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'Ars Lnfirma' Aspects of 'Auto-Poiesis' in Heidegger and Stoic Doctrine An 'Ars lnfirma' Aspects of 'auto-poiesis' in Heidegger and Stoic doctrine An investigation into the incertitude in art Michal Klega Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Of the University of London in Fine Art Department of Visual Arts Goldsmiths College University of London 2008 Content Abstract 4 Introduction 5 Chapter I Art and a 'Way of Life' 13 1. What is Socrates' Way of Life? 23 2. Agon an Reality 28 3. Art as a 'Way of Life' 31 4. The Possibility of 'Making Art' 33 5. ' Awareness' (prosoche) 37 6. 'Way of Life' and the 'Sway of Being' 38 Chapter II Heidegger's Authenticity and Work 43 1. The Constitution ofa 'Self' in 'Being and Time' 47 a. Being and Dasein 48 b. Existence 53 c. Anxiety 57 d. Turning away from Beings 59 e. 'Care-structure' 61 f. Authenticity ofDasein and 'Being-towards-Death' 65 g. 'Willingness-to-have-Consciousness' 67 h. Being-guilty' 69 i. 'Resolve' as Care 70 j. 'Care' and 'Oikeiosis' 71 k. Self and Guilt 74 1. Fate and History 76 m. Conclusion 77 2. 'Poiesis' and 'Challenging-forth' 78 a. The Origin of the Work of Art 82 b. Poiesis and Mastery 96 c. Poiesis and Science 102 d. Art and the Artist 105 e. Art and the "Unumgangliche" III f. Conclusion 116 2 Chapter III Antiquity and the 'Way of Life' 122 1. The Concept of'agon' 124 2. The Concept of 'logos' 128 3. Socrates' Care of the self 138 4. Stoic Doctrine 141 a. Oikeiosis as Familiarity 146 b. Categories 147 c. Fate and Detennination 148 d. Pathe 151 e. The Unity of the Soul 154 f. Exercises 157 g. The Virtuous Choice 159 h. The Therapeutic Aspect of 'logos' 163 i. Virtue as Wisdom 166 j. Virtue and Conversion 169 5. Conversion 171 Chapter IV Heidegger and the Stoics 176 1. Conversion and the Self 178 2. The "Ungeheure" and the Self 180 3. Consideration, Decision and Volition 182 4. 'Agon', 'Polemos', and 'Logos' 187 5. Conversion and Enthusiasm 190 6. Arete and Poiesis 197 Conclusion 201 Abbreviations 207 Bibliography 208 3 Abstract This research investigates a possible agency for 'making art'. It focuses on the convergence of 'life' and 'art' by comparing two conceptions of self-understanding: the Heideggerian 'Dasein', and the Stoic quest for the 'virtuous act'. These serve as a paradigm for the possible integration of the 'self of the artist and the 'work' as an 'ethics' of enduring in 'incertitude'. The first aspect of the convergence of 'life' and 'work' is the separation of the 'in­ strumental' and the 'virtuous'. I refer to Huizinga's research into the concept of the 'agon' and the concept of 'conversion' as elaborated on by Pierre Hadot The second aspect deals with the Stoic therapeutic concept of philosophy, which leads to the third aspect which is the 'comportment' within which questioning is guided by the disposition of 'discretio', a tact towards the aporia of 'knowledge'. Giorgio Colli points to the words of the 'oracle' as the symbol of language, because it discloses and withdraws (truth) at the same time. The concept of 'logos' he develops I relate to Heidegger's 'letting-be' (Gelassenheit) as the originary comportment to beings in the movement of concealment and unconcealment as the site of 'truth'. I argue that the necessary conditions for 'art' originate in the 'agon' as ordeal and ac­ tion as well as in the psychagogical methodology of 'awareness' (prosoche) which underpins the possibility to interrogate the particular mode of constituted conscious­ ness as it expresses itself in 'comportment', and the concept of 'phronesis, which moderates disclosure and withdrawal, concealment and unconcealment I argue that this mode is itself a 'poiesis', which has as its temporal 'telos' its own existence as the origin of art itself 4 Introduction This thesis was written within the remits of a combined theory and practice based course, and emphasises therefore aspects of interest rooted in my own practice_ These are not related to the particular forms of the work I produce, but to the inter­ nal modality which drives such activity in general and accords with my experience_ The barriers between art and life have been blurred for some time now but there is still a 'desire' for the 'creative' artist as a 'personality' _To narrow this vast subject to a more manageable size, I have used Martin Heidegger's interpretation of Greek on­ tology in Being and Time as a starting point and compared it with the Greek under­ standing of the self and its constitution and formation_ Heidegger's 'retrieval' (Wied­ erholung) of Greek ontological thought and the rejection of Platonic teleology as 'metaphysics' appears in relation to the Presocratics as a reconfiguration of the ar­ chaic 'agon' - as a 'judgment by ordeal': the telos is the fate as logos_ Virtue is a dis­ closure of the