“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
—John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
In his “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” John Keats suggested a moving and profound equivalency between the subjectivity of beauty and the objectivity of truth. This line has puzzled readers and listeners for more than two centuries, and with good reason; faced with their profound incompatibility, it is difficult to fully grasp the possibility of reconciling the seemingly unyielding alterity between the subjective experience of beauty and the objective being of truth. Camille Guthrie, in her analysis of Keats’ poem for the Poetry Foundation, offers a possible explanation of Keats’ lines, noting that “what we find beautiful in the actual world leads us to a transcendent truth, and whatever we experience as truth has sensual beauty” (Guthrie). What’s particularly striking about Guthrie’s assessment is the way in which she contextualizes the engagement with both beauty and truth as an iterative process, a simultaneous but sequential bouncing back and forth between experiences of beauty and experiences of truth, through which each encounter with one reveals a bit more of the other. What’s implied is that, through this process, we may get closer not only to a better understanding of what each means on its own but also to a greater sense of what they mean together; the discrete experiences of beauty and truth, when engaged properly, thus work together to create a harmonious understanding of the world.
But what kinds of experiences may allow for, perhaps even inspire, the kind of engagement necessary to realize this particular harmony? In what follows I will argue that motorcycling may perhaps be a paradigmatic experience which lends itself to both aesthetic and ontologic realizations: although there are a myriad of ways in which riding potentiates a wide range of experiences of beauty, the act of riding is simultaneously, and fundamentally, a particular way of objectively being in the world; these seemingly distinct and independent experiences are in fact inexorably related, each synergistically amplifying the other. Motorcycling is thus precisely the kind of experience which enables a reconciliation of the aesthetic and the ontologic in a unified, and unifying, experience of harmony.
Beauty and truth
“If the world were clear, art would not exist.” With this claim, from his 1942 essay The Myth of Sisyphus (98), Albert Camus contends that art is necessary for us, at least in part, precisely for its capacity to allow us to better understand the world and our place therein. Art acknowledges the inherent meaning that is absent in a world characterized by its absurdity, while depicting that world in a new way which, although not necessarily a present or future reality, still stands as a real and meaningful possibility. For Camus, art must hold at its center a recognition of the world as it is and as it is experienced, without illusion, while simultaneously proposing aspects of existence which, although not necessary or inevitable, are also not necessarily precluded from being so. Thus, in his 1957 speech “Create Dangerously,” Camus concludes that “art, in a sense, is a revolt against everything fleeting and unfinished in the world” (264).
It would be misguided, however, to presume that what Camus suggests only applies to art in a formally understood sense; that is, as limited to literature, music, painting, or other ‘fine’ arts. To return to the lines which opened the present investigation, ‘beauty’ is surely an adequate stand-in for ‘art’[1]; further, by allowing this transposition in terms, it becomes more readily apparent that the stakes to which Camus alludes—the possibility of meaning in a world defined by its absurdity—are perhaps even more readily attainable.
Much has been said and written about the aesthetic beauty of the wild variety of machines that fall under the classification ‘motorcycle’ and the even wilder variety of feelings that the sight of a bike can incite, both as a literal object and as a symbol. In a delightful passage from her book The Perfect Vehicle, Melissa Holbrook Pierson does both: “The rider approaches from outside; the [garage] door opens with a whir and a bang. The light goes on. A flame, everlasting, seems to rise on a piece of chrome” (Pierson 32).
