For the Sake of Truth: A Discussion of Heidegger's Thought on Art

Heidegger's essay "The Origin of the Work of Art" contains difficult and often ambiguous concepts . This thesis attempts to clarify Heidegger's thoughts on works of art. The discussion begins with an examination of what Heidegger means by truth. The determination is that a thin .g's meaning in relation to our existence and what that meaning reveals about us constitutes Heideggerian truth. The disclosure of truth requires an encounter which allows things to direct us as to what they are . The possibility of our being directed is dependent upon the establishing of certain conditions. Equipment , science , technology, and language are investigated to determine whether or not they are able to establish the conditions which are necessary for the disclosure of truth. The conclusion is that they are not because they fall victim to our directives when we encounter them . Works of art are those things which are able to establish the necessary conditions for a proper encounter with things. Since things other than works of art are subject to our directives, artworks have become the only things which are able to disclose truth. This claim finds support through analysis of Heidegger's works "The Origin of the Work of Art", "The Essence of Truth" , and "The Question Concerning Technology" and through a critical examination of commentaries on those works.

his essays "On the Essence of Truth" and "The Question Concerning Technology" are explored to help clarify his thought on works of art.
I attempt to explain Heideggerian truth in terms of existence , living. The discussion of truth then moves to an explanation of how it is attainable during our encounters with things.
Heidegger's understanding of truth is not grounded in the leading interpretations of truth which determine truth through observation , sensation, or utility . Since Heideggerian truth requires that we be directed by the object , it becomes necessary to establish the conditions under which such an encounter becomes possible.
Before claiming that works of art are the only things which provide for a proper encounter with things, an encounter in which we are directed by the thing, it was necessary to explain why things other than works of art do not provide a proper encounter .
Equipment, science, technology , and language are evaluated m terms of the conditions necessary for the disclosure of truth . The result of the examination is that each falls victim to our directives of will during our common encounters with them.
Works of art, however , remove us from our common encounter with things. Thus removed , we are free to be directed by things .
Works of art thereby become the only things which disclose truth.

IV
The discussion of the artwork includes an explanation of how works are able to achieve the conditions necessary for the disclosure of truth. Throughout my discussion , I have attempted to dissolve some of the ambiguity of Heidegger's thought. I hope that I have been successful in my attempts.
V In order to understand Heidegger's thought on art , "The Origin of the Work of Art" should be read in conjunction with his essays "On the Essence of Truth" 2 and "The Question Concerning Technology" . 3 Read as a trilogy , the essays clarify Heidegger's understanding of truth and why this understanding is disclosed only m works of art.
For Heidegger , truth is dependent upon our expenencmg it.
Experiencing truth requires that we move out of our everyday way Martin Heidegger , "The Origin of the Work of Art ," in Martin Heidegger Basic Writing s, ed. by David Farrell Krell (New York: Harper & Row , Publishers , 1977) pp. 149-187.
All future references to this essay will be cited within the text. In this open relatedness we become directed by the thing instead of forcing our directives upon it. In order to receive the thing's directives, we must engage the object with a receptive and responsive state of mind and move into its truth. Since the encounter requires that we respond to the directives given, truth becomes a co-respondence between things and ourselves. Our response is actually a co-respondence because it is grounded in the relatedness between ourselves and the thing. Thus, truth depends on our letting the thing be the thing that it is, i.e. , viewing the thing as something independent from us yet related to us. Part of what a thing is includes how it exists or functions in relation to us.
Therefore, the truth that we experience is not just a truth of the thing, but it is also a truth of ourselves .
Things , equipment, and technology disable us from meeting the conditions necessary for experiencing truth. Our approach toward each of these is preconditioned and predetermined by their utility for us. Consequently, we are unable to enter into an open relatedness with them where we might be directed by them.
Instead, things, equipment, and technology surrender to our directives of controlling and utilizing. In such cases, we provide the directives. The event of truth, therefore, cannot happen with things, equipment, or technology.
Heidegger associates truth with language. For Heidegger , language is able to reveal truth when it reflects its origin. Language, however, has fallen victim to the technicity and utility which lay claim to things, equipment, and technology; we utilize language to make clear our directives.
