Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin
Benjamin in 1928
Born
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin

(1892-07-15)15 July 1892
Berlin, German Empire
Died26 September 1940(1940-09-26) (aged 48)
Portbou, Catalonia, Francoist Spain
Cause of deathSuicide by morphine overdose
Education
EducationUniversity of Freiburg
University of Berlin
University of Bern (PhD, 1919)
University of Frankfurt am Main (Habil. cand.)
Philosophical work
Era20th-century philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
SchoolContinental philosophy
Western Marxism
Marxist hermeneutics[1]
College of Sociology
InstitutionsUniversity of Frankfurt am Main[2]
Main interestsLiterary theory, aesthetics, philosophy of technology, epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of history
Notable ideasAuratic perception,[3] State of exception,[4][5] aestheticization of politics, dialectical image,[2] the flâneur

Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (/ˈbɛnjəmɪn/ BEN-yə-min; German: [ˈvaltɐ ˈbɛnjamiːn] ⓘ;[6] 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940[7]) was a German-Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Jewish mysticism, Western Marxism, and post-Kantianism, he made contributions to the philosophy of history, metaphysics, historical materialism, criticism, aesthetics and had an oblique but overwhelmingly influential impact on the resurrection of the Kabbalah by virtue of his life-long epistolary relationship with Gershom Scholem.[8][9][10][11]

Of the hidden principle organizing Walter Benjamin's thought Scholem wrote unequivocally that "Benjamin was a philosopher",[12] while his younger colleagues Arendt[13] and Adorno[14] contend that he was "not a philosopher".[13][14] Scholem remarked "The peculiar aura of authority emanating from his work tended to incite contradiction".[12] Benjamin himself considered his research to be theological,[15] though he eschewed all recourse to traditionally metaphysical sources of transcendentally revealed authority.[13][15]

He was associated with the Frankfurt School and also maintained formative relationships with thinkers and cultural figures such as the cabaret playwright Bertolt Brecht (friend), Martin Buber (an early impresario in his career), Nazi constitutionalist Carl Schmitt (a rival), and many others. He was related to German political theorist and philosopher Hannah Arendt through her first marriage to Benjamin's cousin Günther Anders, though the friendship between Arendt and Benjamin outlasted her marriage to Anders. Both Arendt and Anders were students of Martin Heidegger, whom Benjamin considered a nemesis.[16]

Among Benjamin's best known works are the essays "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935), and "Theses on the Philosophy of History" (1940). His major work as a critic included essays on Baudelaire, Goethe, Kafka, Kraus, Leskov, Proust, Walser, Trauerspiel and translation theory. He translated the Tableaux Parisiens section of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal and parts of Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu.

In 1940, at the age of 48, Benjamin died during his flight into exile on the French–Spanish border while attempting to escape the advance of the Third Reich.[17] Having remained in Europe until it was too late, as Cynthia Ozick puts it, Benjamin took his own life to avoid being murdered as a Jew.[8] “Impressed and shaken by his death, the Spanish authorities allowed Benjamin’s companions to continue their travel” into Spain by which route they were able to escape the Third Reich.[18]

Though popular acclaim eluded him during his life, the decades following his death won his work posthumous renown.[19] Some German readers and academics encountered Benjamin after his Complete Works began to be released by Suhrkamp Verlag in 1955, but global acclaim came to him when his works were translated into English and introduced to a reading public in the Anglosphere by Hannah Arendt in 1968.[20]

