In his masterpiece The Origin of Works of Art (translated by Lin Zhong Lu, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 1997 edition, page 1-7 1, only quoting the page number), Heidegger put forward an aesthetic and fundamentally philosophical deepest question, that is, what is art? However, after some circuitous discussions, he admitted in the postscript at the end of the article that this issue is an "artistic mystery". "There is no intention to solve this mystery. Our task is to understand this mystery "(page 63); The appendix also says, "What is art? This is one of the unanswered questions in this paper. It seems that such an answer is actually an instruction to ask questions "(page 69). Here, I try to compare Heidegger's viewpoint with Marx's viewpoint, to explain why Heidegger failed to solve this artistic mystery in the end, and to make a preliminary analysis and evaluation of Heidegger's general aesthetic thought.

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In this article, Heidegger said at the beginning: "The word origin here refers to where a thing comes from, through what it is and what it is. ..... The source of a thing is the source of its essence "; It is also pointed out that since artistic works and artists are the source of each other, it is necessary to seek a "third party" for both sides, that is, "art", as the same source of both, "art undoubtedly becomes the source of artists and works in another way" (page 1). However, because the word "art" is too abstract, its meaning "I'm afraid it can only exist on the basis of the reality of works and artists" (ibid.), and he promised to "find the essence of art where art undoubtedly plays a realistic role" (page 2). From this point of view, the reader will think that he will discuss the essence of art itself from two aspects: artists and works of art, but then, he keeps talking about what works of art are, ignoring the question of how artists embody the origin of art. In his view, works of art are an independent and self-existent "pure thing". As a "ding", it is "ding" (or translated as "rising things"); Of course, "a work must be independent by the artist", but "it is in the great art (this article only talks about this kind of art) that the artist is insignificant compared with the work. For the production of works, he is like a channel of self-extinction in creation "(page 24). This view of "artistic works without artists" has a great influence on later phenomenological aesthetics and hermeneutic aesthetics, but it actually confuses two different levels, namely, the evaluation of the artistic value of works and the source of this artistic value. When evaluating a work, we can put the artist aside, but how the evaluated work (and its value) is caused, that is, the so-called "created" (which can also be translated as "created"), is also an important issue that cannot be separated. Heidegger later reluctantly admitted: "Even it seems almost like this. When we pursue the self-reliance of a work as purely as possible, we completely ignore one thing, that is, a work is always a work-not something created" (page 40). "No matter how earnestly we ask about the self-reliance of a work, if we don't understand that a work of art is a finished product, we won't find its reality ... The work factor of a work is that it is. "Under the pressure of this fact, we have to deeply understand the artist's activities before we can reach the origin of the works of art" has proved that it is not feasible to describe the existence of the works completely according to the works themselves (page 4 1-42).

However, all Heidegger's arguments show that he still discusses artists from the standpoint of artistic works. "The essence of creation is determined by the essence of works" (page 44). He didn't ask: Who created art? But just ask dynamically: how are works of art created? He said airily: "Just because the created existence emerges from the work doesn't mean that the work must be written by a famous artist. Whether a creative work can be regarded as a masterpiece of a master and whether its creator is expected by the public is not the key to the problem. The key is not to find out the author whose name is unknown. ..... It was at that time that no one knew the artist and the process and conditions of this work, and this momentum was created by this "event" (note: Daβ, translated as "this one" in Chinese, the meaning is not clear, as if it were translated as "event" or "situation". ) appears in the works most purely "(page 49). It seems that the problem only involves such trivial things as the author's "reputation". But in fact, an artist becomes an artist not because he is famous, but because of what he created and how he created his works. In the final analysis, even if the artist does not appear in his works, or even "anonymously", what we see in his works is not the artist himself. In his article, Heidegger devotes himself to distinguishing artistic works from the making of artifacts, and on the other hand, distinguishes the truth generated in works ("unmasking" or "unmasking") from the usual concept of truth ("conformity"). But what is the difference between "good" (great) works of art and "bad" works of art? Besides, he chose Van Gogh and Holderlin as examples of his "great artists". To what extent is it because of their fame? What is the difference between Van Gogh's "Peasant Shoes" and a pair of shoes drawn by others, or even a photo of a pair of shoes?

