Vol. VI, May 1995

EPISTEME

A Journal of Undergraduate Philosophy

May 1995

Volume VI

Contents THE RECONSTRUCTION OF HUMAN FINITUDE:

A "RETRIEVAL" OF

KIERKERGAARD' S PROTO~ HERMENEUTICS ................................................. 1

Emesto V. Garcia, University of Michigan A MODERN COMPOSITION OF HEGEL IN BLUE, YELLOW, AND BLACK: A STUDY OF HEGEL'S A.ESTHETICS .............................................................. 20

Thomas J. Sullivan, College of the Holy Cross NIETZSCHE'S FINAL THOUGHTS ON ART AND EXISTIJNCU: A Rm'I.,Y '1'0 JULIAN YOUNG •.....• , •••.••• , •.•••.•.....•••••••••• "., ........................... _11 ......................

38

David Evenhuis, Hope College SUBJECTIVITY

vs. USE: A HEIDEGGERIAN CJu'J'[(.),llJ( 011 8i\ltTIWi\N

VALUES .............................................................................."••.•••.•....• 11 •• ' •••••• ,

52

Laura M. Bruce, Denison University MOVEMENTS IN TIME ..............................................................................

68

Gabliel Rockhill, Grinnell College The editors express sincere appreciation to th~ Denison UniverHity Research Foundation, the Denison Office of Adm1HHio1'lH, thcDeniHon Honors Program, Pat Davis and Faculty AdviHOl' David Goldblatt for their assistance in making the publication of this journal pOHsibh'.

We also extend special gratilude to the Philosophy D(!pal'ttntmt faculty: David Goldblatt, Amy Friesen, TOllyLisska,Ronnlcl E. Santoni and Steven Vogel for their consta nt ell thusiasm, support and creative input.

THE

RECONSTRUCTION OF HUMAN

FINITUDE: A "RETRIEVAL" OF

KIERKEGAARD'S PROTO-HERMENEUTICS

Ernesto V. Garcia

University of Michigan at Ann Arbor

The aim of relation is relation's own being, that is, contact with the Thou. For through contact with every thou we are stirred with a breath of the Thou, that is, of eternal life. 1

- Martin Buber To enter into relation with another individual, to estab­ lish an existence-communication" where fundamental ethical demands are experienced directly - the twentieth-century Jewish theologian Martin Buber saw the reality of this relation to the Thou as mediating access to /I eternal life." And the aim', the authentic telos of this relationship with the other, Buber urged, rests simply in establishing relationship itself, in achiev­ ing genuine contact' with another independent, existing per­ son. , The emphasis in Bubel" s existentialist thought on the ethical primacy of an I-Thou relation is anticipated, as is well­ acknowledged, by seminal insights from within the large, literary corpus of S0ren Kierkegaard. For the Danish Lutheran Kierkegaard, the basic concern of this ethical relation with the Thou finds its most paradigmatic expression in the existing human's relationship to the absolute 'Other.' Itisarelationship which is grounded in - language suggestively evoked in Buber's later formulations - in the infinite interest in one's "eternal happiness." And this "relation of the subject [to God] is precisely the knotty subject," a concenl of central importance 1/

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Garcia is a senior majoring in Honots Philosophy and English at the llniversihJ of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He will be attending Harvard Divinity School in the Fall.

E isteme • Volume VI· Ma 1995

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within Kierkegaard's philosophy,2 What is at stake here? Why does this subjective relation­ ship of the existing individual to her eternal happiness, this "God-relationship," constitute, for Kierkegaard, the knotty subject? Understood properly, it is just this dilemma which confronts each person as an existing individual. It was this overarching concern which bore a foundational bearing for his entire thinking, and indeed, for his own life: . , , what good would it do me to be able to explain the meaning of Christianity if it had no deeper signifi­ cance forme and for my life; - what good would it dp me if truth stood before me, cold and naked, not caring whether I recognized her or not, and produc­ ing in me a shudder of fear rather than a trusting devotion? I certainly do not deny that I still recognise an imperative of understanding and that through it one can work upon men, but it must be taken up into my life, and that is what I now recognise as the most important thing. 3

The 'imperative' llr.trure derives from its intellectual, and lnore decisively, from its existential claims upon the person's life, as she lives it; its difficulty rests in the manner in which we rela te to the truth.

Before tackling the 'knotty subject' of the believer's existential stance, we need to underscore a basic condition for any truth-relationship at alL It is the concern that opens the pseudonym Johannps Climacus' first work, Philosophical Frag­ ments - namely, "Can the truth be learned?" Can we even acquire Kierkegaard's "imperative of understanding" at all, not only to 'work upon' others, but to take up truth in our own individual lives? Instead of engaging in a predominant ap­ proach in formulating this issue - by concentrating on Kierkegaard's celebrated thesis that "truth is subjectivity," that' knowledge of truth is obtained via some existential, subjective mode of inquiry - we want to retrieve here what seems an almost entirely neglected element in most expositions on his

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philosophy: a full description of Kierkegaard' s essentially nega­ tive response to the question.

Thatis, we want to outline those conditions and features inherent in the humanpredicamentthat atleastfor Kierkegaard, present themselves as barriers, or perhaps better, as inevitable limitations or horizons to human attempts at knowing. And in this respect, we want to secure for Kierkegaard an anticipatory status not only as a proto-deconstructionist, as scholars as diverse as Louis Mackey, Mark Taylor and others have vari­ ously suggested, but also, and perhaps more calmly, as an important proto-hermeneutical thinker - as anticipating stances maturely formulated in later Continental philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and others. We want to establish what Kierkegaard sees as the situated contin­ gency and 'fallibilistic' status intrinsic in any human knowl­ edge.

Drawing particularly from the hallmark writings of the pseudonymous Johannes Climacus, we will try to piece to­ gether an organized view of how Kierkegaard would urge us to understand that most elevated project of human knowledge that is, metaphysical speculation, this theoretical explanation into the way things are. 4 It was the urgent need for delimiting this tendency in "the present age" towards totalizing system­ building which provoked Kierkegaard into enlisting the talents of a dialectician like Johannes Climacus. The well-known his­ torical outcome of this maneuver was an elaborate, existential defense of a thoroughly more tempered view of human know­ ing, working towards a hermeneutical 'reconstruction' of hu­ man finitude, and of the radical contingency of human knowl­ edge and historical existence itself.

A Pseudonymous Perspective on the Metaphysical Project Employing for his own particular purposes an insight derived from Lessing, JohalUles Climacus endorses the thesis that a system of existence cannot be given. 115 For Climacus, so­ /I

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called systems of existence, necessarily arising from an essen­ tially detached vie"wpoint, are fundamentally contrary to the nature of human existence itself. Kierkegaard's distinctive formulations about "metaphysics" are fueled by exactly anti­ Hegelian concerns of this sort, by whatJohannes Climacus and other pseudonyms considered as fundamental shortcomings in any metaphysical project.

What best characterizes metaphysics, and the way in 'which speculative thought conceives of existence? It is pre­ eminently a desire to understand one's existence sub specie aeterni,6 the attempt to conjoin in human systems thought and existence, ideality and actuality. This attitude fosters a "meta­ physical withdrawal,"7 which always remains an existential impossibility because it requires an abstraction out of exist­ ence itself. As Climacus puts it, "The systematic idea is subject­ object, is the unity of thinking and being; existence, on the other hand, is precisely the separation." s To locate Kierkegaard's insight in more familiar, philosophical environs, metaphysical systematization is preeminently that sort of thinking which Hilary Putnam would indict as being a wistful, realist longing for a God's-eye perspective, an 'externalistic' all-encompass­ ingviewpoint from which to definitively understand the whole of reality.9 Johannes Climacus sets a fundamental opposition in motion here. On the one hand, we can embrace the deliver­ ances of a theoretical metaphysics; on the other, we are con­ fronted with existence itself, with the actuality of living one's own life. This same dilemma faced another Kierkegaard pseudonym, Constantin Constatius, in Repetition. 10 There, the issue was whether movement in the "existential" sense was possible, and Constantius set the stage with a classical dispute between the Eleatics, who theoretically denied motion, and Diogenes, who came forward to refute them. "He literally did come forward, because he did not say a word but merely paced pack and forth a few times, thereby assuming that he had

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sufficiently refuted them."ll Metaphysical speculation, like the Eleatic denial of real motion, is always on the side of theoretically 'freezing' actual­ ity, of trying to rarefy the constant flux of human existence into permanent, immobilized systems. Instead of movement for­ ward, instead of genuine existential repetition, speculative thought feigns motion through a recollection (in a Socratic fashion) of systematic knowledge which one has, in fact, al­ ways imamnently possessed.

Johannes Climacus affirms a related doctrine. Rather than stress on 'repetition' for acquiring existential knowledge, the arguments in the Postscript instead emphasize the ethical category. It is in the ethical- which, on at least one possible characterization, is where an individual moves beyond pure immediacy, and the multiplicities of options given by reflec­ tion, to that place where one relates in a committed sense of subjectivity - in which we encounter the difficulty of actual existence. Climacus writes: The continued striving is the expression of the exist­ ing subject's ethical life view. The continued striving must therefore not be understood metaphysically, but neither is there any individual who exists meta­ physically.J2

This "continued striving," which, in apostolic Pauline language, is familiarly expressed as a pressing on to that goal ahead,I3 is eminently the language of achIality, of existential movement. And this necessity, Climacus would urge, demon­ strates the incompatibility of living in effortless, speculative categories. To reemphasize his insight, "neither is there any individual who exists metaphysically." 14 The project which underlies the project in the Postscript" is thus more fundamental in a religious sense. The task is ethical and religious existence itself. The goal, the absolute telos, resides in one's acquiring of her own infinite, eternal happiness.

To yield to the ethical sphere, through resolving to

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commit oneself, is to enter into actual existence. Metaphysics, on the other hand, would have us to go even beyond existence, as the term itself could literally be taken to imply, the 'meta-II or moving past or beyond, of natural existence itself; to move beyond the difficulty which constitutes the task of life. IS This recalls Kierkegaard' s repeated illustration of the system-builder who makes for herself a grand castle, and then occupies the hut next door, or the comical figure of Johannes Climacus' Herr Professor, who, in explaining all of existence, "has in sheer absentmindedness forgotten what he himself is called, namely that he is a human being... and not a fantastical three-eighths of a paragraph."16 Kierkegaard's critique of metaphysics, then, is an in­ dictment from an ethical standpoint. It charges the metaphy­ sician with'skipping,' or 'leaping over,' the ethical sphere -­ and with that, existence itself. Either an individual refuses to enter into existence, never allowing an aut/aut to even arise in one's life. Or one has skipped it, attempting to systematize existence when the real task before one is constituted by life itself. And a final spatial metaphor, which seems, at least on this account, to exhaust metaphysics' possible neglect of exist­ ence, is that the person stands outside of existence altog~~thcr.

There are two ways in which an existing person can be outside of existence, but in neither of these ways does he mediate. One way is abstracting himself, by going a skeptical impassivity, an abstract indiffer­ ence... The other way in which the individual can be outside existence is by being in a state of passion, but it is the veIY moment of passion that he gains the momenhlm to existP

We deliberately set aside this latter way of how one 'pas­ sionately' proceeds in existence; for present purposes, we want to evaluate the radical limitations inherent in the metaphysical project, as outlined by Climacus.

First, the metaphysical viewpoint, by which a person

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wants to eternally understand the whole of existence, is a position sub specie aeterni, where"the truth would be something concluded for him."18 liBut where is this point?1J Climacus presses. "The I-I is a mathematical point that does not exist at all ... "19 It is, quite literally, what Thomas Nagel has aptly called, a "view from nowhere."2o And second, the role that speculation plays in actual human existence must be sharply demarcated. This delimiting of 'objective' knowledge will be taken up again in the next section. Here we can note how, at least for Climacus, knowl足 edge, by itself, is woefully inadequate. Climacus insists that the ethical is not only a knowing; it is also a doing that is related to a knowing ... "21 In fact, this ethical dimension can be seen as a necessary pre-condition for having any knowledge at all.

As Climacus suggests, liTo exist subjectively with passion is on the whole an absolute condition for being able to have any opinion about Christianity." 22 The presence of subjectivity, of a passionate interestedness, alters our very epistemological capacity to acquire relevant knowledge. 23 Third, and finally, this theoretical knowledge, divorced from the ethical, cannot even be considered to be the highest goal for which we should strive: 24' II

By acting, by venturing the decisive thing (which every human being is capable of doing) in utmost subjective passion and in full consciousness of an eternal responsibility, one comes to know something else, also that to be a human being is something other than year in and year out pinning something together in a system. 25

Knowledge, apart from abstract knowledge, knowledge that focuses onthe individual's own existence, is whatJohannes Climacus calls the 'essential truth' for human beings. 26 This last section examines ways in which these limits to human knowledge are made concrete - not through the'supe足 riority' of an ethical actuality (the more 'positive' approach for

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Kierkegaard), but through the inadequacies inherent in the sort of knowledge itself.

The Undermining of Metaphysics and Human Existence A system of existence cannot be given. Is there, then, not such a system? That is not the case. Neitheris this implied in what has been said. Existence itself is a system for God, but it cannot be a system for any existing spirit. System and conclusiveness correspond to each other, but existence is the very opposite ...

Existing is the spacing that holds apart; the systematic is the conclusiveness that combines,27

Johannes Climacus' metaphor of 'spacing,' that concept which intrinsically "holds apartf/ an otherwise 'conclusive' portrait of existence, admits to a decisive gap in any attempt to understand human existence. A stronger, more explicitly skep­ tical belief bolsters the lack of systematic conclusiveness in this picture of human existence. In the fashion of an unrelenting Pyrrhonism, Johannes Climacus in the Postscript presses the more unsettling contention that "the perpetual process of be­ COIning is the uncertainty of human life, in which everything is uncertain. Every human being knows this and says so once in a while .. ," 28 All of our attempts at conclusive, speculative systems of knowing are fundamentally undermined by the nature of human existence itself.

