Called “the most important critic of his time” by Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin has only become more influential over the years, as his work has assumed a crucial place in current debates over the interactions of art, culture, and meaning. A “natural and extraordinary talent for letter writing was one of the most captivating facets of his nature,” writes Gershom Scholem in his Foreword to this volume; and Benjamin's correspondence reveals the evolution of some of his most powerful ideas, (...) while also offering an intimate picture of Benjamin himself and the times in which he lived. Writing at length to Scholem and Theodor Adorno, and exchanging letters with Rainer Maria Rilke, Hannah Arendt, Max Brod, and Bertolt Brecht, Benjamin elaborates on his ideas about metaphor and language. He reflects on literary figures from Kafka to Karl Kraus, and expounds his personal attitudes toward such subjects as Marxism and French national character. Providing an indispensable tool for any scholar wrestling with Benjamin’s work, The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 1910–1940 is a revelatory look at the man behind much of the twentieth century’s most significant criticism. (shrink)

This case looks at the question of how to consider obligations of confidentiality by a mental health professional who works for an institution and learns that a student has been using a drug intended for an animal research project. Dr. Paul Appelbaum, MD, a psychiatrist at Columbia University, examines the issue of the limits of confidentiality. Nicholas Steneck, PhD, a scholar in research misconduct at the University of Michigan, explores the obligations to report research misconduct. Walter Limehouse, MD, an (...) ethicist at the Medical University of South Carolina, considers the systems issues raised by this case and offers some suggestions that might change the institutional environment. (shrink)

The essays compiled in this book explore aspects of Walter Benjamin's discourse that have contributed to the formation of contemporary architectural theories. Issues such as technology and history have been considered central to the very modernity of architecture, but Benjamin's reflection on these subjects has elevated the discussion to a critical level. The contributors in this book consider Walter Benjamin's ideas in the context of digitalization of architecture where it is the very technique itself that determines the processes (...) of design and the final form. This book was published as a special issue of Architectural Theory Review. (shrink)

Origin of the German Trauerspiel was Walter Benjamin's first full, historically oriented analysis of modernity. Readers of English know it as "The Origin of German Tragic Drama," but in fact the subject is something else--the play of mourning. Howard Eiland's completely new English translation, the first since 1977, is closer to the German text and more consistent with Benjamin's philosophical idiom. Focusing on the extravagant seventeenth-century theatrical genre of the trauerspiel, precursor of the opera, Benjamin identifies allegory as the (...) constitutive trope of the Baroque and of modernity itself. Allegorical perception bespeaks a world of mutability and equivocation, a melancholy sense of eternal transience without access to the transcendentals of the medieval mystery plays--though no less haunted and bedeviled. History as trauerspiel is the condition as well as subject of modern allegory in its inscription of the abyssal. Benjamin's investigation of the trauerspiel includes German texts and late Renaissance European drama such as Hamlet and Calderón's Life Is a Dream. The prologue is one of his most important and difficult pieces of writing. It lays out his method of indirection and his idea of the "constellation" as a key means of grasping the world, making dynamic unities out of the myriad bits of daily life. Thoroughly annotated with a philological and historical introduction and other explanatory and supplementary material, this rigorous and elegant new translation brings fresh understanding to a cardinal work by one of the twentieth century's greatest literary critics.--. (shrink)

A companion volume to Illuminations, the first collection of Walter Benjamin's writings, Reflections presents a further sampling of his wide-ranging work. Here Benjamin evolves a theory of language as the medium of all creation, discusses theater and surrealism, reminisces about Berlin in the 1920s, recalls conversations with Bertolt Brecht, and provides travelogues of various cities, including Moscow under Stalin. He moves seamlessly from literary criticism to autobiography to philosophical-theological speculations, cementing his reputation as one of the greatest and most (...) versatile writers of the twentieth century. Also included is a new preface by Leon Wieseltier that explores Benjamin's continued relevance for our times. (shrink)

Marking the centenary of Walter Benjamin's immensely influential essay, "Toward the Critique of Violence," this critical edition presents readers with an altogether new, fully annotated translation of a work that is widely recognized as a classic of modern political theory. The volume includes twenty-one notes and fragments by Benjamin along with passages from all of the contemporaneous texts to which his essay refers. Readers thus encounter for the first time in English provocative arguments about law and violence advanced by (...) Hermann Cohen, Kurt Hiller, Erich Unger, and Emil Lederer. A new translation of selections from Georges Sorel's Reflections on Violence further illuminates Benjamin's critical program. The volume also includes, for the first time in any language, a bibliography Benjamin drafted for the expansion of the essay and the development of a corresponding philosophy of law. An extensive introduction and afterword provide additional context. With its challenging argument concerning violence, law, and justice-which addresses such topical matters as police violence, the death penalty, and the ambiguous force of religion-Benjamin's work is as important today as it was upon its publication in Weimar Germany a century ago. (shrink)

This collection explores, in Adorno's description, `philosophy directed against philosophy'. The essays cover all aspects of Benjamin's writings, from his early work in the philosophy of art and language, through to the concept of history. The experience of time and the destruction of false continuity are identified as the key themes in Benjamin's understanding of history.

Die Untersuchung gliedert sich in einen allgemeinen und einen besonderen Teil. Der allgemeine Teil, der die ersten neun Kapitel umfasst, hat es mit den Veränderungen zu tun, denen die Funktion des Kunstwerkes in seiner technisch reproduzierten Gestalt unterworfen ist. Die Qualität seiner technischen Reproduktion und die Geschwindigkeit ihrer Herstellung sind seit den einschlägigen Erfindungen des letzten Jahrhunderts in schnellem Wachstum begriffen. Die Zeit, die zwischen der Erfindung der Lithographie und der des Tonfilms liegt, umfasst kaum mehr Jahrzehnte als die zwischen (...) der Erfindung des Holzschnitts und der der Lithographie liegenden Jahrhunderte. Der Film ist die derzeit fortgeschrittenste künstlerische R ‘produktionstechnik. Er bedeutet in der Geschichte der Kunst etwas grundlegend Neues, nämlich die Reproduktion eines auf Reproduzierbarkeit angelegten Kunstwerkes. Der besondere Teil der Untersuchung hat es mit dem Film als der der Kunst in der Epoche ihrer technischen Reproduzierbarkeit spezifischen Form zu tun.Das erste Kapitel der Untersuchung entwickelt den Unterschied zwischen manueller und technischer Reproduktion des Kunstwerkes. Das zweite* umschreibt den jeder Reproduktion entzogenen Bereich der Echtheit, der die Aura des Kunstwerkes bildet. Das dritte bestimmt den Charakter der gegenwärtigen Wahrnehmung als bestimmt durch den Verfall der Aura. Das vierte weist die Fundierung der Echtheit in den Zusammenhängen des Rituals auf. Das fünfte hat es mit dem Unterschied des auf dem Ritual beruhenden Kultwertes des Kunstwerks von seinem Ausstellungwert zu tun. Das sechste zeigt, welchen verschiedenen Entwicklungsstufen der Technik Kultwert und Ausstellungswert des Kunstwerkes entsprechen. Das s'ebte handelt von dem beginnenden Übergewicht des Ausstellungswertes über den Kultwert in der Photographie. Das achte beleuchtet die Sonderstellung der griechischen Kunst durch ihren fast völligen Mangel an technischen Reproduktionsverfahren. Das neunte weist auf die Schwierigkeiten hin, die der überkommenen Aesthetik durch die Photographie und den Film erwachsen.Der zweite Teil der Untersuchung zieht aus den Analysen des ersten Teils die Folgerungen für die Filmtheorie. Er beschäftigt sich mit den Umständen, die aus dem Film dasjenige Kunstwerk machen, an dem die derzeitige Funktionsänderung sich am deutlichsten abnehmen lässt. Diese Funktionsänderung besteht in der Überführung des Kunstwerkes aus der ritualen in die politische Praxis.The investigation is divided into two parts, the first conceived on general lines and the second dealing with one specific aspect of the question. The general part deals with the changes to which the function of a work of art is subjected in its technically reproduced form. The quality of its technical reproduction and the speed with which the same is established have made great progress since the inventions of last century in that sphere. The period of time existing between the invention of lithography and that of the sound film contains scarcely more decades than there are centuries between the invention of the wood-cut and that of lithography. The film, at present, has the most highly developed technic of artistic reproduction. In the history of art the film represents something fundamentally new, namely, the reproduction of a work of art which aims precisely at such reproducibility. The second part of the investigation deals with the film as the specific form of art in the era of technical reproducibility.The first chapter develops the difference between manual and technical reproduction of a work of art. The second delimits the sphere of authenticity which forms the aura of a work of art and which is withdrawn from every reproduction. The third defines the character of modern perception as determined by the deterioration of the aura. The fourth chapter shows that the foundation of authenticity lies in the associations of ritual. The fifth deals with the difference between the cult-value based on ritual and the exhibition-value of a work of art. The sixth shows the various stages in the development of technical art to which the cult-value and the exhibition-value of a work of art correspond. The seventh treats the beginnings of the predominance of the exhibition-value over the cult- value in photography. The eighth throws light on the special position of Greek art due to its being almost completely lacking in methods of technical reproduction. The ninth draws attention to the difficulties which arise for traditional esthetics Through photography and the film.The second part of the investigation draws from the analyses of the first part certain conclusions concerning the theory of film-making. It concerns itself with the circumstances which make the film the work of art from which the modern change of function can be most clearly deduced. This change of function consists in the transference of the work of art from the realm of ritual to that of politics. (shrink)

