Walter Benjamin’s
On Language as Such
and on the Language of Man
A Thesis Submitted to the Department of Philosophy
for the Degree of Master of Arts
University of Amsterdam
July 2019
Contents
Introduction 2
Chapter 1: First unfoldings
Mental being, linguistic being and the paradox | Creation as revelation | The twofold act of creation | The Fall and the decline of knowledge
6
Chapter 2: Theories of language and knowledge
Cassirer and the function of signs | Knowledge and truth | Concept and idea | The theme of redemption | Knowledge of names and knowledge of good and evil | Cassirer and the origin of language
15
Chapter 3: Theological-mystical foundations
The biblical story of creation | Scholem and mystical linguistic theories | The Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge | The voice of revelation | The role of Scriptures
28
Chapter 4: Concluding impressions
Language as such | Language of man | Over-naming | What’s in a name | The mystery of the lamp
40
Introduction
Walter Benjamin’s philosophy of language has a central place in the study of Benjamin’s thought. As it bears a close affinity to the idea of truth, language for Benjamin is like a thread delicately woven throughout his entire oeuvre, which is otherwise often perceived as abstruse and fragmentary. Walter Benjamin’s essay 1 On Language as Such and on the Language of
Man – probably the most explicit exposition of his philosophy of language – has been subject to considerable discussion, some of it rather insightful. Usually in such works, the essay is 2 either taken as a key for Benjamin’s philosophy or examined in the prism of a specific theme, such as critique, melancholy or sacredness. This paper will focus on the essay On Language; through a close reading of the text, we will look into the theory as it unfolds along its pages.
Walter Benjamin, who was born in Berlin in 1892 and died in 1940 on his flight from the Nazis, was a German–Jewish philosopher and literary critic. In the words of his friend
Gershom Scholem, if metaphysics is essentially a “[p]hilosophical experience of the world and its reality”, then Benjamin was “a metaphysician pure and simple”. Yet the idiosyncratic 3 nature of Benjamin’s thought can be gathered from his own sayings about the task and nature of philosophy, the reflections of others and, most of all, the testimony of his own writings. Philosophy, wrote Benjamin, “is the only realm in which the truth becomes manifest”. And yet, “[t]ruth is not watertight. Much that we expect to find in it slips through the net”. 4
In an essay on Benjamin, Theodor Adorno declares, “[t]he rebus is the model of his
philosophy”. A rebus – an object of interest for Benjamin – is “[a] puzzle in which words are 5 6 represented by combinations of pictures and individual letters”. Apart from implying the 7 linguistic character of Benjamin’s philosophy, Adorno’s remark also points at some of its specific features. First, it reflects the fragmentary nature of Benjamin’s writings. It also hints at the importance of the sensible quality of language. And, perhaps most significantly, it
1 See, for example, Friedlander, Walter Benjamin, 9 ff; Hanssen, ‘Language and Mimesis in Walter
Benjamin’s Work’, 54; Wolin, Walter Benjamin, an Aesthetic of Redemption, 36–37.
2 For a selection of notable works, see Wolin, Walter Benjamin, an Aesthetic of Redemption; Jacobson, Metaphysics of the Profane; Britt, Walter Benjamin and the Bible; Ferber, Philosophy and Melancholy; Gasché, ‘Saturnine Vision and the Question of Difference: Reflections on Walter Benjamin’s Theory of Language’; Hanssen, ‘Language and Mimesis in Walter Benjamin’s Work’.
3 Scholem, On Jews and Judaism in Crisis, 178. 4 Benjamin, Selected Writings, 272.
5 Adorno, Prisms, 229.
6 Primarily in his short essay A Glimpse into the Works of Children Books in Benjamin, Selected Writings, 435–43.
7 "rebus, n.1", OED Online, June 2019. Oxford University Press,
spotlights the enigmatic tone of much of his writings, which call, almost playfully, for
decipherment. Entering this world, one feels something of the charm of childhood. That is not to say it displays any sort of clumsiness or haste; on the contrary, it is marked by an
uncompromising seriousness that resolves to find in every minute detail the most exquisite truth.
***
The essay On Language as Such and on the Language of Man, written in 1916, originated as a reply to questions, posed by Scholem, concerning the relationship between language and mathematics. Its birth pangs are depicted in a letter from Benjamin to Scholem: 8
A week ago I began a letter to you that ended up being eighteen pages long. It was my attempt to answer in context some of the not inconsiderable number of questions you had put to me. In the meantime, I felt compelled to recast it as a short essay.
. . . [I]t was not possible for me to go into mathematics and language . . . Otherwise,
however, I do attempt to come to terms with the nature of language in this essay and – to the extent I understand it – in its immanent relationship to Judaism and in reference to the first chapters of Genesis. 9
Launched from mathematical–linguistic grounds, the essay soon indeed takes off to reach theological heights. Though permeated by a mystical air, one can clearly recognize “a certain systematic intent”; an intent, however, that still demands some effort of decipherment. In the 10
Epistemo-Critical Prologue to his Trauerspiel study (a text that will be addressed later in this paper), Benjamin refers to the treatise as an ideal philosophical form. His words may serve as a hint as to the recommended method of reading his works:
Representation as digression – such is the methodological nature of the treatise. The absence of an uninterrupted purposeful structure is its primary characteristic. Tirelessly the process of thinking makes new beginning, returning in a roundabout way to its original object. This continual pausing for breath is the mode most proper for the process of contemplation. 11
8 Scholem, Walter Benjamin, 43.
9 Benjamin, The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 1910–1940, 81. 10 Benjamin, 82.
According to Benjamin, the task of philosophy is the representation of truth, wherefore it 12 takes the shape of a process of enactment, a revelation of something hitherto hidden. 13
Benjamin makes sure to indicate, at various places, that his unconventional use of one term or another is unmetaphorical. On the very first page of the essay On Language we read:
There is no event or thing in either animate or inanimate nature that does not in some way partake of language, for it is the nature of all to communicate their mental meanings. This use of the word ‘language’ is in no way metaphorical. 14
The contents of this statement, which give the undertone of the whole essay, will be the focus of much of our hermeneutic efforts in this paper. Yet, contents aside, the methodical choice to frame this statement as unmetaphorical allows a glimpse into the nature of Benjamin’s
thought.
