thus try to follow his text as carefully
as possible.
We have just seen that following the guidelines of the phenomenological
method Heidegger tries here to give a "simple description" of some particular
piece of equipment in which he will make an effort to stay away as far as
possible from any philosophical theory about pieces of equipment.40 Thus, he
says, an effort must be made now to experience what a piece of equipment is in
truth. It is not Heidegger's intention to give a "definition" of the "essence" of
equipment; he does not want tofindout either how equipment strictly speaking
is; what he wishes to find out is rather how a piece of equipment originally
becomes non-concealed, how originally it becomes manifest in its equipment-
Being. To achieve this one must describe the thing as it "gives itself immedi-
ately", while avoiding the uncritical acceptance of the conceptions of equip-
ment suggested by the tradition. But equipment can be so given in many ways.
What way should one choose?41
"We choose as example an ordinary piece of equipment - a pair of farmer's
shoes". In order to describe them one does not need to display actual pieces of
this sort, because everyone is already fully acquainted with them. Yet since we
are concerned here with an immediate description in the sense of phenomenol-
ogy, it may be good to facilitate our effort to make the shoes come to light as
such. A picture of shoes suffices for this purpose. "For this purpose we shall
choose a well-known painting by van Gogh Who painted such shoes several
times". But what is there to be seen? "Everyone knows what belongs to a shoe
as such". If they are not made of wood or bark, they will have leather soles and
uppers, joined together by thread and nails. Shoes serve to protect one's feet.
Their matter and form will differ, depending on the use to which the shoes are
to be put; matter and form thus depend on the shoes' serviceability.
These statements, which undoubtedly are correct, merely make explicit what
everyone already knows about shoes. The equipment-Being of equipment
consists in its usefulness, its serviceability. Precisely what is meant here by
usefulness or serviceability? And is it indeed true that in conceiving of this
serviceability, we shall conceive the equipment-Being of equipment together
with it? To make certain that we indeed will succeed in doing so, Heidegger
continues, must we not directly approach the useful and serviceable equipment
126

in its actual use? The farmer's wife wears her shoes in the field; only in the field
are they what they really are. And there they are all the more so, the less the
farmer's wife thinks about them, while she is engaged in her work, or even
when she looks at them. She walks and works in them; that is the way shoes are
actually used; that is the way they actually serve her. It is therefore in this very
process of the use of equipment that we must try to discover the equipment-
Being of equipment.42
It is important to note here that Heidegger is engaged in an effort to give a
description of a piece of equipment. He chooses a pah* of farmer's shoes and
later specifies that he has in mind the shoes a farmer's wife wears while she is at
work in the field. To understand his claim, it is good to note that he is thinking
of work-shoes, not of the kind of shoes such women wear on Sunday, when they
go to church. Furthermore, wooden shoes of the kind Dutch farmers and their
wives sometimes use, are also explicitly excluded from consideration here.
Heidegger wants to understand the equipment-Being of equipment with the
help of a description of a pair of shoes of the type women wear (in Southern
Germany), when they go to work in the field. He wants to facilitate the
description by making use of a picture of shoes. Van Gogh painted such shoes
many times, i.e., shoes which workmen, men or women, wear when they work
in the field, or even shoes which he himself would have worn at work, where he
could not use wooden shoes. But what is being described is not the painting by
van Gogh, but rather the farmer's wife's shoes in their actual use, i.e., the shoes
which Heidegger originally has taken as his example.
From the viewpoint of the describing phenomenologist it is important to
make a distinction between a description of shoes immediately seen here and
now in their "bodily reality", from a description of shoes we are already
familiar with, have seen many times, and now describe on the basis of memory,
recollection, etc. It is also important to note the distinction between a descrip-
tion of shoes immediately seen in their "bodily reality", and a description of
shoes concretely "seen" here and now by means of a photo or a painting.
Finally, phenomenologically there is a distinction between a description of
shoes, the presentation of which has been facilitated by means of a photo and
the description of shoes facilitated by means of a work of art. Yet as far as the
actual description itself is concerned the equipment-Being of equipment will
never come to the fore without the process of "free variation". In other words,
the shoes which Heidegger takes as an example, (real shoes, "imagined" shoes,
shoes presented by means of a photo or picture) are never more than the
starting point of the description which, as phenomenological description, has to
reach far beyond the actual starting point, which itself merely prepares a
"categorial intuition".43 Finally, in a /temteneutico-phenomenological descrip-
tion the phenomenon is to be interpreted by projecting it upon its proper
horizon of meaning, its proper world.
 127

' b) The Illumination of the Equipment-Being of Equipment with the'Helpbf

an Immediate Experience with a-Work of Art': van Gdghl ScHapiro, Derrida

Heidegger gives three different descriptions of the shoesof a farmer's wife: In

the first -description he focuses on a pair of shoes which he freely selects as an
example.' He describes the kind of shoes the wives of farmers wear when they
work in the field.' He mentions their purpose as well as their matter and form'.
He then briefly describes the same shoes in their actual use' by a farmer's wife
working in the field; he describes how the'wife 'actually concerns herself with
such shoes' in a larger equipmental context.
' Yet in his view, both these descriptions are still iriadequate^they do ndtyet
explicitly show what the equipment-Being of equipment in truth is. Thus a third
description is necessary-which is introduced'with'the words: "Andyet :■: :'**• In
die third description Heidegger explicitly refers to the painting by van Gogh
which he takes as a point of departure for his hermeneuticö-phenomenölogical
description. One should keep in mind that all of this is done with the intention
of ultimately finding out something about the work-Being of ä work of'art. The
strange paradox here is that Heidegger, in order to explain the "essence" of ä
work of art, chooses a work of art, a painting by van Gogh. This paradox will
gradually disappear after the third description has been given arid discussed; as
we shall see.45 But let us now again return to the text: . •'
As long as we merely try to present to ourselves a pair of shoes in a general
way, or as long as we merely look at the empty and unused shoes as they stand
there in the picture, we shall never truly experience the equipment-Being of
equipmenulf we look at van Gogh's painting (Heidegger has now a particular
painting in mind), one cannot even tell precisely whefe these shoes stand,
because there is no indication in the picture itself of the surroundings to which
they might belong; they are surrounded just by an undefined space. There is not
even some mud stuck to them which would at feast give us some hint of their
use. A pair of farmer's shoes; nothing morel And y e t . . .
Heidegger begins now his third description of the farmer's wife's shoes that
he has selected as his example and in the description of which he has decided to
use one or more paintings or drawings by van Gogh as'a means to facilitate the
description. This interpretative description runs as follows. The toil of the
worker's tread stares forth from the dark' opening of the worn insides of the
shoes. In the rough, stiff, and rugged weight of the shoes has accumulated the
tenacity of her slow and weary walk through the- far-spreading and always
uniform furrows of the field, swept by a cold wind. The dampness and richness
of the soil still lie on the leather: The loneliness of the field-path slides under the
soles as evening falls. The silent call of the earth vibrates in the shoes äs does its
quiet gift of the ripening grain and its unexplained' withdrawal' in' the bleak
fallowness of the field m the winter. This equipment is full of the uncomplaining
worry about how to secure the daily bread, the Wordless joy of having once
more withstood want, the trembling before the impending child birth, and the
shivering at death which threatens everywhere. This equipment belongs to the
 128

earth and it is safely protected in the world of the farmer's wife. And the
equipment itself rises to its resting-in-itself from out of this protected belong-
ing.46
' From the preceding paragraph it is obvious that all of this cannot be seen in
the picture, because Heidegger has just stated that the shoes are painted in such
a way that they are surrounded by an indefinite space, and that there is
absolutely nothing that would hint at their use. One does not arrive at Heideg-
ger's description via a "free variation" in the sense of Husserl, either. Yet it is
by the farmer's shoes selected by Heidegger as an example, access to which has
been facilitated by looking at one or more paintings by van Gogh, that this
interpretative description has been prompted, just as the essay written by a
student is prompted by the thing, event, or task indicated in the teacher's
creative writing assignment. In other words, what is being "described" here is
not an actual pair of farmer's shoes, nor the shoes painted by van Gogh, but
some pair of shoes that have been "evoked" by the chosen example and by the
painting(s) that are employed to facilitate the "description".
In an essay entitled "The Still Life as a Personal Object - A Note on
Heidegger and van Gogh", Meyer Schapiro has severely criticized Heidegger's
use of the work by van Gogh. He blames Heidegger for not explicitly identify-
ing the one particular painting he had in mind, even though he knew quite well,
as he furthermore explicitly states, that van Gogh painted such shoes many
times. A reader who would like to compare the description Heidegger gives of
them with the original picture or a reproduction of them will have some
difficulty in deciding which one to select. De la Faille recorded eight paintings
of shoes by van Gogh in the catalogue of all the paintings by van Gogh that had
been exhibited at the time Heidegger wrote his essay. Of these eight only three
show the dark opening of the worn insides, namely, nos. 255,332, and 333; but
these shoes are "clearly pictures of the artist's own shoes", not the shoes of a
peasant or a farmer's wife. They were painted in Paris in 1886-1887. He also
painted such shoes in Aries in 1888.
Schapiro wrote to Heidegger to inquire about the painting. Heidegger an-
swered in a letter of May 6,1965 that the picture to which he referred was one he
saw in Amsterdam in March of 1930. This is clearly de la Faille's no. 255. Since
at the same time there was also exhibited a painting with three pair of shoes (de
la Faille, no. 250), it is not impossible according to Schapiro, "that the exposed
sole of a shoe in this picture inspired the reference to the sole in the philoso-
pher's account. But from neither of these pictures, nor from any of the other,
could one properly say that a painting of shoes by van Gogh expresses the being
or essence of a peasant women's shoes and her relation to nature and work.
They are the shoes of the artist, by that time a man of the town and city".47
Even though Heidegger himself wrote about his own description that it
would be the worst self-deception, if in this description everything were first
imagined and then just projected into the picture, Schapiro is convinced that he
nevertheless did just that. "Alas for him, the philosopher has indeed deceived
himself. He has retained from his encounter with van Gogh's canvas a moving
 129

set of associations with peasants and the soil, which are not sustained by the
picture itself, but are grounded rather in his own social outlook with its heavy
pathos of the primordial and earthy. He has indeed 'imagined everything and
projected it into the painting'. He has experienced both too little and too much
in his contact with the work".48 Furthermore, Schapiro continues, "there is
nothing in Heidegger's description that could not have been imagined in
looking at a real pair of peasant's shoes. Yet instead he credits to art the power
of giving to a represented pair of shoes that explicit appearance in which their
Being is disclosed, indeed the universal essence of things".49 Finally, in
Schapiro's view, Heidegger also overlooked the artist's own presence in his
work.50
What are we to say about these objections? It seems to me that several
important questions are to be raised and answered. First of all, precisely what
painting by van Gogh is at issue here? Schapiro claims that it is the pair of
leather shoes, listed by de la Faille as no. 255 (i.e., Hulsker, 1124). He bases his
case on Heidegger's description as well as on the letter which Heidegger sent
him in reply to his letter of inquiry. Although it is indeed likely that Heidegger
had this picture in mind, there are at least two other possible candidates,
namely a pair of old shoes and a pair of leather clogs.51 But even if it were to be
the case that, as Schapiro claims, there is certainty about the painting that is at
issue here, this would still mean very little in view of the fact that Schapiro is
completely mistaken where he claims that in the essay on the art work,
Heidegger gives a description of this pair of shoes, as we have seen already.
The second question we must ask is one of whether Schapiro's criticism is
indeed directly relevant to Heidegger's main concern in the essay on art. For
first of all, it should be noted that Schapiro attributes to Heidegger intentions
which the latter never had and claims which Heidegger never made. One can
formulate this perhaps also as follows. Schapiro isolates the passage on the
painting by van Gogh from the context in which it appears in the essay on the
origin of the work of art. Thus while he himself demands that Heidegger
interprets the meaning of the shoes from the perspective of the inner and outer
context of van Gogh's painting, Schapiro himself objects to Heidegger's inter-
pretation by looking at it from a perspective that Heidegger precisely is in the
process of overcoming.52 Schapiro should have known that Heidegger precisely
wished to go beyond the conception of art, from which Schapiro tried to
formulate his criticism. Schapiro thinks from the perspective of art history and
philosophical aesthetics.53 These remarks obviously do not imply that in
Heidegger's own position there could not be any unexamined and unacceptable
presuppositions, but they are certainly not those to which Schapiro is refer-
ring.54
Schapiro certainly oversimplifies Heidegger's approach in several important
respects. For he claims that Heidegger in his essay describes van Gogh's
painting. As I have indicated already in my paraphrase of the text, Heidegger
cannot possibly have tried to describe the painting which Schapiro has so
skillfully identified, if the expression "to describe" is taken in its literal sense.
130

Heidegger says that the painting he has in mind says nothing about the world to
which the shoes belong; and the same is true about their possible owner. "From
van Gogh's painting we cannot even tell where these shoes stand. There is
nothing surrounding this pair of peasant shoes in or to which they might belong
- only an undefined space".55 Yet Heidegger explicitly mentions a great number
of details about the owner of the shoes and her world in what Schapiro calls his
"description" of the painting. It is indeed true that Heidegger claims that the
painting as a work of art is capable of bringing something to light which cannot
be brought to light by a simple description and explanation of shoes actually
present, nor by a report on how shoes are made or a report on their actual use.
But this "something" does not consist in information on the farmer's wife, nor
on her world, for the painting selected does not in any sense contain that kind of
information. Thus that which Schapiro calls Heidegger's "description" of van
Gogh's painting is to be understood in a different way.
Schapiro also claims that Heidegger interprets the painting in order to
illustrate the nature of art as the setting itself into the work of the truth which in
this concrete case shows, us what a given piece of equipment is in truth. Yet
Heidegger explicitly states that "the work did not, as it might seem at first, serve
merely for a better visualizing of what a piece of equipment is". Heidegger
instead defends a quite different and even much stronger thesis. He states
explicitly that the discussion of the shoes painted by van Gogh tries to show that
"the equipment-Being of equipment first genuinely comes to the fore through
the work and only in the work".56 What Schapiro thus .does not stress suf-
ficiently is that Heidegger begins to explain his view on the equipment-Being of
equipment by taking a pair of farmer's shoes as an example.57 In addition, in the
entire discussion about the painting by van Gogh the stress is not on the shoes
insofar as they belong to the wife of a farmer, but rather on equipment, or
perhaps more adequately, on the shoes as pieces of equipment. For it is in the
shoes, taken as equipment, that its equipment-Being becomes manifest in and
through the painting.
Schapiro also claims that Heidegger is trying to distinguish between three
modes of Being of the thing. This, too, is a simplification, insofar as Heidegger
is making an effort to critically analyze the .entire system of determinations
which in the tradition one has superimposed on the thing. These three deter-
minations are related to one another by means of some conceptual mechanics
{Begriffsmechanik) that nothing is capable of withstanding.58 These three
modes of defining the thingness of the thing have often appeared in combina-
tion; in such a combination their domain of application could be expanded in
such a way that this complex scheme of interpretation could then be applied to
things, equipment, and even works of art. This long familiar mode of thought
forces a certain preconception on all immediate experiences of beings which
makes any serious reflection on the Being of beings impossible. Thus the
prevailing conception of the thingness of things obstructs the way to the true
thingness of things, to the equipment-Being of equipment, and finally to the
work-Being of the work. In Heidegger's view, this conception of the thingness
 131

of things still dqminates every theory of art and all aesthetics today.59 A careful
re-reading of the passage of the essay in which Heidegger discusses the painting
by van Gogh will show that Schapiro indeed makes things much more simple
than they really are in Heidegger's own exposition of the issue.60
But precisely what is it then that Heidegger tries to "describe"? According to
Schapiro it is no more than a moving set of associations with peasants and the
soil, which are grounded in Heidegger's own social outlook "with' its heavy
pathos of the primordial and earthy". What is "described" here by Heidegger,
by means of a hermeneutico-phenomenological analysis, however, is not at all
the world of a farmer's wife, but, as we have just seen, the equipment-Being of
equipment. In' this interpretation Heidegger begins by taking his point of
departure from the immediate experience with a work pf art which itself is to
bring him to the point where a genuine experience with a concrete piece of
equipment, a pair of farmer's shoes, becomes possible. -
In other words, in this case the hermeneutico-phenomenological "descrip-
tion" goes from the thing as it appears first to the Being of the thing, i.e., from
the concrete being to the condition of its possibility. This is achieved in the case
of the piece of equipment in question by describing how it.is effectively
employed by the wife of a farmer, and how this concernful preoccupation leads
to a world in which the field has a prominent place. It is here where the earth
manifests itself. "In the shoes vibrates the silent call of the earth . . . and its
unexplained self-refusal in the,fallow desolation of the wintry field".61 The call
is said to be silent because the earth manifests itself only indirectly, and above
all because the earth (as will become clearer later) appears as the one that hides
itself and »is self-secluding (sich verschliessend). But the earth shows itself
indirectly also as that which gives or refuses growth.62
As for Schapiro's remark about a "false pathos", two .observations are in
orders First of all we must point out that in Heidegger's description, there
appears to be a very close relationship between equipment and primordial
moodness (Befindlichkeit) in and through which the piece of equipment man-
ifests itself to us in our experience with it. In other words, the experience with
the piece of equipment, an experience that was mediated by the painting, is not
a purely theoretical experience, but one in which understanding and moodness
are still intimately interwoven. Heidegger thus tries to suggest that the equip-
ment becomes manifest to the farmer's wife not through theoretical reflection,
but through an effective use which is guided by a form of understanding that is
still one with primordial mood. All of this is to be understood in light of what
was said in Being and Time about the relationship between Befindlichkeit and
Verstehen.0 ■
Secondly, it is important to recall that it is primarily through primordial
moodness that in each case the relevant "whole" is made present to Dasein.
Thus when Heidegger in the lecture on the art work speaks about "world", it is
primarily through Befindlichkeit that world as such is made manifest as a whole.
The other relevant "whole" which is made present here obviously is the entire
human ek-sistence as it stretches from birth to death.64
132

Finally, we must note that the concept of world described here in the art work
is more encompassing than it was in Being and Time. In Being and Time world
was described first merely as the totality of all possible relationships to which a
given piece of equipment belongs. In the explanation given there, "nature"
appears once in a while in a more indirect manner; but it is never discussed there
systematically what one is to think about the relationship between world and
"nature". Here on the other hand, the intimate relationship between world and
earth and, therefore, also the relationship between world and nature is ex-
plicitly stressed. As we shall see later, Heidegger describes world and earth
here as being opposed to one another and as in strife with each other. Com-
pared with what was said in Being and Time, these important ideas are new. On
the other, it is clear also that Heidegger does not yet understand by earth what
he later will say about the earth taken as one of the four domains of the fourfold,
where the earth is opposed not to world, but as part of the world, is opposed to
the heaven.*5
Finally, in Being and Time it is often suggested that the world described in the
sections 14-20 consists of man-made things only. Here in the essay on the art
work it is obvious that the world of the farmer's wife includes natural beings as
well as man-made things.66

§ 21. The Truth Establishes Itself in the Work

a) Reliability and the Hylemorphic Structure

After completing his description of the shoes of the farmer's wife Heidegger
asks himself whether perhaps it is only in the painting that one notices all of this
about the shoes, the world, and the earth. The farmer's wife simply wears them.
But is it really all that simple? When the woman takes off her shoes at night, "in
deep but healthy fatigue", she, too, knows all of this, but without explicitly
reflecting on it, or thinking about it. She, too, knows that the equipment-Being
of the equipment consists in its usefulness; she knows this when she takes them
off, when she puts them on, and when she just passes them by on a day of rest.
This usefulness itself rests on the "fullness of something that is essential to the
Being of the equipment". As we have seen already, Heidegger calls this its
reliability.
Thanks to the reliability of the shoes the woman can respond to the silent call
of the earth and be certain of her world. For her and for those who are with her
the world and the earth are there only in the equipment. Without his equipment
the farmer can no longer relate to the earth, and without his equipment he no
longer has his world. It is the reliability of the equipment which first gives to the
world its security and assures to the earth the freedom of its steady pressure. As
the equipment-Being of equipment, reliability gathers together within itself all
things, each according to its own manner and scope. Thus the usefulness or
serviceability is only the essential consequence of the equipment's reliability.
 133

The former vibrates in the latter; and without it, it would be nothing. Individual
pieces of equipment can be worn out and used up; but at the same time the use
itself has its wear, wears away, and thus becomes usual. In this case the
equipment-Being itself wastes away, and it itself becomes degraded into being
mere equipment. But this latter wasting away to which things of use c— their
boringly obtrusive usualness, attests once more the original manner in which
equipment comes-to-presence as such. Then it seems as if the worn-out usual-
ness of the equipment constitutes the true mode of Being of equipment, insofar
as then the blank serviceability and usefulness are the only qualities that are still
visible. It furthermore gives the impression that the origin of equipment lies in
the mere production that impresses a form upon some matter. And yet as we
have seen, in its true equipment-Being equipment stems from a more distant
source. And matter and form themselves, too, have a deeper origin.
The repose of the equipment that rests in itself, consists in its reliability.
What equipment is in truth can be discerned only in this reliability. Yet all of
this still tells us very little about what we have been seeking all along, namely
the thing-Being of the thing; and all of this tells us even less about what we are
really trying to discover, i.e., the work-Being of the work of art. Or have we
perhaps without noticing it learned something in passing about the work-Being
of the work?67
If we compare this description of the equipment-Being of equipment with
that given in Being and Time we see that Heidegger has introduced a new
element in the description, namely the reliability (Verlässlichkeit) of equip-
ment. The term "Verlässlichkeit" does not even occur in Being and Time at all.
It is said here in the lectures on the art work that it is not the usefulness or the
serviceability mentioned in Being and Time, but rather the reliability of the
shoes which gives the fanner's wife the assurance she needs to do her work well,
both in light of the conditions of the earth and of her task in her world. Thus in
the final'analysis it is not the serviceability, but rather the reliability which
makes it possible for the woman to relate to both world and earth. It is precisely
because her shoes are reliable that the woman can respond to the call of the
earth and be certain of her world.68
Now if it is the case that the Being of the equipment as such indeed consists in
its reliability, then we must ask the question of how the hylemorphic structure
to which the tradition always appealed in its effort to explain the Being of
equipment, is to be related to the equipment's reliability. Heidegger tells us
that because of its relation to both world and earth, reliability keeps gathered
together all beings within itself, i.e., all man-made things as well as the things
"by nature", insofar as the latter belong to the earth. That equipment origi-
nates when it is fabricated by means of a process that impresses some form on
some matter, is a conception which arises only after the equipmentality of the
equipment itself has worn away, and equipment is taken merely in its blank
usefulness and, thus, after its reliability has vanished.
I think that the process alluded to here by Heidegger, indeed is to be related
to what in Being and Time was called fallenness,** as von Herrmann suggests.70
134

For in the state of fallenness man is preoccupied with the things and their use so
that there is no room for his concern with their genuine mode of Being.

b) The First Characterization of the Work-Being of the Work: In It the Truth

Establishes Itself On the Essence of Art and die Artistically Beautiful

The equipment-Being of equipment was discovered by bringing ourselves close

to a painting of shoes by van Gogh, and not by describing some actually present
pair of shoes. This painting has spoken so that, close to the work, we found
ourselves suddenly far away from where we usually are, when we concern
ourselves with pieces of equipment and just use them. But what then happens in
the work and what is at work in the work? According to Heidegger, the painting
by van Gogh appears to be the disclosure of what this piece of equipment, this
pair of shoes, is in truth. The painting lets this being emerge into the non-
concealment of its Being. The Greeks called non-concealment: a-Utheia, and
we speak of truth, even though we no longer think much when we use the word.
If a work of art reveals a being and discloses what and how it is, then a
happening of the truth is at work here. In the work of art the truth of the being
has established itself. In the work of art a pair of shoes came to stand in the light
of its Being. The Being of the being comes in the steadiness of its shining
(ekphanestaton).
But if this is so, then the essence of art would be this: the setting itself into the
work of the truth of the beings. But how could this be? Has not everyone until
now claimed that art has to do with what is beautiful and with beauty itself, not
with truth? This is the reason why we call the arts which produce such works the
fine arts to distinguish them from the crafts that just manufacture equipment. In
the fine arts, it is not art itself that is beautiful; they are called so because they
produce the beautiful. Truth is always reserved for logic and beauty for aesthet-
ics.
One could perhaps think that the claim according to which art is the setting
itself into the work of the truth is the result of an effort to revive the fortunately
obsolete view that art is the imitation of nature, of what is. Now in view of the
fact that the reproduction of what is, is in agreement with what is so re-
produced, and agreement (adaequatio, homoiösis) has long been taken to be
the essence of truth, one could then draw the conclusion from all of this that it is
Heidegger's intention to claim that the painting by van Gogh is a work of art,
because it depicts a pair of shoes as they actually are "in reality". But this is
obviously by no means Heidegger's intention.
In his view the work is not the reproduction of some particular being that
happens to be present at hand at any given time; rather it is the reproduction of
the general way in which such beings come-to-presence. One will obviously
object to this and say that all of this cannot possibly be true, because there is
nothing with which the reproduction of such a general way of coming-to-pre-
sence could be in agreement; and yet such agreement is constitutive for the
truth of the work. With what way-to-be of what thing is a Greek temple to
 135

agree? A similar question catr be asked for a poem, a hymn by Hölderlin, or the
poem ."Roman Fountain" by C.F. Meyer which Heidegger quotes here. Fi-
nally, one will say, how could truth establish itself in the work, if truth is to be
something timeless and supratemporal?7!
To prevent misunderstanding it is necessary to make at least a few remarks. It
is clear'that in this passage Heidegger is making an effort to transcend'the
classical conception of the art work as developed in "classical" aesthetics, by
retrieving certain ideas from Hegel's Lectures on, Aesthetics. In so doing he uses
the classical conception of aesthetics as an objection to the view he is trying to
develop. The manner in which he answers these objections will be discussed in
detail in the pages to come; yet it is clear that he wants to defend the view that in
a work of art the truth of the beings becomes established. In the course of this
discussion Heidegger makes the remark that the equipment-teeing of equip-
ment first genuinely arrives in its appearance through the work of art and only
through the work. This claim does not mean that the "essence" of equipment
can be understood only through a work of art. Rather the expression "eigens zu
seinem Vorschein kommen" refers to the fact that in the art work the manner in
which a being comes-to-presence, comes to light in a privileged manner in such
a way that it there shines and radiates in its steadiness. This was the reason that
in my paraphrase I referred explicitly to Plato's ekphanestaton that Heidegger
in my view is trying to retrieve here, also. Thus Heidegger can indeed conclude
that the "essence" of art consists in the "setting itself into the work" of the truth
of the beings. The artistically beautiful is defined correspondingly as the shining
of the Being of the beings; as such it is conceived from the perspective of the
non-concealment of the beings and their Being. But then it follows that the
artistically beautiful also is a privileged mode of the happening of the truth.72
One more point should be raised here. Is the expression, "art is the setting
'itself into the work of the truth" not extremely ambiguous? In 19S6, in the
Addendum, Heidegger himself points out that in the lectures on the art work
themselves it was expressly admitted and stated on two occasions that there is
indeed such an ambiguity. This "essential" ambiguity is connected with the fact
that truth is here at once both subject and object« whereas both these expres-
sions really are unsuitable. If truth is taken to be'the "subject" of the expres-
sion, then the expression means truth's own setting itself into the work; art is
then conceived in terms of a disclosing appropriation; yet Being is a call to man
and it never "is" without man. If one were to take art as the "object*' in the
expression, then art would not be more than the result of the human activities of
producing and preserving. It is only when the relation between man and Being
is properly understood that it -will be feasible to reformulate this and similar
claims in a more appropriate language.73

c) Summary and Prospect

Heidegger now briefly summarizes the main issues discussed in the first major
part of the essay. We are seeking here, he says, the manner in which the work of
136

art works (die Wirklichkeit des Kunstwerkes), because it appears that art itself
can be found there. Among the workly aspects of the work that manifest
themselves the thingly substructure appears to be the most immediate one. The
traditional conceptions of the thing-Being of the thing, however, appear to be
inadequate, because they fail to grasp the Being of the thing. Furthermore, the
conception of the thing that today is prominent, and according to which the
thing is formed matter, is not even derived from the essence of the thing, but
from the mode of Being of equipment. Then we have also discovered that the
mode of Being characteristic of equipment has long since enjoyed a peculiar
priority in the interpretation of the beings. It was this priority which suggested
that we pose the question concerning the Being of equipment anew, and that in
so doing we try to avoid the current interpretations.
In order to find out what equipment really is we turned to a work of art. In
doing this we discovered, almost incidentally, what is at work in a work: the
opening-up and disclosure of the being in its Being, i.e., the happening of the
truth. But if now the manner in which the work is at work can be defined only by
means of what is at work in the work, what does this mean for our intention to
discover the real art work in the manner in which it works as such? It is clear by
now that as long as we assumed that the work-Being of the work was to be
found primarily in its thing-Being, we were on the wrong track. In our reflec-
tions we have thus come to a remarkable result which can be expressed in two
points: 1) the dominant conceptions of the thing are inadequate to grasp the
thing-Being of the thing; and 2) what we tried to grasp as the immediate work-
Being (Wirklichkeit) of the work, namely its thing-Being, does not at all belong
to the work in that way.
If one searches for the thing-Being and the thingly substructure in the work,
one takes inadvertently the work as a piece of equipment; it is then understand-
able why we also attempt to attribute a superstructure to it which is supposed to
contain its artistic quality. But the work of art is not a piece of equipment that in
addition is equipped with some aesthetic value. The work is just as little a piece
of equipment as the mere thing is; it makes no sense to say that a work of art is a
piece of equipment to which some value is added, whereas a mere thing is a
piece of equipment from which the usefulness has been taken away.
Our formulation of the question about the art work seems to have brought us
to a dead end, because we have not concerned ourselves with the work, but
rather partly with the thing and partly with equipment. Yet one should realize,
Heidegger says, that we were not the first one to develop this line of question-
ing; it is the common way in which aesthetics asks about the art work. The
manner in which aesthetics views the art work is from the outset dominated by
the traditional interpretation of all beings. Yet the essential point here is not to
criticize aesthetics. What matters here rather is that we learn to understand that
what is workly in the work, equipmental in equipment, and thingly in the thing
comes nearer to us only if we learn first to think the Being of the beings. But to
this end it is necessary that we first overcome our preconceptions and set aside
some sweeping pseudo-conceptions. This is the reason why this detour via thing
 137
and equipment was necessary. Furthermore, this approach has also directly
brought us to a road that could very well lead us to a more careful determination
of the thing-Being of the thing. For it is impossible to deny the thingly character
of the work; yet insofar as the thingly character indeed does belong to the work
it must be understood from the perspective of that which is workly in the work.
Thus the road we have to take does not lead from thing to work, but rather from
work to thing, as the painting by van Gogh has shown us already.
We can thus conclude now that the art work in its own way opens up the
Being of beings. This opening-up, this revealment, i.e., the truth of the beings,
comes-to-pass in the work. In the art work, the truth of what is, has set itself
into the work. Art is the truth setting itself into the work. We must now ask the
question of what truth then is that sometimes it comes-to-pass as art. And what
is this setting-itself-into-the-work?74
 CHAPTER III. ART WORK A N D TRUTH

ART. I. SOME ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ART WORKS

§ 22. How to Unfold the Essential Characteristics of Works of Art?

a)The Art Work Stands on Its Own (Eigenständigkeit)

We have seen that for Heidegger the origin of the work of art is to be found in
art. On the other hand, art is actually at work in the work of art. According to
Heidegger, we must now ask the question of in what the Being-at-work of the
work really consists. We have seen also that works of art without exception
show a thingly character, albeit that in each case they show it in a different wayj
We have seen finally that the attempt to explain the thingly character of the
work with the help of the common thing conceptions fails. And this is so not
only because of the fact that these conceptions do not really grasp the thing-
Being of the thing, but above all because, by asking for the thingly substructure
we prejudge the work's genuine, ontological status and, thus, bar for ourselves
access to its own work-Being. Therefore, we cannot really discover anything
about the thingly character of the work as long as the self-subsistence (Insich-
stehen, the standing-on-itself, the insistence) of the work has not yet clearly
manifested itself.
But, Heidegger asks, is the work ever in itself accessible to us? To gain access
to the work in this way, it would be necessary to separate the work from all
relations of the work to what it is not, in order so to let it rest in itself alone. But
does not the artist's own intention already aim in this direction? Does he not
release the work in such a way that it can stand on its own pure self-subsistence?
In Heidegger's view, it is precisely in great art - and only great art will be
considered here -Ohat the artist is and remains unimportant as compared with
the art work itseff. The artist can perhaps be compared with a road that makes*
itself superfluous in the artistic production, in order that the work itself may
emerge.
After they have been produced, the works of great art stand and ha'ng in
 139
museums and exhibitions. But, Heidegger asks, are they here in themselves AS
the works of art that they themselves are, or are they here perhaps rather as
mere objects of the art industry? Works of art are made available so that people
can appreciate and enjoy them. Official institutions and agencies are responsi-
ble for the custody and maintenance of the works. Connoisseurs and critics
occupy themselves with them and art dealers buy and sell them. Art historians
make these works of art the objects of their scientific research. Yet we must ask
the question here of whether in this manifold business we indeed encounter the
works themselves as such?
Greek sculpture and a drama by Sophocles taken in the best critical edition
are, as the works that they are, separated from the domain in which they once
came-to-presence and endured. However high their quality, however great
their power of impression; however excellent their state of preservation, how-
ever certain their interpretation, by putting them in a collection we separate
them from their own world. But even if one were to make an effort to avoid
such displacement of the works, if one were to go to Paestum to visit the temple
of Poseidon at its own site, or the cathedral of Bamberg on its own square, the
world of these works has still fallen into ruin.'
According to Heidegger, the withdrawal of world as well as the decay of
world can never be undone These works, too, are no longer the works they
once were, We obviously still encounter these works themselves there; and yet
they stand as works that have been. As the works that have been they stand over
against us in the domain of tradition and conservation. From now on they
remain merely as such objects. Their standing before us is obviously still a
consequence of their former standing in and by themselves, but this standing
before us is no longer the same as their former self-subsistence. For the self-
subsistence has now fled from them. The entire art industry, even if one were to
take it in its optimal form, is concerned only with the object-Being of the work.
But this object-Being manifestly does not constitute their work-Being.
Could one say, Heidegger now asks, that a work of art is still a work if it is
severed from all relations? Is it not essential for a work of art that it stands in
relations? Exactly; but the question precisely is, in what relations the work
stands. It is Heidegger's view that, taken as a work of art, the work belongs
uniquely within the domain that it itself has opened up. For the work-Being of
the work is present only in this very opening-up. As we said before, in the work,
a coming-to-pass of the truth is at work. Our reference to the painting by van
Gogh tried to name this happening. From these reflections we were led to the
question of what truth then might be and how truth can come-to-pass. We must
now ask the question of truth in regard to the work. And in order to familiarize
ourselves with what really is at stake in this question, it is necessary once more
to make visible the coming-to-pass of the truth in the workVith the help of an
example. In this case, Heidegger says, we shall purposely select a work of art
that cannot possibly be ranked under representational art.2
It seems to me that in these reflections there is an important issue that is often
misunderstood. Heidegger decides to limit himself, as Hegel had done also; to
140

what he calls "great art", grosse Kunst. To understand this expression we must
briefly recall Heidegger's main intention. He wants to know what art is, what
the basic modejpf Being is according to which art comes-to-presence and flbjjdes
among us humans. In order to discover this, he wants to examine works of art,
because only works of art concretely contain what constitutes art as such. But in
order to be able to identify works of art as such, and to distinguish them from
pieces of equipment and all other things, one must already somehow know
what art is} Thus we find ourselves here in a hermeneutic circle: to know what
art is one must examine works of art, but in order to be able to identify works of
art as such one must already somehow know what art i s . _
Heidegger decides to enter the circle from the perspective of the works of art.
Thus he asks the question concerning the origin of works of art. After the
preliminary reflections discussed in the preceding chapter, Heidegger is faced
with the question of how to select certain works of art in such a manner that the
selection of these works (which is necessary to have a solid starting point for our
reflections on the question of what art is) presupposes no conception of art
except one that is beyond any reasonable doubt. Heidegger, following Hegel,
feels that by limiting the discussion to "great art" he has found such a solid
starting point. "Great art" refers to those works that were produced in Greece,
Rome, and the Middle Ages, and which are such that there is today common
agreement on their artistic status. Great art implies the totality of all art works,
made before the time in which the fine arts came to the fore as such, before the
time in which artists began to claim to have a special "vocation" not to be
shared with the mere craftsmen, and before works were preserved, exhibited in
museums and exhibitions, dramas and musical works reproduced time and
again in special auditoriums, etc. During these epochs of history, a number of
works were made of which one later unequivocally would say that they are
undoubtedly great works of art: certain temples, certain cathedrals, certain
castles, certain public buildings, certain pieces of sculpture, certain paintings,
certain works of music, and certain literary works of art. One can be even more
specific: the dramas of Sophocles that are still preserved, the Doric temple of
Paestum, the cathedral of Bamberg, etc.
Hegel and Heidegger do not turn to these works of art because they were
made during a time in which everyone still knew what art is. Rather the
opposite is the case; these works were made during a period in which the
questions of what art is, what the "vocation" of the artist is, and what art works
are supposed to "do", were not yet raised, because art works and art had not
yet come-to-presence as such and had not yet become problematic.3
As we shall see later, Heidegger also accepts from Hegel that "great art" is
art that has an essential function in the life of a people. In Hegel's terminology,
'art is for that people the manifestation of the Absolute in sensuous form, a
manifestation which, given a certain historical people in its historical develop-
ment, is stilt essential for that people. In Hegel's opinion, we now no longer
need the arts because the Absolute no longer needs to manifest itself in
sensuous form, because the Absolute can now be presented in the concept.
 141

Thus today art, in the sense of great art, is and remains something past; in the
light of the "science" that has developed, art has ceased to be the highest need
of the spirit; art no longer is the highest manner in which the truth becomes
actual for itself today.4
Heidegger does not subscribe to Hegel's conception of the Absolute and the
Absolute's function in Hegel's "science". Yet for him, too, "great art" is and
remains something past in the sense that according to the spirit of the modern
era, art' is.jio longer essential to understand the life of a people. Today we
understand .Western man from the perspective of science and technology,
whichas such are totally alien to art. Thus before we can ever fully understand
how art today comes-to-presence, abides, and governs (west), we must once
more carefully see how art once came-to-presence, abided, and governed, for
instance in the Greek era or in the Middle Ages (temple of Paestum, cathedral
of Bamberg).
One final note, in "great art" there always was a close relationship between
the various forms of art: architecture, sculpture, painting, drama, music. What
Wagner later would call "collective art" was still in some sense a reality in the
Greek world and in the Middle Ages. - But let us return to Heidegger's
lectures.