As compelling as this description may be, even purely at an observational level, it only begins to approach the deeper experiences of beauty that await the rider, to be found in the aesthetic experience of riding rather than merely in the aesthetic quality of the machine itself—the aesthetic beauty that is only fully realized, only fully realizable, when the bike and rider dance as partners. Pierson alludes to this experience as well:
To warm up the tires, the rider shifts so slightly in the seat it is hardly noticeable except to the bike, which dips left. Then quickly right again, then left, then right, until the machine is drawing a sinuous ‘S’ down the road. They could dance like this all day, partnered closely and each anticipating the next step so surely it is not at all clear who is who (Pierson 32)
Surely what Pierson describes here is an experience that is deeply familiar to most riders. Keeping chest and shoulders and arms perfectly still but loose, the rider easily leans the bike left and right and back with a casual dip of a hip. This is only one way, among many, in which riders establish a connection in motion with the bike. What’s more, with literally nothing between the rider and every other component of the world, that connection in motion inherently extends to that painfully close world which surrounds the rider without barrier or intercession. Robert Pirsig also emphasizes the possibilities for connection and beauty in riding, going so far as to equate the two:
It is this harmony, this beauty, that is at the center of it all. [It is] a classic beauty, which comes from the harmonious order of the parts…which gives structure to romantic beauty and without which life would be only vague and fleeting. … It is not the facts but the relation of things that results in the universal harmony (Pirsig 273)
Pirsig here emphasizes the beauty to be found not just in this or that one thing, this or that particular experience, but rather the beauty of all of the component parts, all of the constitutive experiences, in their conjunction. Although the relation itself is what is most important, it is also relevant that Pirsig characterizes the relation as beautiful; before a deeper explication of the former may be offered, a final word regarding the latter is perhaps in order.
In his Socratic dialogue Phaedrus (ca. 370 BCE), Plato suggested that the experience of particular instances of beauty, more than the experience of any other kind of quality, most nearly approaches the experience of Absolute Beauty. For any particular entity to be beautiful it must possess some degree of Absolute Beauty; the beauty of any particular object is illuminated by the radiance of Absolute Beauty which it possesses. In contemplating a beautiful object one thereby approaches, through contemplation, the “higher” reality (the Truth) of Absolute Beauty. Plato is not here suggesting that, through the beauty of art, one could fully know the Truth of Absolute Beauty; as finite beings who are fundamentally limited by the physical aspects of our existence, such knowledge is not possible. However, what the encounter with beauty can reveal is the possibility of the existence of this Truth. The twentieth-century hermeneutic philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer takes up this idea in his 1960 text Truth and Method, where he comprehensively argues that aesthetic pursuits—engagements with art—have perhaps a greater capacity to reveal truth than do purely scientific pursuits. As he explains:
The important message that [Plato] has to teach is that…however unexpected our encounter with art may be, it gives us an assurance that the truth does not lie far off and inaccessible to us, but can be encountered in the disorder of reality with all its imperfections, evils, errors, extremes, and fateful confusions. The ontological function of the beautiful is to bridge the chasm between the ideal [truth] and the real [experience]. (Gadamer, “The Relevance of the Beautiful” 15; bracketed text added for clarity)
It is through the experience of beauty that one is able to most fully glimpse Beauty as an Absolute (and thus as Truth). In Gadamer’s terms, it is the hermeneutic experience with art, a particular manner of engagement that is constituted in and as a dialogical question and answer between the viewer and the work of art, which allows the viewer to embark upon the path toward the realization of the Truth of art (Gadamer, Truth and Method 363).
The hermeneutic experience
In his introduction to Truth and Method, Gadamer states that the investigation he is about pursue is “concerned to seek the experience of truth that transcends the domain of scientific method wherever that experience is to be found, and to inquire into its legitimacy.” (Gadamer, Truth and Method xxi). Although he will ultimately argue that the human sciences in general are fully capable of uncovering truth, it is with art that Gadamer first attempts to reveal the nature of the hermeneutic experience which will ultimately point toward the revelation of a particular character of truth.
Gadamer’s thinking on truth is informed, in large part, by the existential phenomenology of Martin Heidegger. For Heidegger, truth is revealed (“disclosed”) through an individual effort of questioning, on the part of a particular being, into the nature of Being itself. Much of the groundwork for Heidegger’s account of truth can be found in his 1927 opus Being and Time, wherein he attempts to reveal the meaning of Being through an investigation of a particular kind of being—specifically, the being who questions Being, which Heidegger calls Dasein.[2].
By its very nature, Dasein possesses a vague, primal comprehension of Being; as Heidegger claims, “[i]t is peculiar to this entity [Dasein] that with and through its Being, this Being is disclosed to it. Understanding of Being is itself a definite characteristic of Dasein’s Being. Dasein is ontically distinctive in that it is ontological” (Heidegger, Being and Time 32). Yet this awareness of Being, on the part of Dasein, should not be understood as a primordial theoretical understanding; rather, Dasein has a sort of “pre-ontological” awareness of Being. At the same time, precisely because this pre-ontological understanding of Being is incomplete, Dasein is driven to question the meaning of its Being. “[Dasein] is ontically distinguished by the fact that, in its very Being, that Being is an issue for it” (Heidegger, Being and Time 32). This ontological manner of Being is existence,[3] which in turn constitutes Dasein. The achievement of comprehension of Being is a transcendence of the ontic to an ontological relationship to Being; it is the revelation of the truth of Being.
