"Gordon Matta Clark"

Anarchitecture. A group of radical vigilantes that included musicians, dancers, architects, and artists. This group was made up of eight artists; the most prominent of the artists included singer Laurie Anderson, performance artist Tina Girouard, sculptor Richard Nonas, and Gordon Matta-Clark, an artist that can’t really be assigned a genre. Is he an architect? A sculptor? A photographer? Anarchitecture is a subgenre that Gordon Matta-Clark is best known for. Known as an artist that cuts into buildings, often through buildings that are planned to be demolished. He transformed architecture into giant temporary installations, extracting fragments that becomes a sculpture on view to the public with site specific scenes throughout the seventies. These ephemeral installations only exist today through video and photographs that Matta-Clark archived. Anarchitecture was a collaborative effort of ideas and participation; it held a mindset that allowed Matta-Clark to create violent intersections of the built and natural worlds. Unfortunately, Gordon Matta-Clark’s work barley lasted a decade due to his death from cancer that took his life at the early age of thirty-five; a death that resembles the temporality of his work.

Before Anarchitecture, Matta-Clark studied at Cornell University in Ithaca, leaving his hometown of New York City. The university at the time was taught by the most eminent architectural theorists of the time. The fresh writings of Jane Jacobs was a huge influence on Matta-Clark. He loves the city of New York, especially Greenwich Village where both Jacobs and Clark lived. They see the urban environment as a space that can be learned from; legitimizing the community of dense neighborhoods. Jane Jacobs and Le Corbusier were the most obvious architectural influences for Matta-Clark. During the sixties when Clark was in school, Le Corbusier was a prominent figure in architecture schools, as he is today. The book Vers Une Architecture was a required text for the students at the time and fundamental to Matta-Clark’s education. His father, Roberto Matta, a Chilean surrealist painter, even worked as a drafter for Corbusier. After graduating Cornell with a bachelor’s in architecture, Matta-Clark pushed for this emergence of “Anarchy” and “Architecture.” 

The starting point of Anarchitecture was a linguistic one. Their first exhibition of this group incorporated twenty photos showing the urban environment of New York. Celebrating the inner city to all of its craziness and disorder. But what do these photos suggest? The photos of Anarchitecture wasn’t a literal one, but an exploration that focused on the language of the work through the otherness of the photographs. Richard Nonas, a member of Anarchitecture, quotes, “The interesting thing about Gordon was that he was full of ideas and in a way highly intellectual. But, just in the same way that he broke context, he broke words and ideas. So he was playing with it, playing with the intellectualizing…” (Attlee). Matta-Clark believed in language as a central idea in the design making process. He uses language that serves his dynamic inventiveness that is reflective in his work; a constant play of words and puns, hence the term “Anarchitecture.” We can see a play in language through his photos of the World Trade Center (figure one). When looking at the photo of the urban landscape, our eyes are constantly moving up. Looking up the vertical skyscrapers, the roman columns, the trees, and the strange tombstone-like monuments populating the vacant sidewalk. The photo is dark, full of urban shadows, except for the white sky, where our eyes look directly at the void that is formed between the World Trade Center towers. The photograph is vague and open-ended, which it is intended to be. Matta-Clark deepened the mood of life irrevocably disrupted, challenging our way to see the world and the way we see space and reality, forming an atmosphere of human activity.

Figure One

This human activity can only be experienced as a free act, only occurring “within an articulation of a world (a human habit)” (Welch 355). Even though Matta-Clark took photos of the majority of his work, (he even intentionally distorted these photos through collages) these photographs fail the true experience of his work. When experiencing Matta-Clarks work, its all about the moment he creates with the piece. The creation of moments, like a wall crumbling to the ground, exposing near perfect geometry, or the sound of hammers and electric saws gnawing at floor beams; even the heat of a welding gun creates a new atmosphere. Matta-Clark creates a performance, which are then supplemented by photos and film. One of his most famous pieces titled “Conical Intersect,” can’t be understood through the complexity of the work he produced seen through photos. Matta-Clark focused heavily on experiencing the site in person, from a pedestrian point of view or an artists’ view. “Conical Intersect” is a piece by Matta-Clark that existed in Paris where he carved a tunnel out of a building next to the Centre Pompidou, which was under construction at the time. Gordon Matta-Clark chooses two, seventeenth century buildings that appear to be residential, based off of the interior spaces and the variety of wallpaper that the artists smash through with their sledgehammers. They start carving from the inside out. An angled void in the shape of a cylinder that grows from the second story to the fifth floor. The fifth floor welcomes the outside elements with a large, circular hole, exposing the insides of the building (figure two). When walking towards Centre Pompidou, you can look up into the void, a projection that continues to the sky and changes with every step as it exposes more and more through new angles. The floors and walls are completely removed with such an aggressive force you can see the unevenness and the rough edges of the void. Each room exposed shows a different color and function. We can see blue bathrooms with porcelain toilets and claw-foot bathtubs, beige living rooms with glass doors leading to a kitchen, and dark closets that holds nothing but emptiness. Walking around his work exposes new images. Gordon Matta-Clark created spaces that are transformative; spaces that change every second.

Figure Two

Gordon Matta-Clark wants to create a new reality in public space. A temporal experience similar to that of my artefact and the tension within the subways of Toronto. Matta-Clark directly exposes the urban environment with the humans of the community that can only be experienced in person. When I open up the depths of the subway station, I expose the iron veins of Toronto. You see things you wouldn’t see with the previous built environment; humans walking, talking, resting, running, and so on.  This human exposure creates the architecture, not the walls going up around them. Matta-Clark deconstructs the public space, opening it up to specific narratives. The Parisian neighborhood where “Conical Intersect” took place was promoting a gentrification process that promoted Matta-Clark to create this architectural piece. The construction of Centre Pompidou that took over the neighborhood triggered Matta-Clark. “Conical Intersect” was intended to be seen as a new perspective of the city. A city trying to hold on to the past while constantly projecting towards the future. The deconstruction of the seventeenth century building prompted a critical view of the city; Do we keep the ruins of Paris or do we demolish them? Matta-Clark provided an alternative vocabulary in response to this question, he wanted to do both. Just like that of St. George and Bloor-Yonge. Two stations clinging to the past, ignoring the present and the humans of today. Opening these two stations up to the city up will allow the interventions of humans through pathways, open spaces, and private spaces, creating the dialogue between the built environment and the human environment. Forcing some passengers to walk through the subway labyrinth, while allowing others to wander, a journey that blurs vertical from the lateral. Ideally, allowing people to meet. When entering these public spaces of St. George, Bloor-Yonge, and Conical Intersect, anything can happen, a temporal and memorable space. Especially that of my artefact.

Matta-Clark exposes the insides of the buildings, at the time a radical approach. This exposure is similar to my interpretation of how humans feel in public space, which I expressed in my artefact. We walk through public space scared, fearing the eye contact of others. The average human feeling naked as eyes stare and watch the humans. The audience looks through the clear, connected garments, noticing the flesh of the human bodies moving. Skin, hair, fat, and muscles can be seen as the participants walk up and down the stairs. The audience watches in horror, or in delight. Just like the audience in Paris, walking towards the Centre Pompidou, but noticing a massive hole cutting through their beloved French architecture. Both my artefact and Gordon Matta-Clark challenge reality, deconstructing what we are used to seeing into a new way of seeing, a space for poetic imagination.

Absence and presence is constantly allowing givenness to Matta-Clarks work, which creates this unreality that Paul Ricour describes. Unreality allows the imagination to grow, it grows through the absence, the voids that Matta-Clark created. Paul Ricoeur quotes, “… this nothingness proper to the representation of an absent thing, belongs to the mode of givenness of the image, not to its referent” (Ricoeur 126). It’s hard to critique Matta-Clarks work today since all we have are photographs, fragments, and Super 8 films. His much larger, grander works of architecture doesn’t exist anymore, they were all ephemeral projects and Matta-Clark knew that. His work invents and rediscovers itself within its own time and space. He was successful in creating spaces for communication, a space that critiques the modern architecture, allowing the humans to interact with the architecture, if they dare. Just like my artefact, forcing consenting participants to connect with one another through the bondage of clothing, resembling the human interaction of intimacy. Alberto Pérez-Gómez from his Attunement book quotes, “It could be argued that in architecture the subject is not a building, but the meaningful event made present: life itself” (Gómez 180). My artefact raises the tension that Gordon Matta-Clark creates. A performance where someone can miss a step, falling down, taking their companion with them; the staircase could simply break due to the persistent stress of the human weight or even someone from the audience could stop the performance just from the strange performance. Gordon Matta-Clark creates an act. A public role in art while having a critical view of modern architecture. Gordon Matta-Clark creates a contrast between spaces. Inside to outside, public to private, or even legal and illegal. He creates short performances that, today, can only be over-analyzed through film and photography.

Even though Le Corbusier was a great influence on Matta-Clark, he disagreed with Corbusier’s vision to erase the underground infrastructure, such as a subway system. Corbusier loved the automobile and towards the end of his career, designed around them. But Matta-Clark saw the underground as one of the last repositories of history in North America that had not disappeared under parking lots, but he worried that it was now under threat from the ever-deeper foundations of new buildings. Matta-Clark is right, we should celebrate the underground, recreating the space to make it more interesting to commuter or else the streets and vehicular traffic will take over. To overcome this, we must celebrate the unconscious and the irrational; Gordon Matta-Clark praises the forces of society to breakdown at any moment. The public realm is raw and intimidating, which it should be.

Attlee, J. (2007). Tate papers no. 7 – towards anarchitecture: Gordon Matta-Clark and Le Corbusier. London, UK: Tate Papers.

Ricoeur, P. (1979). Man and world. The Hague, NL: Martinus Nijhoff

Welch, C. & Welch, L. (1979). Man and world. The Hague, NL: Martinus Nijhoff

"Perception of Time"

What is time? Is it the numbers displayed on an analog clock? Is it a numerical attribute? Time can embody a variety of definitions, but whatever time is, it is not universal; everyone experiences time differently. It escapes us; time is forgotten but still forever present. The past and present can be compared without difficulty. We plan for the future through fixed calendars. We reminisce the past through youthful memories. The past ends and the future begins, which sets limits for each other. But the present cannot be conceived at any length. The present cannot be understood as of any length or of any quantity. Humans have an ability to ignore the present and be constantly stuck in either the past of the future. The temporality of the present can only be understood by attempting to define what time is.