b) The Coming-to-Pass of the Truth of Beings in a Greek Temple

Heidegger now wishes to show how the truth comes-to-pass in a work of art. In
order to prevent that one were to thjnk of truth in terms of conformity or
correspondence, and correspondence, in turn, in the sense of imitation (namely
of "reality")\ Heidegger selects a Greek temple to illustrate his intention. He
selects a temple because a temple portrays nothing and, thus, most certainly
cgnnot be said to imitate something as it is in "reality". He selects a Greek
temple in order to make certain that the discussion will remain limited to the
domain of "great art". He obviously could also have chosen a cathedral, but
that might have made it difficult to keep the interpretation away from dogmati-
cal disputes between the various religious denominations. Precisely how is God
present for Jews or Christians in His dwelling place? As for the Greeks, we *-
know how they conceived of the presence of their god in his temple.
Be this as it may, Heidegger takes the temple of Neptune (Poseidon) in
Paestum as his example. Paestum, originally Poseidonia, was an ancient Greek
city in Lucania, Italy, about 20 miles south-east of Salerno and about 30 miles
south of Naples. It is located a few miles south of the mouth of theriverSilarus
(today Sele). The city must have been founded about 600 B.C. by colonists
from Sybaris in Acadia. When the Lucanians conquered it, it received the name
of Paestum. Much later it came under Roman rule and was then often men-
tioned because of its twice-blooming roses. In the city there is a large sacred
area, divided by the forum, which contains three Doric temples in a remarkable
state of preservation. The northern temple is dedicated to Ceres, the sister of
Jupiter and the goddess of agriculture. Originally, when the temple was built by
142

the Greek colonists, about 600 B.C., it had been dedicated to Athena. In the
south there is a temple of Hera. Finally, there is a third temple dedicated to
Neptune, the god of the sea. This last temple, which originally also seems to
have been dedicated to Hera, is the best preserved of all, whereas the first two
are said to be without parallel in the entire Doric architecture of that time.5
The temple portrays nothing, Heidegger writes. It just stands there in the
middle of the valley that is filled with rocks. The temple enshrines the statue of
the god Poseidon; thus concealing the god, the temple nevertheless lets this
statue also stand out into the holy domain through the open portico. The god
comes-to-pifiiejce in the temple by means of the temple, and his coming-
to-presence is at the same time both the extension and the delimitation of the
open domain surrounding the temple as a holy precinct. For the temple and its
holy domain do not extend indefinitely. On the contrary, as a work, the temple
first orders and gathers around itself the unity of all the paths and relations "in
which birth and death, disaster and blessing, victory and disgrace, endurance
and decline acquire the form of destiny for humankind". The all-governing
range of this open set of relations constitutes the world of this historical people,
namely the Greeks who founded Poseidonia. Only from and in such a world
does a people come back to itself, so that it can bring its destiny to completion.6
Note that Heidegger here, after having mentioned the earth (the rocky
valley), turns to the god, the domain of the holy which radiates from the statue
of the god, and the people, and then claims that the open opened up by the
temple constitutes for this people the world. Thus the concrete historical world
of the Greek colonists is gathered by and through the temple insofar as the
temple lets the god become manifest. This world must thus be disclosed to the
members of this people before they can relate meaningfully to the beings and
the events that are to appear in it.7
Heidegger now turns to the relationship between world and earth and
unfolds this in detail. The temple, this work of art, stands there and rests upon
the rocky ground. This resting of the work on the rock draws up out of the rock
the dark mystery (das Dunkle) of its massive and yet almost imperceptible
support. Thus standing there, the temple can easily hold its ground against the
storm that rages over it; in this way the temple makes the storm first become
manifest in its violence. In the same manner, the brightness and radiance of the
rocks, which themselves only shine by the grace of the sun, make first come to
the fore the light of the day, the width of the heaven, and the darkness of the
night. And the temple's steady towering-up into the sky makes visible the
invisible air. The unshaken steadfastness of the work stands in sharp contrast
with the surge of the surf, just as its repose lets the raging of the sea appear. The
trees and the grass, the eagle and the bull, the snake and the cricket, too, first
appear in this way also, as what they are.
In the early days, the Greeks called this emerging and rising itself and within
the whole: phusis. Phusis also clears that on which and in which man grounds..
his dwelling. We call this the earth. This word is not meant here in the sense of a
mass of matter deposited somewhere, or in the scientific sense of a planet.
 143

Earth is that to which phusis brings back and shelters everything that emerges.
In the emerging of phusis the earth comes-to-presence and abides (west) as that
which shelters.8
Standing there on the rocky ground, the temple, taken as a work, opens up a
world and at the same time sets this world again back on the earth; in this way
the earth itself begins to emerge as native ground. Usually one begins by
assuming that first there were men and animals« plants and things, and that
these "unchangeable and stable objects" incidentally also happened to con-
stitute a fitting environment for the temple which at a certain moment in time
was just added to what was already there. In Heidegger's view, one comes close
to what is in truth only if one tries to think all of this in the reverse order,'and
realizes how differently everything faces us then.
Standing there on the rocky ground, the temple, as a work, gives first to
things their physiognomy and to humans the outlook on themselves. And this
vifw or look remains open as long as the work is a work, i.e., as long as the god
has not fled from it. And the same is true for the statue of the god that the
temple enshrines. It is not just a copy whose purpose is to make it easier for
mortals to find out what the god looks like; rather it lets the god come-
to-presence and abide; it thus is the god. In Heidegger's view the same holds
true also for linguistic works of art. As he sees it, in Sophocles' tragedies
nothing is just staged; rather in these dramas the battle between the old gods
and the new gods is being fought. The literary works which once originated in
the language of the Greek people, do not explicitly mention this battle; they
transform the people's mythic speech, so that in the tragedies now every living
word fights this battle and puts up for decision what is holy and what is unholy,
what is great and what is small, what is brave and what is cowardly, what is
noble and what is trivial, what is master and what is slave. Heidegger refers here
to fragment B S3 of Heraclitus: "War is the father and king of all; and soirie he
has shown to be gods and others tq be men; some he has made slaves, and others
free".»
With the temple example Heidegger thus tries to show that awork of art
makes present a world as well as the earth; furthermore, he tries to show that in
"eich world dimensions can be distinguished to which he refers with the help of
expressions such as the god, and the humans, but also with the help of all the
events that may occur in the life of a historical people that has this world. On the
other hand, the earth is shown as that which shelters; it is also shown as the
people's native ground. It seems to me that one could argue that all of this
indeed is the case because Heidegger selected a temple as his example. What
would have happened if he had taken a landscape or a still-life? I think that
Heidegger's answer to the objections that are. implicit in this remark, would
have been the following: 1) The discussion was limited to "great art"; now in
"great art" every individual art work is closely related to all other art works of
the same people; thus no art work can here be taken in the strict isolation, in
which we often have to take them when we encounter them in a museum. 2) In
"great art" the art work always, in the final analysis at least, presents the entire
144

world to the people, and this world relates directly to the life which these people
actually live. In Greek antiquity, as well as in the Middle Ages, such a world
always included the temple and the god, and the god was indeed the actual
center of such a world; one may thus assume that the temple of Poseidon was
indeed taken to be the "center" of Poseidonia. Thus if we limit ourselves to
"great art" it would not have been possible to select a landscape or» a still-life. 3)
Finally, the world which a work of art presents need not be explicitly structured
in an ideal or a complete manner. In other words, there may be works of art that
suggest a world from which the gods have actually fled. Yet such a world still
would contain traces of the gods that have fled, and these traces suggest that
something that somehow should have been there, is lacking in this world.
One could perhaps still argue that what Heidegger says is indeed the case, not
because he took an art work as his example, but because he took a temple as the
point of departure for his description. I assume that Heidegger would have
responded to this remark by pointing out that in the Greek era there could not
have been a temple that would not have been a work. It should be noted here
that the entire way of speaking is an anachronism. The Greeks did not yet use
the expression "the fine arts", nor did they make a distinction between fine arts
and crafts. This is the reason why Heidegger just calls it a work, the temple-
work. Yet it still is the case that the temple of Poseidon in Paestum is now
universally considered to be one of the greatest art works of that period that are
still preserved.

§ 23. The Setting-Up and the Opening-Up of a World

Heidegger continues that we must now ask the question of in what does the
work-Being of a work of art consist. In light of the remarks made in the
preceding section, it may suffice here to mention only two essential characteris-
tics of the work. In developing them in some detail Heidegger proceeds from
the perspective of the thing-Being of the thing which has such an important
place in our usual, everyday attitude toward the work.1"
In his effort to explain the two characteristics Heidegger invites us to think
first of what happens with a work of art, when it is exhibited in a museum. When
a work of art is made part of a collection so that it can be exhibited, we say that it
has been set-up. Heidegger uses here the German verb aufstellen, a verb that
can have many meanings; it can mean: to set up, to erect or install; to advance
(an opinion), make (an assertion), set (a trap), expose (goods in a store), post
(the guard), park (the car), bring forward (an instance), establish (a record),
lay down (a principle), nominate (a candidate), etc. It can also mean to place
something or even oneself in a certain position. Heidegger uses this verb here
with reference to a work of art and he appears to use it in both an ontic and an
ontological sense. Taken in the ontic sense the verb means to exhibit a work of
art (for instance in a museum); taken in its ontological sense it means to erect a
world. If the word is used in its ontic sense it still has two different meanings,
 145

where in the essay on the art work it is used in direct connection with works of
art. It can mean the setting-up and exhibiting of paintings in a museum; but it
can also mean the erecting of a cathedral, the raising of a statue, or the
presenting of a drama or symphony."
Thus Heidegger can indeed say here that the setting-up of a work in a
museum differs essentially from the erecting of a building, the raising of a
statue, and the presenting of a tragedy during a holy festival. For in the latter
case "to set-up" means to "erect" (errichten), in such a way that the erecting
simultaneously implies dedication and praise. In Heidegger's view, in that case
to set-up most certainly does not merely mean to place. And thus Heidegger
goes on to say that to dedicate in this case means to sanctify and to make holy.
The setting-up of the work implies here that now the domain of the holy is
opened up, and that the god is invoked to enter into the openness of his own
coming-to-presence and abidance. To the sanctification praise also belongs,
insofar as praise implies giving honor to the dignity and the splendor of the god.
f>ignity and splendor, however, must not be understood here as two properties
behind which the god stands and, thus, as something that is really distinct from
the god. Rather it is the case that the god comes-to-presence and abides
precisely in dignity and splendor. In the reflected glory of this splendor, there
radiates and illuminates itself what we have called the world.12
The, German verb "errichten" which Heidegger uses in this context means
literally to make something completely straight, to set something up straight, or
also just to set something up; yet the verb can also mean to makeright.13It is
thus understandable why Heidegger can claim that to e-rect also means to open
what, isright;and since what isrightis the foundation of what is just, to e-rect
also means to open what is just. Thus to e-rect (er-richten) also means to
provide the guiding measure, which points along in the right direction and in
which Being, as coming-to-presence and as abidance, gives guidance. But why
is the setting up of a world also an e-recting that sanctifies and praises? The
answer to this question is in Heidegger's view the fact that the work, in its work-
Being, demands this in that it, taken as such, precisely is something that sets up
a world. "Towering-up within itself, the work opens up a world and lets it abide
and endure".14
CTo be a work of art simply means to set up a wor)<DBut what then is to be
understood by world? What is meant here by world was already hinted at where
we referred to the temple. Heidegger decides not to try at this point to answer
this question in detail. Since he had already extensively dealt with the issue in
Being and Time and in The Essence of Reasons, he felt that he had to limit
himself here to a few hints that are meant mainly to ward off misunderstanding,
more than they are intended to determine the concept of world in detail.
^^orlcfistfot a collection of all things thaf just happen tö"be nefeVBut-neither-. _
(js-world merely an imagined framework which our imagination just adds to the
sum of such given things. The world "does what as worjd it is supposed to doT.. - -'
(die Welt weltet)',lSe world governs and holds sway (welien-walkn)'sind as such
it is more fully in being than the realm of tangible things in which we believe
146

ourselves to be at home.15 World is thus never an object that stands before us

and can be seen or touched. World is the ever non-objective to which we relate
as long as we live as Dasein, and as long as we relate to Being. A stone has no
world; plants and animals, too, have no world in this sense; they just belong to
some environment. But humans have a world because they dwell in the open-
ness of beings. It is the world that "determines" in what way things will" be
things. In Heidegger's view, even the doom of the God who remains absent, is a
way in which the world can hold sway (weitet). The art work opens up such a
world and in so doing it makes space for, and liberates the open and establishes
it in its structure. The work holds open the open of the world.16
In view of the fact that in our everyday life we use the word "world" often in
an ontic sense, in which it signifies the totality of all beings which are or can be
present in the entire universe, it is perhaps of some importance for a moment to
reflect on how Heidegger gradually came to define the ontological meaning of
world as it is meant here in the lecture on the art work.
As we have seen already in § 14, Heidegger has explicitly dealt with the
problem of "world" on different occasions. The first systematic treatment of
the subject that was to appear in print can be found in Being and Time. In that
work Heidegger distinguished four different meanings which the word ''world"
can assume: 1) the totality of all beings which are found in the universe; 2) the
Being of the world taken as the totality of all beings, i.e., the totality of all
meaning; 3) that wherein Dasein concretely lives, someone's personal "en-
vironment"; and 4) the worldhood taken as the structural moment of Dasein
which is as Being-in-the-worW. In Being and Time Heidegger was not con-
cerned with the first meaning, the ontic meaning of world; he was not interested
in the third one, the pre-ontological-existentie// meaning either. Instead he
focused mainly on the fourth, the ontologico-existential meaning, but in pass-
ing he also made very important remarks about the second, the ontological
meaning of the word.
The ontological meaning of the term is explained most clearly in The Essence
of Reasons, where Heidegger makes an explicit effort to compare this meaning
of the term with other meanings we often attribute to the word, and which we
often tend to confuse with its ontological meaning.17 But before turning to the
relevant passage of The Essence of Reasons, let us first briefly place the essay
itself in its'proper historical context.
After the publication of teeing find Time in 1927, Heidegger returned to the
question of world in a lecture course on Leibniz which he delivered in Freiburg
in 1928. Shortly thereafter a revised version of these new reflections on world
then appeared in Vom Wesen des Grundes, in 1929.w There Heidegger de-
scribes his concern with world as one that is oriented toward the transcendental
phenomenon of world, i.e., that conception of world which is constitutive to
Dasein's transcendence. Yet to orient his audience with respect to that phe-
nomenon of world, he first characterized in a fragmentary manner several
other, fundamental meanings of the concept "world", that have played an"
important role in our history. He preceded these reflections with the remark
 147

that where fundamental concepts are concerned, the popular meaning is Usu-
ally not the primordial and essential one. The essential meaning of a concept is
constantly hidden and only seldom expressed conceptually.1*
Heidegger then first focused on the oldest, Greek conception of the world as
kosmos. In his view, for the Pre-Socratics world meant the how of the Being of
the beings rather than these beings themselves. This how defines the beings in
their totality; it is ultimately the possibility of every how taken as limit and
measure. This how of the beings taken as a totality is in a certain way a priori
(vorgängig). But this how is at the same time relative with respect to the human
Dasein. Although the world encompasses all beings, Dasein included, it is
nonetheless true that the world strictly speaking belongs to the human Dasein.30
Heidegger then turns to different Christian conceptions of world. For St.
Paul kosmos is the very Being of man in the how of the disposition in which he is
estranged from God. In the Gospel of St. John kosmos also stands for the basic
disposition of Dasein according to which it is alienated from God, or even
simply for the character of the Being of man. For St. Augustine kosmos
sometimes means the whole of creation. Yet often it is used to refer to those
human beings who delight in the worldly things, the impious. Aquinas, too,
uses mundus sometimes as synonymous with universe, and sometimes in the
sense of all human beings who have adopted a worldly way of thinking.21
In the tradition of Leibniz world is defined by Baumgarten as the totality of
all actually existing things that is not part of something else. World thus means
there the entirety of that which actually is at hand, in the sense of that which
actually is as ens creatum. Such a conception thus implies that one understands
the essence and the possibility of the proofs for the existence of God. This
means finally also that God Himself is set over against the world.22
At first Kant adopted the conception of world as formulated in the tradition
and particularly in the school of Leibniz. In the Dissertation of 1770 he defines
world still in terms of a multiplicity of substances, that are somehow coordi-
nated and constitute an entirety which is the absolute totality of all conjoined
parts. Later he defines world as the totality of all finite things. Yet this is to be
understood in the final analysis in a transcendental sense; world means now no
more than the aggregate of all appearances, i.e., the aggregate of all objects of'
possible experience. Thus for Kant "the concept of world does not refer to,a
concatenation of things in themselves; rather it is a transcendental aggregate of
things taken as appearances. What is exhibited in the concept of world is not a'
coordination of substances, but a subordination of all the conditions of syn- -
thesis, ascending to the unconditioned. The concept of world cannot be-defined
as a rational representation which conceptually is indeterminate; rather it is an
idea, a pure synthetic concept of reason, which as such is to be distinguished
from the concepts of the understanding. Thus the "concept" of world is the
representation of an unconditioned totality; yet it does not represent the
genuinely unconditioned, since the totality that is thought in it remains related
KtQJhe appearances which are the sole possible objects of finite knowledge.
In his anthropology Kant also uses the Augustinian conception of world, but
148

eliminates the uniquely Christian evaluation of our worldly Dasein.23

Heidegger concludes his historical reflections there with the observation that
it thus is wrong to use the expression "world" either as a name for the totality of
all natural things (natural conception of world), or as a title for the community
of men (personal concept of world). Taken in its fundamental sense the term
"world" aims at explaining human Dasein in its relationship to beings as such
and taken as a whole. For reasons which, Heidegger feels, would reach far
beyond the scope of Vom Wesen des Grundes, and thus cannot be discussed
there, the concept of world first means the how of the beings taken as a whole,
so that the relationship of the beings taken as a whole to Dasein remains for the
most part only vaguely understood.24
As a totality, world "is" no particular being but rather that by means of which
Dasein makes clear to itself what beings it can behave toward, and how it can
behave toward them. World can be said to be that for the sake of which Dasein
exists. As the totality of what is for the sake of each Dasein at any given time,
the world is brought by Dasein before Dasein itself. To bring the world before
itself is tantamount for Dasein to project its own possibilities. The projection of
world throws the projected world over the beings and this, in turn, allows
beings to manifest themselves. What we call Being-in-the-world is the happen-
ing of the projecting "throwing the world over beings" in which the Being of
Dasein temporalizes itself. When we say that Dasein "transcends", Heidegger
continues, we mean to express that the essence of its Being (das Wesen seines
Seins) is such that it constitutes world, in the sense that it lets world happen, and
through the happening of the world provides itself with an original view which,
even though it itself does not properly grasp them, nevertheless functions as a
pre-view and model for all manifest beings, Dasein included.
There is no way that the beings, taken in the sense of nature in the widest
sense for instance, could ever become manifest, if they could not find the
opportunity to enter a world. Thus we sometimes say that the beings make an
entrance into a world. Entering a world is then not an event that occurs within
or outside the realm of beings, but rather something that happens with the
beings. And this happening is the ek-sisting of Dasein itself which, as ek-sisting,
transcends. Beings can manifest themselves only if this aboriginal happening
and this history which we call transcendence, actually come-to-pass, i.e., if the
being which has the character of Being-in-the-world breaks into the totality of
the beings.25 *
In my view, when in the lecture on the origin of the work of art, Heidegger
speaks about the world, he has in mind what in Vom Wesen des Grundes is
called world. Yet this world, taken as the totality of meaning that in each case
comes-to-pass, is portrayed there mainly as the world of a given people.
Furthermore, in the articulation of the ontological conception of world as we
find it in the essay on the origin of the work of art, Heidegger stresses certain
characteristics of world not yet mentioned in his earlier works. Some of these
are implied in Heidegger's claim that the world "does what as world it is
supposed to do", namely "govern" over things.2*
 149

Three observations seem to be in order here, though. First, when Heidegger

says that world is more fully in being than the beings surrounding us, he is
obviously not claiming that the world itself is a being or a thing; rather it is the
"condition of the possibility" of the beings' appearance as things. Secondly, the
term "entrückt" (enraptured, transported into)27 which Heidegger uses in this
context seems to refer back to the ek-sistentiality and the three ekstases of
man's Being, discussed in Being and Time.2* That toward which man is carried
away is the world. Dasein is as Being-in-and-towards-the-world. Finally, in the
essay on the art work Heidegger stresses also strongly that we somehow are
subordinate to the world; this, too, is in complete harmony with what was called
"fallenness" in Being and Time.2*

§ 24. The Second Characteristic of the Work-Being of the Work - The Unity
of the Two Essential Characteristics

a) The Making Present of the Earth

If a work is brought to the fore out of some material (stone, wood, metal, color,
tone, language), we also say that it is made out of it, produced out of it.
Heidegger uses here the verb herstellen which ontically is used for the making of
something. Literally taken, the word means to place here or there, to set up, to
establish, raise, produce, make, effect. Heidegger then continues as follows:
Just as the work requires the setting-up (Aufstellen), in the sense of a sanctifying
and praising erection, because the work-Being of the work precisely consists in
the setting-up of a world, so equally a setting-forth (herstellen) is needed
because the work-Being of the work has also the character of a setting-forth. In
other words, the work as work is in its coming-to-presence as such a setting-
forth, a making. Precisely what it is that the work sets forth we come to know
when we begin to explore what customarily is called the production of the work,
its making.30
We have seen that the work-Being of the work implies the setting up of a
world. Thinking within this general perspective we must now ask the following
question: what is the mode of Being of that element in the work that is' usually
called its material? In a piece of equipment the material usually disappears in
the usefulness and the serviceability of the equipment; no one thinks about the
steel when the knife cuts well or the axe is effective. The material is all the more
suitable the more it disappears into the1 equipment-Being of the equipment. By
contrast, the work, by setting up a world, does not cause the material to
disappear, but rather causes it to come forth as such, and to come into the open
of the work's world: rock comes to bear, metals come to shine and glimmer,
colors come to glow, tones begin to sound, and words to speak. And all this
comes to the fore as the work sets itself back into the heaviness of stone, into the
firm but pliant quality of wood, into the hardness and the luster of metal, into
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the light and darkness of color, into the sound of tone, and into the naming
power of the word.
What we here have called the earth is that into which the work sets itself back
and which it in this way causes to come to the fore. Thus earth is that which
comes to the fore and shelters at the same time. As such it is effortless and
untiring, because it is pressed to nothing. Historical man grounds his dwelling-
in-the-world upon and in the earth. While it sets up a world, the work literally
sets forth the earth: the work makes the earth itself move into the open of a
world and keeps it there. Thus the work lets the earth be an earth for
people."
We must now ask, Heidegger continues, why the setting forth of the earth
must happen in such a way that the work must set itself back into it. And what is
the earth that it must become uncovered in just this way? A stone presses
downward and thus shows its heaviness. Yet this pressure and the counter-
pressure by our hand does not show us what the stone is. And if we break the
stone into pieces, its pieces still do not show us anything that has so been
opened. The stone itself has instantly withdrawn again into the bulk and
pressure of its pieces. If we try to understand the heaviness of the stone by
putting it on a pair of scales, we only end up with a measuring number. This may
well be a very precise determination of an aspect of the stone; yet it tells us
nothing about what weight really is. The same holds good for colors when we
analyze them in rational terms by measuring their wavelength, because the
color itself then immediately disappears. The color shows itself only as long as it
remains undisclosed and unexplained. Thus "the earth shatters every attempt
to penetrate into it". The sciences can tell us many things about certain
measurable aspects of things; yet the earth appears openly cleared as itself, only
when it is preserved as that which by its very nature cannot be disclosed, as what
recoils from every disclosure, as that which continues to keep itself closed up.
All things of the earth as well as the earth itself as a whole flow together into a
mutual harmony. But this flowing-together is not a blurring of their boundaries.
Here there is the stream that flows restful within itself, sets the boundaries for,
and fixes the limits of everything that comes to the fore in this coming-
to-presence and abidance. This is the reason that in each of the self-secluding
things there is the same inability to know each other. The earth is thus
essentially self-secluding so that to set forth the earth is tantamount to bringing
the earth into the open as the self-secluding.12
The work achieves the setting forth of the earth as it sets itself back into the
earth. Yet the self-secluding of the earth is by no means a uniform, inflexible,
and rigid remaining hidden (Verhangenbleiben); to the contrary, it evolves and
unfolds itself in a great variety of simple shapes and forms. The sculptor uses
stone in the same way in which the mason may use it; yet the sculptor does not
use it up. This happens only where the work is a total failure. The painter, too,
uses coloring matter like every craftsman; yet here, too, the colors are not used
up, but rather begin to shine forth. In a similar way one can say, that the poet
also uses words; yet unlike ordinary speakers he does not use them up, but
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rather employs them in such a way that the word only now becomes truly a word
and remains as such.
At any rate, nowhere in the work is there any trace of working material. It is
even doubtful whether one learns anything at all about that of which a piece of
equipment consists by characterizing it in its equipmental character as matter.33
Before we can go on to the next passage of Heidegger's text a brief digression
appears to be necessary to prevent misunderstanding concerning the claims
Heidegger makes here about the earth. In so doing we hope to shed light also on
some remarks which Heidegger made about earth earlier in these lectures and
on which we have already commented briefly in § 22b.
Elsewhere, in reflections on the "fourfold" in Heidegger's philosophy, * I
have argued that in Heidegger's later philosophy two different, but somehow
related conceptions of earth are to be distinguished. For if one carefully
compares what Heidegger says here about earth in his lectures on the origin of
, the work of art with what he claims with respect to earth in other lectures, such
as "The Thing", "Building, Dwelling, and Thinking", etc., it is clear that it will
be extremely difficult to derive one homogeneous conception of earth from all
of these ideas.35 In the first essay mentioned Heidegger is concerned with the
manner in which in a given world the earth functions in the process of .the
coming-to-pass of the truth of Being. He attempts to describe there the original
strife between earth and world and the function which the art work has to play
in this strife. In the later essays Heidegger is concerned with the relationship
between thing and world, the inner structure of the world itself, and the process
of appropriation which in each case takes place in the coming-to-pass of the
truth of Being. Here the earth is no longer in a strife with the world, but rather it
is one of the four basic regions of the world. Furthermore, the earth is explicitly
opposed here to the heaven with which it finds itself again in a permanent and
continuous strife of its own. Finally, in the reflections on the work of art
Heidegger makes an explicit reference to his own interpretation of the Greek
conception of phusis, which is lacking in the later essays: It is difficult to
understand how earth taken as intimately related to phusis could be one and
only one region of the fourfold, given the fact that the other three regions are
constituted by heaven, mortals, ancf gods. On" the other hand, it is equally
difficult to understand how earth taken as one of the four regions of world (=
the fourfold) and as distinct from heaven could be said to be in an original strife
with the world.
Thus it seems that one must distinguish here between two distinct, but related
concerns as far as earth is concerned. In. 1936 Heidegger attempted to say
something about the relationship between the totality of meaning (= world) as
this historically comes-to-pass for a community, and that of which this totality is
the totality of meaning ( - earth). It is in this context that he used his own
"retrieved" conception of phusis to explain this relationship in a manner which
is neither realistic, nor idealistic, nor critical. On the other hand, in the fifties
Heidegger was concerned with showing that world as the totality of meaning
which in each case is concretely erected in the process of the coming-to-pass of
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the truth of Being, is not a totally homogeneous unity, but has a structure of its
own. Following hints taken from Hölderlin and inspired by a very old religious
and mythical tradition, Heidegger characterized this structure by means of the
regions: heaven and earth, gods and mortals.
This difference in concern is the reason why in the lecture on the work of art
Heidegger specified the earth by the following characteristics: it is that in which
man bases his dwelling; it is not a certain mass of matter or a planet; it is that
toward which the original emerging brings back and shelters everything that
emerges; in particular, it is that into which the work of art sets itself back as that
which shelters; in everything that emerges the earth co-emerges as that which
gives shelter and conceals; it resists any form of further understanding penetra-
tion; it is in principle undisclosable because it is self-secluding; it is what
grounds by towering up, in, and through world. On the other hand, in the later
lectures we find the following characteristics: earth is that which serves, which
blossoms and bears fruit, spreads out in rock and water, and rises up into plants
and animals; it is that which is in constant strife with the heaven above it.
If this view is correct in principle, we must still explain precisely: 1) what is
meant by earth taken in the sense of that which is undisclosable in principle, 2)
what is meant by earth taken as that which serves and bears, and 3) how these
two ways of conceiving of earth can be related to one another.
In order to find an answer to the first question, let us recall first that in trying
to say what a work of art is as a work, Heidegger discussed three conceptions of
the thing, all of which in his opinion are not satisfactory. He particularly
rejected the matter-form conception on the ground that it is valid primarily for
artifacts. Instead of conceiving of a work of art in terms of matter and form, he
tried to understand it in terms of earth and world. Secondly, it should be noted
that the relationship between earth and world is intimately connected with
Heidegger's interpretation of the original meaning of phusis. In light of these
two reflections it seems reasonable to assume that the historical analogue for
the basic problem with which Heidegger was concerned here, is to be found in
the problem concerning the relationship between what Kant in his first Critique
calls "nature" and "world".-1* Obviously this does not mean that Heidegger
shares Kant's view in this regard. When he says that the earth is that which is
undisclosable, if taken as such, he does not mean to repeat, but rather to
retrieve Kant's view. Earth is that of which the world is the totality of meaning.
As such it cannot be determined except through the particular interpretations
which it continuously receives in each given world. Thus earth taken as such is
not a planet, because this would be "earth" taken in a scientific interpretation,
"earth" as co-emerging in a scientific .world. It is not the totality of all that is
phusei (Aristotle) either, because this again would be "earth" taken in a certain
metaphysical interpretation.
From this perspective it will be clear why Heidegger could take the strife
between earth and world as intimately related to phusis, taken in the sense of
his own interpretation and retrieve of Greek thought. He says in the lecture"on
the art work that the Greeks called the emergence in itself and in all things
 153

phusis. Phusis also illuminates that on which and in which man bases his
dwelling. And this ground we call earth. In An Introduction to Metaphysics,
retrieving basic elements of the thought of Heraclitus, Heidegger explains that
for the early Greeks Being was phusis, emergent-abiding-presence; for them
phusis was closely related to a-litheia, logos, and dike?1 It is to this conception
that Heidegger refers in the lecture on the art work. In Heidegger's view, world
is the total meaningfulness into which a man with his contemporaries finds
himself thrown in each epoch of history. World is the concrete totality of
meaning as which Being's truth comes-to-pass to him as the "Da" of Being in a
given epoch, and which has its own destination, common to all living in that
epoch. What is called earth here is the totality of all that o/which the totality of
meaning is the meaning. It is in this sense that the aboriginal emerging can also
illuminate that on which and in which man grounds his dwelling. According to
the Original Greek conception phusis, as the emergent-abiding-presence, is also
, the overwhelming power, the inscrutable union of movement and rest which for
Heraclitus is the aboriginal strife (polemos).
This aboriginal strife is not identical with the strife between world and earth,
but the latter merely "mirrors" this original discord. That is why in the lecture
on the work of art Heidegger states explicitly that the world is not simply the
open region itself that corresponds to the clearing of the aboriginal coming-
to-pass of the truth of Being, and that the earth is not simply the closed region
that corresponds to this emergent-abiding-presence's concealment. Rather
earth towers up through the world and the world grounds itself on the earth,
only insofar as the truth of Being happens as the primal strife between revealing
and concealing.
In the lectures written in the fifties Heidegger described a third strife, namely
that between heaven and earth. The strife between the heaven's calling-out and
the earth's resounding, a strife which takes place within the world taken as
fourfold, should thus not be identified with the strife in which the earth towers
up through the world and the world grounds itself on the earth.38 - But this need
not occupy us here further.
At any rate, in light of the preceding reflections we may thus conclude that in
his reflections on the origin of the work of art Heidegger tried to retrieve an
important problem discussed in philosophy in the period between Plato and
Hegel. How does a being's appearance relate to that which so appears? A
number of different solutions for this problem have been proposed, ranging
from naive realism to absolute idealism. Heidegger's answer to the question is
inspired by Kant as is clear from what was argued in this regard in Being and
Time and Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics.39 The "thing in itself is
unknowable. What we call "the thing in itself is merely the totality of the
potentialities which in each case concretely become actualized only in part. It,
taken in and by itself, never appears as such; it always appears as this or as that.
The process of the coming-to-pass of the truth of Being, taken concretely as
world, lets the beings be things and, thus, lets them appear as what they (now)
have come to be. No world could possibly actualize all potentialities of mean-
154

ing, because each world is inherently finite, temporal, and historical. Nor can
finite understanding grasp a being other than either as this or as that, depending
on the a priori synthesis upon which it is projected. Heidegger disagreed with
Kant only in one basic point: he was convinced that Kant underestimated the
fact that in each appearance it is obviously the "thing itself which so appears.4"
In the fifties Heidegger tried to retrieve thoughtfully what certain great
myths of the past had hinted at. He took his point of departure from Hölderlin's
attempt to retrieve certain Greek myths, but later made that which was pointed
to there an element of his own way of thinking.

b) The Intimacy of the Battle between World and Earth

The setting-up of a world and the setting-forth of the earth are the two essential
aspects of the work-Being of the work. They belong together in the unity of the
work's Being. "This is the unity", Heidegger claims, "we seek when we ponder
the self-subsistence of the work and try to express in words the closed and
unitary repose of this resting-in-and-by-itself \ 4 '
A first question which Heidegger discusses here briefly is the one about how
the happening just described can now suddenly be said to be some form of rest
and repose. Heidegger's answer is that rest and motion belong together and
that the mode of rest varies with the kind of motion. Heidegger refers here to
Aristotle's doctrine of motion and rest, but obviously stresses the point that the
issue at hand is not about an ontic movement such as the motion of a stone or a
planet, but about an ontological happening. With Hegel he then explains that in
such a movement strife constitutes unity and rest as it somehow does in all living
things.43 Thus, Heidegger continues, where rest includes motion, there one can
find a form of repose which is an inner concentration of motion and thus is the
highest state of agitation. Now the repose of the work that rests in and by itself
is of this kind.43 We can come nearer to this form of repose by focusing once
more on the kind of motion that is intrinsically related to it. This is the double
movement of the setting-up of the world and the setting-forth of the earth. Thus
our first question now becomes: precisely what is the relation between this
setting-up and this setting-forth in the work?
Our analysis and description have shown thus far that world and earth are
essentially different from one another and yet never separated. We have seen
that "the world is the self-disclosing openness of the broad paths of the simple
and essential decisions in the destiny of a historical people". On the other hand,
the earth is "the spontaneous forthcoming of that which is continually self-
secluding and, to that extent, sheltering and concealing". We have seen also
that the world grounds itself on the earth and that the earth towers up through
the world. The world, while resting on the earth, strives to surmount it; as
essentially self-opening and self-disclosing it cannot allow for and endure
anything that is closed. On the other hand, the earth, as both sheltering and
concealing, tends always to draw the world into itself, and keep it there hidden
and concealed.44
 155

In other words, Heidegger continues, the opposition of world and earth has
the form of a striving. Yet one would falsify its nature and character if one were
to identify striving with discord and dispute. The striving between world and
earth has nothing of disorder and destruction. In the ontological battle which is
constitutive for the very Being of the, relevant beings, the opponents rather
raise each other up into the self-assertion of their true modes of Being.
The self-assertion of the modes of Being of world and earth, however, is
never a rigid insisting upon some accidental and contingent state, but rather a
dedication to the concealed and hidden originality of the source of their own
Being. In this manner, each opponent carries the other beyond itself in this
struggle. Thus the striving becomes ever more intense, more authentically what
in truth it is. And the more the struggle intensifies, the more inflexible do the
opponents let themselves go into the intimacy of their belonging to each other.
The earth cannot be without the open of the world, if it is to appear as earth in
the liberated surge of its self-seclusion. On the other hand, the world cannot
rise above the earth and freely float away from it, if (as the governing path of all
destiny) it is to ground itself on a resolute foundation/
By setting up a world and setting forth the earth, the work is the instigation of
this striving. And the work never puts an end to the strife, but makes certain
that the strife remains strife; and it does so by setting up a world and setting
fo*rth the earth. The work-Being of the work thus consists in the "fighting of the
battle" between world and earth. This strife reaches its high point in the
simplicity of intimacy; this is the reason, Heidegger says, why the claim was
made that the unity of the work precisely comes about in the waging of this
battle. The fighting of the battle is the gathering of the work's agitation in which
the work continuously drives itself beyond its own limits. And the repose of the
work, which rests in itself, too, comes-to-presence time and again in the
intimacy of this striving.45

ART. II. THE COMING-TO-PASS OF THE TRUTH IN THE WORK OF

ART

§ 25. Heidegger's Conception of the Essence of Truth

The preceding part of the essay on the origin of the work of art ended with the
remark that in the work truth comes-to-pass and that art is truth setting itself
into the work. In the first sections of the second part of the essay we have seen
that in the work-Being of, the work the battle between world and earth comes-
to-pass. Thus we must now ask the question of how the happening of the battle
between world and earth can belong to the coming-to-pass of the truth in the
work. Yet until now, Heidegger continues, it was merely a provisional assertion
that in the work of art the truth sets itself into the work (ins Werk). But precisely
how does truth come-to-pass in the work-Being of the work and precisely how
156

does truth come-to-pass in the fighting of the battle between world and earth?
And finally, what then is truth?44
Heidegger then gives a very brief summary of his conception of truth " as he
had already developed it in detail in Being and Time and in On The Essence of
Truth.* To clarify Heidegger's conception of truth, I shall paraphrase a few
sections of On the Essence of Truth in which this view was developed sys-
tematically. I shall limit myself *o what is essential for the question concerning
the relationship between truth and art.
The essay "On the Essence of Truth" (1930,1943) starts with a description of
the conventional conception of truth, according to which truth consists in the
conformity between judgment and that which is judged. There is an ontological
truth, in which the thing conforms to an intellect, and a logical truth, in which
the intellect conforms to the thing. In the first case, the thing means every
created thing, whereas the intellect involved is the divine intellect. Thus this
conception of the ontological truth implies the Christian theological thesis that,
with respect to what it is and whether it is, a thing, as created, is only insofar as it
corresponds to the idea preconceived in the mind of God.49 In the second case,
the issue is about the human intellect which must conform to the things which it
knows. And in this case the proper place of truth is the human intellect's act of
judgment. Finally, in this conception of truth the measure of truth in both cases
lies in the correctness of the conformity mentioned; untruth is non-conformity,
or incorrectness.50
In Heidegger's view, this conception of truth is undoubtedly correct. Yet,
according to him, we must still ask the question concerning the conditions
which must be fulfilled in order to make this conformity possible, because it is in
these conditions that the essence of truth consists.51
Heidegger then asks about the exact meaning of the term "conformity". The
answer to this question will open the perspective on the fundamental problem
of how such a conformity is possible. In every true statement there is a
correspondence between the judgment and the things judged. This does not
mean that the statement becomes the thing and is somehow identical with it.
The correspondence is determined by the kind of relation that obtains between
statement and thing. Now the statement "relates itself to the thing in that it
'places it before itself; it puts it in front of itself and says of the thing so posited
how, according to the particular perspective that guides it, it is disposed.52
The passage in which Heidegger explains this in detail is very complex. It can
be interpreted in more than one way. Heidegger seems to express the following.
Dasein, as Being-in-the-world, relates understanding^ to things, because its
essence is transcendence. In each concrete judgment Dasein takes a stand in
regard to certain things. In its assertion it gives expression to its judgment and
thus completes the act of knowledge by which it has been made possible for the
thing-to-be-known, to reveal itself as standing opposite to Dasein. The ex-
pressed judgment makes the thing-to-be-known present, and lets it take up its
position as the object of Dasein's knowledge. But there is still a third "element"
involved here, in addition to Dasein and thing. Heidegger calls this "the open".
 157

