University of Helsinki, Helsinki 2007

At the Limits of Presentation

Coming-into-Presence and its Aesthetic Relevance in Jean-Luc Nancy's Philosophy

Martta Heikkilä

Doctoral dissertation, January 2007.
University of Helsinki, Faculty of Arts, Institute for Art Research.

This study investigates the significance of art in Jean-Luc Nancy's philosophy. I argue that the notion of art contributes to some of Nancy's central ontological ideas. Therefore, I consider art's importance in its own right - whether art does have ontological significance, and if so, how one should describe this with respect to the theme of presentation. According to my central argument, with his thinking on art Nancy attempts to give one viewpoint to what is called the metaphysics of presence and to its deconstruction. On which grounds, as I propose, may one say that art is not reducible to philosophy?

The thesis is divided into two main parts. The first part, Presentation as a Philosophical Theme, is a historical genesis of the central concepts associated with the birth of presentation in Nancy's philosophy. I examine this from the viewpoint of the differentiation between the ontological notions of "presentation" and "representation" by concentrating on the influence of Martin Heidegger and Jacques Derrida, as well as of Hegel and Kant. I give an overview of the way in which being - or "sense" for Nancy - is to be described as a "coming-into-presence" or "presentation". Therefore, being takes place in its singular plurality. I argue that Nancy redevelops Heidegger's account of being in two principal ways: first, in rethinking the ontico-ontological difference, and secondly, by striving to radicalize the Heideggerian concept of Mitsein, "being-with". I equally wish to show the importance of Derrida's notion of différance and its inherence in Nancy's questioning of being that rests on the unfoundedness of existence.

The second part, From Ontology to Art, draws on the importance of art and the aesthetic. If, in Nancy, the question of art touches upon its own limit as the limit of nothingness, how is art able to open its own strangeness and our exposure to this strangeness? My aim is to investigate how Nancy's thinking on art finds its place within the conceptual realm of its inherent difference and interval. My central concern is the thought of originary ungroundedness and the plurality of art and of the arts. As for the question of the difference between art and philosophy, I wish to show that what differentiates art from thought is the fact that art exposes what is obvious but not apparent, if "apparent" is understood in the sense of givenness. As for art's ability to deconstruct Nancy's ontological notions, I suggest that in question in art is its original heterogeneity and diversity. Art is a matter of differing - art occurs singularly, as a local difference. With this in mind, I point out that in reflecting on art in terms of spacing and interval, as a thinker of difference Nancy comes closer to Derrida and his idea of différance than to the structure of Heidegger's ontological difference.

The title page of the publication

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Last updated 04.01.2007