In order to understand how time is different between each person, we must first understand what the nature of time is. Aristotle was essentially the first person to question what time is. He considers that the natural world is constantly being a subject of change and transformation. These special changes of the present include quantitative and qualitative views. It was clear to Aristotle that time and change are closely related but time cannot be linked to motion. Change is always faster or slower, whereas time is not. Aristotle quotes, “’fast’ is what moves much in a short time, ‘slow’ what moves in a long time; but time is not defined by time, by being either a certain amount or a certain kind of it” (Physics, chapter 10). When waiting for the subway car to stop in front of us, time doesn’t change as it slows to pick up its new passengers nor does it change as the car speeds away. But this change and temporal event has an influence on our perception of time. The state of our minds does not change at all nor do we notice its changing, we don’t realize that time has elapsed. Our body stays in one indivisible state, regardless of the change in time and the movement of the world around us. Time, therefore, is neither movement nor independent of movement. We must view movement and time together, whether it is physical or mental. Movement goes without magnitude, it is continuous. Aristotle quotes, “if any movement takes place in the mind, we at once suppose that some time also has elapsed” (Physics, chapter 10).

We often associate time with the ‘before’ and the ‘after’ in virtue of relative position, apprehending time only when we have marked motion; a starting point and an ending destination. But this is an obsolete way to view time. It disregards the ‘now,’ the present sense of time. When we talk about motion in association with time, it becomes a number. The ‘now’ is a subject of time’s identity, but it accepts different attributes when comparing the ‘before’ and ‘after’ that is associated with time. It can be assumed that the sense of ‘now’ can be associated with the same measurement of past and future, but in another sense, it is not the same. When sitting on a subway car, the vessel goes at a constant speed; reaching each destination with a predictable measure of time. But the body experiences a different sense of motion, a new understanding of time. The ‘now’ corresponds with the body that is carried along the subway route; ‘now’ is not predictable and time is therefore fluid. The ‘now’ depicts how the body can escape a linear measurement that time creates.  Aristotle quotes, “Clearly, too, if there were no time, there would be no 'now', and vice versa. Just as the moving body and its locomotion involve each other mutually, so too do the number of the moving body and the number of its locomotion. For the number of the locomotion is time, while the 'now' corresponds to the moving…” (Physics, chapter 11). Motion is understood by what is being moved, also known as locomotion. What is being carried is a real thing, but movement is not a physical being. The ‘now’ in one sense could always be the same, in another sense it may not be the same. The ‘now’ is ever changing and can even be perceived differently throughout time. ‘Now’ is a boundary, it is not time but an attribute of it. The ‘now’ is continuous and doesn’t have a specific spot on the spectrum of time. If a line was drawn depicting a lapse of time, the ‘now’ would be the whole line. When riding the subway, the ‘now’ may be near your departure or near your destination. The ‘now’ is the being sitting on the subway and how they perceive the time lapse of their journey.

Aristotle believes that time cannot be counted; time is solely up to the mind and body. What we see on our phones or what the clock reads on the does not persuade our body as to how we may perceive time. Even though Aristotle is considered the first philosopher to question time and attempts to create a definition for it, he doesn’t go in-depth with how time is related to the mind. Yes, he does consider the significance of the ‘now,’ but only in relation with the ‘before’ and ‘after.’

Today, we can categorize the time in three categories, physical time, biological time, and psychological time. Physical time, also considered ‘public time,’ is what we read on our clocks. Physical time is designed to be measured, hence the term ‘physical.’ Biological time is within all human beings. This time runs a variety of internal, bodily functions such as heartbeats, breathing, blinking, and our sleep/wake cycle. The circadian rhythm, our twenty-four-hour internal clock, would be considered into this biological time category as well. These two categories of time are both considered measurable sets of time, but our psychological time is very different. Psychological time is considered private time, subjective time, and phenomenological time. Aristotle slightly touches base on phycological time through the ‘now.’ He pointed out that it is understood through the body and the ephemerality of time. Aristotle believes that if there is no soul then there is no time, thus he considers the consciousness needed to understand time. Most philosophers believe that our ability to imagine other times is necessary to having a conscious at all. The psychological time is our ability to experience a difference between our present perceptions and our present memories of past perceptions. Our consciousness allows us to connect the present world through a variety of memories that creates a whole new atmosphere, a whole new sense of time. This world that we see right now is interpreted through these past memories and is forever changing as some past events succeed other events. The ‘present’ is a temporal state.

Heidegger brings the temporality and the analytic of Dasein when trying to understand the meaning time. However, Heidegger does not follow the Aristotle view of time. Heidegger actually criticizes Aristotle’s interpretation of time, he says that viewing time that has a higher priority to the present, the ‘now,’ is a vulgar way to see time. Heidegger’s approach to understanding time is to avoid the conception of time that has a distinction between time and eternity. We should see time as a temporal state that is derived from a higher, non-temporal state of eternity. In Heidegger’s novel, Sein und Zeit, or Being and Time, he defines his interpretation of time and what it means to be temporal. Dassein brings a sense of anticipation, where the human is not confined to the present but instead always projecting towards the future. Human beings aren’t stuck in the ‘now;’ the human being is running towards the end. Heidegger believes there is a link between the future, Zukunft, and to come towards, zukommen. Dasein takes over our sense of the future: in anticipation, I project towards the future, I carry my past, I carry a cultural baggage. This then brings us to another term, Gewesenheit, which essentially means our ‘having-been;’ a sense of the past. But this doesn’t mean ‘I’ am condemned to the past, rather we take these past experiences to take over our current state of free-action. It creates a resoluteness of the future.

Heidegger defines time similar to how he describes the sense of distance. Everything today can be considered as equally far and equally near, it is distanceless, similar to how everything could be considered as temporal. Nearness preserves farness, just like how our temporal state of time preserves the sense of anticipation. In order to understand a sense of ‘nearness,’ we must examine what is close and not from a distance. This follows Heidegger’s critique of Aristotle’s understanding of time that is in constant comparison of the ‘before’ and the ‘after.’ You can’t understand nearness by looking from a distance. We can compare Heidegger’s nearness to his interpretation of the present. The present is something that we can seize hold of; we make it our own. What is opened in the anticipation of the future is the fact of our having-been which releases itself into the present moment of action. Hence, we can only experience nearness from what is close. This is what Heidegger calls, Augenblick, which is called the “moment of vison” or literally meaning “glance of the eye.” What appears in Augenblick is the essence of Dasein. The key understanding to Heidegger’s understanding of time is essentially the unity of the future, past, and present. This is what he calls “primordial” or “original” time that he insists is finite. It comes to an end in death; we are time. It is clear that both Heidegger and Aristotle agree on one thing, if there is no soul then there is no time.

Whether you side by Heidegger or Aristotle, we all question, “Where did the time go?” The aging process persuades our perception of time. When we are younger, we are bombarded by rich, fresh memories because everything is new. When we are older, memories become less rich because we have “seen it all before.” This is why as we age, it seems that decades fly by faster than it did when we were younger. This sense of living in the past is all caused by physical time. We look at the clock, the calendar, and we sigh. Our brains build stories from our past through the variety of sensory organs. The smell of a familiar place, the touch of a past lover, the sound of a song you heard years ago, the taste of some foreign food, or the sight of memorable face, everything is entangled in our brain. We connect time with these past senses. This story-building takes milliseconds until the brain acquires all the information from all the sensory organs; some becoming present faster than others. A good example to visualize this story-building is seen in the early days of television. Engineers were constantly worried about keeping audio and video signals synchronized. If audio is slightly faster or slower than the speed of the video, it looks like a badly dubbed movie. This is just like how our brain works with temporal experiences. Time is blurred when our brain resurfaces past experiences, we remember a smell, or a visual, one before the other. Nostalgia takes over our body and we are thrown into a trance. These temporal experiences are affected by deficiencies in our imagination and our memory; each person’s brain controls that person’s temporal experience.

This sense of slowing down is considered the “time dilation” effect. Essentially, time dilation is the slowing down of a clock as determined by the observer who is in relative motion in respect to that clock. Moving clocks are measured to tick more slowly than an observer's "stationary" clock. This is a more scientific and concrete examination of how time is mailable and has the ability to change. Time dilation is apart of the theory of relativity, which introduces concepts including spacetime as a unified entity of space and time in the field of physics. But it could also be applied to psychology. For example, with repeated events lasting the same amount of clock time, presenting a brighter object will make that event seem to last longer. Similarly, for louder sounds. Heidegger and Aristotle focus on the subjective, psychological time and how it has the ability to change depending on the mind and the body of the person. But what about biological and physical time? Do they have the ability to change and appear to warp as time goes on? Albert Einstein describes how gravity and space changes our physical state as we travel in space. Space-time isn’t linear, instead it is warped. Depending on our position and speed, time can appear to move faster or slower to us relative to others in a different part of space-time. And for astronauts on the International Space Station, that means they get to age just a tiny bit slower than people on earth. Does this mean physical and biological time aren’t fixed in space as they are on earth? I would argue no. The physical and biological time people experience in space is still relative to their time in their position and is constantly being compared to the time on earth. It appears that physical and biological time only changes when it is compared to another physical or biological time. So, only subjective/psychological time has the ability to be warped because it is within us.

Humans see the world differently regardless of what the clock says or how many hours of sleep we get in a night. For Aristotle, time must be seen through the now in relation to the before and the after; a type of dependency between time and the identifier. For Heidegger, time is seen through a type of anticipation; a constant projection towards the future. Einstein’s approach to time brings a warped sense of physicality in time. To Einstein, physical time does change as we explore space. But here, on earth, time is temporal, it is not an endless cycle. Every human experiences time differently through a variety of reasons. No one shares a similar mindset, we all have very different memories and anticipations of the future. One thing that every human will experience is death. Without the soul, without the body, time ends when death arises.

Aristotle (1957). Aristotle: the physics, books I-IV. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Heidegger, M. (2008). Being and time. New York, NY. Harper Perennial Modern Classics.

Heidegger, M. (1971). Poetry, language, thought. New York, NY: Harper and Row, Publishers Inc.

“The Origin of the Work of Art”

The origin of art exists between the artist and their work. The work is the origin of the artist; the artist is the origin of the work. They cannot be without each other. Heidegger questions, “But can art be an origin at all? Where and how does art occur?” (Heidegger 17). To understand the origin of art, Heidegger states we must understand the nature of art. Art must be inferable to the work, the viewer or artist must be able to derive a reason from the art. What art is can be gathered from a comparative examination of art works. But this nature of art is no longer arrived by a collective view of characteristics and concepts of works of art. Works of art is familiar to everyone. Art can be found in the streets, peoples’ homes, or galleries. Through art, we connect their untouched actuality with work that is naturally present in things. All works of art have a thingly character that creates the nature of art.

