Monday, February 28, 2011
Dreyfus and Kelly ask: What's hidden in your epoch?
The paradigms from different epochs are fundamentally incommensurate. They literally have no common measure on the basis of which they can be compared. What makes sense as a life worth aspiring to in one age might well be reviled in another. There could not have been saints in Homeric Greece for example. Ar best there could have been weak people who let others walk all over them. Likewise, there could nor have been Greek-style heroes in the Middle Ages. Such people would have been regarded as impulsive and irresponsible sinners. To be a saint or a hero is not just to behave a certain way; it is to be held up as worthy for doing so. The paradigmatic works of art for an age let certain ways of life shine forth. But in doing so they cover up what is worthy in other—radically different—ways of life.¶ 8:03 AM
Temples, cathedrals, epics, plays, and other works of art focus and hold up to a culture what counts as a life worth aspiring to. Works of art in this sense do nor represent something else—the way a photograph of one’s children represents them. Indeed, Heidegger says explicitly that the temple “portrays nothing.” Rather, works of art work; they gather practices together to focus and manifest a way of life. When works of art shine, they illuminate and glamorize a way of life, and all other things shine in their light. A work of art embodies the truth of its world.
P. 101-2
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A friend once pointed out that if one measures an epoch by the grandest buildings on main street (such as the churches in Europe) then the U.S. is in the epoch of the bank.
One prof pointed out that Plato was the antagonist to Homer's heroes. Plato substituted pursuit of the Good for military conquest, but nobody was listening, as is still the case.
One prof pointed out that Plato was the antagonist to Homer's heroes. Plato substituted pursuit of the Good for military conquest, but nobody was listening, as is still the case.
Seems to me this falls prey to the criticism folks would make against Kuhn. To say two things are incommensurate is to claim to understand them so one can judge them incommensurate which contradicts ones claim. Thus incommensurate claims are always self-refuting (unless one goes the negative theology styled route of Derrida)
Thus, the meaningfulness of the facades on main street, is itself an epoch, incommensurate from the understanding of being in the days of cathedral building.
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