Art and Technology

Open Access
- Author:
- Doherty, Nathanael Joseph
- Area of Honors:
- Philosophy
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Arts
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Dennis Schmidt, Thesis Supervisor
Vincent M Colapietro, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Art
Technology
Heidegger
Gadamer
Weil
the Iliad - Abstract:
- The question that lies at the heart of this thesis concerns what the essence of technology and that of art consists of, where they are similar (and how), and where their paths diverge. To ground this discussion I have taken up Heidegger’s perusal of these matters in his essay “The Question Concerning Technology” where it is mainly the essence of technology that is considered. However, in that same essay he also presents a view of the essence of art as both a way of gathering insight concerning the essence of technology and also as presenting a challenge to that essence which to Heidegger seems fundamentally coercive and constrictive. From Heidegger’s remarks on art I move on to consider those of Gadamer who while not having precisely the same agenda as Heidegger serves, like Heidegger, to present the realm of art as a realm of self-coherent truth and as such resistant to the overbearing encroachments of technology. Next I proceed to a reading of Simone Weil’s essay entitled “The Iliad, or the Poem of Force” considering what a juxtaposition of force and the essence of technology share. This look at Weil’s essay also provides an avenue to look at the Iliad itself as a work of art and to consider how it bears out the claims of both Heidegger and Gadamer.