Martin Heidegger contrasted mere things, like a boulder, or slab of granite, with what he called equipment, artifacts manufactured by us to serve this or that use. The work of art, he argued, was a kind of hybrid. Like equipment, and unlike granite, it is made not found. But unlike equipment, and in this respect like the granite, the artwork is autonomous of the uses to which we might put it. Heidegger also believed that artwork carries all sorts of invisible meanings and kinds of importance precisely for human beings who live in a cultural world that wouldn't be what it is if not for the existence of art.

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