Yet for this transcendence to occur, Dasein must first be disclosed. Dasein, for Heidegger, is fundamentally constituted by the “there” of its Being. By nature of its being-in-the-world (there-being), Dasein owns its there-ness as the ground for its own investigation into the meaning of Being: “[Dasein] is in such a way as to be its ‘there.’ To say that it is ‘illuminated’ means that as Being-in-the-world it is cleared in itself, not through any other entity, but in such a way that it is itself the clearing…. Dasein is its disclosedness” (Heidegger, Being and Time 171). Through its questioning, Dasein is disclosed to itself as a being-in-the-world, while the truth of its Being is likewise disclosed.[4] Disclosedness both reveals and constitutes the Being of Dasein. “Being-true” is, for Heidegger, synonymous with “Being-uncovering” (disclosedness): “Being-true as Being-uncovering, is in turn ontologically possible only on the basis of Being-in-the-world. This latter phenomenon, which we have known as a basic state of Dasein, is the foundation for the primordial phenomenon of truth” (Heidegger, Being and Time 261). Dasein, in its uncovering of Being, makes possible Being-uncovering (disclosedness) and thus the revelation of truth. “The most primordial phenomenon of truth is first shown by the existential–ontological foundations of uncovering…. Only with Dasein’s disclosedness is the most primordial phenomenon of truth attained” (Heidegger, Being and Time 263). Dasein is its disclosedness, therefore Dasein is “in the truth.”
Through disclosedness the question of the nature of beings is first experienced by Dasein; disclosedness is that which reveals the truth of Being. As is the case for Dasein, all truth is finite, temporal, and historical; truth occurs as a relational, temporal, historical, finite event. The revelation of truth is found in the relationship, which is itself qualified by freedom.[5] Such freedom, seen as a letting-things-be, is in fact a letting-things-be-meaningful. Being is the revealing/unconcealing openness in which Dasein is. Dasein exists relationally with beings inside the clearing (the possibility to-be) given by Being. Being is the opening up which allows for the to-be of the being that is to be. This clearing is also that which allows for the disclosedness of truth.
For Heidegger, the disclosedness of truth is an event; it is something that is experienced by Dasein through its relating to the world in which it exists. Similarly to Heidegger, the role of experience (as both Erlebnis and Erfahrung) figures prominently in the foundation of Gadamer’s hermeneutics. Gadamer’s use of Erlebnis conveys a double meaning in the unification of undergoing and emerging from a first-hand experience, while the content of that experience creates a lasting effect on the individual who has undergone the experience. For Gadamer, both aspects of the experience—the undergoing, and the emerging from—are essential, as the essence of Erlebnis is to be found in “mediating between the two meanings…and in seeing these meanings as a productive union: something becomes an ‘experience’ not only insofar as it is experienced, but insofar as its being experienced makes a special impression that gives it a lasting importance” (Gadamer, Truth and Method 53). In contrast to but also obliquely in support of his explication of Erlebnis, Erfahrung is a slightly different conception of experience which underlies much of Gadamer’s examination of the historical quality of experience. Whereas Erlebnis refers to separate and distinct occasions of engagement and the lasting significance which such engagement(s) instill upon the individual, Erfahrung suggests a more unified sense of experience, as a whole, as it is engaged in its historicity. This twofold understanding of experience provides the foundation for the entire hermeneutical enterprise: experience in this sense creates the necessary ‘openness’ which allows for dialogue, questioning, and, ultimately, the dialectic ‘play’ which constitutes the task of hermeneutics.
