Art and the Possibility of Breaking Away From Subjectivism in Heidegger’s Perspective

Like Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger considers the history of metaphysics to be the history of the development of nihilism. However, in Heidegger’s view, the situation of modern man, what has made human beings homeless, unlike what Nietzsche said, is not a construction of an imaginary world which we have imagined to be real and valuable, and through which we have deemed our worldly life and natural needs worthless. Heidegger argues that true nihilism is where metaphysics, through its subjective approach, confuses the Being and the beings in the background of what comes into presence, that is, the remaining beings, and thus forgets even the question of Being. Heidegger,therefore, considers metaphysical subjectivism to be the main element in the nihilistic state of modern man. Accordingly, the present study examines the question of the possibility of breaking away from subjectivism as our philosophical necessity today.

In addition to answering the question of what nihilism, metaphysics, and subjectivism are in Heidegger’s thought, the present article seeks to provide a critical account of art as a means of breaking away from subjectivism.

As to the content and objectives of this research, the descriptive method has been used.

Based onHeidegger’s interpretation of Hölderlin’s poem Mnemosyne in the essay What Are Poets For?, as well as his description of Paul Cézanne’s work, it is argued that through allowing the presence of nothingness in the work of art, the artist not only prepares the scene for the occurrence of the truth of Being but also eliminates the dichotomy between Being and beings by informing us about the distinction and make it a mysterious unity, thus enabling us to break away from subjectivism.