The lecture will explain how art has instigated the evolution of a monkey into a human.
Religion and science, where responsibility for the ultimate knowledge is attributed to superior beings and objective truth respectfully, can be considered the poles of cultural landscape. In between them however, lies an explored area within which humans strive to find answers to the most general questions, uncovered by other forms of cognition, and where they take responsibility for their actions. This is the area of art and philosophy—the two different ways of apprehending oneself and the world. These instruments can be seen as fundametally opposite and complementary at the same time. The differences between them are crucial however: while philosophy is based on logical thinking, knowledge and, ultimately, wisdom, art has no such basis. It is fragile and transitory. But still, it plays a pivotal role in human life.
“An image comes to mind, an analogical matrix of meaning: Historically, philosophy and art are paired up like Lacan's Master and Hysteric. We know that the hysteric comes to the master and says: "Truth speaks through my mouth, I am here. You have knowledge, tell me who I am." Whatever the knowing subtlety of the master's reply, we can also anticipate that the hysteric will let him know that it's not yet it, that her here escapes the master's grasp, that it must all be taken up again and worked through at length in order to please her. In so doing, the hysteric takes charge of the master, "barring" him from mastery and becoming his mistress. Likewise, art is always already there, addressing the thinker with the Art and Philosophy mute and scintillating question of its identity while through constant invention and metamorphosis it declares its disappointment about everything that the philosopher may have to say about it.” (Alain Badiou. Handbook of Inaesthetics. 1998)