Consequently , language is only able to reveal truth when it is poetic, thereby making it an artwork. Thus , the artwork becomes the only thing in which truth happens.
Heidegger sees works of art as those created things which are successful m bringing forth the event of truth through their createdness. Such created things achieve this by removing us from our everyday way of viewing things. Thus removed, we are able to be directed by things. The artwork opens a region of open relatedness, enabling us to meet the conditions necessary for the happening of truth.
Heidegger's redefining of art calls for a re-evaluation of the works which we have come to view as works of art. Heidegger does not understand artworks as being restricted to the fine arts. In fact, he may argue that some of the works which fall under this category are not really works of art at all because they do not bring about the event of truth. The theory's unwillingness to categorize artworks neatly clouds discussion and evaluation of the theory itself.
For this reason, we need to explain Heidegger's views of truth and to establish the conditions under which truth becomes accessible.
Our purpose is not to evaluate Heidegger's notion of truth but to understand it so that we may determine what a true Heideggerian artwork is. Next , we must examine why things other than works of art , specifically equipment and technology, fail to meet the conditions necessary for the event of truth. Finally, it is important that we come to an understanding of how artworks are able to disclose truth in order to distinguish them as works of art. Only after this accomplishment can we understand why artworks are the only means of disclosing truth.

I. TRUTH
At the closure of "On the Essence of Truth", Heidegger explains that "the course of the questioning [of truth] is intrinsically the way of a thinking which , instead of furnishing representations and concepts, experiences and tries itself as a transformation of its relatedness to Being."(Truth, 141) Truth therefore requires that we transform our everyday relationship with things. Heidegger views our common approach toward things as being insistent and aggressive whereby we force our directives upon the things that we encounter. Truth, by contrast, calls for a contemplative and responsive encounter wherein we let the thing direct us as to what it 1s. Truth is experienced; it is our entering into a relatedness with the thing we are encountering. The participation of the thing and of the discoverer m this relatedness leads Heidegger to describe truth as an event.
Truth depends upon our entering into agreement with the thing . Heidegger explains the possibility of our bringing ourselves into accordance with the thing in the following passage: What is stated by the presentative statement 1s said of the presented thing in just such manner as that thing, as presented, is. The "such as" has to do with the presenting and its presented. Disregarding all "psychological" preconceptions as well as those of any "theory of consciousness ," to present here means to let the thing stand opposed as object. As thus placed , what stands opposed must traverse an open field of opposedness [Entgegen] and nevertheless must maintain its stand as a thing and show itself as something withstanding [ein Standiges].
This appearing of the thing in traversing a field of opposedness takes place within an open region, the openness of which is not first created by the presenting but rather is only entered into and taken over as a domain of relatedness. Heidegger explains freedom's connection with truth m the following passage: Freedom, understood as letting beings be, is the fulfillment and consumation of the essence of truth in the sense of the disclosure of beings. "Truth" is not a feature of correct propositions which are asserted of an "object" by a human "subject" and then "are valid" somewhere, in what sphere we know not; rather, truth is disclosure of beings through which an openness essentially unfolds [west].
All human comportment and bearing are exposed in its open region.
Therefore man is in the manner of ek-sistence. (Truth,129) Truth now becomes the revelation of what it means to exist.
Freedom is being able to look onto the interplay between things and ourselves.
In the open reg10n , comportment involves the thing and ourselves.
Freedom lets the thing be the thing that it is by empowering it to direct us, but the thing only exists as the thing that it is in relation to us. That is, the disclosure that we encounter when we freely engage a thing in the openness of the open region 1s a disclosure of the thing and of our own existence. However, the disclosure depends upon the thing being free to stand opposed as the thing that it is and our being free to receive it as the thing that it is.