“There is something stony in a work of architecture, wooden in a carving, colored in a painting, spoken in a linguistic work, sonorous in a musical composition” (Heidegger 19). There is undoubtedly a thingly element to art and its nature. However, the work of art is above this thingly element. Art is a thing that is made, but it says something different then the mere thing itself. The otherness that is brought together with the thing that is made, manifests something more than what was created; it is an allegory. This story that the art creates is a bringing together. In Greek terms, this bringing or putting together is translated as symbállein.

Allegory and symbol create a conceptual frame for a channel of vision for the art. The thingly element of the art is the substructure for the piece. It brings an authenticity and handicraft to the art. The viewers’ goal is to acquire an immediate and full reality of the work of art. But first, we must understand the thingly element of art in order to determine whether it is a thing, or simply a thing which something else adheres.

Thing & Work

In order to understand the truth of the thing in a work of art is to understand the thingly character of the thing. The “thing-in-itself” could be seen as god or the cloud in the sky. If there is an applied name, even if these things don’t appear, then these things must exist. All beings are called things. Everything is considered a thing and Heidegger suggests the “mere thing” is simply a thing and isn’t seen as anything else. With a western thought, we have interpreted a thingness and reduced the thing to simple properties. There are properties within the thing, especially in the mere thing. Heidegger uses a block of granite for an example. It is hard, bulky, heavy, shapeless, rough, colored, partly dull and partly shiny. We take in all of the characteristics of the granite and we created these traits that become the stone itself. “A thing, as everyone thinks [they know], is that around which the properties have assembled” (Heidegger 22). We use these characteristics and properties to create the core of the thing. The Greeks have called it to hypokeimenon, where the core of the thing is something lying at the ground of the thing, something that was always there. The characteristics are called ta symbebekota, which has always turned up along with the given core of the thing. The Greeks experienced the thing specifically through the sense of presence, the experience of the being of beings. However, these translations sell the Greek language short. Heidegger quotes, “The rootlessness of Western thought begins with the translation” (Heidegger 23).

This loss in translation corresponds to our natural outlook of things. We rely on the current interpretation of the thing; we see the thing as a bearer of its characteristics, a strict sense that holds onto the mere thing and of any being. This modern thing-concept always fits each thing. We no longer see the thing as its own being, we instead make an assault upon it. To avoid this objective assault on a thing, the thing must be in a free field to display its thingly character.  Everything that might interpose itself between us and the thing must first be set aside; only then do we yield ourselves to the undisguised presence of the thing. Heidegger does mention that we don’t need to an arranged situation in order to fully understand the thing. “The situation always prevails” (Heidegger 25). The sense of light, hearing, and touch convey the senses of color, sound, and hardness. Things move us bodily, it is the aistheton. This Greek term means to be situated with the senses.

But when considering what we are searching for, the thingly character of the thing leaves us lost with the thing-concept. We never truly perceive a throng of sensations through the thing, such as tones and noises. For example, when we are sitting in a house, we may hear a whistle through the chimney or the rain patter against the shingles. These sensations are far away but the things (the chimney) are much closer. In order to hear a bare sound we have to listen away from things, we must divert from them and listen abstractly. This assault on things is due to our attempt to bring the thing within the greatest possible proximity to us. The thing must be remained in its self-containment; accepted in its own constancy.

Things are composed of matter (hule) and form (morphe). The distinction between the matter and the form of the thing is the conceptual schema that is used. Heidegger defines form, in this essay’s context, “as the distribution and arrangement of the material parts in spatial locations, resulting in a particular form” (Heidegger 27). The form of the thing determines the arrangement of the matter. The formative act and the choice of material creates a usefulness of the thing. The usefulness of the thing’s matter and form becomes the equipment. Equipment, just like a mere thing, is self-contained, but it doesn’t have the character of taking shape like that of a mere thing. For example, we can see granite as something else. It can be seen as earth, as a countertop, as a tombstone. But a shoe can only be seen as a shoe. Equipment is half of the thing, it is characterized by thingliness and yet still something more. Heidegger quotes, “Equipment has a peculiar position intermediate between thing and work, assuming that such a calculated ordering of them is permissible” (Heidegger 28).

We put equipment to work. It gets worn out, used up, and wasted away. It becomes normal. When we consider shoes as equipment and art as a form of revealing the truth, we must look at Van Gogh’s painting titled “Shoes.” In Van Gogh’s painting, he shows the truth of what equipment is. The shoes he painted reveals the aletheia, or in Greek terms, unconcealedness. This is the nature of art; the truth of beings setting itself to work. Van Gogh’s painting of “Shoes” is a contradiction to modern art by revealing a sense of truth and ignores the essence of beauty. These shoes portray the matter and form of the thing. It even shows the declining health of equipment through usefulness. Fine art by itself shouldn’t be considered beautiful, but instead fine art should produce the beautiful. Heidegger states, “Truth, in contrast, belongs to logic. Beauty, however, is reserved for aesthetics” (Heidegger 35). It is important to see art as truth setting itself to work.

The barriers of our preoccupations must fall away, and our pseudo concepts be set aside. It may be challenging to place and prepare ourselves for a situation that creates a path that leads to a determination of the thingly feature within the work. Art work opens up in its own way through deconcealing and the truth of beings. But then we must question, what is truth itself that it sometimes comes to pass as art? “What is this setting-itself-to-work?” (Heidegger 38).

The origin of art can only be seen through art. We seek the reality of the work; art work universally displays a thingly character. However, it is hard to fully see work as a thing by itself. We force work into a preconceived framework that obstructs our access to the work-being of the work. In order to fully understand the work, it is necessary to remove the work from all relations to something other than itself. Artwork must be released and taken in as a pure self-subsistence. Great art destroys itself in the creative process, allowing the work to emerge.

When we do come across art, it is usually situated in a public or private collection standing with other works of art. “But are the here in themselves as the works they themselves are, or are they not rather here as objects of the art industry?” (Heidegger 39). The art industry is full of critics and connoisseurs, dealers supplying the market, and art historians studying the works as objects of a science. So can we view art as things themselves? It is true that there is a withdrawal and sterilization that occurs when removing works of art from their intended world. This is considered as world-withdrawal and world-decay, which can never be undone. If artwork doesn’t belong in museums, where does work belong? The work belongs as work, uniquely opened up within its realm. As stated before, there is a truth within work, but if work is now placed outside of its world, is there still truth?

Truth means the nature of the true. The term aletheia brings truth through the unconcealed. However, the modern age has warped the meaning of aletheia. Today, truth means an agreement or a conformity of knowledge with fact. We situate truth with correctness and certainty. Heidegger quotes, “This nature of truth which is familiar to us, stands and falls with truth as unconcealedness of beings” (Heidegger 50).

The term unconcealedness is brought forth through the being. Beings are things made up of humans, gifts, sacrifices, animals, plants, equipment, and works. Through being, there is a sense of concealed. Concealment can be a refusal or a dissembling; there is no certainty whether concealment is one or the other. Concealment has the ability to conceal and dissemble itself. Heidegger states, “This means: the open place in midst of beings, the clearing, is never a rigid stage with a permanently raised curtain on which the play of beings runs its course” (Heidegger 52). Unconcealedness is never a mere existence, it is a happening. Unconcealedness or truth is neither an attribute or factual thing.

Going back to Van Gogh’s painting of the shoes, we obtain a sense of authenticity and simplicity. These shoes are engrossed in their nature, making the work direct and engaging to all beings. This can then reveal the truth of the work of art. But how does a work essentially align with the nature of truth? If our modern interpretation of truth is flawed, what is truth? “How is it that art exists at all?” (Heidegger 55).

It is true that art is the origin of the art work and of the artist. “Origin is the source of the nature in which the being of an entity is present” (Heidegger 56). The reality of the work is defined by what is at work within the work through the happening of the truth. This happening is brought forth through the process of creation. When a work is becoming a work, it can be seen as a way which truth is becoming entwined within the work. Truth occurs in opposition of clearing and concealing. Truth can be seen as the un-truth, just like that of unconcealedness. The establishment of truth is the bringing forth of a being, such as never was before and will never come again. Bringing forth places this being in the open, which then brings truth.

Art allows truth to originate. Art is the spring that leaps to the truth of what a thing or work of art is. It brings something into being from out of its source of its nature. This is what origin means, or in German, Ursprung, which literally means primal leap. The origin of a work of art is the origin of both the creators and the preservers. Art is, by nature, an origin. It has a distinctive way in which truth comes into being, it becomes historical. Heidegger quotes, “We inquire in this way in order to be able to ask more truly whether art is or is nor an origin in our historical existence, whether and under what conditions it can and must be an origin” (Heidegger 75). Such a reflection allows an indispensable preparation for the becoming of art. A preparation of its space for art, their way for the creators, and their location for the preservers.

Heidegger, M. (2013). Poetry, Language, Thought. New York City, NY: Harper Perennial Modern Classics.

"Art and Space"

Space plays an important role for artwork. In order to fully grasp a sense of space around a thing, we must see the thing as a place and that is does not belong to a place. In the short essay by Martin Heidegger titled Art and Space, he attempts to define what a space is in regard to things. Both art and work uses space in diverse ways. Heidegger mentions that he doesn’t directly ask what space should be but rather determines the manner of space. Whether a being contributes to a space may be left undecided. A space has two functions that Heidegger points out: a space has the ability to create a special character and that special character creates a “clearing-away.”

Heidegger quotes, “… how can we find the special character of a space?” (Heidegger 5). In order to find the special character in a space, there has to be an action of “clearing-away” or Räumen. Essentially, this term means to clear out, to free from wilderness. Räumen brings forth the free, it allows openness for a persons’ settling and dwelling. It brings a sense of locality for the dwelling and creates a secular space, a privation of often sacred spaces. Räumen, or clearing-away, is a release of places; a place where gods have disappeared. Clearing-away is a happening, it speaks and conceals itself at once. A space is very difficult to determine and is often overlooked.

So how does clearing-away happen? A place opens a region that allows a gathering of things and their belonging together. But an arrangement of things or simply making-room (Einräumen) for the things is not a clearing-away. Making-room suggests something, it creates guidelines that grants the appearance of a thing and sees human dwelling as a consigned spot. There must be a liberating shelter of things in their region. The term region is translated as a free expanse, allowing openness to emerge from the thing and allowing it to rest in itself. A place isn’t a pre-given space.

In order to understand the interplay between art and space, we must understand an experience outside the place and region. Art should be seen as sculpture, not occupying space. Heidegger quotes, “Sculpture would not deal with space” (Heidegger 7). Sculpture is the embodiment of places, they preserve and open a region. Sculpture embodies a bringing-into-the-work of places, regions of possibility lingers with the things surrounding the human. Sculpture is the embodiment of truth, an unconcealment of being. Heidegger quotes, “Even a cautious insight into the special character of this art causes one to suspect that truth, as unconcealment of being, is not necessarily dependent on the embodiment” (Heidegger 6).

