Sokratisk aften by Ingvild Torsen: Is there a measure on earth? Heidegger and the normativity of art

Name: Sokratisk aften by Ingvild Torsen: Is there a measure on earth? Heidegger and the normativity of art
Start: 2025-08-21T18:00:00+02:00
End: 2025-08-21T20:00:00+02:00
Location: Georg Morgenstiernes hus!

Schedule

Thu Aug 21 2025 at 06:00 pm to 08:00 pm

UTC+02:00

Location

Georg Morgenstiernes hus! | Oslo, OS

New semester, new Socratic evenings! Associate Professor at IFIKK, Ingvild Torsen's lecture is titled 'Is there a measure on earth? Heidegger and the normativity of the artwork.'
As usual, we'll serve pizza and soda - of course, with vegan and gluten-free options available. We especially welcome all new philosophy students to join us, to begin their student life with a long-standing and proud tradition, and as a fitting prelude to this year's first TIKK!"
Finally, here's the abstract, so that you may come prepared:
Artworks are often deemed to be valuable because they can be true, which entails that they can be an important source of meaning and insight; they can even shape communities, give us a shared sense of identity and offer new social imaginaries. Whereas most theories that emphasize the alethic dimension of art are cognitivist and focus on art’s content to explain its truth, Heidegger’s theory conceives of art as an event – a “happening" of truth.
In this talk, I will argue that Heidegger’s account brings out a sense of normative force in the artwork that is mostly overlooked by philosophy: To make sense of the event-character of art, we need to understand how an artwork can function as a measure. A measure is a standard that is primarily regulative and grounds other normative practices, but whose normative force is not itself reliant on reasons or values. However, if recognized and taken up by an audience, the art-measure can be a source of reason and value and provide normative guidance.