Obviously, when Heidegger put the artist and the subject in brackets from the standpoint of phenomenology in order to distinguish himself from humanism (and the "existentialism" and "romanticism" associated with it), he has blocked the way to answer the above questions. The standard of art (including the standard of art and non-art, the standard of good art and poor art) can only be the standard of human nature, and talking about art (artwork) without people will inevitably fall into empty talk. Of course, Heidegger did not completely abandon people. He also said that in his definition of the essence of art, "art is set as the truth of works by itself", and "who" or "how to set" is a problem that has never been stipulated but can be stipulated, so it "implies the connection between existence and human nature" (page 70); However, he regards people (artists) only as a tool for art itself to realize its own "creativity" (just as "existence" is just a window into absolute "existence"); Although the existence of a work of art is "created by the artist", fundamentally speaking, it does not belong to the artist or other people, but exists independently in another place. This is a kind of existence, truth and history beyond human beings: "Art is the history in the fundamental sense" (6 1 page), that is, the history of truth itself. Grasping this point is the entrance to understand Heidegger's aesthetic thought as a whole.

It is not difficult to find how similar Heidegger's position is to Hegel's! Marx's criticism of Hegelians can also be applied to Heidegger: "History has done nothing, it has' no endless richness' and it has' never fought any wars'! It is not' history' that creates, owns and struggles for all this, but people, real living people. History' is not a special personality that uses people as tools to achieve their goals. History is only the activity of people who pursue their own goals. " (Note: Holy Family, Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 2, p. 1 18. Indeed, Heidegger's "art" and "works of art", "existence", "history" ("historic nation") and "truth" are all "personified" just like Hegel's "absolute spirit"; The only difference is that they do not lead to purely abstract logical concepts like Hegel, but belong to some primitive realm of "Erd", that is, "the unity of man and nature". Heidegger called "the earth" "the thing on which people build their homes", "the hiding place of all emerging people" and "the protector", and it "appears as a base like home" (page 26). On top of it, the world was established, just like a drama performed on the stage. But it is the work (page 28), that is, art, that establishes the world as the world and makes it "marginal". Therefore, "standing on the earth and in the earth, human beings in history have established their residence in the world." "Because of the establishment of a world, the work created the earth", that is, "the work moved the earth itself into the open field of a world and kept it in it. Works make the earth become the earth "(page 30). It is worth noting that this difference from Hegel has just narrowed the distance between Heidegger and Marx. Marx said in Economics-Philosophical Manuscripts 1844:

When people standing on the solid earth inhale and exhale all natural forces, and reality and form create their own realistic and objective essential forces as dissidents through their own externalization, this creation is not the subject: it is the subject of objective essential forces, so the role of these essential forces must also be objective. Objective existence is an objective movement. As long as its essential provisions do not contain objective things, it is impossible to move objectively. It can create or create objects only because it is created for objects, because it is natural. Therefore, it does not mean that it turned from its own "pure activity" to the creation of objects in its founding activities, but that its objective product only confirmed its objective activities and confirmed that its activities were the activities of objective and natural beings. (Note: Marx: Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts 1844, translated by Liu Pikun, People's Publishing House 1979, p. 120. )