Heidegger, M. (1973). Man and World. The Hague, NL: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers

"Deconstruction in Context: Literature and Philosophy"

Dfférence cannot be defined simply; it is neither a word or a concept. The difference between différance and différence is inaudible, we can only fully understand the difference between the two words graphically. The a in différance is not heard, Jacque Derrida goes as far as to say the a is secret and discrete like a tomb. The silence of the graphical difference between the e or the a can function only in phonetic writing. There is no pure or rigorous phonetic writing; the so-called phonetic writings can only function through non-phonetic “signs,” such as spaces and punctuations. There is an ambiguity in the spoken word, différence as compared to différance, that demands reference to the written. If the spoken word requires the written to function properly, then the spoken is itself always at a distance from any supposed clarity of consciousness.

Jacque Derrida, an Algerian-French philosopher who is considered a deconstructivist in philosophical terms, focusses on two aspects, the literary and the philosophical. He seeks out the textual interpretation, an alternative meaning to text. In the essay of Dfférence, Derrida argues that différance does not exist, it is not a present being of any form. Derrida quotes, “In the delineation of différance everything is strategic and adventurous” (Derrida 399). It is strategic because there is no transcendent truth outside the field of writing. This strategy then leads to an adventure, but it isn’t a tactile adventure. It is a strategy without a finality, a type of blind tactics; an empirical wandering.

To fully understand the full meaning of différance, Derrida suggests that we must understand the word différer. This term has two meanings; the first meaning is temporization. In this sense, différer takes a recourse, whether it is consciously or unconsciously, in the temporal mediation of a detour, suspending a sense of accomplishment or fulfillment. The second sense of différer is to be non-identical, to be other. Derrida quotes, “When dealing with differen(ts)(ds), a word that can be written with a final ts or a final ds, as you will, whether it is a question of dissimilar otherness or of allergic and polemical otherness, an interval, a distance, spacing, must be produced between the elements other, and be produced with a certain perseverance in repetition” (Derrida 401). To summarize, difference with an e can refer to différer as temporization or to différends as polemos, which according to Heidegger means the basic principle of differentiation.

Différance cannot be seen as a sign, which always assumes the representation of a presence. It is considered to be constituted in a system, a system of thought and language, which is governed by moving toward a presence. But then one must question the authority of presence. The limits that constrain us formulates the meaning of being in general as presence or absence, in the categories of beingness. In Being and Time by Heidegger, he says temporalization is the transcendental horizon of the question of being. It must be liberated, extracted from its traditional, metaphysical domination of the present and the now. There is a strict form of communication.

Derrida quotes, “One might be tempted by an objection: certainly the subject becomes a speaking subject only in its commerce with the system of linguistic differences” (Derrida 208). The sense of speaking of a subject could be present in itself, as speaking or signifying, without the play of linguistic différance. We cannot conceive of presence, presence to itself of the subject before speech or signs. A presence to itself of the subject is silent and intuitive consciousness. Excluding any trace and any différance, consciousness, or something like it, is possible. Derrida then questions, “What is consciousness?” (Derrida 409). Consciousness offers the thought of self-presence, a perception of self in presence. The privilege granted with consciousness signifies the privilege granted to the presence.  The transcendental temporality of consciousness brings a “living present,” the power of synthesizing traces and incessantly resembling them. This privilege is the ether of metaphysics.

Différance is a metaphysical name and all the names that are received in our language are still metaphysical. The determination of différance as the difference between presence and the present is already the case when we say determination of différance as the difference between being and beings. Derrida suggests that différance has no name in language itself, it is unnameable; this isn’t because we haven’t found a name for différance, but instead we seek it in another language. This otherness is found outside the finite system of our own. Derrida quotes, “[différance] is not a pure nominal unity, and unceasingly dislocates itself in a chain of differing and deffering substitutions” (Derrida 419). This unnameable is not an ineffable being which no name can approach, for example, the being of God. This unnameable is the play that makes nominal effects just as a false entry of a false exit is still part of the game, a function of the system.

In order to name the essential nature of being, language would have to find a single word; we can gather how daring every thoughtful word addressed to being is. The daring isn’t impossible, being speaks always and everywhere throughout language. The alliance between speech and being is unique, and so is the simulated affirmation of différance. It bears on each member of the sentence. Remember, différance cannot be exhaustively defined, it is “neither a word, nor a concept.” It transcends language and breaks down the signage of phonetic writing. Just as a piece of writing has no self-present subject to explain what every particular word means, which draws parallel to spoken word.

“ d i f f e r ( ) n c e ”

Taylor, M.C. (1986) Deconstruction in context: literature and philosophy. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

"Philosophy: End or Transformation?"

Every philosophical colloquium is political. International philosophical colloquium can be examined indefinitely, it has numerous pathways, multiple levels of generality, and has extensions that imply possibilities that are contrary to the essence of philosophy. This is because certain nationalities have defined their own philosophical identities, they create their own style. Jacques Derrida, says that this these national identities have never been considered in the past, it was unimaginable a century ago. Derrida quotes, “… the establishing of relations between differences is also the promised complicity of a common element: the colloquium can take place only in medium…” (Derrida 126). This representation of the colloquia must make a transparency, which becomes the universality of philosophical discourse. The linkage to international philosophy is through democracy, or the form of democracy.

“Here, democracy must be the form of political organization of society” (Derrida 128). This means that the national philosophical identity must obtain a nonidentity, it doesn’t exclude diversity and the coming into language of this diversity. Philosopher here present no more identity that what they think and is mandated by a unanimous national discourse.

The unity of man is a reaction against intellectualists or spiritualist humanism that dominated French philosophy. There is a neutralization of metaphysical and speculative thesis. The history of the concept of man is never examined. Everything occurs as if the sign, man, has no origin, no culture, no history, or no linguistic limit. The term being is considered the unity of humans of human reality. What was then dubbed was that there was nothing other than the metaphysical unity of man and god; becoming god as the project constituting human reality. Atheism fundamentally changes nothing to this structure. Humanism or anthropologism became the common ground of Christian and atheist existentialisms. Today, we are going through a mutation of human sciences. Simply questioning humanism is new and contemporary with the dominating, spellbinding extension of the human sciences within the philosophical field.

Derrida quotes, “The anthropologistic reading of Hegel, Husserl, and Heidegger was a mistake in one entire respect, perhaps the most serious mistake” (Derrida 133). Books by these philosophers, especially the Phenomenology of Spirit, do not have to something to do with man. The science of experience and consciousness, structures phenomenality of the spirit is relating to itself, it is clearly distinguished from anthropology. Phenomenology is more within reason and true within the system of logic. The authority of Husserlian thought was asserted and established in postwar France, becoming a philosophical mode. The critique of anthropologism remained unnoticed or simply had no effect during this postwar Europe. Derrida suggests that we must merge Hegel, Husserl, and Heidegger with old metaphysical humanism. He uses the term amalgam, which is an old term with alchemical references, with a strategic or tactical reference to political ideology.

The progress and requestioning must not be the center of attention. When requestioning humanist instances, we must understand that everything is on the “same shore.” Those who denounce humanism and metaphysics, stand in the center of the stage. Derrida quotes, “… Hegelian, Husserlian, and Heideggerian critiques or de-limitations of metaphysical humanism appear to belong to the very sphere of that which they criticize or de-limit” (Derrida 135). We must consider all anthropocentric metaphysics that are believed to critique or de-limit anthropologism. 

A pure anthropological reading of the Phenomenology of Spirit explains that anthropology and phenomenology are not just simple, external values. They show the concepts of truth, negativity, and Aufhebung, which in Hegel can mean preservation. Anthropology treats the soul as the “truth of nature.” A soul passes through the natural soul, through the sensible soul, and then through the real or effective soul. This completes itself and then opens onto consciousness. It is considered that consciousness is the truth of man, so thus phenomenology is the truth of anthropology. Derrida quotes, “Truth is here the presence or presentation of essence as Gewesenheit, of Wesen as having-been. Consciousness is the truth of man to the extent that man appears to himself in consciousness in his being-past, in his to-have-been…” (Derrida 136). All structures described in Phenomenology of Spirit is a relief of anthropology. Man remains in relief, his essence rests in phenomenology. This sense of relief is marking the end of man, mans’ past, but it also marks the achievement of man.

“The thinking of the end of man,

therefore, is always already prescribed in metaphysics,

in the thinking of the truth of man” (Derrida 137).

As humans, we don’t know the full understanding of ‘being,’ but we do know the basic understanding of being, which is still considered a fact. When we question, ‘What is being?,’ we keep an understanding of the is, but we still don’t know what is stands for significantly. The we, being simple and discreet, inscribes the so-called structure of the word being. The question of being is within the principles of phenomenology. Governed by the principle of presence and of presence in self-presence, “such as it is the manifested to the being and in the being that we are” (Derrida 141). Being is the proximity to itself. Being is to be looked at, to attempt to understand. Looking at something, conceiving it, choosing to access it, are all behavioral actions that bring up the being of entities.

Being is understood through proximity. Derrida quotes, “Being is farther than all beings and is yet nearer to man than every being, if being is the nearest, then one must be able to say that being is what is near to man, and that man is near to being” (Derrida 148). Man is considered the proper being; mans’ authenticity is linked to their sense of being. There is no security of what is near and what is far, the co-belonging and co-propriety in the name of man and the name of being is inhibited by the language of the west. In the language of being, the end of man has been prescribed. The end of man is the thinking of being.

Baynes, K., Bohman T., McCarthy T. (1987) Philosophy: end or transformation. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of technology.

"Poetry, Language, Thought"

The Thing

Man today has lost the sense of distance. We can reach places that once took weeks or months to venture can now be achieved by a short, eight-hour, overnight flight. Distant, historical sites can now be perceived through the lenses of the camera and shown on film as if it exists on today’s streets. Man puts long distances behind him in the shortest range. But this abolition of distance does not result in bringing a sense of nearness; nearness can’t be reduced to a mere sense of shortness of distance. Short distance isn’t nearness and long distance isn’t remoteness. Heidegger says that everything is lumped into a distance-less state.  He explains his theory by using the atomic bomb as an example. We can stare and wait for the what the bomb will come with it. The viewer doesn’t see the atom bomb and its explosion as the final emission of what has long taken place. The thought of one hydrogen bomb that has the ability to wipe out life on earth. This terrifying feeling places everything outside of nature. By revealing and hiding itself in a way that everything is faced with presence, all conquest of distances the nearness of things remain absent. Nearness cannot be encountered directly, we succeed in reaching a sense of nearness by reaching it rather than attending to what is near. What is near to us is considered as things. Heidegger quotes, “But what is a thing? Man has so far given no more thought to the thing as a thing than he has to nearness” (Heidegger 166).

