Barnett Newman and Heideggerian Philosophy by Claude Cernuschi

Author:Claude Cernuschi [Cernuschi, Claude]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
Published: 2012-04-18T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Technology

In his seminal essay “The First Man Was an Artist,” Newman virulently denounced science and technology. Motivated by a “drive to conquer” and dominate “all realms of thought,” science denies “any place to the metaphysical world.”1 By identifying “truth with proof,”2 science dominates “the mind of modern man,”3 stifling both humanity’s original curiosity and the artist’s fascination with “the elemental mystery of life.”4 In modern times, Newman declares, we have betrayed the first impetus underlying scientific inquiry: to answer metaphysical questions.5 The only “questions worth discussing,” Newman declares, “are the questions that cannot be proved.”6

This attitude intersects poignantly with Heidegger’s. If Newman decried science’s denial of the metaphysical world, the philosopher affirms that “[s]cience today in all its branches is a technical, practical business of gaining and transmitting information. An awakening of the spirit cannot take its departure from such science.”7 This distrust of science walks in lockstep with Heidegger’s critique of technology, which, to his mind, substitutes an attitude of control for the respectful attitude of letting things be. The indictment should also be seen in the context of Heidegger’s larger agenda to divorce philosophy from rigorous logic, demonstrable proofs, and the implementation of a completely dispassionate methodology. Already cited were Heidegger’s assertions that philosophical concepts are accessible only to those whom they grip emotionally, assertions that align philosophy with art and poetry. And just as Newman excoriated scientists for fetishizing the ability to prove, insisting that the most important questions are those for which no proofs can be found, Heidegger considered philosophy to be inherently ambiguous. In opposition to science,8 philosophy “remains in the perilous neighborhood of supreme uncertainty. No knower necessarily stands so close to the verge of error at every moment as the one who philosophizes.”9 Irrelevant and “of little value,” anything provable carries “no intrinsic weight in itself.”10 Since metaphysical questions provide no exact answers, philosophy cannot be put to practical use. Inasmuch as Newman lambasted Marxist thinkers for insisting that art must be useful,11 Heidegger dismissed any attempt to impose utilitarian demands upon the discipline (i.e., that its “knowledge be practically applied” to “factical life”).12

According to Thomas Hess, Newman visualized this suspicion of science in Euclidian Abyss (figure 9.1), a canvas meant to evoke the “perils of geometry,”13 with “geometry” as code for an oppressive, exacting state of mind. “It is precisely this death image,” the artist declared, “the grip of geometry, that has to be confronted. In a world of geometry, geometry itself has become our moral crisis. . . . [The] only answer is no geometry of any kind.”14 In parallel, Heidegger insisted that mathematical knowledge is “the emptiest knowledge imaginable.”15 Mathematics, he maintained, pales when compared to philosophy. And if Newman, Gottlieb, and Rothko averred art to be an adventure “violently opposed to common sense,”16 Heidegger warned against “making sound common sense the ally and guide of philosophy.”17

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.