In
continental philosophy
Continental philosophy is a group of philosophies prominent in 20th-century continental Europe that derive from a broadly Kantianism, Kantian tradition.Continental philosophers usually identify such conditions with the transcendental subject or ...
and
semiotics
Semiotics ( ) is the systematic study of sign processes and the communication of meaning. In semiotics, a sign is defined as anything that communicates intentional and unintentional meaning or feelings to the sign's interpreter.
Semiosis is a ...
, ''poiesis'' (; from ) is the process of emergence of something that did not previously exist. Forms of poiesis—including
autopoiesis, the process of sustenance through the emergence of sustaining parts—are considered in philosophy and semiotics to be the foundation of activity, alongside
semiosis
Semiosis (, ), or sign process, is any form of activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, including the production of meaning. A sign is anything that communicates a meaning, that is not the sign itself, to the interpreter of the sig ...
which is considered the foundation of the production of
meaning.
Etymology
''Poiesis'' is etymologically derived from the ancient Greek term
ποιεῖν, which means "to make". It is related to the word ''
poetry
Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...
'', which shares the same root. The word is also used as a suffix, as in the biological term
hematopoiesis
Haematopoiesis (; ; also hematopoiesis in American English, sometimes h(a)emopoiesis) is the formation of blood cellular components. All cellular blood components are derived from haematopoietic stem cells. In a healthy adult human, roughly ten ...
(the formation of
blood cells) and
erythropoiesis (the formation of
red blood cells).
Overview
Heidegger referred to poiesis as a "bringing-forth", or ''
physis'' as emergence. Examples of physis are the blooming of the blossom, the coming-out of a butterfly from a cocoon, and the plummeting of a waterfall when the snow begins to melt; the last two analogies underline Heidegger's example of a threshold occasion, a moment of
ecstasis when something moves away from its standing as one thing to become another. These examples may also be understood as the unfolding of a thing out of itself; as ''being'' discloses or gathers from nothing, thus nothing is thought also as ''being''. Plato's ''
Symposium'' and ''
Timaeus'' have been analyzed by modern scholars in this vein of interpretation.
Meta-poiesis
In their 2011 book, ''All Things Shining'',
Hubert Dreyfus and
Sean Dorrance Kelly argue that embracing a "meta-poietic" mindset is the best, if not the only, method to authenticate meaning in the secular era: Furthermore, Dreyfus and Dorrance Kelly urge each person to become a sort of "craftsman" whose responsibility it is to refine their faculty for poiesis in order to achieve existential meaning in their lives and to reconcile their bodies with whatever transcendence there is to be had in life itself: "The task of the craftsman is not to ''generate'' the meaning, but rather to ''cultivate'' in himself the skill for ''discerning'' the meanings that are ''already there.''"
[Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly, "All Things Shining", 2011, Simon & Schuster, p. 209.]
See also
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Allopoiesis, a process whereby a system can create something other than itself
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References
External links
{{wiktionary
Semiotics
Concepts in metaphysics