For Gadamer, the openness to experience—the openness to dialogue—constitutes the manner in which understanding is possible. Individual experience is always directed towards new experience which ultimately qualifies or corrects that which came before. This movement of experience does not progress towards an ultimate end at which complete and correct knowledge will be attained; rather, it is a dialectical movement, the underlying purpose of which is to create a greater openness for more experience and deeper understanding. This openness (and thus the experience which it shapes) is itself constituted by the question: “the openness essential to experience is precisely the openness of being either this or that. It has the structure of a question” (Gadamer, Truth and Method 356). The question creates and perpetuates the openness of experience. Hermeneutics is an open and reciprocal dialogue; in raising and pursuing the question, an open dialogue is formed and perpetuated in the reciprocity of question and answer as both the individual engaging in the act of interpretation and the ‘object’ to be interpreted both address each other in question and in response: “Thus we return to the conclusion that the hermeneutic phenomenon…implies the primacy of dialogue and the structure of question and answer” (Gadamer, Truth and Method 363). In the dialogue of question and answer both sides are equally constituted and maintained through the dialectical relation which is formed, as it is characterized by its reciprocal motion in play.
Play, relation, and transcendence
In “The Relevance of the Beautiful,” Gadamer describes play as the “self-movement that does not pursue any particular end or purpose so much as movement as movement, exhibiting so to speak a phenomenon of excess, of living self-representation…. Play is thus the self-representation of its own movement” (Gadamer, “The Relevance of the Beautiful” 23). Not only is there nothing outside of play which directs its movement, there is also no particular ‘end’ of play which is articulated at the outset and toward which the play is subsequently directed; additionally, the movement itself wholly directs its further movement, thus it is that play itself (especially the play of art) is seen to have a unity and identity which wholly constitutes itself.
This description of play could equally be applied to motorcycling. Certainly there are cases in which a ride is undertaken for a particular purpose: to cover a predetermined circuit in the shortest amount of time; to complete a trip to a coffee shop on the other side of town or in the next state; to ride around the world. But equally certain is that there are likewise cases in which a ride is undertaken purely for the sake of the ride itself. These are the rides that are wholly defined by the play that occurs between the rider and the bike, as well as between the rider–bike pair and the road and all that surrounds it. Each action in this play is determined wholly by the elements themselves that are at play; the camber of the curve determines the lean of the rider, which determines the force given to or released from the throttle, which determines the friction that guides bike and rider along the tarmac, which sparks joy or terror and determines the rider’s attitude toward the next curve, the next hill, the next two or two hundred miles. There is no end, no underlying telos, that gives the ride a purpose or a meaning; rather, motorcycling simply as motorcycling, the “self-representation of its own movement,” is its own purpose.[6]
However, before pursuing this analogy too far down a winding road, it must be conceded that, when Gadamer writes of ‘play’ in Truth and Method, he primarily has in mind the play of language. As discussed above, Gadamer places significant emphasis on the role of dialogue in the achievement of understanding. Embodied in this assertion is the more fundamental assertion of the primacy of language. For Gadamer, understanding is essentially and explicitly made possible exclusively through language: “Language is the universal medium in which understanding occurs” (Gadamer, Truth and Method 390). What’s more, language not only constitutes the ‘field’ of relation from which understanding can spring, but it is likewise language which fosters and continuously shapes the experience of understanding itself: “In language, the order and structure of our experience itself is originally formed and constantly changed” (Gadamer, Truth and Method 453). Thus, Gadamer concludes, “Being that can be understood is language” (Gadamer, Truth and Method 470). The relation of the individual to the world is completely and fundamentally captured in language, and it is thereby through language that this relationship is understood. What’s more, this association of being and understanding is exclusive to language; that is, all being that can be understood is so understood through language. Such being is, in fact, language itself.[7] Here again, Gadamer’s contention contains echoes of Heidegger, who earlier claimed that “Poetry is the saying of the unconcealment of beings” (Heidegger, “The Origin of the Work of Art” 198); it is the saying of truth. The world, in its totality and its possibility for meaning, is expressed in (is in fact explicitly) language itself. The whole of language is the whole of reality, and beyond either there is no trace of the other. Language is the ‘world’ within which all coming-to-be occurs, and thus coming-into-language is the relating which constitutes the being of the elements related and is the expression of the full meaning, the truth, of the relation.
