En Homo sacer I. Il potere sovrano e la nuda vita, Giorgio Agamben recuerda una expresión que le dirigiera Walter Benjamin a Pierre Klossowski e, indirectamente, al grupo Acéphale: vous travaillez pour le fascisme. En este artículo quisiéramos mostrar que es el pensamiento político-ontológico del propio Agamben, y también en cierto sentido el de Benjamin – quien ha influido de modo decisivo en el filósofo italiano –, el que en verdad corre el riesgo de trabajar para el fascismo. Mostraremos por (...) eso la necesidad de distinguir dos niveles de lo político: un nivel trascendental y un nivel empírico. Si no se atiende a esta distinción, argumentaremos, se corre el riesgo de trabajar, efectivamente, para el fascismo. (shrink)

In this article, I reconstruct Walter Benjamin's philosophy of language and refine the non-predicational view of meaning often attributed to him. By situating his 1916 essay ‘On Language as Such and on the Language of Man’ within the context of his struggle with Russell's paradox and its implications for phenomenology, I show how Benjamin arrives at his conception of non-conceptual content as an environmentally embedded affordance that is directly apprehended by appropriately situated and capable agents. This affordance-like character of meaning (...) explains Benjamin's account of communication, Adamic naming, and his famous distinction between linguistic and spiritual essences (sprachliche- and geistige Wesen). I conclude by showing why translation is central to his views on expression and communication and how it reinforces his account of language-use. (shrink)

Partiendo de las tensiones conceptuales entre las obras tempranas y las de madurez de Walter Benjamin, el presente trabajo propone abordar sus reflexiones en torno a la crisis moderna de la experiencia política en el marco de la sociedad de masas a partir de dos perspectivas que involucran la noción de imagen, a saber: la corporal-perceptiva presente en sus referencias a la vida urbana y referida a afecciones psicofísicas como el olvido, el shock y la ensoñación, y la histórico-memoriosa desarrollada (...) a partir de la tardía noción de imagen dialéctica íntimamente relacionada con las ideas de despertar y de acción política en clave de rememoración. Desde aquí, se intentará mostrar la importancia que la categoría de imagen y el par olvido (ensoñación) - recuerdo (despertar) adquieren en el pensamiento benjaminiano a la hora de abordar el problema moderno en torno a la degradación de la experiencia política. (shrink)

This paper explores the philosophies of myth of Walter Benjamin and Hans Blumenberg. It defends the thesis that both approaches to myth, despite their differences, bring the longer, more ambiguous, legacy of the history of the human species into relation with the more familiar history of logos. They do this by maintaining a distinction between myth as it probably first emerged, namely as a way of controlling human anxieties and vulnerabilities that arose as a consequence of the pragmatic, material conditions (...) of the pre-historical world, and myth as the vast array of orally transmitted traditions left to history. In the case of both thinkers, this dichotomy illuminates myth, not as one category of human expression, but as a representation of the deeper vulnerabilities experienced by human beings, and the concerted, collective attempts to overcome them. Philosophy’s task in the face of a longer, darker history of the species, is a vigilant negotiation with the human frailties that might see its work undone. (shrink)