If we freely engage the thing, we experience it in its meaning and respond to that disclosure by reflecting upon it. Through this reflection is disclosed a truth of our existence. Therefore, the less we know of a thing, the more readily we let it be the thing that it is. Heidegger explains in the following passage: . . . where beings are not very familiar to man and are scarcely and only roughly known by science, the openedness of beings as a whole can prevail more essentially than it can where the familiar and well known has become boundless, and nothing 1s any longer able to withstand the business of knowing, since technical mastery over things bears itself without limit. Precisely in the leveling and planning of this omniscience, this mere knowing, the openedness of beings gets flattened out into the apparent nothingness of what is no longer even a matter of indifference but rather is simply forgotten. (Truth,131) Since the coin is a familiar object of utility for us, the question arises as to whether or not it is able to disclose truth. In his discussion of the Greek temple (Origin, 168), Heidegger indicates that it is possible for objects of utility to meet the conditions necessary for the disclosure of truth. Certainly, the temple can be viewed for its use value which lies in providing shelter for the gods and a place in which to worship them. Yet, Heidegger discusses the temple's ability to disclose truth. If there is a distinction between the coin and the temple, it may rest m the fact that the temple is no longer a familiar object of utility. It seems reasonable to suggest that the ancient Greeks did not experience a disclosure of truth when they went to temple because they approached with a predetermined directive. It is possible that the temple only discloses the Greek epoch to us because we do not utilize it and are thereby able to freely engage it. Although Heidegger does not directly address this issue , the preceding passage indicates that the coin may not be free to disclose truth because we ordinarily approach it for its use value.
We thereby force our directives onto the coin and fail to achieve the necessary distancing.
It , therefore , seems to be uncommon for familiar objects of utility to disclose truth.
Truth involves the thing being discovered and the discoverer. properties of the thing , thereby removing the thing from its context , its place m human existence. If we employ our previous example of the coin to this interpretation , we encounter the coin as metal , round, small , and flat. We experience the coin in a purely observational and thereby objective sense.
The second interpretation explains the thing as the unity of what is presented to the senses (Origin, 156), which brings the thing too close to us. This interpretation results in a preoccupation with how the thing affects us in that specific encounter with it; thus , we as individuals become the sole standard of the thing's truth . We now encounter the coin as hard , smooth , and shiny. We experience the coin in a purely sensational and thereby subjective sense. Heidegger explains the result of these two interpretations in the following passage: In both interpretations the thing vanishes. It is therefore necessary to avoid the exaggerations of both. The thing itself must be allowed to remain in its self-containment.
It must be accepted in its own constancy.
This the third interpretation seems to do, .... (Truth,157) The third interpretation views the thing as formed matter.(Origin , 157) Although this interpretation accepts things m their own constancy, Heidegger cautions that the fact that it has been taken as self-evident in modern investigation means that "it is an encroachment upon the thing-being of the thing . "(Origin, 160) This last interpretation results in a preconditioning of the expectations of the encounter with the thing, thereby limiting our receptivity to it.
By this interpretation we encounter the coin as a means of commerce.
We experience the coin purely through its use value and thereby in a utilitarian sense.
Heidegger's rejection of the leading interpretations of the thing centers around their inability to receive the thing as the thing that it 1s. So , when Heidegger tells us that the three interpretations of the thing and combinations thereof "preconceive all immediate experience" and thereby "shackle reflection" (Origin , 160), he means that these interpretations inhibit us from entering into the openness of the open region; thus, the freedom and attunement necessary for the disclosure of truth is not achieved . Being present in the openness requires that we listen to what the thing has to reveal and reflect upon what we have heard. The product of the thing's presentation and our reflection is truth. Thus , attaining truth from the thing reqmres our engagmg with its physical properties and the meaning of its existence.
The problem 1s that we readily approach things with a predetermined objective, thereby failing to bring ourselves into accord with all that they are as they exist. We are even more inclined to impose our directives onto equipment. This is because equipment is brought into existence only to meet our specific needs .
Therefore, our approach toward equipment is one of utility; we encounter equipment when we need to use it. As a result, we fail to encounter what the equipment means m its usefulness. The problem with merely describing, explaining, and reporting on the equipment is the same problem as the first interpretation of things. As we recall, that interpretation focused on the thing as the bearer of traits which resulted in removing the thing from its context. Observation alone also focuses on the external aspects of the equipment, thereby missing the meaning it has in our lives. The freedom which is necessary for the revelation of truth is not accomplished because we have already determined the mode of approach.
