Poiëse en poiëtiese denke in Die swye van Mario Salviati: 'n Gereedmaak vir simpoiëse.

People have always been makers, creatures of poiesis. However, in a time where many are growing sceptical about the desirability ofHomo Faber's gifts due to the ecological destruction they so often cause, this article investigates the emergent possibilities offered by co-creation or sympoiesis. In order to understand the implications of this shift from poiesis to sympoiesis, the article offers a hermeneutic attempt to come to grips with the essence and nature of the human making-event (poiesis), and the kind of thinking that lets this creative process unfold in a particularly revealing way. The article relies on the influential writings of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) to plumb the depths of mortal making. For Heidegger, all making stands under the sway of the ancient Greek notion of poiesis. Despite sounding like the word used for poetry, poets merely practice one form of poiesis. This article attempts a more encompassing approach to mortal making by appreciating the ontological associations of poiesis as it relates to Heidegger's understanding of people as beings of care (Sorge). In order to elaborate on the richness and depth of mortal poiesis, and to show how a heroic understanding of poiesis may undermine the potential for sympoiesis, the article will study various making-narratives posited in the novel by Etienne van Heerden, The long silence of Mario Salviati, originally published as Die swye van Mario Salviati (2000). Drawing on the circular (hermeneutic) tendencies Heidegger identifies in mortal existence, and the role played by angels in the novel (and in the Duino Elegies of Rainer Maria Rilke), the article presents four spiralling flights dipping into aspects of poiesis as developed in Van Heerden's novel. The article is structured in three sections. The first section sketches an overarching interpretation of Heidegger's understanding of mortal poiesis and his formulation of inceptual thinking (das anfangliche Denken^) as alternative for the shortcomings of representational thinking (das vorstellende Denken) In the second section, the Heideggerian interpretation of mortal making is elaborated by interpreting various making-events in Van Heerden's novel. It is shown that the characters in The long silence of Mario Salviati carry an unnecessarily heavy burden when they attempt creative endeavours, because they misunderstand (and are not able to endure) the silent openness imbuing mortal poiesis. In an attempt at challenging their understanding of making, it is argued that Heideggerian Gelassenheit implies an additional move from poiesis to sympoiesis (making-with). The third section serves as conclusion and speculates briefly on the implications of this sympoietic augmentation of poiesis. As such, the article considers the way poietic thinking and poiesis are interwoven in the moment of creation, augments this interpretation by studying several making-narratives in Van Heerden's novel, and uses the resulting understanding to reappraise the way people think about making in terms of sympoiesis. Consequently, the article can be seen as a retrospective reflection on human making amid the harbingers of sympoiesis. The article is both an attempt at making-sense (of poiesis) and making-ready (for sympoiesis). Ultimately, drawing on the latent implications of Heidegger's notion of Gelassenheit, it is proposed that people need to abdicate their claim of being the sole authors of poiesis. To shift from poiesis to sympoiesis is to acknowledge that making is an open yet entwined endeavour: iterative, contingent, impure, awaiting yet guilty, dense, ecstatic-leaping, and fundamentally, care-full. In the same way that Heidegger challenged Cartesian dualism by proposing that people are intimately entangled in the world, making is also shaped by entanglements steeped in mortal care. Sympoiesis, by granting creative agency to these entanglements, is even more open and entangled than poiesis. Therefore, it could be argued that sympoiesis is more in tune with the way people live as beings of care than poiesis, since it engages more kinds of mattering. The article concludes that sympoiesis is the more venturesome form of making that Being seems to be calling us towards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]