Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations Used for Works by Heidegger
- A Note on the Notes (Redux)
- Introduction
- 1 Understanding Ontotheology, or “The History that We Are”
- 2 Heidegger's Critique of Modern Aesthetics
- 3 Heidegger's Postmodern Understanding of Art
- 4 “Even Better than the Real Thing”?
- 5 Deconstructing the Hero
- 6 The Philosophical Fugue
- 7 The Danger and the Promise of Heidegger, an American Perspective
- 8 Against Conclusions
- References
- Index
8 - Against Conclusions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations Used for Works by Heidegger
- A Note on the Notes (Redux)
- Introduction
- 1 Understanding Ontotheology, or “The History that We Are”
- 2 Heidegger's Critique of Modern Aesthetics
- 3 Heidegger's Postmodern Understanding of Art
- 4 “Even Better than the Real Thing”?
- 5 Deconstructing the Hero
- 6 The Philosophical Fugue
- 7 The Danger and the Promise of Heidegger, an American Perspective
- 8 Against Conclusions
- References
- Index
Summary
Nothing ever ends.
Dr. Manhattan, in Moore and Gibbons's WatchmenCuriosity and idle chatter, in their ambiguity [that is, in the way they uproot concepts from the phenomena that give them their true meaning], ensure that what is genuinely and newly created is outdated as soon as it emerges before the public. It can first become free in its positive possibilities only when the idle chatter covering it over has become ineffectual and the “common” interest has died away.
Heidegger (BT 218/SZ 174)As a vague but trendy ideological buzzword, “postmodernism” had its heyday in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, running its course through humanities departments like the proverbial bull through the china shop, shattering established literary traditions (much as Watchmen deconstructed the hero) until finally even postmodernism's most enthusiastic early proponents began to turn against it, loudly proclaiming the “end of theory” and calling for a return to the simple reading of literature (as if there had ever been any such “simple reading” in literature departments, and “literature” and “theory” had not always walked down the halls of the academy with their hands entwined). Today many mainstream philosophers seem relieved to have weathered the postmodern storm more or less unscathed. Some even evince an unmistakable air of superiority for not having allowed themselves to get caught up in the culture wars (as if defending a tradition against various “postmodern” critiques, usually by trying to ignore them, was not itself to take a side).
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- Heidegger, Art, and Postmodernity , pp. 213 - 220Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011