This open, in which Dasein encounters the thing-to-be-known must itself be

considered to be an open region that is opposed to Dasein, across which the
thing-to-be-known must pass in order for it to appear to Dasein. But the
openness of the open is not constituted by the fact that the thing-to-be-known
appears to Dasein by passing through it. The open region must be conceived as
the matrix of relations which constitutes the .domain of potentialities for Da-
sein; one of these potentialities is materialized when an actual contact takes
place and Dasein enters into a certain comportment with the thing-to-be-
known-and-judged. What characterizes this comportment is the fact that it
refers to something-that-is-open, das Offenbare.*3
All comportment is a mode of being that is open towards beings. Concretely
this can take place in many ways. All working and doing, all acting and
calculating, maintains itself within an open region within which beings, with
respect to what they are and how they are, can properly take their stand. But
this happens only if beings become pro-posed in a pro-posing statement, so that
the latter submits to the directive that it only speak of beings such as they are. In
following this directive the statement conforms to the relevant being. A state-
ment that directs itself accordingly is correct, is true. What is thus stated is what-
is-correct, i.e., what-is-true.
Thus the statement derives its correctness from the openness of the comport-
ment that precedes the statement; for only because such a comportment
precedes all statements does it become possible for statements to express what
beings are and how they are. This means that the beings laid open in Dasein's
comportment must become the measure of the correctness of the statement.
But if the correctness (truth) of the statement becomes possible only through
the openness of the comportment, then that which makes the correctness first
possible must also, and even in a more primordial sense, be taken as the essence
of truth.
Thus the traditional view of attributing truth exclusively to statements as the
sole and essential place of the truth has really no ground. Truth does not
originally reside in statements, but is to be found somewhere prior to them.
Does it then perhaps reside in the open character of Dasein's comportment as
such? To answer this question, Heidegger says; we must first try to discover the
ground which makes this comportment possible.14
In the next section Heidegger sets out to answer this question. In his view,
what makes this comportment possible is the fact that Dasein is so completely
open and free toward the open that it can accept any being which it may
encounter within the open, for what it is. Thus the openness of comportment
which is the inner condition of the possibility of correctness (truth) is grounded
in freedom. The essence'of truth is freedom.55
Heidegger appears to fully realize the dangers and pitfalls involved in turning
truth into freedom. Thus he makes the most important problems that one can
raise here explicit and then refutes them by means of a careful discussion of
freedom as the foundation of truth.5* Already at the very beginning Heidegger
indicates the direction which the inquiry is to take now: " . . . freedom is the
158

ground of the inner possibility of correctness only because it receives its own
essence from the more original essence of the uniquely essential truth".37
In the past freedom was defined as freedom for what is manifest; freedom
itself was there thus exhibited as man's openness. The manifest to which the
pro-posing statement is to correspond is the being as it manifests itself in and
through the open comportment of Dasein. Standing in the realm of the open,
Dasein is able to subject itself to what is manifest and shows itself, and to
commit itself to it.58 Thus freedom lets beings in each case be what they are.
Freedom reveals itself now as letting-beings-be. Letting-be does not mean that
Dasein is indifferent with respect to beings, but rather that it lets itself in on
them. But to let beings be as the beings which they are also means that one
concern himself with the open region and its openness, into which each being in
each case comes to stand. The Greeks thought of this open region as ta alithea,
the domain of what is unconcealed.
But, Heidegger continues, if we thus translate aUtheia by non-concealment
rather than by truth, we also have to revise our ordinary conception of truth as
the correctness of our statements, and to trace it back to the still uncom-
prehended disclosedness of beings. But to let oneself in on the disclosedness of
beings is not to lose himself in it; rather letting-be withdraws before the beings
so that they themselves may reveal themselves as that which they are and how
they are, and in order that the pro-posing correspondence of our statements
may take its standard from them. As this letting-be it ex-poses itself to the
beings as such and thus transposes all comportment into the open region.
Viewed from the point of view of the essence of truth, the essence of freedom,
now shows itself as the exposition into the disclosedness of beings.39
In other words, what makes it possible for Dasein to let itself in on beings is
the fact that by its very constitution Dasein itself lets itself in on the open and its
openness,"' within which all beings abide and comport themselves. This process
by which Dasein lets itself in on the open is ek-static by its very essence so that it
is by this process that Dasein stands outside itself in the direction of the open.
This is what is meant by Dasein's ek-sistence, its transcendence by means of
which it goes beyond the beings that are open, to the open itself, to the world, to
Being. Thus in its essential freedom Dasein is on the one hand committed to
attain the open only in and through beings; on the other hand, however, Dasein
transcends these beings unto the open itself.61
Freedom is thus not only that which common sense calls freedom, i.e.,
freedom of choice. Freedom is not just the absence of constraint in regard to
what one wants to do. Nor is freedom the mere readiness to do something that is
necessary. Over and above negative and positive freedom, freedom itself is first
the letting oneself in on the revealment of the beings as such.62
It should be noted here that it is in Dasein's ek-sistent engagement through
which the openness of the open, i.e., the Da, is what it is, that revealment is
preserved. In this Da-Sein there is preserved for the human Dasein the essential
ground which allows man to ek-sist. "Ek-sistence", taken as grounded in truth
as freedom, is thus nothing less than Dasein's ex-position into the being-
 159

unveiled of the beings as such. It is this ek-sistence which constitutes the essence
of Dasein. "The ek-sistence of historical man begins when the first thinker takes
a questioning stand with regard to the non-concealment of beings and asks:
what are beings?"43
Xjenuine history thus begins only when the beings themselves are expressly
drawn up into non-concealment and preserved in it, and when this preservation
is thought in terms of Dasein's questioning of the beings as such. According to
Heidegger; the primordial disclosure of the beings as such and taken as a whole,
the question concerning the being as being {on hii on), and the beginning of
Western history are one and the same. They occur together "in a time" which
itself cannot be measured, because it first opens up the open for every mea-
sure.44
Heidegger concludes from this that man does not "possess" freedom as some
kind of property. Rather the converse is true: freedom possesses man; it
possesses man in such an original manner that it alone preserves for humanity
that distinctive relatedness to beings as such and taken as a whole, which first
founds all history. Only ek-sistent man is historical.45
Freedom, taken as letting beings be, is the fulfillment of the essence of truth
taken as the revealment of beings. "Truth" is thus primarily not a characteristic
of correct statements which are asserted of an object by a human subject. Truth
is rather the revealment of beings through which openness comes-to-presence.
But if the essence of truth is not exhausted by the correctness of our statements,
then neither can untruth be identified with the incorrectness of our state-
ments.44 In view of the fact that the essence of truth consists in freedom,
ek-sistence, and transcendence, non-truth seems to be somehow connected
with the negativity that affects freedom. But if this is so, then non-truth must
also permeate truth as profoundly as negativity permeates Dasein's freedom.
The question, therefore, is one of how this, negativity is to be understood.
Heidegger feels that before we can make an effort to answer this question we
must first turn once more to the question concerning the essence of truth.47
We have seen that freedom is the.ek-sistent, revealing letting-be of beings.
Dasein's open comportment is in each case related to a particular thing or group
of things. Yet in view of the fact that each comportment is also an engagement
in the disclosure of the beings as such and taken as a whole, freedom has also
already attuned all comportment to the beings taken as a whole. Thus in every
particular comportment there is a certain attunement, by reason of which the
beings taken as a whole become manifest. Heidegger refers here to the on-
tological disposition or, as we have seen, "moodness" which discloses Dasein's
essential reference to the world; taken in an ontic sense, this may be called
Dasein's orientation towards the beings as such and taken as a whole.6"
But in "moodness" this whole itself remains rather vague. For the more
completely Dasein is involved in any particular comportment in which one
particular being or group of beings becomes manifest, the more the whole itself
appears undetermined and even undeterminable; and it is for the same reason
that this whole is all the more easily forgotten. Looking at it from this point of
160

view, we may conclude, Heidegger continues, that in every comportment by

means of which Dasein reveals a particular being or group of beings, it conceals
the whole as such. To reveal this particular being is to "fail" to reveal the beings
as such and taken as a whole; in other words a certain concealment is intrinsic in
every revealment. If now truth is essentially revealment, then concealment
must be what Heidegger calls "untruth". This is the reason why in his view the
essence of non-truth is now to be investigated in greater detail.49
In the preceding reflections we have seen already that the essence of truth
consists in revealment and that the non-essence of truth, i.e., the essence of
non-truth, consists in non-revealment, i.e., concealment. It is evident that only
that can be revealed which hitherto was concealed. Thus concealment is
ontologically prior to any form of revealment. This means that the letting-be
which is called revealment must always take place within a horizon of hidden
darkness which Heidegger calls concealment. Since, furthermore, revealment
is essentially connected with freedom, concealment, which is ontologically
prior to revealment, must also be ontologically prior to the freedom that comes-
to-pass in and through each particular comportment between Dasein and an
individual being or group of beings. ,
Furthermore, this comportment itself not only leaves concealed the beings as
such and taken as a whole, but it itself also enters into a special relationship with
the concealing of what is so concealed. But this, in turn, means that the
concealment of the whole of beings is of such a nature that the concealing of this
whole itself also remains concealed as such. Thus that which is concealed in
Dasein's liberating comportment is not only the beings as such and taken as a
whole, but also the fact that this whole is concealed. What Heidegger calls the
mystery is this concealing of the concealment; this mystery not only hides the
individual beings but also, and even especially, the entire Dasein of man.
According to Heidegger this primal mystery is non-truth in the most authen-
tic sense. As such it dominates man's Dasein insofar as Dasein is what it is, i.e.,
ek-sistence. But in his view this can be explained only if a certain negativity is
essentially intrinsic in Dasein itself, i.e., if Dasein is essentially finite, temporal,
and historical.70
Concluding we may therefore say that there is a certain priority of non-truth
over truth, of concealment over revealment, and, consequently, that the mys-
tery necessarily connected with concealment dominates man's Dasein. At the
same time, however, we must also admit that there is a certain dependence of
the mystery on man's Dasein. This aspect of the problem is still to be explained;
only if we succeed in the attempt to do so, shall we be able to fully understand
what it means that non-truth is prior to truth.
Speaking about the forgottenness of the mystery Heidegger briefly refers to
an important chapter of Being and Time.7' He points out that the mystery is
easily forgotten in man's everyday life. To be sure, in the domain of everyday-
ness Dasein really lets be the beings with which it has to do. Yet most of the time
Dasein becomes completely fascinated by them and "loses" itself in them; it
wants to use and control them. And even if on purpose Dasein broadens the
 161

horizon of its interest, even then it is still determined by its own ontic intentions
and needs. In this manner, however, man "refuses" implicity at least to let the
mystery dominate his very own Dasein. Hie consequence of this is that the
mystery slips into forgottenness.
Yet the mystery does not disappear by the simple fact that man forgets it. It
still abides by a presence of its own; it even dominates man; it abandons man to
his imprisonment in the domain of the ontic. Man is allowed to fashion his own
"world" in such a way that it corresponds to his intentions and needs. But in this
way, the things themselves become the norm by which man measures himself.
Forgetting the beings as such and taken as a whole, man neglects to reflect on
the ground which makes every measuring possible, because it, itself, precisely is
the very essence of measure. There is only one escape route possible here and
this is to re-collect the mystery which pervades everything.
If we call Dasein's power to transcend beings toward Being itself "ek-
,sistence", then Dasein's propensity to adhere ontically to beings, once the
mystery is forgotten, may be called "in-sistence". According to Heidegger, we
must thus examine how the abiding mystery that in its forgottenness is the non-
essence of truth, is still exerting its influence on the in-sistent ek-sistence. There
it will become evident why the forgottenness of the mystery must be called
properly "errancy".72
But exactly what is meant here by "errancy"? Heidegger articulates his
answer to the question in the following manner. In his everyday life man,
because of his in-sistence, adheres to the beings which, at the same time,
through his. ek-sistent freedom he somehow reveals. As we have seen, in his
everyday life man reveals the beings in such a way that he turns away from the
mystery toward which he nevertheless possesses an essential orientation. Al-
though man thus, in a hidden manner, remains oriented towards the mystery,
he nevertheless "wanders from one being'to another in a state of confusion,
driven about hither and thither, looking for a satisfaction that no being can give,
searching for a repose that no being, torn from the roots of ultimate meaning in
mystery, can offer". Errancy now is-this congenital wandering about of man in a
condition that his equally congenital orientation towards the mystery belies. It,
too, is therefore called non-truth.w
Errancy, as intrinsic in the very structure of man, is thus the ground of all
error which man commits in his life. Error is thus not to be understood here as a
single, concrete mistake, but rather as the whole complex of ways by which man
in his wandering about from being to being can take the wrong way. True, man
can wander about in forgetfulness of the mystery in many ways, but all these
ways of vitiating truth have their root and origin in the errancy which is intrinsic
in man's structure as Dasein. Errancy is the range of every modality by means of
which truth can be vitiated. If the mystery itself may be called "non-truth", then
errancy is a still more profound negation of truth.74
But now a second question arises: what is the precise relation between the
non-truth, called the mystery, and the non-truth called "errancy"? Seen from
one point of view, one must say that errancy is the source of the mystery insofar
162

as man's insistent adherence to the beings necessarily implies a turning away

from the mystery. Seen from another point of view, however, a certain domina-
tion of the mystery still abides. This is the reason why man constantly oscillates
between the two forms of non-truth, errancy on the one hand and the mystery
on the other." In other words, non-truth itself is the necessary interwovenness
of errancy and mystery. We must even say that both, errancy and mystery,
together constitute the full essence of truth itself, insofar as the full essence of
truth includes within itself its own proper non-essence.
But if in this way errancy and mystery are incorporated into truth itself, and if
both errancy and mystery necessarily dominate man in all his concrete comport-
ments, then we must come to the conclusion that now truth itself is somehow
prior to the freedom which in the preceding pages was described as the very
essehce of truth as correctness. But this would mean that the coming-to-pass of
the truth, although it occurs in man's Dasein, does not have its origin in man's
Dasein, but rather in that which in the mystery itself hides itself, namely Being.
The last question we must ask here is the following: is there no escape
possible for man from errancy and mystery in the coming-to-pass of the truth?
Heidegger believes that a certain escape is always possible, insofar as man is
always able to experience errancy itself for what it is, and to refuse to overlook
the mystery any longer. When man really comprehends errancy as such, he
recognizes it as the necessary consequence, and even as the reverse side, of his
own forgetfulness of the mystery. But this means eo ipso to re-collect the
mystery. For when man by means of this re-collection, recognizes and acknowl-
edges the mystery, surrenders to the mystery in an authentic resolve, the scene
changes completely. In his everyday life man, through his freedom, lets be the
beings which he encounters in every concrete, open comportment. At that very
moment the beings as such and taken as a whole become concealed and in this
concealing of the concealment, mystery and errancy rule man's life. However,
when man recognizes errancy for what it is, and opens himself up toward the
mystery as such, man no longer lets be the individual beings of a particular
comportment, but rather the whole of the beings as such. This surrender to the
mystery in authentic resolve, however, which comes-to-pass as soon as man
recognizes errancy for what it is, does not destroy the mystery. On the contrary,
it permits man to meditate the mystery for itself, and thus to pose the supreme
question concerning what beings as such are, taken as a whole. Such an
interrogation thinks the question of the Being of beings as such; such a ques-
tioning thinks Being itself.76
Heidegger concludes the essay with a brief reflection on the relationship
between truth and philosophy. Since what he claims there is not immediately
relevant to the issues discussed in the art lectures, I shall not dwell on the
concluding section of On the Essence of Truth and instead return to the art
lectures. We shall see that in these lectures Heidegger basically maintains the "
conception of truth developed in On the Essence of Truth, but that he adapts
this conception to his view on the "essence" of art and, in so doing, more
strongly stresses the priority of Being in the coming-to-pass of the truth.
 163

§ 26. Truth as Correspondence and Truth as Non-Concealment. Truth and

Work

a) Truth as Non-Concealment

In "The Origin of the Work of Art" Heidegger begins his reflections on truth by
observing that we still know little about the essence of truth. This lack of
knowledge is clear from the superficial manner in which we normally use the
word. By truth we usually understand this or that particular truth, i.e., some-
thing that is true. A cognition articulated in a proposition can be such a truth;
true gold and true friendship can be others. True gold means real gold. By the
"real" we mean here that which in truth is. The true is what corresponds to the
real and the real is what is in truth.
But what is the essence of truth?* Before we can answer this question,
Heidegger says, one should note that by essence we sometimes mean a basic
' feature held in common by a number of individuals. The essence then is
discovered by the generic and universal concept, which represents the one
feature that holds indifferently for many things. Here we do not take essence in
that sense (= inessential essence). We are concerned here with the essential
essence of truth; by essential essence we mean that which is determined by way
of a Being's true Being.77
By truth we accordingly mean here the essence of what is true. In recollecting
the Greek word aletheia we think truth as the non-concealment of beings. In so
doing, Heidegger continues, we are not demanding a revival of Greek philoso-
phy. For from the very beginning Greek philosophy itself did not remain in
conformity with the essence of truth that lights up in the word aletheia. The
essence of truth as aletheia was never thought out in the philosophy of the
Greeks; nor has it been ever since.7*
But, Heidegger now asks, why can we not be satisfied with the "normal"
definition of truth. Truth means, as everybody knows, the agreement or
conformity of knowledge with fact. Obviously, the fact must show itself to be a
fact, if knowledge and the proposition that expresses this knowledge are to be
able to conform to the fact; otherwise the fact cannot become binding for
knowledge and proposition. But how can a fact show itself if it cannot itself
stand forth out of concealment? A thought or a proposition is true when it
conforms to the unconcealed, i.e., to what is true. Prepositional truth is thus
correctness-, no less no more. The critical concepts of truth which since Des-
cartes have started out from truth as certainty, are merely variations of the
definition of truth as correctness. One thing is clear, however, that the essence
of truth as the correctness of propositions stands and falls with truth as the non-
concealment of beings.79
Heidegger continues his reflections by observing that in thinking truth as
non-concealment he is not taking refuge in a literal translation of a Greek word;
rather he tries to remind us here of what, unthought, underlies our familiar
conception of the essence of truth as correctness. Without denying the correct-
164

ness of the common conception of truth he tries to think the essence of truth,
realizing that it is not we who presuppose the non-concealment of beings, but
that the non-concealment of beings (i.e., Being) puts us in such a condition that
in all our propositions we always remain within non-concealment. Further-
more, when I say that my statement is in conformity with something, then this
thing must itself already be in some way unconcealed; and what is more, even
the entire domain in which this "conforming to something" occurs must as a
whole already have come-to-pass in non-concealment. With all our correct
propositions we could not even presuppose that there is already something
manifest to which we can conform ourselves, unless the non-concealment of
beings had already exposed us to and placed us in that clearing in which every
being stands and from which it withdraws."1
Before we can say how truth comes-to-pass as non-concealment, we must
first try to get a better grasp of non-concealment itself. To this end, Heidegger
says, let us turn once more to beings. There are many things, and they are of
very different kinds. Yet they all are and stand in Being. Of these things we
know few, and of none of them do we have a perfect knowledge. What is, is
never of our making, or even just the product of our mind. We can contemplate
the whole of beings as a unity, as one; then we speak of all-that-is. Now in
addition to all-that-is there is still something else that comes-to-pass. In the
midst of beings as a whole an open place comes-to-pass; a clearing occurs which
at the same time is a lighting. All-that-is can be only if it stands within what is
lighted in this clearing. It is this clearing and this open domain which grants us
humans a passage to the beings that we ourselves are not, as well as to the
beings which we ourselves are. Thus thanks to this clearing beings are uncon-
cealed.81
Yet beings can also be concealed, even though this, too, can take place only
within the domain of the clearing. And concealment can even happen here in
two different ways. Sometimes beings just hide themselves and simply refuse to
show themselves. On the other hand, sometimes one being hides another; in
this case concealment is not just a simple refusal, but rather a dissembling. Now
the clearing itself, too, is somehow concealed. And concealment happens here,
too, in two different ways. The open place in the midst of beings, in which all
things stand, is never arigidstage on which the play of beings runs its course; it,
too, happens only as this double concealment of simple refusal and dissem-
bling. This double concealment belongs to the essence of truth as non-conceal-
ment; in its very essence truth is also untruth.82 First, denial, in the manner of
simple concealment, belongs to non-concealment as clearing. For the coming-
to-pass of the truth of Being is inherently finite; as a consequence, while it
shows itself in letting beings be what they are, it itself hides itself (Versagen,
refusal). At the same time. Being also can let beings be as what they are not and
show them only in their seeming-to-be (Verstellen, dissemble, dissimulate).
The process of dissimulation furthermore also includes the concealing of the
concealment itself. Thus what Heidegger here calls Verstellen (dissimulation)
includes what in On the Essence of Truth was called errancy and mystery."3
 165

In other words, dissimulation (= errancy and mystery) together with the

simple refusal constitute the full essence of the non-truth inherent in truth.
Furthermore, truth and non-truth are constantly in contention as the original
discord. The concealing denial is intended to refer to that opposition in the
essence of truth which subsists between clearing and concealing. Heidegger
calls this the opposition of the primal conflict. Thus the essence of truth is, in
itself, "the primal conflict in which that open center is won within which what is,
stands, and from which it sets itself back into itself'.84

b) The Strife between Truth and Untruth and the Battle between World and
Earth. The Beautiful versus the True

We have seen that Heidegger describes the relationship between world and
earth in terms of a battle. On the other hand, the relationship between truth and
untruth was characterized as one of strife. We must now ask the question of
1
how the relationship between truth and untruth is to be related to the relation-
ship between world and earth."5 In view of the fact that world has been called
the open and earth that which is as self-secluding, one might be inclined to
believe that revealment or truth is to be identified with world and concealment
or untruth with earth. Heidegger obviously denies this identification and claims
that to the open, opened up in the clearing, there belongs a world as well as the
earth.86 According to Heidegger, the open, won in the battle of the primal
conflict between truth and untruth, comes-to-pass in the midst of beings. It
exhibits an essential characteristic to which we have already alluded in the
preceding. "To the open there belongs a world and the earth". Yet, Heidegger
continues, the world is not simply the open that corresponds to the clearing, nor
is the earth simply the closed that corresponds to concealment. As we have
already said several times, the world is rather the clearing of the paths of the
essential guiding directions with which all human decisions must comply. Yet,
on the other hand, every such decision is founded on something that is not
mastered, something that is concealed and confusing. If this were not so, it
would never be a genuine decision. The earth, however, is not simply that
which is closed; rather it is that which is as self-closing and self-secluding. Thus
world and earth are always intrinsically and essentially in conflict with each
other.87
To this, Heidegger says, there should be added that the earth towers up into
the world and the world grounds itself on the earth only insofar as truth happens
as the primal conflict between clearing and concealing. Now truth happens only
in a few basic and essential ways. One of these ways is the work-Being of the
work. Setting up ä world and setting forth the earth, the work itself is the
"fighting of the battle" in which the non-concealment of the beings as such and
taken as a whole (a-Utheia, truth) is won.
Thus truth comes-to-pass in the temple where it itself stands. As we have
mentioned before, Heidegger continues, this does not mean that something is
correctly re-presented and rendered, but rather that what is taken as a whole is
166

brought into non-concealment and held therein. The German word halten (to
hold) originally meant hüten, to tend, to keep, or to take care. Truth comes-
to-pass in the painting by van Gogh. Here, too, this does not mean that
something has been protrayed correctly, but rather that in the revealment of the
equipment-Being of the shoes, that which is as a whole, i.e., a world and the
earth taken in their counterplay, come to non-concealment.88
Thus in the work truth itself is at work (am Werk), not just something that is
true. What the temple of Paestum, the painting by van Gogh, and Meyer's
poem about the fountain in Rome make manifest is thus not some isolated
being as such, assuming here for a moment that it indeed makes sense at all to
say that works of art make something manifest. Rather what works of art
"make manifest" is the non-concealment in regard to the beings as such and
taken as a whole. The more simply and the more authentically the shoes, the
temple, and the fountain come to the fore as what they are in their modes of
Being, the more directly and engagingly all beings attain to a greater and higher
degree of being. It is thus in this way that Being itself, which conceals itself,
becomes illuminated and enters the clearing. That which has so been illumi-
nated (das Lichte), then directs its shining toward and into the work. This
shining which in this way becomes a constitutive part of the work, is the
beautiful, because beauty is one way in which the truth shines (ekphanestaton).
It is in this way that with respect to beauty we can thus retrieve our entire'
tradition from Plato to Hegel.89

c) From Work and Truth to Truth and Art

Heidegger now leads us from these reflections on world, earth, and truth to the
basic themes to be discussed in the last part of the essay on the art work; this is
entitled: "Truth and Art". In his view, in the preceding reflections we may have
learned something about the manner in which truth comes-tc-pass and about
the manner in which truth is at work in the work of art. But in so doing we still
have said almost nothing about the thingly dimension of the work. Thus by
onesidedly stressing the independence and self-sufficiency of the work, we
seem to have overlooked that a work is inherently something that has been
worked out, brought about, made. For one of the most obvious aspects of
works of art, which sets them clearly apart from all other beings, is that they
have been made, effected, brought forth. Since the work is brought forth, and
since bringing-forth requires a medium out of which and in which it brings forth,
the thingly character belongs inherently to the work that is so brought forth.
Yet the question still is: how does having-been-brought-forth belong to the
work? In Heidegger's view this question can be answered if two other questions
have been answered first: 1) How are bringing-forth and having-been-brought-
forth to be distinguished from fabricating and having-been-fabricated? How is
the artistic production to be distinguished from the production that is charac-
teristic of the craftsman? 2) Precisely what is the innermost essence of the art
work itself, from which alone we can gauge in how far having-been-brought-
 167

forth belongs to the work as such, and in how far this having-been-brought-
forth ultimately determines the work-Being of the work?
To bring forth (Schaffen) is here always taken in reference to the work of art,
and thus not in a theological sense (creation). Now we have seen that to the
essence of the work there belongs the coming-to-pass of the truth. We thus must
define the essence of bringing-forth from the start by means of its relation to the
manner in which truth comes-to-pass as the non-concealment of the beings. It
will become clear later that the fact that the having-been-brought-forth intrin-
sically belongs to the work, can itself be explained only by means of a more
fundamental elucidation of the manner in which truth comes-to-presence. The
question of truth and of its coming-to-presence and abidance thus returns
again. We must raise this question once more, Heidegger thinks, if the claim
that truth is indeed at work (am Werke) in the work is not to remain a mere
assertion.
We must thus first ask in a more essential manner: how can there lie in the
very essence of truth the inclination or impulse toward a work of art? In what
manner does truth come-to-pass and what kind of Being does it have in order
that it can be set into the work and under certain circumstances even must be set
into the work, in order to be as truth? But we have defined the setting into the
work which is a characteristic feature of the truth, as the essence of art. Hence
the l&t question we shall have to ask is the following: What then is truth that it
can happen as, or sometimes even must happen as, art? In how far can one
indeed say that there is art?4"
 CHAPTER IV. TRUTH A N D ART

ART. I. ARTISTIC PRODUCTION. THE WORK AS HAVING-BEEN-

PRODUCED

§ 27. Artistic Production and the Clearing of the Openness in the Work

a) Toward the Essence of Artistic Production

Heidegger begins the last part of his essay with a brief summary of the most
important ideas developed in the preceding sections. We have seen there, he
says, that art is the origin of both the art work and the artist. By origin we
understand here the source of the essence, in which the Being of a being comes-
to-presence. But what then is art? We have tried to discover its essence by
examining works insofar as they are actually at work. The work-Being of the
work in its actuality has been determined by that which is at work in the work,
i.e., by the coming-to-pass of the truth. The coming-to-pass of the truth we have
tried to understand in terms of the "fighting" of the battle between world and
earth. Rest and repose come-to-presence in the concentrated agitation of this
battle. It is here that the independence of the work has its ground.
In the work the coming-to-pass of the truth is at work. What is at work in this
way, is so precisely in the work. But this means that the work that is actually at
work, is here already presupposed as the bearer of this coming-to-pass. Thus
the problem of the thingly character of the given work confronts us once more.
For it finally becomes clear to us that however carefully we inquire into the
work's independence and self-sufficiency, we still fail to discover its actual
work-Being as long as we do not take the work as something that has been
worked, effected, made. As a matter of fact it is quite natural to look at it in this
way because when we listen to the word "work", we hear at the same time "that
which has been worked". The workly character of the work consists in its
having been produced by the artist. It may seem very odd, Heidegger observes,
that this most obvious and all-clarifying determination of the work has not been
mentioned earlier.
 169

In Heidegger's view, the work's having been artistically produced can ob-
viously be grasped only through the productive process. Thus forced by the
facts we finally have to admit that there is a need for going into the activity of the
artist, in order so to reach the origin of the work of art. In other words, it
appears to be impossible to determine the work-Being of the work purely in
terms of the work itself. But while we now plan to turn away from the work
itself in order to examine the essence of the artistic production, we must
nevertheless continue to keep in mind what we have learned from the works of
art we have already spoken about, namely, from the painting by van Gogh and
from the example of the Greek temple.1
According to Heidegger, we usually conceive of artistic production as a
bringing-forth. But the production of utensils is also a bringing-forth. And yet
the various crafts do not really produce works; and this is true even where we
contrast what is made by hand with what is made in the factory. Thus we must
task the question of precisely what distinguishes the bringing-forth that is
characteristic of the artistic production from the bringing-forth that is typical of
the crafts' making. Although it is easy verbally to distinguish between these two
modes of bringing-forth, it is yet very difficult to articulate the essential features
of the artistic production of works of art and those of the making of equipment.
At first sight one finds the same comportment in the activity of the potter and
the sculptor, the carpenter and the painter. The artistic production of a work,
too, requires craftsmanship. And great artists have a deep appreciation for
craftsmanship. More than anyone else, they constantly try to educate them-
selves ever anew in craftsmanship. And we also know that the Greeks who
knew quite a bit about works of art, use one word, namely techni, for both art
and craft, and give the same name, namely that of technics, to both the artist
and the craftsman.'
Heidegger suggests that in light of this it may seem advisable to determine the
essence of the artistic production from the perspective of its craft side. And yet
it is precisely the reference to the linguistic usage of the Greeks, which names
their experience of the matter at hand, that should make us reflect and think.
For however customary and convincing it may be here to refer to the Greek
practice of naming art and craft with the same name (techni), it nevertheless is
and remains evasive and superficial; for techni signifies neither art nor craft,
and certainly not what we today call the "technical"; for techni never meant any
kind of practical achievement. The word "techni" rather signified some kind of
knowledge; arid to know for them meant to have seen, i.e., to apprehend that
which comes-to-presence as such. Furthermore, for Greek thought the essence
of knowing consisted in aletheia, i.e., in the revealment of the beings. For them
knowing supports and guides all comportment toward the beings. As a form of
knowing, techni, experienced in the Greek manner, is thus a bringing forth of
beings which brings them out of concealment and into non-concealment.
Techni never meant the act of making as such.2
The Greeks called an artist a technitis, not because he is also a craftsman, but
rather because both the setting-forth (Herstellen) of works of art and the
170

setting-forth (Herstellen) of equipment come-to-pass in a bringing-to-the-fore

(Her-vor-bringen) that from the outset lets the being come to the fore from its
look into its coming-to-presence (aus seinem Aussehen her in seinem Anwesen).
Yet all this occurs in the midst of the beings that grow and emerge of their own
accord, i.e., in the midst of phusis. Thus when the Greeks called art a techni,
they did not at all imply that the action of the artist is to be taken in the light of
craft. On the contrary, what in the artistic production of the work looks like
craft, is really something of a different kind. The artist's doing is determined by
the essence of the artistic production (Schaffen).3
We have encountered similar ideas in § 2 where we discussed Plato's con-
ception of techni. In both instances, i.e., in the Nietzsche lectures and in his
reflections on the origin of the work of art, Heidegger made use of ideas which
he had developed for the first time in An Introduction to Metaphysics, the
lecture course which he had completed just a few months before he finished the
essay on the origin of the work of art. There Heidegger had argued that the
Greek word "techni" originally meant neither art nor skill; it certainly did not
mean technology; it rather meant some form of knowledge.4 That techni
according to Heidegger meant some form of knowledge requires a brief expla-
nation, for which I shall make use of some essays from Vorträge und Aufsätze.
The word "techni" is related to the verb tiktö, which means "to bring forth".
Techni and tiktö have the same root, namely tec. For the Greeks techni
originally meant to make something appear, to let something appear as what it
is, as itself. Thus for the Greeks techni, bringing-forth, is to be conceived in
terms of letting something appear.3 From the earliest times until Plato and
Aristotle the word techni was always linked closely to the word epistimi and,
originally, both words were names for knowing taken in a very broad sense of
the term. They had the meaning of "being entirely at home in something",
"understanding something perfectly", or "being an expert in". This kind of
knowledge implies an opening-up and a revealing. Thus for the Greeks techni
was a form of alitheuein, of letting something come from hiddenness into non-
concealment. Techni reveals whatever cannot bring itself forth. At any rate, it
is as revealing, and not as making or manufacturing, that techni is a bringing-
forth.6
But also the term "knowledge" needs further explanation. In An Introduc­
tion to Metaphysics, Heidegger writes that knowledge does not mean here the
result of observations concerning things previously unknown. Such information
is important, but it does not constitute what is essential for knowledge. Knowl-
edge in the sense of techni is not just a looking-beyond (Hinaussehen), but
rather a being-beyond (Hinaussein) what is at hand as a mere being, setting it to
work as a being and, at the same time, setting Being itself to work in this being.
Knowledge, in the sense of techni, is thus the ability to put into the work (ins-
Werk-setzen-können) the Being of any particular being.
The Greeks called art and also the work of art techni, because art is that
which most immediately brings Being to stand in its comjng-to-presence and
abidance in the work. Techni opens up the Being of beings by its struggle
 171

against the concealment that previously obscured it; thus it makes it possible for
Being to shine forth in beings and renders it possible for them to be what they
are.7 Thus the work of art is a work not so much because it is something that has
been made (gewirkt), but rather because it brings-about (erwirkt) the Being of a
being. The verb er-wirken means here to bring into the work in which, as in that
which appears, the emergent and abiding presence (phusis) begins to shine. It is
through the work of art, taken as the being that it is, that everything else that
appears and is to be found is confirmed, made accessible, explainable, and
understandable as being, or perhaps as non-being.
Heidegger continues by saying that it is precisely because art in an eminent
manner enables Being to take its stand and makes it come to the fore in the
work taken as a being, that art may be considered as techni, i.e., as the ability to
put Being into the work. At any rate, art is not techni because it involves craft,
skill, tools, and materials.8
, In the lecture on the origin of the art work Heidegger returns to the question
concerning the precise nature of the productive process. How is one to ap-
proach this question? If craft is not to guide our thinking about the productive
process, what then is to guide us here? There does not seem to be another way
than to turn again to the work. Although it is true that the work's having been
produced is closely related to the artistic production, nevertheless both this
having-been-produced and the artistic production itself must be determined
from the perspective of the work-Being of the work. Thus it should now no
Jonger seem odd that first we had to deal at length with the work alone and that
only now are we able to turn our attention to its having-been-produced. And if
this having-been-produced belongs to the work as essentially as the word
"work" makes it sound, then we must make an effort to understand even in a
more essential manner what thus far has been defined as the work-Being of the
work.»

b) The Establishment of the Clearing of the Openness of the Truth in the

Work

In the preceding we have seen that the coming-to-pass of the truth is at work in
the work. If we now try to define the artistic production of the work in light of
this conception of the work we can say that to produce something artistically is
tantamount to making something emerge and come-to-presence as a thing that
has been so brought to the fore. Thus the work's becoming a work is a manner
in which the truth comes-to-pass. We must therefore now ask: but what then is
truth that ,it has to come-to-pass in something that has been artistically pro-
duced? In how far does truth essentially have an inclination or impulse toward a
work? Can we comprehend this from what has been said thus far about truth?
In his attempt to answer these questions Heidegger states first that, as we
have seen, truth is also untruth. In the non-concealment as truth we discovered
another "non-", namely that of a double restraint. Truth thus comes-to-pass as
such in the opposition of clearing and double concealment. "Truth is the primal
172

conflict in which always in some particular way, the open is won within which
everything stands and from which everything withholds itself that shows itself
and withdraws itself as a being".1" Whenever and however this conflict comes-
to-pass, the clearing and the concealing move apart as two opponents because
of it. In this manner the open of the place of conflict is won. The openness of this
open ( = truth) can be what it is (i.e., this particular open) only if and as long as
it establishes itself within its open. This is the reason why there must always be
some concrete being in this open, some being in which the openness can take a
stand and attain its typical constancy. But it is the openness itself ( = truth)
which, in taking possession of the open domain, holds the open ( = Being) open
and sustains it."
Heidegger then adds a note in which he explains that the expressions "set-
ting" and "taking possession" are drawn from the Greek sense of the word
thesis, which really means a setting-up in non-concealment. Heidegger also
adds that in referring to this self-establishing of the openness ( = truth) in the
open, our thoughtful reflection touches on a set of issues that cannot yet be
explained here. He limits himself to just one general remark to avoid misunder-
standing; if the manner in which the non-concealment of beings comes-to-pre-
sence in any way at all, belongs to Being itself, then Being itself lets the place of
openness ( = the clearing of the there) come-to-pass and yields it as a place in
which each being arises and emerges in its own way.12
In the Addendum Heidegger observes that it is difficult to explain the
determinations which are given here about the "establishing" and "self-
establishing" of the truth in the beings. We must avoid understanding "to
establish" in this instance in the modern sense, i.e., in the sense in which this
expression was used in the lecture on technology, namely in the sense of "to
organize" and "to complete". Rather the word "establishing" recalls here the
inclination and the tendency or impulse of the truth toward the work, i.e., "the
tendency that, in the midst of beings, truth should come-to-presence in the
manner of work . . . " " From the passage which immediately follows this
observation, it becomes clear what the issues are that cannot yet be explicated
here. At this point Heidegger says: "If we recollect how truth as the non-
concealment of beings means nothing but the coming-to-presence of the beings
as such, that is. Being . . . then our speaking about the self-establishing of the
truth, that is, of Being, in all that is, touches on the problem of the ontological
difference".14 Thus, Heidegger goes on to say there, one should continuously
keep in mind that the essay on the origin of the work of art tacitly, but
deliberately, moves on the way of the question concerning the coming-to-pre-
sence of Being. Thus our reflection on what art itself may be is completely and
decidedly determined only in regard to the question of Being. In other words, in
this essay art is considered neither as an area of cultural achievement, nor as a
mode of the appearance of the spirit; rather it belongs to the disclosure of
appropriation by way of which the meaning of Being alone can be defined.
What art itself may be is one of the questions to which no answers are given in
the essay. What gives us the impression that such answers are given are the
 173

directions for questioning presented there. - Since we have discussed some of

the implications of this claim in one of the preceding sections, I shall no longer
dwell on them here.11
Be this as it may, Heidegger then describes five essential ways in which the
non-concealment "establishes itself in the beings which it itself has opened up.
We have seen how the truth comes-to-pass only by establishing itself in the
conflict and the domain opened up by the truth itself. This does not mean that
the truth first exists in itself beforehand, in order then to descend and settle
among the beings. The main reason why such a conception is completely
impossible is that it is only the openness of the beings itself that first makes
available the possibility of a place or space filled by things that come-to-pre-
sence. Thus the clearing of the openness and the establishment in the open
belong together. They are the same and single abidance (Wesen) of the coming-
to-pass of the truth. This coming-to-pass can happen historically in many ways.
"One essential way in which truth establishes itself in the beings which it itself
has opened up, is the truth setting itself into the work. Another way in which
truth comes-to-pass is the act that founds a political state. Still another way in
which truth comes to shine forth is the nearness of that which is not simply a
being, but the being that is most of all in being. Still another way in which truth
grounds itself is the essential sacrifice. Still another way in which truth comes-
to-pass is the thinker's questioning which, as the thinking of Being, names
Being in its being-worthy of being questioned. By contrast, science is not an
original happening of the truth, but always the cultivation of a domain of truth
already opened, specifically by apprehending and confirming that which shows
itself to be possibly and necessarily correct within that domain. When and
insofar as a science passes beyond correctness . . . and arrives at the essential
disclosure of what is as such, it becomes philosophy".16
Heidegger finally concludes this part of the essay with the observation that
the inclination and impulse of the truth toward the work thus lies in the very
essence of truth itself, as one of truth's distinctive possibilities, by means of
which it can itself come-to-pass as being in the midst of the beings. The reason
for this is, as we have just seen, that it belongs to the essence of truth that it has
to establish itself within the beings.
A few brief comments are in order here to clarify some of these claims.
Heidegger begins by stating that there are several basic ways in which the truth
can come-to-pass. To fully understand this statement one must keep in mind
that Heidegger had stated earlier (in so doing following Hegel to some extent)
that the truth has to come-to-pass in regard to a people such that its destiny will
be changed from then on. The question therefore is one of what kinds of
occurrences can have such a meaning. Heidegger mentions only some of these,
such as the act that founds a political state. Note here that Heidegger does not
mention a leader, or some politicians; rather what he has in mind is an act on the
part of a people which perhaps may have been prompted by one or more
individuals. Heidegger next mentions the being that in being is most of all; I
take this to be a reference to the divine; particularly during the period of "great
174

art" this was undoubtedly the case for both Greece and the Christian Middle
Ages. The term "essential sacrifice" refers to an act in which someone gives his
life for his people, and thus, lets the truth come-to-pass for his people. Heideg-
ger explicitly excludes the sciences from this happening. There are several
reasons for this. First of all, science has no relation to a particular people; in
intention at least science is for all human beings who are willing and able to
follow a method; science is thus essentially universalizing and in this sense one
could call it cosmopolitan. It will not do to argue that science is at the root of a
new conception of man and of a truly cosmopolitan community. The reason for
this is the one Heidegger gives explicitly: when and insofar as science ever goes
beyond the correctness guaranteed by the proper application of method, it
becomes immediately philosophy.17