This primacy of language is implied when Gadamer writes that “the weight of the things we encounter in understanding plays itself out in a linguistic event, a play of words playing around and about what is meant” (Gadamer, Truth and Method 483-484). Yet there is a deeper, more instinctive sense in which we understand ‘play’ beyond Gadamer’s characterization; it is a physical reckoning with—racing, grappling, competing. It is the desire to overcome, to master, to be ‘better than….’ All of these elements are present in motorcycling, in the purposive as well as in the aimless rides. The thoughtful rider constantly grapples, not against but with, the machine, in order to find the better line through a turn, to discover the better route, to eliminate all hesitation on the clutch or brake, to accelerate with the smoothest growl, to achieve that moment of weightlessness that feels as if rider and bike are gliding effortlessly along grey glass. These acts are all moments of play, with the bike and with the world, which all demonstrate a particular reverence to both the bike and to the world in which rider and bike coexist, together. To return to the analogy given above, it is perhaps now more clear how motorcycling may fully be understood as an appropriate, if not perfect, example of the full depth and breadth of Gadamer’s concept of play; in its self-directedness, by its refusal to acknowledge any meaning or purpose outside of its own activity, and through the manner in which each move in-play evolves organically from that which came before and likewise shapes that which follows. In the play of motorcycling, ‘movement’ becomes the analog to ‘language’ in Gadamer’s model; whereas for Gadamer language is the bearer of the meaning (the truth) of the relation between the elements in-play, the movement that results as motorcycle and rider relate, and as motorcycle and rider relate to the road–world, carries and reveals (or, in Heidegger’s terms, discloses) the meaning (the truth) of the relation between motorcycle and rider.
Truth, in this context, must be understood in the context which Gadamer adopts from Heidegger, occurring as a relational, temporal, and finite event. The relation that arises between motorcycle and rider is, in that moment of relation-in-play, a revelation of a particular truth. The relation itself is the truth. The manner of relating between motorcycle and rider, characterized above as movement, mirrors the movement of dialogue by the way in which each element plays with and against the other. Yet despite the temporal–relational aspects of this truth which may threaten to undermine its lasting value, there is also a phronetic quality which perhaps circumvents this threat. The revelation of the meaning of each part in relation (in this case, motorcycle and rider), by simultaneously disclosing the meaning (truth) of the relation, likewise situates each part-in-relation within an historical context—past, present, and future—within which their relating occurs, further grounding the truth as something which not only explains past and present moments but also directs movement in the future. Although Gadamer distinguishes between the more abstract truth of dialogue with that of phronesis,[8] the truth that arises both in and as the relation between motorcycle and rider is a synthesis of the two. It is both abstract and practical; it is both aesthetic and ontologic.
Gadamer contends that to fully recognize the identity of the truth (through play), one must “play along.” He writes: “The work issues a challenge which expects to be met. It requires an answer—an answer that can only be given by someone who accepted the challenge. And that answer must be [one’s] own, and given actively. The participant belongs to the play” (Gadamer, “The Relevance of the Beautiful” 26). In a strikingly similar fashion, the rider of a motorcycle belongs both to the bike and to the play that arises from and through the consequent relation to the bike, and in this manner of play the distinction between the bike and rider is blurred. Just as the being of the individual elements-in-relation through language cannot be expressed without the being of the other, and just as the being of either can only be fully realized through the coming-to-be of their relationship, in that moment of play neither the rider nor the bike could exist without the other. In the movement that is play, the identity of rider and motorcycle is constituted as a particular, momentary harmony between self and object, in the world; it is the moment of transcendence.
The relevance of the beautiful
For Gadamer, the ‘truth’ of a work of art is to be found in the flowing together of subjective and objective into one unified and unifying experience.[9] The experience of art holds the possibility of being an experience of truth precisely because the relation that is sparked between the individual and the work of art can (in fact, ought to) achieve such a unity between individual and artwork, thereby reaching a unification (and thus a transcendence) of the subjective and objective stances. The two are one; in encountering the work as object, one similarly encounters oneself in (and therefore as) the object. Both the individual and the artwork are subjectified and objectified; one becomes wholly identified with the other, and the two are thus inseparable. The truth of the work of art is the union produced in the relation; the underlying harmony which is the character of the truth of art, whereby the distinctions between individual and artwork, subject and object, are transcended, is realized through the experience of the beautiful. As he concludes:
It is by virtue of the beautiful that we are able to acquire a lasting remembrance of the true world. … Plato describes the beautiful as that which shines forth most clearly and draws us to itself, as the very visibility of the ideal. In the beautiful…we experience this convincing illumination of truth and harmony, which compels the admission: “This is true.” (Gadamer, “The Relevance of the Beautiful,” 15)
The experience of beauty teaches that, despite the seeming separation between ‘absolute’ and ‘subjectivity,’ between ‘whole’ and ‘particular,’ each element-in-relation is what it is precisely because of its presence with the other. At its best, this is essentially what the experience of motorcycling creates, both aesthetically and ontologically. I am what I am because of the bike, the bike is what it is because of me, constituted as a unity in relation. This is the beauty that Pirsig spoke of as “at the center of it all…which comes from the harmonious order of the parts.” This is the harmony wherein all distinctions are transcended and a new manner of being-in-the-world emerges.
