Between Praxis and Poiesis: Heidegger, Bhaskar and Bateson on Art. Mark Johnson, University of Bolton (mwj1@bolton.ac.uk) This paper examines the distinction Heidegger makes between ‘praxis’ and ‘poiesis’ as different ways of being-in-the-world, and the extent to which this position can be clarified from a critical realist standpoint. Our ultimate purpose here is to identify poiesis as a methodologically significant activity which, from a critical realist standpoint, differs from praxis only in the depth of its engagement with reality. Praxis, for Heidegger, is implicated in the body of everyday activity which is essentially ‘enframed’ by the technologies that surround it. Poiesis by contrast, relates to the activity of the artist. Like the praxis of everyday activity, poiesis has a technical dimension, but the outcome of poiesis is not destined by technology. Instead, the poetic way of being is characterised by Heidegger as ‘dwelling thinking’: a way of thinking which prioritises existence. In this paper I suggest that the distinction between praxis and poiesis is one of ‘codifiability’. Whilst the praxis of scientists results in codified concepts, poiesis produces artefacts of often uncodifiable complexity. This view of codifiability accords with Bateson’s cybernetic characterisation of ‘sacraments’ as objects of unmanageable complexity. Using this conception of sacraments we paint a picture of the complex and materially-grounded relationships that exist between the artwork and the observer. In conclusion, we argue that the critical realist perspective helps us to see the artist engaging in a form of depth praxis, producing artefacts which in their dissemination retain their sacramental qualities – qualities which are themselves deeply entwined with the material springs of synchronic emergent powers: a domain which is beyond the reach of conventional social science.
Introduction Heidegger’s distinction between ‘enframed’ thinking and ‘dwelling’ thinking is one of the key themes that arise in his late work (1978a). However, these concepts have caused problems for commentators – particularly in the fact that the boundary between what is characterised as ‘enframing’ (technological) and that which is characterised as ‘dwelling’ (poetic) is difficult to locate. In this essay, I wish to examine Heidegger’s characterisation in the light of Bhaskar’s conception of praxis, which extends to ‘totalising depth praxis’ presenting a picture of levels of ontological engagement in human activity which is less polarised than it is in Heidegger’s presentation. At the same time, Heidegger’s characterisation of poiesis and dwelling thinking is relatively under-explored within critical realism: it is fair to say that the emphasis in realist thought has been on deepening the praxis engagement within social science research methodology. This emphasis on
social science research I wish to balance with a close examination of artistic activity as efficacious transformative action. The characterisation of artistic activity as causally efficacious in a similar way to the efficacy of activity within social science requires a unified means of discussing ontological mechanisms that extend from the deepest mechanisms of cognitive subsystems to large-scale social processes. It is for this reason that we turn to Bateson’s cybernetic double-bind theory and his conception of sacraments. With this characterisation we are able to consider the nature of the role of the artist in society and the mechanisms they are able to exploit through the production of artefacts.
Enframing and Dwelling Thinking in Heidegger Enframing, for Heidegger, was the essence of technology, and it was – for him – the fundamental way of being-in-the-world associated with the modern age. And yet, as its name suggests, enframing held much danger for humankind, for an enframed existence was an existence that destined the world to be a particular way, only revealing those aspects of the world to which tools could be put to use: in Heidegger’s language, the world becomes ‘standing reserve’. Ultimately, Heidegger worried that the ‘standing reserve’ would itself comprise human beings themselves: the human slaves of technology. Thus ‘enframing’ was a ‘the setting-upon that sets upon man’ (1978a). Opposed to enframing was Heidegger’s concept of poiesis with which he became increasingly fascinated by through an examination of the work of Hölderlin. Struck by Hölderlin’s phrase “poetically man dwells upon the earth” (in Holderlin’s poem “in lovely blueness blooms the steeple”), Heidegger sought to characterise a different way of being-in-the-world as ‘dwelling’. For Heidegger, a close examination of the word ‘bauen’ revealed that “to dwell” was “to build” and conversely, ‘to build’ is ‘to dwell’ (1978b). This confusing formulation sheds light on Heidegger’s identification of a way of beingin-the-world which was free of any sort of enframing entailed by the use of technology. The nature of this ‘building’ was for Heidegger a deep engagement with reality. To characterise this he introduces the idea of the ‘fourfold’: the earth, the divinities, the sky and the mortals. Having taken this as a starting point, the essence of dwelling implicates a simultaneous acknowledgement of this fourfold in those who build and dwell. To dwell is to be under the sky, whilst acknowledging divinities, mortals and earth; or it is to be divine whilst acknowledging the earth, the sky and mortals. Dwelling is a process of continual creation within the fourfold, and the artwork as its product itself invites dwelling.