§ 28. The Coming-to-Pass of the Truth Is Fixed as Gestalt. Having-Been-

Produced

a) The Coming-to-Pass of Non-Concealment Becomes Fixed as Gestalt

Heidegger now turns to the question of how truth establishes itself in the work.
In his view, when the truth establishes itself in the work, a being is brought forth
such as never was before, and as never will come to be again. The action in
which the work is brought forth puts this being into the open in such a way, that
the work that is to be brought forth, first clears the openness of the open in
which it is to come forth. Heidegger can thus claim that wherever the action that
brings something forth expressly brings the truth with it, there the being that is
so brought forth, is indeed a work. The artistic production is such a bringing-
forth. But according to Heidegger such a bringing-forth is at the same time also
a receiving and a learning which come-to-pass within man's comportment
toward non-concealment.
Heidegger suggests that we must now ask the following question: in what
does the being-produced of the work precisely consist? In his opinion this
question can be answered by a discussion of two basic characteristics of the
work: 1) in this case the coming-to-pass of non-concealment becomes fixed in
the work's Gestalt, and 2) the fact that the work has been artistically produced is
explicitly projected into the work. Let us try to explain this in greater detail.18
Truth comes-to-pass in and adapts itself in the work. Instead of the verb "sich
einrichten" (to establish itself) Heidegger uses here the verb "sichrichtenin"
which has the same meaning as "sich in etwas schicken, fügen", or even "sich
zurechtfinden". I have translated it by two verbs: to come-to-pass and to adapt-
itself-to. Now as we have seen, truth is present in the work only as the conflict
between clearing and concealing which takes place in the being-oriented to-
ward each other (Gegenwendigkeit) of world and earth. Thus the truth wants to
come-to-pass in, and adapt itself to, the work which presents the conflict
between world and earth. And the strife between world and earth is not to be
 175

resolved in the work that has been so brought forth; nor is it merely to be
located there; on the contrary, the strife is precisely to be made manifest in and
by the work. Thus the work must contain in itself the essential traits of the
strife. In the conflict between world and earth, the unity of world and earth is
won". When a world opens itself, it demands from some human people in history
a decision concerning victory or defeat, blessing or curse, mastery or slavery.
The dawning world makes manifest what as yet was still undecided and without
measure. In this manner the opening of a world discloses the hidden necessity of
measure and decision.19
But there is more, Heidegger continues. For while a world is being opened
up, the earth begins to rise, also. The earth shows itself as that which bears and
carries everything, as that which is secured and sheltered in its own law, and is
at the same time continuously self-secluding. The world demands the earth's
decisiveness and measure and, thus, releases all beings toward what is open for
,their paths. On the other hand, the earth, bearing and towering-up, tends to
keep itself closed, and to make everything surrender to its law. But the strife of
world and earth is not a fissure (Riss) in the sense of a mere cleft that has been
ripped open; rather, it is the intimacy with which those who fight with one
another, belong to each other. This fissure thus draws the ones facing each
other into the source of their unity, on the basis of their common ground. It is
for them the basic design or groundplan; the fissure which is aripping-open,is
also an outline (Auf-riss) which draws up the basic features for the emergent
clearing of the beings. In other words, this fissure does not let the ones facing
each other break apart. Rather it brings the contrast of measure and limit into a
unified outline (Umriss).
It seems to me that Heidegger here anticipates what he later will unfold as the
ontolbgical difference which in the domain of language comes-to-presence as
the dif-ference (diaphora, Unter-Schied) between world and thing. It is there
claimed also that the dif-ference implies a fissure that makes "the limpid
brightness shine".20
Truth establishes itself as a strife between world and earth in a being that is to
be brought forth only in such a way that the strife is opened up in this very being,
and this being itself is brought into the fissure. Thus truth establishes itself in a
being in such a way that this being itself occupies the open space of the truth.
But this occupying can take place only if the fissure that is to be brought forth,
entrusts itself to the self-secluding earth which towers up in the open. In other
words, the fissure must set itself back into the heavy weight of stone, the
hardness of wood, or the glow of colors. As the earth thus receives the fissure
back into itself, the fissure is first set forth into the open space and placed into
that which as sheltering and self-secluding towers up into the open space.
The strife which in this way is brought into the fissure and so set back unto the
earth, is now determined and made stable. As such it has become a Gestalt. To
be produced artistically for a work thus means that the truth has been fixed in
the work's Gestalt in a stable manner. The Gestalt is the structure in whose
shape the fissure becomes formed and molded. The so ordered and structured
176

fissure becomes the ordered pattern in which the truth shines forth. What is
here called a Gestalt is always to be thought of in terms of that particular setting
and framing (Ge-stell) as which the work comes-to-presence, i.e., insofar as the
work sets itself up and sets itself forth.21
In the artistic production of a work of art, the conflict between world and
earth, taken as fissure, must be set back into and unto the earth, while the earth
itself is to be set forth and "used" as the self-secluding element. In this process
the earth is not used up, and much less abused as matter. Rather, it is set free
here to be nothing but itself. In this regard the earth's use has some similarity
with the use of the material in some craft. This also explains why in this regard
the artistic production of the work seems to be similar to the activities involved
in handicraft. Yet it never really is. But it is the case that at all times the earth is
employed in the process in which the truth becomes "fixed" and established in
the work's Gestalt. On the other hand, the manufacturing of tools and utensils
never immediately effects the coming-to-pass of the truth.22
I wish to interrupt my paraphrase of Heidegger's text at this point in order to
make a few brief comments. First of all, it seems to me, one should not
understand what Heidegger calls Gestalt in the sense of a form that is somehow
imprinted into some matter. Rather it is the stable and enduring structure in
which the process of stellen comes to rest such that a world is being set-up (auf­
stellen) and the earth is being set-forth (herstellen).
The words Ge-stalt and Ge-stell express the gathering unity and the inner
belonging together of the various modes of stellen referred to in the text. We
have already seen that the term "stellen" here is to be thought in connection
with the Greek word thesis, taken in the sense of letting lie forth in its radiance
and presence.23
Secondly, as for the word "fixed" that was used, here it has the meaning of
"outlined", "brought into the outline", "admitted into the boundary" (peras).
Taken in the Greek sense, the concept of boundary (peras) does not imply that
something is being blocked off; rather, as the boundary itself is brought forth, it
first brings what comes-to-presence to its radiance. Boundary thus sets some-
thing free into what is non-concealed just as its contour sets the mountain free
against the bright sky in its towering and its repose. The boundary which fixes
and consolidates is itself in this repose that which is full of motion. We have
encountered the same phenomenon of rest and motion in the work taken as
ergon, whose Being is energeia. Energeia gathers within itself infinitely more
movement than do our modern technologies.24
This fixing in place of the truth, however, if rightly understood, can never be
in conflict with the work's "letting the truth come-to-pass". First of all, this
"letting" is nothing passive, but rather a doing in the highest degree;29 it is thus
to be taken in the sense oithesb; it is a "working" and "willing" which later on
will be characterized as "Daseinsentrance into and compliance with the non-
concealment of Being". Secondly, the "coming-to-pass" in this letting come-
to-pass of the truth is that movement which prevails in the union of clearing and
concealing. Finally, this "movement" requires such a fixing-in-place in the
 177

sense of a bringing-forth. Note here that the latter was defined earlier as "a
receiving and a learning that occurs within the comportment toward non-
concealment".2*
Finally, the word Ge-stell (frame, framework; literally the com-positing)
must be defined as follows: "the gathering of the bringing-forth", or also as
"the letting-come-forth here into the design of the fissure as bounding outline
(peras)." If Ge-stell is understood in this way, the word Ge-stell explains the
Greek sense of morphi, figure, Gestalt. The word "Ge-stell", Heidegger adds
in the Addendum, was later used as the key-expression in the determination of
the essence of technicity, and conceived there in reference to the sense of frame
used here, but obviously not in reference to other meanings such as bookshelf
or composite picture, which the word "Gesteir also has. But it should be kept
in mind that in the later essays on technicity the term "Ge-steir really has a
quite different meaning than the one given to it here in the essay on the origin of
the work of art. Yet in both cases the overall context is the same, insofar as in
ooth cases the basic issue is closely related to the destiny of Being. In other
words, let us not forget that the origin of the "fine arts" and the origin of
modern science and technology both came-to-pass in the modern era, and also
that "the Being which defines the modern period, Being as com-positing, stems
from the Western destiny of Being which was not invented by philosophers, but
is rather offered to thinking men as something to be thought".27

j b) Having-Been-Produced Is an Integral Aspect of the Work of Art

In the preceding section (§ 27) we have seen that Heidegger finally and almost
reluctantly turned to the author of the work. Later he will also speak about
those who are to have an experience with the work; but this, too, will be very
brief. In order to be able to fully appreciate Heidegger's "philosophy of art",
one must make an effort to project it upon the large horizon of modern
aesthetics, in which the creator of the work and its preservers play such
important parts.28
In Heidegger's theory of art there is no reference to the basic issues that form
the center of the empiricists' concern with the "psychology" of the creator and
the preserver; nor is there any room for Kant's efforts to give a transcendental
foundation to such "psychological" reflections. The concept of genius is never
mentioned, and the same is true for the judgment of taste. Heidegger never
states that art is play; nor does he defend the view, attributed to Schiller, that
art flows from some form of "surplus energy", and consists in a complete and
harmonious fusion of impulse and law. We have seen that Heidegger has made
a very serious effort to retrieve Nietzsche's conception of the will-to-power as
art; yet we have seen also that in the final analysis this position has been
overcome, and that Heidegger's own "philosophy of art" is much more
Hegelian in inspiration. What is of primary concern to him is not the question of
who made the work of art, but rather the "fact" that it has been made.
Heidegger never says that art is the expression of emotions; nor does he
178

defend the view that art works are "supposed" to evoke certain emotions in the
beholder, emotions that somehow are similar or analogous to those which the
genius experienced while he created the work. The idea that works of art are to
bring the beholder in a state of intense pleasure is equally passed by in silence.
Art is neither vision, nor intuition; rather it is the setting itself into the work of
the truth. This also explains why Heidegger has carefully avoided every "objec-
tivist" conception of art; and the same is true for purely formalist theories. It is
indeed the case that Heidegger defends the view that in the work's Gestalt the
truth is fixed into place. Yet, as we have seen, the term Gestalt does not at all
mean what formalists call "form"; nor does the concept of Gestalt play the same
essential part which the concept of form plays in formalist theories. - Let us now
return to Heidegger's text and see how he unfolds his view on the work's
having-been-produced.
Heidegger continues his reflections by focussing on what he calls the second
characteristic of the work's having-been-produced. We have already said sev-
eral times that the artistic production brings about the coming-to-pass of the
truth. On the other hand, Heidegger claims, the making of a piece of equipment
does not make a direct contribution to the happening of the truth. The produc-
tion of the equipment is completed when some material has been so formed that
it is now ready for use. For a piece of equipment to be ready for use means to
end in serviceability. But this is not so when a work of art has been artistically
produced. The equipment's being ready and the work's having-been-produced-
artistically have in common that in each case something has been produced. But
in contrast to all other produced things, the work is distinguished by being
produced in such a way that its having-been-produced becomes an integral part
of the work. One may think that having-been-brought-about is a common
characteristic of all things that in any way have come to be. It is indeed true that
everything that has been brought forth has as a typical characteristic that it has
been brought forth. Yet in the work, this having-been-produced is expressly
projected and put into the work, so that this characteristic stands out from the
being that has been so brought forth. But if this is so, then we must also be able
to discover, and even experience, this characteristic of having-been-made
explicitly in the work itself.29
We are not referring here, Heidegger continues, to the conception according
to which the work should give us the impression of having been made by a great
artist. The point we are trying to make, he says, is not at all that the produced
work be certified as the result of the work of a capable person, so that the maker
is thereby brought to public notice. Thus what we are stressing here is not the
"N.N. fecit", but rather the mere "factum est". In other words, the work must
hold forth into the open the fact that the non-concealment of what is, has come-
to-pass here, and that as this happening it came-to-pass here for the first time.
According to Heidegger, the thrust that the work is as this work, and the fact
that this thrust is operative without interruption, constitute the constancy and
the self-subsistence of the work. It is particularly in those cases in which we
know virtually nothing about the artist and about the processes and the circum-
 179

stances of the work's genesis, that this "that it is" which flows from its having-
been-made, comes to the fore most purely and clearly from the work itself.
It is obviously true that "the fact that it has been made" is also a characteristic
of every piece of equipment; yet in the equipment this does not become
prominent; it disappears in the equipment's usefulness and reliability. In the
work, on the other hand, the very fact, that as a work it is as such, is precisely
what must stand out. The event in which the work has been produced artis-
tically, does not just simply vibrate through the entire work; it is the case rather
that the work casts before itself the eventful fact that the work is as this work;
and the work constantly has cast this fact around itself. And the more the work
opens itself as such, the brighter becomes the uniqueness of the fact that it is,
rather than is not. Furthermore, the more essentially this thrust comes to the
fore and into the open, the more surprising and solitary the work begins to
appear. The bringing-forth of the work implies the presentation of its "that it
be".*
As Heidegger sees it, these reflections on the work's having-been-produced
have brought us somewhat closer to the workly character of the work and, thus,
also to the manner in which the work works (Wirklichkeit). The work's having-
been-produced has revealed itself in the fact that the strife between .world and
eartjj has been fixed in place in the Gestalt by means of the fissure. And the
work's having-been-produced is in this case expressly produced and projected
into the work itself so that it now stands out as the silent thrust into the open of
the simple "that it is". In Heidegger's opinion, we are now in a position to take
the next step in our reflections, namely that step toward which everything said
before' has been tending.3'

ART. II. THE ART WORK IS TO BE KEPT IN THE TRUTH

§ 29. Art Works Are to Be Preserved

a) Preservation as the Standing within the Coming-to-Pass of the Truth

In the next section of his essay Heidegger states that the more solitary the work,
fixed in its Gestalt, stands on its own, and the more definitively it seems to cut all
ties with humans, the more simply does the thrust that such a work is, come into
the open, a thrust in which the earth towers up through the world, and the world
grounds itself on the earth. Now the more purely the work is itself transported
into the openness of the beings, i.e., the domain of the truth, a domain which in
some sense it opens itself, the more simply does it transport us out of the realm
of the everyday and ordinary, so that we may refrain from what we do usually,
stay within the truth that is so coming-to-pass in the work, and let what is so
brought forth be the work that it is. Heidegger claims that to submit to this
thrust of the work, which obviously is without any violence, means to transform
180

our accustomed and familiar ties to the world and to the earth and, thus, to
refrain from all usual doing, evaluating, praising, knowing, and looking. Only
the restraint that must guide this tarrying within the truth lets what has so been
produced be the work that it is. This letting the work be the work that it is,
Heidegger calls the preservation of the work. In his view, it is only for such
preservation that the work in its having-been-made yields itself as present in the
manner of the work."
Heidegger uses here the noun "die Bewahrung". It should be noted that the
German verb bewahren from which the corresponding noun is derived, is not
related to the German adjective wahr (true). Bewahren and wahren belong to
the noun die Wahre (attention, care, heed, protection) which is no longer in
use; the verb wahrnehmen (to perceive) belongs to the same noun. The verb
"bewahren" thus means to care for, to take under one's protection; the noun
"die Bewahrung" signifies preservation. On the other hand, the adjective wahr
(true) and the noun Wahrheit (truth) are related to the Latin verus and stem
from uer(= favor, kindness, friendliness). Yet it is not impossible that Heideg-
ger here also tried to suggest, as Hegel also has done, that those who preserve
the work and take it under their protection, let the truth (non-concealment)
which has set itself into the work, come-to-presence (Be-wahr-ung)**
According to von Herrmann, when Heidegger speaks here about the ordi-
nary, he refers to what in Being and Time was called everydayness, fallenness,
and inauthenticity.34 By everydayness Heidegger understands that condition in
which Dasein first of all and for the most part finds itself in its daily contact with
beings. With this statement Heidegger tries to indicate the manner in which
Dasein is manifest to itself in the public coexistence with others, and the way in
which Dasein usually, although not necessarily always, shows itself for every-
body." In Heidegger's view, the expression fallenness, too, does not neces-
sarily have a negative meaning; it is just used to signify that Dasein is first of all
and for the most part at the world of its concern. "Dasein has, in the first
instance. fallen away from itself as an authentic power to be its own self, and has
'fallen' to the 'world'". The word "world" is put here in single quotation marks
to indicate that it is used to refer to what we regularly encounter within our
environment, i.e.. the intraworldly beings with which we deal in our everyday
concern, and which "they" usually identify with the world. Fallenness thus
includes two aspects: 1) Dasein understands its own Being in terms of the
intraworldly beings with which it concerns itself and, thus, conceives of itself as
a thing-substance that has certain qualities; 2) the world is in this case the world
of everyone. The intraworldly beings, which are then considered to constitute
the world, are only vaguely understood in the way "they" usually understand
them. The world in which Dasein is absorbed here is an impersonal world, just
as its understanding of the world is also an impersonal form of understanding.
In the state of fallenness Dasein's Being with others is guided by idle talk,
curiosity, and ambiguity.36 The term "inauthenticity" refers to the fact that
Dasein is in a state in which it has not yet found its own self. The inauthenticity
of Dasein does not signify any less Being or any lower degree of Being.
 181

In the lecture on the origin of the work of art Heidegger thus defends the view
that the more we let the work appear in the openness of the beings, the more it
will transport us out of the realm of the everyday, out of its fallen and
inauthentic state. In other words, in the lecture on the art works it is said that
the arts have a very important function in the "process" in which each Dasein is
to achieve its authentic self.37
Heidegger next turns to the issue of how the work of art is to be preserved.
We have seen already that the work of art cannot be what it is without being
artistically produced; we shall now see that the work that has been so produced
cannot be what it is as a work without those who are willing to preserve it,
either.
Just as a work cannot be without being made by an artist who produces it
artistically (even though we do not have to raise the issue of the artist and his
"experiences"), in the same way, what is produced cannot itself come into
being as what it is without those who preserve it (even though, here too, we
need not ask about the "experiences" of the observers). Thus even if it were to
be the case that a work does not find those who are willing to preserve it, or that
the work does not immediately encounter people who are able to respond to the
truth that comes-to-pass in the work, then one cannot draw the conclusion from
this that works of art can be as works without preservers. Thus being a work,
the art work remains tied to those who are willing to preserve it, even and
particularly at times when the work is still only waiting for preservers and, thus,
only pleads and waits for them to enter into its truth. Works can wait for
preservers. Even the oblivion into which works sometimes sink, is not nothing;
it too is still a preservation that feeds on the work.38
Heidegger now turns to a more careful description of what it means to
preserve a work of art. In his view, preserving the work, if taken in the strict
sense, means standing within the openness of the beings that come-to-presence
in the work. Such standing-within implies some form of knowledge, but this
knowledge is not the kind that merely amasses representations and accumulates
information about something or other. This form of knowing implies at the
same time also a form of willing. But the kind Qf willing that Heidegger has in
mind here is not the kind that just "applies" theoretical knowledge; nor is it a
kind of willing that just wills, goes without knowledge, and decides everything
"in advance". Rather this knowing and willing is to be understood in terms of
what in Being and Time was called concern and resoluteness.19
To preserve a work, Heidegger thus continues, means to let it stand within
the openness of the beings in such a way that this standing-within implies both a
knowing and a. willing. The knowing which remains a willing and the willing
that remains a knowing is Dasein's entrance into and compliance with the non-
concealment of Being. The knowledge referred to here is that kind of knowing
that is essential to our concernful dealing with ourselves, with one another, and
with things. On the other hand, by willing we mean here that resoluteness that
is not the deliberate action of a subject, but the opening up of a human being out
of its captivity in beings toward the openness and truth of Being. At any rate.
182

neither in the artistic production nor in the preservation does the willing refer to
the performance of a specific activity on the part of a subject that strives toward
himself as the goal which he has set for himself.
"Willing" here thus means that sober resolution of the ek-sisting self-tran-
scendence which exposes itself "freely" to the openness of the beings as it is set
here into the work. It is in this way that the standing within the openness of the
beings is brought under the law. Preserving the work as knowing, on the other
hand, is the sober standing within the extraordinary awesomeness of the truth
that is actually coming-to-pass in the work*

b) Preservation and Experiencing Works of Art

Even though we are almost at the end of Heidegger's reflections on the art
work, we still have not yet heard one word about the experiences from which
works of art are supposed to originate, as well as about the experiences which
they are to evoke in the "beholders". It is indeed only now that Heidegger turns
to these issues, but only to set them aside. He explicitly writes that the
knowledge and the willing to which he is trying to refer here, have nothing at all
to do with what people usually call experiencing works of art; these expressions
do not refer to mere, nor to private experiences. Yet this obviously does not
mean that the aesthetic theory which concerns itself with experiences is without
ground and legitimacy. It would be rather difficult to deny that artists have or go
through experiences when they artistically produce works of art; it is equally
undeniable that people undergo experiences when they have a genuine encoun-
ter with a work of art. Thus it is equally difficult to deny that these experiences
could be made the subject matter of methodical and systematic investigations.
Heidegger does not at all deny the legitimacy of this approach to art works, just
as little as he ever would object to the legitimacy of the scholarly work of the art
historian.
Yet as far as the "psychological" theory about aesthetic experiences itself is
concerned, Heidegger feels that it is often affected by serious difficulties. First
of all, this theory certainly is of a derivative nature. Furthermore, it cannot be
developed systematically except on the basis of the subject-object opposition.
Its concern is mainly with the question of how de facto a concrete art work
comes to be through a process in which some form is impressed on some kind of
material. The theory really presupposes that there are two subjects involved,
both of which are to be related by means of certain experiences to the object,
i.e., to the work of art. The first subject is the artist who imprints his private
experiences on the material by means of some process of form-giving; in this
way, the artist expresses his "feelings". The other subject is the one who is
provoked by the work to arouse similar or related experiences in himself.41 In
view of the fact that all of this rests on questionable assumptions, Heidegger
himself prefers to approach the preserver's role from another perspective.
Thus Heidegger continues that the preserver's knowledge which at the same
time is also a willing, makes its home in the work; it does not deprive the work
 183

of its independence. It does not drag the work "into the sphere of mere
experience, and [it] does not degrade it to the role of a stimulator of experi-
ences. Preserving the work does not reduce people to their private experiences,
but brings them into affiliation with the truth that comes-to-pass in the work".42
In this manner this knowing-and-willing gives a foundation to our being-for-
and-with-one-another and to our historically standing-out towards non-con-
cealment. But most of all the knowing-and-willing that is essential to preserva-
tion has nothing at all to do with the merely "aestheticizing connoisseurship"
that focusses exclusively on the.work's formal aspects and qualities. This
knowing-and-willing is rather a being resolved that stands within the conflict
that the work has ordained into the fissure.
The proper way to preserve the work is determined only and exclusively by
the work itself, and this can occur on different levels of knowledge-and-willing
and with different degrees of scope, constancy, and lucidity. When works are
put in a museum, this does not yet prove that they genuinely are being
preserved as works. One should not forget that as soon as the thrust into the
extraordinary is parried and then diverted, or even smothered, in the sphere of
familiarity and connoisseurship, the works of art have already come within the
scope of art business. To restore a work, to give it a place in an exhibition, to
handle it with the greatest of care, etc., all of this still remains within the domain
of art business and, thus, as such has nothing to do with preserving a work of art
as such. A work comes-to-presence as a work only where it is preserved in the
truth that comes-to-pass in and by the work.41

§ 30. Once More the Thingly Character of the Work

a) From the Thingly Character to the Earthy Character of the Work

In the next section Heidegger returns to a question that was raised earlier in the
Introduction to the essay: what are we to say about the work's thingly charac-
ter? Heidegger's main concern here is to show that what from the ordinary
point of view seems to be a question about the thingly character of the work is
really a question about its earthy nature. He also explains that the detour via
reflections on equipment and thing was nonetheless necessary in view of the
fact that one must always begin where one usually finds oneself in everyday life.
Furthermore, the detour was necessary because without a critical reflection on
this position one would have been blind to an ontological approach to the work
of art.44 -
We must, Heidegger continues, return to a question which we raised earlier:
what is one to say about the work's thingly character which is to guarantee its
immediate and actual work-Being (Wirklichkeit). It appears now that we no
longer need to ask this question in this fashion, because in asking the question in
this manner we treat the work as an object and do not let it be as a work. What
from the viewpoint of our everyday concern with things looks like the thingly
 184

element of the work taken as an object, is, seen from the ontological perspec-
tive on the art work, really its earthy character. The earth towers up within the
work, because the work exists as something in which the truth is at work, and
because the truth in each case comes-to-pass only by installing itself within a
\particular being. However, in the earth, which is essentially self-secluding, the
openness of the open, i.e., the truth, finds the greatest resistance and therewith
also the abode of its constant stand in which the Gestalt is to be "fixed" in place.
One could now argue that if all of this is so, then it was also altogether
superfluous in the first section of this essay to enter into a long discussion of the
thingly character of the work. In Heidegger's opinion such a conception is really
unfounded. To be sure, one cannot define the work-character of the work by
means of the thingly character of the work; but the question concerning the
thingly character of the thing can be brought on the right path by way of a
proper knowledge of the work-Being of the work. And this is of great import-
ance in light of the fact that the ancient ways of determining the thingly
character of the thing have led to a conception of the beings taken as a whole,
which is totally inadequate to an understanding of the essence of equipment as
well as the essence of the work, and which, in addition, makes us blind to the
original coming-to-presence of the truth.43

b) Why Does the Thing Belong to the Earth?

Heidegger finally states once more that none of the three classical interpreta-
tions of the thing-Being of the thing is really adequate for the thing. They are
most certainly inadequate with respect to the work-Being of the work. Further-
more, in his opinion, if one is to understand the thingly character of the thing
genuinely, one will have to learn to understand it in its .belonging to tb&jarth^
Now since tBe earth shows itself in its conflict wilJi wprid^.s.tiife_wJychcomes-
to-pass in the work, one can tHusconclude that one can learn to understand the
thingly character of the thing througLtbe.work-Beingpf.the work.*
We have seen that one cannot define the thing-character of the thing by
conceiving of it as the bearer of properties, or as the unity of the manifold of
sense data, or as the matter and form structure which itself is derived from the
structure of equipment. To truly understand the thingly character of the thing
one must focus on the thing's belonging to the earth. Now the earth which in its
bearing and self-closure is not pushed in any direction, reveals itself truly only
in its towering-up in the direction of a world; in other words, it reveals itself
only in the opposition between world and earth. The conflict and strife between
world and earth is "fixed" in the Gestalt of the work and shows itself in and
through it. We can thus say that just as one cannot understand the equipment-
Being of equipment directly, but must approach it through the work, in the
same way the thingly character of the thing must be understood from the work-
Being of the work. These facts also show that in the work's work-Being the
coming-to-pass of the truth is at work.
One could object here that if this is so, then the work itself should already
 185

have been brought into an explicit relation with the things of the earth and thus
also with "nature". But then would Albrecht Dürer not have been correct when
he stated that in truth art lies already in nature, and that he who can wrest it
from her will have it? In Heidegger's view, what Dürer calls "wresting" is really
the drawing that draws out the fissure we mentioned earlier. In Dürer's case, it
meant to draw the design with the drawing-pen on the drawing-board. Heideg-
ger feels that we must raise the counter-question here: how can the fissure be
drawn out, if it is not first brought into the open as a fissure by the artist's
sketch, i.e., if it is not first brought to the fore as a strife between measure and
that which is without measure? To be sure, there must somehow lie hidden in
nature a fissure, a measure, and a boundary, and, connected with them, also a
capacity for bringing-forth, namely art. Yet in Heidegger's opinion, it is equally
certain that art that is hidden in nature, becomes manifest only through the
work, because it dwells orginally only in the work.47
, What has been said here about the actual work-Being of the work was meant
to prepare us for a reflection on art itself, on the essence of art, on the manner in
which art comes-to-presence and abides. If art indeed is, as we have suggested,
the origin of the work, then art lets the artist and the preserver, each in his own
way, originate in his coming-to-presence and abidance.48
The question about the essence of art and about the way that is to lead us to
knowledge of it, is first to be placed once again on a firm footing. Furthermore,
one should realize that here the answer to a question, like every genuine
answer, is only the final result of the last step in a long series of questions. And
each answer remains in force as an answer only as long as it remains rooted in
questioning.
Heidegger concludes this section by saying that the manner in which the work
actually works as a work (Wirklichkeit) has now become somewhat clearer for
us in light of what has been said about the work-Being of the work; it also has
become essentially richer in the process. "The preservers of a work belong to its
having-been-produced artistically with an essentiality that is equal to that of the
producing artist". But it is the work that makes the artist possible in his coming-
to-presence and abidance and that, nonetheless, by its own nature is also in
need of the preserver. If art now, as we have said before, is the origin of the art
work, then this means that art lets those who naturally belong together as far as
the work is concerned, namely the artist and the preserver, originate, each in
his own way and in his own essence. But then the question again is: precisely
what is art itself and in what sense can we call it an origin?49
 CHAPTER V. ON THE ESSENCE OF ART: ITS COMING-
TO-PRESENCE A N D ITS ABIDANCE

§ 31. Toward the Essence of Art

a) Art as the Origin of the Work, the Artist, and the Preserver

We have seen that at the end of his reflections on the origin of the work of art,
Heidegger returns to the point where the essay began: the origin of the work of
art is art itself; art is also the origin of the artist and the preserver, insofar as art
lets them, each in his own way, come-to-presence as such. Art itself was
provisionally defined as the setting itself into the work of the truth. Both in the
text of the essay as in the later added Addendum, Heidegger explicitly states
that this definition is ambiguous. Furthermore, he observes, that one should
not understand his position to be that the truth is first somewhere else and now,
finally, arrives in the work of art. But let us again turn to the text to see how
Heidegger himself states his case.
In the preceding we have seen that in the work, the coming-to-pass of the
truth is at work in the manner of a work. We thus "defined" the essence of art
provisionally as the setting of the truth into the work (das Ins-Werk-setzen der
Wahrheit). As we have just seen, Heidegger admits that this definition is
ambiguous and that it is intended to be ambiguous. On the one hand, this
definition states that art is the "fixing" in place of a truth which establishes itself
in the work's Gestalt. This comes-to-pass in the artistic production which is the
bringing forth of the non-concealment of the beings. But this setting into the
work also means the bringing of the work-Being of the work into movement so
that it actually comes-to-pass. And this happens in the preservation. Thus art is
really the producing preservation of the truth in the work. It is in this sense that
art is the coming-to-pass of the truth.
But does this mean that the truth comes out of nothing? It certainly does not
mean that truth first was somewhere else and now arrives here and reveals
itself. Or perhaps formulated in another way, truth does indeed come out of
nothing, if by nothing we mean just the mere "not" of the beings, and if we here
take the being in the ordinary sense as that which is just present as an object,
which then later is challenged by the presence of the work and shown to be only
 187

presumptively a genuine being. Yet one should note, Heidegger continues

immediately, that truth is never gathered from what is merely present at hand as
an object and from what is just ordinary. Rather the opening of the open and
the clearing of the beings come-to-pass only when the openness, which so
makes its advent into Dasein's thrownness, is projected.1

b)Poetizing Is the Essence of Art

Art sets the truth into the work. The setting of the truth into the work implies
both the artistic production by the artist and the artistic preservation by the
preservers. It is thus not enough to say that a work has been made; it must also
be given a chance to work as a work of art. Thus art is the artistic production and
preservation of the truth in the work. Art is the coming-to-pass of the truth in
the work.
At this point, Heidegger adds a completely new idea. Since truth is the
clearing and concealing of the beings as such and taken as a whole, the truth
comes-to-pass while it is being poetized. "All art is essentially poetizing (Dich­
tung)".2 Poetizing is not the "art of poetry", but rather that in which all forms of
art find their essence.3
The essence of art, on which both the art work and the artist depend, is the
setting itself into the work of the truth. Thus it is due to the poetic coming-
to-presence and abidance of art itself that in the midst of what is, art is able to
' break open an open space in whose openness everything is other than usual.4 By
mean&of the projected design (Entwurf) that sets the non-concealedness of the
beings into the work, everything ordinary now becomes an unbeing. These
unbeings have forfeited their capacity to give, preserve, and protect Being itself
as measure. Yet the peculiar fact here is that in so doing the work in no way
affects the actual beings in any causal manner. In other words, the work-Being
of the work does not consist in bringing about some effect. Rather it consists in a
change of the non-concealedness of the beings, i.e., in a change of Being itself,
which comes-to-pass from out of the work.5
Yet poetizing is not an aimless wandering and imagining of totally arbitrary
oddities; nor does it consist in a mere imagining and fancying which just drifts
away into what is unreal and sheer fiction. What poetizing, as clearing and
illuminating projection, unfolds as far as non-concealment is concerned in
order then to project this ahead into the fissure of the Gestalt, (= ontological
difference) is the open (= Being) which poetizing lets come-to-pass so that
now, in the midst of the beings, the open can bring beings to shine andringout.
Anyone who keeps his eyes on the manner in which the work of art comes-
to-presence and abides, and also on its intimate relationship with the coming-
to-pass of the truth of the beings, will eventually come to realize that it is
questionable whether the essence of poetizing and thus the essence of the poetic
projection can be adequately understood from the power of the imagination, as
Kant has suggested.6
In the Addendum Heidegger notes once more that here, too, the relationship
188

between Being and man is to be determined more carefully such that the
priority in the coming-to-pass of the truth of Being rests with Being itself and
not with Dasein.1

c) The Essence of Art, Language, and Truth

In the passage which now follows Heidegger develops three closely related
issues: 1) Poetizing is the essence of every form of art, yet this does not mean
that all forms of art can be reduced to poesy. 2) The reason why poetizing is the
essence of every art form is to be found in the fact that the essence of language
somehow consists in the coming-to-pass of the truth as non-concealment. And
3) poetizing constitutes the relationship between that which comes-to-pass in
language with that which comes-to-pass in the work of art. It seems to me that in
these three issues one experiences Heidegger's effort to relate Hegel's con-
ception of the art work with the idea that poesy, because of its close affinity with
language, has a privileged position among the arts, an idea that since Kant has
been defended by many.8 Heidegger first observes that the essence of poetizing
has been indicated only in very broad strokes; yet the fact that this first
indication was presented in broad strokes only need not at all entail that it also
must be vague. It is nevertheless important to keep in mind that the preceding
remarks are in no way taken to be exhaustive and definitive; instead in the
reflections to follow the essence of poetizing must constantly be kept in mind as
something that is worthy of being questioned, as something that we still must
think about.
To prevent misunderstanding in regard to the position taken here, it is good
first to add an important clarification. One could argue that if all art is in essence
poetizing, then all arts, including architecture and music, must somehow be
reduced to poetry in the narrow sense of the term, to poesy. Heidegger
obviously rejects this view. It is not the case that all forms of art can be reduced
to poesy and it is, thus, not true either that poesy could ever make all other art
forms superfluous. On the contrary, poesy is only one mode of the clearing
projection of the truth; poesy is only one mode of poetizing. Yet, Heidegger
immediately adds, it is indeed true that the linguistic work of art, the poem in
the strict sense of the word, does have a privileged position in the domain of the
arts.*
One will understand this immediately, Heidegger continues, when one be-
gins with the proper and correct conception of language. For in that case one
will understand soon that there is a close relationship between art and language,
because there is a close relationship between language and the non-conceal-
ment of the beings. But to come to this insight one must first get rid of a very
common conception of language according to which language in essence is a
means of communication and expression. On the contrary, it is language and
language only that for the first time brings what is, as that which it is, into the
open. Where there is no language (as in the domain of stones, plants, and
animals) there is no openness of what is and of that which is not, no openness of
 189

being and non-being. By naming the beings for the first time, language brings
them first to word, brings them first to appearance, and lets them be what they
are. The naming of language nominates the beings and calls them into their
Being from the Being of the-beings, i.e., from Being itself. Such saying is a
projection of the clearing in which it is announced as what it is that the being will
come into the open. The projection mentioned here is the enabling of the throw
in which non-concealment enters among the beings as such; it is also at the same
time that which says no to all confusion into which the beings veil and withdraw
themselves. Projective saying is inherently poetizing and poetizing is inherently
projective saying.10
It is obvious that Heidegger here refers to what he had written about
discourse (Rede) and language (Sprache) in Being and Time. Yet it is obvious
also that he has now come to a conception of language (Sprache) which leaves
his original conception of language as the enunciatedness of logos (Rede) far
behind. Instead we see for the first time a completely new conception of
language arise which will become fully articulated only later in the collection of
essays included in On the Way to Language.11
Before continuing with our effort to paraphrase Heidegger's ideas about the
relationship between poetizing, language, and art, I should like to make one
nujre comment. I have translated Sprache by language, and not by speech, as
has been suggested by some. What Heidegger has in mind here when he speaks
about Sprache is certainly not the set of words of which a concrete language
consists; it is in that sense that "speech" has a great advantage over language,
when it comes to finding an adequate English word for what Heidegger here
calls Sprache. Yet speech has the connotation that it is something that is
intimately related to a human individual who speaks. But this is not what
Heidegger means at all when he uses Sprache. In view of the fact that the
English word "language" still has all the connotations which the German word
"Sprache" has, even though these connotations are not equally stressed in the
two languages or even stressed in the same order of priority or frequency of
usage, I have decided with Richardson to use language for Sprache, and to use
speech only to refer to the speaking of humans.12
Be this as it may, the projecting saying, Heidegger continues, which is
poetizing, is that in which the saying of the world and the earth comes-to-pass;
poetizing is the saying of the arena of the conflict between world and earth; at
the same time, poetizing is also the place of all nearness and remoteness of the
gods. In one word, poetizing is the saying of the non-concealment of the beings.
In each concrete instance, language is the coming-to-pass of this saying in which
a world historically arises for a people and the earth is preserved as that which
remains closed. This projective saying prepares for the sayable and, at the same
time, brings the unsayable as such into the world. In and through such a saying
of language the essential and basic conceptions which describe its coming-
to-presence as such and its belonging to world history, are achieved for each
historical people.
At any rate, it should be clear by now that poetizing is thought here in a very
190

broad sense. We must leave open whether the existing forms of art truly exhaust
the essence of poetizing which is thought here in a close and intimate unity with
language or whether the domain over which poetizing may govern, ranges
beyond the domain of the existing arts.13
Language itself is poetizing in the essential sense of the term. In Heidegger's
view, since language is the happening in which for human beings the beings first
disclose themselves each time as beings, poetry in the narrow sense of poesy is
the most original form of poetizing. Yet language is not itself poetizing because
it would be the primordial poesy; rather poesy comes-to-pass in language
because language preserves and protects the original essence of poetizing. All
the activities which lead to architectural and plastic works of art, on the other
hand, come-to-pass always and happen only within the domain of the open
which is opened up by the saying and the naming of language. It is the open that
pervades and guides all other artistic productions and activities. But this does
not alter the fact that each art form is and remains independent and has its own
mode in which the truth orders itself into the work. Each art form is in its own
way a special form of poetizing which comes-to-pass in each case within the
clearing of the beings which has already come-to-pass in language in a manner
that remained unnoticed.
Art taken in the sense of the setting itself into the work of truth, is poetizing.
And not only is the artistic production of a work of art poetizing, but so, also, is
the preservation of the works of art poetizing, although the latter obviously is a
poetizing in its own way. For a work is actually at work only when we remove
ourselves from the ordinary and common routine and move into what is
revealed by the art work, while inviting and urging our own coming-to-presence
itself to take a stand in the domain of the truth of the beings.14

