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29Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences 3 (2008 1) 338-346
УДК 700:128
The Creation Problem in Fundamental Ontology of Martin Heidegger and Modern Theory of Fine Arts
Natalia P. Koptseva*
Siberian Federal University, 79 Svobodny, Krasnoyarsk, 660041 Russia 1
Received 05.08.2008, received in revised form 10.09.2008, accepted 17.09.2008
The problem of creating works of art through the ontology of Martin Heidegger - is considered in the article. Since the time of Aristotle, philosophers, including Christian philosophers up to Hegel, have considered this problem. Martin Heidegger's main criterion for solving this problem was the criterion of authenticity or non- authenticity of existence, which can be revealed in a work of art. The importance of the problem is connected with our eternal search for the true meaning of human existence. In particular, Martin Heidegger's philosophical system posits the problem of distinguishing authentic and non-authentic human existence; the problem of true and non-true. The main question of Heidegger's philosophy-how to search for the meaning of existence—can also be addressed to the creation of an artwork, in which authentic existence is concretized.
Heidegger suggests the correlation between art and science as a correcting and supplementary sphere; the search for the meaning of existence is realized owing to that unity. The modern theory of fine arts is orientated to that synthesis of art and science. That synthesis allows to create of some new conceptual theses, classifications and, perhaps, even laws of the theory of fine arts, which were a previously unsolved problem in the contemporary theory of fine arts. The contemporary theory of fine arts shows the conception of artist, an author of a work of art, as a master-prophet and, consequently, demonstrates some aspects and possible schemes of creation.
Keywords: creation problem, Martin Heidegger, ontology, theory of fine arts, authenticity/non-authenticity of existence.
The creation problem of works of art is considered through the ontology of Martin Heidegger in the article. Historical and philosophical analysis of the problem from Aristotle, Christian philosophy on the whole to Hegel and Heidegger allows to find out the main criterion given by Martin Heidegger - the criterion of authenticity or non-authenticity of existence, which can be revealed in a work of art.
The actuality of the problem is connected with our eternal search for the true meaning of humane existence. In particular, Martin Heidegger's philosophical system posits the problem of distinguishing authentic and non-authentic humane existence, the problem of true and non-true. The main question of Heidegger's philosophy concerning the method of searching for the meaning of existence supposes addressing
* Corresponding author E-mail address: decanka@mail.ru
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to the creation and work of art, in which authentic existence is concretized.
Heidegger suggests the correlation between art and science as a correcting and supplementary sphere; the search for the meaning of existence is realized owing to that unity. The modern theory of fine arts is orientated to that synthesis of art and science. That synthesis allows to create some new conceptual theses, classifications and, perhaps, even laws of theory of fine arts while just recently it's been an absolutely unsolved problem in the contemporary theory of fine arts. In particular, the method of the contemporary theory of fine arts allows to represent the conception of artist, an author of a work of art, as a master-prophet and, consequently, to find out some aspects and possible schemes of creation.
The question of the essence of creation has been raised by philosophers of different historical epochs in various ways, each epoch made its own discoveries of the nature of creation. The theme of the given article is a question about essence of oeuvre as an attribute of the generic man. On the basis of the dialectic principle of integrity of historical and logical spheres within the culture, it is necessary to consider the history of philosophical understanding of oeuvre essence. On the most generic level, it is a problem of interrelations between the creature and the creator.
Aristotle predominantly conceived oeuvre as a form-creation. Existence, being divided into the form and the matter, possessed such an element in the matter, which was subjected neither to appearance nor to destruction. But the form could be easily created and changed. To create means to make a new form of existence. God is the form of forms, the Creator and the creation itself, but only in relation to the form. But he is powerless in reference to the matter.
Christian philosophy, comprehending the world, interpreted it as a «miraculous» creation out of nothing. All the elements of the world, all
the existing are included here without changes: the sky and the earth, the animals and the man. Only the creator himself is unchangeable and non-creatable. Simultaneously with such an interpretation, Christianity gives an answer to the following metaphysical question: «How is the existing possible?» The existing is entirely created and does not contain any other beginning in itself. Beyond it, there is only nothingness, which could not be comprehended by a human mind. Nevertheless, the problem of creator, as the basis and the beginning of existence, is still left unsolved. Having failed to answer the same metaphysical question, but in other words: «Where has God appeared from?», the conception of the world creation by the Creator turns out to be indefensible, and that has been proved by the Modern science.
