Phenomenological Reviews

Book | Chapter

184761

Conclusion

Mark Sinclair

pp. 192-195

Abstract

In the Contributions to Philosophy, written in the late 1930s, Heidegger discusses the necessity of overcoming aesthetics and the divorce of art from truth that it institutes. Overcoming the aesthetic scission of art and truth can only be achieved, as we read, by "overcoming metaphysics'. Yet overcoming metaphysics is not "discarding the hitherto existing philosophy but rather the leap into its first beginning, without wanting to renew this beginning — something that remains historically unreal and historically impossible' [G65 504/354]. Metaphysics cannot be rejected as an error, as an erroneous opinion, and as '6 of Being and Time had already shown in relation to Descartes, it is precisely the aim to discard the tradition that leads to its intensification and perversion. Thus, the task consists, first of all, in repeating, and not simply reiterating or renewing, what Heidegger now terms the "first beginning' of "philosophy', which occurs in pre-Socratic thought, and which is hence prior to the actual advent of philosophy or metaphysics as such in the work of Plato and Aristotle. In fact, in taking this leap back to pre-Socratic thought, overcoming metaphysics means "freeing the priority of the question of the truth of being in the face of any "ideal", "causal" and "transcendental" and "dialectical" explanation of beings' [G65 504/354].

Publication details

Published in:

Sinclair Mark (2006) Heidegger, Aristotle and the work of art: poeisis in being. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 192-195

DOI: 10.1057/9780230625075_8

Full citation:

Sinclair Mark (2006) Conclusion, In: Heidegger, Aristotle and the work of art, Dordrecht, Springer, 192–195.