The market is a work of art in a technological age: an application of Heidegger's palimpsestuous understanding of history

Abstract

Ontology, the philosophical investigation of beings (entities that exist in some sense) and their relation to Being (that which grounds the meaning of beings) is a central focus of Martin Heidegger. The meaning of Being and therefore of beings change over time. For Heidegger, language discloses these changes, resulting in language-bound historical epochs which are distinguished by: great works of art that express the new truth of Being, the poets that serve as sensors and heralds of the new truth of Being, and the historical communities that embrace the new truth of Being. I fill in Heidegger’s ontohistorical framework with a historical narrative and focus attention on the development of public marketplaces beginning in the 16th century and persisting today. Along with poets, these “great works of art,” like the temples and cathedrals of previous epochs, anchor the emergence of our ontohistorical epoch in which beings are understood as commodities. Contents