A significant step in oeuvre philosophy understanding has been done by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel through his idea ofself-progression of all the existing. Dialectic interrelation of the form and the matter (materia) denies the activity of the form only and the passiveness of the content. In dialectics of the form and the content object creates self by itself, thereat the object's self-progression is not proved, but it is postulated. This is the New time paradigm, which substantiates itself in the process of development. As far as the form and the content are one whole, so, not only the form is being «created», but the content as well: the content is formed and the form is contensive. The existing is not already divided into the creator and his creation; it is making self of itself.
Undoubtedly, Hegel's conception was not only a great philosophical discovery, but it also substantiated the foundation of the new-European sciences. The theory of evolution by Charles Darwin was based on the principle of self-progression. Historical materialism of Karl
Marks originated from self-progressing forces of the historical process.
Though, there also gradually appeared some shortcomings of Hegel's conception. First of all, this was the equality of the subject and the object. Creative process self-progression did not take place inside the man, but it created objects out of him one way or another. In a certain sense, the man was a creator, there was such a difference between the master and his creature, which was impossible to bring to a full indistinguishable equation. Consequently, the problem of the creature and the creator could not be reduced to a simple self-progression, but the backtracking to the conception of Aristotle and of Church Fathers was also impossible. The factor of integrity of the form and the content, of the creator and the creature had become too obvious. It was necessary to change the point of view not only at the existing, but also at the existence.
That was why the philosophy of New time considered creation in a broad sense, as something not being the creature of God, but having some other criterion. This criterion had got the naming of «new», as the epoch itself. Henceforth, novelty became the criterion of both objects' creation, and of culture development. It became important not only to create, but to make something, that would not have any analogies in the social-historical (and not only unique) practice of the mankind. Civilization seemed to have come to the way of illimitable progress, which had to be brought by scientific and technological revolution. As there appeared new and new discoveries and inventions, so there were new styles and tendencies in artistic culture. A great step forward had been done, if it had not been for that the Scientist essence of «crude progress» finally brought to the cultural crisis of the XXth century.
Numerous styles and tendencies of modernism, having been sticking to «scientific» positions in the XXth century, suddenly turned out
to be on a hiding to nothing. The new as such was not already undoubtedly valuable. There appeared a new requirement of QUALITATIVE approach to all this new, the requirement for its meaning and foundation. The call to reject all the old, having sounded earlier as revolutionary, was gradually replaced by the search of basis in the traditions of the past. Exceptionality of «masterpieces» of the novelty and technical inventions wore off, the creation principle of something «new» turned out to be rather rational and monotonous. Scientific inventions ceased to be a revelation, but became a routine, though in the abstract, they preserved the novelty factor.
Apparently, that was exactly the reason why the new philosophic course, having introduced the creation criterion as a criterion of «authenticity» of the creator and the creature, originally tuned out to be anti-Scientific. German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1975) was a theoretical founder of this trend, having got the name of «fundamental ontology». In 1927 his work «Being and Time» was off the press, in this work he discovered NON-AUTHENTICITY of humane everyday existence (das Man) and developed a row of criteria of its authenticity. In 30-s he turned to the problems of language and poetry, where the problem of creation in art, or to be more precise, - in poetry, came to the first place. Creation, in its original form, appears to be open only to a poet. In this context, science plays a secondary part; its sphere is a sphere of «correctness». Afterwards, Heidegger himself addressed to the problems of science and engineering. And though, he was still fixing their inner crisis, at the same time he suggested a way out in the following: that science and engineering would reconsider their creation criteria, based on «the progress of the new» and would come to the criteria of authenticity. Thus, Heidegger postulated the necessity of a fruitful dialogue between science and arts, in order the authentic oeuvre became an attribute of the whole
humane existence, of the whole humane activity. That is why, M. Heidegger's conception study is considered to be very important and significant for history of art, as far as, to his mind, the criterion of authenticity can be realized at full extent precisely in art.
Martin Heidegger's philosophy of creation is very up-to-date, and at the same time, most of eternal problems of mankind, having been thought through it, are solved by Heidegger through the search of humane existence meaning. The problems, being raised by Heidegger, their interrelation can be schematically shown as following (Fig. 1).
