The messianic reduction : Walter Benjamin and the shape of time / Peter Fenves.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fenves, Peter D. (Peter David), 1960-

Series:

Meridian (Stanford, Calif.)

Meridian, crossing aesthetics

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Benjamin, Walter, 1892-1940.

Benjamin, Walter.

Phenomenology.

Time.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (334 p.)

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2011.

Summary:

The Messianic Reduction is 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 ""entran

Contents:

Introduction : the course of the argument

Substance poem versus function poem : two poems of Friedrich Hölderlin

Entering the phenomenological school and discovering the color of shame

Existence toward space : two "Rainbows" from around 1916

The problem of historical time : conversing with Scholem, criticizing Heidegger in 1916

Meaning in the proper sense of the word : "On language as such and on human language" and related logico-linguistic studies

Pure knowledge and the continuity of experience : "On the program of the coming philosophy" and its supplements

The political counterpart to pure practical reason : from Kant's doctrine of right to Benjamin's category of justice

Conclusion : the shape of time.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780804777285

0804777284

OCLC:

713024233