Jolanta Żelazna

The Birth of Nihilism - the Era of Myth, the Era of Thruth The paper reverts to the trend of Nietzsche's philosophy which at present is often quoted to justify the thesis of the Nietzschean source of post-modernity was to be a theoretical basis of the critics of "passive" nihilism by the author of "The Dawn of Day". Nietzsche contrasts the antique Greek vision of the world with the European outlook, re-intereprets the assumptions constituting the foundations of the European rationalism and Greek "optimism", and attempt to show how the philosophy of Socrates and Plato significantly "re-valued all values" for the first time.

Heidegger's esthetic proposal refers in a sense to the Aristotelian traditon where all phenomena, including esthetic ones, are investigated in the categories of matter and form. Heidegger, however, introduces his own terminology instead of the traditional notions: he speaks of "earth" instead of matter and the conception of form is replaced by "world". The Aristotelian connection of both factors which grounds reality of fenomena, go "The Origin..." form of "dispute", deciding of coming into being of a work of art, different from devices and common objects. The notion "world" is wellknown for all readers of "Being and Time", where it accompanies such existentials as "understanding", "openness", "commonplaceness", etc. A notion of truth was introduced in "Being and Time", too. It was interpreted here as a process of discovering what is hidden, as a specific game between the opening understanding of Dasein and the appearing phenomen. The truth-aletheia appears in this convention as a specific "dispute" between Dasein and the phenomen, taking on a mask of "the thing", a dispute difficult to clear up in the situation when Dasein, trusting its rational-technical abilities, reaches only to numerous uses of the thing, but not to "the thing itself". The cognitive-technical apparatus leads, according to Heidegger, to an assault, to an act of violence towards the thing, not to its "exposure". Creation, obtaining and establishing "the thing" - a work of art, would certainly be a situation when violence and its effects could be replaced by "insight into the thing itself". In "The Origin of Work of Art" Heidegger presents the assumptions, indispensible according to him, for "art"-techne, to come into being in Dasein. Art allow not only "insight into the thing itself", it conditions as well coming into existence of the thing which could not come into being without this ability. The interpretation of Heidegger's esthetic dissertation as a continuation of his studies in "Being and Time", completed subsequently by the essays concerning the essence of techics and poetry, lets connect the conceptions of truth and art with the postulate of authenticity of Dasein and even - as a far-going hypothesis - come to the following conclusion: the authentic Dasein is such being-in-the-world which attaches great importance to building of its most own "world-being-towards-death", open to its own finiteness, opening - with his understanding - the earth, which - when it closes over it - will become an empty place, witnessing of the loss. A work of art is the only trace after the authentic Dasein.

Spinoza searched for a language that could help him to create a monistic system of ethics. Latin was in the 17th century a fairly malleable medium of communication. In its philosophical use it was largely a creation of Descartes. Spinoza wanted to use it in a way that would resemble Euclid's treatment of geometry. He needed a language that would clearly and precisely describe the process by which a man could liberate himself from the power of affection that hamper naturaly propensity for social peace and mental equaenimity. He decided to begin by describing nature, which was responsible for man's proclivities and abilities. Consequently he needed a new conception of substance which on the one hand could be definied by some initial axioms, and on the other hand would sufficiently flexible to include various aspects of human thought. It is interesting that when Spinoza had to make a choice between flexibility and content, he resolved to adopt a strict method of reasoning at the cost of the received understanding of substance. It is possible that these linguistic considerations led him to adopt the view that substance is identical with God and as such encompasses all principles of operations of the human mind and premises for the deriving of all fundamental notions popular in his times.