This scheme (Fig. 1) gives us a possibility to follow the evolution of M. Heidegger's judgments - from the traditional philosophical system (the Doctrine of Existence) to the foundation of the authentic existence philosophy in poetic works of art. It also allows to reveal the course of M. Heidegger's philosophical thinking of :
1) distinction of authentic and non-authentic existence of the humane being; 2) overpass through authentic existence to the Truth and language; 3) concretization of authentic existence as a source of artistic work; 4) creation - obtaining of the Truth in the masterpiece, where art is a work of language («poetry»), on one hand, and on the other hand, it is a beginning and a basis of the historical process - the epochs' succession in the comprehension of the existing.
The crisis of the philosophical rationalism of the end of the XlXth - the beginning of the XXth centuries brought to life the search for new forms of philosophical perception of reality. «The philosophy of life» and the fundamental ontology of M. Heidegger became its natural alternative. The main question for M. Heidegger became how to find the meaning of existence. For this purpose he tried to create the philosophy of the truth - an authentic philosophy. At the same time, a thorough study of the history of philosophy brought M.
Fig. 1. Moduses of authentic and non-authentic humane existence in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger
Heidegger to the study of Presocratics, Augustine Aureli, Blaise Pascal, S. Kjerkegor, whose philosophical viewpoints were in opposition to the crude scientific perception of reality.
For the first time M. Heidegger defined the Truth as an attribute of existence (here-existence), as READINESS for the existing perception in his treatise «Being and Time» (1927), having refused from the traditional definition of the Truth as a correspondence of the utterance about the object and the object itself. He explains the oblivion of the Truth as readiness, and the passing over to its comprehension as a truthfulness by the Commonness supremacy (das Man) - such a method of the humane existence, that wipes off the independence of existence, when in any situation every person acts the same way «as Others do», but these «Others» are impersonal and indefinite. In the philosophy of Martin Heidegger the Truth and the man exchange their places: it is not the man, who defines what the truth and non-truth is. On the contrary, he himself can EXIST (BE) IN THE TRUTH OR BE IN NON-TRUTH.
Non-truth is not synonymous to lie, but something positive, necessary for cognition -«the existing being hidden in the integral». The cognition, which does not accept the presence of the truth and non-truth, is «roaming». The denial of mystery pushes the man into the Commonness (das Man).
In his work «On the Essence of Truth», M. Heidegger defines this essence as freedom. And freedom, in its turn, is interpreted by him as «the-permission-the-existing-to-be-as-it-is». And, in the end, his final understanding of the truth is Readiness (openness) to percept the existing. Thus, in M. Heidegger's philosophy the truth is not a characteristic of the subject, but it is an attribute of the existence on the whole, it exists before the thinking is divided into the object and the subject. This way, the thinker overcomes both the truth subjectivisation, giving the possibility
to angle the truth, and traditional metaphysical understanding of the truth, when it acquires a fixed absolute form.
Martin Heidegger reached to the problems of the philosophy of art through the philosophy of language: «late» Heidegger realized his own conception in his wonderful texts: «Language is a home of existence». In his first philosophic works he established a philosophic system and, beginning from mid 30-s of XX century, he desired to prove an impossibility of the rational perception of the being and he used the notion of «listening attentively» to characterize the true thinking: the being can be only listened to. It is living in the most secret bosom of culture - in language. These are not people speaking «language», but «language is speaking people» and about people.
But not all the language «reveals» the truth, but only a poetic language ofthe elect poets. «Late» Heidegger addressed to the oeuvre of Rainer Maria Rilke, Georg Trakl, C. George and, first of all, to the study of the oeuvre of a great German poet Friedrich Gelderlin. He called Gelderlin «the poet of poets». Heidegger considered that only Friedrich Gelderlin, in contrast to his friends -Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Shelling - did not apostatize the spirit of Romanticism till the end of his days. German romanticism attracted Heidegger by its attitude towards art as the being general store, presenting the man safety and reliance. R. Gabitova underlines in her research work: «All the pathos of the proper romantic philosophizing consists finally of the demand to transmake scientific philosophic knowledge in its conceptual form into illogic (non-conceptual) poetically-intuitive, mystically-religious knowledge» (Gabitova, 1989).
Though M. Heidegger dedicated a significant amount of his researches to Gelderlin, we shall address to his small article, not so well-known to the general public: «Origin of the Work of Art» or «What Is Metaphysics», - attached to the work
of 1937 «Gelderlin and the Essence of Poetry» (Heidegger, 1991: 37-47).