Heidegger uses a jug as an example. A jug is a thing. But what is a jug? We could say that a jug is considered as a vessel, a thing that holds something else within it. It could be seen as a container; it has sides and a base and is held with a handle. It is a self-supporting being that is independent from the definition of an object. It is an object when placed before us. The “thingly” character of the thing does not mean it is represented as an object. The jug stands as a vessel only because it was brought to a stand. The jug is unquestionably a vessel. It is a self-supporting thing made by a potter from earthen material; a material specifically chosen for that jug. Seeing the jug as a made vessel encourages us to see it as a thing rather than an object. It isn’t an object that is to be seen as an act of representation. As the potter makes the jug, he isn’t creating a simple form with a handle out of clay, he is creating a void. The vessel’s thingness is does not lie at all in the material, but instead the jug relies in the void the jug holds. “And yet, is the jug really empty?” (Heidegger 169).

Science assures us that the void is filled with air and whatever else is made up in the air’s mixture. As soon as we study the jug scientifically rather than its reality, the facts surrounding the jug change. Science encounters only what kind of representation has admitted beforehand as an object possible for science. Science causes an annihilation of the thing. The thingness of the thing is remained concealed when we see things through scientific knowledge. The nature of the thing is never coming to light, it never gets a hearing. Heidegger quotes, “But if things ever had already shown themselves qua things in their thingness, then the things thingness would have become manifest and would have laid claim to thought” (Heidegger 170). In truth, the thing that remains proscribed is annihilated. Heidegger questions, “To what is the nonappearance of the thing as thing due?” (Heidegger 171). Has man neglected the thing as a thing to himself? Man can only only neglect what has already been assigned to him. To understand “nearness,” you must examine the thing close up, not from a distance.

The term thing is understood through the Old High German word thing. The German definition means a gathering, a gathering to deliberate on a matter of discussion, a contested matter. Another German word Heidegger points out is dinc (ding?). The terms thing and dinc are names for an affair or matter of pertinence. The Romans had a term for discourse, res. The Greek’s term for speaking about something or to deliberate on it, is called erio. Res Publica means to be known by everyone and greatly concerns everybody, hence the term Publica. The Roman word Res designates that which concerns somebody, an affair. The Roman term causa, which refers to case; something that comes to pass and becomes due. When molding the two terms res and causa together, the modern language of today came to mean cause. Causa does not directly translate as cause, this is only a modern interpretation. The Old German words of dinc or thing is referred to as a gathering. It deals with case and matter, is translated properly by the Roman term of res. The French say la chose while English speakers say, “the thing.” Historically, the terms res, Ding, causa, cosa, chose, and thing, are seen together but each have very specific meanings. The word thing was used when referring to god. God is the “highest and uppermost thing;” the soul is considered a “great thing.” The term thing varies in interpretation. But the jug Heidegger mentioned earlier cannot align with the Roman res nor the modern term of object. The jug is a thing and comes into its own, appropriately manifests and determines itself.

Today everything can be considered as equally near and equally far; it is distanceless. Then what is nearness? Heidegger talks about examining the jug up close, exposing the nature of nearness. Heidegger quotes, “The thing things. In thinging, it stays earth and sky, divinities and mortals” (Heidegger177).  These four terms, earth, sky, divinities, and mortals bring remoteness near one another. God is seen as a thing, the soul is seen as a thing, and the jug is seen as a thing. This nearness preserves farness. “Near” can’t be seen as a container, we can’t look at the container, “nearness,” from a distance. It simply doesn’t work. “Nearness is at work in bringing near, as the thinging of the thing” (Heidegger 178). When Heidegger mentioned divinities, the other three terms are considered (Earth, sky, mortals) because of their open nature. The mortals are human beings. We use the term mortal because only humans are capable of death; the animal perishes. Heidegger mentions that death is a shrine of nothing, it is something that never exists, but nevertheless has a presence. This presence of death is then traced to “Being.” Enshrining this nothingness can be seen as a shelter for being. Mortals exist in this shelter of being, they are presencing relation to being as being. Earth, sky, divinities, and mortals belong together. They mirror each other, but not in a way of likeness. They have the ability to these four free on their own, but also can be brought together. This mirror-play between these four can be seen as the world. The world presences by worlding. Heidegger quotes, “That means: the world’s worlding cannot be explained by anything else nor can it be fathomed through anything else” (Heidegger 180).

In order of a thing to be a thing, they must ring the world’s mirror-play; a ringing that brings forth the Earth and heaven, divinities and mortals. A world worlds as a world. Things range from jugs to trees, ponds to benches. They are modest in number when compared to the countless objects that are measureless to the mass of human beings. Humans attain the world as world only through dwelling; only what conjoins itself out of the world becomes a thing.

Language

Humans speak. We speak even when we don’t mutter a word. Through our dreams, actions, and metaphors, we speak through a variety of mediums because to us, speaking comes naturally. We have language by nature. Language is what distinguishes the human from the animal or from the plant. In all cases, language belongs to the closest neighborhood of man’s being. Language is unavoidable and can be pointed out everywhere. Language itself is language. Heidegger states, “’In what way does language occur as language?’ We answer: language speaks” (Heidegger 190). We must leave the speaking to language; it is simply impossible to ground language. It is almost as if language can only be understood through speech. Seeing language as anything else could possibly underscore what language is.

What does it mean to speak? Speech could simply be reduced to the organs within the body that allows the body to produce spoken words. Organs that both produce and understand speech. These audible feelings can be place in the categories. The first is seeing speech as expression. Speech is seen as utterance, possibly the most obvious characterization of speech. The second category is to see speech as an activity. We cannot say that “language speaks,” this would assume that language brings man about. Humans created language, not the other way around. The third characterization of speech is to see it as a presentation and a representation of the real and the unreal. A figure of speech, such as a metaphor, connects language to an object or action that does not have a literal application, thus bridging the real and the unreal. A connection between the These three characterizations have vast interpretations between humans. But when we understand language as a form of expression, we give language a comprehensive definition. If language is speech, where do we encounter speech? Speaking does not cease in what is spoken. We often experience what was spoken as the residue of a speaking long past.

Heidegger goes on describing the language of poetry through the poem, A Winter Evening by Georg Trakl. Taking apart each stanza, Heidegger explains the language of the author. We end on the term stillness. “Stillness stills by the carrying out, the bearing and enduring, of world and things in their presence” (Heidegger 207). Motionless always remains. It isn’t limited to suspension or soundlessness. Language takes on the challenge of differentiating the world and things. This is quite obvious in poetry. The tenth stanza of A Winter Evening states: Pain has turned the threshold to stone. The author speaks of both human qualities, a feeling (pain), and inhuman objects (stone). Linguistics take place outside of the speaking of language. The nature of language needs and uses the speaking of mortals. Mortal speech is a calling that names, a bidding that bids thing and world to come. Pure mortal speech is spoken through poems.

The structure of human speech is to be spoken on their own part.  Mortal speech is meant to be listened and responded to. Heidegger quotes, “Nevertheless by receiving what it says from the command of the difference, mortal speech has already, in its own way, followed the call” (Heidegger 209). Humans respond to language through multiple senses. Response is a receptive listening and a recognition that makes do acknowledgement. Mortals respond to speech through receiving and replying. Every authentic hearing holds back, a restraint that that reserves itself. But authentic hearing begins before any type of speech begins. We anticipate a command, a time to reply.

Poetically Man Dwells

Dwelling is harassed by housing shortages. We are plagued with our insecurity in gains and success. There is little room left today where dwelling is actually poetic. Poetry is rejected and vaporizes into the unknown or a flight into dreamland. “Poetically man dwells” can be translated as poetry causes dwelling to be dwelling. This dwelling is created through poetic creation and exists as a building. But where does man get this sense of dwelling? Humans crave a sense of dwelling through the telling language. Heidegger argues that man acts as if they are the master of languages. But instead, language is the master of man. As stated in the Language chapter, language is expressive. It is language that speaks; humans speak only when they respond to language by listening and understanding its appeal.  Man authentically listens and speaks in the element of poetry. Heidegger quotes, “The more poetic a poet is – the freer his saying – the greater is the purity with which he submits what he says…” (Heidegger 216). Cultivating and caring are considered a kind of building that produces growth outside of one’s self. A poetic dwelling should belong to the realm of fantasy, it should be a place that is above reality. Poetry is bringing man to the earth, making them belong to it, thus bringing him into dwelling.

The nature of dimension is pointed upwards toward the sky and downward to earth. Man spans this natural dimension by measuring himself against the heavenly. Man’s dwelling consists of looking towards the sky, a constantly taking measure of the dimensions. This means the sky belongs just as much as earth. Poetry is considered a form of measuring. Man is constantly measuring himself against their self. Measuring gauges the very nature of man. Heidegger quotes, “For man dwells by spanning the ‘on the earth’ and the ‘beneath the sky.’ This ‘on’ and ‘beneath’ belong together” (Heidegger 223). Humans are always enduring a sense of dimensionality; our existence now and then must be measured out. When we hear measure, we think of numbers and symbols. But the nature of measure is no more quantum than the nature of measuring. The nature of measuring is brought through the poet, comparing the heights of the heavens to sights and appearances. This is categorized as “image.” The nature of images is to have something be seen. Poetic images are imaginings that are not simple fantasies and illusions, but imaginings that are a distinctive sense. The poetic sense of images gather the brightness and sound from the of the heavenly appearances and compares these visuals to the unfamiliar sense of darkness and silence. Heidegger quotes, “The measure taken by poetry yields, imparts itself to what is familiar in the sights of the sky” (Heidegger 226). As stated earlier, measuring takes place in an image; measuring is of the same nature of the sky.

So, is there a measure on earth? The poet would reply, “There is none.” Man dwells on earth and exists insofar as man dwells. In the dwelling of humans, we let earth be as earth. The statement “Man dwells in that he builds” (Heidegger 227), is made clear. Poetry builds up the nature of dwelling, humans are capable to build authentic buildings, such as poets measure for architecture. Do we dwell poetically? Poetry and dwelling do not exclude each other, instead they belong together. If anything, we dwell unpoetically, but only in the essence of poetry. Our unpoetic dwelling fails to take measure. It derives from a curious excess of frantic measuring and calculation. Heidegger states, “The poetic is the basic capacity for human dwelling” (Heidegger 228). Man is capable of poetry at any time but only to the degree of appropriateness. Poetry can either be authentic or inauthentic. When measuring appropriately becomes apparent, man has the ability to create poetry from the very nature of the poetic. With this awareness, the man can then dwell humanly on earth.

