Walter Benjamin a Jewish Mystic?

Has the Kabballah, or book of Jewish mysticism influenced Walter Benjamin's philosophy? During his life, one of Benjamin's closes friend by the name of Gershom Scholem, was an avid Jewish mystic who researched the Kabballah, and obviously, through his relationship with Scholem, Benjamin himself could also be a possible mystic or at least an academic scholar of this form of mysticism. As a sociological and cultural critic, Benjamin combined ideas drawn from historical materialism, German idealism, and Jewish mysticism in a body of work which was a novel contribution to western philosophy, Marxism and the aesthetic philosophy. Influenced by Bachofen, Benjamin gave the name "auratic perception" to the aesthetic faculty through which civilization would recover a lost appreciation of myth. This is in relation to his work: "The work of Art in the age of mechanical reproduction". Did Jewish mysticism have an impact on the views of Benjamin and attributed to his theories of aesthetics and idealism?

Obviously this would be a good research paper topic, and further research is needed in order to address this issue.

source: http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Walter_Benjamin

Aesthetics: Here we go again...

Walter Benjamin's publications of "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" brings us back to last year's Aesthetic's class. Oh boy. In relation to Horkheimer and Adorno's works that we have since gone over since the beginning of the semester, we are dealing with the notion of the aura, and the idea that "art will conform to Marxist theory but be immune from Fascist ideology". This notion directly relates to the Dialectic of Enlightenment by the connection of philosophically and ethically disproving the fascist ideology in 20th century Germany.

The idea that Benjamin is playing with here is that with the modern age of industry coming into its prime, the works of art, that have been hence forth a tool of pleasure used solely by the elite and intellectuals, is now being put out into the public on mass scales through reproduction. The essence that makes an unique work of art, its "aura" is being diminished through reproduction on a mass scale. The Mona Lisa for example, has been reproduced time and time again, make the uniqueness of the painting obsolete in its entirety. Classical art has an aura, since it dealt with a means of transcendentalism and mystique, but with modern art, it has has no aura and loses authenticity due to mass reproduction. What would Horkheimer and Adorno have to say about mr. Benjamin's views, and his connection of art conforming to Marxist theory?

Horkeimer, Adorno, and Benjamin, on Tatlin's Tower

Link to photo and description: http://purplemotes.net/2007/07/01/cob-12-the-art-of-bureaucracy/

What would have become known as The Monument to the Third International, Tatlin’s Tower, which never made it passed the stage of a model, epitomizes the work of the constructivists in the first half of the twentieth century. In brief, this art form strived to deny the idea (which I believe stems from Kant) of art for arts sake. Moreover, it replaced it with that the goal of celebrating the machine construction and use of materials prominent in the industrial revolution, both of which can clearly be seen in the models structure. Furthermore, noting the name of the piece, which references the subsequent communist regime after the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, this art form worked to celebrate and further that political ideology.

It is hard to establish what Horkeimer and Adorno would say about this piece in light of the culture industry that they despised. Since constructivism as a whole worked to gain support for communism, would they celebrate it as inspiring this form of socialism? Or, having communism already established in Russia, would they condemn it for serving the status quo? On accord of its being a symbol of the achievement of the communist government (once again, consider its name), I personally argue the latter for Tatlin’s piece.

Consider, also, Benjamin’s final line in The Work of Art in The Age of Mechanical Reproduction, which prescribes the appropriate reaction to fascism, via futurism, making politics aesthetic: “Communism responds by politicizing art” (Benjamin 242). It appears that Tatlin’s tower is a prime example of this. Consequently, unlike Horkeimer and Adorno, Benjamin would look extremely favorable upon the piece.

Monad Cont.

I posted a comment on McCall's original monad post. However, this goes in a bit of a different, perhaps mildly less relevant, direction.

Over break I was camping, and sitting around the fire one night found myself in a very strange game involving word association and spelling. Don’t ask. Anyhow, to get to my point, I decided to try to stump everyone by using the word monad. This resulted in a rather intense debate over the meaning of the word, which somehow led to a discussion of scientology.