What are these spaces" epistemological, metaphysi­ cal; ethico-religious, and otherwise - which deny actually existing persons a complete system of existence? How does metaphysical speculation fail to provide a secure base of refer­ ence, an epistemically privileged ground whereby one can withstand the radical contingencies of human existence itself?

We want to single out one aspect in Climacus' account that underscores the' negative' features in the human epistemologi­ cal situation: the inescapable character of approximation­ knowledge." /I

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In achieving this task, Climacus' project develops in a perhaps unexpected way. The conclusion to this polemical appraisal of so-called' objective' knowledge, far from yielding to an epistemic nihilism, or inducing some sort of Pyrrhonic ataraxia, provides, rather, measures for overcoming skepti­ cism. It enables the individual, in some deeply existential sense, to engage, and appropriately come to grips with, that most paradigmatic philosophically 'modern' aspiration: de omnibus dubitandum est [everything must be doubtedJ.29 To inquire broadly, what role can historical or theoreti­ cal 'objective' demonstration play in the believer's life? What constitutes the proper relation between faith and objective certitude? And can one ever reach a point of final stopping place, where religious certainty is decisively granted? These types of questions arise inevitably for Johannes Climacus' philosophy whenever anyone tackles the'objective question' of Christianity, thatis, when one inquires into the historical and philosophicaltruthwithintheChristianfaith. Wewanttokeep in mind two broader concerns. First, what exactly do these "objective" trnths establish, if anything, for an individual believer? And second, how should we understand the particu­ lar relationship between objective certitude and faith?

Johannes Climacus' response to these concenlS is dou­ bly negative. That is to say, Climacus repeatedly affirms -in a theme which strongly anticipates what in contemporary philo­ sophical circles has been termed a fallibilist' epistemological position-human finitude rooted in historicity, a fundamental contingency inherent in all potential grounds for 'objective' human knowledge. 30 What faith demands is certitude, but of a categorically different type than what "approximation cer­ tainty of probabilities" can provide. It is an assurance which presupposes an infinite interest as its conditio sine qua non, and which can only be satisfied by some proportionate means. As Climacns states it, only an insecure, embarrassed species of faith would seek out the approximation-knowledge of objec­ tive demollstration. 31 These objective truths provide only all I

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approximation-knowledge," aless-than-certain account where every future critical deliberation leaves the believer in suspenso, forever, while remaining in reflective speculation, deferring existential decision. It is a speculative skepticism which para足 lyzes. In Climacus' words, "objectively understood, there are more than enough results anywhere, but no decisive result anywhere. "32 A further claim is made that even if the objective truths of Christian faith were established as the most secure of all human enterprises of knowledge, for a believer, nothing is gained, not even in the least, "with regard to the power and strength of his faith."33 On the contrary, U

... in this prolix knowledge, in this certainty thatlurks at faith's door and craves for it, he is rather in such a precarious position that much effort, much fear and trembling will be needed lest he fall into temptation and confuse faith with knowledge. 34

For Climacus, radically, only in an epistem.ologically im足 perfect world is faith even conceivable (!).

That is to say, a fundamental deficiency m.arks ~U1y positive knowledge. As Climacus says, all of this positive fails to express the state of the knowing subject in existence."s'.; Speculative, theoretical results are diSingenuous claims of inhumanly grasping the whole of reality sub specie aeterni. /I

The Recovery of Finite Human Understanding We can legitimately question whether Johannes Climacus' appraisal of all sensate, historical, and speculative truths is unwarrantedly dismissive, whetherhehastooguickly disregarded the substantive contribution which objective truth provides. 36 What concerns us here, however, is instead what place these claim.s occupy in Climacus' broader philosophy.

While objective reasoning, in matters of objective truth, might

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yield certain appropriate methods, this approach fails on an existential leveL It cannot provide the certainty required for concern in one's summum bonum. "Faith does not result from straightforward scholarly deliberation .. ." - only the infinite inwardness of faith is dialectically adequate" to secure a real foothold in true religiousIless.37 No religious result can ever be reached, if one remains in presuppositionless speculation. As Kierkegaard noted in his journals, reflection stays only I'the possibility of reflection."38 But once one has-Climacus would here say through a 'leap' inwardly integrated objective results, then doubt inevitably arises. 39 Here we can maintain perhaps one of the most sugges­ tive rapprochements between Kierkegaard and later hermeneutical thought: an adherence to the so-called hermeneutical circle. In Climacus' account, and unlike what he sees Hegel as doing, to acquire knowledge is to take a commit­ ted stance, to be involved, and even personally contribute, to that which one desires to know. For a later hermeneutic thinker, like Martin Heidegger, and unlike aspects in Hllsserlian phe­ nomenology, when a person attempts to understand anything, she likewise cannot remail1.'presuppositionless', or acquire all her beliefs in a state of pure detachment. "In interpreting," Heidegger explains familiarly, "we do not, so to speak, throw a 'signification' over some naked thing which is present at hand... In every case this interpretation is grounded in some­ thing we have in advance."40 This proceeding from a pre-pos­ sessed personal'fore-understanding' might seem circular, even viciously so. But for Heidegger, "what is decisive is not to get out of the circle but to come into it in the right way." 41 In the same manner, Kierkegaard would urge us to see that the Hegelian system, in claiming to begin presuppositionlessly, cannot begin at all: A logical system must not poast of an absolute beginning, because such a begin­ ning is just like pure being, a pure chimera. 1f42 We must start to understand somewhere, and this is through what Climacus 1/

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calls a personal 'letting go', that is, a 'corning into' the circle of human understanding. In other words, to understand, we must involve ourselves, must already be implicated in that which we desire to know, thus resolving the old Platonic paradox in the Meno, of how we can learn anything new at alL All understanding undoubtedly depends upon some human interpretive framework in which we already operate and live.

As Alasdair MacIntyre adeptly observes, a world of textures, shapes, smells, sensations, sound and nothing more invites no questions and gives no grounds for furnishing any answers.//43 And this situatedness of our knowledge can grant us only provisional legitimacy for any of our beliefs, making us live, in a description that Climacus would undoubtedly en­ dorse, "without the idea of the 'infinite intellect', finality, and absolute knowledge ... [where we are called back] to an under­ standing of what it means to be finite historical beings who are always'on the" yay' and who must assume personal responsibil­ ity for our decisions and choices."44 Committed existence is a constant proceFs of historical becoming, from which dialecti­ cal, and decidedly fallibilistic constant human striving, cannot be excluded.

As neo-pragmatist Richard Rorty, himself sensitive to hermeneutical insights,45 would say, what Kierkegaard has been calling'approximation-knowledge' is what we as hu­ mans are necessarily left with when we abandon our hope for "metaphysical comfort"- when we displace what Rorty him­ self refers to (in quasi-Kierkegaardian fashion) as "the desire for objectivity. 1146 It results in the situation that "there is always room for improved belief, 47 that, to use explicit Kiekegaardian language, speCUlative results are always approximations, and thus unable to bear the weight of one's infinite concern.

The antithesis to this line of thought is contained in a classic statement in modern philosophy, by Rene Descartes.

Descartes, after subjecting all of his prior beliefs to an unrelent­ ing doubt, proceeded to seek out some indubitable truth, to arrive at some fact which was finally secure, entirely immune II

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from further dialectical doubt. He compared his aspiration to the Greek thinker Archimides, [who] in order that he might draw the terrestial globe out of its place, and transport it else­ where, demanded only that one point should be fixed and immovable; in the same way I shall have the right to conceive high hopes if I am happy enough to discover one thing only which is certain and indubi­ table. 48 As if addressing Cartesian foundationalism directly, Johannes Climacus speaks to this particular speculative ten­ dency that Rorty (as we have already noted) has called our desire for "metaphysical comfort." Climacus' response, an essentially negative one, is that no such immobilized fulcrum, no privileged place by which we can transport the 'terrestial globe' out of its place, in fact exists: In a human being there is always a desire, at once comfortable and concerned, to have something really firm and fixed tha t can exclude the dialectica I, but this is cowardliness towards the divine ... even the most fixed of all, an infinite negative resolution, which is the indi yid ua lily's infinite form of God's being within him, becomes promptly dialecticaL As soon as I take away the dialectical, I am superstitious and defraud God of the moment's strenuous acquisition of what was once acquired. 49 For the religious relationship, 11 certainty is impossible for a person in a process of becoming, and it is indeed a deception. II so And this is what Johamles Climacus has called "the eternal protest against fic Hons" - that we must face up to our historic­ ity, our constant state of ethical striving.5J As one 'postmodernist' philosopher has said, radically underscoring this hermeneutical recognition of human fini­ tude, the (proto-) deconstructionist and (proto-) hermeneutical

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insights by renegade thinkers like Kierkegaard must always:

blow the whistle on the excessively apodictic frame of mind endemic to metaphysics and urge in its place a sense of raising truth from below, of forging certain contigent unities of meaning which may become unstuck at any moment, or which may take on an unexpected sense at a later date which will lead us to revise them radically.52

From a human stand point, no fixed' center' of know ledge exists. We are always denied what deconstructionists have called a 'metaphysics of presence', a fullness or totality of meaning. In other words, "the subjective existing thinker is always just as negative as he is positive, and vice versa/'5S claims an anticipatory Johannes Climacus.

It is only the superstitious' believer, who, in presumed 'positivity', fancies himself to have a certainty that can be had only in infinitude, inwhich, however, he cannot be as an existing person but at which he is constantly striving." 54 And in this resolution is realized the earlier, promised overcoming of paralyzing'objective' skepticism -not through some Cartesian foundationalist certitude, butby the existential' coming into' of the human hermeneutical circle the right way.

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ENDNOTES

Martin Buber, I and Thou (New York: Charles Scribner's and Sons, 1958), p. 63.

2 S\!lren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. Howmd V. and Edna H. Hong (princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), p. 37.

3 S\!lren Kierkegaard, The Journals ofSrjJren Kierkegaard, trans.

Alexander Dru (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1958, 1959), p. 44.

4 Following one common strategy, we will "let the pseudonym~ stand on their own feet," and refer to insights taken from Kierkegaard's aesthetic works as expressing the positions of the respective pseudonym. This is a strategy which, as Robert M. Adams points out, most probably reflects the nature of Kierkegaard's own radical views on the notion of authority and of authorship. [see Robert M. Adams, "Tnlth and Subjectivity," in Reasoned Faith, ed. by Eleonore Stump (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1993), p. 18].

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5 Postscript, p. 118 6 Cf. Postscript, p. 171: " ... because in a fantastical sense all system足 atic thinking is sub specie aeterni [under the aspect of eternity]."

7 Postscript, p. 270.

8 Postscript, p. 123, emphasis added.

9 See Hilary Putnam, Reason, Truth, and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), esp. p. 49-74. Cf. Postscript, p. 118: "Existence IS a system - for God, but it cannot be a system for any existing spirit. System and conclusiveness con-espond to each other, but existence is the very opposite ... " 10 Sf1lren Kierkegaard, Repetition, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983).

This parallel insight which follows is indebted to insightful discussion by William V. Spanos, Heidegger and Criticism: Retrieving the Cultural Politics of Destructiof! (Minneapolis, MN: The University of Minnesota Press. 1993), pp.

53-80; and especially by John D. Caputo, in "Hermeneutics and the Recovery of Man," in Hermeneutics and Modern Philosophy, edited by Brice Wachterhauser (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. 1986), p. 346-367; and later discussion in Radical Hermeneutics: Repetition, Deconstruction and the Henneneutic Project (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1987).

For a different account to Caputo's claims on this matter, see James' Edwards article, "Deconstruction and the End of Philosophy," p. 183-201, in Religion, Ontotheology, and Deconstruction, cd. by Henry Ruf (New York: Paragon House, 1989), which is sharply critical of Kierkegam'd for PUllJClltedly stilI embracing, unlike Wittgenstcin, what Derrida has called the metaphysics of presence.

11 Repetitio/l, p. 131.

12 Postscript, p. 121-122.

13 Philipphms 3: 12" 14. cr. I Corinthians 9:24-27.

14 Postscript, p. 122.

15 Cf. a similar point made by William V. Spanos, in Heidegger and Criticism (p. 54), that Western metaphysics has been "the discourse of the ontotheological tradition that, in fulfilling the re-presentational imperatives of a philosophical perspective ... sees the temporal realm of finite 1l1ings meta-ta足 physika (all-at-once)," and is now, as initiated by thinkers Buchas Heidegger and Denida, in the process of being overcome.

16 Postscript, p. 145.

17 Ibid., p. 399.

18 Ibid., p. 197.

19 Ihid.

20 cr. Johannes Climncus' appraisal of this in the earlier Philosophi足 cal Fragments ltrans. by Howard V. I-long and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University PI'ess, 1983)], p. 13. His discussion is centered upon learning, via a Socratic, speculative reflection, the 'immanent' truth:

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",..in that same instant the moment is hidden in the eternal, assimilated into it in such a way that I, so to speak, still cannot find it even if I were to look for it, because there is no Here and no There, but only a llbique et nusquam [everywhere and no­ where]."

21 Postscript, p. 160, emphasis added.

22 Ibid., p. 280, emphasis added.

23 See especially the balanced discussion of this in George E.

Arbaugh and George R. Arbaugh's comprehensive volume, Kierkegaard's Authorship (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1968), p. 226-227.