Conclusion
Truth, if such a thing exists and can be knowable, may simply be the universal, normative way in which the human relationship to the world occurs; truth arises in and as the unfolding of the relationship. There is no self apart from its relationship to the world, and there is no world apart from its relationship to the self. ‘Truth’ is perhaps the dynamic reconciliation of the subjective self with the objective world through relation, ever evolving and necessarily unique for each individual. For Gadamer, the manner of relating through which such truth can be realized is through play; for the motorcyclist, this notion of ‘play’ is synonymous with ‘riding.’ If there is a particular, knowable truth to be discerned in or revealed by the play of motorcycling, it is surely both an aesthetic and ontological one, revealing something about what it means to exist, in a particular way, in the world. To move freely and harmoniously on the bike, with the bike, through the world is to assert that one exists and to proclaim the beauty of that existence. Motorcycling is both asking and attempting to answer the hermeneutic question; on the bike one is fully able to reach the boundary between subject and object, between the aesthetic experience and the ontologic experience.
Postscript
I first learned to ride in the early days of a grey October when my world had been thoroughly and unexpectedly turned upside down, both personally and professionally. Riding was to become, for me, a way to begin anew. After a couple of weeks and far too few practice rides, I embarked on my first solo trip—a four-week adventure into the mountains of Western Maryland. During those October and November weeks, I found myself ‘in-the-world’ in ways I’d never truly known. I experienced the way that simply cresting a hill, or rounding a curve, or dropping into a slight dip can lead you, sensorially if not literally, into another world. The smells of dirt and grass and dead leaves are suddenly replaced by those of wood smoke and cows; the temperature seems to rise or fall by fifteen degrees; the lights and shadows are all different. Yet no matter what changes, what is constant is my immediate, uninterrupted presence in the world—and the irresistible connection between it and me, fostered by the bike. Motorcycling makes possible a reconciliation between beauty and truth. Motorcycling makes possible the experience of harmony, a momentary transcendence of the distinctions between subject and object, between the self and the world. It is, ultimately, a way of finding one’s place in the world, of attaining, if only fleetingly, a sense of belonging—a sense of home.
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this essay was presented at the 2025 IJMS conference in Akureyri, Iceland; I am deeply grateful to the conference organizers, Sheila Malone, Mathew Humphrey, and Jason Wragg, as well as the conference participants, for their generosity in welcoming and responding to my work. Before publication, two anonymous reviewers provided helpful feedback which tightened the argument I was trying to make while patching a few holes; I truly appreciate their recommendations. Mat Humphrey was tremendously helpful and supportive throughout the manuscript review process, and I remain in his debt. Finally, I thank my wife, Brianna, for not only encouraging me to take this ride but for coming along with me.
Works Cited
Camus, Albert. “Create Dangerously.” Resistance, Rebellion, and Death. Translated by Justin O’Brien, Alfred A. Knopf, 1961.
Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays. Translated by Justin O’Brien, Alfred A. Knopf, 1955.
Guthrie, Camille. “John Keats: ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’: How to read the most famous poem ‘for ever.’” Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/145240/john-keats-ode-on-a-grecian-urn. Accessed 20 July 2025.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. “The Relevance of the Beautiful.” The Relevance of the Beautiful and Other Essays. Translated by Nicholas Walker, edited by Robert Bernasconi, Cambridge University Press, 1986. [This is a translation of the 1977 essay Die Aktualität des Schönen, which itself was a revised version of a lecture entitled “Art as Play, Symbol, and Festival” (delivered 1974, published 1975).]
