Art, Origins, Otherness: Between Philosophy and Art (Paperback) - Common

319 Pages·2003·2.502 MB·English

by  Desmond, William

Art,
Origins,
Otherness

Art,
Origins,
Otherness
Between Philosophy and Art
William Desmond
State University of New York Press
SP_DES_i-xii 7/14/03 3:03 PM Page iv
Published by
State University of New York Press,Albany
© 2003 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without written permission.No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic,electrostatic,
magnetic tape,mechanical,photocopying,recording,or otherwise
without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information,address State University of New York Press,
90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany,NY 12207
Production by Michael Haggett
Marketing by Jennifer Giovani
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Desmond,William,1951–
Art,origins,and otherness :between philosophy and art / William Desmond.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7914-5745-1 (alk.paper) — ISBN 0-7914-5746-X (pbk.:alk.paper)
1.Aesthetics.2.Art—Philosophy.3.Other (Philosophy) I.Title.
BH39.D4535 2003
111'.85—dc21
2003057266
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Pa`sa ajnavgkh tovnde to;n kovsmon eijkovna tino;~ ei\nai
—Plato,Timaeus,29B
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies,that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic,the lover,and the poet
Are of imagination all compact.
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;
That is the madman.The lover,all as fanatic,
Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt.
The poet’s eye,in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth,from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown,the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
—William Shakespeare,
A Midsummer Night’s Dream,V,i,4–17
To Urbain Dhondt

Contents
Preface ix
Introduction 1
1 Mimesis,Eros,and Mania:On Platonic Originals 19
2 The Terror of Genius and the Otherness of the Sublime:
On Kant and the Transcendental Origin 53
3 The Otherness of Art’s Enigma—Resolved or Dissolved?
Hegel and the Dialectical Origin 87
4 Gothic Hegel:On Architecture and the
Finer Enchantments of Transcendence 115
5 Art’s Release and the Sabbath of the Will:
Schopenhauer and the Eros Turannosof Origin 131
6 Eros Frenzied and the Redemption of Art:
Nietzsche and the Dionysian Origin 165
7 Art and the Self-Concealing Origin:
Heidegger’s Equivocity and the Still Unthought Between 209
8 Art and the Impossible Burden of Transcendence:
On the End of Art and the Task of Metaphysics 265
Index 295
vii

Preface
I have been asked more than once why I do not write,or have not written,a
philosophical aesthetics,somewhat along the lines of the metaphysics of Being
and the Between, or the approach to ethics of Ethics and the Between.Philoso-
phy and Its Othersdoes have a chapter entitled “Being Aesthetic”which might
be seen to contain in nucewhat could be amplified more fully,as the chapter
entitled “Being Ethical”might be seen as being an ethics in nucethat flowers
into Ethics and the Between. While this present book is not that work, and
though behind it lie some systematic reserves, it does represent an engage-
ment with the importance of art for philosophy, a concern which has been
continuous for me,and not separable from the importance of religion for both
art and philosophy.The themes of otherness,origin,art have also been a con-
tinuing preoccupation of mine,not only in my first published books,1 but in
other essays since then.Some of these essays supplied earlier drafts for parts
of some of the reflections to follow and I am happy to acknowledge that here.2
I do not preclude writing an aesthetics in a somewhat more systematic
manner, but there are reasons for a certain diffidence in our time, among
1.Art and the Absolute:A Study ofHegel’s Aesthetics(Albany:State University of New York
Press,1986),abbreviation,AA;Desire,Dialectic and Otherness:An Essay on Origins(New Haven:Yale
University Press,1987),abbreviation DDO.Other books here refered to are Being and the Between
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), abbreviation, BB; Ethics and the Between
(Albany:State University of New York Press,2001),abbreviation EB;Philosophy and Its Others:Ways
ofBeing and Mind(Albany:State University of New York Press,1990),abbreviation,PO.
2.A version of some material in sections 2–6,chapter 2 appeared in “Kant and the Terror
of Genius:Between Enlightenment and Romanticism,”in Kant’s Aesthetics,ed.Herman Parret
(Berlin:de Gruyter,1998),594–614;a version of some material of chapter 3,“Art,Origins,Oth-
erness:Hegel and Aesthetic Self-Mediation,”in Philosophy and Art,ed.Dan Dahlstrom (Wash-
ington:Catholic University of America Press,1991),209–34;in chapter 4 I added to “Gothic
Hegel,”in The Owl ofMinerva,30 no.2 (spring 1999):237–52;a version of some material in sec-
tions 4–6,chapter 5 appeared in “Schopenhauer,Art and the Dark Origin,”in Schopenhauer,ed.
Eric von der Luft (Lewistown,NY:Mellen Press,1988),101–122;a version of some material in
sections 5–9 chapter 6 appeared in “Rethinking the Origin:Hegel and Nietzsche,”in Hegel,His-
tory and Interpretation,ed.Shaun Gallagher (Albany:SUNY Press,1997),71–94.Most of this
material has been extensively rethought and rewritten.
ix