The essay begins with the estrangement of the great lyrical poetry from the public since the middle of the 19th century. It is conceived in terms of an historical change in the structure of human experiencing.That is first demonstrated in Bergson. The autor interprets „Matière et Mémoire“ as the attempt to vindicate through the category of memory the possibility of genuine, that is, tradition-forming experience as against the mode of experience in the industrial age. Proust has more closely determined Bergson's (...) notion of memory as involuntary memory. Accordingly he seeks to reconstruct the aesthetic form of the narrative. Its industrial counterparts are information and sensation. Through shocks they threaten memory which B., in referring to psycho-analytical theories, conceives in terms of „protection against stimuli“.Erlebnis becomes the antithesis of experience (Erfahrung). In Baudelaire’s lyrical poetry the Erlebnis of shock occupies the center. In his portrayal of the fenser, Baudelaire identifies himself with the one who parries the shocks. These shocks occur when the individual is confronted with the amorphous multitude of the metropolis. In one chapter the author describes this clash and the shape it takes in Baudelaire's poetry. The subsequent chapter presents an analysis of Poe's „Man of the Crowd44, the city crowd portrayal which provides the clue for Baudelaire's and which is contrasted with the Biedermeier picture of Hoffmann's „Cousin's Corner Window“.The shock as the dominant form of Erlebnis is shown as grounded in the reified process of production in capitalist society. The discontinuity of the elements of shock has its basis in the discontinuity of the automatized process of labor which no longer admits of any „experience“, „practice“. The experience of shock of the member of a crowd corresponds to the experience of the worker who operates a machine. The reflectory mechanism of the victim of Modern Times appears in Baudelaire's work in the pattern of the hazard game which at the same time is the radical counterpart of „experience“.In Baudelaire, time is dissociated. Its power is absorbed by rare, „significant“ days. In them Baudelaire, through the „correspondances“4 seeks to save and restore the lost experience. The power of anamnesis is posited against the „swarm of seconds“. But the consolation of anamnesis remains impotent. In the dissociated shock moments of time, — the „spieen“ —, and the anamnesis of the vie antérieure, — the „idéal“ —, Baudelaire holds in his hands the débris of genuine experience.B. subordinates the representations constitutive of „experience“, that is, those of involuntary mefiiory, to his notion of „aura“. To experience the aura of a phenomenon means to endow it with the faculty of raising the eyes. The decay of aura is the foremost subject of Baudelaire : he summons eyes who have lost the faculty of raising themselves. He has designated the price for which the sensation of the Modern can be bought : the destruction of aura in shock experience.L'analyse débute par la constatation d'une scission entre la grande poésie lyrique et le public — scission qui se serait produite dès le milieu du xix® siècle. Cette séparation est interprétée comme la conséquence d'une transformation dans la structure même de l'expérience humaine.Cela est d'abord expliqué par l’oeuvre de Bergson. La théorie de la mémoire telle qu'elle a été développée dans Matière et mémoire se rattache à un type d'expérience qui, au cours du xixe siècle, a subi des atteintes profondes. Bergson tend, grâce à la catégorie de la mémoire, de restaurer le concept d'une expérience authentique. Cette expérience authentique existe en fonction de la tradition et s'oppose ainsi aux modes habituelles d'expérience propres à l'époque de la grande industrie. Proust a défini la mémoire bergsonienne comme une mémoire involontaire ; en son nom il avait essayé de reconstruire la forme de la narration. Le rival de cette dernière s'appelle, à l'époque de la grande industrie, l'information. Elle développe, par le moyen des chocs, une mémoire qui, par Proust, a été opposée à la mémoire bergsonienne sous le nom d'une mémoire volontaire. Il est permis de considérer, conformément à Freud, la mémoire volontaire comme étroitement liée à une conscience perpétuellement aux aguets. Plus la conscience sera obligée à parer aux chocs, plus se développera la mémoire volontaire, et plus périclitera la mémoire involontaire. L'expérience éminemment moderne du choc sera la norme de la poésie baudelairienne. Par l'image de l’escrimeur, Baudelaire qui, en flânant, était habitué d’être coudoyé par les foules des rues, s’identifie à l’homme qui pare aux chocs.Le choc en tant que forme prépondérante de la sensation se trouve accentué par le processus objectivisé et capitaliste du travail. La discontinuité des moments de choc trouve sa cause dans la discontinuité d’un travail devenu automatique, n’admettant plus l’expérience traditionnelle qui présidait au travail artisanal. Au choc éprouvé par celui qui flâne dans la foule correspond une expérience inédite : celle de l’ouvrier devant la machine.Le réflexe mécanisé de l’homme livré au monde moderne se traduit chez Baudelaire dans l’attitude du joueur. Pour l’homme qui s’est adonné au jeu, l’expérience du choc se présente en ce qu’elle a de plus essentiel* c’est-à-dire comme une façon d’éprouver le temps. Le spleenétique qui ne peut se dégager de la fascination exercée par le déroulement du temps vide est le frère jumeau du joueur. En face du Spleen, l’oeuvre baudelairienne évoque l’Idéal. L’Idéal, c’est la mémoire involontaire, initiatrice aux * correspondances ». Dépositaire des images d’une vie antérieure, l’Idéal serait le consolateur suprême s’il n’était tenu en échec par la « beauté moderne » qui est essentiellement spleenétique. Les souvenirs plus ou moins distincts dont est imprégnée chaque image qui surgit du fond de la mémoire involontaire peuvent être considérés comme son « aura ». Se saisir de l’aura d’une chose veut dire : l’investir du pouvoir de lever le regard. La déchéance de l’aura a des causes historiques dont l’invention de la photographie est comme un abrégé. Cette déchéance constitue le thème le plus personnel de Baudelaire. C’est elle qui donne la clé de ses poésies érotiques. Le poète invoque des yeux qui ont perdu le pouvoir du regard. Ainsi se trouve fixé le prix de la beauté et de l’expérience moderne : la destruction de l’aura par la sensation du choc. (shrink)

Depuis l'exil, le philosophe W. Benjamin recompose, dans une sA(c)rie de brA]ves vignettes, ses souvenirs d'enfance A Berlin. Loin de l'anecdote, il s'agit d'une vA(c)ritable plongA(c)e dans l'enfance et dans l'histoire, oA se retrouvent les thA]mes essentiels de la philosophie benjaminienne. Ce texte restA(c) inA(c)dit du vivant de l'auteur, est dA(c)sormais connu en plusieurs variantes, dont celle-ci est la derniA]re A laquelle il ait mis la main. Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) est un philosophe, historien de l'art, critique littA(c)raire, critique d'art (...) et traducteur (notamment de Balzac, Baudelaire et Proust) allemand de la premiA]re moitiA(c) du XXe siA]cle, rattachA(c) A l'A(c)cole de Francfort. Traduction et prA(c)face de Pierre Rusch Postscriptum de Patricia Lavelle. (shrink)

Cette étude nous offre une analyse de l’attitude des écrivains français contemporains au point de vue social. L’auteur esquisse à grands traits le développement de cette attitude en commençant par Maurice Barrés et décrit les nombreux essais tentés par des écrivains de valeur qui ont voulu s’inspirer de la pensée bourgeoise et représenter cette classe par le moyen de la littérature. La doctrine politique du radical-socialisme d’Alain y est comparée avec le traditionalisme de Barrés. Les efforts de Charles Péguy et (...) de Julien Benda vers une conception normative de la notion du „clerc“, de „l’être intellectuel“ sont décrits quand à leur essence et à leurs limitatons. Une digression sur quelques aspects de belles-lettres : Roman populaire, Ferdinand Céline, Julien Green, fait suite. L’antagonisme entre le poète et l’écrivain sert de trame à une étude de l’oeuvre de Paul Valéry, dans lequel cet antagonisme apparaît le plus nettement. L’orientation sociale actuelle de l’écrivain français se conçoit le mieux lorsqu’on étudie l’oeuvre d’André Gide ; son attitude significative, à un tournant de l’histoire, puise toute sa valeur dans son influence si considérable sur la jeune génération, dont les représentants les plus avancés ont passé par le surréalisme.The object of the following exposition is to determine the attitude of modern French literature, and to trace the main features of its development since Maurice Barrés. We are given the manifold attempts of important authors to inspire themselves with the ideology of the middle class, and to come out on behalf of this class in their writings. Alain’s political doctrine of Radical Socialism is confronted with the reactionary traditionalism of Barrés. Charles Péguy’s and Julien Benda’s exertions to give a normative setting to their concepts of „clerk“ and „intellectual“ are examined both as regards content and definition. We are then presented with some aspects of present-day Belles Lettres : of the „popular novel“, Ferdinand Céline, Julien Green. The antagonism between poet and author is considered in connection with Paul Valéry’s work which shows this most clearly and fruitfully. The present social standpoint of French litterateurs appears in a concentrated form in the life-work of André Gide. His representative position at a turning-point in development is evidenced by his influence on the younger generation, the most advanced of whom have gone beyond and away from Surrealism. (shrink)

Lorsque commença en 1933 la dispersion des savants allemands, il n’y avait aucun domaine dont la connaissance familière aurait pu leur conférer un prestige exclusif. Pourtant, les regards de l’Europe étaient tournés vers eux, et il s’y lisait plus que de la sympathie. C’étaient des regards interrogateurs, comme les font naître des gens qui ont été confrontés à un danger inhabituel,...

