![]() ![]() She writes:īecause of their outstanding permanence, works of art are the most intensely worldly of all tangible things their durability is almost untouched by the corroding effect of natural processes, since they are not subject to the use of living creatures, a use which, indeed, far from actualizing their own inherent purpose - as the purpose of a chair is actualized when it is sat upon - can only destroy them. ![]() ![]() In her enormously influential 1958 book The Human Condition ( public library), Arendt considers the function of art in human life - particularly its role in assuaging our irreconcilable longing for permanence in a universe defined by constant change. One of the most insightful and life-expanding answers comes from Hannah Arendt (October 14, 1906–December 4, 1975) - a thinker who resisted the label “philosopher” as she produced and invited uncommonly potent thinking on such timely and timeless matters as lying in politics, our impulse for self-display, the power of outsiderdom, the crucial difference between truth and meaning, and what free will really means. But the question of what those differences are and why they matter - a question which philosophers and physicists alike have attempted to answer - remains a perennial perplexity. Art and science, despite their significant creative sympathies, have undeniably different roles in the human experience. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |