The Messianic Reduction

by Fenves, Peter D.

• ISBN13: 9780804757881
• ISBN10: 0804757887
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-12-14
• Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr

Summary

The Messianic Reductionis a groundbreaking study of Walter Benjamin's thought. Fenves places Benjamin's early writings in the context of contemporaneous philosophy, with particular attention to the work of Bergson, Cohen, Husserl, Frege, and Heidegger. By concentrating on a neglected dimension of Benjamin's friendship with Gershom Scholem, who was a student of mathematics before he became a scholar of Jewish mysticism, Fenves shows how mathematical research informs Benjamin's reflections on the problem of historical time. In order to capture the character of Benjamin's "entrance" into the phenomenological school, the book includes a thorough analysis of two early texts he wrote under the title of "The Rainbow," translated here for the first time. In its final chapters, the book works out Benjamin's deep and abiding engagement with Kantian critique, including Benjamin's discovery of the political counterpart to the categorical imperative in the idea of "pure violence."

Author Biography

Peter Fenves is Joan and Sarepta Harrison Professor of Literature and Professor of German, Comparative Literature, and Jewish Studies at Northwestern University. His most recent book is Late Kant: Towards Another Law of the Earth (2003).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. xi
Note on Abbreviations and Translations	p. xiii
Introduction: The Course of the Argument	p. 1
Substance Poem Versus Function Poem: "Two Poems of Friedrich Hölderlin"	p. 18
Entering the Phenomenological School and Discovering the Color of Shame	p. 44
"Existence Toward Space": Two "Rainbows" from Around 1916	p. 79
"The Problem of Historical Time": Conversing with Scholem, Criticizing Heidegger in 1916	p. 103
Meaning in the Proper Sense of the Word: "On Language as Such and on Human Language" and Related Logico-Linguistic Studies	p. 125
Pure Knowledge and the Continuity of Experience: "On the Program of the Coming Philosophy" and Its Supplements	p. 152
The Political Counterpart to Pure Practical Reason: From Kant's Doctrine of Right to Benjamin's Category of Justice	p. 187
Conclusion: The Shape of Time	p. 227
Appendix: Translations
The Rainbow: Dialogue on Fantasy	p. 247
The Rainbow; or, The Art of Paradise	p. 254
Notes on an Afternoon Conversation	p. 256
From a Notebook Walter Benjamin Lent to Me [Gershom Scholem]: "Notes Toward a Work on the Category of Justice"	p. 257
Notes	p. 259
Bibliography	p. 291
Index	p. 307
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