Goddesses and Gods in Rancière and Heidegger

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article investigates Rancière’s understanding of the Heideggerean conception of art. It argues that Rancière is mistaken in categorizing Heidegger’s philosophy of art within the ethical regime of images, and further that his work corresponds with the central tenets of, and thus should be categorized within, the aesthetic regime of art. This is because art is understood as art, for Heidegger, when it instigates strife between world—the network of associations which constitute the horizons of a given population’s perceptual, conceptual and motor possibilities—and earth—the necessarily resistant to explicit conscious acts and signification. Insofar as it is constituted by this dual relation, art puts forth a dialogically open space in which it paradoxically reinforces the boundaries of seeing, thinking and doing, yet remains heterogeneous to these modes, thereby preventing art from being reducible to the everyday. This paradoxical role, this articulation and reconfiguration that establishes a unified-character of the arts for Heidegger, performs a function that is best framed within the aesthetic redistribution-based transformative conception of art. This is because in both Heidegger and the aesthetic regime, the dialogically open space granted to art allows for cultural revolutions and paradigm shifts to take place in an indeterminable manner.