For example, if we approached the equipment with the intention of reporting on it, our approach would be prestructured according to the information needed in the report. Consequently, we are not free to engage the equipment nor reflect upon it , and it is not free to present itself as the thing that it is. If we had to report on an electric wheelchair, for example, we might look for the type of metal used to construct it, the battery voltage necessary to operate it, its maximum speed, weight capacity, etc.. However, this information will not lead us to discover the meanmg that the wheelchair has, but this meaning is as much a part of the wheelchair as are its external components.
Approaching equipment for utility results in a problem which IS similar to that of the third interpretation which views the thing as formed matter. As with this interpretation, utility focuses on our predetermined purpose for the encounter.
Using the wheelchair fails to lead us to its truth because in our using the chair we forget its composition.
That IS, we are focused on how well it accomplishes its purpose of moving us from place to place. In addition to limiting the freedom necessary for the openness of the open region, both observation and utilization of the equipment neglect to reflect upon it. If the truth of the wheelchair rests in its being the thing that it is as it exists then its truth is not just compositional or functional; it is also meaningful.
The wheelchair means freedom of movement and a sense of independence for the person who needs it, and this meaning is accomplished through its structure and function.
As observer and user we are imposing and nonreflective; therefore, we miss the whole of what the wheelchair is as it exists. are valid only in so far as they are recognized as revealing a limited aspect of the whole. When this is not the case, the freedom necessary for the disclosure of truth is not accomplished and "only it accomplishes for humanity that distinctive relatedness to being as a whole. " (Truth,129) The scientist is blinded by his/her ability to fit the object of his/her investigation neatly into an equation that is within his/her control (i .e., posited by him/her , calculated by him/her , and resolved by him/her).
Consequently The scientific method's limitations on truth are slightly different from those of the thing and of equipment. The reason for the difference is that the scientific method explicitly concentrates on a given aspect of the scientific object. The problem is that science accepts its truths as the truth of the totality of the scientific object.
The scientific method necessitates a preconditioned approach toward the object under investigation, and the directives of the approach have been predetermined by the scientist , thus violating the conditions necessary for a proper encounter. The freedom necessary for the object to present itself as the thing that it is cannot be established .
Likewise, the scientist 1s not free to be directed by the object.
The scientist is not in attunement with the disclosure of truth because he/she is not of an open or reflective state of mind. Rather, the scientist projects conditions and limitations onto the scientific project, thereby restricting its ability to reveal its totality and disabling the scientist's ability to encounter the object in its totality.
Since the scientist isolates aspects of the scientific object, establishes him/herself as the standard of measure, and preconditions the encounter, the scientific approach is exemplary of the inadequacies of the three leading interpretations of the thing. Heidegger talks about this type of approach toward things in the following passage: ... humanity replenishes its "world" on the basis of the latest needs and aims, and fills out that world by means of proposing and planning. From these man then takes his standards, forgetting being as a whole. .. . He is all the more mistaken the more exclusively ha takes himself, as subject, to be the standard for all beings. (Truth,134 & 135) Edward Ballard attempts to clarify the problem with science by detailing the scientific method. He explains that the scientific approach reqmres a "working over" of the object. consideration of the object as it exists as worked over. Thus, the scientific process falls out of perspective in that it is not recognized as a specified process but as a process which is capable of rendering evaluation of the totality.12 The problem is not just that we do not consider the object as "worked over" by the scientific approach.
It is also that we never consider the object before it is worked over. Man stands so decisively in attendance on the challenging-forth of enframing that he does not grasp enframing as a claim, that he fails to see himself as the one spoken to, and hence also fails in every way to hear in what respect he ek-sists ..... Where . enframing holds sway, regulating and securing of the standingreserve mark all revealing. They no longer even let their own fundamental characteristics appear , namely, this revealing as such. Thus the challenging-enframing not only conceals a former way of revealing, bringing-forth, but it conceals revealing itself and with it that wherein unconcealment, i.e., truth, comes to pass. Enframing blocks the shining-forth and holding sway of truth. (Technology,308 & 309) Heidegger sees technology as inherently restricting the revelation of truth. The problem with technology is similar to that of the scientific method because technology also requires that we set the directives of the encounter and force the object to meet our predetermined objective.