Obviously, Heidegger and Marx stand on the same ground that the earth is nature (Heidegger called nature "emergence" according to its ancient Greek meaning, see page 26), and the creation of works is just the emergence of the earth. But there are two totally different things, namely: 1) In Marx's view, the realistic and tangible "man" (rather than the abstract "historical man") is a hub. This "man" is not opposite to the earth, but the subjective embodiment of the essential power of the earth itself. It is precisely because of this that his "work" (the object of creation), on the other hand, says that Heidegger's earth is "self-locked" for man, and only his work "takes the earth as a self-locked thing and brings it into an open field" (page 3 1), in other words. No wonder he wants to be an "anti-humanist" (Note: Heidegger said in "Letters on Humanism": "All the highest humanitarian provisions about human nature have not yet known the true dignity of human beings", because the higher dignity of human beings only lies in "human beings are the caregivers of existence" (see Selected Works of Sun Zhouxing, Volume 1, Shanghai Sanlian Bookstore1. But he also admitted that in a sense, his thoughts can also be called "humanitarianism". "In this humanitarianism, it is not man, but the historical essence of man starting from the truth of existence in his origin" (ibid., p. 386). "Human nature is of great significance to the truth of existence, so things are not only decided by people" (ibid., p. 386). Marx has already transformed this "subject" which is opposite to the object into "subjectivity of objective essential power", that is, the natural unity of man and nature, and "man is a direct natural existence", so Marx's humanism (humanitarianism) is also naturalism. In this sense, "only naturalism can understand the activities of world history" (note: Marx: 188)). 2) Because of this, Marx did not reject "objective existence" and even refused to create "objective essential power" of human beings as alien forces, although this led to the "dispute" between Heidegger's so-called "world" (that is, secular life) and "earth" (nature). Alienation is a core issue that Marx and Heidegger think together, and they both deeply see the inevitability and inevitability of alienation ("fate"). However, their attitudes towards alienation are fundamentally different. Marx regards "industry" and its "objective existence" as "the unfolding of human essential strength, which is placed in front of us emotionally, and human psychology", and thinks that "industry is nature, so it is also the historical relationship between natural science and human reality. ..... the kind of nature formed through industry-although in the form of alienation-is the real and anthropological nature "(Note: Marx:" 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts ",translated by Liu Pikun, People's Publishing House 1979, p. 80-8 1 page. ), and advocate sublating alienation through the thorough development of this alienation itself, and finally achieve "man regards his comprehensive essence as himself in a comprehensive way, that is, as a complete person" (Note: Marx: "1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts", translated by Liu Pikun, People's Publishing House 1979, the first. ); On the contrary, Heidegger attributed alienation to people's "forgetting" of existence (although this kind of forgetting is inevitable in history), and "this preconceived idea hinders the meditation on the existence of existing people", so the key is to change the way of thinking and "let things stay in their own existence without interference" (page 15). For this reason, Heidegger put forward that works of art are actually a fundamental way to reveal their own existence and make "the world and the earth in conflict enter an uncovered state" (page 39), that is, the way of truth, because art is to open the original relationship between everything and the earth in conflict, which is both a creative poem and a real thought. In Heidegger's view, the conflict between the world and the earth, the conflict between modern technology and nature or existence itself, and the alienation phenomena such as "shelf", "crack" and "fixation" cannot be eliminated or discarded, but their cover and disguise can be removed to reveal their own foundation (the earth). Therefore, on the issue of alienation, Marx's fundamental position is practical, that is, "transforming the world" rather than just "explaining the world"; Heidegger's fundamental position is cognition, and devoting himself to practice and creation is only a way to know the truth (or let the truth appear). He even thinks that the original intention of the Greek word technology and art (τ ε υ η) never refers to some practical activity, but refers to a way of understanding (Wissen) (page 43). It can be seen that his bones did not go beyond the basic points of traditional epistemological aesthetics and reflective aesthetics that he despised (note: we only need to look at his sentence, which is quite "classical": "A work of art is by no means the reproduction of an individual existence that is always at hand, on the contrary, it is the reproduction of the universal essence of things" (page 20). Is it like Hegel's language? ), he doesn't want to change anything through the creation of art and history, but just wants to "recall" the hidden truth in existing things so that people can "guard".

Therefore, it is impossible for Heidegger to answer the question "What is art" from the truth of art itself. Because of his metaphysical and epistemological artistic problems from the beginning, people's perceptual activities, practice, production and the manufacture of instruments have only secondary and often negative significance in his aesthetics, rather than the key to solving the "art mystery".

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Another bad consequence of Heidegger's putting "people" in brackets on artistic issues is that he also puts the relationship between people (social relations) in brackets. If we say that his exposition of "basic ontology" in "Being and Time" also regards "Being-Being-World-Being" as "the basic mechanism of existence" (Note: See "Being and Time", translated by Chen Jiaying Wang Qingjie, Joint Publishing Company 1987, P.), then In this respect, he accepted the traditional thinking about the relationship between works and things (before Marx), and thought that "works are things that exist in nature" or "things" is self-evident. The only problem is that "works of art are far more than material factors, they are other things" (page 3), so these "material factors" must be regarded as such "other things". So, what is the "something else" that the work wants to express?