The Social Context of Art and Social Science and the Clarity of Information One of the key aspects of Heidegger’s linking of building to dwelling is to insist on the nature of artistic activity as action. It is, therefore, in this sense also praxis, and from a realist perspective we may regard this action as potentially transformative. But what sort of action is artistic action, and how does it compare to the causally efficacious action of
social science research? At a basic level, we might argue that these two practices deal with specific and distinct communities. Yet these communities are linked in the sense that action in social science often has an effect on the artistic community, and sometimes artistic action (particularly when it is politically motivated) can have an effect on social research (one might think of Verdi’s political activity with the rise of Italian nationalism, or the social impact of the 60s BBC TV drama “Cathy, Come Home”). However, the ways in which these communities work in fostering individual agency are certainly very different. Within the community of social scientists, the codification of concepts plays a fundamental role in the causal nature of social science. Bhaskar (1993) describes the process as a dialectic for the establishment of truth moving from a normative-fiduciary relationship to a concept shared by a small community of scientists to referential detachment. This orientation around concepts means that efforts by individuals within the community are generally driven towards identifying concepts which may be codified as new information in the domain. Within the artistic community, the role of the concept is less clear. Whilst artistic concepts exist (particularly in the form of fashions), there tends to be less of an overriding conceptual orthodoxy. The criteria by which an artwork is judged, and through which it acquires prominence in the artistic discourse are very varied. Everything from technical factors, conceptual factors and even biographical information may form the fiduciary bond between members of the community and the object. The relationship with the artwork is visceral as well as conceptual. If it can be said to portray ‘information’ then this information is highly complex, and its meaning is frequently ambiguous. This is in contrast to the concepts of social science. The contrast is perhaps most eloquently expressed through the distinction Bateson (1972) makes between the connotative and denotative aspects of language: the artwork is connotative; social science, as all science, aims to be denotative. It follows that the communities who participate in the mechanisms for the dissemination of the acts of poets or social scientists recognise the particular nature of the work that they promote: they, like the work, are either ‘connotatively-driven’ or ‘denonatively-driven’. The poetic work is a product of deep ontological engagement. For Wallace Stevens, it reflected the ‘structure of reality’ “...because reality is the central reference for poetry” (Stevens, 1951). To recognise the value of a poetic work entails a similar deep ontological engagement with reality. For Heidegger, this experience of recognition was the same as the experience of making: it is a dwelling experience. The community that nurtures art is the community that dwells. Similarly, the community that recognises the denotative aspects of codified concepts are similarly marked with the characteristics of that action. Between these two communities then, as well as between the different practices, we have the two fundamental characterisations that Heidegger gives us. And yet this polarisation is not entirely accurate. Artistic communities are subject to fashions – codifications of style or practice, which can affect their judgements; or worse, other unspoken factors may play in their judgements which reflect prejudice in its various forms. On the other side, great scientific advances are often made when scientists trust their intuition above
their reason. The enframed artist and the poetic scientist are two aspects which are also of fundamental significance. But if we are to consider the nature of artistic acts as efficacious transformative agency then we need to look both at the art object as well as the community which surrounds it.
Artistic and Scientific Communities and the Double-Bind Human communities, whether they are scientific or artistic, often communicate ‘mixed messages’. For example, a researcher may find themselves being encouraged to use a fashionable methodology which is fundamentally blind to the phenomenon they wish to expose. Within the artistic community, a simultaneous call for the ‘fashionable’ along with a demand for originality creates a similar awkward mechanism. It was these sorts of mechanisms that attracted Bateson’s attention in his anthropological and psychological work. He identified them as ‘double-bind’ mechanisms, where a message at one level was contradicted by a different message at another. From identification of double-binds in simple paradoxes (for example the sign that reads “this is not a sign”), to more complex social situations within families and institutions, Bateson considered doublebinds as a fundamental aspect of human existence. In a cybernetic characterisation of them, Bateson argued that they represented a complexity that was unmanageable, for any attempt to manage it at one level was opposed by another. Amongst Bateson’s studies where he explored double-bind properties, the most significant was his analysis of a group of alcoholics (Bateson, 1972). He identified that the relationship between the alcoholic and the bottle was characterised by a double-bind (the bottle brings comfort, at the same time destroying any potential for happiness). He then documented the engagement of those alcoholics with ‘Alcoholics Anonymous’(AA). Here he found that indeed the behaviour of the alcoholics changed in response to the intervention of the regime of Alcoholics Anonymous. This raised a particular systemic question: for it appeared that something within the intervention of the regime did indeed get control of the complexity of the double-bind predicament of the alcoholism and transformed the behaviour of the participants. Using the cybernetic principles of Ashby’s (1956) law (“the management of a complex system requires the action of a system of equal complexity”), Bateson showed how this double-bind was effectively managed by another double-bind: that of the religiously-driven doctrine of AA. Thus, in accordance with Ashby’s law, the way to manage one double-bind was with another. This led to a formulation of different sorts of double-bind relationships: those which were pathological (like alcoholism), and those which were therapeutic (like AA).