24 This strongly resonates with an insight made by William Ban'ett in his classic text on existentialism, Irrational Man (New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1958), p. 90-91, when he asks:

"What happens, however, to this view that the highest man is the theoretical man if we conceive of human existence as finite through and through - and if human reason, and the knowl­ edge it can produce, is seen to be finite like the rest of man's being?.., n1eoretical k,lowledge may indeed be pursued as a personal passion, or its findings may have practical application; butits value above that of all other human enterprises (such as art or religion) cannot be mchanced by any claims that it will reach the Absolute."

25 Postscript. p. 304.

26 Cf. Postscript, p. 1991'n.: "The reader will note that what is heing discussed here is essential truth, or the truth that is related essentially to existence, and that is specifically in order to clruify it as inwardness or as subjectivity that the contrast is pointed out."

27 Postscript, p. 118.

28 Ibid., p. 86, emphasis added.

29 In Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition (Chicago, IL: Univer­

sity of Chicago Press, 1959), Arendt comments how an early Kierkegaard work, Johannes Climaclls, or De omnibus dubitandum est [trans. Howard V. and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985)] should be judged as "perhaps still the deepest interpretation of Descartes' doubt." [p. 275, fn], Instru;;:tive for present purposes is to observe how this earlier volume under­ scores the radical deficiency in attempting to live faithfully by thut debilitating, modem philosophicul aspiration stated in its own title. As Kicrkcgaard notcs in his journal: "Joharu1es does what we are told to do - he actually doubts everything - he suffers through all the pain of doing that, becomes cunning, almost acquires a bad conscience... He per­

RECONSTRUCTION OF HUMAN FINITUDE

17

ceives that in order to hold on to this extreme position of doubting everything, he has engaged all his mental and spiritual powers.

If he abandons this extreme position, he may very well arrive at somethin& but in doing that he would also have abandoned his doubt about everything. Now he despairs, his life is wasted, his youth is spent in these deliberations. Life has not acquired any meaning for him, and all this is the fault or philosophy. [Supple­ ment to Johannes Climacus, p. 234-235 (Pap. IV B 16)]."

30 See the excellent discussion of this in Richard Bernstein's widely influential book. Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hemleneutics, and Praxis (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983), e.g., p. 182­ 206,223-23L 31 Postscript, p. 30-3l.

32 Ibid., p. 34.

33 Ibid., p. 29.

34 Ibid.

3S Ibid.

36 Cf. Robert M. Adams' important aIticle, "Kierkegaard's Argu­ ments Against Objective Reasoning in Religion:~ The Monist 60 (1976): 228­ 43, reprinted in The Virtue ofFaith and Other Essays in Philosophical Theolof{Y (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1987); for a different sort of account, which is less critical than Adams"arlicle, see C. Stephen Evans, "The Relevance of Historical Evidence for Christian Faith: A Critique of u Kiel'kegaardiun View," Faith and Philosophy 7 (1990), esp. p. 472-475.

37 Postscript, p. 29. See also ibid., p. 49, "What has been intimated here has been emphasized in the Fragments frequently enough, namely, that there is no direct and immediate access to Christianity ... " 38 Pap. IV B 1O:13n.d., 1842-1843. Quoted in the supplement for Johannes Climacus, p. 258 (emphasis added).

39 Op cit.

40 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. by John Macquunie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), p. 190-191.

41 Ibid., p. 195, emphasis added.

42 Postscript, p. 112.

43 Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moml 1'heOly [Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame PreHs, 19841, p. 79-80.

44 Richard Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism, p. 166. emphasis added.

Cf. Postscript. p. 78 (Swenson and Lowrie's translation):

"...the existing individual is constantly in process of becoming, and this should receive an essential expression in all his knowl­ edge. Particularly, it must be expressed through the prevention of an illusory finality, whether in perceptual certainty, historical

18

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GARCIA

knowledge, or illusory speculative results."

45 See later, scattered discussions in his more recent works, Contin足 gency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) and Essays on Heidegger and Others (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); and especially the substantive engagement in Part 3 of Rorty' s earlier, well-known volume Philosophy and the Mirror ofNature (princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), p. 313-394.

46 Richard Rorty, "Solidarity or Objectivity?" in Objectivism, Relativism, and Truth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 31, 24.

47 Ibid., p. 23.

48 The Philosophical Works ofRene Descartes, in Two Volumes, trans. Elizabeth S. Haldane and a.R.T. Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer足 sity Press, 1968), I, Meditations on First Philosophy, p. 149ff.

49 Postscript, p. 35.

50 Ibid., p. 74fn.

51 Ibid.t, p. 226.

52 John D. Caputo, "On Being Inside/Outside Truth," in Modernity and Its Discontents, James L. Marsh, John D. Caputo, and Merold Westphal (New York: Fordham University Press, 1992), p. 57.

53 Postscript, p. 85.

54 Postscript, p. 81, emphasis added.

19

A

MODERN COMPOSITION OF HEGEL IN

BLUE, YELLOW, AND BLACK: A STUDY

OF HEGEL'S AESTHETICS

Thomas J. Sullivan

College of the Holy Cross

Many philosophers have struggled with Hegel's ideas since his death in 1831. Although difficult, Hegel's ideas are of great value and relevance to current social, political, aesthetic, theological, and philosophical discussions. Few commentators have paid much attention to Hegel's Lectures on Aesthetics, though they present some of his clearest ideas. 1 It is the purpose of this paper to explore the claim that Hegel makes in the lectures - that the highest function of art is dead, whether his overall view is adequate, and what the implications of his view are for contemporary society. Ultimately, this study of Hegel's aesthetics will lead us to an understanding not only of art, but of ourselves. In that respect, this study of Hegel's aesthetics is inspired by Hegel's own thoughts about what art can and should do.

Hegel begins his aesthetics by refuting objections to a philosophy of art. It is this part of his aesthetics which will be most significant for our purposes. Hegel does not wish to consider art which is "servile" such as that art which "can be employed as a fleeting pastime, to serve the ends of pleasure and entertainment" - the art which Plato denounces in the Republic. Rather, he wishes to consider art which is "free." Art cannot be free until it liberates itself from serving other aims such as decorating and entertainrnenU Hegel believes that art must free itself from these functions to become a medium for truth. He claims that; Fine art is not real art until it is in this sense free, and only achieves its highest task when it has taken its Sullivan is considering pursuing a Master of Arts in England and then going on to law school. His paper was funded by aNational Endowmentfor the Human.ities Younger Scholars Grant.

Evisteme • Volume VI • Mall 1995

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MODERN COMPOSITION OF HEGEL

place in the same sphere with religion and philoso足 phy, and has become simply a mode of reveali~~ to consciousness and bringing to utterance the DIVIne Nature, the deepest interests of humanity, and the most comprehensive truths of the mind. It is in works of art that nations have deposited the profoundest intuitions and ideas of their hearts; and fine art is frequently the key - with many nations there is no other - to the understanding of their wisdom and of their religion. 3

An understanding of this claim will provide the key for understanding Hegel's philosophy of art. We must ask several questions of Hegel at this point: What is meant by truth? What sorts of truth are referred to? What are the"deepest interests of humanity?" If art occupies the same sphere as religion and philosophy how are we to picture this relationship, given the differences between artistic and philosophical argument? Where and how do we see art performing its highest function? It is neces~ dry to answer these questions before we can understand the broader implications of Hegel's view for contemporary society and in particular, its implications for art in our own historical culture.

For Hegel truth is the manifestation of the absolute. The absolute can be abstractly described as dialectically revealed truth, emerging and alive throughout history in various ways.

Truth for Heget is not just the object of some scientific inquiry, but the goal of every human endeavor. Most importantlyI truth is l.calized in and throughout history. The dialectic is the process of knowing the truth - of coming to an adequate conception of the world in and throughout history. In this examination of art, we will see that the absolute is best con足 ceived in terms of freedom. The absolute as portrayed il1. a period of history reflects the freedom of the human spirit in that period. With each age, humans have become more free and increasingly self - determining. This is evident in the art work of each culture. Others have struggled with understanding the content of the absolute. But, we can gain an understanding of the

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absolute ifwe understand freedom as its content.

We can only see the absolute in the products and activities of a culture. Objective mind manifests itself in the world through art, religion, and philosophy.4 StephenHoulgate, understanding the absolute as character, writes that JiHegel thinks that in all the manifold events and interactions in a civilization's history the basic character of that civilization can be discerned, and it is that character which interests him."5 In order to determine the character of a people we must examine how it lives and what it does. If we are to grasp the nature of the absolute for a given age, we must examine its practical activity.

We must examine its art.

Art performs its "highest function" by revealing the absolute, the freedom attained in a period of history. Art functioning in this way reflects man's view of the world - what he conceives of as truth. 6 (However, if it is only one man's conception of truth, then it is not the absolute. Here lies a problem with Hegel's conception of the absolute. However, it is not the purpose of this paper to come to a definitive under足 standing of the absolute, although a more clear understanding m.ay be revealed through art.) Through art man recognizes himself.

This purpose he achieves by the modification of exter足 nal things upon which he impresses the seal of his inner being, and then finds repeated in them his own characteristics . . . Even the child's first impulse in足 volves this practical modification of external things.

A boy throws stones into the river, and then stands} admiring the circles that trace themselves on the water, as an effect in which he attains the sight of something that is his own doing. 1'his need traverses the most manifold phenomena, up to the mold of self -production in the medium of external things as it is known to us in the work of art.7

The boy who throws the stones in the river recognizes his relationship to the world and his place in it. By means of art

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man recognizes the Other, the external world to which he stands in opposition. The very fact that art tells us "we know a limitation is evidence that we are beyond it, evidence of our freedom from limitation ... we make ourselves finite by receiv足 ing an Other into our consciousness; but in the very fact of our knowing this Other we have transcended this lim.itation" and realize our freedom.s Although art, religion, and philosophy have as their content the absolute, art differs from religion and philosophy in that its medium is a sensuous one and not a conceptual one.

Michael Inwood explains this difference: ... the content and purpose of art and philosophy, specified in one way, are the same: their content is the absolute, and their purpose is to reveal it. But, speci~ fied in another way, they differ: the content of art is a sensory vision of the absolute, and its purpose is to express such a vision, while the content of phi1oso~ phy is a conceptual account of the absolute and its purpose is to give such an account. Thus art and philosophy may be said to have the same content, since both reveal the absolute; but art is an irreplace足 able end in itself, since, unlike philosophy, it ex足 presses a sensory vision of the absolute ... On. this account art is both important, in that it reveals I:ho absolute, and unique, in that it reveals it in a sensory way. But art is in a precarious position, once philoso足 phy (or a religion independent of art) has found its strength. 9

Having determined that art is a sensuous medium for the absolute and philosophy a conceptual one, we lUUSt consider what the possible implications of such a difference may be. For ~egel, the highest activity which human beings are capable of IS reason. Hegel believes that only the mind can comprehend the structure of the phenomenal world.lO Philosophy employs concepts in order to grasp the absolute. Art by contrast, em~ ploys the senses. As mind develops throughout history, Hegel

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believes that humanity will be less dependent on the senses (and therefore on art) as a medium for reflecting the absolute.

In order to understand this, we might think of humanity as ascending out of Plato's Cave, the allegory whereby Plato demonstrates that philosophical contemplation is superior to sense perception for understanding the Forms. Hegel believes that as humanity proceeds dialectically through history, phi足 losophy and not art provides the best medium for compre足 hending the absolute.

Because philosophy has become superior to art for revealing the absolute, Hegel believes that: ... it certainly is the case that art no longer affords that satisfaction of spiritual want which earlier epochs and peoples have sought therein, and have found therein onlYi a satisfaction which, at all events on the religious side, was most intimately and profoundly connected with art. The beautiful days of Greek art, and the golden time of the later middle ages are gone by. The reflective culture of our life today, makes it a necessity for us, in respect of our will no less than of our judgement, to adhere to general points of view, and to regulate particular matters according to them, so that general forms, laws, duties, rights, maxims, are what have validity as grounds of determination and are the chief regulative force ... Therefore, our present condition is not favourable to art ... in all these respects art is, and remains for us, on the side of its highest destiny, a thing of the past. ll

Again, we are presented with a passage which is rich in content and provocative. Clearly, then, there are many questions we must ask of this passage. First, we must exalnine whether or not it was actually the case that"earlier epochs and peoples" were able to find "spiritual satisfaction" in their works of nrt. By examining works "from the beautiful days of Greek art iJnd from the golden time of the later middle ages," we will consider whether Hegel is right in asserting that art did reveal the absolute at one time. Secondly, we must understand what Hegel means by "reflective culture." This will allow us to see

MODERN COMPOSITION OF HEGEL

24

whether or not our present condition is in fact unfavorable to art. Lastly, we will be able to see if art is dead" as Hegel claims, meaning that it can no longer perform its highest function, or whether he has incorrectly diagnosed the condition of art.

Hegel is either a) right about art's highest function but wrong about its no longer being able to reveal the absolute b) wrong about art' s highest function and necessarily wrong about art no longer being able to do that, or c) perhaps Hegel is right onboth accounts. The answer to these questions will allow us to evaluate not only the condition of art in our culture, but also our own modern condition.

The classical art of the Greeks was inextricably bound with the way in which they viewed the world. The Greeks used their art as a means for self - expression and social understand足 ing - as a way of expressing the absolute. Through the art of the Greeks, we see that they viewed the world as ordered, logical, and proportioned. Consider for example, three Greek artworks which are represenative of the ideals of the Greek culture: the Parthenon, a vase, and a sculpture.