  1. ^ Erasmus: Speculum Scientarium, 25, p. 162: "the different versions of Marxist hermeneutics by the examples of Walter Benjamin's Origins of the German Tragedy [sic], ... and also by Ernst Bloch's Hope the Principle [sic]."
  2. ^ a b "Walter Benjamin" at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  3. ^ Walter Benjamin, "L'œuvre d'art à l'époque de sa reproduction méchanisée", 1936: "The uniqueness of a work of art is inseparable from its being imbedded in the fabric of tradition. This tradition itself is thoroughly alive and extremely changeable. An ancient statue of Venus, for example, stood in a different traditional context with the Greeks, who made it an object of veneration, than with the clerics of the Middle Ages, who viewed it as an ominous idol. Both of them, however, were equally confronted with its uniqueness, that is, its aura." [Die Einzigkeit des Kunstwerks ist identisch mit seinem Eingebettetsein in den Zusammenhang der Tradition. Diese Tradition selber ist freilich etwas durchaus Lebendiges, etwas außerordentlich Wandelbares. Eine antike Venusstatue z. B. stand in einem anderen Traditionszusammenhange bei den Griechen, die sie zum Gegenstand des Kultus machten, als bei den mittelalterlichen Klerikern, die einen unheilvollen Abgott in ihr erblickten. Was aber beiden in gleicher Weise entgegentrat, war ihre Einzigkeit, mit einem anderen Wort: ihre Aura.]
  4. ^ Giorgio Agamben. State of Exception. University of Chicago, 2005.
  5. ^ Walter Benjamin. The Origin of German Tragic Drama. Berlin: Rohwohlt, 1928.
  6. ^ Duden Aussprachewörterbuch (6 ed.). Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut & F.A. Brockhaus AG. 2006.
  7. ^ Witte, Bernd (1991). Walter Benjamin: An Intellectual Biography (English translation). Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. pp. 9. ISBN 0-8143-2018-X.
  8. ^ a b Ozick, Cynthia (1983). "The Magisterial Reach of Gershom Scholem". Art & Ardor. Random House. pp. 145–147.
  9. ^ Scholem, Gershom; Scholem, Gershom (1982). Walter Benjamin: the story of a friendship. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-11970-7.
  10. ^ Scholem, Gershom (1972). Major trends in Jewish mysticism (6. print ed.). New York: Schocken Books. ISBN 978-0-8052-0005-8.
  11. ^ Benjamin, Walter; Scholem, Gershom; Smith, Gary; Scholem, Gershom; Benjamin, Walter (1989). The correspondence of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, 1932-1940. New York: Schocken Books. ISBN 978-0-8052-4065-8.
  12. ^ a b Scholem, Gershom (1978). ""Walter Benjamin"". On Jews and Judaism in crisis: selected essays. Schocken paperbacks (1. paperback ed.). New York: Schocken Books. p. 177. ISBN 978-0-8052-0588-6.
  13. ^ a b c Benjamin, Walter; Zorn, Harry; Benjamin, Walter (1999). ""Walter Benjamin: 1892-1940"". In Arendt, Hannah (ed.). Illuminations. London: Pimlico. pp. 4, 14–15. ISBN 978-0-7126-6575-9.
  14. ^ a b Adorno, Theodor. "A Portrait of Walter Benjamin" (PDF). Prism: 229.
  15. ^ a b Benjamin, Walter; Benjamin, Walter (2012). ""Letter to (publisher) Max Rychner, 7 March 1931"". In Scholem, Gershom (ed.). The correspondence of Walter Benjamin: 1910 - 1940. Chicago, Ill London: Univ. of Chicago Press. pp. 371–373. ISBN 978-0-226-04238-1.
  16. ^ Benjamin, Walter; Benjamin, Walter (2012). Scholem, Gershom (ed.). The correspondence of Walter Benjamin: 1910 - 1940. Chicago, Ill London: Univ. of Chicago Press. pp. 82, 168, 172, 359–60, 365, 372, 571. ISBN 978-0-226-04238-1.
  17. ^ Arendt, Hannah; Scholem, Gershom Gerhard; Knott, Marie Luise (2017). "Second letter from Hannah Arendt to Gershom Scholem: Oct. 21st, 1940". The correspondence of Hannah Arendt and Gershom Scholem. Chicago (Ill.): University of Chicago press. p. 4. ISBN 978-0-226-92451-9.
  18. ^ Benjamin, Walter (1999). "The Story of Old Benjamin by Lisa Fittko". The arcades project. Internet Archive. Cambridge, MA. : Belknap Press. p. 953. ISBN 978-0-674-04326-8.
  19. ^ Benjamin, Walter; Jephcott, Edmund (2007). "Introduction by Peter Demetz". In Demetz, Peter (ed.). Reflections: essays, aphorisms, autobiographical writings. New York, NY: Schocken. pp. vii–xlii. ISBN 978-0-8052-0802-3.
  20. ^ "Introduction by Hannah Arendt". Illuminations Essays And Reflections (1st ed.). Schocken. 1968. pp. 1–56.
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