§ 32. On the Coming-to-Presence of Poetizing

a) Poetizing as the Originating, Founding, and Granting Institution of the

Truth

Heidegger wants now to clarify the coming-to-presence and abidance of poetiz-

ing in greater detail; he tries to do this by showing that poetizing has the
character of an original institution which itself is a granting, founding, and
originating institution of the truth as non-concealment. In his view all of this is
immediately relevant to the essence of the art work; it equally throws additional
light on the essence of artistic production and artistic preservation.15 First I shall
briefly paraphrase Heidegger's text; then I hope to add a few brief observations
which may be helpful to clarify some of the issues touched on. Yet some of the
claims which Heidegger makes here can be fully understood only from the
perspective of what in his later works he says about language and about
poetizing in its relationship to thinking. I plan to dwell on some of these issues in
the next section.
 191
The essence of art is poetizing. Art comes-to-presence and abides as poetiz-
ing. The essence of poetizing, in turn, is the originating institution (das Stiften)
of the truth as non-concealment. Poetizing itself thus comes-to-presence and
abides as that in which the truth as non-concealment becomes instituted in an
originary manner. Stiften itself is to be taken here in a triple sense for bestowing
(schenken), grounding (gründen), and beginning (anfangen). The setting into
the work of the truth which comes-to-pass in each work of art thrusts up the
extraordinary and destroys what is just ordinary. The truth that discloses itself
here can never be derived from anything else. Thus the founding of the truth
has the character of an overflow, an endowing, a bestowal, a gift.1*
Furthermore, the poietic projection of the truth that sets itself into the work
is never carried out in the direction of an empty void. Rather, in the work truth
is thrown toward a people that, in history, comes to preserve it. But what is so
thrown and projected is never just an arbitrary demand so that the truly poietic
projection is the disclosure of that into which Dasein as historical is already
thrown. This is the earth. And for a historical people it is its earth, i.e., the self-
closing ground on which it rests together with everything else that it itself
already is, although still hidden from itself.17 But it is its world which prevails in
virtue of Dasein's relation to the non-concealment of Being. This is the reason
thqf everything with which man is endowed in the projection must be drawn up
from the closed ground, and expressly must be set upon this ground. In this way
the ground is grounded as the one that bears.18 Thus since it is in essence such a
tfrawing-up, all production of art works has some similarity with the drawing of
water from a spring or a well. This does not mean, as modern subjectivism in art
claims; that all art is the work of genius. Rather the founding of the truth is a
founding not only in the sense of a free bestowal or gift; it is at the same time a
founding in the sense of a ground-laying grounding. The poietic projection
comes from non-Being insofar as it does not take its gift from the ordinary. Yet
it never comes from non-Being insofar as that which is projected by it, is
nothing but the withheld destiny of historical Dasein.1*
Finally, bestowing and grounding both have in themselves the unmediated
character of a beginning. Yet the unmediated character of this beginning
implies that this beginning prepares itself inconspicuously for the longest time.
Every genuine beginning already contains the end within itself. A beginning,
furthermore, also contains the undisclosed abundance of the extraordinary,
and thus the strife with the ordinary. Art as poetizing is therefore also founding
in the third sense of instigating the strife of the truth, i.e., in the sense of
beginning. Every time the beings as a whole as such require a grounding in the
openness, art attains to its historical essence as foundation. In the West this
foundation came-to-pass for the first time in Greece.20
What later was to be called Being, was then and there set into the work in a
manner which would set the standard for all that was to follow. The realm of the
beings as a whole was later transformed into beings in the sense of the things
created by God. This occurred in the Middle Ages. In the modern age the
beings have become mere objects that can be calculated and controlled. In each
192

case a new and essential world came-to-pass. In each case, there happened the
non-concealment of what is. In each case, non-concealment set itself into the
work and this was accomplished by art.21 Thus whenever art genuinely comes-
to-pass, "a thrust enters history and history either begins or starts over again".22
We can thus conclude from these reflections that for Heidegger the setting
into the work of the truth in the work of art thrusts up what is totally outside the
domain of what is ordinary. In other words, the truth that discloses itself here
can never be derived from something else that already was there before. Thus
the founding of the truth has the character of an endowment, a bestowal, a gift.
Furthermore, this truth is thrown and projected in the direction of a people
that, in history, is called to preserve it. This implies the strife between world and
earth. Everything with which man is endowed in the projection of the truth of
the beings is drawn up from the ground and must be expressly set back on that
ground. Art works are somehow drawn from this ground as water is drawn from
a well. That is why the founding of the truth is also a ground-laying foundation.
Finally, the setting into the work of the truth is also a beginning, a beginning
which as every true beginning somehow must imply an end. For the West this
beginning is to be found in Greece. What later was to be called "Being" was
then and there for the first time set into the work in a manner which has set the
standard for all that was to follow.
Before turning to a new theme Heidegger stresses once again that in the
statement that art is the setting-into-the-work of the truth, there is an essential
ambiguity hidden, insofar as the truth is at once the subject and the object of the
setting. First of all we must state that subject and object are not really suitable
names here. The terms "subject" and "object" keep us from thinking this
ambiguity in the proper manner. Furthermore, Heidegger says here that an
effort to think this ambiguity in the proper manner lies outside the boundaries
of the present essay on the art work."I shall return to some of the issues alluded
to here in the section to follow.

b) Art as Original Leap (Ur-Sprung)

After speaking about the threefold meaning of instituting (stiften) Heidegger

returns to the historical character of the art work in an effort to show that in the
art work time and again the truth, as the non-concealment of the beings, leaps
up and leaps forth in an original leap.
Art is inherently historical. And as historical it is the artistic production and
preservation of the truth in the work. Art comes-to-pass as poetizing; as such it
is a founding in the threefold sense mentioned: it thus is a granting, a founding,
and a beginning. As founding art is essentially historical. But this means not
only that art has a history that is really external to it; for art is not only historical
in the sense that it comes-to-pass together with many other things that happen,
that in this coming-to-pass it changes and eventually it passes away, and that it
offers changing perspectives and aspects to historiography. "Art is historical in
the essential sense that it grounds history".
 193

Art lets the truth come into being. As founding and preserving art lets the
truth of the beings spring up and leap forth in the work. To let something come
into being by means of a leap and to make its very essence come to the fore in a
founding leap - this is the "original" meaning of the German word " Ursprung".
"Ur-Sprung" means primal leap. The common meaning of the word obviously
is origin.
Art is the origin of the work of art and through it, it also is the origin of the
artist and the preserver; in this manner art is the origin of a people's historical
being. This is so because art is essentially origin, and a characteristic way in
which the truth comes-to-presence, and abides, and thus becomes historical.24
It seems to me that two brief observations are in order here. First of all, from
the manner in which Heidegger speaks about art, it is clear that he does not use
the word here as an abstract, generic concept which is to include the various
forms of art between architecture and poesy. Rather the word is used as a name
forimportant historical events which in the true sense of the term are events of
appropriation, Ereignisse, in which for a given people the ontological dif-
ference comes-to-pass in a specific form. Heidegger has tried to describe the
characteristics of these appropriating events and particularly the part language
has to play in these events, in his later lectures on language, where he often
takgs his point of departure in specific poems. Art is here thus taken as a basic
ontological concept.25
When Heidegger speaks about the historicity of art, he does not mean the
mode of being historical that is characteristic for intratemporal entities. In
other words, Heidegger refers here to the conception of temporalness and
temporality which was unfolded in great detail in Being and Time. But as he had
done already in his lecture on truth, the conception of temporality is here
applied to the manner in which the truth of Being comes-to-pass. In these
lectures on the origin of the work of art, art is described as a very distinct and
characteristic manner or way in which the truth of Being issues forth and
abides,24
Although Heidegger adopts a rather critical attitude in regard to the "classi-
cal" philosophical aesthetics which developed since the 18th century, he none-
theless does not exclude the possibility of a genuine "philosophy of art", as we
already have observed earlier. The claims made in the Addendum and the
Epilogue that these reflections are concerned with the riddle that art is, that
these reflections do not try to solve thisriddle,that the question of what art may
be is treated here only in regard to the question of Being, that the question of
what art itself may be is left unanswered, and that the entire approach remains
ambiguous, - these claims, as we have seen, cannot be taken to mean that
Heidegger was not concerned with philosophy of art in these lectures. To be
sure, these short lectures on the origin of the work of art do not give us a
complete and comprehensive philosophy of art. Yet they certainly are a first
and secure step in that direction. In them Heidegger is decidedly on his way
toward a philosophy of art. Heidegger's philosophy of art is notably different
from that of classical aesthetics; yet in my view it leaves room for such an
194

aesthetics, as it also leaves room for art history, and remains in harmony with a
number of theses developed in classical aesthetics.27

§ 33. On Thinking and Poetizing

In the section in which Heidegger stresses the intimate relationship between

language and Being, he makes use of insights which are formulated for the first
time in An Introduction to Metaphysics.2* I would like to say something about
these "new" ideas, because they can help us better understand what Heidegger
means by "poetizing", and how in his view poetizing is to be related to
(philosophical) thinking. The main reason I want to dwell on these issues briefly
is the fact that what Heidegger here says about poetizing appears to be just one
stage on a long road that stretches from 1935 to 1957.
The thesis that there is a close relationship between Being and language and
thus also between language and truth is thematized for the first time explicitly in
An Introduction to Metaphysics (1935), which was published in 1953. It is in the
general context of the relationship between Being, language, and truth that
Heidegger mentions for the first time an equally close relationship between
thinking and poetizing and, thus, also a very special relationship between
thinkers and poets insofar as their concern with the coming-to-pass of the truth
of Being is concerned.29
It appears that for Heidegger language, taken in its origin, is really Being
itself formed into words; it is Being taken as logos. In view of the fact that Being
withdraws as it reveals itself in beings3" and, thus, essentially is affected by
negativity, it follows that language, too, is essentially affected by negativity.
Thus here, too, truth is interwoven with untruth. This explains, also, why man's
speaking, and even his most original saying, is affected by negativity. Man's
speaking covers up Being at the same time that it tries to discover it. This, in
turn, explains why man is irresistibly drawn into inauthentic speaking. If man is
to speak authentically, his listening and speaking must be oriented toward the
logos out of which, as the gatheredness of Being, language originates.31 Thus
man's listening and speaking are authentic only to the degree that he carefully
attends to Being as logos. Only when Being discloses itself in man's speaking,
do verbal sounds become genuine words.32 Only those who are able to attend to
Being taken as logos are genuine masters of the word. And these are the poets
and the thinkers.33
But if language comes-to-presence along with the disclosure of Being, and if
language in its essence is the coming of Being into words (logos), then man's
original concern with words enjoys a privileged affinity with Being, so that it
must be possible to gain access to Being by carefully attending to the original
meaning of "basic" words. This original concern with words is called primordial
poetizing, Urdichtung.
Language is the coming-into-word of Being itself and, as such, it is poetizing.
Language is even the primordial form of poetizing in which each people
 195

poetizes (dichtet) Being.34 According to Heidegger, the language of poets

discloses Being as authentically as the language of thinkers. But this means that
as far as the interrogation of Being is concerned great poets have as much
authority as the great thinkers of the past. As Heidegger sees it, philosophy is
thus much closer to poetry than it is to the sciences. Yet poetizing and thinking
are obviously not the same (nicht das Gleiche).35
Finally, Heidegger adds to this that the first thinkers of the West, namely the
Presocratics, did not yet think "scientifically", so that their thinking was still
genuine poetizing. The thinking of Anaximander, Parmenides, and Heraclitus
was obviously philosophical; yet it was still poetic and certainly not yet scien-
tific. Thus, in Heidegger's view, the thinking of the Presocratics is a poetic form
of thinking that as such is different from, but also forms a unity with, the
thinking poetizing that we encounter in Greek tragedy.34
We can therefore conclude that in An Introduction to Metaphysics Heidegger
claims that there is a very close affinity between thinking and poetizing,
although he does not yet give us there a clear idea as to how these two are to be
distinguished from one another.37
In the preceding sections we have seen that in the lecture on the origin of the
work of art Heidegger defends the thesis that poetizing is the originating
institution (Stiften) of the truth and that the term "instituting" (Stiften) is to be
used there in a threefold sense: instituting as bestowing (Schenken), instituting
as grounding (Gründen), and instituting as beginning(j4/i/ang«i).M He also
adds there that genuine instituting is actual only in the preservation of the art
work.and that preservation, too, is to be taken in a threefold sense. In his
explanation of what is meant here by beginning, Heidegger stresses its unmedi-
ated character; a beginning implies a leap out of that which cannot be mediated;
it is also the instigation of the strife of the truth. But in the art lectures, too,
Heidegger does not yet give us an unambiguous hint as to how the relationship
between thinking and poetizing is to be thought. Yet he does make it clear again
that one, if not the basic, characteristic of poetizing consists in the fact that it is a
beginning through which "a people's world historically arises for it"39 and
through which a "thrust enters its history",40 so that for this people history
either begins or starts over again. History "enraptures" a people into its
appointed task which gives it entrance to its tradition's endowment.41
We find similar ideas in "Hölderlin and the Essence of Poetry" (1936).42
Poetizing is said there to be an instituting by the word and in the word. In
poetizing Being must be opened up so that beings may appear in a genuine
manner.43 It is the originating naming of the gods and of the essence of things.44
The domain where poetizing works is language. Thus the essence of poetizing
must be understood through the essence of language. It is that instituting that
names Being and the essence of all things; poetizing is that saying which for the
first time brings into the open all that we can discuss in our everyday language.
Thus poetizing first makes language possible. Poetry is the primal language of a
historical people.43 The essence of poetizing is jointed between the laws of the
signs of the gods and the voice of the people. The poet thus stands between the
1%

gods and the people; he is the "between", between gods and men. In this
"between" it is decided for the first time, who man is and where he settles his
life. This "between" is the domain of the holy. From Heidegger's position in
regard to the close relationship between art and poetizing we can derive that
what is said here about poetry can be applied also to all other arts.46
Be this as it may, Heidegger does not explicitly discuss the relationship
between thinking and poetizing here, either. Yet it is obvious that he treats
Hölderlin, who poetizes the essence of poetizing, as he would have treated any
great thinker of the past. In his view Hölderlin says poetically (dichterisch) what
thinkers unfold only in a thinking way (denkerisch)*1 In 1937, namely in a
lecture on Nietzsche,48 Heidegger explains that all philosophical thinking is in
itself poetic, but that it never is poetic art. On the other hand, a poet's work can
look like the work of a thinker; and yet it never is philosophy. But it is true that
genuine philosophy somehow is like the work of the thinker and like that of the
poet.4*
Between 1939 and 1953 Heidegger wrote his elucidations of Hölderlin's "As
When on a Festal Day", "Homecoming" and "Re-Collection" in which he
again primarly focused on the essence of poetizing and the task of the poet.50 He
again maintains a close analogy between poetic and philosophic thinking, and
even attributes to poetizing characteristics which he elsewhere attributes to
thinking; on the other hand, he also stresses the difference between poetizing
and thinking, but he does not explicitly thematize this difference. Heidegger
merely hints at the difference with the help of images, and it is difficult to
determine what these images precisely mean, and which one of them points to
what is genuinely characteristic for the difference between thinking and poetiz-
ing.51 We find here for the first time the statement that the poet names the holy,
whereas the thinker thinks Being.52 Poetizing is described as a process in which
Being as the holy addresses itself to the poet in a message to which the poet
must then respond by articulating the address in words.
From the perspective of the holy the address has the character of a sending,
full of destiny, in which the holy reveals and conceals itself and, thus, manifests
itself as mystery. From the perspective of the poet, on the other hand, the
response has the character of Andenken, re-collection. In this complex process
Being as the holy has primacy over the poet. The holy itself is called the
primordial poem that the poet must bring into words; it is the poem that no
other poem can dictate or precede and that in poetizing has always already
surpassed every other form of poetry in advance ("das unvordichtbare Gedicht,
das zuvor schon alles Dichten überdichtet hat"); it is the primordial song to be
sung.53 Finally, it is mentioned here again also that the poet is a man of his
people who must make it possible for the sons of the earth to dwell there
poetically.54 When the holy addresses itself to the poet and when the latter
responds to this address, the origin of the history of a people comes-to-pass.
Thus the poet grounds the history of a people. He "makes ready that poetical
condition whereon a historical people dwells as upon its ground ..." M
In 1943 Heidegger added an Epilogue to the 4th edition of What is Meta-
 197

physics?, in which he clarified the meaning of the original lecture in light of

objections which critics had raised and also of new insights which he had
meanwhile gained between 1929 and 1943." In this Epilogue the expression
"das wesentliche Denken", essential thinking, appears for the first time, and it is
used here to indicate Heidegger's attempt to overcome classical metaphysics in
a thinking way.17 It is here also that he describes the basic characteristics of this
new mode of thought. The description again suggests that there is a close
relationship between "essential thinking" and poetizing, although these two
are also separated by an abyss of difference.
Heidegger explains there further how genuine thinking is really a thoughtful
response to the address of Being. In his view, poetizing has a similar origin. Yet
in view of the fact that things that are like each other, are like each other insofar
as they are also different from one another, poetizing and thinking are separ-
ated from each other as far as possible in their very essences. For the thinker
says Being, whereas the poet names the holy. In Heidegger's view, we may
think that we know something about the relationship between philosophy and
poetry, but we still know nothing about the dialogue between thinker and poet
"who dwell near to one another on mountains farthest apart".58 Yet there is no
further indication here, either, about the difference between saying and nam-
ing, and between Being and the holy. Where Heidegger in his reflections on
Holderlin's poetry was concerned mainly with the precise characterization of
his conception of poetizing, here he is primarily concerned with determining
the basic characteristics of the thinking that thinks the truth of Being, i.e.,
originating (anfängliches) thinking.39
In 1946 Heidegger wrote an essay entitled "The Saying of Anaximander".60
In this essay which is a commentary on the fragment of Anaximander, Heideg-
ger explains that Being granted its light to the Presocratics through some kind of
special experience on the basis of which they were able to bring Being into
word. They conceived of Being in terms oiphusis, alitheia, and logos; and in
their response to Being's address they listened attentively to its saying.61
In his reflections on the fragment Heidegger states that thinking is poetizing;
it is even more than just one kind of poetizing among others. The thinking of
Being is the original way of poetizing. Thinking says what the truth of Being
dictates; it is the original dictare. The thinking of Being is the primordial
poetizing that is prior to poetry and all other forms of art, insofar as all art
shapes its work within the domain of Being's language.62
Heidegger speaks here about a thinking of and by Being itself that is also a
primordial poetizing; as such this thinking is more primordial than, and also at
the root of, all philosophizing and of every engagement in the arts, including
poetry. In Heidegger's view, an artist is all the more poetizing to the degree that
he is more thinking.63 Furthermore, Heidegger appears here to have rethought
his original conception of language and the relationship to language, earlier
maintained for the poet only, is now transfered to all thinking; yet what is called
"poetizing" has herewith not lost its original importance. It is also clear that this
relationship makes a meaningful dialogue between thinkers and poets possible;
198

but the essay does not contain information on precisely how this dialogue is to
be understood.
Finally, it is clear also that Being plays the privileged part in the thinking of
and by Being, which is also called primordial poetizing and, as such, is at the
root of what we usually call man's thinking and man's poetizing.64
The Letter on Humanism (1947) is an apparent culminating point in Heideg-
ger's development in that it for the first time gave us a systematic idea of the
change that had taken place in his thinking since the early thirties.45 The Letter
contains a few passages which are of importance for the theme that occupies us
here. Already on the first page of the Letter we encounter the relationships of
both thinkers and poets to Being. Heidegger says there that thinking brings
about the relation of Being to the coming-to-presence of man as such. And
thinking brings this relation about insofar as the relation first was handed over
to it from Being itself. In thinking. Being comes to language. Language is the
house of Being. Man dwells in this house, and the thinkers and the poets are the
guardians of this house.64
In the Letter Heidegger explains that this genuine thinking came to an end
when it became "scientific" and took the form of logic, ethics, and physics.
Original thinking is really the "thinking 0/Being". The genitive here indicates
that genuine thinking comes-to-pass from Being, belongs to Being, and listens
to Being, even though it is true that it takes place "in" man. It is Being that
enables man's thinking to be genuine "thinking".67 Heidegger also explains that
if the truth of Being is indeed thought-provoking for genuine thinking, then
reflections on the essence of language are of the greatest importance for a
thinking that concerns itself with Being. As a matter of fact a completely "new"
conception of language is necessary, one which runs parallel to a new con-
ception of the essence of man.
The Letter on Humanism to some degree synthesizes Heidegger's position in
regard to language as well as in regard to the relationship between thinking and
poetizing. As for the second point, in Heidegger's opinion there is a fundamen-
tal similarity between the function of thinking and that of poetizing. Both the
thinker and the poet are watchmen over the house of Being. The relationship
between the two is not explicitly thematized; yet the hint is given that Being,
giving itself to man, declares itself through poetizing, even though it remains
hidden here as Being; the poet merely names the holy.68 One may perhaps
interpret this to mean that the task of the poet is to give a name to Being in its
positivity, i.e., as the holy, whereas the thinker must try to comprehend Being
in both its positivity and negativity, i.e., as the coming-to-pass of the truth of
Being {a-litheia).*
In Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens (1947) Heidegger states that the task of
genuine thought is to think Being and nothing else.7*1 When thought responds to
the address of Being, then a language proper to the address of Being begins to
flourish. The bringing of Being into language is attributed here to the thinking
poetizing in which man has an essential, although not the privileged, part.
Thinking poetizing is to be distinguished from what we usually call poetry.
 199

Furthermore, the poetizing of the poets and the thinking of the thinkers must be
carefully distinguished, even though their unity is not questionable in that both
originate from the same stem, which is thinking poetizing that thoughtfully
poetizes Being. Thus the thinking that derives from the original poetizing
thinking, has also a poetizing character. This, however, remains hidden, be-
cause we have not yet learned to comprehend the true nature of language,
which is Being as the gathering process of logos.71
We have seen thus that for Heidegger thought, deriving from original poetiz-
ing or originating thinking, has a poetizing character of its own and that this
aspect remained hidden because we had not yet learned to comprehend the
genuine nature of language, i.e.. Being as logos. Thus we may expect to learn
more about this in On the Way to Language which precisely tries to reflect on
the essence of language.72
This work consists of six essays written between 1950 and 1959. Three of them
are explicitly concerned with the "essence" of language and in some of them
Heidegger briefly touches on the relationship between thinking and poetizing.
Being is thought here primarily in relation to language.73 It addresses itself to
man in an original saying; man must listen to this saying and try to authentically
respond to it. Thus the coming-to-presence (Wesen) of language has want of
human language and by reason of this want appropriates to man what is proper
to himself in order to appropriate him thus to itself in the process of its own
coming-to-presence. Man's language is no more than man's hailing response to
the hail of language as it comes-to-presence.74
Original language in its saying hails man; but it equally hails things and world,
beings and Being. The original saying calls things and the place that is proper to
them. In the final analysis the place of things is the world. It is to a world that the
saying calls the things which are hailed: it invites them as things to concern man.
The things so hailed gather a world around themselves. The saying summons
things and lets them be what they are; but the thing is what it is only as a thing
that "bears" a world in which it remains as that which it is.
Just as the saying hails things, so does it also summon a world. It entrusts a
world to things and at the same time it preserves things in the "luster of the
world". The world grants things their proper mode of being, whereas things
bear their own world. The saying of language makes things come to a world and
a world to things. Because world and things can never be independent of one
another, these two ways of "making something come" cannot be separated.
They penetrate each other, and in so doing they cross a middle point in which
they are one. However, world and thing do not melt together into a unity at this
middle point; even there they remain distinct in their closeness and insep-
arability. Their difference must be understood as a dif-ferre, a bearing of each
other out, as if both share a common center which remains interior to both and
out of which both issue forth. Thus the difference between thing and world,
between being and Being, must be thought as a scission (Schied) between
(Unter) them, which refers them to each other by the very fact that it cleaves
them into two.75
200

The scission, taken as the coming-to-pass of the ontological difference and

brought about by the original saying of Being as logos, is what Heidegger calls
language. Language comes to pass as the scission which takes place between
world and things.74 But in order for the scission to come about, there is need of
the Being of man, of that being whose essence it is to open itself unto logos as
scission. The ek-static openness to the aboriginal saying of logos is constitutive
for the emerging of human language. Man's use of language is authentic when
man freely, but genuinely, responds to the hail addressed to him when the
differentiating scission expresses its need of him in order that it itself may give
issue to the differentiated. Thus by responding to language's saying man gives
voice to the differentiated, thing and world, being and Being. The authentic
response on the part of man implies a careful attending that pays heed to the
hailing address that comes to him from logos as scission. And this, in turn,
implies that man advances with reticence to what is being addressed to him.
"This advancing with reticence characterizes the manner in which mortal man
responds to the scission. In this manner mortal man dwells authentically in
aboriginal language".77
In the first essay, "Language", which was written in 1950 and from which the
preceding reflections were derived, Heidegger does not explicitly thematize the
relationship between thinking and poetizing. Yet he does clearly indicate in
what sense the thinker should concern himself with poetry. In these reflections
on language Heidegger attempts to have an experience with language. He soon
realizes that man would not be able to speak if language itself were not first to
address its saying to him. Thus language itself speaks to him. He encounters its
speaking most likely in what is spoken, i.e., in that in which language's speaking
comes to "completion". Yet language's speaking does not cease in what is so
said; it is kept safe in what is spoken. Thus we must still seek the speaking of
language in what is spoken, and pay heed to the unsaid in what is spoken,
preferably in that which is spoken purely, i.e., in a poem that flows from a
speaking that is truly originating (anfangendes).n
The relationship between thinking and poetizing is explicitly reflected upon
in "The Essence of Language", which was written in 1957.w It is difficult to
understand how one can speak about the neighborhood of thinking and poetiz-
ing, in view of the fact that both obviously are two wholly different kinds of
saying. For in a poem a wonder "appears in a fulfilled and singing saying",
whereas in a thoughtful reflection something memorable appears in a saying
that (whatever it may be) certainly is not a singing way of saying. Thus it is not at
all clear how one can speak here about the neighborhood of thinking and
poetizing.80
Poetry and thinking seem to be as divergent as they can possibly be. Their
being neighbors appears to be concealed within the extreme difference of their
saying, and their divergence appears to be their real encounter. The neighbor-
hood of poetry and thinking is obviously much more than a clumsy and cloudy
mixture of two kinds of saying in which each awkwardly borrows from the
other, even though sometimes it seems to be this way.
 201

Poetry and thinking are indeed different from one another. They are like
parallels which only will meet "in infinity". Yet they are also near to one
another. And the nearness that draws them near is the coming-to-pass of the
event of appropriation (Er-eignis) by which poetry and thinking are directed to
come-to-presence and to abide as what they properly are.81
But if the nearness of poetry and thinking is a nearness that has its origin in
the saying of Being, then we must in our thinking assume that the appropriating
event abides and holds sway as that aboriginal saving in which language itself
grants us its own Being.82 At any rate, the neighborhood of thinking and
poetizing did not come to them just by chance, from somewhere or other, as if
they, by themselves, could ever be what they are independent from each other,
and away from their own neighborhood. Neighborhood does not create near-
ness; rather it is nearness that brings about neighborhood.83 The nearness
referred to here is the nearness of Being and man; it is man's nearness to Being
as language, to Being as logos.**
Summarizing the most important ideas developed here we can perhaps say
that in Heidegger's later philosophy a thinking concern with language begins to
come to the fore. Being is there thought as logos and language. This way of
thinking about Being has important implications for the manner in which one
conceives of the relationship between thinking and poetizing. Although
Heidegger's position in this matter does not seem to have changed considerably
since the thirties; his way of speaking about the subject has nevertheless
changed notably. This change is particularly obvious from the fact that the
original address of Being is sometimes articulated as an original poetizing and
sometimes as an originating thinking; yet in the later works this address of
Being is more often called the aboriginal saying.
Being addresses itself to man continually; its address can in principle be
heard by everybody who has come to authenticity and, thus, is no longer a
victim of the dominating scientific and technological view of the world, i.e., by
everybody who is not overpowered by nihilism. Yet among those who are
willing and able to hear the soundless voice of Being, some humans occupy a
privileged position. Heidegger calls these human beings the thinkers and the
poets.
All human beings live in communities; in some form or other they belong to a
people; and each people has its own language, its mother-tongue and, perhaps
even, its own set of dialects.81 Poets and thinkers have a special concern for
language, i.e., for the language of and by Being (logos) as well as for the
language which as members of a people they themselves speak. Thinkers and
poets bear great responsibility for the life of the community to which they
belong; but this they share with other members of the community. Yet this need
not occupy us here further.
The thinker and the poet are concerned with the same, but not in the same
manner. They are concerned, each in his own way, with providing an authentic
response to the soundless voice of Being. They differ in the manner in which
they so respond. The poet is, standing in the present, primarily oriented toward
202

what is to come in light of what is as having-been; the thinker on the other hand
is concerned with the unsaid in what has already been said about what has been,
is, and will be. Both the thinker and the poet presuppose in their poetizing and
thinking responses that before they can begin to respond in poetry or thinking,
they must first properly have heard the soundless voice of Being. Thus their
authentic responses still have, each in its own way, the character of the
originating thinking in which, through its aboriginal saying, Being dictates the
primordial poem to those men who are willing and able to listen. Fully realizing
the tension that lies at the root of the identity and the difference of any concrete
world and Being itself, they formulate their authentic responses in such a way
that every "needless" limitation found in this world and its language will be
overcome, either by showing new possibilities and options "prophetically", or
by re-trieving them from what already has been said by other poets and
thinkers. And yet in a deep sense, their poetizing and thinking really remains
the poetizing and thinking of and by Being, even though it takes place in the
"Da" of Being, in those humans who have seen and heard and have lent their
ears in docility to the silent word of Being's saying.86
It should be noted once more that what has been said here about poetry is
true also for the other arts; the reason for this is that the essence of art is
poetizing.
These reflections on the relationship between thinking and poetizing, thus,
did not only help us to come to a better comprehension of what Heidegger
understands by poetizing. They also contain important information on several
other issues at which Heidegger hints in his essay on the origin of the work of
art, but which he does not treat there in detail: the ontological difference, the
meaning of the holy, the manner in which language brings about the scission
between world and thing, and the reason why in Heidegger's view poetry,
because of its special relationship to language, occupies a privileged position
among the arts.
We must now finally turn to the question of whether these reflections on art
are indeed relevant to the manner in which the arts come-to-presence today.

§ 34. The Relevance of these Reflections for Contemporary Art

Heidegger finally concludes his reflections on the origin of the work of art by
asking the important question concerning the relevance of these investigations
for contemporary art.
Summarizing the content of the essay and focussing on the course taken, he
says that we have made an inquiry into the essence of art, into the manner in
which art comes-to-presence and abides. And we have followed in so doing a
very special path. We must now ask the question of why our inquiry has
followed this particular path. Heidegger claims that a particular path was
chosen for this inquiry in order at the end to be able to ask more genuinely
whether art is or is not a true origin in our own historical Being today, whether
 203

and under what conditions art can be such an origin and even must be such an
origin.
Obviously, these investigations cannot force art to come-to-presence. Yet, in
Heidegger's view, these investigations are an indispensable, albeit preliminary,
preparation for art's coming-to-presence in our own time. For investigations of
this kind prepare for art the space it needs, for the artistic producers their
proper way, and for the preservers their proper place.*7
In the knowledge that has been gained in this manner, a knowledge which
grows only slowly, the question will be decided as to whether or not art can
indeed today be a genuine origin (Ursprung) and therefore also a leap ahead
(Vorsprung), or whether it is "destined" to remain something that is just a
supplement, and now is merely being carried along as a cultural phenomenon
with which everyone has become familiar. Are we in our own Being today
genuinely, historically, at the origin? Do we know, i.e., do we give heed to the
manner in which the origin comes-to-presence and abides? Or do we perhaps in
our comportment toward art, limit ourselves to merely appealing to a "sophisti-
cated" acquaintance with the arts of the past?
In Heidegger's view there is an infallible sign for the manner in which we
have to relate to this either - or, and for the manner in which we have to decide
the issue. Hölderlin has given a name to this sign in the following saying:

Reluctantly
That which dwells near its origin departs.88

In the Epilogue Heidegger returns several times to this concluding section.

There, as we have seen, Heidegger refers to several statements made by Hegel,
statements which he also quotes in his Nietzsche lectures. In these statements
Hegel claims that art for us no longer is the highest manner in which the truth
comes to the fore, that art has ceased to be the highest need of the spirit, and
that art for us is and remains (on the side of its highest vocation) something that
is past.8* It is clear that Heidegger does not completely share Hegel's view. On
the contrary, he tries to retrieve these ideas in an effort to explain the actual
situation in which we find ourselves in regard to the arts. It is true, though, that
in the Appendix which was added in 1960, Heidegger's opinion about the
present condition is much less optimistic than it must have been in 1935, when
Heidegger formulated these ideas for the first time. In his view, as long as we
continue to live in an era that is almost completely dominated by technicity and
science, HegeJ's judgment about the meaning and function of art today-must
stand. But this view, formulated in 1960, says in Heidegger's own opinion little
about the manner in which art now comes-to-presence and abides as such; it
merely characterizes the desolateness of the world in which we now live.91*
Some commentators feel that Heidegger's position in regard to contempor-
ary art is much too negative. In their view, this attitude is furthermore ambigu-
ous insofar as Heidegger sometimes states that the arts have an important
function in the overcoming of the Gestell that results from modern meta-
204

physics,91 whereas on other occasions he claims that the arts today are held
within the spell of modern technicity and its Gestell.92
It is indeed true that Heidegger sometimes speaks in a positive manner about
the function of the arts today, and that on other occasions his tone is much more
negative and somber. Yet, in my view, both these ways of speaking directly
respond to the ambiguous and precarious position in which the arts find
themselves today. In "The Question Concerning Technicity" Heidegger at the
end indeed asks whether the fine arts perhaps are called today to poetic
revealment of the truth. His answer is that nobody really knows. "Whether art
may be granted this highest possibility of its coming-to-presence in the midst of
the extreme danger, no one can tell".*3 In the Interview with Der Spiegel
Heidegger states that there is a question about what place art occupies today. In
his view art does not show us the way today, "since we are left in the dark as to
how modern art perceives or tries to perceive what is most proper to art". Yet
here, too, one should realize that this claim was made in a general context in
which Heidegger tried to defend the view that in the era of modern technicity,
neither philosophy, nor science, nor any other human endeavor can really help
us. "Only a god can still save us".*4
Since Heidegger has discussed these issues somewhat more systematically in
his lecture on the origin of art which he delivered in Athens on April 4th of 1967,
I shall conclude these reflections on Heidegger's philosophy of art with a brief
paraphrase of the most important issues discussed in this remarkable lecture.
Heidegger begins his address to the members of the Academy of the Sciences
and the Arts in Athens by stating that he wishes to think with his audience about
the ancient Greek world, the world which once constituted the beginning of our
Western art and science. Historically this world has obviously passed. Yet from
the viewpoint of the destiny of Being one can say that this world, provided we
make an effort to experience it as our destiny, is still present and continues to
come-to-presence. As such this world is something that still waits for us (Gegen­
wart) so that we can think toward it. For that beginning is the greatest which has
the character of a destiny that flows from Being's sending. For such a beginning
governs over all that will come later.
Thus we must try to reflect here on the origin of art in Hellas. In Heidegger's
view, we must do this by making an effort to look into that domain which
governs before all art and grants to art what is proper to it. In so doing we are
obviously not concerned with just giving a definition of art; nor are we inter-
ested in a scientifically historical description of the origin of art in Greece. What
we are interested in here is rather an effort to give a brief answer to the
following questions: 1) What can we learn from the manner in which the Greeks
conceived of Athena, the goddess of the sciences and the arts? 2) What are we
to say about contemporary art in light of its origin in the Greek world? 3)
Finally, what determines our thinking which tries to reflect on the origin of
art?»'
For the Greeks Athene was the daughter of Zeus. Homer calls her polumetis,
i.e., the one who gives counsel in many ways; she is the goddess of many
 205

counsels. In the temple of Zeus in Olympia she is portrayed as the goddess who
makes pottery and utensils, as the goddess of the technitis. As we have seen
already several times, techni refers to a form of knowing that one can encounter
in the philosopher, the scientist, the artist, and the orator.
Athene is also glauköpis, the one with gleaming eyes, the one with the eyes of
a night owl.*6 She is equally called skeptomeni, the one who looks carefully,
who looks at the boundaries, but also at all that is, at phusis, at that which
emerges and as emerging abides. According to Heraclitus, phusis likes to hide
(kruptesthaiphilei); it is the mysterious. All art originates from phusis, but this
does not at all entail that art just imitates nature.
Finally, techni and phusis belong together. The Greeks were convinced of
this. Yet the element or the domain in which these two belong together, i.e., the
coming-to-pass of the truth of Being and the ontological difference itself, the
Greeks did not yet think explicitly. The same is true for the domain with which
the arts concern themselves, i.e., Being as the holy. Yet in classical Greece both
the thinkers and the poets have often touched on this domain and this mystery.
Heraclitus is said to have stated that everything is steered by the lightning flash
(ta depanta oiakizei keraunos).'" According to Aeschylus98 only Athene has the
key to the house in which the lightning flash is sealed and rests.49
«But what about today, now that all the old gods have fled? Is there today,
after 2,000 years, still an art which stands under the same demand as once the
arts in Greece did? And if this is not so, from where then does this demand
come to which all arts today try to respond? The modern art works no longer
originate from the form-giving boundaries of a world which is the world of a
people and of a nation, and which consists of things that are relevant to that
people or that nation. Today they all belong to the universality of a world-
civilization which is governed and dominated by science and technology.
One is thus inclined to think that the domain from which today for the arts
this demand has to come, is the scientific and technological world. Heidegger
hesitates to affirm this. For what does the expression "scientific world" mean
here? A word of Nietzsche may in his view be of some help: what is typical for
the 19th century is not the victory of the sciences, but rather the victory of the
scientific method over the sciences.1"" In Heidegger's view this judgment is still
true for our world today.
What is meant here by method is not just the methodical procedures that can
be determined by principles and rules; rather it is the entire process of projec-
tion und thematization which implies the staking out of the relevant domain,
the establishing of the aspect under which things will be viewed henceforth, the
typical objectivation, the methods taken in the limited sense of the term, the
adequate language, the relevant conceptual framework, the proper conception
of truth, etc. From such a thematization it follows that foe each science only that
truly is, that can be scientifically measured and experienced. One finds the
extreme form of this scientific method in modern cybernetics and in informa-
tion and communication theory."11
Heidegger then gives a brief summary of the basic ideas proposed by cyber-
206

netics and futurology. He also explains how it is possible today to develop a self-
regulating and self-correcting mechanism, which makes use of information
input, feedback, and autoregulation.102 He then shows how these ideas are now
used in microbiology and genetics and how it is argued there that in principle
man in his interaction with his environment, on the basis of gene-coding
(DNA), can be understood in cybernetic terms, even though one admits at the
same time that today man is still considered to be an element of disturbance in
the overall environmental system.1"3
Finally, Heidegger claims that many people currently feel that in applying
these ideas to the social fabric, one has at last found a way to radically overcome
the subjectivity of the individual; this opinion is held particularly by communist
authors. In Heidegger's view, this is certainly not so in that the modern
industrial society which rests on science and modern technology precisely is the
highest form of subjectivism that is possible.
Heidegger does not pursue these ideas in detail. Instead he asks what all of
this has to do with the effort to understand the origin of art. In his view, these
brief references to the actual situation in which contemporary man finds
himself, have perhaps prepared us for a reflection on the arts so that we can now
ask more thoughtfully about the origin of art and the destination of thinking
today.'04
In the third section of his address Heidegger turns to the question about the
domain from which the demand comes for the arts today. Is this the cybernetic
world and the futurologically planned industrial society? If this were to be the
case, then we should now turn to a careful reflection on what has been just
described briefly in the preceding paragraphs. As Heidegger sees it the basic
trait of the entire cybernetic projection of the world is to be found in the
Regelkreis, in that circular process in which the information flows back to its
source via some feedback mechanism. In the final analysis this circular process
also includes man and his world. But this means that all relations of man to his
world, and thus man's entire social existence, are included in the domain of
domination determined by the cybernetic sciences.103
One finds the same enslavement and imprisonment in futurology. It appears
that the future which futurology is able to bring to light is no more than a
present that is just prolonged indefinitely. Thus here, too, man remains in-
cluded in the domain of possibilities which has been so made available.
As for our industrial society, it has made itself the measure of all objectivity.
Thus our industrial society exists today only and exclusively on the ground that
it itself is included in the "things" which it itself has made.106
But what then can we still say about art in our industrial societies? Is it still
possible for a work of art to remain a genuine work in such a world? Is art in our
industrial society not just one link in the feedback loop which sends information
from society to world and from world to society, in a manner that is determined
by modern science and technology? Is art not just one element in a large
cultural industry (Kulturbetrieb)"!
And what is one to say about the fact that man himself has also been included
 207

in his scientific and technological world? Is this being-included in this world not
the explanation of why man is closed off from that which precisely sent him into
the destiny that is proper for him? Is this perhaps the explanation of why man
tries today to have control over himself and his world by means of science and
technology, instead of orienting and ordering himself to what has been ap-
portioned to him by that which has sent him in this particular way? Is a hope
that is understood in a scientific and technological manner not the uncondi-
tioned selfishness of the human subjectivity?
But can man, who stands in our modern world civilization, still overcome this
being-closed-off from what has sent him? Certainly not, if he were to try to do
so with the help of scientific and technological means only. Can man pretend
and assume that he himself can overcome this being-closed-off from what has
sent him? This would be hubris. Man can never do this; yet that which has sent
man will never be disclosed without man either. What kind of opening-up and
disclosing are we then talking about here, and how can man still prepare himself
for it? Heidegger suggests six basic ideas: 1) Do not avoid the questions just
raised and do not run away from them. 2) Try to think the closedness (Ver­
schlossenheit) as such. 3) Realize that such a thinking is not a prelude to action,
but is itself the highest form of action. 4) Try to avoid the separation of theory
and practice. 5) Keep in mind that this thinking is not the kind of thing man can
do all alone. And finally 6) try to turn to that domain from which our entire
contemporary world ultimately originated, i.e., the Greek world.107
What is necessary, thus, is a step in reverse, ein Schritt zurück. Back to the
origin to which the goddess Athene points. This does not mean a passive return
to the Greek world; nor does it mean that our own thinking should limit itself to
a mere remembrance of Pre-Socratic thought. The step in reverse should be a
step back from our actual world civilization, and an effort to think that which in
our entire Western tradition remained unthought, even though it was often
named and mentioned.1011
Heidegger then observes that what remained unthought there was constantly
on his mind in the preceding reflections, although it was not yet mentioned
explicitly and certainly not yet thematized. But it was pointed to where we
spoke about the belonging-together of phusis and techni and about the coming-
to-presence of things in the light that is mentioned here.
Yet the light mentioned can illuminate that which comes-to-presence only
when the latter has already emerged in something that is open and free (ein
Offenes und Freies). The light illuminates this openness, yet it does not bring it
forth or even bring it close. For darkness and that which is dark also need this
open "place". Without this openness no space could ever make room for
things, give them their place, and order them to each other. Without this
openness time could never temporalize. The openness thus grants both time
and space as well as their belonging together. The release of what is free, which
grants the open for the first time, is called in Greek a-lethiia, non-concealment.
It does not eliminate concealment; concealment belongs to non-concealment,
because the latter needs the former: phusis kruptesthai philei.m The mystery of
208

the light that was often mentioned belongs within the domain of non-conceal-
ment and within the revealment that governs in this domain. Non-concealment
belongs to concealment; and it itself conceals itself in order that things may
manifest themselves.110
Heidegger then asks the question of whether there is perhaps some relation-
ship between our being closed-off with respect to the sending, and the non-
concealment which remained thus far unthought? Is this being-closed-off per-
haps the withholding of non-concealment which has been governing for so
long? This hint which points to the mystery of the unthought non-concealment,
does it perhaps at the same time point to the domain from which art originates?
Must the work of art not point to that which conceals itself, i.e., the domain of
the holy, in order that the work not just say what one knows already? And must
the work not also keep silent about that which hides itself, so that the human
beings can approach what hides itself with the proper respect and reverence as
something that cannot be planned or steered?1"
Is it still possible for contemporary man to find a place of sojourn in this
world, a dwelling place, which will be determined by the voice of the non-
concealment that hides itself? According to Heidegger, we do not know this.
Yet we do know that a-litheia is older, more primordial and original, and
therefore also more permanent than whatever humans can fathom. We also
know that for our scientific and technological world non-concealment is that
which is most insignificant and the least important. Is it indeed insignificant, or
is it not? In Heidegger's opinion a saying by Pindar is relevant here. The word,
because it is further ahead in time than every deed, determines life, provided
language makes it emerge from the depth of the pondering heart with the favor
of the three Graces."2
 CONCLUSION: HEIDEGGER ON ART