Sitting atop the Acropolis, the Parthenon, a temple dedicated to /Uhena, is perhaps the most telling of all Greek works. Its perfectly proportioned columns and carefully m(;.~a足 sured geometric shapes denote the rationality of the Greek culture. As a temple it expresses the importance of religion in their culture. Within the temple, gifts and offerings were made to the gods and goddesses. Furthermore, its height, width, columns, mass, open space, and relation to its surroundings express a sense of order and peace.n The Greeks built the Parthenop in accordance with the way in which they viewed the world - as rational and balanced. Therefore, we see that the absolute character" of the Greeks, was revealed through the architecture of the Parthenon.

Examining a Greek sculpture, we can see the attentjOl1 to detail with which the sculptors portrayed the hUlll.an body .1:1 Each figure was perfectly proportioned, symmetrical and bal足 anced. The sculptures portray warriors and athletes, a testa足 ment to the significance of both war and athletics in Greek 11

JJ

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THOMAsJ. SULLNAN

culture (areas in which humans could excel). In examining the sculpture of the Greeks, one can easily understand that man recognizes himself in the world by manipulating and shaping material objects. They saw themselves as warriors and athletes, and as proportioned, ordered, and reasonable people.

Another outstanding form of Greek art is pottery. Vase painting expressed almost the whole range of stories and images that interested the Greeks. Images of men and gods, of violence and happiness, of games and war are among the many subjects the Greeks could contemplate as they ate, drank or participated in religious rituals. Much of our know ledge of Greek civilization and myth comes from these pots. 14 Studying Greek pottery,one is reminded of many scenes from Greek myth. The Greeks explained everything about themselves through the myths. The myths explain their gods, origins, heroes, and values. The Greeks revealed the absolute on a vase.

In their vases and their statues, the Greeks achieved "spiritual freedom." Through their art, the Greeks came to recognize themselves through the modification of the external world. The Greeks created art "in order as free subjects to strip the outer world of its stubborn foreigness, and to enjoy in the shape and fashion of things a mere external reality of himself./f Like the boy who throws stones into the river, the Greeks saw in their art something of their own doing and, thus came to recognize themselves and their relationship to the world. ls Their art allowed them to be at home in the "Other." Their recognition of this limitation affirmed their freedom. Eventu~ ally the Greek civilization came to an end, but its spirit lives on in the work of its artists. These works of art correspond to the stage of development attained by the human spirit" in the age of the Greeks - to the freedom that they achieved.

The replacement of the Greeks by the Romans, and afterwards the birth of Christianity, represent the dialectical movement which is at the heart of Hegel' s system. The dialectic is the immanent transcending in which the one - sidedness and restrictedness of the determinations of the understanding dis足 plays itself as what it is i.e., as their negation. 16 The Christian /I

26

MODERN COMPOSITION OF HEGEL

man necessarily pushes beyond the Greek world view and comes to recognize a Divine Other. Consistent with Hegel's Logic, the Greek world view is sublated in the more advanced concept of Christianity - in God's sending forth Jesus into the world who compels man to recognize the Divine Other. God is still a concrete personality, but in the mode of pure spiritual existence. Christian man has outgrown the Greek view of the world, and is proceeding up Plato's divided line, searching for a higher stage of freedom. We see now that the view of the world which the Greeks possessed is relatively false, not be足 cause it is an inaccurate account of man and world at the time, but because at that time man and world were not fully devel足 oped. 17 Thus, in a time such as the "later middle ages" during which Chrisitianity was the focal point of one's existence, the Greek view is "false./I During the Medieval period, Hegel believes that art is still capable of revealing the absolute, though it is less suited to expression in art than it was during the time of the Greeks. As a medium for expression in the Medieval period, art falls short of fully addressing the content of the absolute. That js, the absolute has been developed to such a position that art, a sensuous medium, is no longer fully capable of conveying it . because truth has become more conceptual. Hegel explains this divergence between form and content: ... the Greek God is not abstract but individual, and is closely akin to the natural human shape; the Christian God is equally a concrete personality, but in the mode of pure spiritual existence, and is to be known as mind and in the mind. This medium of existence is therefore essentially inward knowledge and not external form, by means of which He can only be represented imperfectly, and not in the whole depth of his idea. J8

The Greek God is essentially material substance because he is "clo~e~y akin t? the natural human shape." By contrast, the ChrIstian God IS only to be known"as mind and in the mind."

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Because the notion of the Christian God depends on essen足 tially inward knowledge/' God can only be represented imper~ fectly through the external medium of art. Nevertheless, art is capable of unifying spirit and matter to a degree, as Hegel suggests was achieved by those peoples in the "latter middle ages." The art of the later middle ages forces us to recognize the presence of the Divine Other in the world. As with the Greeks, the limitation posited by the Other helps us to recognize our freedom - our unlimitedness.

One of the most significant aspects of the art of the middle ages is lighting. The artsists knew that their medium was imperfect for representing God. Therefore, they sought to represent a divine presence through a somewhat mysterious element - light. One of the characteristic art forms of the middle ages was stained glass. Bruce Cole and Adelheid Gealt explain the effect that stained glass may have had on someone in the middles ages - "like huge softly glowing kaleidoscopes, the hundreds of tiny points of light and color seem to hover mysteriously above the onlooker, who stands dwarfed by the soaring architecture of the church, splashed all in red and blue by the magical light emanating from the windows. To stand in a cathedral illuminated by such light is to feel something of the age of spirituality that brought this art into being." The element of light was also used in paintings of the time, in order to express the presence of a divine power. Such paintings as Christ at the Column by Giampietrino use light in order to symbolize that which is inward knowledge and not external form." Light is mysterious and without form. Therefore, it proved to be a useful tool for conveying the equally mysterious and formless divine presence.

Influenced by the writings of St. Francis, the artists in the period of 1200-1400 directed much of their attention to express足 ing the human side of divinity, primarily through Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Artists such as Giotto created works in which Christ had become more like the worshippers. Like the wor足 shippers, Christ is a human being who has lived and died, but who will be reborn. Giotto's Ognissanti Madonna, Lamentation Over Christ, and the Arena Chapel in Padua all portray stories U

II

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MODERN COMPOSITION OF HEGEL

that relate directly to the observer and to his world. Giotto was creating paintings that aided the observer in attaining a certain view of Christianity - that Christ be seen as human. Through his painting, Giotto presents the stage of the absolute attained by the Medievals - the human aspect of Christianity.

The age of the Greeks and the golden time of the later middle ages were favorable to the highest ftmction of art- that art which revealed the absolute. However, Hegel believes that the "reflective" nature of our culture today is not favorable to art serving its highest function because the concepts of today's society have outgrown the sensuous medium of art. There is a divergence between form and content. The absolute has be足 come the property of the mind and, thus, Hegel contends that the art of today canna longer reveal the absolute-it is "dead./I He says, Hart is, and remains for us, on the side of its highest destiny, a thing of the past."19 What does Hegel mean when he says that our culture is a reflective one? ... this justification consists generally in reclaiming the content ofthis present world in all its determinacy for our thinking cognition - instead of letting the matter end simply with the abstract faith that God created and governs the world. Man has realized the finitude of abstract faith. Thus, man necessarily be足 gins to ask the question "why?" that the religious consciousness does not recognize.;m

Om culture is reflective because it is one that critically ques足 tions. In the reflective age, man has come to recognize "the Imitude of abstract faith." The recognition of this limit forces man to overcome it by necessarily asking the question "why?" the foundation of philosophical thought. Reflective man "adheres to general points of view, and regulates particular matters according to them, so that general forms, laws, duties, rights, and maxims are what have validity as grounds oJ determination and are the chief regulative force." One such ~xampl~ is Kant's "categorical imperative." The categorical nnperative, developed out of a free and self - determining reason,

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provides a "regulative force" for action. Through the asking of "why?" reflective man asserts his own self- determination and freedom. Houlgate correctly points out that "the basic charac足 ter of the modern age is thus determined by the modern claim to freedom." This independence is what distinguishes us from the Greeks and those in the latter middle ages.

Hegel claims that the reflective nature of our culture today makes it impossible for art to serve its highest function, the expression of the absolute. He believes that philosophy has replaced both art and religion as the instrument for revealing the absolute. The sensuous form of art is not capable of ad足 equately revealing the concepmal content of the absolute in today's reflective culture. Art and philosophy no longer oc足 cupy the same sphere; philosophy has priority. Furthermore, Hegel believes that the replacement of art by philosophy represents a step toward freedom. What will become of art?

Can it progress with the culmre? Can art capmre "why?" Hegel never says that art dies. Rather, he claims that art can no longer have the same stams in modern times as it had in the cultures of the Greeks and of the Medievals. Art lives on, but how? Is Hegel right to say tha.t art can no longer reveal the absolute?

What is the state of modern art?

Before we begin to examine whether the highest func足 tion of art is dead in modenl times, we might stop to anticipate the possibilities. If Hegel's claims are valid,then we should expect that the art of our culhlre will not reveal the absolute.

However, if Hegel is wrong - if it is true that art is still capable of performing its highest function - then we should expect that the art of our time not only will reveal the absolute, but will do it in a manner that is more free than the art of both the Greeks and the Medievals.

It is my claim that the art of modern times is about freedom. It is often the case that the artist chooses a medium which would not previously be considered as art. For example, almost any object today can be conceived of as art. Consider Marcel Duchamp's Fountain 1917. The "fountain" is simply an upside down urinal. Duchamp's brazen action implied that the artist could be the discoverer, if not necessarily the creator, of

30

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art. He predicted correctly that found objects would become a central form of artistic expression in the twentieth centuryP Thus, we see that artists are free to choose their medium.

Would a Greek or Medieval artist ever consider such a method?

Another example of freedom is a painting by Vasily Kandinsky (Untitled) which depicts geometric shapes such as triangles, reverse question marks, and rhomboids in different colors; red, white, orange, pink, black, and blue. These shapes appear to dangle from imaginary strings and seem to float freely upon the canvas. There is no real depth to the painting.

The shapes lie flat on the canvas, accentuating the "free 足 floating" effect. Moreover, Kandinsky chose his colors freely.

A question mark or a triangle need not be assigned a specific color as an apple or an orange must. There are no conceptual rules guiding the selection of one color over another. Kandinsky was free:o employ whatever color he wanted to paint the question mark.

In lrene Rice Pereira's painting, Sunrise - Sunset, there is no sun at alL The title refers to no definitive subject matter.

The painting contains numerous overlapping rectangles in different shades of yellow, orange, and blue. As with Kandinsky's painting, the rectangles are very flat. They are immediately presented to the viewer with no restrictions. In the paintings of the Renaissance, one of the technical develop足 Inents was the "perspectival box" which often took the shape of a rectangle. The perspectival box was a visual technique which forced the viewer to focus in on the subject matter. In Pereira's painting, the subject is the perspectival box. There is no other subject matter other than the shapes and the colors.

They are free to represent themselves.

In Richard Koppe's Night Shapes, the geometric figures seem to dangle from the top of the frame. One gets the feeling that if the wind blew through the room that these shapes would blow away in the breeze. Painted with very distinct lines, the shapes are very "stringy." In paintings of previous eras, the painting of lines was used for drawing - for portray足 ing fadal expressions, drapery, and body position. In Koppe's painting the drawn lines simply support the shapes and noth足

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ing else. They are not being used as an instrument by the artist, but as the subject matter itself. They are no longer subordinate, but free.

Philip Guston's painting no. 4 is nothing but color and brush strokes. The browns, greens, reds, and oranges are applied thickly in waves like a swirling tide. Guston's work shows that he freely applied the paint to the canvas and was not in the least concerned with portraying anything - not even a geometric shape. The work is also of interest because of its lack of a title. The viewer does notneed a title to gain an understand­ ing of this painting as they might with Giampietrino's Christ at the Column.

The work of Piet Mondrian is perhaps the most expres­ sive of the modern painters. In Composition in Blue, Yellow, and Black, we view the ideas and theories he wrote so extensively about. He believed that all painting is composed of line and color and that they are the essence of painting. Hence they must be freed from their bondage to the imitation of nature and allowed to exist for themselves. Furthermore, painting occu­ pies a flat surface and must not be falsified by imitations of volume. Painters must also strive for universal expression through simplified forms. Lastly, the more appropriate the color, the better it expresses universality.22 Mondrian is not bound by the imitation of nature. He pushes beyond the inadequacy of representation and creates his own rules which he paints on the canvas. Mondrian believes that these rules are necessary. The blue, yellow, and black each have their place on the canvas. The painting would not express the universal if these colors were switched around. The colors are "impera­ tive to the expression of the universal.

Freed from the bondage of representational painting, Mondrian and other artists express the absolute reason of reflective man. Many commentators like Karsten Harries have understood this "freedom from" as characteristic of the purely aesthetical function of modern art to which Hegel calls atten­ tion. However, these interpretations fail to understand the nature of freedom in modern painting. To understand that Inodern art portrays the absolute, we must understand the lf

MODERN COMPOSITION OF HEGEL

32

nature of freedom in modem art. This involves asking the following questions: 1) what are these artists painting? what is the content of their work? and 2) are we as "at home" in these paintings as the Greeks were in theirs?

Recognizing the limitations of the religious conscious­ ness, reflective man increases his freedom and self - determina­ tion through the asking of "why?" To understand modern art; is to see it as a manifestation of this "why?" To do so is not to understand modem art as empty formalism; rather, it is to see modem art as expressing the absolute freedom and self-deter­ mination of reflective man. Paradoxically, in the prior analysis of modem painting, the lack of subject matter in the painting is the subject matter. The non - representational lines, colors, and shapes are themselves the subject matter. The self - determina­ tion of the artist to choose his own medium for expression manifests itself in the seemingly non - representational subject matter of modenl painting. For example Mondrian, like Kant; creates his own "laws, duties, rights, and maxims" out of a free and se]f- determining reason. Mondrian paints the "categori­ cal imperative." These paintings point out that the defining characteristic of our modem age is that we are free to make such laws for ourselves. The divergence between form and content evident in the religious art of the latter middle ages is overcome in modem art. lvlodern art expresses the "universal" through simple form.

It is easy to see why some construe the free and self ­ determining reason in modern painting as negative. But such a view is naive, and reflects an inadequate understanding of Hegel's view of freedom. The freedom expressed in modern art is not "negative freedom./1 It is not freedom that simply .tImaxi­ mizes individual choice." Modern painters do not practice the unrestricted freedom of choice. Mondrian does not let the paint fall where it may; each co]or and line is in its necessary place.

If the painting is to express the absolute, then each color and line ~ust .not stand on its own, but must have a necessary relationship to the other colors and lines in the painting.

Through these relationships of color and line, the paintings express the free will which wills the free will, that which Hegel ll

If

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conceives of as positive freedom. Through the willing of its own freedom, the free will becomes a truly free will because it wills a content intrinsic to self - determining activity itself. The modern painter expresses the freedom of reflective man as his object. 23 The freedom of the modern painter, then, is not simply doing or choosing what one wishes, but in being a "free will which wills the free will." 24 This is the defining characteristic of modern painting.

Modern man is at home in reason, in philosophy. This is what modern painting expresses. If this is the case, then why does Hegel believe that art is dead? Hegel believes that art is not necessary anymore because philosophy now provides the place where man is at home. It is not because art cannot express the absolute freedom of modern man that it is dead. It is dead because it is performing the same function as philosophy.

According to Hegel, art cannot do philosophy better than philosophy can. Therefore, philosophy replaces art. In Philoso足 phy of Mind, Hegel makes this clear in the section on "Absolute Mind:" This science (philosophy) is the unity of Art and Religion. Whereas the vision method of Art, external in point of form, is but subjective production and shivers the substantial content into many separate shapes...Philosophy merely keeps them together to make a totality, but even unifies them into the simple spiritual vision, and then it raises them to self-con足 scious thought. Such consciousness is thus the intel足 ligible unity (cognized by thought) of art and religion, in which the diverse elements in the content are cognized as necessary, and this necessary as free.25

One can see the accord given to philosophy as the unity of art and religion. It unifies the message of art and religion into a "simple spiritual vision." Philosophy raises art to thought.

Hegel believes that art cannot stand alone as thought, but that it is "necessary" for philosophy to cognize it. Herein lies the reason that Hegel claims art is dead - it cannot think as well

34

MODERN COMPOSmON OF HEGEL

as philosophy. To prove HegeZ's claim inadequate, we must demon足 strate that philosophy needs Mondrian.

The cognizing function "which philosophy is, finds itself already accomplished, when at the close it seizes its own notion i.e. only looks back on its knowledge."26 The goal of philosophy is accomplished when it can look back on history and determine that the absolute is freedom. Philosophy is the cognition of a concrete unity, an understanding of the dialec足 tical stages of freedom throughout history. This is the perspec足 tive of Absolute Mind. Hegel claims that this position is attained at the end of history. However, it seems that history does not end, but that the stages of the life of the Spirit continue advancing. If this is true, then a period of development or stage in the freedom of man cannot be understood during its time, but must wait until it is over. Philosophy claims to provide this absolute perspective, but it can do so only at the conclusion of a given stage of development. Hegel explains in the Philosophy ofRight: Philosophy in any case always comes on the scene too late to give it. As the thought of the world, it appears only when aChlality is already there cut and dried after its process of formation has been com足 pleted. The teaching of the concepti whicll is also history's inescapable lesson, is that it is only when actuality is mature that the ideal first appears over against the real and that the ideal apprehends this same real world in its substance and builds it up for itself into the shape of an intellectual realm. When philosophy paints its grey in grey, then has a shape of life grown old. By philosophy's grey in grey it cannot be rejuvenated but only understood. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk,26

Philosophy provides an absolute perspective "when it paints its grey in grey/' at the end of a time. If it is the case that philosophy appears too late to provide the perspective from

THOMAS

J. SULLNAN

35

which to perceive an age, then how can we understand who we are during the "process of formation/' before actuality is mature? Philosophy unifies the content of art and religion at the end of time - expressing the absolute perspective. How足 ever, if philosophy is able to provide this perspective, it must have art and religion to unify. Art, therefore, is necessary for philosophy to achieve absolute mind. Art is the precursor to philosophy for the expression of the absolute.

We have reached the goal of this discussion - an understanding of ourselves through the philosophy of Hegel.

We have pushed beyond Hegel's own conception of art's func足 tion in modern times. Moreover, this understanding was achieved on Hegel's own terms. That is, Hegel's ideas are sublated in this more adequate concept-true tohis conception of the dialectic. This very achievement proves that philosophy can onI y understand an age after it has passed. As evidenced here, philosophy provides the perspective from which to un足 derstand modern art. Philosophy is able to achieve this per足 spective only because the modern age has passed. We are currently in the grips of the post-modern age, which many philosophers like Lyotard are attempting to define. Ultimately, they should realize that a definition cannot be applied "until the falling of the dusk" of the post-modern age. If we want to understand who we are during the flprocess of formation/' then we should let the artist, who stands at the apex of the triangle," lead the way.28 Ii

ENDNOTES

Stephen Houlgute, Freedom, Truth, and Histmy : An Introduction to Hegel's Philosophy, (New York: Routledge 1991), p. 4.

2 Georg Wilhelm Hegel, truns. Bernard Bosanquet, IntroductOlY Lectures on Aesthetics, (London: Penguin Books 1993) p. 9.

3 Ibid. p. 9.

4 Houlgate p. 27.

5 Ibid p. 16.

6 Ibid p. 26.

36

MODERN COMPOSITION OF HEGEL

7 Michael Inwood, from the Introduction to Hegel's Lectures on Aesthetics, p. 25.

8 Georg Wilhelm Hegel, trans. A.V. Miller, Philosophy ofMind, (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1971), p. 24.

9 Inwood p. XXV. 10 Ibid., p. XXVII. 11 Hegel, Lectures on Aesthetics, p.12-13.

12 Cole, Bruce, and Gealt, Art of the Western World, (New York: Summit Books 1989) p. 8. l3 Worcester Art Museum 14 Ibid.

15 Hegel, Lectures on Aesthetics, p. 36.

16 Georg Wilhelm Hegel, trans. Geraets, Suchting, and Harris, The Encyclopedia Logic. (Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Co. Inc. 1991) p. 56.

17 Inwood p. XXIII. 18 Hegel, Lectures anAesthetics, p. 78.

19 Ibid., p. 13.

20 Hegel, Logic, p. 20.

21 Cole, Bruce, and Gealt, p. 26.

22 John Canaday, Mainstreams of Model11 Art, (New York: Harcourt brace Jovanovich College Publishers 1981) p. 452.

23 Houlgate, p. 83.

24 Georg Wilhelm Hegel, trans. T.M. Knox, Philosophy of Right, (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1967) p. 32.

25 Hegel, Philosophy ofMind, p. 302.

26 Ibid., p. 302.

27 Hegel, Philosophy ofRight, p. 12.

28 Wassily Kandinsky, trans. M.T.H. Sadler, Concerning the Spiritual in fh1, (New York: Dover Publications Inc. 1977) p. 6.

37 NIETZSCHE'S FINAL THOUGHTS ON AR1

AND EXISTENCE: A REPLY TO JULIAN

YOUNG

David Evenhuis

Hope College

The last year of Nietzsche's sane life proved to be incredibly productive. During this year alone he produced five complete works and much of the material later published as The Will to Power. The year of 1888 also proved to be one of extreme aesthetic contemplation. Not since his early work in The Birth of Tragedy had Nietzsche spoken so fervently about the relationship between art, as a work of art, and human existence. Put simply, his view of art in this final year is as that which makes life worth living, and the way by which we affirm our individual lives. He regards art as possessing that quality which helps us to live with the horror and absurdity we face.

In his book, Nietzsche's Philosophy of Art, Julian Young undertakes a comprehensive examination of the Nietzschean aestheticfrom his early work in The Birlh ofTmgcdy through hiH last writings. Young divides the writings of NietzHCh(lin to f( >ttl' periods. The first is characterized by his relationship with Richard Wagner and the pessimistic influence of Arthur Schopenhauer. The works of this first period include The Birth ofTragedy and Untimely Meditations. Nietzsche's second period is defined by his break with Wagner which resulted in the works Human-All-Too-Human and The Dawn. These two lesser known works of Nietzsche make up what is known as 'his positivistic period, marked by a purging of his previoLls ro­ mantic excesses and a reverence for clear, sd(;~ntific thought.

Nietzsche's third period produced the works which at'(,~ nlOsl commonly associated with him, Beyond Good and J~vil and til{' epic Th.us Spoke Zarathustra. During this third pcdod, NidzHdw considers life itself to be anaesthetic phenornenon. In l'ss{,~nce!

The production of this essay was supported by Cl 1.994 NL·:n Ymlll,'{c/' Belw/ors Grant. Having graduated from Hope College, EvenhuiR 'will/n,' PIII'Sll illg hiR Ph.1). at Temple University in the Fall of 1995.

Episteme • Volume VI. May 1995

38

NIETZSCHE'S FINAL THOUGHTS

the life of a person becomes the canvas on which one creates his own existence. Nietzsche's forth and final period, which I will be focusing on, is characterized by Young as a time of frenzy before Nietzsche himself collapsed into insanity. He concludes that the pessimism inherent in The Birth of Tragedy, which is virtually absent in Nietzsche's middle periods, returns in the final writings of 1888.1 In addition, Young finds that this return of Nietzsche to an earlier pessimistic stance, is disguised by his putting forth of life-affirming rhetoric. Yet, says Young, that which is being affirmed is not the truth, but merely a facade.

Regarding this claim of Nietzsche's cyclical return to the thought of his earlier works, Young's most controversial in the book, he does make a persuasive argument, but in the process he ignores much material which would say otherwise.

In assessing Nietzsche's final works I agree with Young that they contain both a recognition of the absurdity of human existence and a discussion fOCUSing on the role of art and its relation to that existence. However, where I disagree with Young concems the mood of those last works. He finds that these works return to the pessimism of Nietzsche's first writ足 ings, whereas I believe that Young overlooks much of the positive, life-atfirming stance inherent in these last works. I therefore posit that Nietzsche's final writings contain both a recognition of the ultimate meaninglessness of existence and a Ineans of living with such knowledge and affirming it.

Young additionally makes the claim that the will-to足 power is all but lacking in Nietzsche's late aesthetic thought.

Regarding this claim I find that Young is completely mistaken.

Nietzsche breathes the will-to-power, it permeates his thought.

Particularly within his aesthetic considerations, Nietzsche uses the will-to-power as the determinant of beautiful art. A work is evaluated, for him, on the basis of how it relates to human existence. That art which Nietzsche deems as good is so because it increases our feeling of power. Moreover, art is viewed as bad when it stimulates an unhealthy feeling of decadence and degeneration. 2 In this paper I hope to show that Young is mistaken with regards to Nietzsche's final year and

DAVID EVENHUIS

39

that such a return to his earlier thought is not as clearly apparent as Young presents it.

I shall beginmy discussion of Nietzsche' s final thoughts on art by considering his idea of the "beautiful illusion./I An illusion conventionally is thought to be a presentation of a false reality, something which hides or diverts our attention from that which is the case. Nietzsche uses the conception of an illusion in his discussion of art; albeit that this discussion centers on Apollinian art, the idea of which I will develop later in this section of the paper. Nevertheless, in his late works Nietzsche will sometimes state that art, without mentioning the stipulation of Apollinian art, flmctions as that which hides from us the harsh reality of our existence with all of its absur足 dity, pettiness, and terror. Consider one such passage from The Will to Power: For a philosopher to say, Jlthe good and beautiful are one," is infamy; if he goes on to add, "also the true," one ought to trash him. Truth is ugly.

We possess art lest we perish of the truth. 3 If we take the quotation above to be indicative of Nietzsche' s overall view of art, it appears that he unequivocally holds it to be for the purpose of sheltering ourselves from tnlth. That is, art, through its beauty and eloquence, provides us with a soothing balm to divert our thoughts from the harsh reality of our human situation. Art no longer is the means to affirming truth, but it is itself what shelters us from the truth. And furthermore, we need that sheltering. The harshness of the truth is no longer something to be affirmed, for it will break us.

What we need is a "beautiful illusion" to make our existence tolerable. It is from this perspective that Young understands Nietzsche's final thoughts on art and existence.4 For one to hold this view, that the late work of Nietzsche understands the role of art to be a IIbeautiful illusion," is entirely justified. He does makes frequent reference to the

40

NIETZSCHE'S FINAL THOUGHTS

illusory quality of art, particularly in the Will to Power. How足 ever, to maintain that this is the only way in which Nietzsche perceives art in his final works is much too one-sided. As I have stated earlier, the role of art as an illusion applies only to the distinction of Apollinian art. In addition to this, Nietzsche discusses the relevance of what he calls Dionysian art and a union of these two forms in Tragic art. Let us now turn our attention to the origin of these distinctions in The Birth of Tragedy, so as to better understand the specific roles which art fulfills and to become clear on the reasons why Young con足 cludes that Nietzsche returns to the pessimism of The Birth in his final works.

In The Birth ofTragedy, Nietzsche focuses his sight on the ancient Greeks. In them he sees a people who faced the extreme harshness of life and, in spite of this, lived to affirm their existence. Nietzsche relates a story in Greek folklore of how King Midas hunted in the forest to find the wise Silenus. When Silenus was eventually found, the king asked him what was the best and most desirable of all things for man. After a long pause Silenus answered Midas. He told the king that, IIWhat is best of all is utterly beyond your reach: not to be born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second best for you is -to die soon."5 -With such a pessimistic wisdom permeating the cultural web of Greece, Nietzsche comes to ask the question of how it is that the creation oftheOlympians, essentially an affirmation of human life and human potential, came to be.