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. Translated and revised by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall, Continuum, 2004.
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper & Row, 1962.
Heidegger, Martin. “On the Essence of Truth.” Trans John Sallis, published in Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings. New York: Harper & Row, 1977, 1993.
Heidegger, Martin. “The Origin of the Work of Art.” Trans Albert Hofstadter, published in Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings. New York: Harper & Row, 1977, 1993.
Pierson, Melissa Holbrook. The Perfect Vehicle: What It Is about Motorcycles. Norton, 1998.
Pirsig, Robert. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. HarperCollins, 199
Notes
1. Perhaps the strongest evidence of the Camus’ acknowledgement of the profundity of beauty, particularly beauty in nature, can be found throughout his early collections of essays L’Envers et l’Endoit (The Wrong Side and the Right Side, 1937) and Noces (Nuptials, 1939).
2. Dasein [literally, “there-being”] is used by Heidegger to describe the being existing in the world, amongst other beings, for whom the meaningof Being is a concern.
3. “This term ‘existence’ formally indicates that Dasein is as an understanding potentiality-for-Being, which, in its Being, makes an issue of that Being itself” (Being and Time, 274).
4. Although it is not fully within the scope of the present essay, it is worth noting here that, for Heidegger, the truth of Being, disclosed to Dasein through the experience of anxiety, is its temporality. Dasein is a temporal, finite being ever “slipping away” toward non-being, towards its end in death: “In anxiety in the face of death, Dasein is brought face-to-face with itself as delivered over to that possibility which is not to be outstripped…. Factically one’s own Dasein is always dying already; that is to say, it is in a Being-towards-its-end” (Being and Time, 298).
5. In his essay “On the Essence of Truth,” the first essential characteristic that Heidegger assigns to truth is freedom: “The openness of comportment as the inner condition of the possibility of correctness is grounded in freedom. The essence of truth is freedom” (“On the Essence of Truth,” 123).
6. It could be argued that even rides that are more purposive in nature—the race or the errand run—are equally conducive to moments of play like that which Gadamer describes and like that which I suggest are more readily achieved on the more ‘aimless’ ride. Once a particular harmony is achieved between the rider and the motorcycle, and between the rider–bike pair and the road–world, it may often be the case that the dynamics of determination described above occur in the same way and that moments of self-contained meaning, of self-representative play, are achieved wholly independently of, and with no reference to, the overarching meaning or purpose for which the ride was undertaken
7. “That which can be understood is language. This means that it is of such a nature that of itself it offers itself to be understood… To come into language does not mean that a second being is acquired. Rather, what something presents itself as belongs to its own being. Thus everything that is language has a speculative unity: it contains a distinction, that between its being and its presentations of itself, but this is a distinction that is really not a distinction at all” (Gadamer, Truth and Method, 470).
8. See, for example, pp. 536–537 of Truth and Method.
9. Gadamer’s contention regarding the primacy of art as a means toward truth is also not without precedent in Heidegger, who similarly contended that the aesthetic experience is uniquely capable of revealing the disclosedness that is the truth of Being. By revealing the essence of a particular thing, the essence of the work of art itself is also revealed. “The artwork opens up in its own way the Being of beings. This opening up, i.e., this revealing, i.e., the truth of beings, happens in the work. In the artwork, the truth of beings has set itself to work” (“The Origin of the Work of Art,” 165).
Author Biography:
Dr. Steven A. Burr is a writer, editor, and educator living and working in Cumberland, Maryland. He has taught at Georgetown University, Frostburg State University, and Loyola University Maryland; at the latter he also served as Director of Program Operations for the Graduate Liberal Studies program. His first book, Finite Transcendence: Existential Exile and the Myth of Home (Lexington Books/Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014), examines the human engagement, aesthetically and existentially, with the finitude and limits that define human existence. More recently, he has written on identity, marginalization, and liberal education for the journals Zeteo and Soundings; the Foreword to Duncan and Marjorie Phillips and America’s First Museum of Modern Art (Vernon Press, 2021); and numerous editorial pieces for Confluence: The Journal of the AGLSP. He completed his doctoral work at Georgetown University, and for ten years he was the Editor-in-Chief of Confluence. He rides a 1975 BMW R90.