This study treats the writings of Fuchs as an example of recent materialistic historiography. Critical appreciation of his work involves critical appreciation of the whole concept of cultural history which prevailed in Socialist popular science in the last decade of the nineteenth century. The influence of dialectical materialism was slight, that of positivism greater. An excursus attempts to show how, with technical progress, the work of philosophers and scholars was impaired by this positivism even in the middle of the century. (...) The way in which Fuchs, writing from a Socialist position, attacked the bourgeois art history of a man like Wölfflin is described, but without neglecting his kinship to great bourgeois scholars like Brandes and Bastian. His biological conception of art is then analyzed in its historical conditions, and its close relationship to the intuitive methods of the collector demonstrated. As a collector Fuchs was rooted in the French tradition, but he brought to it the strict morality of German historiography. The Jacobin element in his historical writing is traced back to Schlosser. It appears that Fuchs could not entirely avoid collisions between his Jacobin morality and the materialist conception of history. His work displays a similar tension between that theory of history and his sexual ethics. On the other hand, he was able to throw much light on creative art from the study of sex. His most brilliant theoretical work is in his studies of Daumier. Daumier was also one of his chief subjects as a collector. The study closes with Fuchs’s role in the history of art collecting.Ce travail porte sur les écrits de Fuchs, considérés comme exemple de la méthode matérialiste contemporaine.Le jugement critique porté sur l’oeuvre de Fuchs se confond avec un jugement critique sur la notion d’histoire de la culture, qui dominait alors la science populaire d’inspiration socialiste. L’influence du matérialisme dialectique sur celle-ci était limitée ; Finfluence du positivisme était d’autant plus grande. Une disgression essaie de montrer, comment déjà au milieu du xixe siècle, ce positivisme avait nui aux réflexions des philosophes et des savants sur le progrès technique. On indique comment Fuchs, d’un point de vue socialiste, s’oppose à l’histoire de l’art bourgeois d’un Wölfflin, sans méconnaître la parenté entre Fuchs et de grands savants bourgeois comme Brandes et Bastian. On précise ensuite les conditions historiques dans lesquelles Fuchs a développé son interprétation biologique de l’art ; la méthode intuitive qui correspond à la tendance spontanée du collectionneur, se révèle étroitement liée à cette interprétation. Le collectionneur Fuchs se rattache à la tradition française, à laquelle se joint le moralisme rigide qui vient de l’historiographie allemande. On remonte jusqu’à Schlosser pour expliquer les origines du jacobinisme qui apparaît dans les récits historiques de Fuchs. On aperçoit que celui-ci n’a pu éviter complètement les conflits entre jacobinisme moraliste et matérialisme historique. De même, son mode de considération historique n’est pas toujours en accord avec son éthique sexuelle. Par ailleurs, il apporte à la science des connaissances importantes sur le rôle de la sexualité dans la création artistique. Les études sur Daumier sont sans doute l’oeuvre la plus haute du théoricien Fuchs. Daumier a été également pour le collectionneur Fuchs un des thèmes les plus significatifs.La fin de l’article éclaire le rôle de Fuchs dans l’histoire des collections artistiques. (shrink)

Lorsque commença en 1933 la dispersion des savants allemands, il n’y avait aucun domaine dont la connaissance familière aurait pu leur conférer un prestige exclusif. Pourtant, les regards de l’Europe étaient tournés vers eux, et il s’y lisait plus que de la sympathie. C’étaient des regards interrogateurs, comme les font naître des gens qui ont été confrontés à un danger inhabituel,..

This collection explores, in Adorno's description, `philosophy directed against philosophy'. The essays cover all aspects of Benjamin's writings, from his early work in the philosophy of art and language, through to the concept of history. The experience of time and the destruction of false continuity are identified as the key themes in Benjamin's understanding of history.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Walter Benjamin’s writings on fashion need to be read as engagements with the problem of historical time and a related politics of time. The aim of this article is to develop this position. Its point of orientation is Thesis XIV from the Theses on the Philosophy of History. What is argued is that close attention to the temporality of change and novelty within fashion may allow an insight into a conception of interruption and the ‘new’, however, it cannot yield (...) a politics. Moreover, the link between fashion and utopianism allows for the development of a critique of the utopian dimension of Benjamin’s thought. The basis of that critique is the inherent politics of time in his own writings. (shrink)

Walter Benjamin’s writings on fashion need to be read as engagements with the problem of historical time and a related politics of time. The aim of this article is to develop this position. Its point of orientation is Thesis XIV from the Theses on the Philosophy of History. What is argued is that close attention to the temporality of change and novelty within fashion may allow an insight into a conception of interruption and the ‘new’, however, it cannot yield (...) a politics. Moreover, the link between fashion and utopianism allows for the development of a critique of the utopian dimension of Benjamin’s thought. The basis of that critique is the inherent politics of time in his own writings. (shrink)

Critique as a philosophical concept needs to be recast once it is linked to the possibility of a productive opening. In such a context critique has an important affinity to destruction and forms of inauguration. Working through writings of Marx and Walter Benjamin, specifically Benjamin's 'The Meaning of Time in the Moral World', destruction and inauguration are repositioned in terns of othering and the caesura of allowing.