To answer this question Nietzsche turns to an examina足 tion of the Grecian artistic tendencies. He recognizes there to exist two such artistic forces which he identifies with the gods Apollo and the Dionysus. These forces, "which burst forth from nature herself, without the mediation of the human artist," provide man with two polarities intrinsic in art. 6 On the one hand, the Apollinian element is equated with order and mea足 sure, indeed the whole idea of technique and craftsmanship in art. Nietzsche uses the metaphor of a dream to speak of the unique quality of the Apollinian, for it is within a dream-state that we create visual images. Such a state produces an aesthetic

DAVID EVENHU1S

41

experience of the type one encounters in painting or sculpture, that of imagery. Although, while we must recognize the Apollinian as a mere illusion, there also results an immense joy and beauty from its veiling of reality. Through this profound veiling Nietzsche senses a healthy creative spirit, as he speaks of, "The beautiful illusion of the dream worlds, in the creation of which every man is truly an artist."7 The sense that life is made bearable through art runs throughout Nietzsche's discussion in The Birth of Tragedy.

It is highly tempting for him to envision the idea of veiling life through Apollinian illusion. However, there is something deeper in man which strives not for the separated individua­ tion of the Apollinian dream-state, but for a union with his primal nature. Nietzsche identifies the primal aspect of man with the god Dionysus.

Under the charm of the Dionysian not only is the union between man and man reaffirmed, but nature which has become alienated, hostile, or subjugated, celebrates once more her reconcilia­ tion with her lost son, man.ll Indeed it is here, where man yearns to rekindle his union with all that is primal and natural inexistence, that theDionysian spirit makes its appearance.

The Dionysian element of art involves chaos, emotion, and contradiction. Nietzsche sees the Dionysian as represent­ ing the spiritual domain and uses the metaphor of intoxication to illustrate this tendency. While associated with the feeling of intoxication, the Dionysian permeates the human soul with a spirit that, unlike the Apollinian, does not simply shadow the truth and pain of life. Instead, the Dionysian revels in all that is harsh and contradictory, affirming not only joy but also suffering. Nietzsche says that in the Dionysian, "Excess re­ vealed itself as truth. Contradiction, the bliss born of paint spoke out from the very heart of nature." 9 Whenever the Dionysian consumes man, all of his carnal instincts are re­

42

NIETZSCHE'S FINAL THOUGHTS

leased. Nietzsche illustrates the mood of the Dionysian ten足 dencies by speaking of the festivals held in honor of Dionysus.

In nearly every case these festivals centered in extravagant sexual licentiousness, whose waves overwhelmed all family life and its venerable traditions; the most savage natural instincts were unleased, including even that horrible mixture of sensuality and cruelty which has always seemed to me to be the realI/witches' brew./1 10 The Greeks, attending such festivals, became enraptured in a spirit of oneness, losing all sense of individual identity. The ecstasies of the dithyramb whirled man into a deeper realm of awareness such that, In song and dance man expresses himself as a member of a higher community; he has forgotten how to walk and speak and is on the way toward flying into the air, dancing ... He is no longer an artist, he has become a work of art: in these paroxysms of intoxication the artistic power of all nature reveals itself to the highest gratification of the primordial unity.u Owing itself to the deeper awareness of the Dionysian ecstasies is, however, not only the recognition of a primal unifying oneness. There is, in addition, a revealing of the harsh reality of our existence. If not able to deal with, and affirm, this pain, one must turn to something which helps make life bear足 able. This is the domain of Nietzsche's conception of the "beautiful illusion./1 Nietzsche regards the Grecian yearning for a more beautiful and ideal existence as a quite "profound need."

While suffering is integral to Nietzsche's thought, one may not be able to tolerate an extreme degree. Hence, if one's will comes to be in danger of willing a negation of life, a healing balm must

DAVID EVENHUIS

43

substitute for a complete affirmation. It is here that,

Art approaches as a saving sorceress, expert at healing. She alone knows how to tum these nau足 seous thoughts about the horror or absurdity of existence into notions with which one can live: these are the sublime as the artistic taming of the horrible, and the comic as the artistic discharge of the nausea of absurdity.n Here, at the fringes of Dionysian ecstasies, the Apollinian rescues man from the terror of existence. Apollinian art pro足 vides the beautiful illusion which man can affirm, and thereby bear the harsh and indifferent world in which he lives. Thus, in Nietzsche's early aesthetic we find that illusion is more profound than truth.

Let us now examine the case which Young makes, that in his final works Nietzsche makes a marked return to the pessimism inherent in The Birth afTragedy. Young maintains that this return to pessimism once again assigns the role of art to be that of veiling the truth, a position which Nietzsche dearly departs from during his positivistic period and in the works surrounding Zarathustra. In Twilight of the Idols, Young states that Nietzsche has, a renewed sense of the ultimate impor足 tance of the artist and of art: the 'works of art,' as much as that which has one's life as its product."13 Moreover, Young states that, "the 'Dionysian' attitude to life ... is viewed in 1888 as achievable, indeed achieved, by at least the artist. "14 With each of these claims I agree entirely. However, that with which I disagree is Young's thesis that, 1/

... this apparently optimistic turn in Nietzsche's tho"ught is an illusionj for ... the onl.y reason the Dionysian condition is viewed as achievable is that, without Nietzsche properly noticing it, the concept of what constitutes it has altered. IS

44

NIETZSCHE'S FINAL THOUGHTS

The shift which Young perceives to have happened since The Gay Science and Zarathustra is that instead of offering an honest confrontation with the horrors of life, Nietzsche offers us a choice of illusions. Young states that, ...on the one hand, we are offered the redemptive power of Apollinian illusion - profound superfi­ ciality, in other words; on the other, the redemp­ tive power of Dionysian sublimity. But the latter too is, as he points out in The Birth (BT 18), a species of illusion, an evasion of the actual hu­ man existence. What we are offered, therefore, is a choice between two forms of dishonesty: hu­ man life is to be made bearable either by telling ourselves beautiful lies about it or else pretend­ ing to belong to an order of being other than that of human individuality.16 Moreover, Young claims that because we are offered a choice between two forms of dishonesty, the implication is clear: Nietzsche no longer holds that life can be affirmed.

I agree with Young regarding the altered sense of the DionysianinNietzsche's final works; however, that with which I disagree is the manner of its evolution. Young claims that the redemptive power of Dionysian sublimity relies on the illusion of believing that one is part of a trans-individual unity, a primordial oneP In part, his interpretation is correct, that is if one is speaking about the role of the Dionysian in The Birth of Tragedy. Notice also that the reference to the Dionysian in the quotation above relies on what Nietzsche said in The Birth.

Therefore, Young is relying on information about the Dionysian which does not accurately reflect Nietzsche's own view of it during his last works.

I find the identity that Dionysian consciousness as­ sumes in the Twilight of the Idols is one of personal power. The true Dionysian individual is one who is able to organize and channel the chaotic absurdity of life into a creative phenom­

DAVID EVENHUIS

45

enon. This quality Nietzsche finds in the Greeks. He suggests that the Greeks gave such structure to their existence through the creation of the Olympian gods. For the Olympians, there is nothing here that suggests asceticism, spirituality or duty. We hear nothing but the accents of an exuberant, triumphant life in which all things, whether good or evil, are deified. 18 All things, whether considered good or evit are deified. Not simply are the harsh moments in life accepted as a means of suffering between those of joy, but they are exalted, affirmed, and deified. So awestruck was Nietzsche by the Grecian will-to足 life that well into his final year of production the idea of affirming life, both its good aspects and bad, permeated his thought. In the Twilight of the Idols this affirmation is equated with the Dionysian sensuality of the Hellenic Greeks. Within the orgiastic frenzy of the dithyramb Nietzsche finds the eter足 nal affirmation of life. Consider the passage, For it i~ only in the Dionysian mysteries, in the psychology ofthe Dionysian state (that offrenzy), that the basic fact of the Hellenic instinct finds expression-its IIwill to life." What was it that the Hellene guaranteed himself by means of these mysteries? Eternal life, the eternal return of life; the future promised andhallowed in the past; the triumphant Yes to life beyond all death and change; true life as the over-all continuation of life through procreation, through the mysteries of sexuality.

Nietzsche continues, For the Greeks the sexual symbol was therefore the venerable symbol par excellence, the real profundity in the whole ancient piety. Every

46

NIETZSCHE'S FINAL THOUGHTS

single element in the act of procreation, of preg足 nancy, and ofbirth aroused the highest and most solemn feelings. In the doctrine of the mysteries, pain is pronounced holy: the pangs of the woman giving birth hallow all pain; all becoming and growing - all that guaranties a future -- involves pain. That there may be eternal joy of creating, that the will to life may eternally affirm itself, the agony of the woman giving birth must also be there eternally.19 All joy, all pleasure, all profundity is coupled with pain.

And pain, for Nietzsche, is a necessary element of existence.

Seen here in the parndigm of sexuality, pain is viewed as an element integral to the act of creation. Art therefore, resulting from an act of creation, is intrinsically linked to pain. Thus, the creation of art becomes a necessary element of human exist足 ence.

During Nietzsche's final year of production he focuses his attention vigorously on the relationship between art and existence. We know that the role of art was of central impor足 tance to Nietzsche during 1888 because oHris many references to it. In fact not since his work in The Birth ofTragedy had art (in the literal sense) occupied such a significant position in Nietzsche's writing.

Young recognizes this return of Nietzsche's admiration for art. In fact, Young feels that the reemergence of aesthetic concerns in Nietzsche's work was only one aspect of a more significant return to the overall pessimism inherent in The Birth ofTragedy. ~v1oreover, Young declares that Nietzsche's doctrine of the will-to-power, which continuously runs throughout his final thoughts, plays little, if any, role in Nietzsche's late philosophy of art. He goes on to add that, /lit has always seemed to me, [that thewill-to-power] is a notion which figures much more prominently in commentaries than in the texts themselves."2.0 In this section of the paper I plan to show not only that Young has overlooked a significant segment of the

DAVID EVENHUIS

47

Nietzschean aesthetic, but that Nietzsche no less than breathes the will-to-power. Particularly in his last works Nietzsche's thought is permeated by, and always returns to this doctrine.

Let us turn our attention to the Twilight of the Idols.

Nietzsche's discussion of art in Twilight explores the genesis of the creative process. He claims that at the heart of artistic creativity lies a certain psychological disposition of frenzy. Consider the passage,

Toward apsychology ofthe artist. If there is to be art, if there is to be any aesthetic doing and seeing, one physiological condition is indispensable: frenzy.

Nietzsche continues, What is essential in such frenzy is the feeling of increased strength and fullness. Out of this feel­ ing one lends to things, one forces them to accept from us, one violates them - this process is called idealizing. 21 As one can see the sense of power is deeply imbedded in the passage above. The artist does not merely present us with images to be done with as we please, but he forces his vision upon us. Since, as Nietzsche states, without the condition of frenzy there can be no art, and the essential element in such a state is the feeling of increased strength and fullness, then the whole creative process may be seen as an act of power. For such frenzy to be attained, one must aim to increase his own feeling of power. Once realized, this personal power is to be exercised as to, "bring out the main features so that the others disappear in the process." 22. Hence, that which the creative process aims toward is a sense of the transformation or transfiguration of things into perfection. .

The idea of the artist tJ.·ansforming things into perfection is quite compelling for Nietzsche. While the process of trans­

48

NIETZSCHE'S FL"JAL THOUGHTS

formatioll is not by any means explicitly wrought out, he does speak of it as resulting from one's own fullness. What Nietzsche is trying to suggest by"one's own fullness" is not entirely clear, but he seems to equate it with the combined feeling of frenzy and one's sense of personal strength and power. Consider the passage, A man in this state [of frenzy] transforms things until they mirror his power - until they are reflections of his perfection. This having to trans­ form into perfection is - art; ... in art man enj oys himself as perfection.23 One's power in organizing the chaos and absurdity of life is seen as equivalent to trushaving to transform thatNietzsche calls art. I therefore suggest that the act of artistic creation and the will-to-power are, for Nietzsche, one-and-the-same.

It is here that we touch on the true meaning of art for Nietzsche during his final year of sanity. The will-to-power holds the answer of how one is to approach life. It is a doctrine that does not simply allow one to endure the absurdity of existence, but rather to live with that absurdity and affirm it as a necessary element of existence. Life itself comes to be viewed,

by Nietzsche, as an aesthetic phenomenon, whereby existence is justified through artistic creation.

As I corne to the end of my examination of Nietzsche's final thoughts on art and existence, I hope I have made it clear that his aesthetic contemplation is multi-tiered, incorporating several different roles that he feels art plays. Additionally, I hope that I have emphasized the point that all aesthetic exami­ nation which Nietzsche undertakes is done in relation to hu­ man existence. The work of art is notmerely an object which we view and appreciate in a manner by which we identify our­ selves as autonomous from the work. Rather, for Nietzsche, the work of art takes on an organic quality which only realizes its full relevance in relation to human existence. For art, in the realization of its potential, may take the form of several differ­

DAVID EVENHUIS

49

ent roles along a spectrum.