Heidegger, M. (1971). Poetry, language, thought. New York, NY: Harper and Row, Publishers Inc.

"The Myth of Daedalus"

The Roman author, Vitruvius, represented a codification and reduction of architecture through his book De Architectura, which was the only theoretical treatise that survived the classical era. The beauty and meaning of architecture should be a rational and mathematical order. The motions of the heavenly bodies, the cosmos, didn’t constitute the meaning of “cosmic space.” The public participation in cosmic, ritual spaces were excluded from the framework of human existence in the late eighteenth century. Humans desire order.

The liberation of the term techne, translated as craftsmanship, was dominated by the mechanization of the seventeenth century. Gomez quotes, “The techne of the Sophist’s logos concerned rhetoric and power over society, not power over nature” (Gómez 49). The term “sophist” refers to a teacher of philosophy in ancient Greece. For many centuries, machines and buildings were built to produce wonder rather than dominate nature. These buildings and machines were known as thaumata, a Greek word for miracle or wonder. The city, or the external reality, perceived as physis, translated as natural or being alive, was profoundly respected during the industrial revolution. Reducing architecture to material imitation, indicates a radical transformation of the perception of architecture. This change was suggested by Vitruvius. It can even be traced to Plato, who points out a passage from his book Republic, that art is the imitation of natural objects which are “but shadows or ideas or higher realities” (Gómez 49). The artist is shunned to copy a copy, or at best, to approximate the ideal.

Plato makes a distinction between techne and poiesis: techne is seen as a purely human activity and poiesis as the artistic creation of the poet. This techne was a technique of Vitruvius, since architecture carries a prosperity of instrumentalization and mathemata. Architects depended on rituals, a belief in the cosmos, a source of the transcendental order of formal relationships. After Plato’s techne, the craftsmen’s, or the architect’s, original technique becomes an opinion, or a doxa. This opposes true sciences and knowledge, or in Greek terms, episteme. Both Plato and Aristotle used the term “architects” as a person to guide craftsmen using operations ruled by mathematics. The architect and craftsman were divided. Greece was considered as a civilization of craftsmen in the fourth and fifth centuries, but it is paradoxical when the ideology of the ruling class denied the importance of craftsmen. In Homer’s work, he uses techne as metalsmithing, carpentry, and weaving. This was the know-how of demiourgoi, the meaning of craftsman or artisan.

Gómez considers Daedalus as the best pre-classical architect who was an artist and technician who possessed metis, or magic. Daedalus is a craftsman from Greek mythology and known for building the labyrinth at Knossos, which is considered one of the oldest cities in Europe. The word daidala is a verb for make, to manufacture, to forge, to weave, to place on, or to see. “It refers to objects such as gold, helmets, belts and other defensive weapons of Homeric warriors, and so furniture and ships” (Gomez 50). Homer and Hesiod clarified and expanded this term of daidala. The objects denoted by the term daidala can be categorized according to material: metal, wood, and cloth. Metalsmithing, wood working, and textile techniques were heightened, giving a techne to the term daidala. Homer believed that daidala possessed mysterious powers. Daidala reveals the reality it represents, a metaphysical “light” of diverse and bizarre qualities that can evoke fear and admiration. Gómez quotes, “Daidala, particulary with jewels, are endowed with charis (charisma) and thus with kelos (beauty) and amalga (festive religious exaltation)” (Gómez 50). The term charis is considered a god given grace and is a product of techne. It has a power of seduction. This make daedala dangerous, it is capable of creating illusions. Poets have the same ability of illusion at the level of apate, which translates to appearance. The ethical condition of techne, especially in architecture, was ambiguous to its earliest forms of articulation. In the bible, Cain, designated by god, was in charge of creating cities.

Daidala was considered as art objects that appear to be what they are not. Daidala enables inanimate matter to magically appear be alive; it reproduces life rather than representing it. In texts following Homer, Theogony by Hesiod gave a more figurative meaning to daidala. In the fifth century, daidalon become a mere image, an eikon of another reality. Daidala became a metaphoric reference. Architecture would produce qualities of a womb or a mountain. It imitated the transcendental emotion rather than the actual object. This ritual of a building was the architecture.

Whether it is Daedalus, daidala, or Daidalos, this fictional being was considered an architect. All ancient sources agree that this mythological being was an Athenian, son or grandson of Metion, this is the person that gave him metis (magic). He is known for his personality and his work in stories. He was a sculptor in Athens, inventor of the agalmata. Apparently, Daedalus’ sculptures were extremely lifelike with open eyes and moving limbs. He was also considered as an inventor. The saw, the axe, glue, and the plumb-line were all invented by Daedalus while residing in Athens. Daedalus was forced to leave Athens after he murdered is nephew Talos out of professional jealousy. So, moved to Crete, which is the modern name for Knossos, and worked under King Minos. After numerous achievements, Daedalus created a lifelike wooden cow covered with leather. Queen Pasiphae hid this sculpture to try to seduce a magnificent bull. Pasiphae was successful in seducing the bull and soon the queen gave birth to a minotaur. According to Gómez, “The Minotaur was a symbol of both the architect’s technical ability and this power to subvert the order of the world” (Gómez 51). This being, half bull and half human, had to be hidden but also must be found. Daedalus, using his metis, was led to design his labyrinth.

“The labyrinth is a metaphor of human existence: ever-changing, full of surprise, uncertain, conveying the impression of disorder, a gap between the only two certain points that it possesses, birth (entrance) and death (its center)” (Gómez 51). When architects present a labyrinth, it is perceived as disorder that is revealed as order. This idea of architectural order can be considered as the essence of cities and buildings. Seeing labyrinths as a symbol of overcoming mortality and a metaphor of knowledge is legitimate, but one could also see a labyrinth as a connection between primordial idea of architecture and ritual. A primeval dance. The space of architecture was the space of ritual. It wasn’t seen as a geometrical entity, an object. Seeing the labyrinth as a sort of dance was emphasized in the myth. After putting the minotaur in the labyrinth, Theseus killed it. Plutarch, a Greek-Roman biographer, said that after killing the minotaur, Theseus engaged in a dance with group of people ‘whose movement imitated the labyrinth.

Daedalus is an ambiguous being. He is an architect and a craftsman. He concealed a “monster” within a labyrinth and deceives a woman with a machine of leather and wood. He creates form and beauty, but also illusions. Gómez states, “This ambiguity, which is a part of the human condition, is as prevalent now as it was then” (Gómez 52). Daedalus was possessed with metis, which was manifested only through the act of creation. The architect was seldom in charge of major design projects within ancient Greece. Instead they were in charge of cutting stone, making templates, and supervising. In classical times, the oracle was the important figure to lay down the design work of the city. They were in charge of temples, buildings, and the foundation of the city. The divergence of divine order and human order is irreversible.

Man no longer sees existence as a personal participation in public space. There is a distance between man and the world, the distance of theoros. For the modern architect, making is the ritual. The making process is a form of self-knowledge, the metis; a magical phenomenon. Gómez quotes, “He seems to have no other option, whether he is performing a pantomimic dance (surrealism) or whether he believes himself to have created an autonomous system of gestures (abstraction)” (Gómez 52).

Gómez, A.P. (1981) The myth of daedalus. London: Architectural Association.

"Before Philosophy: The intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man"

The ancient peoples of Egypt and Mesopotamia were thought to have been wrapped in imagination, tainted with fantasy. But these ancient ideas allow us to abstract anything from concrete, imaginative forms.  We produce this speculative thought that is intuitive, a visionary mode of apprehension. This way of thinking transcends experience, attempting to unify and order experience. Trying to remove problems of experience, speculation connects the problems and tries to explain them. Today, we do not allow speculative thought; it is severely limited to the instrument of science. Interpreting experiences has lost the marvels of fascination. Henri Frankfurt questions, “Where, then, is speculative thought allowed to range today?” (Frankfort 12). Humans speculate their nature, their values, and their destiny. On the subject of their self, humans will uncontrollably speculate.

Looking to the ancient Near East, or South-West Asia, we notice a realm of nature and human were not distinguished. Society did exist, they always saw man as part of society, but it was one with nature dependent on cosmic forces. Nature and human did not stand in opposition, they were one. In the modern world, we see the phenomenal world as an “It,” but for the ancient world, man saw the world as “Thou.” The best way to explain these unique qualities is with the two modes of cognition: the relation between subject and object and the relation that exists when understanding another living being. Differing the “It” and “Thou” hovers between active judgement and passive impression; intellectual and emotional. Frankfort quotes, “’Thou’ is a live presence, whose qualities and potentialities can be made somewhat articulate – not as a result of active inquiry but because “Thou,” as a presence, reveals itself” (Frankfort 13). Using the term “Thou” is seen as transparent, it is sincere and honest. When looking at an object, the “It,” can be scientifically related to other objects; it abides by universal law which makes them predictable. “Thou” cannot be understood through science. Instead, “Thou” is experienced emotionally. The ancient people didn’t see the world as inanimate, the world is being seen as life confronting life.

The ancient people still questioned the ‘why,’ ‘how,’ the ‘where from,’ and the ‘where to.’ Humans confronted nature and gave expression to the experience. “Thou” is experienced as highly individual. The early man viewed happenings as individual events. These accounts of their experiences were told through stories instead of an analysis to draw a conclusion. For example, today when we experienced a drought being broken by rainfall due to atmospheric changes. The Babylonian people would thank the gigantic bird Imdugud for replenishing their rivers by bringing rain clouds to their land. Their myths weren’t intended for entertainment, but instead they represented their existence. At the time of art and literature, these mythical, experiences were traditional, engrained in their society. “The imagery of myth is therefore by no means allegory. It is nothing less than a carefully chosen cloak for abstract thought” (Frankfort 15). Myth must be taken seriously, it reveals an unverifiable truth, a metaphysical truth. Myth is a form of poetry, in fact, it transcends poetry in that it proclaims truth. A form of action, of ritual behavior, which does not find fulfillment in the act.

Speculating the ancient Near East may lead to negative results but seeing their ways of thinking as mythopoetic thought may engrain this way of thinking. Humans recognized their transcendental problems. They recognized their origin, telos, the invisible order of justice, mores, and they connect these invisible orders with the visible orders. Myth was their language; myth was their way of teaching.  We must view this ancient way of thinking as intentions, if not of their performance. Creation is imagined by analogy with human conditions. “Creation is then seen conceived as birth; and the simplest form is the postulate of a primeval couple as the parents of all that exists” (17).  For Egyptians, the Greeks, the Maoris, the earth and sky were the primeval pair, the true creators. These parental figures now have the have this ability to create. A Great Mother, that could imitate a goddess, as in Greece, or it could imitate a demon in ancient Babylonia. In Egypt, the god, Atum, started the creation of the cosmos out of chaos. These stories of creation remain in the realm of myth, even though speculation is perceived.