The Mechanism of a therapeutic double-bind The manner in which a double bind works in this case is important because it seems to have a causal effect. In the language of critical realism, we are familiar with a sort of agency which corrects incorrect categories through the production of new explanatory critiques. This is a denotative act, where new codifications play an important role. By contrast, the agency of a therapeutic double bind is a systemic intervention which does not rely on codification. Rather than speaking in a language of clarification, correction, etc, Bateson talks instead of the act of managing the variety of existing double-bind
relations, transforming a situation of a pathological double-bind into one which is more stable. Double-bind theory caused Bateson to think about the nature of the relationships between things and people, and particularly those things which appeared to have similar mixed messages. He postulated that the anthropological phenomena such as sacramental totems and rain-dances might themselves have a similarly therapeutic function, and that they might in fact be primary to the religions that they were supposed to serve (overturning Frazer’s (1954) conception of the evolution of religion from magic). What, then, was a sacrament? Bateson’s definition - ‘an outward sign of an inner grace’ (1979) – is itself a description rich in possible interpretation. But the action of a sacrament in managing unmanageable variety in a beneficent way, which in turn gave rise to myths and ritual and social structures was an act which Bateson sought to characterise in purely systemic terms. With a systemic view of artistic production and action, we can begin to understand the nature of artistic agency and the relationship between the mechanisms which surround artistic actions and those which surround other types of action (particularly those which surround the social science community). Furthermore, we can begin to gain an insight into the mechanisms that are unleashed through artistic agency, and from there to the role of art in social systems. For Stevens this role is a necessary one. When he writes of poetry “I am the necessary angel of earth,/ since in my sight you see the earth again” (Stevens, 1952) he reflects a Heideggarian view that the revealing afforded by poetry exceeds that afforded by any non-artistic activity. This revealing results from engagement with an artefact, or sacrament, from which a therapeutic double-bind relationship ensues. That sacrament, characterised as the result of a deep engagement with reality, manages the variety of a similarly deep aspect within ourselves (Ehrenzweig (1967), for example, considered art as a management of the Freudian primary process). Through this variety management, we can be at once freed from our old pathological double-binds, and to see the world with new eyes. But this newly-found vision is not the vision of reason or argument or concepts - for those sorts of visions were always destined by the world we had enframed ourselves in (for Steven, it is “cleared of its stiff and stubborn, man-locked set”). By contrast, this vision is like entering a new world, where we can be, can dwell in a transformed environment.
Art, Concepts, Reason and Imagination The artistic artefact is the product of deep ontological commitment with material (physical materials, sound or language). The uncovering of the ontology of this material in a social context produces in the artefact an embodiment of highly complex mechanisms which can manage the variety of our personal double-binds. In its presence, we can engage in our own acts of poiesis, our own making, generating new variety, which too can be managed by our relationship to the artefact. It is because of its roots in a deeply grounded ontology that it satisfies our imagination, and we are able to dwell. But ideas and concepts within social science can also satisfy – albeit in different ways. Stevens makes a distinction between the satisfaction of reason and the satisfaction of the imagination. We would not think, for example, much less of a concept if it satisfied our reason but failed to satisfy our imagination. Stevens points out that the most satisfying
poetic acts are those which satisfy both reason and imagination. Few concepts however satisfy both the imagination and the reason – although there are some (for example the idea of God). The satisfaction of both reason and the imagination remains the aspiration for great poetic acts, and it is in achieving this that they may acquire their greatest transformative efficacy. Through the satisfaction of the imagination a poetic artefact may acquire one aspect of a relationship with an observer, which through a deeper inspection may reveal conceptual structures which in turn satisfy the reason. This primary satisfaction of the imagination may indeed lie at the heart of the establishment of conceptual truth as well, in that the essence of the relationship with an artistic artefact is fiduciary – itself the initial stage in Bhaskar’s dialectic of truth.
