A Weak Ontology: Heidegger and the work of art in the half-light of truth

Abstract

This essay aims to provide sufficient theoretical support for the justification of a weak ontology, a concept applied in the sense advocated by the Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo, starting from the phenomenological approach to artwork conducted by Martin Heidegger in The origin of the work of art (1936). To achieve this goal, this work is divided into two main moments: firstly, a characterization of the work of art is carried out through an analysis of the aforementioned Heideggerian text, aiming to develop the main concepts related to the artwork as an ontological event. The artwork, by establishing a World and elaborating the Earth, highlights the original conflict between them, along with what Heidegger refers to as the “clearing of Being” – Lichtung –, an opening that illuminates beings and allows any possible unconcealedness – ἀλήθεια. However, the illumination/opening provided by the Lichtung is not absolute, resulting in a mixture of unconcealedness and concealedness, an experience of “half light”, i. e., a domain where clarity and identity essentially occur as well as obscurity and deception. In the second moment of the essay this phenomenologically obtained concept of “half-light” truth is applied in order to contemplate the overcoming of traditional metaphysics in terms of a weak ontology.