Heidegger explained through Van Gogh's painting of "farm shoes" that this "otherness", this "unusual thing" and this "thing that surprises the mind" are the "existence" and "truth" of things or appliances (page 19). From Van Gogh's Peasant Shoes, we can see "the hardship of labor", "echoing the silent call of the earth", "gifts", "hibernation", "saturated with anxiety about bread stability and silent joy in overcoming poverty", which means trembling in labor pains and trembling when death approaches (17 page). This is equivalent to saying that a work of art ("poetry in a broad sense") expresses "poetry". This is not a new idea. We already know this without Heidegger reminding us. What is novel is that he called this kind of poem "the existence of artifacts", which is the "unmasking" and "preserving the original" of the root of the earth in artifacts. The so-called "keeping as it is" or "preserving" is of course aimed at misunderstanding, interference and habitual vision of people or subjects. People must get rid of these subjective opinions and adopt an objective attitude of "taking things as things" or "things" (although Heidegger dislikes using this word very much) in order to make "truth" "accept us" (page 23). It can be seen that Heidegger still views the essence of works of art in the relative relationship between subject and object, and between man and object: what works of art "reflect" is nothing more than the "reality" of "being" watched as an object; It's just that this object is not really opposed to the subject, but the same source of * * * before the subject and object are differentiated (similar to Schelling's "absolute"). From the traditional point of view, this has not made much progress. Fundamentally speaking, he even regressed to the Leibniz aesthetics before Kant. But Kant has pointed out that a lonely person will not have any interest in decoration and art on a desert island, and only in society will he need art in order to convey his feelings to others (note: see section 4 1 of Critique of Judgment). ); Hegel also pays attention to the social relationship between people everywhere in his aesthetics: in the content of artistic ideal, he examines the "sacred thing" as an "ethical entity" and "general world situation", "situation", "action" and "plot", while in the artistic form, it is the "humanized" relationship between man and nature and between man and others. )。 In their view, art is by no means a "generation" or "work" of some "truth" that leaves the relationship between people.

Now let's take a look at how Marx views this problem. First of all, it should be noted that Marx's philosophical revolution generally begins with understanding "things" as "relationships". Marx said: "Where there is a certain relationship, this relationship exists for me. Animals have nothing to do with anything, nothing at all; For animals, its relationship with other things does not exist as a relationship. Therefore, consciousness is the product of society from the beginning, and as long as people exist, it will still be this product "(Note: German Ideology, Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 3, page 34. )。 Engels said in Karl Marx's Critique of Political Economy: "Economics studies not things, but the relationships between people", "But these relationships are always combined with things and appear as things" (Note: Marx: Introduction to the preface of Critique of Political Economy, People's Publishing House, 197 1 year. ), explained Marx's above position from the angle of economics. The same is true of general science, art and so on. For example, Marx said: "Even when I engage in scientific activities, that is, when I engage in activities that can be directly carried out with others only in rare circumstances, I am also engaged in social activities because I am active as a human being" (Noe: Marx: "1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts", translated by Liu Pikun, People's Publishing House 65438. )。 In these activities, "the thing itself" becomes "the objective and personal relationship with itself and people", because "only when things have a relationship with people in a humane way can I treat things in a humane way in practice" (Note: Marx: 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, translated by Liu Pikun, human. )。 "So social people and non-social people feel different. Just because of the objective richness of human nature and the subjective richness of human sensibility, that is, the ears that feel music and the eyes that feel formal beauty. In short, those feelings that can feel people's happiness and confirm that they are the essential strength of people are either developed or produced. " (Note: Marx: "1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts", translated by Liu Pikun. )。 In Marx's view, works are the objectified products of human's essential power, so human's essence, namely "class" or social relations, is emotionally condensed in works (because human's essence "in its reality" is "the sum of all social relations" (Note: See Article 6 of the Outline on Feuerbach. ), what people see in their works is not the isolated and abstract "truth is set by themselves" or "truth happened", but the establishment and occurrence of human beings as "classes", which is the evidence that I am essentially the same as "another person". This also applies to general production in the original sense (not in the sense of alienation), including what Heidegger called "appliance manufacturing", because in this kind of manufacturing, "in my personal life expression, I directly created your life expression, so in my personal activities, I directly confirmed and realized my true essence, that is, my human essence and the essence of my society" (Note: Marx and Engels).