Truth, however, requires that we be free from willing our directives onto the encounter so that the object is free to direct us. The revelation of truth is not merely restricted through technology, but it 1s transformed. A motorboat uses energies to overcome the water. The currents and winds are seen as obstacles which must be surmounted . Motorboating attempts to dominate the water.
In sailboating, however, one utilizes currents and winds in order to move across the water.
The sailboat depends on the wind and current , and this dependency is recognized.
Thus , the sailboat is a thing of the water.(p . 49) effect.
Consequently, "man as the maker and producer occupies the center of causality: cause signifies the instrumentality of man." . . . where beings are not very familiar to man and are scarcely and only roughly known by science , the openedness of beings as a whole can prevail more essentially than it can where the familiar and well-known has become boundless, and nothing 1s any longer able to withstand the business of knowing , since technical mastery over things bears itself without limit. coin was revealed. Yet, the com 1s more than merely a means of commerce.
The possibility of our encountering the truth of the coin ,

however, depends upon our encountering the coin m an open reg10n
where it is free to direct us and we are free to be directed. In our prev10us discussion of the coin, we found that we were unable to encounter the coin freely when we imposed our directives of utility upon it, because this approach brings us too close to the coin. The word techne denotes rather a mode of knowing.
To know means to have seen, in the widest sense of seeing, which means to apprehend what is present , as such. For Greek thought the essence of knowing consists in aletheia, that is, in the revealing of beings.
It supports and guides all comportment toward beings. . . . to create is to let something emerge as a thing that has been brought forth. The work's becoming a work is a way m which truth becomes and happens.(Origin,

180)
Heidegger concludes that truth has to happen in such a thing as something created. (Origin,180) Walter Biemel explains that artists possess a kind of knowledge which "looks toward something not yet present in such a way that it makes it possible to give form to the work." It is this knowledge which distinguishes the artist from the handworker and technician . 22 To bring Biemel's explanation a step further, the artist's possession of such knowledge is necessary but so too is the created product. Heidegger describes earth as follows: It [physis] illuminates also that on which and in which man bases his dwelling. We call this ground the earth. What this word says is not to be associated with the idea of a mass of matter deposited somewhere, or with the merely astronomical idea of planet. Earth is that whence the arising brings back and shelters everything that arises as such. In the things that arise, earth occurs essentially as the sheltering agent.(Origin, 169) Upon the earth and in it, historical man grounds his dwelling in the world. (Origin, 171) R. Raj Singh interprets earth as the compamon to and ground of the world. 25 However, Joseph Smith describes earth as being rooted in untruth, a concealment, a withholding, 26 a principle opposing world. 27 He explains that we are of the earth and not merely on the earth. Therefore, earth is not merely a dwelling place; it is dwelling itself. 28 Of course, earth is most easily understood as nature and all that comes from it. However, none of these descriptions seems to reflect completely Heidegger's understanding of earth.
Heidegger describes earth as that upon which and within which we dwell; thus, earth seems to include nature and that which comes from it. Yet, Heidegger also says that it is that upon which we ground our dwelling in the world. In order for earth to provide a ground for dwelling in the world, it must have a constant aspect, for grounding requires a degree of stability, but nature is fluctuating.
That is, change is essential to nature. Consequently, Heidegger must Heidegger describes world as the following: World is never an object that stands before us and can be seen . World is the ever-nonobjective to which we are subject as long as the paths of birth and death , blessing and curse keep us transported into Being. Wherever those decisions of our Ibid., p. 185. Kockelmans,op. cit.,p. 170. disclosure of truth because the disclosure involves establishing a relationship between ourselves and other beings.
Smith suggests that the worlding of the world 1s one of disorder and chaos. 31 Although disorder and chaos may result from decisionmaking, tension seems more accurately to describe the worlding of the world. The tension exists between the stability of earth and the evolution of · world and between ourselves and other beings. The result is not absolutely or necessarily chaos and disorder.