Many authors, both scholarly and otherwise, have asked what might have happened had Walter Benjamin survived his 1940 attempt to escape Nazi-occupied Europe. This essay examines several implicitly or explicitly “counterfactual” thought experiments regarding Benjamin’s “survival,” including Hannah Arendt’s influential “Walter Benjamin: 1892–1940,” and asks why our attachment to Benjamin’s story has prompted so much counterfactual inquiry. It also explores the larger question of why few intellectual historians ask explicitly counterfactual questions in their work. While counterfactuals have proven (...) invaluable for scholars in diplomatic, military, and economic history, those writing about the history of ideas often seem less concerned with chains of events and contingency than some of their colleagues are—or they attend to contingency in a selective fashion. Thus this essay attends to the ambivalence about the category of contingency that runs through much work in intellectual history. Returning to the case of Walter Benjamin, this essay explores his own tendency to pose “what if?” questions, and then concludes with an attempt to ask a serious counterfactual question about his story. The effort to ask this question reveals one methodological advantage of counterfactual inquiry: the effort to ask such questions often serves as an excellent guide to the prejudices and interests of the historian asking them. By engaging in counterfactual thought experiments, intellectual historians could restore an awareness of sheer contingency to the stories we tell about the major texts and debates of intellectual history. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to show how philosopher and critic Walter Benjamin related to the hermeneutical tradition — and tried to move beyond it by ‘redeeming’ human experience, while avoiding the pitfalls of the philosophy of ‘authenticity’. Though convinced that questions relating to historicity were central to any understanding of modern human experience, Benjamin explicitly rejected the Heideggerian alternative, and chose a path closer to Hans-Georg Gadamer’s. He attempted to combine theological interpretation with dialectical materialism, always grounding (...) hermeneutics in the concrete manifestations of social life, inaugurating a method which I suggest could be called ‘hermeneutical materialism’. At stake was a politically motivated defence of the ‘mimetic faculty’ — understood as (re)interpretation — in the modern, technologically organized world. (shrink)

This book provides a highly original approach to the writings of the twentieth-century German philosopher Walter Benjamin by one of his most distinguished readers. It develops the idea of "working with" Benjamin, seeking both to read his corpus and to put it to work - to show how a reading ofBenjamin can open up issues that may not themselves be immediately at stake in his texts.The defining elements in Benjamin's writings that Andrew Benjamin isolates - history, experience, translation, technical (...) reproducibility and politics - are put to work; that is, their utility is established in engaging the works of others. The question is how utility is understood. As AndrewBenjamin argues, utility involves demonstrating the different ways in which Benjamin is a central thinker within the project of understanding the nature of modernity. This is best achieved by noting connections and points of differentiation between his work and the writings of Adorno and Heidegger.However, the more demanding project is that "working with" Benjamin necessitates deploying the implicit assumptions within his writings as well as demanding of his formulations more than is provided by their initial presentation. What is at stake is not the application of Benjamin's thought. Ratherwhat counts is its use.Working with Benjamin engages with the themes central to Benjamin's work with deftness, daring and critical insight while at the same time situating those themes within current academic and cultural debates. (shrink)

Walter Benjamin's Politics of 'bad tasteMichael Mac Modernity as an unfinished Project: Benjamin and Political RomanticismRobert Sinnerbrink Violence, ...

The paper both connects and disassociates the work of Walter Benjamin and Aby Warburg. There are two interrelated undertakings. The first involves the relationship between philosophy and art history and thus how art history figures within the philosophical. The second pertains to the status of the image. Part of the argument to be advanced is that an engagement with philosophical approach to art history yields a concern with the image in which it is the image's material presence that proves (...) decisive. Indeed, it is by insisting on the object's materiality that it then becomes possible to locate the effective presence of the gesture as integral to the work of art. The contention is that gesture is the intersection of art's material presence and the concerns of meaning. The paper us develop via an engagement with works by Edgar Degas and Luca Signorelli. (shrink)

This essay contends that Stanley Cavell’s criterion of “good enough justice,” which designates the minimal condition of social justice necessary for his perfectionist understanding of ethical selfhood, constitutes an avoidance—rather than an acknowledgment—of the problem of injustice. Taking Cavell’s misreading of Walter Benjamin as exemplary of this tendency, the essay shows how Cavell’s moral perfectionism consistently converts questions about the suffering of others into a problem of the self and its conscience, thereby avoiding the ethical claim at the heart (...) of Benjamin’s project. (shrink)

Offers a sustained meditation on the role of interruption in modernity. This book departs from and elaborates an important but overlooked dimension of Walter Benjamin's discourse: the question of style as it bears upon temporality and spatiality. This work suggests that the time has come to revise existing paradigms.

