ON RELEVANCE OF HEIDEGGER’S THOUGHT FOR AESTHETICS AND PHILOSOPHY OF ART (PART I) SCHELLING, HEGEL AND HEIDEGGER

Abstract

The author examines the relevance of key Heidegger's theses on art and influence they have on development of aesthetics and philosophy of art. The main task of this paper is to examine the real contribution and originality of his theses, as well as the basis of interpretations according to which he is considered to be an epochal and unavoidable author, when it comes to aesthetical and poietical corpus of philosophy. Firstly, the thesis on art as the highest form of thinking, usually perceived as Heidegger’s own contribution, is originally Schelling's thesis. Furthermore, the concept of art as the truth is a thesis set up and systematized by Hegel. Unlike the above mentioned perception of Heidegger’s contribution, the author considers that his real importance for the philosophy of art should be sought in his idea that art is a process of "naturally letting be", while the technology is process of "artificially instigating". The problem with this idea, however, relates to the fact that Heidegger does not show enough boldness to formulate the thesis of poietical as natural himself, but instead he is inserting this thesis into ancient Greek philosophy. Ancient Greek philosophers, however, did not understand ποίησις as φύσις, which exposes Heidegger's subsequent changing of meaning of ancient Greek notions and “instigating” these notions to signify something that they did not in their time. By instigating and inserting new meanings, Heidegger is, if his own thought is consistently understood, referring to the ancient Greek concepts technically, i.e. – metaphysically.