possibility of disclosure itself and therefore an 'ethos', a comportment I investigate certain modes of speaking about the possibility of making art, as they are presented in Greek psychagogy or 'paideia', where the' self' is revealed in its ethical dimension as a product of 'consideration' and a form of 'aletheia' _The first access to such an approach became, in the progress of my investigation, the writings of Martin Heidegger, while the Greek idea of a 'care ofthe self' related these in­ sights to the everyday experiences of human actions and exercises_ The 'way oflife' is central to human beings only_ Life is always 'artistic' in this sense, and the Greeks understood their life to be such a 'work of art' _This is therefore a thesis guided by the particular interest of an artist to understand the strange presuppositions of 'crea­ tive' forces, which he follows but does not control and which are not a mere 'subjec­ tive' fancy, but an ontological inquiry into one's own 'being'_ 'Being' is always ar­ tistic and not in our controL The thesis is generally about the concepts of the appearance of a self within its eve­ ryday structures and its possibility and parameters_ In my own experience, making art is first about one's 'self', how it is fitted into its environment and its sensitivity in questioning incongruencies and contradictions within such an environment The state of mind which enables proper questioning has to achieve both, the loss of the com- 5 fort of what is taken for granted as much as unfolding what is around rather than ar­ bitrarily proposing 'new beginnings'. However, it is also the exercise of the mind (not only of the artist) which I am most interested in and which is expressed by ques­ tioning the Greek and especially Stoic practices which are expressly designed to withdraw from a myopic concentration on the things that we take for granted and be­ gin to question: not the things but a 'self' which we always already have become in our dealings with beings without consideration about the possibility and the modes of such dealings. To have an idea is 'not' to have the certitude of knowledge. Art can never be the 'terra firma' of knowledge. There are ideas, they are neither mine nor are they yours. The artist has an idea. They come into a mind, they are not eternal, they are bound to a particular time. What is the 'Being' of such ideas and the mind apprehending them? The first chapter opens up the question of how a 'way of life' and 'art' are connected in general. The concepts within which this discourse takes place are drawn from the Greek experience, which still dominates our understanding. The development from the Greek 'agon', 'logos' and the Socratic expression of 'arete' and 'agathon' as a transcendent principle devaluing 'worldly' goods are the basic elements of this re­ search. From there, the question of production (poiesis) arises as the main question of how 'existence' becomes a creation and how agency is attributed by the Stoics, and, alternatively, in Heidegger's Being and Time. Heidegger's Dasein is 'authentic' when it understands itself as the 'possibility' for the site in which beings find their truth. In becoming 'authentic' Dasein turns away from its 'objects' towards its own Being. Pierre Hadot is one of the few commentators on ancient philosophy who points out forcefully that philosophy was a 'way oflife' and not 'science' or 'metaphysics'. Moulding a virtuous character means to live the 'eudamonic' life. To do this, the 'self' has to understand itself, and its own constituted character. By way of self­ 'decomposition' it has to undo the discourse of mere survival (instrumentality), which tied it to passions and attachments. This procedure is what is called 'askesis' or 'exercise' and ultimately leads to a 'con-version' of the foundations on which the previous understanding was based. 6 Heidegger's path tries to revert the reflective strategy of the Stoics by placing em­ phasis on Dasein's always underlying immediate (un-self-conscious) intuition of be­ ings and a reassertion ofthe 'attunement' (Gestimmtheit) as the originary aspect of 'receiving-perceiving' of phenomena as they 'present themselves'. Artistic practice, in terms of 'poiesis', is important for Heidegger as the agency that fonns a collective 'way oflife'. This 'poiesis' is 'inspired' in the sense that it is not the self or individ­ ual artist but his 'listening' or being the medium of a historic movement This 'poie­ sis' takes place in a space antecedent to the constitution of a 'self', which today de­ tennines 'Being' as technology and metaphysics. Coming back to the Greek experience of 'self-improvement' as self-constitution, the concepts of 'poiesis' and the archaic 'agon' supply the notion of transcending the sphere of mere' survival'.
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