In the preceding sections we have seen that in his lectures on the origin of the
work of art, Heidegger has made an effort to lay the foundation for a philoso-
phy of art that does not limit itself to reflections on beauty and the arts as one
finds such reflections in almost all treatises on the arts written before 17S0. On
the other hand, Heidegger also tried to stay away from what he calls a "psychol-
ogy" of the arts in which one engages in research on the typical nature of the
experiences which artists and preservers have when they either produce or try
to preserve great works of art. He even remains virtually silent about Kant's
effort to try to find a transcendental justification for such a "psychology" of art
which focuses on the condition that must be fulfilled if our judgments of taste
are to have some characteristic form of universality and necessity. Heidegger
has little interest in Schopenhauer's misinterpretation of Kant's theory, nor in
any of the neo-Kantian theories of art and art works.
The careful reader must have realized time and again that these lectures were
inspired by Hegel's lectures on aesthetics as well as by Nietzsche's investiga-
tions concerning the will-to-power. Yet it is clear at once that Heidegger had no
intention to passively repeat ideas already suggested by either Hegel or
Nietzsche. Rather in both instances, Heidegger has tried to retrieve these ideas
in order to let both Hegel and Nietzsche say what remained unsaid in their own
works, and to focus on ideas that they could not yet address in their own time.
With Hegel, Heidegger is convinced that the true origin of the work of art is
to be found in art itself, and that art is to be understood as the setting itself into
the work of the truth. For Heidegger the tension between truth and untruth in
the work becomes manifest in the work as the strife between world and earth.
Furthermore, if art is the origin of the work of art, art lets those who intimately
belong together in regard to the work, namely the one who artistically produces
it and those who try to preserve it artistically, each in his own essence, be what
they are.
Such an approach to art and art works obviously does not make art history
superfluous. Even though Heidegger did not explicitly say so, I am convinced
that he shared Hegel's view on the importance, but also on the limits of art
history and the other sciences that concern themelves with art works JFurther-
210

more, this ontology of art and the art work does not make a psychology or a
sociology of art impossible or superfluous either, just as little as it makes Kant's
third Critique meaningless. Yet it is the case that in Heidegger's opinion these
latter reflections do not really penetrate to the question of the Being that is
characteristic of the work and most certainly not to the manner in which art
comes-to-presence and abides.
With Nietzsche, as with Hegel, Heidegger is convinced that art has an
essential function in the destiny of a people. It is also his view, contrary perhaps
to Hegel's view, that art can have such a function today, even though art is
currently prevented from executing this function simply because we find our-
selves in a world that is dominated by technicity and science. In such a world,
the arts have really lost their function in that art is now no longer permitted to
be a place in which the truth unfolds itself.
What Heidegger says here about art and the art work is certainly provisional,
incomplete, and in many respects still ambiguous. This ontological conception
of art is to be developed further by means of specifications for the various forms
of art. This would also be the place to examine critically Heidegger's claim that
among the arts poesy occupies a privileged position because of its close affinity
to language. But these and similar issues lie far beyond the scope of this book
which is meant merely to introduce the reader to Heidegger's philosophy of art.
 NOTES

(Preface)

1. Ct. Martin Heidegger. "Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes", in Holzwege (1950) (Frankfurt:
Klostermann. 1963), pp. 7-68. These three lectures were later published separately with an
Addendum by Heidegger himself and an Introduction by H.-G. Gadamer: Der Ursprung des
Kunstwerkes (Stuttgart: Redam. I960). There is a very good English translation by Albert Hofstad-
ter: "The Origin of the Work of Art", in Martin Heidegger. Poetry, Language, and Thought, transl.
*by A. Hofstadter (New York: Harper & Row. 1971). pp. 17-87. This translation is also published in
Martin Heidegger. Basic Writings, ed. by D. Farrel Krell (New York: Harper & Row. 1977), pp.
149-187. Cf. also: Martin Heidegger. Nietzsche 2 vols. (Pfullingen: Neske. 1961), vol. I. pp. 11-264.
There is an English translation of this lecture course by D. Farrel Krell: Martin Heidegger:
Nietzsche. Vol. I: The Wilt to Power as Art (New York: Harper & Row, 1979). Martin Heidegger.
Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins Dichtung (1951) (Frankfurt: Klostermann. 1963). Martin Heidegger.
Unterwegs zur Sprache (Pfullingen: Neske. 1960). The greater part of this work is translated under
the title: On the Way to Language, transl. by Peter D. Hertz (New York: Harper & Row. 1971); the
essay "Die Sprache", is translated by A. Hofstadter and appeared in Poetry, Language, and
Thought (hereafter: PLT), pp. 189-210. Martin Heidegger. "Die Herkunft der Kunst und die
Bestimmung des Denkens", in Distanz und Nähe. Reflexionen und Analysen zur Kunst der
Gegenwart (Festschrift fur Walter Biemel). ed. by Petra Jaeger and Rudolf Lathe (Würzburg:
Königshausen & Neumann, 1983), pp. 11-22.
2. Cf. On Heideggerand Language (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1972); "Alcune
Riflessioni Sulla Concezione della Terra in Heidegger", in Humanitas. 33(1978), 445-468; "On Art
and Language", in Philosophie et Langage (Bruxelles: Editions de l'Universite' de Bruxelles. 1982).
125-146; On the Truth of Being. Reflections on Heidegger's Later Philosophy (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press. 1984).
3. N.I.91-109(77-91).
4. Cf. Wladyslaw Tatarkiewkz. History of Aesthetics, 3 vote.. ed. by J. Harrell, C. Barrett, and
D. Petsch (The Hague: Mouton. 1970-1974): K.E. Gilbert and H. Kuhn, A History of Esthetics
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1954): W. Dilthey, "Die drei Epochen der modernen
Ästhetik und ihre heutige Aufgabe" (1892). in Gesammelte Schriften. Vol. VI (Leipzig: Teubner.
1924). pp. 242-287; "Weltanschauung und Analyse des Menschen seit Renaissance und Reforma-
tion". in Gesammelte Schriften. Vol. II (Leipzig: Teubner. 1940): Von deutscher Dichtung und
Musik: Aus den Studien zur Geschichte des deutschen Geistes, ed. by H. Nohl and G. Misch
(Stuttgart: Teubner. 1957); Hans-Georg Gadamer. Truth and Method (New Yor|: Seabury Press.
1975), pp. 5-73.
212

5. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann. Heideggers Philosophie der Kunst. Eine systematische

Interpretation der Holzwege-Abhandlung "Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes" (Frankfurt: Kloster-
mann. 1980).
6. William J. Richardson, Heidegger. Through Phenomenology to Thought (The Hague:
Nijhoff. 1963).

(Part I. Chapter I)

1. N.I.91-109(77-91).
2. N. I. 91-93 (77-78).
3. N, 1.93 (78).
4. N. 1.93-94 (78-79).
5. N.I.94(79).
6. N. 1.95 (80).
7. Wladyslaw Tatarkiewicz. History of Aesthetics (hereafter WTHA). Vol. I, pp. 80-89.
8. N.I,95-96(80).
9. N.I,97-98(82).
10. Aristotle. Etnka Nicomachea. VI. 3. ll39blS-l7: VI. 4. U40al-23.
11. Martin Heidegger. Der Ursprung da Kunstwerkes (Stuttgart: Reclam. 1960), "Zusatz", pp.
70-74. This "Addendum" is not included in the Holzwege edition of the art lectures; an English
translation of the "Zusatz" can be found in Martin Heidegger. Poetry. Language, and Thought, pp.
82-87. Cf. §§ 18.19. and 27 below.
12. Plato. Republic. 596A.
13. N.I. 198-200(171-172).
14. Plato. Republic. 596E.
15. N.I.200-206(172-177).
16. N. I. 207 (178).
17. Plato. Republic, 596E-597A.
18. N. 1,207-209 (178-180).
19. Plato. Republic. 597B.
20. Ibid.. 597E.
21. Plato. Republic. 598B; N. I. 209-216 (180-186).
22. Plato. Phaedrus. 249E.
23. Ibid.. 248A.
24. Ibid.. 248B. Cf. N. I. 223-224 (192-193).
25. Ibid.. 250D.
26. N. 1.230 (198); cf. 224-230 (193-198).
27. N.I.98(83).
28. For what follows cf. WTHA. Vol. I. pp. 138-155: S H Butcher. Aristotle's Theory of Poetry
and Fine Arts (New York: Dover. 1951). pp. 113-273: K.E. Gilbert and H. Kuhn. A History of
Esthetics, pp. 59-86.
29. Aristotle. Meiaphysica. A. 1.98la5ff.
30. Aristotle. Meiaphysica. Z. 7.1032M-2: Physica. B. 8.199a8-21: Eth. Nie. Z. 4. U40al-24.
31. Aristotle. Analytica Posteriora. B. 19.100a5-15.
32. Aristotle. Poetica. II. 1448alff.: XXV. 1460b8ff.; Politico. I\ 6.1281bl0ff.; cf. WTHA. pp.
142-144, Paul Ricoeur. The Rule of Metaphor, transl. by R. Czerny (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press. 1977). pp. 37-43 and the literature discussed there.
33. Eth. Nie. Z. 4.1140a20.
 213

34. Aristotle, Poet., XXV, 1461bllff.; IX, 1451a36ff.: VI, 1450a39f.; 1.1447al3ff.; Polil., r. 8.
1284b8ff.
35. Aristotle, Poet.. VI. 1449b28; cf. OKHE. pp. 75-78; WTHA. pp. 145-147.
36. Aristotle, Polil., e . 4,1339a22-2S.
37. Aristotle, Polil., &. 2,1338al3ff.; e , 7,1341b38f.
38. Aristotle, Poet.. XXV, I460bl3-I5; cf. Butcher, op. cil., pp. 163-197; WTHA. I, pp. 148-
149.
39. Aristotle, Rheth., A, 9.1366a33-36; Polil.. B. 3,1338a40-1338b4.
40. Aristotle, Poet., VII. 1450b38; Melaph.. M. 3.1078a31.
41. Aristotle, Eth. Nie, B. 3,1105a27.
42. Aristotle, Eth. Nie, I\ 10, U80a2-5; Eud. Eth.. I\ 2.1230b31ff.
43. For what follows see WTHA. Vol. I, pp. 185-215.
44. Johannes Stobaeus, Eel.. II. 62.15: cf. WTHA, 1.185-186.
45. Cicero. De Natura Deorum. II, 13.37; 22.22,57; cf. WTHA. 1,186-188.
46. Cicero, De Oratore, 1.16,70; Plutarchus. DeAud. Poet., 18d; cf. WTHA, 1,188-190.
47. Marcus Aurelius. Ad Se Ipsum. IV. 20; cf. WTHA, 1,191.
' 48. Cicero. Academka Post., 1,11.40: cf. WTHA. 1,191
49. Seneca, Episiolae. 88,21; WTHA, 1.191-192.
50. Cf. WTHA. 1.193.
51. For what follows see WTHA. 1.200-205.
52. Cicero, Tusc. Disp.. IV. 13.30; De Officiis. 1.28; II. 9.32; De Fmibus, II, 5.18; De Oratore,
IJI. 45,179; see WTHA, 1,202.
53. Cicero, De Officiis, 1,42,150-151.
54. Cicero, De Natura Deorum, 1.32,92.
55. Cicero, De Oratore, II, 35,150; Tusc. Disp.. 1.26,64; cf. WTHA. 1,203-205.
56. Cicero. De Oratore, III. 50,195; De Officiis, 1,4.14.
57. Cicero, De Oratore, II, 46,193; cf. WTHA. 1.204.
58. For what follows cf.: WTHA, I. pp. 318-331; GKHE. pp. 111-118; E. de Keyser, La
signification de Van dans les "Enneades" de Plorin (Louvain: BibVotbeque de I'Universite, 1953);
E. Krakowski, Une Philosophie de I'amour el de la beautt. L'esihMque de Platin el son influence
(Paris: E. de Boccard. 1929).
59. Ptotinus. Enneads, 1,6.1; VI, 7,22; IV, 3,11. a . WTHA, I. p. 319; GKHE, p. HI.
60. Ptotinus, Enneads, 1.6.2; 1,6,6; 1.6,9. Cf. GKHE, pp. 112-113; WTHA. I. pp. 319-321.
61. Ptotinus, Enneads, IV, 4,31; V, 9.11.
62. Ptotinus, Enneads, II. 8.1. Cf. WTHA, I, pp. 323-324.
63. For what follows cf. WTHA. II, pp. 47-65: GKHE. pp. 129-139; K. Svoboda. L'esihMque
de St. Augusiln et ses sources (Brno: Vydava Filosoficka Fakulta, etc., 1933); L. Chapman, Si.
Augustine's Philosophy of Beauty (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1935).
64. St. Augustine, De Vera Reiigione, 32,59.
65. St. Albert the Great. De Pulchro et Bono, 1.6,2.
66. St. Augustine. De Vera Reiigione, 30,55; 41.77.
67. St. Augustine, The Libero Arburio, II, 16,42: De Musica, VI, 12,35; De Ordine, II. 15,42;
De Natura Boni, ch. 3. a . WTHA, II, pp. 49-59; GKHE, pp. 128-134.
68. St. Augustine, De Musica, VI, 2,2-5; VI, 10.28; De Ordine, 1,7,18; De Ctvitate Dei, XI,
18; Confessiones, IV. 14. a . WTHA. II. pp. 51-52.
69. WTHA, II, pp. 51-53; GKHE, pp. 134-135.
70. St. Augustine. Confessiones, X. 34; De Natura Boni, ch. 14-17. Cf. WTHA, II. pp. 53-54.
GKHE. pp. 137-138.
71. WTHA. II. pp. 54-56. '
214

72. St. Augustine. Soliloquia. II. 10.18. a . WTHA. II. p. 56.

73. WTHA, II. p. 57.
74. For what follows here see WTHA. II. pp. 285-292; 245-263; GKHE. pp. 139-160; E. de
Bruyne. Esthitiquedu Moyen /4ge(Louvain: Editions de ITnstitut Supirieurde Philosophie. 1947);
L. Callahan, A Theory of Aesthetic According to the Principles of St. Thomas Aquinas (Washington
D.C.: Catholic University of America. 1928).
75 WTHA. II, p. 256.
76. St. Thomas. Contra Impugn.. 7, ad9:S.7*., IIII. 180.2. ad3; De Div. Nom., IV, 5;S.7*.,
1.12.1. ad 4; 1,39.8. c; IIII. 145.2. c. Cf. WTHA. II. p. 246.
77. St. Thomas, 5. Th.. 1,5,4, ad 1.
78. St. Thomas, 5. Th.. III. 27.1, ad 3.
79. St. Thomas. 5. Th., 1.67.1. c; 1.91,3. ad 3.
80. St. Thomas, De Div. Norn.. IV. 5.
81. St. Thomas. De Div. Norn.. IV, 10.
82. St. Thomas, 5. Th.. 1,91,3. ad 3.
83. St.Thomas.DeD»V. Atom., IV,5;S. 7Ä..I.12.1,ad4;I,39,8.c;IIII.lS0.2.ad3;IIII.145.
2. c. Cf. WTHA. II. pp. 247-253.
84. St. Thomas. De Div. Norn., IV 5; S. Th., III. 21.2. ad 2; III. 57,5. ad 1; IIII. 96.2, ad 2; In
Phys.. II, 4.
85. St. Thomas. 5. Th., 1.39,8, c. Cf. WTHA. II, pp. 253-256.
86. WTHA, II. p. 257.
87. For what follows see WTHA. III. pp. 12-17; 452-458, and passim; GKHE. pp. 162-199.
88. Note that the third volume of Tatarkiewkz, History of Aesthetics, which covers the
Renaissance is almost 500 pages long.
89. Cf. G K H E . p. 166; W T H A , III. p. 258.
90. W T H A . HI. p. 454.
91. W T H A . III. pp. 454-458.

(Part I, Chapter II)

1. N. I. 98-100. Cf. Wilhelm Dilthey. "Die drei Epochen der modernen Ästhetik und ihre
heutige Aufgabe" (1892). in Gesammelte Schriften. Vol. VI (Leipzig: Teubner. 1924), pp. 242-287;
Rudolf A. Makkreel, Dilthey: Philosopher of the Human Studies (Princeton: Princeton University
Press. 1975), pp. 81-88.
2. N, 1,98-99 (83).
3. N, 1,99-100 (83-84). Cf. Part II. SS15.22. and passim.
4. Wilhelm Dilthey, "Die drei Epochen", pp. 242ff.
5 /««/.. p. 253.
6. In 1618 Descartes completed a theoretical treatise on music in which one can find a brief
description of the basic principles of such a rationalist aesthetics. Cf. R. Descartes, Compendium
Musicae, in Oeuvres, ed. by Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, Vol. X (Paris: Cerf, 1908), pp.
89-141; cf. Wilhelm Dilthey. loc. cit., p. 249.
7. A.G. Baumgarten, Medilationes Philosophicae de Nonnulis ad Poema Pertinentibus (1735),
in Reflections on Poetry, transl. with original text and ed. by K. Aschenbrenner and W.B. Holther
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954); Aesthetica (1750-1758), 2 vols. (Hildesheim:
Olms. 1961).
8. A.G. Baumgarten, Meditationes. 8 US
9. A.G. Baumgarten, Aesthetica. Vol. I, Praef.. pp. 2-3.
 215

10. G.F. Meier, Anfangsgründe aller schönen Wissenschaften. 2 vols. (Halle: C. Hemmerde,
1754-1755).
11. A. Baeumler, Kants Kritik der Urtheilskraft (Halle: Niemeyer. 1923), p. 1.
12. A.G. Baumgarten, Aesthetik, Vol. I, $4; Meditationes. Praef., p. 4. Cf. J. Ritter,
"Ästhetik", in Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie (Stuttgart: Schwabe, 1971ff.). Vol. I, col.
555-580. col. 556.
13. A.G. Baumgarten, Aesthetica, Vol. I. SS 26-46.
14.G.F. Meier, op. cit.. Vol. I. 86; cf. J. Ritter, art. dt., col. 556.
15. A.G. Baumgarten. Meditationes. 88 1.4.13.116,117; G.F. Meier, op. dt.. Vol. 1,82.
16. G.F. Meier, op. cit.. Vol. I 86; cf. J. Ritter, art. cit., col. 557.
17. J. Ritter, art. cit., col. 557-558.
18. A.G. Baumgarten, Meditationes. 88 94.95,167.533; Aesthetica., Vol. 1,8814,18-20.
19. J. Ritter, art. cit., col. 558-559.
20. Ibid., col. 559-560.
21. Wilhelm Dilthey, loc. cit., p. 253.
22. Ibid., pp. 254-262. Cf. Edmund Burke. On Taste, On the Sublime, and the Beautiful, etc.
(New York: Collier, 1909); Gerard Alexander. An Essay on Taste (New York: Garland, 1970); An
Essay on Genius (New York: Garland, 1971-1972); Hugh Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles
Lettres, ed. by H.F. Harding (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1965); Thomas Reid,
Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (Cambridge. Mass.: The MIT Press, 1969), pp. 532-568,
733-808.
A 23. GKHE, pp. 253-255.
24. Wilhelm Dilthey, loc. dt., pp. 263-266.
25. Ibid., pp. 266-270. Cf. Rudolf Makkreel. Dilthey, pp. 81-88.
26. GKHE, pp. 314-316.
27. G.F. Herder. Sämtliche Werke., ed. by B. Suphan (Berlin: Weidemann. 1877-1913), Vol.
IV. p. 4L
28. Ibid.. Vol. XIII. p. 9; cf. Vol. I. pp. 43-45.395: Vol. V, pp. 1-3.
29. GKHE. pp. 314-318.
30. G.F.W. Hegel, Sämtliche Werke., ed. by Hoffmeister (Hamburg: Meiner, 1952ff.), Vol.
XIX, p. 601.
31. GKHE. pp. 321-322
32. Immanuel Kant. Werke, ed. by Cassirer. II vols. (Berlin: B. Cassirer. 1921-1923). Vol. V,
p. 213.
33. Immanuel Kant. Critique ofJudgment, trans), by J.H. Bernard (London: Macmillan, 1914),
pp. 13-14.
34. Ibid., p. 42.
35. Ibid., pp. 45-100, passim.
36. N.I. 126-128(107-108).
37. Kant, Critique of Judgment, sect. 2-5.
38. Ibid.
39. F.W. Nietzsche, Gesammelte Werke., ed. by R. (Dehler and F. Würzbach (Mussarion-
Ausgabe) (Munich: Mussarion. 1920-1929), Vol. XIV, p. 132.
40. N. 1.129-130 (110); cf. 128-130 (108-110).
4L N. 1.130 (110). Heidegger refers here to Plato's ekphanestaton.
42. H.G. Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York: Seabury. 1975). pp. 39-41.
43. Immanuel Kant, Critique ofJudgment, p. 218; cf. pp. 197-205. Cf. H.-G. Gadamer, op. cit.,
pp. 44-49. Kant expresses here an opinion which has a very long tradition and which one finds
regularly formulated in treatises written in the 19th and 20th centuries. Perhaps no one has
216
expressed this conviction as succinctly and clearly as Tolstoi in What is Art?, transl. by A. Maude
(London: Oxford University Press, 1955).
44. Immanuel Kant, op. at., pp. 188-190; cf. pp. 190-193.197-205.
45. Ibid., pp. 193-196; H.-G. Gadamer, op. cit., pp. 49-51.
46. J.W. Goethe, Werke, Grossherzogin Sophie Ausgabe (Weimar: H. Bohlau, 1887-1912),
Vol. XLII, p. 142.
47. GKHE, pp. 346-347.
48. J.W. Goethe, Werke, Jubiläum Ausgabe (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1902-1907), Vol. XXXII, p. 141;
Propylaenausg. (Munich: Müller, 1914ff.), Vol. VI, p. 451
49. a . Part II, S 32 below.
50. GKHE, p. 349.
51. Ibid., p. 351; cf. pp. 350-351.

(Part I, Chapter III)

1. Jacques Taminiaux, "Le depassement heideggerien de 1'estWtique et 1'hentage de Hegel",

in Recoupements (Bruxelks: Ousia, 1982), pp. 175-182. This essay appeared first in Distanz und
Nähe (Festschrift fur Walter Biemel), ed. by Petra Jaeger and Rudolf Lfithe (Würzburg:
Königshausen & Neumann, 1983), pp. 65-90.
2. Cf. Hegel, Ästhetik, 2 vote., ed. by F. Bassenge (Frankfurt: Europaische Verlagsanstalt,
1966). English translation by T.M. Knox, Hegel's Aesthetics, 2 vote. (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1975).
3. For what follows I have made use of Hegel's Introduction to Aesthetics, ed. by Charles
Karelis (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979). For the passage referred to cf. Ibid., p. 1.
4. Ibid., pp. 1-2.
5. Ibid., p. 3.
6. Ibid., pp. 4-5.
7. Ibid., p. 7.
8. Ibid., pp. 6-7.
9. Ibid., pp. 7-8.
10. Ibid., pp. 7-9, my translation.
11. Ibid., p. 9.
12. Ibid., p. 10.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid., p. 11.
15. Ibid., pp. 12-14.
16. Ibid., p. 21.
17. Ibid., pp. 14-22.
IS. Ibid., pp. 22-24.
19. Ibid., pp. 24-25.
20. Ibid., p. 25.
21. Ibid., p. 31.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid., pp. 32-33.
24. Ibid., p. 33.
25. Ibid., pp. 33-34.
26. Ibid., p. 35.
27. Ibid., p. 38.
 217
28. Ibid., pp. 32-41.
29. Ibid.. pp. 41-46.
30. Ibid.. pp. 46-55.
31. Ibid., pp. 55-69.
32. Ibid., pp. 69-70.
33. Ibid., pp. 69-73.
34. Ibid.. p. 72.
35. Ibid.. pp. 70-73.
36. /W</., p. 74.
37. Ibid., pp. 74-75.
38. Ibid., p. 75.
39. Ibid.. p. 77. a . pp. 75-77.
40. Ibid., pp. 77-79; the quote (with some minor changes) is taken from p. 78.
41. Ibid.. p. 79.
42. Ibid.. p. 80. with a few minor changes in the quote.
43. Ibid., p. 81.
1
44. Ibid.
45. Ibid.

(Part I, Chapter IV)

l.N.1.101-108 (85-90).
2. Hegel. Werke (Jubiläumausgabe), ed. by H.G. Glockner. 26 vote. (Stuttgart: F. Fromman.
1927-1939). Vol. X. 2. p. 233).
3. Ibid.. Vol. X. 1. p. 16.
4. Ibid.. Vol. X. 1. pp. 15-16.
5 N.I. 100-102(84-85).
6. Richard Wagner. Die Kunst und die Revolution (1849). in Sämtliche Schriften und Dich­
tungen (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel. 1871ff.). Vol. III. pp. 8-41; Das Kunstwerk dtr Zukunft
(1850). Ibid.. Vol. III. pp. 42-177; Oper und Drama (1853). Ibid.. Vol. III. pp. 222-320 and Vol. IV.
pp. 1-299: Deutsche Kunst und deutsche Politik (1865). Ibid.. Vol. VIII. pp. 30-124.
7. N. 1.104 (87); cf. pp. 103-105 (87-88).
8. N. 1.104 (87).
9. N. 1.105 (88).
10. N. 1.105-106 (88).
11. Dilthey and Vischer must be mentioned here as exceptions; both were influenced by Hegel
and Schiller.
12. N. 1.106-108 (89-90).
13. N. 1.108 (90).
14. "Nietzsche Contra Wagner", in Gesammelte Werke (Mussarion Ausgabe). Vol. VIII. p.
187.
15. N.I. 109(91).
16. N.I. 109(91).
17. N. II. 258.
18. N. 1.73 (61).
19. N. I. 76-77 (64-65: cf. LFW. 170-182 and the lecture course Aristoteles: Metaphysik IX
(1931). ed. by Heinrich Hani (Frankfurt: Klostermann. 1981).
20. N. 1.79-81 (67-68).
 21. N. I. 83 (70).
22. N. 1.83-*4 (70)
23. N. I. 84-85 (71).
24. Nietzsche. Will to Power. No. 794.853. Cf. N. 1.85-87 (72-73).
25. Nietzsche. Will to Power. No. 808 Cf. N. 1,87-91 (73-76).
26. N.I. 109-110(92).
27. N. 1.110-113 (92-95).
28. David Farrel Krell. "Analysis", in Nietzsche. Vol. I. pp. 236-237.
29. N.I, 113-118(95-98).
30. Nietzsche. Twilight of the Idols. Vol. VIII. p. 123.
31. N.I, 118-120(98-100).
32. N. 1.120 (100).
33. N.I. 124-126(105).
34. N. 1.130-131 (111).
35 N, 1.131-132 (111-112)
36. N, 1.132 (112).
37. N. 1.133 (113).
38. N, 1.134 (113).
39. N. 1.135-137 (115-117).
40. Nietzsche. Will to Power. No. 803. Cf N, 1,137 (117).
41. Nietzsche. Will to Power. No. 817.
42. N.I. 138-140(118-119).
43. N. 1.140-143 (119-121).
44. Cf. H. 9-10 (PLT. 19-20).
45. N, 1.144-145 (123).
46. Nietzsche. Gesammelte Werke. Vol XIV. p. 154. cf p. 145.
47. Nietzsche. Will to Power. No 819.
48. Ibid.. No. 799.
49. N. 1.146-149 (124-127).
50. N, 1,151 (128).
51. N. 1.152-153 (130).
52. N, 1.153-154 (130).
53. N. 1.154-155 (131).
54. N. 1.155 (131-132).
55. Nietzsche, Will to Power. No. 844.
56. N, 1.158 (134).
57. Nietzsche. Will to Power. No. 845.
58. N. 1.160 (136).
59. N. 1,161-162 (136-137).
60. N.I. 162-166(138-141).
61. Nietzsche. Gesammelte Werke. Vol. XIV. p. 368.
62. N. 1.166-169 (142-144).
63. N.I. 169-176(144-149).
64. N, 1.176 (149-150).
65. N. I. 231-242 (200-210).
66. Cf. N. 1.243-254 (211-220).
67. H.-G. Gadamer. op. cit.. pp. 55-58.
68. Ibid.. pp. 55-58
69. Ibid.. pp. 58-63. cf. R. Makkreel. op. cit.. p. 8.147. 356-364. 387-388. and passim; fc
 219
Dilthey's conception of aesthetics see also Frithjof Rodi. Morphologie und Hermeneutik. Zur
Methode von Diltheys Ästhetik (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. 1969), pp. SO-US. and passim.
70. H.-G. Gadamer, op. cit.. p. 63.
71. Ibid., pp. 62-63.
72. Ibid.. pp. 72-73.
73. Ibid., pp. 78-80; cf. 73-78.
74. Ibid.. pp. 80-90.
75. HW. 7-68 (17-87). a . H.-G. Gadamer. "Zur Einführung", in Martin Heidegger. Der
Ursprung des Kunstwerkes (Stuttgart: Reclam. 1970). pp. 102-125. pp. 107-111; F.-W. von Herr-
mann. Heideggers Philosophie der Kunst (Frankfurt: Klostermann. 1980).
76. HW. 29-46(39-57); cf. H.-G. Gadamer. loc. eil., pp. 115-118.
77. HW, 46-56 (57-68); H.-G. Gadamer. loc. eil., pp. 119-122.
78. HW. 302-303 (19); H.-G. Gadamer. loc. cit. pp. 122-125. a . HW. 56-65 (68-78):
Richardson, op cit.. pp. 403-411.

(Part II, Chapter I)

1. H.-G. Gadamer. "Zur Einführung", in Martin Heidegger. Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes
(Stuttgart: Reclam. 1970). pp. 102-125. p. 102.
2. Ibid., pp. 102-103.
* 3. Ibid.. pp. 103-105.
4. SZ. 891-4. 7.
5. SZ. « 4 and 9.
6. SZ. p. I (19).
7. SZ. p. 7 (27).
8. SZ. pp. 27-39(49-63).
9.SZ.869.
10. SZ. «829.65.68.
11. SZ. 8838.65.68.
12. SZ, 8846-53.
13. SZ. 8854-60.
14. SZ. 8831-32.
15. SZ. 829.
16. SZ. 8834. 68.
17. SZ. 864.
18. SZ. 859.
19. SZ. 8861-63.
20. SZ, 8864.65.68.
21. Cf. William J. Richardson. "Heidegger's Way Through Phenomenology to the Thinking of
Being", in Heidegger. The Man and the Thinker, ed. by Thomas Sheehan (Chicago: Precedent
Publishing. Inc.. 1981). pp. 79-93. Cf. also my book On the Truth of Being. Reflections on
Heidegger's Later Philosophy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1984). ch. I—III.
22. HW. 344 (PLT. xxiii-xxiv).
23. H.-G. Gadamer. loc. cit.. pp. 107-108.
24. Ibid.. p. 108.
25. SZ. 88.14 and 24.
26. WG. 23-37 (47-85).
27. WG. 37 (85).
220

28. WG. 37-39 (84-89)

29 WG39(89).
30. WG 43-51 (101-121). cf. 38-42 (87-99)
31. H -G Gadamer. loc. tit., pp. 107-110
32. HW. 66-68 (79-81).
33 HW. 344 (xxiii-xxiv)
34 Martin Heidegger. Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins Dichtung (Frankfurt: Klostermann. 1963),
pp 31-46(270-291).
35. Cf particularly US, 11-33 (PLT. 189-210). 159-216 (57-108). 37-82 (159-198), and 219-238
(139-156).
36. Cf. Poetry, Language, and Thought, pp xxiii-xxiv
37 HW. 344. In the 1970 Reclam edition Heidegger adds that the Addendum was written in
1956 (Cf PLT. p xxiv).
38. HW. 66-67 (79-80)
39 HW.66(79) Cf C O Schräg."TheTransvaluationofAestheticsandtheWorkofArf'.in
The Southwestern Journal of Philosophy. 4(1973). pp 109-124
40. Hegel. Werke. X, 1. pp. 134-135.16
41 HW. 66-«7 (79-80)
42. HW. 67-68 (80-81).
43. HW. 67-68 (81).
44. Martin Heidegger. Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes (Reclam edition), p. 73 (PLT, 86); Otto
Pöggeler. Der Denkweg Martin Heideggers (Pfullingen: Neske. 1963), p 207
45 Otto Pöggeler. Philosophie und Politik bei Heidegger (Freiburg: Alber. 1972), pp. 122-123.
The book by Schwan referred to is: Politische Philosophie im Denken Martin Heideggers (Cologne:
Westdeutscher Verlag. 1965).
46. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann. Heideggers Philosophie der Kunst. Eine systematische
Interpretation der Holzwege-Abhandlung "Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes" (Frankfurt: Kloster-
mann. 1980). pp. xvii-xxiii)
47. Walter Biemel, Martin Heidegger An Illustrated Study (New York: Harcourt. Brace,
Jovanovich, 1976). pp 92-148.
48 von Herrmann. op. tit., p xviii.
49 Ibid., p.xxiii.
50 Ibid
51 Ibid., pp xxi-xxii
52. Ibid . p. xxii
53. JacquesTaminiaux, "Le depassement heideggenen de l'estheuque et l'hentage de Hegel",
in Recoupemenis (Bruxelles. Ousia. 1982). 175-208: cf. "Entre I'attitude esthetique et la mort de
Part". Ibid.. pp 150-174
54. HW. 66 (79); Der Ursprung. 73 (86). Taminiaux. "Le depassement", p. 175.
55 Taminiaux. loc. tit., pp 175-177; Heidegger. HW. 66-68 (79-81).
56. HW, 66 (79)
57. Hegel. Werke. Vol. X. 1.16. Hegel's Introduction to Aesthetics, p. II.
58 Taminiaux. loc. tit. pp. 176-177. Heidegger. HW, 66-67 (79-80).
59. Taminiaux. loc. tit., p 177; Heidegger. HW. 66 (79)
60 HW,67(80)
61. Taminiaux. loc tit. pp 177-178: Heidegger. HW. 67 (80)
62 Taminiaux. loc. tit. p 178: Heidegger. HW. 68 (81)
63 Taminiaux, loc cit . pp 178-179
64 Hegel. Werke. Vol. XVIII. 321
 221
65. Martin Heidegger, "Hegel und die Griechen", in W. 421-438.
66. Taminiaux, toe. dt., pp. 180-181.
67. Ibid., p. 181.
68. Ibid., pp. 181-182.
69. G.W.F. Hegel. The Phenomenology of Mind, transl. by J.B. Baillie (New York: Human-
ities Press. Inc.. 1977). pp. 753-754; Heidegger. HW. 30 (41); cf. Taminiaux. loc. cit., pp. 199-201.
70. TuK, 12 (294). 34-36 (315-317); Taminiaux. loc. cit., pp. 206-207. Cf. "Nur noch ein Gott
kann uns Retten". Spiegel-Gespräch mit Martin Heidegger am 23. September 1966. in Der Spiegel,
No. 23,1976. pp. 193-219. p. 219; "Only A God Can Save Us: Der Spiegel's Interview with Martin
Heidegger", transl. by M.P. Alter and J.D. Caputo. in Philosophy Today, 20 (1976), pp. 267-284.
p. 283-284; "Die Hericunft der Kunst und die Bestimmung des Denkens", in Distanz und Nähe, pp.
11-22.
71. N. 1.126-135 (107-114).
72. Taminiaux. loc. cit., pp. 207-208; cf. "Entre l'attitude esth£tique et la mort de l'art". in
Recoupement, pp. 150-174.
73. HW. 7-8 (17-18); FvH. 1-5: WBH. 93.
v
74. HW, 64 (77-78).
75. HW, 7-8 (17-18).
76. FvH. pp. 36-37.41,67.93.
77. GP. §5.
78. SZ, 15 (36). For § 16. b-d see also Heidegger and Science, i 6 (forthcoming).
A 79. SZ. 16 (37).
80. SZ. 17-19 (38-40).
81. SZ, 19-20 (41-42); 372-411 (424-464).
82. SZ. 20-23 (42-45).
83. KPM. 185 (211): WRH. 90-93
84.GP,§5.
85. SZ, 153 (194-195).
86.GP.§5.
87. SZ. 15-16 (36-38).
88. SZ. 27 (49-50).
89. SZ. 28-29 (51-52).
90. SZ. 29-31 (53-55).
91. SZ. 31 (54-55).
92. SZ. 28 (50), 32n (489. n. iv); SD. 87; WRH. x-xii.
93. Edmund Husserl. Cartesian Meditations, transl. by Dorion Cairns (The Hague: Nijhoff.
1960). p 12.
94. SZ. 212-230 (256-273).
95. SZ. 32 (55-56).
96. SZ. 32-33 (56-57).
97 SZ. 33-34 (57-58).
98. Hans Albert. Traktat über kritische Vernunft (Tubingen: Mohr. 1968). p. 145; Carl
Friedrich Gethmann. Verstehen und Auslegung. Das Methodenproblem in der Philosophie Martin
Heideggers (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag Herbert Grundmann. 1974). p. 93.
99. SZ. 59-62 (86-90)
100. SZ. 200-212 (244-256).
101. SZ. 212-230 (256-273).
102 Aristotle. Peri Hermeneias, cc. 1-6: Metaphysica. Z; Ethic. Nicom.. Z.
103. C F Gethmann. op. cit.. pp. 113-114; cf. pp. 107-114
222

104. SZ. 34-35 (58-59).

105. SZ, 35 (59); 230 (272-273).
106. SZ. 28 (50)
107. SZ, 34 (57-58).
108. KPM, 46-47 (47-49); Gethmann, op. cit.. pp. 93-107.
109. SZ. 37 (61-62).
110. Ibid.
Ill SZ, 37-38 (62-63).
112.HW,8(18).Cf.FvH.5-7.
113. Hegel's Introduction to Aesthetics, pp. 24-25.
114. H.-G. Gadamer, Truth and Method, p. 235.
115. SZ, 134-138 (172-179).
116. SZ. 142-147 (182-188).
117. SZ, 148-149 (188-189).
118. SZ. 148-150 (189-190).
119. SZ, 150 (190-191); cf. SZ, 232 (275).
120. SZ, 150-151 (191-193).
121. SZ. 232 (275).
122. Cf. H.-G. Gadamer, "Vom Zirkel des Verstehens", in Martin Heidegger zum siebzigsten
Geburtstag (Pfullingen: Neske. 1959), pp. 24-34; Erasmus Schdfer, "Heidegger's Language: Meta-
logical Forms of Thought and Grammatical Specialties", in Joseph J. Kockelmans, On Heidegger
and Language (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1972), pp. 281-301, pp. 281-287.
123. SZ. 7-8 (27).
124. SZ. 8 (27-28).
125 SZ, 150-151 (190-192).
126. SZ. 151 (192-193); 232 (275).
127. SZ. 314-316 (362-364).
128. Hegel's Introduction to Aesthetics, p 24.
129. Taminiaux. Loc. cit., pp. 185-186.
130. Hegel. Phenomenology of Mind, p. 422.
131. Taminiaux, loc. cit., pp. 187-188.
132 Ibid., pp. 191-192.

