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Ehhhhhhhhh I think art should be able to speak for itself, not mire itself in an endless chain of correspondences. It gets very pretentious very quickly—the br

Ehhhhhhhhh I think art should be able to speak for itself, not mire itself in an endless chain of correspondences. It gets very pretentious very quickly—the brilliance of Heidegger’s Origin of the Work of Art is that it does not neccessarily need to reference anything else—Heidegger’s is a philosophy of fundenmental ontology, so there’s no need to see a past, and yet it surrounds itself with a history from which is is foreclosed. The freedom comes in the recognition of the absence of full correspondence.

swatcoder 2y ago
That's a valid aesthetic norm to adopt, and I can see how its a practical one if history and culture strike you as too expansive and disorienting and if you feel like you need a strictly conceptualized aesthetic in first place. It sure precludes a lot of art that others have found especially stirring, though, and rejects much of what empowers art to be communicative in a social context. It's valid, but extremely narrow and devaluing, so probably not the norm to expect many artists, patrons, or casual appreciators to adopt for themselves.
- DiscourseFan 2y ago
  What is an artwork if it is not striking? Just because someone tells you you’re supposed to like it? That’s close to navel-gazing. Georg Trakl was frequently referenced by Heidegger and Derrida for just this reason, his poetry is strange, uncomfortable, alienating: you don’t need a degree to feel it.
photonthug 2y ago
I think you could say that Heidegger actually defeated his own argument here. Lots of people will never think of him, or Van Gogh, or beat up old peasant shoes, without free association that connects and enriches each of the individual threads. For those that aren’t aware of the context.. much has been written about this, and it’s a shorthand for a long and interesting conversation. See for example https://harpers.org/2009/10/philosophers-rumble-over-van-goghs-shoes/ https://harpers.org/2009/10/philosophers-rumble-over-van-gog... Http://thecharnelhouse.org/2014/11/29/schapiro-contra-heidegger-the-controversy-over-a-painting-by-van-gogh/ So much depends on a pair of shoes, which reminds me pleasantly of how much depends on a red wheelbarrow, and that’s how knowledge/appreciation of one thing introduces or enriches another.
- DiscourseFan 2y ago
  Yes but that’s also the attitude of someone in psychosis: to connect everything, to relate everything to everything else. We miss gaps, breaks, what is irreconciliable, incomprehensible in the work of art: and the attempt to reduce that gap in the dream of a potential full correspondence is a violent fantasy.
  - JoelMcCracken 2y ago
    Reminds me of Foucault's Pendulum. Great book, worth reading, and extremely relevant to our day.
    - DiscourseFan 2y ago
      I was thinking of that book when I wrote my reply!
  - photonthug 2y ago
    This just dodges the issue by playing games with language and insulting anyone that doesn't agree. One can also argue that separating everything from its natural and appropriate context with some crowbar of the intellect is a violence. And while connecting the unconnected might be mental illness, insisting that nothing can ever be contextually related to anything else is also madness. Heidegger and Van Gogh are literally and very directly entangled. Trying to understand one without the other will result in an incomplete or impoverished understanding, and if Heidegger doesn't like disproving himself this way then he shouldn't have written one important work that referenced another while claiming all works can/should stand alone. This is not even really a matter for interpretation.. like, if the painting did stand alone before, it cannot afterwards. This conversation is part of the evidence for that, but don't take my word for it. Googling "heidegger shoes" will immediately drop you on Van Gogh paintings.. the mutual reference / footnotes on both works are written into history already in many ways. Meanwhile, Schapiro on Heidegger points out Heidegger's own fantasy- the idea that the shoes belonged to peasant woman, whereas it's more likely they belonged to the artist. What's the argument for preferring random speculation about the shoe-owner and rejecting more informed speculation about how historical/cultural context shaped the subject matter? One can think of any kind of wild subjective thing while engaging with art and art-appreciation, but if you're ignoring all the wider context as irrelevant, or insisting that context isn't even real, that won't make for a very coherent or well-informed position. It's art, so feeling something is more important than being well-informed.. but OTOH, if your goal is to engage with a work then "ignoring as much context as possible" isn't usually a great strategy.
Xmd5a 2y ago
As a tangential observation, I discovered something surprising in the etymology of "to remain," which serves as a microcosm of Heidegger's philosophy. First, consider this word2vec equation: being + time = to remain. Then: "to remain" is the goal, while "mere remains" is the fate we want to avoid. This mirrors Heidegger/Hölderlin's quote: "where danger is, grows \ The saving power also." Let's examine the etymology: "To remain" comes from Latin "re-" + "-maneo". "Maneo" means "to stand," "to remain". So "to remain" literally translates to "to remain again". Intriguing. "Remaneo" is affiliated with "remano", meaning "to flow back". As we dig through the stratigraphy of etymology, we stumble upon "wret-", the Indo-European root that led to "re-", associated with "returning" or "rising back up". By seeking the origin of "to remain" through the allegedly dead stacktrace of etymology, we realize we're merely iterating it over again. This leads us into Proto-Indo-European territory: "men-". 726 1 men- IE 2. menth- to rise, mount, tower 726 2 men- to press, step on, tread down 726-28 3 men- IE 5. men- to think; mind, spiritual activity 728-29 4 men- IE meni- to diminish; small 729 5 men- IE 3. men- to stay, remain, stand still This leads to a profound realization: "to remain" is "to think again". Being and thought are the same. Or so is the literal translation of Parmenides that Heidegger insisted on—thinking over. It also leads us to "to remind" (the Call), and "mindful" (Care).

swatcoder 2y ago

That's a valid aesthetic norm to adopt, and I can see how its a practical one if history and culture strike you as too expansive and disorienting and if you feel like you need a strictly conceptualized aesthetic in first place. It sure precludes a lot of art that others have found especially stirring, though, and rejects much of what empowers art to be communicative in a social context. It's valid, but extremely narrow and devaluing, so probably not the norm to expect many artists, patrons, or casual appreciators to adopt for themselves.

