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If H's sexual tensions are of interest, then a straight forward comparison of Hannah Arendt and her lover/mentor H would provide a solid set of clues. Perhaps her *banality of evil* might even apply. I apologize to the forum for a rather attenuated presentation of music as an example of ontology at work in art. Nonetheless, it is not irrelevant to the discussion as to the progression from Monteverdi's extraordinary efforts in effecting a conceptual / artistic system. That he ended up with a Cartesian result is the problematic that an artist like Beethoven took up. Theodore Adorno's extensive work on Beethoven is extremely apropos. He was, of course, a scholar of H., and expressed his philosophical education and individual concepts in his understanding of B's artistic life cycle. Whereas we might endlessly discuss H's sandwiching of the metaphysical origins and futures around being-in-time, the trajectory of a great artists is perhaps the best example of what this might mean or not mean. I would urge anyone on this list to read Thomas Mann's chapter in Dr. Faustus which is a direct fictionalization of Theodore Adorno's famous lecture/performance on Beethoven's last sonata. It took place in the Pacific Palisades [my bad re: Santa Monica]. Most of us are quite aware of Adorno's transformative ideas regarding dialectics. My favorite is Dialectics of Enlightenment, because I studied the French Enlightenment no doubt. Regardless, the metamorphosis from passion into convention/language/structure. Then moving into a manifest conjuring of a being/beings first walking then almost transgressing the phenomena of life being pulled into death / stillness; movement into quiet, the tensions between. It's true. It is there. Heidegger was nearly on the mark in his belief that art could express the full being of the metaphysical mingled with pure being-in-the-world. Where H went wrong was indeed, as Richard pointed out, that the causality between origins and ontology simply do not exist any longer [if ever]. And this proved dangerous to the extreme. In Beethoven's Ode To Spring the heightened possibility of collective experience of transformation in being other could be achieved, much in the same manner as N's Birth of Tragedy. By the time Beethoven had reached beyond maturity into wisdom of age in his last works he portrayed a lightness and heaviness of being, pure embodiment of being, much as Nietzche came to do with thought. It is not beside the point that Beethoven was deaf, essentially expressing his ideas without measuring this against physical affirmation. Similar to ontology without naming. Beyond naming. This is not trivial nor am I attempting to be wild eyed or inventive. Certainly I apologize if belaboring my ideas. best, Susanna