The article «Gelderlin and the Essence of Poetry» is written in the typical style of Heidegger
- he uses a lot of rhetorical questions, performs hermeneutical circles, goes back to his previous ideas. The first impression is the following that before us there is a reproduction of the current reflection, may be, associations about some poetic lines. Though, in a close consideration it becomes clear that, notwithstanding all the visual simplicity of speculation, it is a thoroughly-thought-over philosophical work, based on precise and clear principles, written to substantiate much as clear, integral and well-comprehended idea. A crisp logic of speculation and a set of phrases of Friedrich Gelderlin, which M. Heidegger calls «instructions», - all these bespeak of that.
The first Gelderlin's instruction is «poetry is the most innocent of all métiers» (Ibidem: 37). Conforming to this instruction, Heidegger defines poetry as a GAME, not admitting seriousness of decisions, it is like a dream, and does not resemble reality. But it is not a simple game, but «a game of words»; poetry creates its pieces in the sphere of language and its «material». That is why the second Gelderlin's instruction concerns language
- «language, the most dangerous of possessions, has been given to man... so, that he has got the possibility to affirm, who he is» (Ibidem: 38).
Man is a possessor of language: «Man is that one, who listens attentively to all the things and studies them» (Ibidem: 38). But why is language the most dangerous of man's possessions? Heidegger answers that because, «word as a word cannot give any definite guarantees, that it is essential or it is a fraud» (Ibidem: 39), and there is a danger of mistake hidden in it. Heidegger defines the essence of language not as an instrument of cognition, being equal in the row of lots, but he affirms with all the definiteness: «only language gives that very possibility of standing in the
openness of the existing. Only there, where a language is, there is a world... Only there, where a world prevails, there is a history». (Ibidem: 40)
Precisely, language gives the guarantee that man can exist historically. Thus, searching for the poetry existence, Heidegger founds the essence of language, and then he listens attentively to the third instruction of Gelderlin in order to find out that, «How does language become actual?», i.e. how does the necessity of its existence reveal? The Gelderlin's instruction sounds as follows:
Much has been known by man,
Many of Celestials have been named by him
Since we have become a conversation,
Since we have been listening to each other
(Ibidem: 41).
A special attention is paid to the phrase about CONVERSATION, which is interpreted by the philosopher as a capability to speak and to listen. He relates the appearing of the time feeling, the appearing of the world, the giving of names to gods with conversation: «Since language has become really actual as a conversation, gods are carrying their names and the world has appeared» (Ibidem: 42). The supposition that, language is the highest method of humane existence, obtains its meaning and substantiation through this instruction.
Now, we need to find the beginning of the «conversation» - it is poetry, the expression of its essence. And it is indicated by the fourth instruction: «But that, what is left, is settled by poets...» (Ibidem: 43), and Heidegger defines the essence of poetry as «the essence settled with a help of a word» (Ibidem: 43). He formulates the main statement of his philosophy as the conclusion: «The being is no way the existing. Taking into account that the existing and the essence of things cannot be figured out and extracted from the presenting, they must be freely created, settled and given» (Ibidem: 43).
Heidegger calls humane existence «poetic», as far as it is included into «the closeness of things' essences». Poetry is not simply an ornament, forming the existence, and not at all a mere temporary inspiration or amusement. «Poetry is an original language of the historical man» (Ibidem: 44). The essence of language must be perceived from the essence of poetry.
The fifth instruction of Gelderlin discloses the understanding of the present time: «it is a miserable time, because it is subjected to double absence and double «No»: there is already «No» disappearing gods and there is «No» coming God yet» (Ibidem: 46). The instruction of Gelderlin: «Full of merriment and still poetically lives the man on this earth» is taken by Heidegger as a reflexion of the essence of his time and the time of Gelderlin. The reflexion of the time essence makes Gelderlin be «the poet of poets», because «poet is the one, who is an intermediate between God and people», he realizes poetry as «an action of the existing determination» (Ibidem: 46), which undergoes DOUBLE-FOUNDATION REGULATION. Poet expresses «the cry of people», and, at the same time, he explains «the signs of gods». «He is the one, who has been belched outwards, - outside their Between - between gods and people. But only then and for the fist time it is decided in this Between, who man is and where he places his own existence» (Ibidem: 47).