The Social Efficacy of Artistic Action In response to an environment where the enframing produced by technology seems indeed to be ‘setting-upon’ us, we have, according to Heidegger, two fundamental sorts of action with which we can respond: we can act in a praxis-grounded but technologically-enframed way, or we can act in a poetic way. With the former, we may attempt to address the problems we face by denotatively refining our conceptual fabric, and by working with existing mechanisms we might be able to instil deep change in the conceptual fabric: this is the approach of social science research. Alternatively, we can engage in poetic activity which through a deep ontological commitment (and one that sometimes has to steer itself between the pathologies of the communities which support it) produces something with which we have a deep systemic relationship through the matching of double-binds, and the managing of the deepest sources of individual variety. From a realist perspective, both these types of action may be characterised as differing degrees of ontological commitment. The commitment of the former type of action is to the ontology of social mechanisms as they can be expressed within the conceptualised domain of social science research. Yet this conceptualised domain does not reach to the deepest material levels of human engagement with artefacts: the fundamentally embodied nature of these processes and the sheer complexity of the mechanisms involved makes codification of such processes very difficult. The commitment of the artist, on the other hand, is to the very ontology of these mechanisms, and yet art bypasses the need for the codification of these mechanisms because it employs the very complexity of those mechanisms to achieve its objective of ‘dwelling’ through the management of biological complexity in therapeutic double-bind relationships. For this reason art manages to suspend the fiduciary relationship and exploit it alone as a means of dissemination. At this point we can begin to understand ways in which artistic practice may be said to be efficaciously transformative. Firstly, it is usually individually transformative: artistic engagement, through transforming the individual, may inform individual praxis in other social acts. Secondly, the communities of the arts cut across other communities of practice - engagement with art may serve as a fertilizing process of cross-community interaction. Thirdly, where these two aspects also combine with an artwork that satisfies both imagination and reason, considerably enhanced transformative power for the dissemination of concepts will result. Fourthly, and perhaps most significantly, art
suspends the fiduciary moment in the establishment of truth. It subverts the conventional social processes of codification, and in this way it is indeed a ‘necessary angel’ working beneath the substrata of social mechanisms as a constant driver for new transformations of the transitive domain.
Conclusion Heidegger’s characterisation of ‘dwelling thinking’ is useful inasfar as it situates a very different way of being in contrast to the way of being we are most familiar with in everyday life. The praxis-poiesis, enframing-dwelling oppositions can also be seen in the context of other oppositions with similar themes - for example, Aquinas’s ‘vita activa’ and ‘vita contemplativa’, which was employed very effectively by Arendt. For critical realists however, where a social ontology of transformational social activity and synchronic emergent powers materialism is posited, such polar opposites should be able to be characterised as distinct but continuous aspects of the same mechanism. The ideas around depth praxis suggest that the difference between these polar opposites is indeed a difference in the depth of ontological engagement. Yet the acceptance of this fact presents a challenge to social scientists because we have argued that the depth of social science praxis is necessarily restricted by the community in which it takes place and the requirement to codify concepts. Artistic praxis, on the other hand, is a fundamentally deeper affair, exploiting deep mechanisms to bypass the need for codifying social structures and suspending fiduciary relationships. The articulation of these differences is useful because it situates social science methodological practice within a domain which is more restrictive than might otherwise have been thought. The suggestion of the double-bind variety management of artistic artefacts and sacraments is useful because these processes also lie at the heart of the fiduciary moment in the establishment of conceptual truth, as well as artistic dissemination. Finally, the uncovering of the link between these two domains of practice is also useful in that it enriches a realist conception with explanatory ideas concerning the nature of artistic production of artefacts and sacraments and their causal efficacy in larger-scale social processes. References Ashby, R (1956) Introduction to Cybernetics Chapman and Hall Arendt, H (1959) The Human Condition Doubleday Bateson, G (1972) Steps to an ecology of Mind Aylesbury Bateson, G (1979) Mind and Nature: a necessary unity Dutton Bhaskar, R (1993) Dialectic: the pulse of Freedom Verso Ehrenzweig, A (1967) The Hidden Order of Art University of California Press Frazer, J (1954) The Golden Bough: a study of magic and religion Macmillan Stevens, W (1951) The Necessary Angel: essays on reality and the imagination New York Stevens, W (1952) The Auroras of Autumn Alfred Knopf, New York Heidegger, M (1978a) The Question Concerning Technology in Krell, D (ed) Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings
Heidegger, M (1978b) Building Dwelling Thinking in Krell, D (ed) Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings