Reflection 4

Do Artworks Communicate Truth?

This is a complicated to answer because different people have different interpretations of what “truth” is. If there is no sole definition or even understanding of what one means by “truth” then it is most certainly hard to answer a question that ponders about the relationship between artworks and truth. That being said, I think it wise to first accept that there is more than one kind of truth, both of which involve different sources of information. In Heidegger’s essay he makes a distinction between what is true and false, and what is true and untrue, “By truth is usually meant this or that particular truth. That means: something true. A cognition articulated in a proposition can be of this sort…Truth means the nature of the true. We think this nature in recollecting the Greek word aletheia, the unconcealedness of beings” (Cahn & Meskin 354). I think that, simplified, that propositional sort of truth can be called fact-based truth: the real world/historical truth of an object/being; and knowledge-based truth: a sort of logical understanding about an object/being. Heidegger believes that the nature of art is to show us knowledge-based truth, and it does so by revealing the whole of the object/being, not merely its qualities and functional uses. To use an example that Heidegger uses himself, we can consider the painting of a pair of shows by Van Gogh. The factual truth behind the shows is that he bought the shoes in a market and for some reason could not wear them, so he painted them. This is fact-based truth and it tells us nothing but how the artwork came to be, nothing that is philosophically interesting. It is the case that when one looks at the painting they see more than how they came to be. They may generate ideas about the time period the shoes existed in, the occupation and gender of the owner, the kind of location the shoes are in and much more. This is knowledge-based truth being unconcealed, truth that encapsulates more than the shoes themselves can present. This is the case because if one is presented the real shoes they will merely focus on the qualities the shoes possess and the equipmental uses of the shoes. The presentation of the shoes in a work of art allows one to look past those things and see a broader truth about the shoes that is unconcealed through its presentation as a work of art.

If we are to say that artworks communicate truth then it is such the case that they only communicate knowledge-based truth, even though there is fact-based truths that exists for the work of art. This; however, is not to suggest that the artwork itself contains truth. If this were the case then when people looked at a work of art there would be a great deal of uniformity in what kinds of things are seen in a particular work of art. Artworks reveal truth to the viewer, but what is revealed is potentially different between individuals. This phenomena is addressed by Aristotle and Nietzsche’s treatment of the genre of tragedy. Both philosophers regard tragedy as the full potential of art and, to my belief, come to a similar conclusion about what it is that tragedy does. Nietzsche specifically believes that truth something ugly because humans innately want to express their will to live but the world is a place that suppresses that will and is hostile and inhospitable. Art is the strategy used to distort the way in which the world is presented to us. Tragedy, thus, is the best form of art that accomplishes this. Aristotle believes artworks communicate a diluted truth; however, artworks refer/remind us of the “real” truths. Tragedy does this best because it presents characters that are better than actual humans in such a length that the viewer can consider the entire tragic play (making it better than epic poetry).

The agreement between Aristotle and Nietzsche is here: tragedies present an intelligible order to the viewer which deals with some topic or other. The viewer is then drawn into the events because the tragedy evokes immersive feelings within the viewer. After the events are played out the viewer is then set free from the emotions experienced and able to refer back to truth presented in the tragedy. Aristotle explains this by describing what makes a good tragedy in a play while Nietzsche explains the relationship between the Apollinian and Dionesian aspects within tragedy. In Aristotle’s analysis of good tragedies he says that the plot is presented in a reasonable and believable order while simultaneously producing feelings of pity and fear. Nietzsche’s analysis relates the Apollinian to a feeling of joy which gives way to reflection while the Dionesian is related to a feeling of ecstasy and absorbs the viewer into the object/being. Both philosophers claim that it is the fusion of these elements that make tragedies so great: presenting an object/being in an intelligible order while at the same time immersing us in feeling and emotion. Aristotle says that through catharsis, the release of the feelings, we are able to reflect and think about the truth presented in tragedy. Nietzsche claims that this distortion of the real world allows us to accept the world, or in other words take in the truths while avoiding the hostile nature of the world. What Heidegger, Aristotle, and Nietzsche all show is that it is not the artwork itself that contains the truth, but through art we are reminded and able to contemplate the truths of the world that are revealed to us through the presentation of beings and objects in works of art.