Heidegger believes that the unique meaning of Gelderlin is in the following, that he apprehends and predicts the advent of the «miserable» time: «The essence of poetry, determined by Gelderlin, is in the highest degree historical, as far as it anticipates the historical timing; but as a historical essence it is the only essential subject-matter». (Ibidem: 47)
The philosophy of poetic creation has the most important meaning for the modern theory of fine arts. Fundamental ontology methodology allows coming up to the concept of artistic image
as a result of game relations between the recipient and the piece of fine art as a thing. The work of art, in its turn, is considered as a result of relations between the master and the artistic material.
The understanding of that, who an artist, a master, an author of the work of fine art is, turns out to be particularly harmonious with Heidegger's philosophy of creation.
Master is the one, who is able of producing activity more than other people, who is able to work artistically more than others, whom is gifted more than others, whom is revealed more than others.
We are speaking of some elect people, outstanding among the common mass, i.e. about the elite of masters. The names of the first cultural masters are fixed in ancient myths and legends: Theseus, Hercules, Prometheus, Thoth, and Saturn. They have come «from God», have got a divine Gift. And now artistic mastery is perceived not only as a result of man's self-development, but also as a Gift, as a Revelation from above.
Master is that one, whom is trusted most of all, through whom something is revealed: gods give people the ability of counting, prototype images of temples and statues are coming from heavens, a thorough plan of Tabernacle construction and the first icon are Gifted by God himself and so on.
There are masters-intermediates in both routine activity and artistic activity, and right through them disclosure-revelation emanates. There is always a master-prophet in clothes production, agriculture, and fishing, and in houses' building; the master who has been gifted his mastery; his skill to make artificial things has been given to him temptingly explicitly.
The initial impulse to artistic activity is obligatory connected with master-prophet's activity, resembling the prophesying activity of a religion founder. The quality of the Gift, of the Revelation is as if «fixing» the artistry: when the master is gifted something, then it is done not for
the unique ability to die together with the master, but for something to be revealed to other people through the given mastery.
We may distinguish a whole row of situations, connected with the Gift-Revelation:
1) Having got the Gift from above, the man, exploits it egoistically, being a master-prophet, who brings the gifted exclusively to himself;
2) Artistically making the second nature products, master-prophet uses the given Gift for the good of society, disclosing the Revelation to other people of his nationality, religion, race, family;
3) Master-prophet uses the Gift, given from above, for spreading the Revelation among all the people, regardless of their nationality, religion, race or family;
4) Evolving individually, man overcomes by his personal effort the condition of profane equality with other producers of the second nature things, and finally he achieves the Gift situation in order to get the master-hero's position, which he needs mainly for his egocentricity;
5) Individual achievement of the status of peoples' organism organ, fulfilling the function of the master-hero's Gift, whose productive activity being needed for the life of a certain social organism;
6) Man successfully acquires the position of the master-hero, who's earned the Gift, being aimed for the good of all the mankind.
In order to understand, what precisely master-piece, produced by some handyman, is, it is necessary to analyze the following situation: the one, who has become a master, who has grown up and cultivated in himself the abilities for the Gift,
outstanding him from other people, and that is why the one is marked out by the Gift of Revelation. It means that, this striving of man himself to overcome the condition of profane equality with other people makes him that very «lightning rod», through which the Revelation from above is transferred: man's personal «heroic» effort up towards the mastery of pieces' production gets its answer - the «prophetic» address from above.
Where does the necessity of such activity come from? What is feeding the impulse towards it? The answer can be given only, if we see the process of striving for «artistically tempting artificiality» (the hero) and the answering Gift (the prophet) in their integrity, within their meeting. The unique activity of the masterpieces' world production begins exactly from the meeting point of the master's striving for personal growth, development, on one hand, and the Gift, going from above, on the other hand.
Thus, fundamental ontology of Martin Heidegger allows building of the modern philosophy of art, on which basis there have been created methods of philosophical-art-historian analysis of artistic works, which, in their turn, allow to simulate the dynamics of artistic image generation and to indicate the key points of this process. From now forth, the analytics of works of fine art can bring us to those educational practices, when the recipient (the spectator) learns and reproduces socially meaningful ideals in a most nonviolent, free, tolerant and, at the same time, most stable form - the form of perception of the work of art and development of the ability for synthetic (in particularly, visual) thinking.
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