Art, Mimesis and the Avant-Garde explores the relationship between art and philosophy. Andrew Benjamin argues for a reworking of the task of philosophy in terms of the centrality of ontology. It is in relation to this centrality, understood through the differences between modes of being, that art, mimesis, and the avant-garde come to be presented. A fundamental part of this book is the original interpretations of important contemporary painters and their themes: Lucian Freud's self-portraits, Francis Bacon 's use of mirrors, (...) R. B. Kitaj and Jewish identity, Anselm Kiefer and iconoclasm. Apart from painting, Benjamin considers architecture, literature, and the philosophical writings of Walter Benjamin and Descartes in elaborating the various aspects of ontological difference. Benjamin develops the theory of the avant-garde as a philosophical category rather than a historical marker, thus bringing the worlds of contemporary art criticism and contemporary philosophy closer together. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:At St. Isidore’s Franciscan College in Rome, the following maxim attributed to St. Patrick is inscribed above the door-way of the church: Si quae difficiles quaestiones in hac insula oriantur ad Sedem Apostolicam referantur; ut Christiani ita et Romani sitis.1 The college was founded in 1625 by Luke Wadding, O.F.M. and, under his direction, became a major seat of theological learning and political influence for the Irish in Rome.2 (...) In the nineteenth century, the Friars Minor of the Province of Ireland assigned many documents from St. Isidore’s for use in their Irish friaries. In 1872, amid the unrest caused by the Risorgimento, medieval and early-modern Irish Franciscan manuscripts were transferred to Dublin.3 At the Merchants’ Quay Convent, the librarians T.A. O’Reilly, O.F.M. and E.B. Fitzmaurice, O.F.M. divided the manuscripts into sections with alphabetically ordered shelf-marks.4 This practical approach followed the long-established system used at Italian libraries and archives in Franciscan custody.5 From 1947 until 2000, the manuscripts of the Irish Friars Minor were kept at the Franciscans’ Dún Mhuire House of Studies in Killiney, County Dublin, before their transfer to the Archives, University College Dublin.The ‘D’ collection is preserved in twenty-six sets of volumes, folders and boxed papers. The greater part consists of Luke Wadding’s correspondence, relating to his activities as theologian, historian, Irish agent in Rome and consultor to several congregations and commissions at the papal secretariat.6 In the 1920s, Paul Grosjean, S.J. included four manuscripts then housed at Merchants’ Quay in a catalogue of hagiographical works.7 Clement Schmitt, O.F.M. treated of a collection of the Franciscan documents kept in Dublin in 1964.8Letters to and from Luke Wadding are also preserved at the Vatican Library; the Archivo Generale at the General Curia of Friars Minor, Rome; the Biblioteca Landiana, Piacenza; the Biblioteca Nazionale, Naples; the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan; the Archives of the Bollandists, Brussels; the Archives Générales de Royaume, Brussels; the Von Harrach Archive, Vienna; and the Franciscan friary of St. Jerome in Vienna.9Compared to some six hundred that Luke Wadding received, “the text of approximately one hundred of his letters, in whole or in part, has survived.”10 Nearly all Wadding’s extant correspondence dates from the three decades after the publication of his Acta legationis on the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in 1624. Most of his letters were sent from St. Isidore, some from the friaries of Aracoeli and San Pietro in Montorio, Rome, and a few from Naples.11Luke Wadding was born in Waterford on October 16, 1588, the eleventh of fourteen children.12 He was baptized two days later on the Feast of St. Luke. His father Walter was a well-established Waterford merchant and his mother Anastasia a kinswoman of the prominent Lombard family of Waterford. After the death of his parents, Luke left Ireland with his elder brother, Matthew, who enrolled him at the Irish Jesuits’ College in Lisbon. At seventeen years of age, Wadding made his way to Matozinhos in northern Portugal, near Oporto, where he entered the Franciscan Order. On completion of his novitiate, Wadding’s superiors sent him to the University of Coimbra and from there, to Salamanca. At Easter 1613, Luke Wadding was ordained to the priesthood after his studies. He was then appointed as a professor of theology at the Franciscan College of León and later at his own alma mater, Salamanca.13Called to the Spanish capital, Luke Wadding stayed at the Convent of Jesus and Mary in the south-east of Madrid where “lived not only the heads of the Franciscan Order in Spain but also the principal preachers.”14 Such was the distinction Wadding achieved that he was chosen by Philip III for the office of theologian in the embassy sent to defend the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in Rome.15 He lived there for almost forty years, in which time he founded St. Isidore Franciscan College, the.. (shrink)

In this article I take up the image of inclination developed by Adriana Cavarero in her book, Inclinations: A Critique of Rectitude as a mode of developing an account of history informed by an ontology of heterogeneous ethics. Clarifying the potential of inclination contra the Kantian figure of “uprightness,” the principle task of this article is to reimagine the implications of inclination with regard to Walter Benjamin’s theses on history. Ultimately, I show that by pushing at the relationality inherent (...) to an inclined ontology of the self a meaningful exchange can be generated between plural historical temporalities, a move that reveals the inclined figure’s potential to redeem narratives of the historically dispossessed. (shrink)

This book offers a collection of contemporary essays that explore philosophical themes at work in chess. This collection includes essays on the nature of a game, the appropriateness of chess as a metaphor for life, and even deigns to query whether Garry Kasparov might—just might—be a cyborg. In twelve unique essays, contributed by philosophers with a broad range of expertise in chess, this book poses both serious and playful questions about this centuries-old pastime. -/- Perhaps more interestingly, philosophers have often (...) used chess in discussions of their work. Walter Benjamin compares the marching of history to an automaton playing chess. John Dewey and Charles Sanders Peirce utilize chess to explain their pragmatism. The linguist Ferdinand de Saussure employs the analogy of chess to explain the exchange of signifiers. There are approximately 181 uses of the word chess or one of its cognates in the published works of Ludwig Wittgenstein. John Rawls explains that one might want to make a distinction between constitutive and regulative rules, which can best be understood by examining a game of chess. John Searle, deeply convinced of this distinction, explains further: "The rules of football or chess are given as an example of constitutive rules because they 'create the very possibility of playing such games.'" Hubert Dreyfus and Daniel Dennett have had extensive public discussions about the issue of artificial intelligence and chess. Dreyfus, utilizing chess examples, has written extensively on what computers still cannot do. Meanwhile, in spite of his protestations, chess-playing computers continue to fascinate those who work in the area of artificial intelligence. -/- The game of chess has endured since at least the sixth century. Its earliest variant, the Indian game of Chaturanga, was from the beginning a game for thinkers. Since its inception, scholars, statesmen, strategists, and warriors have been fascinated by the game and its variants. German philosopher Emmanuel Lasker and famed French artist Marcel Duchamp were both Grandmasters at chess. Karl Marx played chess avidly, as did Sir Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, and the logical positivist Max Black. Jean-Jacques Rousseau mentions in his Confessions that, at the time, he "had another expedient, not less solid, in the game of chess, to which I regularly dedicated, at Maugis's, the evenings on which I did not go to the theater. I became acquainted with M. de Legal, M. Husson, Philidor, and all the great chess players of the day, without making the least improvement in the game." More recently, philosopher Stuart Rachels reports that his father, the late philosopher and prominent ethicist James Rachels, received a bribe from a Russian Grandmaster while he was the chair of the U.S. Chess Federation's Ethics committee. -/- "Whether you’re a professional philosopher, an armchair chess player, or something in between, Philosophy Looks at Chess gives you hours of thought-provoking reading. With chapters on technology, ethics, hip hop, and backward analysis, this book carves out a new space in the literature on both chess and philosophy" -/- —Jennifer Shahade, two-time U.S. Women's Champion and author of Chess Bitch -/- "Chess and philosophy are natural mates that have been awaiting the proper introduction. This wide-ranging collection of stimulating essays is the perfect opening gambit for philosophical chess enthusiasts." -/- —Will Dudley, author of Hegel, Nietzsche, and Philosophy: Thinking Freedom. (shrink)