(Part II, Chapter II)

l.FvH. l7;cf.HW,57(69).
2 FvH. 14-19.
3 HW. 8-10 (19-20).
4. HW, 10-11 (20-22)
5. FvH. 21-23.
6. HW. 12 (22)
7 Cf. An Introduction to Metaphysics, part III, EM, 73-149 (79-164); cf. also all the essays
contained in Martin Heidegger. Early Creek Thinking, transl by David Farrell Krell and Frank A
Capuzzi (New York: Harper and Row. 1975)
8 Cf. Johannes Lohmann. "M Heidegger's 'Ontological Difference' and Language", in On
Heideggerand Language, ed by Joseph J. Kockelmans (Evanston: Northwestern University Press,
1972), pp 303-363 Cf also Joseph J. Kockelmans, "Ontological Difference, Hermeneutics, and
Language", in On Heidegger and Language, pp. 195-234. WRH, 3-15; A. Dondeyne, "La diffi
 223

rence ontologique chez M. Heidegger", in Revue Philosophique de Louvain. 56 (1958). 35-62;

Albeno Rosales. Transzendenz und Differenz. Ein Beitrag zum Problem der omologisehen Dif­
ferenz beim frühen Heidegger (The Hague: Nijhoff. 1970).
9. HW. 14 (24).
10. Cf. SZ. S 29 and passim: cf. WP. 35-42 (75-91).
11. HW. 12-14 (22-25).
12. SZ. S« 29 and 13: cf. FvH. 33-35.
13. HW. 15 (26).
14. GP. «88 and 9: cf. FvH. 43-15.
15. HW. 14-16(25-26).
16. HW. 16-17 (26-28): cf. FvH. 44-47.
17. SZ. 8« 15-18.
18. SZ. 65-66 (94-95).
19. SZ. 68-69 (97-98).
20. SZ. 69 (98).
v 21. SZ. 69-72 (99-102): for the preceding see also William J. Richardson. "Heidegger's Way
Through Phenomenology to the Thinking of Being", in Heidegger: The Man and the Thinker, ed. by
Thomas Shcehan (Chicago: Precedent Publishing Co.. 1981). pp. 79-93.
22. SZ. 72-73 (102-103).
23. SZ. 73-74 003-104).
24. SZ. 74-76 (104-107).
» 25. HW. 17-18(28).
26. HW. 18(28).
27. HW. 18(28-29).
28. HW. 18(29).
29. HW. 18-19(29-30).
30. HW. 19 (30). Cf. "Vom Wesen und Begriff der Phusis. Aristoteles. Physik B. I". in W.
237-299: "On the Being and Conception of Phusis in Aristotle's Physics B. 1". English translation
by Thomas S. Sheehan. in Man and World. 9 (1976). 219-270.
31 HW. 19-20 (30).
32. FvH. 57-58.
33 HW.20(3I)
34 HW. 20-22 (30-32). Cf. FvH. 57-64.
35 Cf GP.85;SZ.87
36 SZ. 145
37 SZ. 863.
38 HW.20:cf F\H. 60-62
39 FvH. 62-64
4(1 HW. 21-22(32)
41 F\H. 65-66
42 HW. 22 (32-33).
43 Martin Heidegger. Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs, ed. by Petra Jaeger
I Frankfurt: Klostermann. 1979). pp 63-99.
44 HW.22I33).
45 F\H. 68-71.
46 HW. 22-23 (33-34).
47. Meter Schapiro. "The Still Life as a Personal Object - A Note on Heidegger and van
Gogh", in The Reach oj Mind, ed by M.L. Simmel (New York: Springer. 1968). 203-209. p. 205.
48 Ibid.p 206
224

49. HW. 65 (78). Cf. Schapiro. loc. cit.. p. 206

50. Ibid.
51. Cf. Jan Hulsker. The Complete van Gogh (New York: Abrams. 1980). Nos. 1569. and 1364.
respectively. Cf. Jacques Derrida. La viriti en peinture (Paris: Flammarion. 1978). 291-436. pp.
375-379.418-421.
52. Derrida. op. cit.. p 325.
53 Ibid.pp 353-367.
54. Ibid.. pp. 367-375.
55 HW.24(35).
56. HW. 25 (36).
57. Cf. Derrida. loc. cit.. p. 327
58. HW. 17 (27).
59. HW. 20 (31). Cf. Derrida. loc. cit.. pp. 336-338.
60. Derrida. loc. cit.. pp. 338-343
61. HW. 23 (34).
62. FvH. 71-72.
63. SZ. §29.
64. FvH. 72-78.
65. Cf. Joseph J. Kockelmans. "Alcune Riflessioni Sulla Concezione Delia Terra In Heideg-
ger". in Humanitas. 4 (1978). 445-468.
66. FvH. 78-82.
67. HW. 23-24 (34-35).
68 FvH. 82-85.
69. SZ. 8835-38.68.
70. FvH. 85-90.
71. HW. 24-27 (35-38) Cf. WBH. 95-96. - To describe the relationship between work and
truth Heidegger sometimes uses the expression "(sich) ins Werk setzen", "to establish (itself) in the
work" The German expression is often incorrectly translated as "to set (itself) to work" Note that
"ins Werk setzen" is one of the synonyms of the verb schicken which is related to Schickung and
Geschick (to send, destiny, sending, mittence), other synonyms of schicken are einrichten and
ordnen, expressions which Heidegger also uses to express the relation between work and truth Cf.
HW. 49 (61). In the Addendum Heidegger states that "setzen" must be taken in the sense of the
Greek thesis (setting, placing) and not in the modern sense of positing. Cf UK. 71 (82-83). In view
of the fact that the verbs "setzen" and "to set" are etymologically closely related. I often use the
expression "to set (itself) into the work" for "(sich) ins Werk setzen" Note that both "setzen" and
"to set" mean to cause something to be in a place or position that is allotted to it. to put it in a place
that is adapted to receive it Heidegger says several times that the expression "(sich) ins Werk
setzen" is ambiguous: it seems to me that this ambiguity is best preserved in English if the
expression is translated as "setting (itself) into the work". Cf UK. 74 (86-87)
72. FvH. 91-100.
73 Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes (Reclam). 73-74 (86)
74. Hw. 27-28 (38-39).

(Part II, Chapter III)

1 HW. 29-30 (39-41) Cf. F. Schachermeyr. Die ältesten Kulturen Griechenlands (Stuttgart:
Kohlhammer. 1955); Emily T Vermeule. Greece in the Bronze Age (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press. 1964).
 225

2. HW.30(41).
3. G.W.F. Hegel, Aesthetics. Lectures on Fine Art, transl. by T.M. Knox, 2 vols. (Oxford:
Qarendon Press. 197S), Vol. I, pp. 7-8: cf. The Phenomenology of Mind, transl. by J.B. Baillie
(New York: Humanities Press. 1971). pp. 709-749 (passim).
4. G.W.F. Hegel. Aesthetics. Vol. I. pp. 7-8. Cf. The Phenomenology, pp. 750ff.. 789-808.
5. Cf. P.C. Sestieri. Paesium (Roma: Libreria dello Stato. 19SS).
6. HW, 31 (41-42).
7. FvH. 114-115.
8. HW. 31 (42).
9. HW, 32 (42-43).
10. HW. 32 (43).
11. FvH, 126-127.
12. HW, 32-33 (43-44).
13. cf. Der grosse Duden. 9 vols. (Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut, 1963). Vol. 7:
Etymologie, ed. by G. Drosdowski and P. Grebe. "Errichten".
v 14. HW, 33 (44).
15. For the relationship between weiten and walten and the meaning of these verbs see
Benecke. Müller, and Zarnche. Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch (Hildesheim: Olms. 1963). Vol.
III. p. 563. Cf. FvH. p. 140.
16. HW, 33-34 (44-45).
17. SZ. 63-92 (91-125); WG. 23-42 (47-99): cf. WBH. 97-98.
* 18. Cf. WRH, 161-162. Cf. Martin Heidegger. Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Logik im
Ausgang von Leibniz, ed by Klaus Held (Frankfurt: Klostermann. 1978). pp. 219-238.
19. WG. 23 (47).
20. WG. 23-24 (49-51).
21. WG. 24-26 (51-57).
22. WG. 26-27 (57-59).
23. WG. 27-36 (59-81).
24. WG. 36-37 (81-83)
25. WG. 37-40 (83-91).
26. Cf the lecture on "The Thing", in VA 163-185 (PLT. 165-185).
27. HW, 33 (44).
28. SZ. §§65. 68.69.
29. SZ, §§35-38, 41.65. Cf. FvH. 126-150. passim
30. HW. 34 (45) Cf FvH, 150-152: WBH. 97-98.
31. HW. 34-35 (45-46).
32 HW. 35-36 (46-47); cf. WBH. 98-99.
33. HW. 36 (47-48). Cf. FvH. 150-166.
34. Cf. On the Truth of Being, ch. IV; see also "Alcune Riflessioni Sulla Concezione della
Terra in Heidegger", in Humanitas. 4 (1979). 445-468.
35. VA. 163-185 (PLT. 165-186); VA. 145-162 (PLT. 145-161).
36. Cf. Immanuel Kant. Critique of Pure Reason, B 263. B 446 and 446n.; cf. the discussion of
the "cosmological ideas" in the "Transcendental Dialectic". Book II, ch. II.
37. EM 88-149 (98-164).
38. Cf. VA. 176-181 (PLT. 178-182). Cf. also. On the Truth of Being, ch. IV.
39. Cf. SZ. §§7 and 43; KPM. 185-222 (211-255).
40. Cf. my essay "Destructive Retrieve and Hermeneutic Phenomenology in Being and Time",
in Research in Phenomenology. 7 (1977), 106-137. pp. 106-120; for the preceding cf. also. FvH.
lSOff.; WBH, 98-99.
 41. HW. 36-37 (48).
42. Cf. FvH, 166-167.
43. HW, 37 (48).
44. HW, 37 (48-49).
45. HW. 38 (49-50); cf. FvH. 166-178; WBH. 99-101.
46. HW. 38 (50); cf. HW. 28 (39). FvH. 179-180.
47. HW. 38-43 (50-55); cf. FvH. 179-192; WBH. 101-105.
48. SZ, «44; WW. 6-23 (118-137).
49. WW. 8 (120). For what follows see On the Truth of Being, pp. 6-15.
50. WW. 8-9 (121-122).
51. WRH. 213. Cf. WBH. 77-79.
52. WW. 10-11 (123-124).
53. WW. 10-11 (123-124); WRH. 213-214; SZ. 28 (51).
54. WW. 10-12 (122-125); WRH. 213-215: WBH. 79-83.
55. WW. 12 (125); cf. WW. 12-13 (125-126): WRH. 215; WBH. 83-84.
56. WW. 12 (126).
57. WW, 14 (127).
58. WBH. 84.
59. WW. 14-15 (127-128).
60. WW. 14 (127).
61. WRH. 216-217
62. WW. 15 (128).
63. WW. 15-16(128-129).
64. WW. 16 (129).
65. WW 16(129).
66. WW, 17 (130)
67. WW. 17 (130). Cf. WRH. 218
68. SZ. «29; WW. 18 (130-131). Cf. WRH. 218-219.
69 WW. 18-19 (131-132) Cf. WRH. 219-220.
70. WW. 19-20 (132-134). Cf. WBH. 86. WRH. 220-222.
71. SZ.838.
72. WW. 20-21 (134-135); WBH. 88: WRH. 222-223.
73. WW. 21-22 (135-136): WRH. 224-225.
74. WW. 22-23 (136): WRH. 225.
75. WW. 23 (136-137).
76. WW. 23 (137): WRH. 225-227.
77. HW. 38-39 (50). Cf. WBH. lOlff.
78. HW. 39-40 (50-51). cf. also Martin Heidegger. Vom Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit.
Einleitung in die Philosophie ed. by Hartmut Tietjen (Frankfurt: Klostermann. 1982). pp. 66-109.
79. H. 40-41 (51-52).
80 HW.41(52)
81. HW. 41-42 (52-53).
82. HW. 42-43 (53-54).
83. WRH. 405-406.
84. HW. 43 (55). Cf. WRH. 406.
85. HW. 44 (55).
86. HW. 44 (55). For the preceding also see FvH. 179-207 (passim).
87. HW. 43-44 (55).
88. HW. 43-44 (55-56).
 227
89. HW. 44-45 (55-56). Cf. WBH. 106-107: FvH. 207-225.
90. HW. 45-46 (57).

(Part II, Chapter IV)

1. HW. 46-47 (57-58): cf. FvH. 227-231.

2. HW. 47-48 (58-59).
3. HW. 48 (59).
4. EM. 48 (59).
5. VA. 160 (159).
6. VA. 20-21 (13).
7. WRH. 271.
8. EM, 121-122 (133-134).
9. FvH, 231-234.
i 10. HW, 49 (60-61).
11. HW. 48-49 (60-61).
12. HW, 49 (61).
13. Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes (Reclam). 72-73 (PLT. 84-86).
14. Ibid.. 73 (86): cf. HW. 59 (72).
15. Cf. S15 above as well as FvH. 234-244.
* 16. Cf. FvH. 244-248.
17. Cf. WBH. 105-106; FvH. 248-254.
18. HW. 50-51 (62).
19. HW. 50-51 (62-63); cf. WBH. 107-108.
20. US. 24-25 (PLT. 202-203); 28 (205).
21. HW. 51-52 (63-64).
22. HW. 52 (64).
23. Der Ursprung (Reclam), 70-71 (PLT, 82-83).
24. Ibid.. 71 (83).
25.'VA. 49 (160-161).
26. HW, 55 (67); cf. HW. 51 (62).
27. Der Ursprung (Reclam), 71-72 (PLT. 83-85); cf. VA, 28 (28-29). 49 (160-161); cf. FvH.
254-270.
28. Cf. 113 above.
29. HW. 52-53 (64-65).
30. HW, 53-54 (65-66); cf. WBH. 109.
31. HW. 54 (66); cf. FvH. 271-283.
32. HW, 54 (66).
33. Cf. Dergrosse Duden, Vol. VII: Etymologie, under "wahren": see also G.F. W. Hegel. The
Phenomenology of Mind, p. 160; Paul Rkoeur. The Rule of Metaphor, p. 292.
34. FvH. 284-286.
35. SZ. 370 (422); cf. WRH. 48.
36. SZ. 175-180 (219-224).
37. Cf. FvH. Ibid.
38. HW. 54-55 (66-67).
39. SZ,§ 62, and passim
40. HW, 55 (67-68).
41. Cf. FvH, 299-302; see also FvH. 291-299.
228

42. HW. 55-56 (68).

43. WBH. 109-111
44. FvH. 303-306.
45. HW. 56-57 (68-69).
46. FvH. 306-310.
47. HW. 57-58 (70).
48. HW, 58 (70-71)
49. HW, 58 (71) Cf. FvH. 311-315.

(Part II, Chapter V)

1 HW, 59-71: cf WBH. 111-112

2. HW, 59 (72)
3 FvH. 315-317. cf. H. Birault. "Thinking and Poetizing in Heidegger", in On Heideggerand
Language, ed. by Joseph J Kockelmans(Evanston- Northwestern University Press, 1972). pp. 147-
168.
4. HW, 59 (72)
5 HW, 59(72).
6 HW. 59-60 (72-73): cf FvH. 314-320
7. HW, 59-60 (72); der Ursprung (Reclam). 73 (PLT. 86). cf. HB. 82-92 (215-223). and
passim.
8. FvH. 320-322.
9. HW. 60 (72-73)
10. HW, 60-61 (73-74).
11. SZ. 160-166 (203-210): cf. US. 159-216 (57-108). and passim
12 Cf On Heidegger and Language, pp xii-xiii. 147-148n; WRH. 67,495-501. and passim.
13. HW. 61 (73-74)
14. HW. 61-62 (74-75). For the preceding reflections see also WBH. 111-113: FvH. 322-336;
US. 24-33 (PLT. 202-210). 204-216 (OL. 97-108). and passim.
15. FvH. 336
16. HW. 62 (75)
17. HW. 62 (75).
18. HW. 62-63 (75-76).
19. HW. 63 (76).
20. HW. 63 (76).
21. HW. 64 (77), cf. FvH. 336-346
22. HW. 64 (77); FvH. 346-358.
23. HW, 63-64 (76-77); WBH. 111-113
24. HW, 64-65 (77-78) Cf S16 for the meaning of Ur-Sprung.
25. Cf. US. 159-216 (57-108). and passim.
26. SZ. 372-392 (424-444); WW. 24-27 (137-141)
27. FvH. 352-358.
28. EM. 126-137 (138-150). and passim; cf WRH. 291-2%
29. EM. 88-149 (98-164): cf WRH. 295-2%. 291-295.297.
30. EM. 131 (143-144). 11 (11-12)
31. EM. 141 (154-155)
32 EM. 101(111-112).
33. Ibid
 229
34. EM. 131 (143-144).
35. EM. 20 (21-22).
36. EM. 110(121-122).
37. WRH. 294-296: cf. 259-296, passim.
38. HW. 64 (77).
39. HW. 64 (77), 61 (74).
40. HW, 64 (77).
41. Ibid.
42. HD, 31-45; cf. W. Biemel. "Poetry and Language in Heidegger", in On Heidegger ant
Language, pp. 78-82; for what follows also see Beda Allemann. Hölderlin und Heidegger (Zürich
Atlantis. 1954). pp. 95-119.
43. HD. 38.
44. HD, 39.
45 HD. 39-40.
46. HD. 43: cf. Allemann. op. eil., pp. 128-135.179-185.
l 47. HD. 44.
48. Martin Heidegger, "Die ewige Wiederkehr des Gleichen", in N, 1,255-472.
49. N. 1.329.
50. HD. 9-30.75-143.
51. WRH. 469-472.
52. HD. 66, and passim
„ 53. HD. 82.86,138; cf. 14,23.99.109.
54. HD, 84.116.
55. HD. 101.
56. HD. 97.
57. WM. 49 (358).
58. WM. 50 (359); cf. Allemann. op. eil., pp. 119-123; A. Kelkel. La legende de l'ttre, pp. 594-
607.
59. WM. 48-50 (356-360).
60. HW, 248-295, 296-343 (13-58).
61. WRH, 522; Kelkel, op. cit., pp. 501-503.544-545.
62. HW. 303 (19).
63. Emil Staiger, Zu einem Vers von Möricke. Ein Briefwechsel mit Martin Heidegger (Zürich
Artemis, 1951), p. 8.
64. HW, 321-322 (35-37).
65. HB. 53-119 (193-242).
66. HB. 53 (193).
67. HB. 53-56 (193-195).
68. Compare HB. 53 (193) and 102 (230) with WM, 51 (360-361).
69. WRH. 545.
60. ED. 21,19; cf. 13,17; H. Birault, "Thinking and Poetizing in Heidegger", in On Heideggei
and Language, pp. 166-168; Kelkel, op. eil., pp. 497-500.
71. WRH. 558.
72. US. 159-216 (57-108); 11-33 (PLT. 189-210).
73. WRH. 577-578; W. Biemel, "Poetry and Language in Heidegger", in On Heidegger ana
Language, pp. 82-93; W. Marx. "Poetic Dwelling and the Role of the Poet", Ibid., pp. 239-243.
74. Ibid.
75. US. 28-29 (PLT. 205-206).
76. US, 30 (PLT. 207); cf. Joseph J. Kockelmans, "Ontological Difference. Hermeneutics,
230

and Language", in On Heidegger and Language, pp. 211-217.

77. US. 32 (PLT. 209); cf. WRH. 580-581.
78 US. 16 (PLT. 193-194); cf. H. Birault. loc. cil.. pp. 148-160.
79. US. 159-196 (57-90).
80. US. 195 (89-90).
81. US. 196 (90).
82. US. 196 (90).
83. US. 208 (101).
84. US. 214 (106-107).
85. Martin Heidegger. Hebel-Der Hausfreund (Pfullingen: Neske. 1958). pp. 33-35.
86. HB. 68-69 (205-206); 83-85 (216-218).
87. HW. 64-65 (77-78).
88. HW. 65 (78).
89. HW. 66 (79-80).
90. HW. 67 (80-81).
91. VA. 42-44 (33-35).
92. Cf. references in notes 94 and 95.
93. VA. 44 (35).
94. "Nur noch ein Gott kann uns retten". Spiegel-Gespräch mit Martin Heidegger am 23.
September 1966. in Der Spiegel. 23 (1976). 193-219. pp. 208-209; English transi. by M. Alter and
John Caputo in Philosophy Today. 20 (1976). 267-284. p. 277.
95. Martin Heidegger. "Die Herkunft der Kunst und die Bestimmung des Denkens", in
Distanz und Nähe. pp. 11-22. pp. 11-12.
96. Pindar. V. 50-51.
97. Heraclitus. Fragment B 64.
98. Aeschylus. Eumenides. 827.
99. Heidegger, loc. eil., pp. 11-15. >
100. Nietzsche. Will to Power. No. 466.
101. Heidegger, loc. eil., pp. 15-16.
102. Norbert Wiener. The Human Use of Human Beings (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1954).
103. Heidegger, loc. eil., pp. 16-18.
104. Ibid., p. 18.
105. Ibid., pp. 18-19.
106 Ibid., p. 19.
107. Ibid.. pp. 19-20.
108. Ibid.. p. 20.
109. Heraclitus. Fragment B 123.
HO. Heidegger, loc. eil., p. 21.
Ill Ibid.. p. 21.
112. Ibid., p. 22.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

This bibliography is limited to the publications cited in this book. For an extensive bibliography of
works by Heidegger and of publications on his thought I refer the reader to the one prepared by
Hans-Martin Sass (Martin Heidegger: Bibliography. Bowling Green: Philosophy Documentation
Center, 1982.)
This Bibliography is divided into four sections:

I. Works by Heidegger in chronological order with English translations.

II. Books and articles on Heidegger's philosophy of art.
III. Collections of essays on Heidegger's thought.
IV. Publications relevant to the history of aesthetics.

I. Works by Heidegger in Chronological Order with English Translations

SZ Sein und Zeit (1927) (Tubingen: Niemeyer. 1953).
Being and Tune, transl. by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (London: SCM
Press. 1962).
KPM Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (1927) (Frankfurt: Kkwtermann, 1951).
Kant and Üu Problem of Metaphysics, transl. by James S. Churchill (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press. 1962).
WG Vom Wesen des Grundes (1928) (Frankfurt:'Klostermann. 1955).
The Essence of Reasons, transl. by Terrence Malick (Evanston: Northwestern Univer-
sity Press. 1966).
WM Was ist Metaphysik? (1929) (Frankfurt: Klostermann. 1955).
(Postscript added to 4th edition in 1943; Introduction added to 5th edition in 1949).
What is Metaphysics? transl. by David Farrell Krell in Martin Heidegger, Basic Writ­
ings, ed. by David Farrell Krell (New York: Harper & Row. 1977), 95-116.
"Postscript" to What is Metaphysics?, transl. by R.F.C. Hull and Alan Crick in
Werner Brock. Existence and Being (Chicago: Regnery. 1949). 349-361.
"Introduction" to What is Metaphysics?, transl. by W. Kaufmann, in W. Kaufmann.
ed.. Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre (New York: New American Library,
1975). 265-279.
WW Vom Wesen der Wahrheit (1930.1943) (Frankfurt: Klostermann. 1961).
On the Essence of Truth, transl. by John Sallis. in Basic Writings, 117-141.
EM Einführung in die Metaphysik (I93S) (Tubingen: Niemeyer. 1953)
An Introduction to Metaphysics, transi by Ralph Manheim (New Haven. Yale Univer-
sity Press. 1959).
HD Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins Dichtung (1936, 1944) (Frankfurt. Klostermann. 1953)
Translation of the second essay (pp. 31-45 of the German edition) by Douglas Scott.
"Hölderlin and the Essence of Poetry", in Werner Brock, ed.. Existence and Being,
270-291.
HW Holzwege (1936-1946) (Frankfurt. Klostermann. 1950)
The book contains six essays whose English translations appeared in different collec-
tions:
"Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes", Holzwege. 1-68.
"The Origin of the Work of Art", in Martin Heidegger. Poetry, Language, and
Thought, transi. by Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper & Row. 1971). 17-87.
"Die Zeit des Weltbildes". Holzwege. 69-104.
"The Age of the World Picture", in Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning
Technology and Other Essays, transi. by William Lovitt (New York: Harper & Row,
1977), 115-154.
"Hegels Begriff der Erfahrung". Holzwege, 105-192
Hegel's Concept of Experience, transi. by J. Glenn Gray (New York: Harper & Row.
1970)
"Nietzsches Wort "Gott ist tot"'. Holzwege, 193-247.
"The Word of Nietzsche: 'God Is Dead'". in Martin Heidegger. The Question Con-
cerning Technology and Other Essays, transi. by William Lovitt, 53-112.
"Wozu Dichter?" Holzwege, 248-295.
"What Are Poets For?" in Martin Heidegger. Poetry, Language, and Thought, transi.
by Albert Hofstadter. 91-142.
"Der Spruch des Anaximander". Holzwege. 296-343.
"The Anaximander Fragment", in Martin Heidegger, Early Creek Thinking, transi. by
David Farrell Krell and Frank A Capuzzi (New York: Harper & Row, 1975). 13-58.
N Nietzsche (1936-1946). 2 vols. (Pfullingen: Neske. 1961).
Nietzsche, Vol. I: The Will to Power as Art, transi. by David Farrell Krell (New York:
Harper & Row. 1979).
Nietzsche, Vol. I V : Nihilism, transi by Frank A . Capuzzi and David Farrell Krell (New
York- Harper & Row, 1982)
VA Vorträge und Aufsätze (1943-1954) (Pfullingen: Neske, 1961).
The collection contains eleven essays which were translated by different people for
different occasions:
"Die Frage nach der Technik". V A . 13-44.
"The Question Concerning Technology", in Martin Heidegger, The Question Con-
cerning Technology and Other Essays, transi. by William Lovitt, 3-35.
"Wissenschaft und Besinning". V A . 45-70
"Science and Reflection", in Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology
and Other Essays, transi. by William Lovitt. 155-182.
"Überwindung der Metaphysik". V A . 71-99.
"Overcoming Metaphysics", in Martin Heidegger, The End of Philosophy, transi. by
Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper & Row, 1973). 84-110.
"Wer ist Nietzsches Zarathustra r ", V A . 101-126.
"Who Is Nietzsche's Zarathustra?". transi by Bernd Magnus in Review of Metaphysics,
20(1967)411-431.
 233

"Was heisst Denken?". VA. 129-143

This lecture is practically speaking identical with the first two lectures of the lecture
series with the same title; cf. below.
"Bauen. Wohnen. Denken". VA. 145-162.
"Building Dwelling Thinking", transl. by Albert Hofstadter. in Basic Writings. 323-
339.
"Das Ding". VA. 163-185.
"The Thing", in Martin Heidegger. Poetry. Language, and Thought, transl. by Albert
Hofstadter, 165-186.
" . . . dichterisch wohnet der Mensch ...". VA, 187-204.
"... Poetically Man Dwells...". in Martin Heidegger. Poetry, Language, and Thought.
transl. by Albert Hofstadter, 213-229.
"Logos (Heraklit. Fragment 50)". VA. 207-229.
"Logos (Heraclitus, Fragment B 50)", in Martin Heidegger, Early Creek Thinking,
transl. by David Farrell Krell. 59-78.
"Moira (Parmenides VIII, 34-41)". VA. 231-256.
"Moira (Parmenides VIII. 34-41)". in Martin Heidegger. Early Creek Thinking, transl.
by Frank A. Capuzzi, 79-101.
"Aietheia (Heraklit. Fragment 16)". VA. 257-282.
"Alitheia (Heraclitus. Fragment B 16)". in Martin Heidegger. Early Creek Thinking.
transl. by Frank A. Capuzzi. 102-123.
HB Piatons Lehre von der Wahrheit (1942). Mit einem Briefüber den "Humanismus" (1946)
(Bern: Francke. 1947).
"Plato's Doctrine of Truth", transl. by John Barlow, in Philosophy in the Twentieth
Century II. W. Barrett el. at., eds. (New York: Random House. 1962). 251-270.
"Letter on Humanism", transl. by Frank A. Capuzzi and J. Glenn Gray, in Basic
Writings. 193-242.
WD Was heisst Denken? (1951-1952) (Tübingen: Niemeyer. 1954).
What is Called Thinking? transl. by Fred D. Wieck and J. Glenn Gray (New York:
Harper & Row. 1968).
FW Der Feldweg (1953) (Frankfurt: Klostermann. 1953).
"The Pathway", transl. by Thomas Sheehan. in Thomas Sheehan, ed., Heidegger: The
Man and the Thinker (Chicago: Precedent Publishing. Inc.. 1981). 69-71.
ED Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens (1954) (Pfullingen: Neske. 1954).
"The Thinker as Poet", in Martin Heidegger. Poetry. Language, and Thought, transl.
by Albert Hofstadter. 3-14.
WP Was ist das - die Philosophie? (1955) (Pfullingen: Neske. 1956).
What is Philosophy?, transl. by Jean T. Wilde and William Kluback (New Haven:
College & University Press, 1968).
ID Identität und Differenz (1957) (Pfullingen: Neske. 1957).
Identity and Difference, transl. by Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper & Row. 1969).
HH Hebel - Der Hausfreund (1957) (Pfullingen: Neske. 1958).
Hebel - Friend of the House, transl. by Bruce V. Foltz and Michael Heim in Contempor­
ary German Philosophy. 3 (1983). 89-101.
US Unterwegs zur Sprache (1950-1959) (Pfullingen: Neske. 1957).
On the Way to Language, transl. by Peter D. Hertz and Joan Stambaugh (New York-
Harper & Row. 1966).
The first essay of US. namely "Die Sprache", was translated by Albert Hofstadter and
appeared in Poetry, Language, and Thought, 189-210.
234

P "Vom Wesen und Begriff der Phusis. Aristoteles, Physik B. 1" (1958), in Wegmarken
(Frankfurt: Klostermann. 1978), 237-299.
"On the being and Conception of Phusis in Aristotle's Physics B, 1", transl. by Thomas
Sheehan. Man and World, 9 (1976). 219-270.
G Gelassenheil (1959). (Pfullingen: Neske. 1959).
Discourseon Thinking, transl. by John M. Anderson and E. Hans Freund (New York:
Harper & Row. 1966).
UK Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes (1960) (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1970).
TuK Die Technik und die Kehre (1962) (Pfullingen: Neske, 1962).
"The Question Concerning Technology", transl. by William Lovitt, in The Question
Concerning Technology and Other Essays, 3-35.
"The Turning", transl. by William Lovitt, in The Question, 36-49.
W Wegmarken (1967) (Frankfurt: Klostermann. 1978).
GP Die Grundprobleme der Phdnomenologie (1927), ed. by F.-W. von Herrmann (Frank-
furt: Klostermann, 1975).
The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, transl. by Albert Hofstadter (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1982).
LFW Logik. Die Frage nach der Wahrheit (1925-1926), ed. by Walter Biemel (Frankfurt:
Klostermann. 1976).
ML Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Logik im Ausgang von Leibniz, ed. by Klaus Held
(Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1978).
PGZ Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs (1925). ed. by Petra Jaeger (Frankfurt:
Klostermann, 1979).
HGR Hölderlins Hymnen 'Germanien' und Der Rhein' (1934-1935), ed. by Suzanne Ziegler
(Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1980).
HPH Hegels Phanomenologie des Geistes (1930-1931), ed. by Ingtraud Görland (Frankfurt:
Klostermann. 1980).
GR Grundbegriffe (1941), ed. by Petra Jaeger (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1981).
WmF Vom Wesen der menschlichen Freiheil Einleitung in die Philosophie (1930), ed. by
Hartmut Tietjen (Frankfurt: Klostennann, 1982).
HK "Die Herkunft der Kunst und die Bestimmung des Denkens", in Distanz und Nähe.
Reflexionen und Analysen zur Kunst der Gegenwart (Festschrift für Walter Biemel), ed.
by P. Jaeger and R. Liithe (Wurzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. 1983), pp. 11-22.

II. Books and Articles on Heidegger's Philosophy of Art

Adamczewski, Zygmunt, "On the Way to Being", in Heidegger and the Path of Thinking, ed. by J.
Sallis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1970), 12-36.
Albert, Hans, Traktat überkritische Vernunft (Tübingen: Mohr. 1968).
Alderman, Harold G., "The Work of Art and Other Things", in Martin Heidegger: In Europe and
America, ed. by E.G. Ballard and Ch.E. Scott (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1973), 157-169.
Alleman. Beda. Hölderlin und Heidegger (Zurich: Atlantis, 1954).
Alleman. Beda, "Martin Heidegger und die Politick", in Merkur, 21 (1967), 962-976.
Bartky, Sandra Lee, "Heidegger's Philosophy of Art", in Heidegger: The Man and the Thinker, ed.
by Thomas Sheehan (Chicago: Precedent Publishing. Inc., 1981), 257-274.
Beaufret. Jean, Dialogue avec Heidegger, 3 vols. (Paris: Minuit, 1973-1974).
Beaufret, Jean, "Heidegger et le probleme de la vent«", in Fontaine, 63 (1947), 758-785.
Benecke, Georg; Möller, Wilhelm; and Zamcke, Friedrich, Miiielhochdeuisches Wörterbuch
 235

(Hildesheim: Olms, 1963).

Bicmel. Walter. Martin Heidegger: An Illustrated Study (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich,
1976).
Biemel, Walter, "Poetry and Language", in On Heidegger and Language, ed. by Joseph J.
Kockelmans (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1972), 65-105.
Birault. Henri, "Existence et vent« d'apres Heidegger", in Revue de Mttaphysique et de Morale, 56
(1950). 35-87.
Birault. Henri. Heidegger et Fexptrience de la pensee (Paris: Gallimard, 1978).
Birault. Henri. "Thinking and Poetizing in Heidegger", in On Heidegger and Language. 147-168.
Bretschneider, W., Sein und Wahrheit. Ober die Zusammengehörigkeit von Sein und Wahrheil im
Denken Martin Heideggers (Meisenheim: Hain. 1965).
Buddeberg, Else, Denken und Dichten des Seins (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1956).
Buddeberg. Else, Heidegger und die Dichtung (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1953).
Dergrosse Duden, 9 vols. (Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut, 1963).
Dbndeyne, A.. "La difference ontologique chez M. Heidegger", in Revue Philosophique de
Louvain, 56 (1958). 35-62.251-293.
Oadamer. H.-G., "Vom Zirkel des Verstehens". in Martin Heidegger zum siebzigsten Geburtstag
(Pfullingen: Neske. 1959). pp. 24-34.
Gadamer, H.-G., "Zur Einfahrung in Martin Heideggers Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes", in
Martin Heidegger, Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1970), pp. 102-125.
Gethmann, Carl Friedrich, Verstehen und Auslegung. Das Methodenproblem in der Philosophie
Martin Heideggers (Bonn: Bouvier, 1974).
*Gethmann, Carl Friedrich. "Zu Heideggers Wahrheitsfrage", in Kantstudien. 65 (1974), 186-200.
Herrmann, Friedrich-Wilhelm von, Heideggers Philosophie der Kunst: Eine systematische Inter­
pretation der Holzwege-Abhandlung 'Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes' (Frankfurt: Kloster-
mann, 1980).
Hirsch. E.F.. "Heidegger und die Dichtung", in Journal of the History of Philosophy, 6 (1968). 271-
283.
Husserl, Edmund. Cartesian Meditations, trans!, by Dorion Cairns (The Hague: Nijhoff. 1960).
Usseling, Sam, "Het zijn en de zijnden. Een studie over de omologische Differenz bij Martin
Heidegger", in Tijdschrift voorfllosofle, 28 (1966). 3-51.
Jaeger, Petra and LOthe, Rudolf, eds.. Distanz und Nähe. Reflexionen und Analysen zur Kunst der
Gegenwart (Stuttgart: Königshausen & Neumann. 1983).
Kelkel, Arion L., La legende de Vitre. Langage etpdesie chez Heidegger (Paris: Vrin, 1980).
Kisiel. Theodore J„ "The Language of the Event: The Event of Language", in Heideggerand the
Path of Thinking, pp. 85-104.
Kockelmans, Joseph J., "Alcune Riflessioni sulla Concezkme della Terra in Heidegger", in
Humanitas. 33 (1978). pp. 445-468.
Kockelmans. Joseph J., "Destructive Retrieve and Hermeneutic Phenomenology in 'Being and
Time'", in Research in Phenomenology. 7 (1977) 106-137.
Kockelmans. Joseph J., "On Art and Language", in Philosophie et Langage. ed. by Jacques
Sojcher and Gilbert Hottois (Bruxelles: Editions de l'Universite de Bauteiles, 1982), pp. 125-
146.
Kockelmans, Joseph J., On the Truth of Being. Reflections on Heidegger's Later Philosophy
(Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1984).
Kockelmans, Joseph J., "Ontological Difference, Hermeneutics, and Language", in On Heidegger
and Language, pp. 195-234.
Lohmann, Johannes, "M. Heidegger's 'Ontological Difference' and Language", in On Heidegger
and Language, 303-363.
236
Marx, Werner. Heidegger and the Tradition, transl by Theodore J. Kisiel and Murray Greene
(Evanston: Northwestern University Press. 1971).
Marx, Werner, "Die Sterblichen", in Nachdenken über Heidegger. 160-175.
Marx, Werner, "The World in Another Beginning: Poetic Dwelling and the Role of the Poet", in
On Heidegger and Language. 235-259.
Mehta, J.L., The Philosophy of Martin Heidegger (New York: Harper & Row, 1971).
Poggeler. Otto. Der Denkweg Martin Heideggers (Pfullingen: Neske. 1963).
Poggeler, Otto, "Heidegger's Topologie des Seins", in Man and World. 2 (1969), 331-357 (English
in On Heidegger and Language. 107-135).
Poggeler. Otto. "Metaphysics and the Topology of Being in Heidegger", in Heidegger: The Man
and the Thinker. 173-185.
Pöggeler. Otto, Philosophie und Politik bei Heidegger (Freiburg. Alber, 1972).
Rasmussen. David, Poetry and Truth (The Hague: Mouton. 1974).
Richardson, William J.. Heidegger Through Phenomenology to Thought (The Hague: Nijhoff,
1963).
Richardson, William J., "Heidegger's Way Through Phenomenology to the Thinking of Being", in
Heidegger The Man and the Thinker, pp 79-93
Rosales, Alberto. Transzendenz und Differenz. Ein Beitrag zum Problem der ontologischen
Differenz beim frühen Heidegger (The Hague- Nijhoff. 1970)
Sallis, John. "Into the Clearing", in Heidegger: The Man and the Thinker, 107-115.
Sallis, John. "Language and Reversal", in Southern Journal of Philosophy, 8 (1970), 381-397
Schofer, Erasmus. "Heidegger's Language- Metalogical Forms of Thought and Grammatical
Specialties", in Joseph J Kockelmans. ed , On Heidegger and Language, pp. 281-301.
Schräg. Calvin O.. "The Transvaluation of Aesthetics and the Work of Art", in The Southwestern
Journal of Philosophy 4 (1973), 109-124.
Schwan. Alexander, Politische Philosophie im Denken Heideggers (Cologne: Westdeutscher Ver-
lag, 1965).
Staiger. Emil, Zu einem Vers von Möricke Ein Briefwechsel mit Martin Heidegger (Zurich:
Artemis. 1951).
Taminiaux. Jacques, Recoupments (Bruxelles: Ousia. 1982)
Tugendhat, E., Der Wahrheilsbegriff bei Husserl und Heidegger (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1967).
Ugirashebuja, O.. Dialogue entre la pofsie et la pensie d'apres l'oeuvre de Heidegger (Bruxelles:
Lumen Vitae, 1977).