This opened Heidegger's confusing relationship between art and production. Heidegger asked: "How can the production of creation be distinguished from the production of production methods?" His answer (page 42) is that works of art are "a way of truth" (page 44), while handicraft products (utensils) are not. Of course, the appliance itself also has its "appliance existence", but this appliance gradually wears away in use and becomes "boring and useful" (18 page); In works of art, "the existence of artifacts reveals the truth" (page 19), which is "preserved". But we have to ask: whose truth? To whom "reveal the truth"? Where is the "rescue"? We can't answer: the maker (craftsman) of utensils. Because although everyone can be a maker, it is impossible for everyone to be an artist. But we can't answer: artists. Because in Heidegger's view, the artist did not confirm his essence in his works, Ning Wu said, "He is like a channel of self-extinction in his creation". This statement will inevitably make us feel as if a mysterious and superb eye from the other side of the world saved the "appliance existence" from top to bottom. In Marx's view, it has become very clear that it is not art that reveals the existence of all utensils and "objects" from the sky, but the production and manufacture of utensils itself has a certain degree of artistry (and self-revelation) in its original sense from the beginning, so people not only "know how to produce according to the scale of any species, but also can measure objects with the inherent scale anytime and anywhere; Therefore, people also shape objects according to the laws of beauty "(Note: Marx: 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, translated by Liu Pikun, People's Publishing House 1979, p. 5 1. )。 Therefore, the manufacture of appliances is not simple and boring "usefulness" from the beginning, on the contrary, it is "a mirror reflecting our essence", "My labor is the expression of free life, so it is the joy of life" (Note: The Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 42, pp. 37-38. )。 Only with the development of division of labor and the appearance of alienation in production labor, the artistic factors in household appliances manufacturing gradually separated from the production process and became a special production activity dedicated to expressing "free life", that is, art, while production labor itself was evacuated, losing rich perceptual content and becoming more and more naked "usefulness" (Note: See Deng Xiaomang and Yi Zhongtian: Symphony of Yellow and Blue, the first. )。 Therefore, Heidegger's so-called "oblivion of existence" is not a misunderstanding of human understanding, but the necessity of self-alienation of human lifestyle, and it can only be overcome through the change of this lifestyle itself, that is, the change of interpersonal relationship reflected by the relationship between people and things in production, rather than through the "uncovering" of understanding.

Therefore, in Heidegger's view, it is necessary to set a "god". Heidegger put forward the view that the "four-fold whole" of "heaven, earth, god and man" is inseparable in his later period. Here, "heaven" means "empty land of spirit", "land" is the origin of residence (nature), "God" is the implied messenger of divinity, and "man" is based on his "dying". See also "Take it easy", ibid., p. 1234. )。 After his death, he said, "Only one God can save us." "God" has changed from plural to singular, and "the dead" can no longer "guard" anything calmly. What he can do is to "prepare for the appearance or absence of God in decline; We look forward to a God who will never appear or decline "(note: architecture, life and thinking, see the following Selected Works of Heidegger, Volume 2, page 1 192; See also "Take it easy", ibid., p. 1306. )。 As for art, it seems that it is no longer "truth is set as a work by itself". On the contrary, "where art occupies is a problem" and "I can't see the guide of modern art" (note: architecture, life and thinking, see Selected Works of Heidegger, Volume 2, page 1 192; See also "Take it easy" on page1316-1317. )。 If I know this, why should I know it? A passage from Marx seems to be a footnote for Heidegger's transformation: "People who live by the kindness of others think they are subordinate beings. However, if I not only rely on others to maintain my life, but also create my life, and others are the source of my life, then I live entirely by the kindness of others; And if my life is not created by myself, then my life must have such a foundation outside me. Therefore, it is difficult to exclude the concept of creation from people's consciousness. People's consciousness can't understand the existence of nature and people's dependence on themselves, because this dependence on themselves is contradictory to all obvious facts in real life. "