Heidegger 's View On The Essence Of Art And Its Overcoming Of Nihilism

Martin Heidegger(1889–1976) was one of the most influential, innovative and controversial philosophers of the twentieth century. His insights on the art surpass the traditional thought and exert a lasting influence on aesthetics, philosophy and even the whole Western thought circle. The meaning of art in Heidegger’s literature is obviously not the general one of aesthetic art understood by the ordinary. Heidegger rarely mentioned aesthetic art in his early literature. Later Heidegger talked about the art through the occurrence of the existence of the truth. From the appliances to the arts, the poetry, and the issue of language, this chain constitutes the main line of Heidegger’s thought which is parallel with the overcoming of the traditional metaphysics from the 1920 s to the 1950 s. Only through the perspective of overcoming of the traditional metaphysics can we understand the nature of art put by Heidegger and the relevance between the nature of art and the overcoming of the traditional metaphysics.In Heidegger’s early literature, Nietzsche was not a major topic figure till the mid-1930 s. Heidegger delivered many lectures to interpret the thoughts of Nietzsche, and organized the lecture notes and theses into one of his masterpieces Nietzsche in which Heidegger summed up five propositions about art. The fourth proposition of the five not only relates to art and nihilism, but also contains the overcoming of nihilism.According to the arrangement of Nietzsche, the observation of the art was placed in the first chapter. Through the interpretation of "the will to power", the status of art was outstanding.In this way, Heidegger expressed his viewpoint of the essence of art and established a metaphysical image for Nietzsche. He agreed to Nietzsche’s view on nihilism as a historical movement. However, Heidegger considered that Nietzsche’s thought did not say farewell to the old metaphysics. Since the forgetting "Being" behind the nothingness of value, the path of the value based on the will, could not overcome nihilism. In fact, Heidegger’s attempt to overcome nihilism through the path of the existence also failed, but he provided valuable reference for the scholars and researchers.