Bu makalede, Walter Benjamin’in “Hikaye Anlatıcısı” adlı makalesinden hareketle, hikaye anlatıcılığının birlikte yaşama kültürüne katkısı ile bu kültürün Dünya Şavaşları ve modernleşme sonucunda kesilmesine dikkat çekilmektedir. Hikâye anlatıcılığı; insanın deneyimlerini paylaşma yeteneği, bir olay ya da durumu kuşaktan kuşağa aktaran gelenek zinciri, yaşam deneyimine dayanan bir tür bilgeliktir. Benjamin’e göre hikâye anlatımı, insanın, bir toplum üyesi sayılmasını ve bir başkasıyla kurduğu ilişki içinde tanımlanmasını mümkün kılmaktadır. Bu tanımlanmanın temelinde kamusal alan vardır. Hikâye anlatımı tıpkı “kamusal alan” kavramı gibi “diğeri”ne işaret (...) eder ve diğeriyle ilişkiyi zorunlu kılar. Ancak modernleşme ile birlikte kamusal alan anlamını yitirmiş ve hikâye anlatımının sunduğu deneyim dünyası, kültürel yaşamdan uzaklaşmaya başlamıştır. Modernleşme bir yandan teknolojik araçlarla yaşamın farklı bir biçimine, diğer yandan da “gelenekte” meydana gelen bir kırılmaya işaret eder. Benjamin’e göre gelenekteki bu kırılma, hayatın gerçek dokusuna nüfuz etmede önemli bir araç olan hikâye anlatımının yavaş yavaş ortadan kalktığını gösterir. Benjamin modernleşme ile birlikte yeni bir iletişim biçiminin doğduğunu belirtir. Bu yeni iletişim biçimi, enformasyondur. Walter Benjamin’e göre; “Hikâye anlatıcılarına az rastlıyorsak bunda enformasyon ağının belirleyici bir rolü vardır.” Uzun bir yaşam deneyiminin ürünü olan hikâye anlatımının yaşamdaki yerini kaybetmesi, yeni bir yaşama işaret ettiği gibi yeni üretim biçimleri ve ilişkilere de göstergedir. (shrink)

Resumen: Este trabajo rastrea el motivo de la estetización en la obra de Georg Simmel, enfatizando la importancia de sus aportes para la conformación de un cierto campo de estudios en torno a diferentes procesos estetizantes. En efecto, y si bien casi no utiliza el concepto, Simmel logra reconocer una dimensión estética en aspectos de la vida en principio ajenos al arte. Al hacerlo, vislumbra la potencialidad del arte como aparato que moldea nuestra subjetividad y nuestra forma de ver el (...) mundo y, lejos de entender este hecho de manera inocente, lo liga con un proceso en el que la realidad se nos aleja y se transfigura en imagen, convirtiéndose así en un referente ineludible para problematizar la estetización general de la existencia que caracteriza a nuestra época. Palabras clave: Estetización; Georg Simmel; Distancia; Estilización.: This article traces the concept of aestheticization in the work of Georg Simmel, emphasizing the importance of his contributions to the study of different aestheticization processes. Although he hardly ever uses the concept, Simmel recognizes an aesthetic dimension in almost every aspect of life and understands the potential of art as a device that shapes our subjectivity and our way of seeing the world. He also conceptualizes the process in which reality becomes an image and, in doing so, becomes a reference for anyone who wants to problematize the general aestheticization of existence that characterizes our time. Key Words: Aestheticization; Georg Simmel; Distance; Stylization. (shrink)

This study is an intervention in postcolonial theorising through a critique of technologies of representation. It examines the effects of technologically-mediated representation in a postcolonial condition that the Philippines has exemplified. New media technologies are mechanisms of representations that embody the logic of spectrality presented in Jacques Derrida’s later work. Spectrality, which brings doubts, ephemerality, and instability to dominant discourses and modes of representation, provides a chance for change.Spectres are effects of technologically-mediated representation that articulate the infinite demand for justice (...) under conditions of enduring inequality. As quasi-transcendental elements of deconstruction, spectres are not reducible to either human or technical intervention; they express the relation of humans to technologies, in which representation is central to the mediation of political authority. This technological representation is the condition of what Derrida calls “iteration,” or the transformation of hegemonic authority through the very repetition of its fundamental terms of identification. The examination of emancipatory new media technologies in a postcolonial condition is inspired by the work of Jacques Derrida, in his deconstructive reading of Marx’s spectres. However, the writings of Habermas and Adorno have offered an implicit appraisal of the ontology of spectres. Habermas’s theory of the public sphere and Adorno’s negative dialectics are discourses that unwittingly solicit spectres. The account of the postcolonial condition in the Philippines works through the questions of universality, subalternity, and the right to theory that are raised by the project of Western critical theory. (shrink)