Though most of us there were less than well educated on the subject, a few among us (including myself) had known someone that had been involved with that “religion.” The important aspects can be summarized as follows: scientology works by establishing places or times in your life when you have hit a road block – perhaps when you were four and bullied, or forty and fired. What the religion can do about this is to “clear” you, and allow you to move on and succeed at whatever you are doing. Furthermore, it performs this action for only a few thousand dollars a session.

I think that this would epitomize what Horkeimer and Adorno feel like the effect of the culture industry has been on religion. Would you agree? It seems that scientology has bent the purpose of religion from guiding people to live their life in accordance with an afterlife or moral god, to a purpose of economic success. A stranger thought, perhaps they would say that this is the religion not for the laymen or factory workers, but for the bourgeois in the modern period. Look at the primary advocates (i.e. Tom Cruise). Does this mean that even the people in charge have become merely subjects to the culture industry? Simply to the machine of industry itself?

It’s taking over the world…

Mark Twain complements art?

This is for Pat or Mike.

"Amusement, free of all restraint, would be not only the opposite of art but its complementary extreme. Absurdity in the manner of Mark Twain, with which the American culture industry flirts from time to time, would be a corrective to art," (pg113).

Did you guys learn anything in Aesthetics about Mark Twain that could help elaborate on this a little more? I've never heard of him or his work talked about in terms of art before.

Fear of Castration prompted a Genocide?

Is Freud's model which explains the projection of paranoia stemming from fear of castration (which is said to have stemmed from the ego's id urges repressed by the super ego) still accepted?

I understand and agree with Horkheimer and Adorno's argument that Jew's were the scapegoats of German society.... but have a hard time agreeing with the means by which they made this argument. It appears that they felt they could not say this without using sounding as if they were drawing from objective reasoning so they attempted to use a more authoritative basis such as psych to lay the groundwork.

Is this model of projection still used and accepted within the psychiatric community today? If not, is there one which continues to support Horheimer and Adorno's arguments.

Adorno's Negative Dialectics

Here's the link that I mentioned in class to Adorno's work:

http://www.efn.org/~dredmond/ndtrans.html

Also contains nice summary and reader's guide.

Adorno's Negative Dialectics

Excellent summary of Adorno's work and Negative Dialectics in particular can be found in the Stanford Encyclopedia's entry on Adorno:

Adorno says the book aims to complete what he considered his lifelong task as a philosopher: "to use the strength of the [epistemic] subject to break through the deception [Trug] of constitutive subjectivity" (ND xx).

This occurs in four stages. First, a long Introduction (ND 1-57) works out a concept of "philosophical experience" that both challenges Kant's distinction between "phenomena" and "noumena" and rejects Hegel's construction of "absolute spirit." Then Part One (ND 59-131) distinguishes Adorno's project from the "fundamental ontology" in Heidegger's Being and Time. Part Two (ND 133-207) works out Adorno's alternative with respect to the categories he reconfigures from German idealism. Part Three (ND 209-408), composing nearly half the book, elaborates philosophical "models." These present negative dialectics in action upon key concepts of moral philosophy ("freedom"), philosophy of history ("world spirit" and "natural history"), and metaphysics. Adorno says the final model, devoted to metaphysical questions, "tries by critical self reflection to give the Copernican revolution an axial turn" (ND xx). Alluding to Kant's self-proclaimed "second Copernican revolution," this description echoes Adorno's comment about breaking through the deception of constitutive subjectivity.

The Monad

The term itself was made famous by Leibniz in his Monadology (1714). Monads are simple substances, analogous to the soul. Each monad is dependent upon God for its continuous existence, so God can be thought of as the King Monad. Monads are "perpetual living mirrors of the universe." The Monadology was Leibniz' answer to Descartes' dualistic ontology, for each monad is a distinct substance and the universe is comprised only of these immaterial substances. As is the case for Plato, bodies have no real existence. Indeed, Leibniz can be read as attempting to synthesize ancient teleological metaphysical systems with modern rationalism.

