Paris-Monad: Origin, Passage, Intermittency. Benjamin and the Metaphysics of Modern Times

The background thesis of the paper concerns the deep methodological continuity that binds Benjamin’s Project on the Parisian Passages to his book on the Trauerspiel. The starting point is offered then by the reprise of the connection between Benjamin’s micrology and the theological task of critically reconstituting the whole in its original sense. This connection is consequently developed in a consideration of the “passage” as a nominal substance. On this basis is focused the complementarity in Benjamin’s late philosophy between historical materialism and theological nominalism. From the intertwining between urban and linguistic spaces emerges the figure of modern city as a labyrinth. The last move consists in converting the labyrinth in a monad, that is in an intensive space of knowledge and experience of truth

Messianica ratio. Affinities and Differences in Cohen’s and Benjamin's Messianic Rationalism

<p>In my paper, I intend firmly to criticize Taubes' interpretation of Benjamin's Theology as a modern form of Gnosticism (Benjamin as a modern Marcionit). In a positive way, I sustain rather the thesis that Benjamin's Messianism is in close connection with his conception of reason (“the sharpened axe of reason”) and, in particularly, with the paradoxical unity of Mysticism and Enlightenment, which, according to the famous definition of Adorno, distinguishes his thought. As a radically anti-magical and anti-mythical conception of the historical time, Benjamin's Messianism has to be considered as an original synthesis between motifs of the mystical tradition of the Jewish Kabbalah and motifs belonging to the rationalist tradition of the Jewish philosophy. Moving from Cohen's standpoint of a continuity between Maimonides and Kant, I consider therefore the affinity between his messianic conception of history and that of Benjamin. Both, Benjamin and Cohen, share, together with the reference to the a priori of the idea of justice, the reference to the Kantian connection between rationality and hope. Hence originates the non-eschatological Messianism of both. Motives of difference between Cohen and Benjamin’s messianic idea are to be found, conversely, in their different way to consider the idea of "the infinite task" and of its infinite fulfillment in the context of the historical time. Unlike the fundamentally ethical interpretation that Cohen gives of this relationship, Benjamin understands it ontologically in a monadological sense. This explains the constitutive relationship that exists, in Benjamin's philosophy, between Origin, Fragment and Revelation. In the light of this connection, Benjamin's messianic understanding of the historical time exceeds the Scholemian alternative between a restorative and a utopian conception of Messianism. Consequently, the Krausian motto “Ursprung ist das Ziel” (“The Origin is the Goal”) displays its truth in the idea of the messianic fragment or spark.</p

Hotspot. Estetica e biodiversità

The connection between aesthetic and biodiversity is accessory and extrinsic or necessary and intrinsic? This essay reflects on the aesthetic value of biodiversity, beginning from a new consideration of aesthetics, not jet separated from contents. Ecosystem scenery of biodiversity can be précised as a matrix of an appreciation that forecast the aesthetic judge without configuring it

Asymétrie du plaisir et naissance de l’esthétique. À partir d’un motif valéryen

Moving from the pages of Cahiers and Discours sur l'esthétique, where Paul Valéry clarifies the energetic value of aesthetics that rises from pleasure, the essay aims to promote a radical reconfiguration of conceptual domain of aesthetics. The sensation, in the surprising and gratifying form of pleasure, becomes expression of the efficiency of the link between emotional device and perceptive recognition: the thick and harmonizing synthesis that's peculiar to aesthetic.