| dc.description.abstract | When Kantor was working on his series of performances of the Theatre of Death
he devoted a lot of space in his comments to the notion of truth. He discussed this
problem in two articles: On Truth in Art 1980, and Total Truth. Thought Language,
written in 1985. In the first article Kantor, like hermeneutic philosophers, Gadamer and
Ricoeur, claimed that art is a form of cognition independent of science and everyday
experience. A work of art reaches-the truth by means of a metaphore which - contrary
to classicist theories of metaphore - possesses a referential dimension. Kantor denied
that truth is relative and claimed that the essence of being human means to attempt to
get to absolute truth. Everyday experience and scientific research reach onlu partial
truth, while art, in Kantors opinion, may grasp crumbs of absolute truth. But a work of
art in its cognitive function is limited and conditioned by historical context. An artist
may create only with regard to artictic and social conventions typical for a given
moment in time - otherwise his message will not be communicative. The question of
truth in art is not limited only to the problem of form (to the relation between the work
and convention). What is more important for Kantor is what is hidden behind the work
- namely, some unspoken truth. It is truth in Heideggers meaning, who distinguished
between a hidden, absolute, ontological truth (aletheia) and an overt, aprtial,
epistemological truth (adaequatio). In his second essay Kantor accepted the possibility
of direct contact with absolute truth which does not depend on logical rules, value
systems or discursive thinking. This essay resembles some mystic texts (for example by
Eckhart or St. John of the Cross) who persuaded the readers to disregard earthly
truths in the name of the Highest Truth. | pl_PL |