Okay, with that brief background in place, we can turn to Adorno's discussion of the individual as monad in Minima Moralia (1948). Adorno begins by pointing out that the individual exists as a result of economic forces--the individual is a commodity like any other. He next points out that "what enables him to resist, that streak of independence in him, springs from monadological individual interest and its precipitate, character. The individual mirrors in his individuation the preordained social laws of exploitation, however mediated (Minima Moralia, p. 148). So, whereas Leibniz saw each monad as a dependent substance that mirrored God, Adorno sees each individual as a mirror of the exploitation of the market and the exploitation inherent within capitalism. At the same time, due to the shallowness of individualism (which cannot see the individual as a product, but simply as a cause), true individual identity as a critical wedge against the suffering imposed by society becomes impossible (since according to individualism, you are responsible for your suffering: not happy? Do something about it!).

It sounded better when Sean Connery read it.

I was so inspired by the reading by Sean Connery that I decided to track down the poem and take a closer look. I know Spesh missed out because driving to West Point and all so I threw in some notes especially for him about Hork and Adorno and how they might interpret this.

Ithaca

When you set out for Ithaka
ask that your way be long,
full of adventure, full of instruction.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - do not fear them:
such as these you will never find
as long as your thought is lofty, as long as a rare
emotion touch your spirit and your body.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - you will not meet them
unless you carry them in your soul,
unless your soul raise them up before you.

• "Do not fear them: such as these you will never find as long as your thought is lofty," Lofty thought would be enlightened thought, free from myth. If you are free from myth you no longer believe in these mythical beings and they cannot harm you. If you "carry them in your soul" they retain their power over you and you are not free.
  
• Hork would also mention that you shouldn't fear them because you also have some control over them (sacrifice and such)
  

Ask that your way be long.
At many a Summer dawn to enter
with what gratitude, what joy -
ports seen for the first time;
to stop at Phoenician trading centres,
and to buy good merchandise,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensuous perfumes of every kind,
sensuous perfumes as lavishly as you can;
to visit many Egyptian cities,
to gather stores of knowledge from the learned.

• Cavafy is saying here to live your live for means rather than ends. Focus on subjective rather than objective.
• Hork and Adorno would be critical of this and point how this entire section describes fulfilling the commodity fetish. Because people have allowed their lives to become governed by subjective reason rather than objective reason and live for means rather than ends, they must create false needs to temporarily satisfy (by shopping) to ignore the fact that their larger needs, such as purpose, are not being met.

Have Ithaka always in your mind.
Your arrival there is what you are destined for.
But don't in the least hurry the journey.
Better it last for years,
so that when you reach the island you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to give you wealth.
Ithaka gave you a splendid journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She hasn't anything else to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka hasn't deceived you.
So wise you have become, of such experience,
that already you'll have understood what these Ithakas mean.

Constantine P Cavafy

• This last bit that Cavafy is saying is pretty interesting and coincides with what Horkheimer wrote about in the Eclipse of Reason. Cavafy is saying that in the end, your end should coincide and be complimented and enhanced by the means you took to achieve it. Horkheimer talks about in the Eclipse of Reason how ideally, subjective reason and the scientific method would compliment and "prove" the validity of objective reasoning. Unfortunately we're not quite there yet and it's all pretty hopeless and depressing right now.
  

2 Philosophy Classes in One Term, Who Can Live at That Speed?

In the Histroy of Philosophy; Ancient Philosophy class that I am also taking this term, we have just finished working with the Socratic dialogue Gorgias, in which Plato defends Socrates' way of life. Perhaps the most essential argument within this text is whether the life should be lived for the good of the soul or for the pleasure of the body. That is: should we use philosophy to better spirit, or spend our time gaining more worldly things through politics and rhetoric? Socrates, as you may have guessed, advocates the former - his friend Callicles sets out to prove the later.

Without delving too far into the specifics of this debate, do you see how this could relate to Horkeimer? Where does the rise of the bourgeoisie fit in? Objectivism vs. Subjectivism?

Patrick?

Totemism

While reading through the Dialectic of Enlightenment, on page 41, the content being discussed revolves around sacrifice by religion and the formation of relationships between nature and man, I came across this term: Totemism. Now at first hand glance, I didn't know what this word meant, and just by guessing, I suppose that this word has to deal with "totem poles" or some sort of ritual or Indian religion.

