Appreciation of Art as a Perception Sui Generis: Introducing Richir’s Concept of “Perceptive” Phantasia

Abstract

In the Origin of the work of art, Heidegger claimed that the work of art opens to us the truth of Being, the opening of the world. Two problematics arise from this. First, his idea of “world-disclosure” evoked a sense of everydayness (which captures, for me, the idea of credulism in perception). Second, the senses of truth, Being, and world are metaphysically condensed. Hence the question: how then could the “truth of Being” or the “world” that artworks reveal be experienced? Among other ways (mimesis, imagination, perception, etc.) by which artworks are experienced, I choose to examine perception since it confirms this idea of everydayness. The questions that confront us to this effect are: can perception lead us into, to encounter, this world opened by artworks? Does the nervous/visual system suffice to enter into that world in which the artist invites us? This is where Richir becomes important. In response to the first problem, he shows that the “perception” (experience) of artworks is beyond mere everydayness since artworks open for us a world that “never was” and “never will be” (i.e., “virtuality” and not a veridical sense of everydayness as captured in the perceptive act that is object-related). This is because the material stuff or object given in perception is neutralized by the phantasia to become what Richir calls Sache. This Sache is in itself a phenomenon that is disclosed in artworks. In response to the second problem, Richir shows how artworks cannot disclose just metaphysical categories of Being, truth, or world. The disclosure has to be phenomenological, corporeal, and affective. He therefore proposes another mode of “perception” beyond mere perception in a revolutionary interpretation of the husserlian “perceptive” phantasia. With this, he shows how the aforementioned metaphysical condensations are liveable in experience. I concretize this with an illustration from the theater. Finally, I suggest participation as a phenomenological approach that can make both Heidegger’s and Richir’s intuitions meaningful.

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