Lecture 9 - Heidegger and Art

This lecture I am going to explore one of Heidegger’s first major post-Being and Time engagements. I want to look at what he has to say about the nature of art, it’s significance and what art can tell us about the mystery of Being. The first thing we should notice is Heidegger does do something quite radical in his treatment of art. In his essay “The Origin of the Work of Art” Heidegger connects art to truth. Usually, in the history of Philosophy, for reasons I will go into, art is deemed to be the poor relation of Philosophy, presented as an obfuscation of what is real. Not so for Heidegger, who thinks that art and truth are inseparable. To understand, why this is the case will be my task this week. I aim to outline what Heidegger has to say about art “The Origin of the Work of Art,” explain how Heidegger positions himself in relation to some key moments in the history of the philosophy of art, and explain what Heidegger means by the idea that art is a form of truthful unconcealment.

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