View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Oregon Scholars' Bank CREATIVE CLIMATE: EAST-WEST PERSPECTIVES ON ART, NATURE, AND THE EXPRESSIVE BODY by LUCY CHRISTINE SCHULTZ A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of Philosophy and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 2014 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Lucy Christine Schultz Title: Creative Climate: East-West Perspectives on Art, Nature, and the Expressive Body This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Department of Philosophy: Ted Toadvine Chair Mark Johnson Core Member Peter Warnek Core Member Jason Wirth Core Member Colin Ives Institutional Representative and Kimberly Andrews Espy Vice President for Research and Innovation; Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded June 2014 ii © 2014 Lucy Christine Schultz iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Lucy Christine Schultz Doctor of Philosophy Department of Philosophy June 2014 Title: Creative Climate: East-West Perspectives on Art, Nature, and the Expressive Body This dissertation defends the need for a renewed conception of nature as seen through the lens of an artist. By exploring how the relationship between art and nature has been conceived by 19th and 20th century European and Japanese philosophers (including Kant, Hegel, Schelling, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Nishida, and Watsuji), I offer a way of thinking about artistic expression that recognizes the active, expressive character of artistic media and, more broadly, nature itself. Through an analysis of the embodied foundations of artistic creation, I develop a non-subjectivist account of expression that incorporates the climatic milieu. I maintain that the continuity between the embodied self and its life-world implies that the origin of creativity exceeds the will of the individual. This, in turn, implies that nature and the material on which art draws are expressive. According to this view, nature is not an indifferent realm of “mere” material and chemical processes distinct from the domain of culture and meaning. Rather, it is a creative climate from which the artist draws and to which the artist contributes. In conclusion, I maintain that this view has the potential to inform a more sustainable and ethically sound attitude towards the natural world. iv CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Lucy Christine Schultz GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook Luther College, Decorah, Iowa DEGREES AWARDED: Doctor of Philosophy, Philosophy, 2014, University of Oregon Master of Arts, Philosophy and the Arts, 2007, State University of New York at Stony Brook Bachelor of Arts, Philosophy, 2004, Luther College AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: 19th and 20th Century European Philosophy Modern Japanese Philosophy Aesthetics PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Graduate Teaching Fellow, University of Oregon, 2007-2014 GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS: Graduate Research Support Fellowship. Oregon Humanities Center, 2012 Collegium Phaenomenologicum participant, “Philosophy, Truth, and the Claims of Art,” 2011 Collegium Phaenomenologicum participant, “Transcontinental Philosophy: Interpreting Philosophy Across Borders and Idioms,” 2010 v Researcher in Residency, Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, 2010 Gary E. Smith Summer Professional Development Award, University of Oregon Graduate School, 2010 Small Professional Grant, University of Oregon Center for Asian and Pacific Studies, 2010 Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund (SYLFF) fellow, Tokyo Foundation and University of Oregon Graduate School, 2009-10 Graduate Research Award, University of Oregon Philosophy Department, 2008 PUBLICATIONS: Schultz, Lucy. “Creative Climate: Expressive Media in the Aesthetics of Nishida, Watsuji and Merleau-Ponty.” In Environmental Philosophy 10 (2013): 63- 80. Schultz, Lucy. “Nishida Kitarō, G. W. F. Hegel, and the Pursuit of the Concrete: A Dialectic of Dialectics.” In Philosophy East & West 62 (2012): 319-338. Schultz, Lucy. Review of The Kyoto School’s Takeover of Hegel: Nishida, Nishitani, and Tanabe Remake the Philosophy of Spirit by Peter Suares. In Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 38 (2011): 223-226. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express sincere appreciation to my adviser, Ted Toadvine, who supported me as I took on this ambitious project and has provided me with invaluable feedback throughout its various stages. I would also like to thank my committee members Mark Johnson, Jason Wirth, Peter Warnek, and Colin Ives for their helpful dialogue, kind encouragement, and support. I would also like to thank Alejandro Vallega for working with me on the prospectus of the dissertation and Rocío Zambrana for working with me on my readings of Hegel and on my literature review for this project. Special thanks are also due to Jim Heisig for generously sharing his time and his wisdom with me both in Eugene at the 2014 meeting of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy and at the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture. Finally, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my father who has been and continues to be one of my most important intellectual mentors and writing teachers, and to my mother for taking me to southern France to view prehistoric cave paintings and who has fostered in me a deep love for art. Without their love, guidance, and compassion, this project would have never been possible. vii For Jade viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 1 II. NATURE’S GENIUS AND THE NEED FOR ART: AESTHETICS AT THE LIMITS OF IDEALISM IN KANT, HEGEL, AND SCHELLING ...................... 15 1. Genius and the “Crossing” of Art and Nature in Kant’s Critique of Judgment ......................................................................................... 19 2. Rethinking Genius and Materiality in Hegel’s Aesthetics ................................ 38 3. Schelling on Nature’s Strivings and Fulfillments in Art and Philosophy ......... 57 III. THE DRAWING OF WORLD AND EARTH IN HEIDEGGER AND MERLEAU-PONTY ............................................................................................. 77 1. The Drawing of the Rift in Heidegger .............................................................. 82 2. Merleau-Ponty and Klee on the Emergence of Art from Nature in the Artist’s Body ..................................................................................................... 93 3. Moving, Drawing Lines .................................................................................... 105 IV. THE ANATOMY OF THE EXPRESSIVE BODY IN THE AESTHETICS OF MERLEAU-PONTY, NISHIDA, AND WATSUJI ............................................ 118 1. Merleau-Ponty on the “Paradox of Expression” ............................................... 121 2. Nishida on the Expressive Body and the Creative World ................................. 130 3. Watsuji’s Phenomenology of Climate and the Expressivity of Material in Japanese Aesthetics ........................................................................................... 147 4. The Expressivity of Nature: Parallels between Nishida, Merleau-Ponty, and Watsuji .............................................................................................................. 158 V. CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................... 164 REFERENCES CITED ............................................................................................... 174 ix CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Ever since aesthetics was granted philosophical legitimacy by Kant in the culminating installment of his critical project, the Critique of Judgment, the meaning and significance of art has been one of the most important philosophical problems of modern philosophy. And, currently, understanding the human relationship to nature is becoming an increasingly pressing issue, within both environmental philosophy and current discourses of the European philosophical tradition. Though it might not be immediately apparent, the meaning and significance of art and the human relationship to nature are deeply interconnected issues, a fact evinced by Kant’s treatment of them in tandem in the third Critique. Beginning with the environmentalist recognition that a deeper inquiry into how we conceive of nature has become exigent, this dissertation explores how nature is conceived through the lens of the artist engaged in the creative process. By examining the relationship between artists and their media as recounted by particular 19th and 20th century European and Japanese philosophers, I offer a way of thinking about artistic expression that recognizes the active, expressive character of artistic media and, more broadly, nature itself. The interconnection between, and inseparability of, art and nature can be most clearly demonstrated by considering the artist and the act of artistic creation. However, the creation of art has been, and continues to be, an enigma for philosophy. Within the Western tradition, most of the discussions of art have been focused on the artworks themselves rather than the artistic process, and in some