In discussing the cultural history of the 19th century, Walter Benjamin diagnosed the emergence of the modern novel and its form of narration as the sign of a fracturing experience. The split in experience is related to the scattering of a homogeneous idea of space and time, constituted especially during the Enlightenment and in the German historicism. Benjamin's claim reflected the fracturing temporality of modern communities as well as the transformations in the understanding of the meaning of tradition. Here, I (...) begin by discussing Benjamin's conceptions of experience and memory in detail. Secondly, I consider his ideas on history in the framework of challenging the new forms of narration. In the end, I consider the loss of a unified community, especially by indicating ways in which the after-modern community reflects the relationship between aesthetics and politics in Jean-François Lyotard's thought. Key Words: Benjamin • community • experience • history • Lyotard • memory • narrative • remembrance • time. (shrink)

This paper establishes a critical relationship between the concepts of memory and experience in the writings of Walter Benjamin, as a preliminary step to expose the negative philosophy of the same author –conceived in terms of remembrance and redemption. This conceptual framework is necessary to propose a Benjaminian negative anthropology that rejects formal anthropological universality and the effort to impose a human ideal that must be achieved by all human beings.

Collective memory is thought to be something “more” than a conglomeration of personal memories which compose it. Yet, each of us, each individual in every society, remembers from a personal point of view. And if there is memory beyond personal experience through which collective identities are configured, in what “place” might one legitimately situate it? In addressing this question, this article examines the political significance of the distinction between two levels of what are often lumped together under the term of (...) “collective memory”: memories that are retained through the direct experience of groups or associations of a limited size and those that are rarely the object of direct experience constituting the events marking the identities of mass societies. (shrink)

Today, the world image is far more than a figurative element of a cosmology. Just like a medium, it determines the way we perceive the world as well as the knowledge we possess about it. Following Martin Heidegger, the article analyses the process of becoming of the world image from the early modernity to the present times. The parameters a scientific draft of the world image displays and its transformations regarding alternating media have a central meaning in this process. The (...) author follows the idea that scientific images, which are a crucial part of the world image, serve as a proof and at the same time a prophecy. This assumption is substantiated through an insight into practices of computer simulation in modern sciences. (shrink)