Abstract:Designers whose projects are inspired by a community’s unique sense of spatial identity often focus on a site’s observable context, i.e. historic forms and surface aesthetics. Focus on typological components, however, overlooks generative relationships between the phenomenology of place and human energy investment. Recognizing Kubler’s dictum that material history is an observable continuum then, at its most fundamental level, the history of spatial production is the history of energy use. For most of human history, place was a unique socio-cultural expression (...) because it fused energy expenditure with site-specific conditions, including climate, topography and materials. This paper introduces the concept of burden distance, the distance needed to travel to material sources and bring them back from origin points to their place of use. This proposed concept parallels Walter Christaller’s Central Place Theory idea of “range,” but applied in terms phenomenological implications of energy investment and placemaking. Understanding burden distance and its role in placemaking, is an important step in identifying why built environments have a spatial specificity that contributes to mitigate spatial alienation and instead root people to their built environment. (shrink)

An understanding of what we mean by the present is one of the key issues in literature, philosophy, and culture today, but also one of the most neglected and misunderstood. _Present Hope_ develops a fascinating philosophical understanding of the present, approaching this question via discussions of the nature of historical time, the philosophy of history, memory, and the role of tragedy. Andrew Benjamin shows how we misleadingly view the present as simply a product of chronological time, ignoring the role of (...) history and memory. Accordingly, discussion of what is meant by the present disappears from philosophical concern. To draw attention to this absence, Andrew Benjamin introduces the notion of hope and asks what this concept can tell us about the present. At the heart of the outstanding work is an emphasis on the relation between hope and the Jewish tradition. Through discussions of philosophical responses to the Holocaust, the work of Walter Benjamin, Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum, and the poetry of Paul Celan, _Present Hope_ shows how we must look beyond the purely philosophical horizon to understand the present we live in. (shrink)

The aim of this article is straightforward: to present two clarifications of Hannah- Arendt’s seasoned political concept of natality and to conclude by positioning this new account of natality within the context of the climate crisis. In many ways, this concluding section, where natality is read as a form of historical emancipation, hinges on the degree to which I succeed in reframing existing conversations around natality. In the first instance I submit an ‘earthly reading’ of natality before turning to discuss (...) the historical implications of this ‘re-earthed’ natality as enacting a form of weak messianism akin to that of Walter Benjamin. Rethinking natality in this way, I present an account of Arendt’s work as always already inclined towards the issues brought to light in the climate crisis. And so, while the forms of emancipation and redemption that I locate in natality may already be commonly read in natal actions, which break spontaneously into the world and recall the originality of appearance, I nevertheless contend that its political implications reach new grounds with the revisions that I offer in the body of my article. By way of conclusion, I join critical Anthropocene theorists in contending with the ‘slow violence’, ‘willed racial blindness’ and ‘crises of the imagination’ that the climate crisis elicits. This is the setting that sits behind my intervention into natality and, in turn, it is this setting that I suggest can be illuminated through the weak messianism of a ‘re-earthed’ natality. Arguing for Arendt’s latent consideration of the earth, I hope to expose the ruined fragments of the past that shape the present crisis and gesture towards their radical redemption. If I succeed in showing that natality can be used as a resource to rethink both the prehistory and the present of the climate crisis then I will have achieved a reorientation in thinking about Arendt’s politics. Which is merely to say that I will have revealed concerns for the earth as intrinsic to natal actions and, in turn, their appearance as messianic disruptions on the earth. Prompted by the need to think critically about the historical appearance of the climate crisis whilst retaining, at the same time, the injunction to think expansively about future action – that is, as not determined exclusively by the violence of the climate crisis – this article defends a reconsideration of natality as a form of critical historical intervention. Formulating this reconstruction is then ‘operationalised’ in the concluding section where I invoke its revolutionary force in remapping the history of the climate crisis. (shrink)

This special issue arose from a workshop on “Peace and Concord from Plato to Lessing”, organised by the editors and which took place at the University of Sydney on 18 and 19 September 2017. Central to the work of both the editors is the relationship between the concepts of ‘concord’, ‘peace’ and ‘dignity’ within a setting created by a concern with the development of a philological anthropology. Their work combines both intellectual history and philosophy, a combination that is reflected in (...) the contents of the special issue of Theoria. The importance of these terms is that they allow for another interpretation of the ethical and the political. Central to both is the location of human being within a larger cultural context. That context demands an approach in which philosophy does not exclude history, and history recognises that it is already informed philosophically. If there is a unifying term, it is ‘culture’. The approach taken within the larger project starts with the centrality of culture as that which demands to be thought. And yet culture is neither tranquil nor unified. As Walter Benjamin argued, there ‘is no document of culture which is not at the same time a document of barbarism’. Allowing for culture’s centrality entails a reconfiguration of both philosophy and intellectual history. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Commentary on “Free Will in the Light of Neuropsychiatry”Benjamin Libet (bio)Is Free Will Incompatible with Neuroscience?Sean Spence sets forth some interesting approaches to the issue of free will. His concepts are provocative and his marshalling of related quotations is informative.However, I shall argue with some of his crucial assumptions, in a way that affects the validity of some of Spence’s major conclusions. The latter are that “conscious experience is (...) always temporally postneural activity and thus... ‘caused’ not causal. Our ‘control’ is a sense which may be lost.... Our sense of agency is apparently illusory.”I have, of course, no quarrel with the view that even a fully voluntary act is initiated unconsciously (non-consciously). That condition was in fact demonstrated experimentally by us (Libet et al. 1983) when we found that cerebral neural activity (“readiness potential”) precedes the subject’s awareness of his/her intention or wish to act by at least 350 msec. This applied to fully self-initiated acts that occurred without “pre-planning” by the subject of when to move. (Incidentally, those finding have been replicated by others—see Keller and Heckhansen, 1990 with commentary thereon by Libet 1992, and Wong et al. 1988).However, we also found that conscious intention did precede that actual motor act by about 200 msec. That left open the potentiality for the conscious function to control the outcome of the process that was initiated in the brain unconsciously (see Libet 1985). We have all had the experience of consciously suppressing or vetoing the performance of an urge or intention to act. The 200 msec interval provides sufficient time in which the voluntary process could be stopped, before final activation of the motor area about 50 msec before the act. We were able to show that subjects could veto an act in the 100–200 msec interval before the expected time for the action.Spence dismisses this free will potentiality in the control or veto of a voluntary process. He says: “It is flawed because the ‘decision’ (in consciousness) to act or not to act is itself the ‘result’ of preceding neural activity.” This argument is based on my own evidence that a period of up to 500 msec of cerebral activity is required to produce a conscious sensory experience (Libet 1993, for review).But conscious control of a process is not the same as becoming aware of the volitional intent (Libet 1985, 563–564). Control implies the imposing of a change, in this case after the appearance of the awareness of intention to act. Conscious control may not necessarily require the same neural “time-on” feature that precedes the appearance of awareness per se. There is presently [End Page 95] no directly applicable evidence against the appearance of a conscious control function without prior neural processes specific to its initiation.In short, one cannot cavalierly dismiss the possibility of a conscious free will function on the basis of a belief that such a control function must be itself initiated unconsciously by prior specific neural processes. The argument that conscious free will control is simply a useful delusion must still be regarded as a philosophical belief, not a scientifically demonstrated proposition.Spence goes on to suggest that “Consciousness is necessary for purposeful (intentional) action but it is not the initiator.” But if Spence is consistent in his view that all conscious functions are preceded by specific neural activities that initiate the function, then his putative role for consciousness would have been itself initiated unconsciously. How, then, would consciousness be “performing (purposeful, intentional) actions with subtlety and invention” if it is simply an after-effect of the responsible cerebral process? It would appear that Spence is postulating an active role for consciousness in directing the course of neural activities carrying out purposeful, intentional actions. That is the kind of potentiality I was suggesting must be kept open, but one that Spence dismissed elsewhere as “flawed.”On a technical point: The Grey Walter experiment is cited as evidence for postulated effects of timing, in the “illusion” of self-initiation of an act. However, that experimental result was simply due to the fact that the motor cortex initiates the command... (shrink)