DiscourseFan 2y ago
What is an artwork if it is not striking? Just because someone tells you you’re supposed to like it? That’s close to navel-gazing. Georg Trakl was frequently referenced by Heidegger and Derrida for just this reason, his poetry is strange, uncomfortable, alienating: you don’t need a degree to feel it.

photonthug 2y ago

I think you could say that Heidegger actually defeated his own argument here. Lots of people will never think of him, or Van Gogh, or beat up old peasant shoes, without free association that connects and enriches each of the individual threads. For those that aren’t aware of the context.. much has been written about this, and it’s a shorthand for a long and interesting conversation. See for example https://harpers.org/2009/10/philosophers-rumble-over-van-goghs-shoes/ https://harpers.org/2009/10/philosophers-rumble-over-van-gog... Http://thecharnelhouse.org/2014/11/29/schapiro-contra-heidegger-the-controversy-over-a-painting-by-van-gogh/ So much depends on a pair of shoes, which reminds me pleasantly of how much depends on a red wheelbarrow, and that’s how knowledge/appreciation of one thing introduces or enriches another.

DiscourseFan 2y ago
Yes but that’s also the attitude of someone in psychosis: to connect everything, to relate everything to everything else. We miss gaps, breaks, what is irreconciliable, incomprehensible in the work of art: and the attempt to reduce that gap in the dream of a potential full correspondence is a violent fantasy.
- JoelMcCracken 2y ago
  Reminds me of Foucault's Pendulum. Great book, worth reading, and extremely relevant to our day.
  - DiscourseFan 2y ago
    I was thinking of that book when I wrote my reply!
- photonthug 2y ago
  This just dodges the issue by playing games with language and insulting anyone that doesn't agree. One can also argue that separating everything from its natural and appropriate context with some crowbar of the intellect is a violence. And while connecting the unconnected might be mental illness, insisting that nothing can ever be contextually related to anything else is also madness. Heidegger and Van Gogh are literally and very directly entangled. Trying to understand one without the other will result in an incomplete or impoverished understanding, and if Heidegger doesn't like disproving himself this way then he shouldn't have written one important work that referenced another while claiming all works can/should stand alone. This is not even really a matter for interpretation.. like, if the painting did stand alone before, it cannot afterwards. This conversation is part of the evidence for that, but don't take my word for it. Googling "heidegger shoes" will immediately drop you on Van Gogh paintings.. the mutual reference / footnotes on both works are written into history already in many ways. Meanwhile, Schapiro on Heidegger points out Heidegger's own fantasy- the idea that the shoes belonged to peasant woman, whereas it's more likely they belonged to the artist. What's the argument for preferring random speculation about the shoe-owner and rejecting more informed speculation about how historical/cultural context shaped the subject matter? One can think of any kind of wild subjective thing while engaging with art and art-appreciation, but if you're ignoring all the wider context as irrelevant, or insisting that context isn't even real, that won't make for a very coherent or well-informed position. It's art, so feeling something is more important than being well-informed.. but OTOH, if your goal is to engage with a work then "ignoring as much context as possible" isn't usually a great strategy.

Xmd5a 2y ago

As a tangential observation, I discovered something surprising in the etymology of "to remain," which serves as a microcosm of Heidegger's philosophy. First, consider this word2vec equation: being + time = to remain. Then: "to remain" is the goal, while "mere remains" is the fate we want to avoid. This mirrors Heidegger/Hölderlin's quote: "where danger is, grows \ The saving power also." Let's examine the etymology: "To remain" comes from Latin "re-" + "-maneo". "Maneo" means "to stand," "to remain". So "to remain" literally translates to "to remain again". Intriguing. "Remaneo" is affiliated with "remano", meaning "to flow back". As we dig through the stratigraphy of etymology, we stumble upon "wret-", the Indo-European root that led to "re-", associated with "returning" or "rising back up". By seeking the origin of "to remain" through the allegedly dead stacktrace of etymology, we realize we're merely iterating it over again. This leads us into Proto-Indo-European territory: "men-". 726 1 men- IE 2. menth- to rise, mount, tower 726 2 men- to press, step on, tread down 726-28 3 men- IE 5. men- to think; mind, spiritual activity 728-29 4 men- IE meni- to diminish; small 729 5 men- IE 3. men- to stay, remain, stand still This leads to a profound realization: "to remain" is "to think again". Being and thought are the same. Or so is the literal translation of Parmenides that Heidegger insisted on—thinking over. It also leads us to "to remind" (the Call), and "mindful" (Care).