Walter Benjaminâs First Philosophy

This book provides a study of Walter Benjaminâs first philosophy in two senses: it focuses on his early philosophy as a source of insight into his later works and it explores his thinking about the nature of truth method experience the relation of body and mind and the limits of human knowledge. While most attention is paid to Benjaminâs later works his writings from roughly 1914-1925 explore philosophical themes and develop a critical method. This book argues that this early work founds a series of original and lasting questions and insights. Benjamin understands experience as a broken continuum of diverse forms of spiritual expression each of which is ephemeral. This leads Benjamin to a series of thought figures: the notion of language as a medium of experience; a philosophy of perception based in the natural history of the human body; an emphasis on mimesis as a faculty of creative assimilation; and a discovery of memory as a power for excavation of meaning in past experience. This book demonstrates that the need for a new understanding of the metaphysical structure of experience as well as a new conception of truth play a special role in shaping Benjaminâs subsequent work. Walter Benjaminâs First Philosophy will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working on the thought of Walter Benjamin 20th-century Continental philosophy comparative literature and modern German thought. . Language: English