One polarity of this spectrum is the role of Apollinian art. By providing us with an illusion of image and fonn in perfection, the work of art shelters us from the absurdity of existence. As I have indicated, it is this view of art that Young takes to be Nietzsche's final word on the subject. With respect to his claims regarding Apollinian art, I do agree with Young that this is an aspect of the final Nietzschean aesthetic; how足 ever, I think that Young is being too one-sided on the issue and ignoring much of what Nietzsche says in addition to his discus足 sion regardjng the role of Apollinian art. I furthermore think that Young too hastily disregards passages which point toward the more frenzied and chaotic aspects of Dionysian art. He maintains that such passages are merely the result of Nietzsche' s mental deterioration. Yet, if we fall to reducing certain pas足 sages of Nietzsche's final work to being the result solely of his deteriorating mental condition, then we must condemn the entirety of his last work to this fate as well. For, how are we to tell if one passage is the work of a philosophically sound individual and the next is mere babble. Ontheotherhand,ifwe look at the bemlty in form and structure, the wit, and the often piercing insight which nms throughout these last works, it seems that we are justified in taking them in toto to represent Nietzsche's final thoughts. Ifwe are then to accept Nietzsche's last works in {uit we shall find that art does not simply occupy the role of a soothing balm saving us from the harsh reality of existence, but rather that it also allows us to live 7vith that very absurdity and to affirm it as our own. Art thereby strengthens our will-to-power, adding health and intensity to our lives.

ENDNOTES I 2 3 4 5 6 7

Young, Julian. Nicl'zsc!/E,'H Philosophy (!f Arl'. p.117

NictzHche, Friedrich. 'fwifigllt 11/lhe Ido/s. IX, 20.

Nletz!iche, Fried rich. The Will to Power. 822.

Young, Julian. NiL'tztic/ic's Pliilosopliy of Art. p. 148-152.

Nietzschc, Fricdrich. The Birth of Tragedy. p. 42.

Ibid. p. 38.

Ibid. p. 34.

50

NIETZSCHE'S FINAL THOUGHTS 8 Ibid. p. 37.

9 Ibid. p. 46-47.

10 Ibid. p. 39.

11 Ibid. p. 37.

12 Ibid. p. 60.

13 Young, Julian. Nietzsche's Philosophy of Art. p. 117.

14 Ibid. p. 118.

15 Ibid. p. 118.

16 Ibid. p. 139.

17 Ibid. p. 136.

18 Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy. p. 41.

19 Nietzsche, Friedrich. Twilight of the Idols. X, 4.

20 Young, Julian. Nietzsche's Philosophy of Art. p.1-2 21 Nietzsche, Friedrich. Twilight of the Idols. IX, 8.

22 Ibid. IX, 8.

23 Ibid. IX, 9.

51 SUBJECTIVITY VS. USE: A

HEIDEGGERIAN CRmQUE OF SARTREAN

VALUES

Laura M. Bruce

Denison University

Perhaps the greatest shortcoming of ethical theory has been its various attempts to use some sort of metaphysical entity or some conception of "human nature" to establish an absolute, universal ground. Jean-Paul Sartre stands out in the existentialist tradition as having made vigorous claims against both of these"grounds." Yet, Sartre' s analysis of human reality does not resolve the problem of grounding ethics; instead, he claims that each individual, through subjective choosing and concrete action, creates value. In some sense, this view still leads to a grounding of sorts: value is possible only on the basis of subjectivity, for, liTo choose between this or that is at the same time to affirm the value of that which is chosen.lfl Sartre' s solution to the problem of absolute ethical universals comes at the expense of shared, public values-for him, all valuing is relative to the individual. According to such a theory, Fyodor Dostoevsky's claim that "If God did not exist, everything would be permitted" is correct, as Sartre readily admits.

My contention in this paper is that a rejection of ethical absolutes does not inevitably lead to Sartrean relativism, nor does it deny the existence of values. Despite Dostoevsky's and Sartre's claims, our ordinary experience of values and ethical decision-making arises through shared public practices. Sartre claims to be doing phenomenology, which should account for our ordinary experiences. However, once he has introduced subjectivity, an account of ordinary experience is impossible, as all human practices are possible only on the basis of subjectiv­ ity. In order to seek out ethics in its original home-that is, Bruce is a 1994 graduate ofDenison University, where she majored in Philosophy and minored in Sociology/Anthropology. She will be attending tile University of California at Irvine in the Fall of1995.

Episteme • Volume VI. May 1995

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where we originally experience value-it is necessary that the shared practices of ordinary experience be accounted for. It is the task of this paper to show: I) how Sartre uses a traditional subject I object distinc­

tion in his investigation of consciousness and why it leads to the conclusion that subjectivity is the source of value;

II) how Martin Heidegger's phenomenological ac­

count of Dasein affords a criticism of Sartre's ontol­ ogy and accounts for shared practices; and

III) how such a critique avoids the Sartrean relativism regarding values and where it leads us instead.

I aim to show that the type of relativism that Sartre con­ cludes with isolates values from the world, and that this is impossible, because values are social.

I

I wi1l now offer a brief exposition of Sartre's account of consciousness to show that it is dependent upon a traditional subject! object distinction and that it inevitably leads to ethical relativism. Because Sartre is doing phenomenology in the tradition of Husserl, all he has to begin with are objects as they are revealed to us. Sartre's preliminary examination shows that part of the phenomenal condition of objects is that they are revealed to something. Thus, Sartre's examination first refers us to a "knower," a being which knows or "reveals" objects as what they are.

In the first place, Sartre claims that an account of being cannot reduce "being to the knowledge which we have of it," as idealism has done, nor can it take knowledge as a given, as realism has done. 2 He rejects these methods because knowl­

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edge itself caIU10t account for being. To talk of knowing is to presuppose existence, or at least the existence of a knower. No account of knowledge can be fruitful without an account of this knower. This knower refers us to the basis for knowledge-the being of the knower-which Sartre calls "consciousness": The law of being in the knowing subject is to-be­ conscious. Consciousness is not a mode of particular knowledge which may be called an inner meaning or self-knowledge; it is the dimension of transphenomenal being in the subject.... It is in itself something other than a knowledge turned back upon itself. 3

Sartre takes from Husserl his fundamental characteriza­ tion of consciousness, that is, "All consciousness is conscious­ ness of something."4 As such, consciousness is intentional, as a directional activity toward some thing outside of conscious­ ness. However, consciousness is contingent upon the neces­ sary and ,sufficient condition that it also be consciousness of itself.~ In oHler words, "consciousness is directly an awareness of ~;omething other than itself and simultaneously and indi­ rectly an awareness of itself."I) Ye t, a consciousness thatis directed outward establishes at once a connection between itself and the world. In his preliminary examination of consciousness, Smtre provides an ontological proof that shows that consciousness is "born sup­ ported by a being which is not itsel£."7 As a "revealing intuition," consciousness is by virtue of the fact that it can reveal some­ thing outside itself. We need not examine consciousness itself to determine what it "knows" oHhe world-revealing a "world/ is precisely what consciousness is as a spontaneous activity directed outward. This intentional characteristic requires that the object not be a thing residing in consciousness, for con­ sciollsness is a "positional consciousness of the world."11 As such, consciousness establishes a world of entities outside of it which are not it and therefore must have their own being:

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Sartre wishes to keep a delicate balance-insisting that consciousness is intentional and therefore neces­ sarily related to an object other than itself, and yet insisting that the being of consciousness and the being of the thing known are not reducible to the consciousness-of-the-object.9

Consciousness is, for Sartre, a "nonsubstantial abso­ lute": consciousness is never relative to the object known, and therefore, is absolute; and consciousness is just pure revelation of a being, without self-identity, and therefore, is nonsubstantiaVo hl fact, it is precisely because consciousness is fundamentally a lack that it can never have the self-identity and fullness of being that is characteristic of objects. By virtue of this lack, which Sartre calls nothingness/' consciousness is perfectly translucent-a contentless revealing of something which it is not. Nothingness lies at the heart of consciousness and distinguishes human reality from the being of things.

Hence the two divisions of being which title his work: Being and Nothingness. While this distinction appears radical, a closer look reveals that it is reminiscent of the Cartesian subject) object model, in that consciousness is a subject iso­ lated from objects which it "knows." The traditional subject) object distinction, which Sartre employs from the start, ob­ scures his account of ethics.

In the end, Sartre shows that what makes possible consciousness' yaluing of entities, actions, situations and the world is this fundamental nothingness. At the heart of human reality is nothing, and surrounding it on all sides is facticity­ situation. 11 Lacking all identity and content, human reality is completely free; it is freedom. Yet, it is not free to be its own foundation: it is abandoned in a factical world to create itself, therefore existence precedes essence." Only on the basis of its fundamental nothingness can human reality establish an "es­ sence," be free to make choices, posit value, or know the world: "Human-reality everywhere encounters resistance and ob­ stacles which it has not created, but these resistances and /I

1/

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obstacles have meaning only in and through the free choice which human-reality is.''12 Only a beingwhichhasnothlngness at its core is free to create value, but objects are being tl11'ough and through. Ethical values then, are not to be found within the world of "things" ; this realm of being is completely dependent on free consciousness for its ethical significance: ...we have neither behind us, nor before us in a lumi足 nous realm of values, any means of justification or excuse. We are left alone, without excuse. That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment that he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he doesP

The force of this claim sets in later when Sartre says: every man, without any support or help whatever, is condemned at every instant to invent man./l14 Every individual is responsible for creating both him/herself and humanity, yet individual choices cannot be helped by "Man"-they must be created by each individual. Values are grounded on the concrete "noth足 ing" of each subjectivity as it chooses and actively creates itself: "You are free, therefore choose-that is to say, invent. No lUle of general morality can show you what you ought to do; no signs are vouchsafed in this world. illS The ability to choose and act, and thereby "invent" values is only possible on the basis of free consciousness. Therefore, all values are relative to each individual and arise in the world only when this individual chooses and acts in concrete situations. /I

II

We have seen that the foundation for Sartre's account of consciousness is the distinction between subjects and objects. I will now offer a Heideggerian critique of this distinction to show that it produces a distorted view of how human beings experience the world and leads to the untenable conclusion of

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ethical relativism.

Sartre begins by investigating the way objects are re­ vealed to consciousness. This method leads him to claim that consciousness, as the activity of revealing objects, is the essen­ tial way humans experience the world. Heidegger rejects this sort of account of human experience and points to the subject / object model as the source of confusion: "It in the ontology of Dasein, we'take our departure' from a worldless 'I' in order to provide this 'I' with an object and an ontologically baseless relation to that object, then we have 'presupposed' not too much, but too little."16 For Heidegger, the subject/ object model presupposes "too little" because it only accounts for one way of experiencing the world.

In an attempt to avoid Cartesian talk of subjects and objects altogether, Heidegger begins his account with "Dasein./I Dasein is just each one of us-individual human beings. In contrast to Sartre's reworking of the Cartesian subject, Dasein is not a "self-sufficient source of all meaning and intelligibil­ ity."17 Rather, Dasein designates the human way of being.

According to Heidegger, the subject/ object model, like that employed by Sartre, fails to account for Dasein's ordinary way of being by skipping over what is closest to Dasein-its "aver­ age everydayness."

Heidegger's account of average everydayness shows that Dasein's ordinary experience neither rests on nor reveals anything like "subjects" or " objects."18 The "world" is that which Dasein first encounters in its average everydayness: the "environment" and those things Dasein uses in the environ­ ment. 19 Dasein's ordinary experience is not one of reflecting on or knowing the environment, but a "concernful" dealing with and use of things in the environment: ... the kind ofbeing which belongs to such concemful dealings is not one into which we need to put our­ selves first. This is the way in which everyday Dasein always is: when I open the door, for instance, I use the doorknob. 20 .

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While Sartre follows Descartes by describing objects as they lie before a subject who grasps them cognitively, for Heidegger, objects are not things we ordinarily need to Ifget to." They are "ready-to-hand" as those things right here that we are using, and in use, that we are not reflecting on. In use, they withdraw as objects. Ordinarily, they are always ready-to-hand for us: when I rush out the door in the morning, the car is ready to be used, and instead of looking at it and thinking about getting into it, I jump in, turn the key and speed away. On Sartre's account, the car is primarily what Heidegger calls "present-at­ hand"-itis an object which I know because I behold the car qua car. By taking the car as essentially present-at-hand, Sartre fails to account for the fact that ordinarily, I do not need to reflect on the car-I just use it.

Although the practices of everyday experience may refer us to a user, an examination of a user does not require an examination of the user's consciousness. This is because a phenomenological account of use does not prompt us to sup­ pose that things which are ready-to-hand are atbottom present­ at-hand. In everyday experience an object is not, strictly speaking, encountered at all. Instead, ready-to-hand things are just what get llsed and produced as a means of accomplishing some goal with whichDaseinisconcerned. A description of the way Dasein ordinarily uses things dispels the notion of objects as "reflected on"; "the perceiving of what is known is not a process of returning with one's booty to the 'cabinet' of con­ sciousness after one has gone out and grasped it.H21 But for Sartre, this is exactly what experience is, as his descriptions of consciousness in the introduction to Being and Nothingness show: "Consciousness is ... the dimension of transphenomenal being in the subject;" All consciousness is positional in th.at it transcends itself in order to reach an object;" "All that there is of intention in my actual consciousness is directed toward the outside;" and "The perceived being is before consciousness; consciousness can not reach it, and it can not enter into con­ sciousness."22 Sal"tre's subject / object model precludes a strict phenomenological account, which reveals instead that when "we carefully describe everyday ... activity [we] do not find II

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any mental states" --i.e., any "beholding" or "knowing."23 Heidegger's phenomenological method has critical con­ sequences for the Sartrean model of subjectivity precisely be­ cause he shows that knowing is not part of our everyday experiences. Dasein's ordinary experience is not a "knowing" experience, but a useful involvement with other entities in the world. Therefore Sartre' S account of subjects and objects cannot stand alone; it must be based on a prior phenomenological description of use. Using things is primary to Dasein' s ordinary experience: "what is revealed by use is ontologically more fundamental than the substances with determinate, context­ free properties revealed by detached contemplation."24 It is only upon use that we speak of subjects and objects. It is a "breakdown" of this average everyday use that puts Dasein in a position of reflecting on an object. When I jump into the car and, two miles down the road, it breaks down, I am forced to reflect on it as present-at-hand. It is no longer something that goes along with me in my use; instead, I get out of the car, kick it and stare at it. It is just the object: "car./I But, ordinarily, I do not reflect on the car qua car at all. According to Sartre, reflecting on objects is primary, and ordinary use must be established. Therefore, his account distorts ordinary human experience. What for Heidegger is a secondary and derivative experience of the world is for Sartre the ontological basis of human reality.

