Del palimpsesto sobre la téchnē: una genealogía tras el arte y la técnica

Abstract

This article is a genealogy into the broad sense of art and technique within the linguistic palimpsest ‘art technique’ which takes into consideration the aesthetic and technical meanings of art and the ancient Greek meaning of téchnē. It’s proposed that it’s possible to give reason to Heidegger’s proposal for Greek τέχνη through a genealogical inquiry into such palimpsest. Τέχνη, art and technique, in a broad sense, are knowledge that brings forward things to their presence by virtue of a ‘having seen’ that makes it possible to go after something and reveal that which presents itself concealed. This inquiry starts off its path from a Heideggerian approach to language according to which what is most essential in words is in a continuous original withdrawal of concealment, whereby a genealogical incursion takes place into the original sense of the term ‘art’ and its cognate ‘technique’. Trying in each step to give an answer to the question for that which is art and technique, a review of the meanings of those terms is made in Latin and Greek ancient languages and in modern Romance languages, as well as a brief review of the history of aesthetics, and a review of the Greek myth of the god of téchnē, Hephaestus, in light of the ancient Greek notion of beauty.