Abstract

This is a study of works completed by Walter Benjamin up to and including 1925. Benjamin's association of philosophy with dying entails resistance to semblances of order. This resistance--contrary to the "subjectivism" detected by some commentators and the proto-deconstruction found by some others--frequently concerns a unique expressive potential of the human. Benjamin's philosophy of language contends that, among finite "languages", pinnacle expressive potential exists in the constitutively "human" language of names. "God" is infinitude, in relation to which finite beings hope and mourn concerning their expressie capacities. Benjamin propounds and presents possibilities for the language of names to accommodate this hope and lament. The hope and ensuing lament of philosophy involve, respectively: refusal to resign to convention; and awareness that there is no ahistorical revelation. Benjamin's early conceptions of philosophy are distinct from their Blochian and neo-Hegelian renditions. Bernd Witte is mistaken in his view that the conceptions of philosophy are largely abandoned in Benjamin's "artistic" approaches to literary criticism. Benjamin's conceptions of language and philosophy remain significant for his criticism. These critical analyses concern death in art and, therefore, in criticism. For Witte, this prominence of death attests to melancholic subjectivism characteristic of early Weimar intellectuals. Against Witte and others , this study defends Benjamin's imparting to philosophical criticism the mystery which death brings to the fore. The epilogue addresses possible problems in Benjamin's early conceptions of the "human" language of names and is philosophical usage. These conceptions are juxtaposed with some of Benjamin's later works, in which priority is dispersed from hopeful mourning, the language of names, and the correlative conceptions of art and philosophy to a vaster array of media and modes of expression. In addition to the short summary of later works , brief comparisons are made of Benjamin's early outlook and some of Derrida's views. Emphasis is placed on the relevance of Benjamin's early works for contemporary discussions of both philosophy and the human