Sing more accurately points out that the world worlds in a distinct way during a distinct historical era but that our relation with our world is historically constant.32 If world creates or opens the possibility for decision-making then that possibility must always exist, and as long as we make In the strife between earth and world each raises the other "into the self-assertion of their essential natures. "(Origin, 173) Strife refers to the tension which exists between earth and world. Things attempt to emerge as the things that they are as we attempt to force our directives onto them.
In our world, we succeed in directing things, thus, eliminating the strife. The work of art is able to bring forth the strife by setting up a world in which we cannot actually force our directives onto things.
In doing this, the artwork distances us from things yet places them m a context. This distancing enables us to enter into an open region where things are free to direct us and we are free to bring ourselves into accord with those directives . The artwork thereby accomplishes the conditions necessary for the disclosure of truth. This open center is therefore not surrounded by beings; rather , the lighting center itself encircles all that is, . .. Beings can be as beings only if they stand within and stand out within what is lighted in this lighting. Only this lighting grants and guarantees to us humans passage to those beings that we ourselves are not , and access to the being that we ourselves are. Thanks to this lighting, beings are unconcealed in certain changing degrees. And yet a being can be concealed, as well, only within the sphere of what is lighted. Each being we encounter and which encounters us keeps to this curious opposition of presencing in that it always withholds itself at the same time m a concealedness . (Origin ,175) Lighting happens as the double concealment of refusal and dissembling.
When presence only is known , the concealment 1s one of refusal. However, when the being presents itself as other than it 1s, as semblance, the concealment is in the form of The statue itself as a thing , a being , has no distinct meaning . As a work of art, its meaning as a thing gives way to the truth it embodies. Hence , Steiner's explanation of concealment is less adequate than Kockelman's.
An explanation of concealment which should be avoided associates earth with concealment. C.D. Keyes offers that, in the strife between earth and world , truth expresses itself through the 34 35 Steiner ,op . cit. ,p. 134. Ibid .,p. 135. world-earth dialectic.
In this dialectic earth's tendency 1s one of concealment and world's tendency is one of openness.  Schumacher,op. cit. ,p. 85. a work to let beings be the things that they are despite our insistence 1s inherent in all things which are works of art.
Heidegger employs Van Gogh's painting of shoes to illustrate the happening of truth in an artwork . Heidegger describes the truth disclosed by the painting in the following passage: From the dark opening of the worn insides of the shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth.
In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by a raw wind. On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil. Under the soles slides the loneliness of the fieldpath as evening falls. In the shoes vibrates the silent call of the earth, its quiet gift of the ripening grain and its unexplained self-refusal in the fallow desolation of the wintry field. This equipment is pervaded by uncomplaining worry as to the certainty of bread, the worldless joy of having once more withstood want, the trembling before the impending childbed and shivering at the surrounding menace of death. ( Thus , Heidegger has projected images into the painting .s2 Schapiro raises a significant point. Assuming he is correct , we must ask whether or not the individualized aspect of the shoes in the world of the peasant woman can be universalized through Heidegger's interpretation.
In other words, we are mqmnng as to whether or not the same truth of the shoes can emerge from their existing in a different world. If we interpret the world set up in the painting as a world of a town and city man, we can conclude that the pnmary meaning that the shoes holds for him is the same as that which they hold in the world of the peasant woman. Heidegger explain s the truth disclosed in the painting as follows: The peasant woman wears her shoes in the field . Only here are they what they are. They are all the more genuinely so, the less the peasant woman thinks about the shoes while she is at work , or looks at them at all , or is even aware of them . She stands and walks in them. Thi s is how shoes actually serve. It is in this process of the use of equipment that we must actually encounter the character of equipment. The truth of the shoes rests in their usefulness.
Heidegger explains that the peasant woman stands and walks in them and that is how they serve. The same is true of the town and city man, for they mean the same to his existence as they do for that of the peasant woman. The city man also stands and walks in his shoes; thus , they serve him in the same primary manner as they serve the peasant woman. All that Heidegger depicts in his imagery of the peasant woman's world is easily adapted to the world of the city man; yet, the meaning of the shoes remains the same. If we refer back to the conditions necessary for the disclosure of truth , we find that reflection is a necessary condition.
