Art, world and the problem of aesthetics

pp. 168-191

in: Mark Sinclair, Heidegger, Aristotle and the work of art, Berlin, Springer, 2006

Abstract

The preceding chapter of this study showed that although the discovery of earth leads Heidegger initially to take a critical stance towards Aristotle's hylo-morphism, this discovery nevertheless leads to a positive appropriation of the Stagirite's thinking. Heidegger's conception of earth draws from and appropriates Aristotle's determination of hule as the possible in showing how the latter is not yet what it will become in the Latinate tradition. Examining how the discovery of earth is implicated in a retrieve of Aristotle, however, leads us to a final question, one which concerns Heidegger's conception of world: is it in any sense possible to appropriate positively Aristotle's thinking with a conception of world in relation to the work of art?