Odysseus's quest leads to subjugation of a class system in society?

Throughout the Dialectic of Enlightenment, both Adorno and Horkheimer refer back to the Odyssey , with the key protagonist in the story as Odysseus. When we come to the part in the book, towards the beginning, when Odysseus and his men were tempted by the harmonic and exotic signals of the Sirens, Horkheimer and Adorno expand on this excerpt to confirm that this ancient story relates to the rise of the bourgeoisie class in society. When tempted by the Sirens, Odysseus orders his men to plug their ears with cotton, as to block the Sirens' calling, and to continue to row. However he also orders that he be tied to the main post on the boat, so that he is restrained against the Siren's charm but can also enjoy the pleasure in hearing them call to him.

This action taken by Odysseus shows how the one in control (Odysseus) can oblige himself in pleasure at the expense of others, much like the rich and upper-class do in society today and in the past. He is the only one that can take pleasure from the Sirens, all the while, his men have their ears clogged to prevent them from hearing the pleasure, and they row and row the boat past the Sirens. There is a definite formation or authority and class represented in this excerpt of the Odyssey. Although looking at it in another way, Odysseus did save his men and himself from death, by plugging his crew's ears, which can show that yes, through this offhand class system, you will survive from dangers as a lower class, but you cannot have the right to experience pleasure.

What was Homer thinking?

Myth in Relation to Enlightenmnet

As discussed in our previous class the other day, we were talking about the effects of myth and how it can relate to the enlightenment of man. With regards to this, we began talking about myth and how it relates back to religion and primitive beliefs of the metaphysical world. No in enlightenment, it was man's goal to dominate nature. But in our discussion, we formed a cyclic narrative of how myth and enlightenment go hand in hand.
Now, religion derives from myth, we began to discuss how back in Ancient Greece during Plato's time, how people were subjugated to preform sacrifices to appease the Gods, for reason being, so that the God's would perform favors for those who appropriate sacrifice. We are looking, mind you, that the God's represent nature. So people sacrifice to the God's to appease them, in essence, the God's rely on these sacrifices from people. So in perspective, nature controls mankind, but when nature starts relying on mankind, there is an essence of control. It becomes cyclic. Man sacrifices to the God's so that the God's can do favors for them, but at the same time, the God's rely on these sacrifices in order to do their duties, in essence enlightenment has been reached. Man abstractly controls nature through myth.

Mr. Leslie, do you agree?

More on Nominalism

Michael Allen Gillespie has written an interesting book called The Theological Origins of Modernity (Amazon) in which he takes up the Realism/Nominalism controversy and traces its significance for early modern thought and culture. This is a passage from early in the book:

Drawing on the work of earlier proto-nominalist thinkers such as Roscelin and Abelard, and the work of Henry of Ghent and Scotus, [William of] Ockham laid out in great detail the foundations for a new metaphysics and theology that were radically at odds with scholasticism. Faith alone, Ockham argues, teaches us taht God is omnipotent and that he can do everything that is possible, that is to say, everything that is not contradictory. Thus, every being exits only as a result of his willing it and it exists as long as it does only because he so wills it. Creasion is thus an act of sheer gracee and is comprehensible only through revelation. God creates the world and continues to act within it, bound neither by its laws nor by his previous determinations. He acts simply and solely as he pleases, and as Ockham often repreats, he is no man's debtor. There is thus no immutable order of nature or reason that man can understand and no knowledge of God except through revelation. Ockham thus rejected the scholastic synthesis of reason and revelation and in this way undermined the metaphysical/theological foundation of the medieval world.

This notion of divine omnipotence was responsible for the demise of realism. God, Ockham argued, could not create universals because to do so would constrain his omnipotence. If a universal did exist, God would be unable to destroy any instance of it without destroying the universal itself. Thus, for example, God could not damn any one human being without damning all of humanity. If there are no real universals, every being must be radically individual, a unique creation of God himself, called forth out of nothing by his infinite power and sustained by that power alone. To be sure, God might compley secondary causes to produce or sustain an entity, but they were not necessary and were not ultimately responsible for the creation or the continued existence of the entity in question (22).