Walter Benjamin, Religion, and Aesthetics is an innovative attempt to reconceive the key concepts of religious studies through a reading with, and against, Walter Benjamin. Brent Plate deftly sifts through Benjamin's voluminous writings showing how his concepts of art, allegory, and experience undo traditional religious concepts such as myth, symbol, memory, narrative, creation, and redemption. Recasting religion as religious practice, as process and movement, Plate locates a Benjaminian materialist aesthetics, what the author calls an "allegorical aesthetics," in order (...) to uncover sources and establish a new locus for the study of religion. Placing the concept of an allegorical aesthetics into practice, Plate offers examinations of aesthetic productions such as Daniel Libeskind's architecture and Marcel Duchamp's ready-mades alongside religious developments such as the Hindu Bhakti movement and Jewish Kabbalistic thought. Walter Benjamin, Religion, and Aesthetics will be necessary reading for those interested in religion and the arts, aesthetics, and material culture. (shrink)

We all seem to think that we do the acts we do because we consciously choose to do them. This commonsense view is thrown into dispute by Benjamin Libet's eyebrow-raising experiments, which seem to suggest that conscious will occurs not before but after the start of brain activity that produces physical action.

De l'essence du judaïsme aux figures de l'exil, de l'idée d'origine au destin de l'art, du concept romantique de critique aux interprétations de Nietzsche et de Kafka, c'est l'esprit d'une époque, celui de la modernité d'avant la catastrophe, qui se trouve ici restitué. Composé de textes représentatifs de la pensée de Stéphane Mosès, cet ouvrage, qui est bien plus qu'un recueil d'articles épars, reflète à la manière d'un kaléidoscope toute une série d'interrogations, étroitement reliées entre elles, s'inscrivant dans la perspective (...) théorique ouverte par le génie benjaminien. Un livre érudit, vif, brillant, indispensable à qui souhaite s'initier à l'une des pensées les plus fécondes du XXe siècle."--P. [4] of cover. (shrink)

This article addresses rabbi and philosopher of religion Jacob Taubes’s claim that he had “presented the apocalypse of the revolution, although free from the illusions of messianic Marxists like Ernst Bloch and Walter Benjamin.” Detailing the shape of Taubes’s thought in relation to Bloch and Benjamin, it explores the manner in which Taubes embraces their respective messianisms while also charting an interiorized departure predicated upon a history of messianic crisis in Sabbateanism and early Christianity. Further, it frames this in (...) terms of their respective historical contexts. Contrary to the Weimar-era messianism of Bloch and Benjamin inflected by an open futurity despite catastrophe, Taubes's messianism takes shape in response to a foreclosed future brought on by the events of the postwar era. (shrink)

Technology has a history structured by discontinuities. The first important philosophical expression of such a conception of technology was advanced by Walter Benjamin when he defined art works in relation to specific techniques of production. At the present art and architecture occur within an age defined by the move from ’technical reproducibility’ to digital reproducibility. The move has an impact on how technology is understood and its relation to architecture conceived. Adapting Walter Benjamin’s work in this area provides (...) the basis for a response to Soren Riis’ important treatment of the relationship between architecture and technology in his paper “Dwelling in-between walls: the architectural surround”. (shrink)

Walter Benjamin's Antifascist Education is the first comprehensive analysis of educational themes across the entirety of the critical theorist's diverse writings. Starting with Benjamin's early reflections on teaching and learning, Tyson E. Lewis argues that the aesthetic and cultural forms to which Benjamin so often turned-namely, radio broadcasts, children's theatrical productions, collections, cityscapes, public cinemas, and word games-swell with educational potentialities. What emerges from Lewis's reading is a constellational curriculum composed of minor practices such as poor teaching, absentminded learning, (...) and nondurational studying. This curriculum carries political significance, offering an antidote to past and present forms of fascist manipulation, hardness, and coldness. Walter Benjamin's Antifascist Education is a testimony to Benjamin's belief that "everyone is an educator and everyone needs to be educated and everything is education.". (shrink)