Heidegger indicates the need to reflect upon the painting in the following passage: As long as we only imagine a pair of shoes in general, or simply look at the empty, unused shoes as they merely stand there in the picture, we shall never discover what the equipmental being of the equipment in truth is. From Van Gogh's painting we cannot even tell where these shoes stand. . . . And yet -(Origin , 163) Here Heidegger IS acknowledging the need for reflection. Even he realizes that the shoes alone are not disclosing truth. The event of truth occurs because through the painting the openness of the open reg10n IS held open. We are thereby able to achieve attunement with the truth of the shoes because we are free to see them as something more than a piece of equipment ready for our using. Instead, we are able to reflect on what the shoes mean because there is no possibility of our using them; and their meaning is universal. Thus, we engage the truth of the piece of equipment and through that truth we also engage a truth about ourselves, for the shoes only have meaning because they are part of our world.
R. Raj Sing helps to explain that the painting does not only reveal the earth and world of the peasant woman but also the earth and world in general. Thus, the distinctive role of the painting "lies in revealing the worldhood of the world and the earthine ss of the earth , and not merely a specific world and a specific earth. "53 It seems that we have to accept this universal aspect of earth and world , for there needs to be something common between audience and artwork in order for the audience to understand the revelation .
In relation to Schapiro's charge , this means that the universal aspect of the shoes , what they are in relation to world, is the event of truth.
Thus , we are lead to the same conclusion that the localized interpretation of the peasant woman 's world assists in conveying the universal aspect.
The specifics of the localized interpretation do not seem essential to the event which occurs in the painting , the truth of a pa1r of shoes . The question is whether or not it is necessary for the work of art to disclose accurately the world in which the shoes belong , or whether it is enough that it discloses the truth of the shoes in their relation to us as equipment.
Although the answer is uncertain, it seems at least possible that the accurate disclosure of a world is not essential to all works of art. For example, the Greek temple disclo ses the truth of the temple , and through its relationship with the Greeks , its meaning for them; it also disclose s their historical epoch.

55
Ibid., p. 207. Schapiro also offers Knut Hamsun's description of his own shoes in his novel Hunger to illustrate that the user does reflect on the thing . However, the user in this example is also the artist; therefore, the argument which applies to Van Gogh also applies here. too distant from the thing or fails to provoke us to transcend our world of existence . Art, however , avoids both of these hinderances to unconcealment and provokes us to reflect , something which is not usually enticed by the mere observation or use of the thing , mostly because we force our directives onto the thing during these encounters.
It is possible for truth to be disclosed in the actual encounter of the shoes as long as the conditions necessary for the disclosure are met.

CONCLUSION
For Heidegger, the disclosure of truth depends upon the conditions of the encounter. Approaching things as objects possessmg certain traits, having particular affects on us, or performing specific functions for us inhibits our expenencmg truth .
Since things find meaning through our relationship with them, we must be able to encounter that relationship when we approach things. In order to accomplish this, we must be able to look onto that relationship. This requires distancing. We must distance ourselves from willing our directives onto things. By allowing the thing to direct us , we discover the meaning that the thing holds for us. This discovery discloses the truth of the thing, and by so doing , it also discloses a truth about ourselves.
Heidegger recognizes that our everyday approach toward things refuses to allow things to set the directives because our everyday approach is predetermined by our immediate needs. . Truth is, therefore, not attainable through our ordinary encounters with things. Artworks, however, are things which are able to force directives onto us by removing us from our ordinary encounter with things. By establishing the conditions necessary for the disclosure of truth, we are able to experience truth through works of art. Our examination of Heidegger's thought has lead us to the conclusion that artworks are the only things that are able to disclose truth.
For Heidegger , an artwork captures the truth of things and makes that truth accessible to us. We see things in a different light when we view them through works of art. Art almost allows us to expenence things for the first time ; at least , works of art allow us to expenence things m a new way. Art gives insight as to how things are. We discover the truth of ourselves , how we live and interact m relation to the things around us and in relation to each other. A work of art provides a window through which we can view our existence unhindered by preoccupations with the directives of will.
Heidegger is reminiscent of the ancient world , a world which listened to hear the truth of beings and lived within their dictates. Art reminds us that we need to listen. It enables us to step back and look toward truth.