Dasein's everyday use and involvements are the back­ ground upon which Sartre's subject! object distinction is pos­ sible. Prior to "knowing" this world, Dasein is already familiar with this world, already using things, already interpreting itself and this world, and already having a way of being. This means that Dasein has not in and of itself established practices, ac­ quired understanding, posited uses, or intended meanings for things. These things are not experienced as the product of one's consciousness, but they arise out of a context of shared, public practices. No individual object ever shows up in the wodd as it is in and of itself, but always is in terms of its belonging to other equipment" in a context,25 Dasein does not ordinarily /I

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behold this context as a situation which lies before it. Rather, Dasein dwells in this context in a familiar a~d involved way, which Heidegger calls Being-in-the-world. Ordinarily, Dasein uses things in a context with which it already familiar, in whichthe things are used in order to do something. To say that the subject/ object distinction is only possible due to a break足 down of everyday use is also to say that a context of shared, public practices, which makes use possible, is ontologically prior.

Yet, Sartre has not failed altogether to address the im足 portance of a worldly context. Once he has abstracted subject and object in order to analyze them, he establishes that they form a totality of flbeing-in-the-world" which "has a real priority over its conceptually distinct parts."26 Sartre claims: In truth the cogito must be our point of departure, but we can say of it, parodying a famous saying, that it leads us only on condition that we get out of it. Our preceding study ... had as its goal only to place us in a position to question the cogito about its being and to furnish llS with the dialectic instrument which would enable us to find in the cogito itself the means of escaping from instantaneity toward the totality of . being which constitutes human reality.27

The trouble, for Sartre, is that being-in-the-world needs to be established: liThe scandal of philosophy' is not that this proof has yet to be given, but that such proofs are expected and attempted again and again. .. If Dasein is understood correctly, it defies such proofs, because, in its Beulg, it already is what subsequent proofs deem necessary to demonstrate for it."28 For Heidegger, Being-in-the-world is onto logically prior and can足 not be divided into two radically separated regions ofbeing," where a relation between subject and object must be estab足 lished: 29 I

/I

When Dasein directs itself towards something and grasps it, it does not somehow first get out of an hmer

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sphere in which it has been proximally encapsulated, but its primary kind of Being is such that it is always 'outside' alongside entities which it encounters and which belong to a world already discovered .30 As soon as the subject / object model is assumed by Sartre, human reality is abstracted from any public, worldly context.

The Sartrean claim that later, contextual experience can be constructed and explained as a "totality of su bjects and objects/' is precisely the theoretical distortion of human reality that results from the Cartesian modeL This is because, In no case is a Dasein, untouched and unseduced by this way in which things have been interpreted, set before the open country of a 'world-in-itself' so that it just beholds what it encounters. The dominance of the public way in which things have been interpreted has already been decisi ve even for the possibilities of having a mood-that is, for the basic way in which Dasein lets the world 'matter' to itPl Since Sartre needs to establish being-in-the-world, he also needs to establish the meanings and values enc()un tercd in ordinary experience. He establishes them as the products of subjectivity: "every man, without any support or help whatever, is condemned at every instant to invent man."32 The ontological gap between subject and worldly context is what allows Smtre to claim that "Consciousness is not a being but the activity whereby a human being recasts an impersonal universe in the form of the human life world.// 33 Where consciousness is the foundation of all experience, meanings and values are all relative to the intentional projects of individuals-finally m.ak~ ing public, shared meanings and values impossihle. This overlooks the fact that values can only arise out of practices and uses which are public and which Dasein is all'eady involved in.

There is already a context of practices which makes use pos~ sible-and it is because Dasein uses things within this context that meanings and values arise. Dasein is never in a position to

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"create" the world ex nihilo, for this world and Dasein's expe­ riences in it are not "impersonal," but are always already meaningful.

III These ordinary experiences are always already mean­ ingful because the context in which they are carried out is a public one. Because this context has ontological priority over consciousness, Dasein is not involved in practices and uses in isolation, but always with Others. This is not to say that Dasein has "knowledge" of Others as "subjects" which are encoun­ tered. It is only when there is a breakdown of ordinary public practices that Others show up as "subjects" for Dasein. Ordi­ narily, Others are experienced as those with whom Dasein is coping and involved. Through this public sphere of everyday activity, Daseinhas always already been interpreted by Others, existed for Others and been with Others. In everyday experi­ ence, Dasein is absorbed in the world in such a way that it is indistinguishable from Others. Dasein's involvement in the world is no t distinct: Dasein is depressed as "one" is depressed, talks a~ "one" talks, judges as "one" judges and behaves as "one" behaves.:14 In everyday activities, Dasein' s involvements in the world are taken on as "one" takes them on.

The public realm of the"one" dictates those norms by which every aspect of social life is organized. Dasein has always already taken on specific norms in a specific context and understood them. However, public practices occur in many different contexts and have many different meanings-what the "one" says in one context may very well be the exact opposite of what the"one" says in another context. It is notthat Dasein in each case does exactly what the"one" says-Dasein may also reject what the"one" does, modify what the"one" says, or ignore what the "one" thinks, etc. However, it is only on the basis of the established, understood norms which Dasein has already taken on that such modification occurs. Values arise through the public practices engaged in by Dasein with

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others. It is because of the public context of the "one" that there are practices, and it is only because there are practices that there are values.

Dasein's ethical decision-making, which includes vari­ ous sorts of activities-weighing consequences, following and rejecting ethical principles, compromising differences, etc.-is always carried outwithin a context and upon the background of established ethical practices. These public practices are not something which Dasein must first get "into" and then some­ times gets "out" of. Sartre's notion that valuing things or making ethical decisions are activities which are done"subjec­ tively," and, as it were, "privately," entirely misconstrues the nature of what it is to do these things. If we carry our Heideggerian critique of Sartre through to the end, the conclu­ sion we reach is that values are not grounded in subjectivity­ pure subjectivity is the result of breakdown, which occurs on an always already established background of public contexts and practices. What is primary is the context: we cannot remove ethics from its public context and expect to show that individuals, through subjective positing, establish" value in the world. Hence, values and ethical decision-making are things which Dasein is already familiar with in its everyday coping with others. Dasein becomes familiar with them as it 'sees' them at work and uses them. We could say then, that following an ethics, upholding a value, or making an ethical decision consists in going by a "sign-post," a principle, which is customary, familiar and already undeI'stood. 35 This is not to say that situations of ethical detachment do not occur, but that they are analogous to beholding an object as present-at-hand. Situations in which we pull back from OUI' ordinary involvement and say "what do I do now?" are situa­ tions of ethical breakdown. Such a stance is possible only because in ordinary practice, we use values and make ethical decisions all the time without placing the situation before us as present-at-hand. In ordinary experience, I do not pull back from my everyday affaiI's with others and ask myself if I should kill them or not-the question never arises. In every­ 1/

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day practice I just don't do it, thereby upholding something which is valuable within the context and practices that I dwell in.

While such an accotmt of public practices shows that values cannot be grounded in subjectivity, neither are they grounded in the objective world: there is value only because there are public practices. This does not mean that values are grounded in the world, but that they are groundless, based only on ongoing, changing and multiple human practices and contexts, Public practices are all that constitute the values which Dasein copes with, but these practices themselves are grounded in nothing. Hubert Dreyfus points out the signifi­ cance of the Heideggerian stance: Traditionally all meanings have been traced back to some final self-intelligible, most real, occurrent source, e.g. the Good, God, or the transcendental ego. The oneil as ultimate reality ... a philosophical version of God-cannot supply this sort of intelligibility, It can never be made completely explicit and justified. It . contains an understanding of being and accounts for all intelligibility, yet it is no sort of intelligible thing at all. 3(, 1/

The lack of intelligibility in the publicness of the "oneil is just its groundlessness. While the public sphere of the one" is always already given, and provides the background of intelli­ gibility and meaning for Dasein's everyday practices, it is not a foundation beneath these practices. The oneil is constituted by nothing more than these ordinary practices and it is only because there are ordinary practices that Dasein understands meaning and value. As a particular way of taking up these public practices, ethics can only "occur" as the human en­ deavor to best "put to use" the meanings and values which are always already there,· Therefore, what is at issue is ethical theory -if values are not grounded in subjectivity or the world itself, nor in some transcendent Being, we reach a point where there is no funda­ /I

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mental justification for values, no absolute ground. The desire to construct an ethical theory is itself based on the precepts that there is a foundation upon which such theory can be built, and that we need only to "tease out" this foundation from everyday experience. Since uses and practices are themselves grounded on nothing, but always already there, there is nothing for theOlY to stand on. The attempt to find absolute justifications for right and wrong is precisely the attempt to take ethics out of practice and make it conform to a theoretical system.

This does not mean that all values must be equally respected or are equally meaningful for everyone, however.

Dasein is always already in a specific environment, culture and historyr involved in specific practices and uses. Claims which favor cultural relativism are based on the mistaken supposition that getting out of all contexts and practices of ethical valuation is possible. But to be indifferent to one sort of context or practice of valuing is only to accept another, however rudimentary.

Likewise, to acrept some value is to reject others. In no case can one be indifferent to or accepting of all possible contexts and practices of valuing. This is because "Being-in is not a 'prop足 erty' which D asein sometimes has and sometimes does not have, and without which it could be just as well as it could with it. Itisnotthe case that man 'is' and then has, by way of an extra, a relationship-of-Being towards the 'world'-a world which he provides himself with occasionally."37 What counts as valuable or ethicallnay be relative to a specific context of practices, but is never relative to an individual. But to say that values are relative to a certain culture, forinstance, is only to say that there are many public practices employed by many different groups and that the values that arise out of these practices are ethical for them. It is 011 the basis of what they hold ethical that they see the practices and values of other groups as unethical. It is their own practices and uses of values that allow them to say with conviction that child abuse is wrong," or "racism is unethi足 caV' In no way can Dasein shed its Being-in-the-world so as to "view" all values from a context-free perspective. It is /I

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precisely because we do have public practices that there is anything like value or ways of taking up these practices ethi足 cally. It is because Dasein in each case engages in particular practices in particular public contexts that Dasein always has a particular way of taking up these practices ethically. Dasein's everyday experience of values is not such that all values are experienced on an equal plane. To say that there is no "true" value if our ethical valuations calUl.ot be absolutely justified足

by God, by Dasein or by the world-is still to suppose that without foundation, values CalUl.ot exist. Yet, in everyday practice and coping, values are experienced. Despite the lack of a single absolute, universal ground, Dasein does use values; and in Dasein' s ordinary experience, everything is not permit足 ted.

ENDNOTES

1 [EE] Sartre, Jean-PauL "Existentialism is a Humanism." d. W. Kaufmann, Existentialismfrom Dostoevsky to Sartre. Ontario: New AmericanLibrary, 1975, p. 350.

2 [BN] Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness. trans. Hazel E. Barnes. New York: Pocket Books, 1956, p. 10.

3 Ibid, p. 10, 11.

4 Ibid, p. 11.

5 Ibid, p. 11.

6 Catalano, Joseph. A Commentary 011 Jean-Paltl Sartre's Being and Nothingness.

Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1980, p. 33.

7 EN,p.23

8 Ibid, p. 11.

9 Catalano, p. 33.

10 BN, p.17.

11 Ibid, p. 629

12 IIJ/d, p. 629.

13 EH, p. 353.

14 Ibid, p. 353-54.

15 Ibid, p. 356.

16 [BT] Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. trans. John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson. SanFrancisco: I-1m'per & Row, 1962, p. 363.

17 Dreyfus, Hubert. Eeing-ill-tlte-World: A CDmmmtnry on Heidegger's Being and Time, Division 1. London: The MIT Press, 1993, p. 14.

18 BT, p. 94.

19 Ibid, p. 94.

20 Ibid, p. 96.

21 Ibid, p. 89.

22 Ibid, p. 10, 11, 21; emphasis mine.

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23 24 25 26

Dreyfus, p. 86 Ibid, p. 61; emphasis mine.

BT, p. 97.

Catalano, p. 54.

27 BN, p. 120.

28 BT, p.249. This quote is Heidegger's response to Kant's demand for a proof for "the Dasein of Things outside me." However, I believe Sartre's aim to establish being-in-the-world would evoke a similar response from Heidegger.

29 Cf, BN, p. 120.

30 BT, p. 89; emphasis mine.

31 Ibid, p. 213.

32 EH, p. 354; emphasis mine.

33 Sartre in Howells, Christina, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Sartre.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 37.

34 BT, p. 164. Heidegger refers to the "normal" user as das Man-the embodiment of averageness and norms of behavior which Dasein is acquainted with. For the sake of clarity and readability, I am using Hubert Dreyfus' translation or das Man as the "one," which refers not to any particular Dasein but just to the normative way "one" does something.

35 Due to space and the nature of this essay, the Wittgensteinian link to this critique could not feasibly have been made at this point. However, Wittgenstein's work on language-ga'nes and meaning did considerably influence its development (cf. PI, ยง198).

36 Dreyfus, p. 161-62.

37 BT, p. 84.