These Near East cultures remained curious of the phenomenal world. Frankfort mentions that their intellectual judgement does not apply to mythopoetic thought. Instead, these ancient people expressed their emotional thought through time, space, and number. They had the ability to reason logically, but it served no purpose at the time. These modern intellectual values did not fit compatibly with their significant experience of reality. This pre-logical mode of thinking referred to magic or religious practice, recognized as highly emotional acts. “The basic distinction of modern thought is that between subjective, and objective” (19). This modern scientific thought is critical and analytical that reduces the individual’s phenomena to simple universal laws. We see the sun rise and the sun set because we know that Earth revolves around the sun, a Heliocentric model. We see colors, but we see them through wave-lengths. Frankfort quotes, “We dream of a dead relative, but we think of that distinct vision as a product of our subconscious mind” (20). Ancient civilizations didn’t have the ability to solve these events that all humans perceive. The distinction between subjective and objective knowledge is meaningless to these people, same with the contrast between reality and appearance. Whatever affected the mind or will was an undoubted reality for these people. Frankfort questions that there is no reason why dreams should be considered less real than impressions. Dreams affect us when we are sleeping but also have profound effects when we are awake. We can also argue that hallucinations are also real. Dreams, ordinary vision, and hallucinations had no sharp distinction. Just like the living and the dead, we still have continued relationship with the dead that lingers long after their passing.

Symbols share these same qualities. They are signifying and yet separate from the objects being compared. These symbols are separated from gods or powers, but we still draw a relationship in the mind. This figure of thought, pars pro toto, “a part can stand for the whole,” can refer to a name, a lock of hair, a certain smell, or even a simple shadow can be seen as a symbol that is significant to the human. It may confront the person with a “Thou,” bearing physiognomy of its owner. For example, in ancient Egypt, bowls had inscriptions of names of hostile tribes and their rulers from Palestine, Libya, and Nubia. Smashing these bowls was a common action at funerals and was perceived that these people should die. But we can’t see this as a symbolic action. The Egyptians felt real harm was done to the enemies by the destruction of their names. Today we see the difference between an act or a symbolic performance. But to the ancient people, this was meaningless. Imagination was acknowledged as existing in reality, it is unable to leave the scope of the concrete and renders its own concepts as existing realities. This leaning towards concreteness is found through the primitive conception of death. Frankfort quotes, “Death is not, as for us, an event – the act or fact of dying, as Webster has it. It is somehow a substantial reality” (23). The Egyptian Pyramid Texts a description of the beginning of things which states: “When heaven had not yet come into existence, when men had not yet come into existence, when gods had not yet been born, when death had not yet come into existence…” (23). Life is considered endless. It is opposed to death. Only the intervention of another phenomenon, death, makes an end to life.

Causality, the distinction between the subjective and objective. This modern thinking reduces the chaos of perception through science. A primitive thought often recognizes the relationship between cause and effect, but they did not recognize our view of an impersonal, mechanical, and lawlike functioning of causality. We now recognize true causes, ignoring the immediate sensation. Newton discovered the concept of gravity. He took three accounts of phenomena that are unrelated to the perceptive viewer: the free fall of objects, the movement of the planets, and the alternation of the tides. Our modern thinking of causality would not satisfy the ancient civilizations, mainly due to the impersonal character of these explanations. Today, we may explain that certain physiological processes cause a man’s death. But the ancient human would see this differently. Frankfort quotes, “Primitive man asks: Why should this man die thus at this moment?” (Frankfort 25). The modern human would simply say that death will always occur, but the ancient human would want to the specific reasons why that person died. This way their death would be analyzed with a complexity that only exists on a personal level. This relates to the ‘why’ to the ‘who,’ but does not question the ‘how.’ Death is considered with a detachment as a state of being, a substance inherent in all who are dead or about to die. “But death, considered emotionally is the act of hostile will” (Frankfort 25). There is a similarity when interpreting sin or illness. When someone gets a fever, it is caused by hot matters entering a person’s body. But that heat was caused by the will of the man, his body as an evil spirit. When this personification of evil gains question, it becomes the focus of attention, the stimulation of imagination. We could say that the gods give reason to the ancient man to give reason and understanding to things to understand the phenomenal world. We can see this through some modern African civilizations and ancient Egyptian’s enthroning people to power. The throne is empowered with a fetishism charged with the mysterious power of kingship. This process of personification affects a human’s attitude to a limited extent. Like Isis, the sky goddess Nut, was considered as a loving goddess. They painted life-sized figures of the goddess in their coffins, reassuring a safe ascent to heaven. We are more inclined to take explanations more seriously than what facts they explain. Egyptians had inconsistencies and sometimes doubted their ability to think clearly. This attitude is sheer presumption. “Natural phenomena, whether or not they were personified and became gods, confronted ancient man with a living presence, a significant “Thou….” (Frankfort 29). We then carry a burden of expression and significance through our flexibility in thought and language. Objects and nature have the ability to be perceived through a variety of viewpoints. But the procedure of the mythopoetic mind in expressing a phenomenon can create unconnected avenues towards approach. This causality that we seek to discover identical causes for identical effects throughout the phenomenal world becomes inevitable.

As modern thought establishes causes in abstract, functional relations between phenomena, so it views space as a mere system of relations and functions. Today, space is seen to be infinite, continuous, and homogenous. Ancient civilizations could not abstract a concept of space from its experience of space. Frankfort quotes, “The special concepts of the primitive are concrete orientations; they refer to localities which have an emotional color; they may be familiar or alien, hostile, or friendly” (Frankfort 30). However, primeval hills and temples do not measure the significance that the sacredness that the locality had assumed. For the Egyptians, the dead had the ability to become reborn within the tombs of the ancient pyramids. The royal tombs were shaped to represent the primeval hill, scattered over several sites to show the overwhelmingly important aspects. This phenomenon called coalescence in space. The connection between space and time is that they are qualitative and concrete. Ancient civilizations saw time through nature, not through the idea of time. They saw the aging of human life, the rising and setting of the sun, and seasonal changes. These dramatic cosmic events did not leave man as a mere spectator. The man accompanies the principles of nature with appropriate events. Both in Egypt and Babylonia, the New Year was an occasion of elaborate celebrations. In these festivals, humans participated in the life of nature. This connection between social and cosmic events allowed humans to arrange their lives. Frankfort quotes, “… there are certain ‘regions’ or time which are withdrawn from direct experience and the greatly stimulate speculative thought. They are the distant past and the future” (Frankfort 35). When man was faced by intellectual problems, they faced no critical judgments. Instead, the ancient people face complex images. The mythopoetic thought is imbedded in nature and the natural processes are affected by the acts of man. The experiencing of this unity with the utmost intensity was the greatest good ancient oriental religion could bestow.

Frankfort, H. (1971) Before philosophy: the intellectual adventure of ancient man. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

"The Greeks and The Irrational"

“Were the Greeks in fact quite so blind to the importance of nonrational factors in man’s experience and behavior as is commonly assumed by their apologists and by their critics?” (Dodds 1). Eric Dodd’s first chapter, Agamemnon’s Apology, focusses on educating the springs of human nature. He starts by challenging that the Homeric religion is hardly considered a religion based on today’s standards. But religion and religious significance have different meanings.  We begin with the experience of divine temptation, or infatuation. It is important to understand the Greek term até, which is the Greek goddess of mischief, delusion, ruin, and folly. This sense of temptation led Agamemnon, which in Greek mythology, was the son of King Atreus and Queen Aerope of Mycenae, to lose his mistress by robbing Achilles, who is a Greek hero from the Trojan War. Agamemnon blamed the goddess até for his actions. One could see this as an evasion of responsibility, but Achilles also blamed até as the responsible being for Agamemnon’s actions. Agamemnon even goes as far as offering compensation to Achilles for his shameful act, saying he was blinded by até. But was justice served?

In Homer’s point of view, até is not a personal agent. Até in the Iliad does not mean objective disaster, as it could be interpreted between Agamemnon and Achilles conflict. Dodds quotes, “… até is a state of mind – a temporary clouding or bewildering of the normal consciousness” (Dodds 5). It can be seen as a partial and temporary form of insanity that isn’t related to physiological or psychological causes. Instead, it is seen as an “daemonic” agency. In modern language, this translates to demonic. In the Odyssey, até can be produced naturally, however, wine is said to cause até as well. Wine brings supernatural or demonic feelings within a person.  This term até has been associated with the term wickedness. Agamemnon cites three people associated with the term até. Zeus, the king of gods, Moira, a symbolic being that is related to the end of life, and Erinys, who are female deities of vengeance. In the Iliad, Zeus was credited for causing até; in fact, até is actually the name of his eldest daughter.

Homer’s characters recognize the distinction between normal and actions preformed in até. Até is a sense of mind. The term menos is a feeling felt within the chest; there is a mysterious access of energy. It is sometimes felt as if “… god has ‘breathed it into’ the hero, or ‘puts it in his chest’” (Dodds 9). Homer’s characters can recognize this menos sensation throughout their limbs which gives them evidence that this sensation is of divine origin. Dodds says that this experience is abnormal and the people experiencing this sensation feels the abnormality. In the Odyssey, puts menos into Telemachus which gives him the moral courage to confront the overbearing suitors. The Odyssey does create characters that struggle with mental and physical events. They get aide by a god, gods, or even demons. Whenever a character thinks brilliantly or foolishly, an invisible being gives them a flash of insight. Dodds quotes, “The recognition, the insight, the memory, the brilliant or pervasive idea, have this in common, that they come suddenly, as we say, ‘into the man’s head’” (Dodds 11). A psychic intervention is formed when these invisible beings come into the picture. But are these interactions in his mind or experienced physically? Dodds points out that there is a distinction between what the speaker knows and what the poet knows. When Telemachus speaks out against his suitors, he says “the gods are teaching him to talk big.” But in fact, as the poet and the readers know, it was Athena who gave him the will power. Telemachus was not to know, so he specifically said, “the gods.” This knowledge of not knowing is common with ancient peoples. Just like in Greek mythology, when ancient civilizations didn’t know the exact reason behind an act of superstition, they would refer to a higher power.