III. Collections of Essays on Heidegger's Thought

Ballard, Edward G and Charles E Scott, eds.. Martin Heidegger In Europe and America (The
Hague: Nijhoff. 1973)
Frings. Manfred S.. ed Heidegger and the Quest for Truth (Chicago Ouadrangle Books, 1968).
Gadamer. H.G., W Marx. C F. von Weizsäcker, eds . Heidegger: Freiburger Universitäisvorträge
zu seinem Gedenken (Freiburg- Alber. 1977).
Guzzoni. Ute. ed . Nachdenken über Heidegger (Hildesheim Gerstenberg Verlag. 1980)
Kockelmans. Joseph J , ed . On Heidegger and Language (Evanston. Northwestern University
Press. 1972)
Murray, Michael, ed . Heidegger and Modern Philosophy Critical Essays (New Haven- Yale
University Press, 1978)
Pöggeler. Otto, ed , Heidegger Perspektiven zur Deutung seines Werkes (Cologne- Kiepenheuer
und Witsch. 1969)
 237

Sallis. John C , ed., Heidegger and the Path of Thinking (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press,
1970).
Sheehan, Thomas, ed.. Heidegger: The Man and the Thinker (Chicago: Precedent Publishing, Inc.,
1981).
Anteile. Martin Heidegger zum 60. Geburtstag (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1950).
Durchblicke. Martin Heidegger zum 80. Geburtstag (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1970).
Martin Heidegger zum siebzigsten Geburtstag (Pfullingen: Neske, 1959).

IV. Publications Relevant to the History of Aesthetics

Alexander, Gerard. An Essay on Taste (New York: Garland. 1970).

Baeumler. A.. Kants Kritik der Urteilskraft (Halle: Niemeyer, 1923).
Baumgarten, A.G., Aesthetica (1750-1758). 2 vols. (Hildesheim: Olms, 1961).
Baumgarten, A.G., Reflections on Poetry, transl. and ed. by K. Aschenbrenner and W.B. Holther
, (Berkeley: University of California Press. 1954).
Blair, Hugh, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. ed. by H.F. Harding (Carbondale: Southern
Illinois University Press, 1965).
Bruyne, E. de, Esthttique du Moyen Age (Louvain: Editions de l'Institut Supeneur de Philosophie,
1947).
Burke, Edmund, On Taste, On the Sublime, and the Beautiful, etc. (New York: Collier, 1909).
Butcher, S.H., Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Arts (New York: Dover, 1951).
Callahan, L., A Theory of Aesthetic According to the Principles of St. Thomas of Aquinas (Wash-
ington D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1928).
Chapman, L., St. Augustine's Philosophy of Beauty (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1935).
Derrtda, Jacques, La vtriti en peinture (Paris: Flammarion, 1978).
Descartes, Rene, "Compendium Musicae", in Oeuvres, ed. by Charles Adam and Paul Tannery,
Vol. 10 (Paris: Cerf. 1908). pp. 89-141.
Dilthey, Wilhelm, "Die drei Epochen der modernen Ästhetik und ihre heutige Aufgabe" (1892), in
Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. II. (Leipzig: Teubner, 1940).
Dilthey, Wilhelm, Von deutscher Dichtung und Musik: Aus den Studien zur Geschichte des
deutschen Geistes, ed. by H. Nohl and G. Misch (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1957).
Gadamer. Hans-Georg, Philosophical Hermeneutics, transl. by David E. Linge (Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California Press, 1976).
Gadamer, Hans-Georg, Truth and Method (New York: Seabury Press, 1975).
Gilbert, K.E., and Kuhn, H., A History of Esthetics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1943).
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, Werke. Jubiläum Ausgabe (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1901-1907).
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 INDEX OF NAMES

Adamczewski, Zygmunt, xüi DOthey, Wilhelm, xUi, 24,26,27,64,73,107,

Addison, Joseph, 27,29 217n.
Aeschylos, 205 Diogenes of Seleuda, 14
Albert the Great, Saint, 16,18,19 Dionyshis,12
Anaximander, 195 Duns Scotus, 114
Ariston of Chios, 13,14 Durer, Albrecht, 185
Aristotle, xüi, 5,6,10-13,14-15,18,19,24,25,
» 37,49,85,86,95.96,114,154,170 Eberhard, Johann August, 26
Ast, Friedrich, 100 Ernst, Paul, 73
Augustine, Saint, xiü, 10,16-17,18.19,20,24, Escbenburg, Jobann Joachim, 26
147 Euripides, 11,12

Baeumler, Alfred, 24 Faille, Jacob Baart de la, 128,129

Basil, Saint, 17,20 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 33,40
Batteux, Charles, 37
Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb, xüi, 10, Gadamer, Hans-Georg, xüi, xiv, 66,77,100
23-26, 29,147 George, Stephan, xii
Beethoven, Ludwig von, HI Gerard, Alexander, 27
Bergson, Henri, 73 Gilbert. K.E., xüi
Biemel, Walter, JNV, 81,82 Goethe,'Wolfgang, 29,32-34,37,39, 111
Birault, Henri, xiv Gogh, Vincent van, 87, 111, 125,126,127.128,
Blair, Hugh, 27 129,130,131.134,137,139.166,169
Bodmer, Johann Jakob, 25 Gorgias, 11
Boethius, 18
Boileau-Despreaux, Nicolas, 25 Hamann, Johann Georg, 28
Bouhours, Dominique^ Hegel, Georg Friedrich Wilhelm, xi, xii, xüi,
Breitinger, Johann, 25 10,17,25. 28, 29.31, 35-45.46.48.50. 55,
Burke. Edmund, 26-27.29 64,77.78,80,81,84.85.86.87,88.92.93,
99.100,107.108,135,139,140,141,153,154,
Cicero, 10,14-15,16,18 166.173,180,188.203.209,210.217n.
Crousaz, Jean-Pierre de, 25 Heraditus. 77.153.195.205
Herder, Johann Gottfried, 26,27-28,47
Dalbert, Karl von, 26 Herrmann. Friedrich-Wilhelm von, xüi, 71,81,
Democritus, 11 82,83.90.134,180
Derrida Jacques, xiv, 127 Heydenrekh, Karl Heinrich, 26
Descartes. Rent, 24,25.64,80,92,214n. Hirt, Aloys Ludwig, 37
240

Hofstadter, Albert, xiii Price, Richard. 27

Hölderlin, Friedrich, xü, 78. 111. 135.151.154. Pseudo-Dionysius, 18,19
196,203 Pythagoras. 5.12
Homer, 11 Pythagoreans, 5.11.16.18
Horace, 37
Hotho, Heinrich Gustav. 35 Quintilian. 14
Hulsker, Jan. 129
Hume. David. 26, 27.116 Ramler. Karl Wilhelm. 37
Husserl, Edmund, 74,93,95,96.107,128 Reid. Thomas, 27
Hutcheson, Francis. 27 Richardson. William J . , xiii. xiv, 189
Rilke, Rainer, Maria, xii
John. Saint, 147
Schapiro. Meyer. 127,128,129,130.131
Kames. Henry Home, Lord, 27.29, 37 Schelling. Friedr.ch Wilhelm Joseph, 29. 33,
Kant. Immanuel.xi. xii. xiii, 10,20.24.29-32. 40.55
36.40,53.55.58.64,65.66,80,81.86.87. Schiller. Friedrich, 36,39.40,177,217n.
88,89.92.94,95.96.112,113.122.147,153. Schlegel. Friedrich, 40
154.177,188,209,215n Schleiermacher, Friedrich Ernst Daniel. 100,
Kierkegaard. Saren, Aabye. 73 105
Kuhn. H.,xiii Schopenhauer, Arthur,xi, jrfi, 31, 47, 53, 55,
59, 89. 209
Leibniz. Gottfried Wilhelm. 24,146.147 Schwan, Alexander, 81
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim. 26 Seneca. 13
Locke. John. 27 Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 27
Longinus. 37 Socrates. 14
Meier. Georg Friedrich. 24 Solger, Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand, 40
Meyer. Conrad Ferdinand, 37,135.166 Sophists, 12
Sophocles, I I . 12.86,139.140,143
Neo-Kantians. 64. 73, 209 Spengler. Oswald. 73
Newton, Isaac, 63 Stoics, xiü. 10,13-14,15,16,18,40
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, xi. xii, xiii, 10, Suarez, Francisco, 80
24, 31. 48-64.73, 77, 87, 99, 170, 177, 1 % , Sulzer. Johann Georg, 26
203, 205. 209.210
Taminiaux, Jacques, xiv, 35,83,84,85,86,87,
Panethius of Rhodus. 14 88,108
Parmenides. 77,195 Tatarkiewics. Wladyslaw, xiii, 19
Paul, Saint. 147 Thomas Aquinas. Saint, 17-20,80,114,147
Pauson. 12 Tieck, Ludwig, 40
Phidias. II Tolstoi, Leo, 216n.
Philostratus. 14 Trakl, Georg, xii
Pindar, 208
Plato, xü. xiü.S-W, 11.12.14,16,18,19,36.40, Vischer, Friedrich Theodor, 217n.
50.52.64,95,99,114.135,153,166,170
Plotius. xiii. 10.15-16 Wagner. Richard, xi, xü, 46-48,58,59.61,141
Poggeler, Otto. 81 William of Auvergne. 20
Polyclitus. 11 Winckelmann, Johann, 26, 37,40.47
Polygnotus. 11.12 Wolff. Christian. Freiherr von, 35
Pope. Alexander, 25
Poseidonius. 13.14 Zeuxis, 11,12
 INDEX OF SUBJECTS
i4cfiM/tf<if(actuality), 80
Address of the holy, 196; as mystery, 196; as
sending, 196
Aesthetic consciousness, 65-66; and fiction, 65
Aesthetic differentiation, 66
Aesthetic experience, 65, 66, 77, 79-80.182;
and mystic experience, 27-29; in Augustine,
16-17
Aesthetic idea, 32
Aesthetic man, 48
Aesthetic phenomenology, 28
Aesthetic state, 48,56-57; and rapture, 58
Aesthetics, 3-4, 35, 79,193-194; and art his-
tory, 26, 37; and hermeneutic tradition,
64-68; and the Greeks, 5; as a form of mod-
ern metaphysics, 83-84; as applied physiol-
ogy (Nietzsche), 48; as metaphysics of the
beautiful, 26; as psychology,48; characteris-
tics of modern aesthetics, 23-26; empiricist,
26-27; feminine, 51; in Aristotle, 10-13; in
Goethe, 32-34; in Hegel. 35-38; in Kant,
29-32; in Plato, 5-10; in Renaissance, 20-22;
masculine, 51; medieval, 17-18; overcoming
of, 59-60, 62; rationalist, 24-26; romanti-
cist, 27-29; to be overcome, 86,87,135,136
Aisthesis, as state of man's feeling, 23
Aistheta, as aesthetically beautiful things,25
Alithea, as the open region, 158
A-litheia, (non-concealment, truth), 9, 163,
165.197.198. 207
Allihes, 96
Alitheuein, 95.170
Allegory, and art, HI
Ambiguity. 180
Anblick (immediate view), 117
Anschauung (intuition), 33
Apophainesthai, 95
Apophansis, 95-96
Appearance (mere), 94
Appropriation, disclosure of, 172
A priori (vorgängig), 147
Aptum, 16
Ars, as recta ratio factibilium, 20
Art, aim of, 40-41; allegorical interpretation
of, 21.57-58; and artist, 88-89.90.185; and
art work, 88-89, 90,185; and basic need of
man, 39; and craft, 6; and creative genius,
25; and education, 39-40; and emotion, 25;
and feeling, 39; and fiction, 22; and genius,
39; and good taste, 39-40; and illusion, 22;
and imagination, (phantasia), 14, 22; and
inspiration, 15, 39; and katharsis, 40; and
language, 188; and lived experience. 47; and
moral order, 13; and nature, 11-12, 14-15;
and philosophy, 25,33,42; and practice, 39;
and preserver, 185; and pure state of feeling,
47; and religion, 25,42; and religious order,
15. 20. 21; and rules. 14-15. 32. 39; and
Schein (semblance), 36-37; and skill, 15,39;
and talent, 15; and truth (non-concealment),
9-10. 25. 36. 42. 62-64.188-189; and truth
and untruth, 17; as expression of the Divine
in sensuous form, 36; as genuine origin and
primal leap (Ur-Sprung), 203; as imitation of
nature, 40; as leap ahead (Vorsprung), 203;
as legislation, 60; as matter of physiology,
52-53; as mimesis, 7-9, 11-12; as original
leap (Ur-Sprung), 192-194; as origin of artist
and art work, 67,168,186.209; as play, 177;
as producing preservation of the truth in the
242
work, 186; as riddle. 79,83-84,88; as some
form of language, 65; as setting itself into the
work of the truth, 178,186; as the 'fixing' in
place of a truth, 186; as the great stimulant of
life, 59-60; as thrust into the extraordinary,
183; as the truth setting itself into the work.
135, 137; as will-to-power. 49; beauty of.
41-43; classical form of, 43-44; comes-
to-pass as poetizing. 192; distinction be-
tween classical and romantic art, 60-61; each
art is a special form of poetizing, 190; es-
sence of. 50-52. 52-64,135.137,185,186-
190; grounds history, 192; has an essential
function in the destiny of a people, 210; his-
toricity of, 193; in Aquinas, 18-19; in Aristo-
tle, 11-12; in Hegel, 38-41; in Kant, 32; in our
industrial society, 206-207; in Plato, 6-9; in
Plotinus, 15-16; in the grand style, 58-62; in
the same sphere as religion and philosophy.
36; is not a matter of evoking emotions, 178;
is not a matter of vision and intuition, 178; is
not an expression of emotions, 177; its posi-
tion today, 204; lets the truth come into
being, 193; metaphorical intepretatkm of
57-58; no longer divine, 37; no longer fulfills
our highest need, 37; present the Absolute
in sensuous form, 41; requirements of, 41;
romantic form of, 44-45; sends the truth into
the work, 187; setting itself into the work of
the truth, 209; symbolic form of, 42-43; sym-
bolic interpretation of, 57-58,110; symbolic
nature of, 19,21;
Artes, liberales, ludricae, pueriles, and vul­
gäres, 14
Art history, 40, 209; as academic discipline,
47-48
Articulating discourse (Rede), 95
Artist, in Plato, 8-9; in Aquinas, 19; in Heideg-
ger, 168-179
Artistic beauty, universal idea of, 41-42
Artistic preservation, 187
Artistic production,166,168-171,174,186,187,
209; as poetizing, 190
Art Work, and coming-to-pass of the truth,
167; and proportion, 5; and rules, 28; as
object, 3-4; as thing, 110-112; consists of ma-
terial and form (idea.content), 110; histor-
ical character of, 192; is not a work of genius,
191; lets the earth be an earth for people, ISO;
makes the earth be present, 149-154; sets
forth the earth, 154; sets up a world, 154;
symbolic character of, 28; throws a truth
toward a people that in history comes to
preserve it, 191-192; to be kept in the truth,
179-183; truth comes-to-pass in it, 67;
Athene, 204;
Attunemcnt, 159
Aufriss (design, outline), 175
Aufstellen, (setting up), of a world in the art
work, 144-145,149,176
Auslegung (explanation, interpretation),
98-99.102-104
Authenticity, 74,76
Basic words, 194
Battle, between world and earth, 154-155
Beautiful, 3, 135, 166; and Being, 9-10; and
harmony, 26; and order, 26; and perfection,
26; and subjective impressions, 26; as tran-
scendental, 18; eujus ipsa apprehensio
placet, 19; in Aquinas, 18,19-20; in Aristo-
tle, 12, 13; in Augustine, 16, 17; in Hegel,
38-40; in Kant, 31; in Nietzsche, 55-56; in
Plato, 9-10; in Plotinus. 15-16; in the Stoa,
13-14; quae visa placent, 19
Beauty, 80; and clarity, 18,20; and contrast,
22; and disinterestedness, 18, 19-20; and
effulgence, 18; and harmony, 13,16,18,21,
22; and moral goodness, 19, 21; and order,
13,16,18,21; and proportion, 13,18,20,22;
and radiance, 18,20; and rhythm, 16,17,18;
and splendor of order and truth, 16,18,21;
and symmetry, 13-14,15,18; and tension, 22;
and truth, 22, 80, 84-85; and unity, 16; as
elementary modality of the certitude of self,
86; for Plato, 5-6,10; ideal of, 32; normative
idea of, 32; of nature and of art, 35-36; vs.
virtue, 13
Being, and history. 77; and language, 194; as
coming-to-pass of the truth, 76; as logos, 68,
194; as the open, 156-157; as world, 76; dic-
tates the primordial poem, 202; has priority
in the coming-to-pass of the truth, 188; is not
a being, 76-77; sending of,76-77
Being question, as guiding and grounding
question of philosophy, 49-50
Befindlichkeit (ontological disposition, mood-
ness), 116

Beginning (anfangen), 191-192
Bestowing (schenken), 191
Between, as the domain of the holy, 195-196
Bewahrung (preservation), 180
Bildung (self-formation), 33
Bringing-forth, two modes of, 169
Care, 76
Categorial intuition, 126
Circumspection, 103,119,120
Classical style, 21; and art in the grand style,
59-61
Clearing, 164; of the openness in the work of
art, 168-174; of the openness of the truth,
171-174,187
Closedness (Verschlossenheit), 207
Cogito me cogiiare, 23
Collective art, 46; as the religion, 47
Collective art work, 46-47
Communication theory, 205
Corn-positing (Ge-steU). 79; see Gestell
Comprehension (Verstehen), 76
Concealment, 164; essence of non-truth, 160
Concern, 119
Conformity, and truth, 156
Conspicuousness, 120
Construction, 90,124
Contemporary art, 202-208
Contemporary era, determined by science and
technology, 203
Contemporary world, and science, technol-
ogy. and art, 210
Creative process, 26,33-34, 56; and idealiza-
tion, 56; and imagination, 26
Curiosity, 180
Cybernetics, and futurology, 205-206
Dasein, 75; as the Da (there) of Being, 153
Decadence, and morality, 51; and philosophy,
51; and religion, 51
Decorum, 13.14.16
Dimhurgos, 7,8
Dimos, 7
Description, phenomelogical, 125; vs. her-
meneutico-phenomenlogical, 126,127,128.
131
Destruction. 90.91-93.123.124
Destructive retrieve, 91-93
DiagOgi, 12
243
Dif-ferrt, 199
Difference, between world and thing, 199
Diki,\Si
Disinterested satisfaction, 30,31
Dissimulation, as errancy and mystery, 165
Doxa,9
Dunamis, 49,61
Earth, 116,133,191; and art work, 149-151; and
fourfold, 151-153; and phusis, 87,142-143,
152-153; and world, 67,87,142,152-153,174,
179; as dark mystery, 143; as native ground,
143; as self-refusing, 131; as self-secluding
131,150,152,175,184; as that which shelters,
143; as the spontaneous forthcoming of what
is self-secluding, sheltering, and concealing,
154; cannot be disclosed, 150; cannot be
without the open of the world, 155; conceals,
154; conflict of earth and world, 78; measure
of, 175; secures, 175; shelters, 154,175; tow-
ers up into the world, 165
Earthy character, of art work, 183-184
Eidolon, 9,10
Eidos, 6,7,8,9,57,80,117
Eigenständigkeit (insistence) of art work, 87,
138-141
Eigenwüchsig, 116
Einrichten sich, (to establish itself). 174
Ekphanestaton, 6,9,134,135,166
Ek-sistence, 75,158-159; and transcendence,
158
Ekstases of time, 76
£ n « s « o , 49.61,80, 85,176
Ensactu.80
Entekcheia, 49, 85-86
Enunciation (Aussage.) 104
Episttml, 170
Equipment, 118-122; and matter-form struc-
ture, 120-121; and thing-Being of thing, 130-
131; characteristics of, 118-121. 132-134;
mode of Being of, 118-121,127-132; between
thing and work, 124
Era of modern technicity, 204; as era of
Ge-stell (corn-positing), 74,77,79
Erasmiötaton, 9
Ergon, 80,176
Er-innerung. as interiorizing remembrance
(Hegel), 108
Erlebnis, 64-65,84-85, HI; see Experience
244
Errancy, 164; and mystery, 161; and non-truth,
161-162; as most profound negation of the
truth, 161; as source of the mystery, 161-162
Errichten (to set up), of work in museum, 145
Erspringen, 89
Erwirken (to bring about), 171
Essence, 63-64,163; and universal, 63; essen-
tiality of, 63
Essential thinking, 197
Establishing, as impulse of truth toward the
work, 172
Everydayness, 160,180
Event of appropriation (Ereignis), 81,193,201
Existential analytic, 74
Existenzphilosophie, 74
Experience (Erlebnis), 64-65,83-85, HI, 182
Factum est (of art work), 87,178
Fallenness. 76,134,180
Feeling, 23, 30; and art work, 3-4, 22; and
Befindlichkeit (moodness), 54; as indefinite
dull region of the spirit, 39; inherently
bodily, 54
Fine art, 3,204; as the supreme configuration
of the will-to-power, 51,52.58; is a distinc-
tive counter-movement to nihilism, 51,52
Fissure (Riss), 175-176,185
Fore-conception, 104-106,122-123,124
Fore-having, 104-106.124
Fore-sight, 104-105,106,124
Fore-structure, 104-106,124
Form (morphi, forma, Gestalt), 57. 80; as
source of radiance, 57; as source of rapture,
57-58
Fourfold, 151-153
Free, as open, 207
Freedom, as ek-sistent, revealing letting-be of
beings, 159; as exposition into the disclosed-
ness of beings, 158; as foundation of truth,
157, as freedom of choice, 158, as letting-
beings-be, 158,159; as original essence of the
uniquely essential truth, 157
Free variation, 126,128
Fundamental ontology, as analytic of the
Being of Dasein, 74.90-91; is hermeneutical
in a threefold sense, 99
Futurology. 205-206
Gegenwendigkeit, as being oriented toward
each other of world and earth, 174
Genius, 19,22, 25,26, 32,64-66,77,89,177
German idealism, breakdown of, 73
Gestalt, of art work, 87,174-177,178-179,184;
and Gestell, 176
Gestell, as corn-positing, 177; and the era of
modern technicity, 87,203-204; as framing,
176,177
GlaukOpis, 205
Great art, 86,173-174,138-139,140,141,143,
144; and collective art, 141; as the manifesta-
tion of the Absolute in sensuous form, 140;
decline of, 24, 46;essential function in the
life of a people, 140, 143-144; has lost its
power to present the Absolute, 46; some-
thing past, 141
Greek world, beginning of Western art and
science, 204; origin of our contemporary
world, 207
Grounding (gründen),\9\
Halten (to hold), 166; and hüten (to tend), 166
Having-been-produced of art work, 171,177-
179; and factum est, 178; as intergral part of
the work, 178; is projected into the work, 178
Hermeneutic, 99
Hermeneutic as, 103-104,153
Hermeneutic circle, 100,105-107,107-109; and
fore-structure of understanding (Verstehen),
100; as essential element of interpretative
understanding 105; as essential element of
philosophical discourse, 105; in Being and
Time, 105-107; in Hegel and Heidegger,
107-109, vs. speculative circle, 108
Hermeneutic phenomelogy, 74-75,90,98-99,
103-105,106,107
Hermeneutic situation, 124
Herstellen, various meaningsof, 149; as set ting-
forth. 169-170; to bring forth, 176
Her-vor-bringen, bringing-to-the-fore. 170
Hinaussehen,, looking-beyond. 170
Hinaussein, being-beyond. 170
Historicity, of Dasein, 91; of philosophy, 91
History, as the advent of the absoluteness of
the Spirit, 84; as the history of Being, 84
Holy, as primordial poem, 1%
Honestum, 18
Huli, 5-6,117
Hupokeimenon, (substance), 113; as subjec-
turn, 114
Hupostasis, 114

Hylemorphic structure, 5-7, 117; and equip-
ment. 118-122,133; inadequate to determine
the thing-Being of the thing and the work-
Being of the work, 122; in modern meta-
physics, 121-122; in the Middle Ages, 121;
origin of, 118-122; transcendental inter-
pretation of Kant, 122
Idea, 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 8 0
Idea, as the beauty of art, 42; as the content of
art, 41,42; as the concept of the beautiful as
such, 42; requirements of, 41
Ideal, as the true idea of beauty, 45
Idle talk, 180
Inauthentkity, 74,76,180
Industrial society, and function of art, 206-207
' Ingenium, 25
In-order-to relation, 118-120
Insichstehen (self-subsistence) of the art work,
138
Insistence (Eigenständigkeit) of art work, 138-
141,161
Instituting (Stiften), 191,192; as beginning, 195;
as bestowing, 195; as grounding, 195,
Interest, 31
Interpretative understanding, 98-99; and her-
meneutic circle, 105
Judgment of taste, 29,30,177; a priori element
of, 32; as aesthetic judgment of reflection,
29. 32; characteristics of, 30-31; implies the
free play of the imagination and the under-
standing, 32
Kahn, 18
Katharsis, 12
Kinesis, 61
Knowing. 181.182.183
Language, and art, 188; and Being, 194; and
openness. 188; and truth, 194; as Being for-
med into the words, 194; as enunciatedness
of the logos (Rede), 189; as house of Being,
,198: as poetizing. 194; as poetizing in the
essential sence. 190; as the coming of Being
into the words, 194: as the domain where
poetizing works, 195; as the primoridal form
of poetizing in which each people poetizes
Being. 194; comes-to-pass as the scission be-
tween world and thing, 200; essence of lan-
245
guage and the coming-to-pass of the truth,
188; essentially affected by negativity, 194; in
essence not a means of communication and
expression, 188; is Being as the gathering
proces of logos, 199; lets beings be what they
are, 189
Leap (Ursprung), as origin, 193
Letting-beings-be, 123
Logos(Rede), 76; apophantic, 94-96; and
truth, 94-96
Logos, and phusis, 153
Manipulability (Handlichkeit), 119
Matter-form structure, 117,118-122; see Hyle-
morphic structure
Meaning, 104
Meditative recollection, 77
Metaboli, 61
Metaphysics, five basic characteristics of, 49
Method, 205
Middle point between world and thing, 199
Mimesis, 7; in Aristotle, 11-12 -
Mimltes, 8
Modern aesthetics, 89
Moodness (Befindlichkeit, ontological dispo-
sition), 101, 131, 159; and thrownness, 101;
and understanding, 131; and world, 101,131—
132
Morphe. 5-6.117; as Gestalt, 177
Music, as highest form of art, 17
Mystery. 164; as the concealing of the conceal-
ment. 160; the forgottenness of. 160-161; the
re-collection of, 162
National genius, 28
Nature, and boundary, fissure, and measure.
185
Nearness. 201
Neighborhood, of thinker and poet. 201
Noita, 25
Non-concealment (truth), 181; establishes itself
in the beings in five essential ways, 173
Non-truth, as mystery, 160; has priority over
truth, 160
Objectivity. 80
Obstinacy (of equipment). 120
Obtrusiveness (of equipment), 120
Offenbare, 157
Ontological difference, 77,81,172; as dif-fer-
246
ence (diaphora, Unter-Schied), 17S; as the
fissure of the Gestalt, 187; brought about in
an event of appropriation, 193; related to the
bond between thinking and poetizing, 202;
was not yet thought by the Greeks, 205
Ontological disposition (Befindlichkeit, mood-
ness), 76
Ontology, fundamental and general, 74,90,98
Ontology of art and art works, 210
Open, 164,172,187,207; as matrix of relations,
1S7; includes world and earth, 165
Openness, as clearing of the there (Da), 172; as
truth, 187; of Being (Sein) as the domain of
the truth, 179; of the beings, 173; of the
open,184,207
Ordinary. 180,187,190,191,192
Origin, meaning of the word, 86-89,168; and
Wesen (essence and coming-to-presence),
88-89
Original thinking, as the thinking of Being, 198
Originating (anfängliches) thinking, 197
Pankalia, 18. 21
Panu stoikoi, 13
Perus (boundary), 176,177
Phainesthai, 6
Phantasia, 14
Phenomenology, 90-91; and ontology, 98; as
legein ta phainomena, 96-98; as methodical
mediation of the immediacy of the truth of
the phenomena, 97-98; as the method of
ontology, 93-98; as the science of the Being
of the beings, 98
Phenomenon. 94; adequate conception of,
97-98; and mere appearance, 94; and sem-
blance, 94; ordinary conception of, 94,
96-97; phenomenological conception of, 94,
96-97
Philokalia, 17
Philosophia, 17
Philosophy, 52; closer to poetry than to the
sciences, 195; main concern of, 73-74
Philosophy of art, 193, 209; in Heidegger,
81-83; need of. 37
Phusis, 6,152.170.197,205.207; and a-lttheia,
153; and dike. 153; and earth, 152-153; and
logos, 153;as emergent abiding presence,
153; as overwhelming power, 153
Phusis kruptesthai philei, 207
Phutourgos, 8
Poiein, 33; and poetic, 33
Poem, has a privileged position among art
works, 188
Poesy, has a privileged position among the
arts, 188; one mode of the clearing projec-
tion of the truth, 188; other arts cannot be
reduced to it, 188; the most original form of
poetizing, 190
Poet, grounds the history of a people, 196;
names Being as the holy, 198; names the
holy, 196,197; stands in the present and is
oriented toward the future, 201-202; relates
gods and the people, 195
Poetizing, 68,77; and thinking, 194; as a begin-
ning through which a people's world histor-
ically arises for it, 195; as a process in which
Being as the holy addresses itself to the poet,
196; as clearing and illuminating projection,
187; as projective saying, 189; as the essence
of art, 187-188,191; as the originating insti-
tution (Stiftung) of the truth, 191; as the say-
ing of the arena of the conflict between
world and earth, 189; as the saying of the
non-concealment of the beings, 189; essence
of, 188,190-192; essence of poetizing and the
essence of language, 195; essence of poetiz-
ing and the power of the imagination, 187;
makes language possible, 195; of and by
Being, 202; ranges beyond the domain of the
existing arts, 190; the original institution,
190; the originating institution of the truth,
195; thinking and poetizing separated by an
abyss, 197
Poetry, has a privileged position among the
arts, 202; the primal language of a historical
people. 195-196
Polemos, aboriginal strife between truth and
untruth, 153; is not the strife between
heaven and earth, 153; is not the strife be-
tween world and earth, 153
Polumitis, 204
Power of the imagination, 187
Prepon, 13,14
Preservation, 179-182,186,192,209; as know-
ing and willing, 181; as poetizing, 190; as
standing within the coming-to-pass of the
truth. 179-182; definition of. 180. 181-182;
vs. experiencing art works, 182-183

Presuppositionlessness, 93
Primal conflict, between truth and non-truth,
16S; and battle between world and earth,
165-166
Primordial poem dictated by Being, 202
Primordial poetizing (Urdichtung), 194
Pro-ject (Ent-wurf), and meaning, 104; and the
projection of self, 102; and the projection of
world, 102,104
Projection, 106-107,187; in science, 205
Projective saying, inherently poetizing, 189; is
related to world history, 189
Psychology of art, 209,210
Psychology of artist and preserver, 177
Purposiveness, principle of, 30; without a pur-
pose. 30-31
i and truth, 157
Questioning, importance of, 185
Rapture, (Rausch), 53,54-58; and beauty, 58;
and primordial mood, 54,57; and the form-
creating force, 56-58; as basic aesthetic
state, 54-58
Ratio, as logical mode of thinking, 115
Readiness-to-hand (Vorhandenheil), 118-119
Realität, 80
Re-collection (Andenken), 196
Recta ordinatio rationis, 18
Reduction, 90,124
Reference stucture, 118-120
Reliability (of equipment), 118, 132-134; and
hylemorphic structure, 132-133
Renaissance, and aesthetics, 20-22
Resoluteness, 181
Resolve (Entschlossenheit), 76,162
Rest and motion (in art work), 176
Rest and repose in the strife between world
and earth in the art work, 154
Retrieve (Wiederhohlung), 76,92
Riss (fissure), 175
Saying, hails things, 199; of language projects
the clearing of the open, 189; of language
, opens the domain of the open, 190; sum-
mons the world, 199
Schaffen (to bring forth), 167
Schein (semblance), meaning of in Hegel,
36-37; and truth, 36-37
Scholl, 12
247
Science, and the happening of the truth, 174
Scission, as the coming-to-pass of the ontologi-
cal difference, 200; brought about by the
originating saying of Being, 200
Scission-between (Unier-Schied), 199
Serf, 76
Self-subsistence (Insichstehen) of art work,
138,139
Semblance (Schein), 94
Serviceability, 103,125.132-133.149
Skeptomenl, 205
Species (form), 16
Speculative circle, 108; and hermeneutk circle,
108
Standard of taste, 26
Statement, as locus of truth, 157; correctness of
Stellen (to posit, to pose), 176
Step in reverse (Schritt zurück), 207
Stifien, as beginning (anfangen), bestowing
(schenken), and grounding (gründen), 191
Strife between earth and world in art works,
132,152,174-175,192, 209; as fixed in the
Gestalt of the work, 184
Strife between heaven and earth, 153
Strife between truth and untruth, 209; and the
strife between world and earth, 209
Style, 58-59; grand style and classical style,
58-59
Subject-object opposition, in aesthetics, 182
Sumbebikota (accidents), 113
Symbol. HI
Synvnetria, 14
Synthesis, 96; a priori, 96,97; transcendental,
97-98
Ta de panta oiakizei Keraunos, 205
Techne, 6. 169, 170, 205, 207; a form of a-
Utheuein, 170; essence of, 164; from tiktö, to
bring forth, 170
Technicity, 177; and Ge-stell, 204
Technitis, 169-170, 205
Temporality, 75; as the meaning of Dasein's
Being, 91
Thematizatjon, in science, 205
The6ria,9
Theoretical knowledge, 118-119; not a primor-
dial mode of knowing, 101
Thesis, 176; as setting-up, 172
248
They. 180
Thing, and wortd, 199; as the composition of
substance and accidents, 113-116; as the
unity of a manifold of sensible properties,
116-117; as the unity of matter and form, 117;
characteristics of. 116-117; essence of. 112-
117; mere things, 112-113, 122; structure of
thing and structure of simple proposition,
114-115; three leading interpretations of,
113-117.122-124,184
Thingly character of the art work. 183-184
Thinker, and poet. 198; concerned with the
unsaid in what has been said, 202; says and
thinks Being, 195, 197; thinks Being in its
positivity and negativity. 198; watchman
over the house of Being. 198
Thinking, and poetizing. 194-202; as genuine
poetizing, 198-199; of and by Being. 202; of
Being is the original way of poetizing. 197; of
Being is the primordial poetizing. 197, po-
etic, never art. 196; thinking and poetizing
are as different as they can possibly be, 200-
201; they are separated by an abyss. 197
Thrownness. 76,187
Toward-which relation. 119-120
Tradition, 91-93
Tragedy. 12
Transcendence. 62. 75-76, 148, 156.158: and
ek-sistence, 158
Transcendental reduction, 74
Transcendental subjectivity. 74
Tropoi. 8
Truth. 62-64. 155-167, 171-177; and agree-
ment, (homoiOsis, adaequatio), 134-135;
and art. 62-64.168-185. and art work, 171;
and Being, 50; and discord between truth
and art. 62; and essence of the true. 63-64;
and untruth. 164.171.194; and work. 174; as
absolute certainty of self, 84, 86; as agree-
ment, 95, 163; as certainty, 163; as clearing
and concealing. 172; as conformity, 156,163;
as correctness, 156,163; as correspondence.
141; as freedom, 157; as non-concealment,
49-50. 67-68, 80. 84, 86, 87. 95. 124. 134,
163-165. 167, 171, as non-concealment and
double constraint, 171-172; as openess of the
open (= Being). 157; as primal strife be-
tween truth and untruth, 171-172; as primor-
dial discord between clearing and con-
cealing, 67; as the revealment of the beings
through which openness comes to presence,
159; at work in the art work, 139; comes-
to-pass in regard to a people, 173; comes-
to-pass in the art work. 141-144.155; comes-
to-pass while it is being poetized, 187; es-
sence of. 153-160. 173; establishes itself in
the work as a strife between wortd and
earth. 175; happening of the truth in the
work of art. 136; logical. 156; of Being. 80.
98; ontological. 156; prepositional truth.
163; scientific vs. artistic. 12; sets itself into
the work of art, 134-135, 155; vs. correct-
ness. 42
Umriss (outline). 175
Understanding (Verstehen), 101-105; and her-
meneutic as, 103; and interpretation, 102-
105
Unessential essence, 163
Untruth, 160, as concealment, 160; as incor-
rectness. 156.159; as non-conformity. 156
Ur-Sprung (leap from, origin). 88.89,192
Usability (of equipment), 119
Usefulness (of equipment). 120-121.125.132.
133. 149
Verlasslichkeil (reliability). 132-134
Versagen (refusal). 164
Verstellen (to dissimulate, to dissemble). 164
Vorstellung, as positing pro-posing. 124; as rep-
resentation, 124
Vulgus communis imperitorum, 15
Wahren (to endure, last), 89
Wahr (true), vs. die Wahre (care). 180
Wahrheit, etymology of. 180
Wahrnehmung, etymology of, 180
Welten (to govern), of world. 145.148
Wesen, and währen (to endure), 89; as coming-
to-presence. 88; as essence, 88
Western civilization, decline of. 73
Where-of relation. 119
Wieder-holung (re-trieve). 108
Willing. 181-182.183
Will-to-power. 49; as art. 51
Wirken, 171
Wirklich, 85
Wirklichkeit (actuality, effectiveness), as ener-

geia, 85; as entelecheia, 85-86; as work-
Being of the work, 179
World, 77-78,145; and earth, 67.132.142-144.
152.153.174,179,191; and fourfold. 132; and
nature. 132; and selfhood, 78; and thing, 199;
as referential totality, 102; as self-disclosing
openness, 154; as that for the sake of which
Dasein exists. 148; as totality of meaning.
148; as totality of all possible relationships,
132; as transcendental phenomenon, 146;
desolateness of. 203; fundamental meaning
of. 146.152,153; four basic meanings of, 146;
grounds itself on the earth. 165; meaning of,
145-148; history of the concept, 146-148; on-
tological meaning of, 146
World civilization, dominated by science and
technology, 203
249
World decay. 139
World, of freedom, 29-30; of natural necessity,
29
World withdrawal, 86,139
Work and nature, 184-185; constancy of, 178;
its having-been-made, 166; its self-subsis-
tence, 178; work vs. equipment, 178
Work-Being vs. object-Being, 139
Work-Being of the work of art, 133,134-135,
183.185; and the fighting of the battle be-
tween world and earth, 155, 168; and the
truth establishing itself in the work, 134-135;
as the coming-to-pass of the truth, 168
Work of art, independence of, 168; opens up
the world, 144-149; self-sufficient. 166,168;
sets up a world, 149; thingly character of, 168
Worte vs. Wörter, 114