The Gods and Technology: A Reading of Heidegger

Part IV. Art

185 Part IV Art Recall the setting for Heidegger’s lecture on technology. The occasion was a colloquium devoted to the topic of “The arts in the technological age.” The colloquium was sponsored by an institution dedicated to art, namely, the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, but it took place at a citadel of technology, a sort of German MIT, the Munich Institute of Technology. Thus, the colloquium literally brought art into the world of technology, and the seven invited speakers were to explore the proper role, if any, of art therein. Heidegger finally takes up the designated topic of art in a passage that is less than two pages long, just prior to the conclusion of the speech. Coming so late, the passage on art is, understandably, cryptic. It runs as follows: There was a time when it was not technology alone that bore the name techne. Once that disclosive looking which brings truth forth into radiant appearance was also called techne. There was a time when the bringing forth of the true into the beautiful was called techne. That is, the poiesis of the fine arts was also called techne. At the outset of the destiny of the West, in Greece, the arts soared to the supreme height of the disclosedness bestowed on them. They brought the presence of the gods, and the dialogue of divine and human destinies, to radiance. And art was simply called techne. It was a single, manifold disclosive looking. It was pious, provmoõ [promos], i.e., submissive to the occurrence and holding sway of truth. The arts [die Künste] did not issue from artistry [das Artistische]. Artworks were not enjoyed aesthetically. Art was not one among other cultural creations. What was art—perhaps only for that brief but sublime age? Why did art bear the name techne pure and simple? Because it was a disclosive looking that brought forth and, accordingly, belonged within poiesis. Ultimately, what was awarded the name poiesis as a proper name was poesy, i.e., poetry, that disclosive looking which holds sway in all the fine arts, in all the arts that have to do with beauty. The same poet from whom we heard the words, But where danger is, there also grows That which might save. says to us: . . . poetically dwells man on this earth. The poetical brings the true into the luster of what Plato in the Phaedrus calls tov ejkfanevstaton [to ekphanestaton], that which shines forth most purely. The poetical holds sway in all art, in all disclosure of the essence through beauty. Could it be that the fine arts are called to poetic disclosedness? Could it be that such disclosedness lays claim to them most primally, so that they in turn might expressly foster the growth of that which saves, might awaken and found anew our vision of, and trust in, that which bestows? Whether this highest possibility of its essence may be bestowed on art in the midst of the extreme danger, no one can tell. Yet we can be in wonder. Before what? Before this other possibility, that the frenzy of [modern] technology may entrench itself everywhere to such an extent that the essence of [modern] technology, passing right through all technological things, may someday hold sway over the very event of truth. Because the essence of technology is nothing technological, an essential determination of technology and a decisive confrontation with it must occur in a realm that, in relation to technology, is of a kindred essence on the one hand, and yet, on the other hand, is of a fundamentally different essence. Such a realm is art—always provided that our approach to art is not sealed off from the constellation of truth, concerning which we are questioning. (FT, 35–36/34–35) (Metaphysical) aesthetics versus (ontological) philosophy of art The fundamental distinction at play in this passage on art is a typically Heideggerian one. It is the distinction between a humanistic and an ontological view of art. The former makes humanity the measure of art: i.e., art arises out of human creativity and exists to elevate human experience. Hu186 The Gods and Technology mans are thus the beginning and end of art. Versus this, the ontological view, to put it in a preliminary way, sees Being, the gods, at work in art. The humanistic understanding of art goes by the name of “aesthetics.” Today aesthetics is the...