All departures of normal human behavior are not immediately perceived. People are so civilized and clear headed that they have given up their fears of pollution, dying, and other primitive behaviors that exist in both Greek mythology and our modern lives. Martin P. Nilsson, a Swedish scholar, contended that the characters from Homer’s works have rapid and violent changes in moods. Homer almost superfluously resorts to the way humans think. But are Homer’s people unstable compared to earlier mythological works? Yes, Hector from Odyssey: Book 15 goes berserk, eyes glowing as foam rolls out of his mouth, but Norse and Irish heroes have similar, if not more bloody personal attacks. Homeric people weep often and possibly in a more uninhibited manner than the Swedes or the English man; so do all of the Mediterranean people of today. Dodds quotes, “… stable characters are not more exempt than others from psychic intervention” (Dodds 15). There are two peculiarities that belong to Homer’s culture that Nilsson forgot. The first is negative peculiarity. Homeric people don’t have a declared soul or personality. Homer points out their psyche only after death, or when the act of dying is threatening. Thumos has a primitive “breath-soul” or “life-soul,” but Homer sees thumos as not part of a soul. Instead, he sees it as an organ. This thumos tells us to eat or drink or even slay an enemy. It is an inner voice. The second peculiarity is attempting to explaining character or behavior in terms of knowledge. The term “I know” expresses not only the possession of technical skill, but also what we should call moral character or personal feelings. Dodds quotes, “Achilles ‘knows wild things, like a lion,’ Polyphemus ‘knows lawless things,’ Nestor and Agamemnon ‘know friendly things to each other.’” The characters are knowledge, what is not knowledge is not part of the character but comes to a man on the outside. Nonrational impulses tend to be excluded from the self, ascribed to an alien origin. 

The term até is a response that arose not merely from the impulsiveness of the Homeric man but arose from the tensions between individuals and the pressure of social conformity; a characteristic of shame culture. A society that exposes man to contempt or ridicule their peers becomes unbearable. This case of moral failure, like that of Agamemnon’s loss of self-control came to be projected on to a divine agency. However, the growing sense of guilt transformed até into a punishment. This Homeric religious experience shows more than an artificial machinery of serio-comic gods, but it shows an unexpected case of human psychology.

Dodds, E. R. (1956) The Greeks and the irrational. Berkeley, CA: The Regents of the University of California.

"The World of Perception"

Perception is becoming aware through your senses. They differ from every person; there is no specific measurement or calculation that can predict the way we feel towards a certain object, space, art work, or a certain person. Maurice Merleau-Ponty challenges the sciences, he questions whether science has the ability to deny or exclude human illusions. Merleau-Ponty believes that humans have relied too much on science and research to define our perceptions which has completely belittled our existence. Our experiences are not worthy when compared to scientific facts and numbers. Merleau-Ponty suggests that we remain in a “utilitarian attitude.”

We live in a world that has little value in our experiences through reality and we hold scientific knowledge at such high esteem, we often forget our own personal reactions to what is going on around us. This reality that we see is different through each other’s eyes. Human perception is how we understand the world through millions of sensations we encounter every day. How does our body mediate the experience of the world? Merleau-Ponty quotes, “laws and theories do not provide a perfect image of [nature] but must rather be considered ever simpler schematic representation of natural events… (Ponty, 43).” He is basically saying that science does not explain our everyday experiences but rather science holds knowledge through approximation. The weather forecaster says that there is an eighty percent chance of rain, but when you go outside there isn’t a single cloud in the sky. The day goes on and on but no rain, just a clear blue sky. This is an example of approximation through science. I think meteorology is a good example of science seen through approximation. Science can make a prediction that could be true, but it may turn out to be false.

Our three-dimensional space we live in that keeps its identity, regardless of all the changes going on in that space. Objects in space will have different perceptions from different angles. The light may change, or the object may move; “objects cannot be considered to be entirely self-identical…. We can no longer draw absolute distinction between space and the things which occupy it… (Ponty, 51).”  Where the observer is situated plays a huge role on how view is perceived. Merleau-Ponty talks a lot about how painters are masters at creating new perceptions within a space. They recreate what they see. The painter may paint a lone tree in a barren landscape, clearly the painter wants you to see the tree; but the viewer, or maybe even the painter, may be more intrigued with the landscape. The painter creates the space and the objects occupying it, the perceptual experience is left to the individual. I don’t think painting is the only way to do this. Photography and film can create similar reactions. Helmut Newton does an excellent job creating experiential space through photography. He photographs fashionable women in unique, often confusing, environments that contrasts the whole atmosphere of the photograph. There is one photo where a man caresses a woman in an office. Her back is arched on the table while an old man kisses her. But in this scene, do we look through the windows of the office onto the facing residential skyscraper, questioning whether or not the people are seeing the scandalous sensual act. Or do we look in the mirror to notice the flash of the camera or the woman’s angled arm that reaches for the man’s head? This space is open for interpretation. We can’t make sense of the space, but our consciousness can draw conclusions to what is going on. The perception of space is not physical on a personal level. Space is a medium without a point of view and could be a space free of objects or it could be a space occupied. The atmosphere of spaces can only be explained on an intimate level.

Humans are obsessed with things. Objects give us reactions through a variety of senses, whether they are favorable or unfavorable. It could be a smell that channels a memory from when you were a child, a touch that leaves you bleeding, or an object could make you feel sad. Our materialistic nature has a personal significance. Now going back to Helmut Newton, a person may feel uncomfortable, stimulated, or confused and that is okay. “… people’s tastes, character, and the attitude they adopt to the world and the particular things can be deciphered from the objects which they surround themselves… (Ponty, 63).” We prefer to live in comfort and we dwell in environments that make us feel a certain way. When Ashley went to the cemetery to film her thesis idea, she mentioned that she felt uncomfortable. But when I go to cemeteries, I feel at peace; cemeteries are like a quiet park. Merleau-Ponty makes it easy for us to understand that science cannot explain our feelings towards certain objects and spaces. Even though we are all humans, we have extremely personal tastes that range from the color of their rugs to granite head stones.  

Humans see themselves as the supreme being on earth. We see things that are our own and take what is not ours. Animality is animal nature, and being homo-sapiens, we are animals. Now this fourth lecture is focused on animal life and exposes how humans twist and turn nature to please ourselves. Merleau-Ponty quotes, “every object displays the human face it acquires in a human gaze (Ponty 70).” This reminds me of Heidegger’s ‘enframing’ term which is the obscured view of the world that humans have. We see things the way we want to see them, not for what it actually is. In this lecture, Ponty describes how humans project human characteristics onto animals. We see animals as machines or experiments for our own narcissistic needs. Humans cannot have absolute knowledge on everything, even though we pretend we do. It is impossible to be completely coherent, but we can be reasonable. We must acknowledge that the world is not unfinished and that as a species, we are learning new things every day. Humans are animals, we learn through trial and error; a never-ending cycle of learning.

“Other human beings are never pure spirit for me: I only know them through their glances, their gestures, their speech – in other words, through their bodies (Ponty 82).” We are constantly aware of other people; we judge them on their clothes, the way the walk, the way they speak, and even the way they stand. We are often more aware of our surroundings than ourselves. Humans only reflect on ourselves after we had contact or confrontation with another person. When we get angry, we lose control and forget how we act. Anger is a thought and is shared between two people. But once the anger surpasses, we reflect on how we acted. The mind and body are very closely linked but hard to examine. For example, when we do get angry, our actions and words used against another person becomes questionable as the anger subsides. It is almot like we lose control of our mind and body when we feel the anger grow within us. We say to ourselves, “why did I say that?” or “I should have said it differently.” These outbursts are hard to explain verbally; they simply must be experienced personally; we are constantly obliged to work on our differences to bring out what’s within us.

But we don’t grow up angry. We definitely don’t grow up depressed. We do not start out our life immersed in our conscious. We grow up with the influences of others. At a young age, we can already interpret emotions. As young as four months, babies have the ability to distinguish certain emotions through facial expressions. We then acquire reactions to these perceived emotions. Humans make you aware of yourself which allows you to reflect. You find your culture, education, and tradition through other people that point out your differences. Reasoning isn’t a personal phenomenon, we reason through interactions with other people. Each person has the ability to make up their own mind and may only recognize what they believe is true. The stubbornness within us can only be loosened through human interactions and reflections on yourself.

Artwork has the ability pushes us into the presence of the world through experience. Simply looking at paintings on a screen can’t give you the full experience of seeing the artwork in person in a museum. This is the same as architecture, you can’t get a sense of scale or feeling through screens and books that would reveal the actual experience of the architecture. Our personal views have a specific perspective on an object. For example, when we were freshman, we were required to hand draw perspectives of our conceptual designs. Everyone chooses a different perspective, a different horizon.  We are not imitating the world, we are creating a new one through Chartpak markers and fragile velum. Merleau-Ponty says that we encounter everyday objects through paintings – a lemon, grapes, a table – but we question them. We look closer to try to understand why that object exists and ask questions as if the painter will respond with an intellectual response. We see things with perception, it is real, and it exists. But an intellectual response would explain why it the object exists and the necessary use for that object. Merleau-Ponty says that paintings allow use to see things for as themselves. We situate ourselves in the “direct perceptual experience (Ponty 95).”

I found it really interesting when Merleau-Ponty said that music was too obvious of an example of perception. “Here we are unquestionable in the presence of an art form that does not speak (Ponty 99).” Music is more than just a collection of sounds or a simply lyric. We can simply sit back, close our eyes, and transcend into this personal, intimate space. Our music triggers our emotions through memories and feelings that no one else can replicate. For example, when I listen to Jónsi from Sigur Rós I get transported into a world that is extremely personal. I like the term synesthesia, where your body becomes stimulated through multiple senses throughout your body. Music has this ability that other forms of art do not. Everyone has that specific musician they can always resort to, regardless if you have bad taste in music. I love how Merleau-Ponty’s last point to touch base on is music. It is almost too simple to understand perception through music.

I did have a hard time reading Merleau-Ponty’s last lecture. I do agree when he says that we approach science with a very dogmatic view. We hardly question things that we see and hear. Modern thought is very ambiguous. We believe what we see and hear without questioning where this knowledge came from. It is clear in today’s political climate around the world. We live on fallacies and unintelligent rhetoric. But when Merleau-Ponty says “… there is no sympathy for socialism in America… (Ponty 109).” I would have to say this text is getting outdated. Like, in 1948 I would agree with Merleau-Ponty. Simply mentioning socialism would have you sent to Russia with a tattooed hammer and sickle on your forehead, but it’s 2018, the world is far different from what it used to be. Ocasio Cortez and Bernie Sanders, both members of the democratic-socialist party, have ignited a new political wave in America. I find this part of his writing slightly irrelevant. I am curious though, can some work of philosophy be outdated and irrelevant with today’s fast paced world?

Ponty, M. M. (2008) The world of perception. Abingdon, UK: Routledge Publishers.