Gadamer: A Philosophical Portrait

3 LINGERING IN ART

48 lingering in art Our experience of the aesthetic too is a mode of self-understanding. (TM 97/GW1 102) The essence of temporal experience in art is that we learn to tarry. That is perhaps the finite equivalent given to us of what we call eternity. (RB 50/GW8 136) 1. Toward a Phenomenology of Play it may seem surprising—and Gadamer himself admits this in retrospect—that Truth and Method, despite the title’s promise of a close examination of truth, begins with an extensive discussion of art (GR 195/GW8 373). however, art in particular plays a key role in philosophical hermeneutics, and this is because a new experience of truth can be achieved only from art; thus the need arises to free aesthetics from the quarrel with modern science. The modern scientific demand for objectivity forces aesthetic experience to understand itself merely subjectively, as if we were dealing with a form of subjectivity that is engaged in a frivolous, self-referential play. The abstraction of aesthetic consciousness underwrites the triumph of science. how can this dead end be avoided? Gadamer does so by conceiving of art as the experience of being, or better, an “increase in being,” in which subjectivity plays a secondary role (TM 140/GW1 145). against the rigid dichotomy of subject and object, he offers the dynamic model of an encounter that has the character of an event: “all encounter with the language of art is an encounter with an unfinished event and is itself part of this event” (TM 99/GW1 105). The “ontology of the work of art” will clarify this new model. Gadamer’s ontology of the work of art unfolds through the theme of play. more generally, play is the guiding thread of Gadamer’s entire oeuvre. it is play or game that unites art and language (rPJ 41/GW2 5), insofar as play belongs to the concepts that fundamentally undermine, unhinge, and call the metaphysics of subjectivity into question. in fact, Kant and Schiller had already discussed play, and precisely in an aesthetic sense. Whereas Kant refers to the free play of our faculties, Schiller sees in art the play that frees us from the constraints of knowledge and morality. in opposition to the seriousness of knowledge and morality, the play of art unlocks the aesthetic space of enjoyment and entertainment. even prior to asking whether art is a serious matter, Gadamer first asks whether play is a serious matter. hence, he draws on the categories 3 Lingering in Art | 49 of aesthetic consciousness in order to overturn them. The play of subjectivity turns into the play of art, which limits and calls subjectivity into question; while unreality, that is, the beautiful appearance of aesthetic consciousness, becomes the reality of art, which is more real than reality itself. Far from being mere leisure, play demands to be taken seriously. Play occurs when the player is drawn into and captivated by the game, when the player becomes completely immersed in the game. as Gadamer has it, “Someone who doesn’t take the game seriously is a spoilsport” (TM 102/GW1 108). The game does not allow the player to remain outside, or to address the game as if it were an object. Gadamer follows the allusions offered by language, which speaks of the play of lights, the play of waves, of forces, of colors, even of words. The German terms Spiel/spielen indicate, much like the english cognates, a semantic field that includes the playing of an instrument, acting , and the performance of a musical or theatrical piece. if play has a subject, as these examples show, it is not the player but the game itself. Gadamer refers to the “primacy of the game over the players engaged in it” (TM 106/GW1 111), insofar as to play means to let oneself be taken by the game; for it is the game that asserts itself and takes hold of the player with its rules, its movement, and its primacy. it is the game that entices the player, holds him or her captive and at play—not the other way round. The player cannot but give himself or herself over to the game, to bend to “a reality that surpasses him,” which thereby raises the player beyond his or her own limits (TM 109/GW1 115). The player should not claim to dominate the game, to rule, or to lead it. indeed, players should not even believe they are the...