Metaphor, originated from Greek, literally means ‘transference’ or ‘carrying over’. In the 15 words of Ernst Cassirer, metaphor is a conceptual process of transition between two “fixed and independent meanings”. This seems to be the purpose of Benjamin’s insistence on 16
unmetaphorical reading: his ideas are portrayed not as an act of assimilation, but as one of creation – or, better perhaps, revelation. What is communicated by a thing – be it a fox or a lamp – is not something similar to language; it is language. Remarkably, Cassirer has a distinct concept – of radical metaphor – that actually points at Benjamin’s method of
introducing language. Located in the heart of linguistic formation, a radical metaphor involves a change of category, a metabasis. Furthermore, “it is not only a transition to another category, but actually a creation of the category itself”. Cassirer’s dual notion of metaphor provides 17 only one example of the intricate affinity between his thought and Benjamin’s. A comparative reading of their theories, as I hope to show, will prove illuminating.
Referring to Benjamin, Eric Jacobson observes, “[u]nlike a metaphor, which is the expression of a thing without substance, magic is the expression of substance without a transparency of means”. If we go along with this description, Benjamin’s essay appears somewhat magical: it 18 offers substantial, almost tangible content, yet its roots are hidden below the surface. In what follows I will suggest a systematic unfolding of the essay On Language; I will attempt to
12 Benjamin, 34. 13 Benjamin, 31.
14 Benjamin, One-Way Street, and Other Writings, 107.
15 Klein, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 971. 16 Cassirer, Language and Myth, 86–87.
17 Cassirer, 88.
disentangle the ideas and intentions that are woven into the text and hopefully render the ‘means’ of its magic more visible.
***
In our reading of the essay, we will attend to the two above-mentioned thinkers: Gershom Scholem – mostly to complement and enrich Benjamin’s thought, and Ernst Cassirer – mainly, though not exclusively, to oppose it. A recourse to other related texts of Benjamin will serve us throughout. Two of the key works of Benjamin’s philosophy of language – the 1921 essay The
Task of the Translator and the 1925 Epistemo-Critical Prologue to the Trauerspiel study – will be used to expand and supplement the notions that appear in the essay in discussion. Occasionally, we will attend to some of Benjamin’s fragments from the period between 1916 and 1925. 19
The work will take shape through four chapters. In the first chapter, I suggest an initial sketch of the way the text unfolds. I outline the main arguments and terms, the questions that
immediately arise from the text and possible directions in which an inquiry may proceed. In the next two chapters, I put the essay in dialogue with external sources. Chapter 2 will attend to the function and origin of signs and the problem of representation. For this, we will turn to Ernst Cassirer, who was a contemporary of Benjamin – though not a direct interlocutor. Cassirer’s systematic theory, and in particular his theory of language, will allow us to shed some light on Benjamin’s linguistic thought and place it, by way of similarities and contrasts, within a theoretical framework. In Chapter 3 we will focus on the theological and mystical aspects of the essay. The dialogue will be carried out on two levels: first, we will briefly attend to a source of Benjamin – the first three chapters of Genesis; next, we will look into the writings of Gershom Scholem – both as a close friend of Benjamin and as an intellectual partner whose theories influenced, and were influenced by, those of Benjamin. Chapter 4 will then conclude this paper with a return to the opening questions and an attempt to materialize, as far as the theory allows, the concept of language as laid out in the essay.
19 1916–1925 is the period between writing the essay On Language and the Epistemo-Critical Prologue,
in which one can find a further development of the former. This period is marked by Benjamin’s
dedication of the Trauerspiel study as “conceived 1916, written 1925” (Benjamin, The Origin of German
Chapter 1
First unfoldings
Walter Benjamin’s early essay on language marks itself as unusual right from its – rather curious – title: On Language as Such and on the Language of Man. The ‘and’ posits a 20 distinction: one may justly assume that language as such does not stand for languages like English or French, which, however, might as well not be pertinent examples of language of
man. The title further implies the non-trivial claim that language in its general form – that is,
as such – is not to be seen as a human project altogether. Possibly, it also hints at a certain priority: first comes language as such, then language of man is defined in relation to it as a special case or, perhaps, as an answer.
The text begins by introducing the first category, language as such. We read:
It is possible to talk about a language of music and of sculpture, about a language of justice that has nothing directly to do with those in which German or English
judgements are couched, about a language of technology that is not the specialized language of technicians. 21
In its most general sense, language is the inherent tendency to communicate mental contents (geistiger Inhalt). Considering the examples mentioned above – language of music and 22 sculpture – neither communication nor mental contents should be taken at their face value. These terms, nowhere clearly defined, call for elucidation, which can only be done by their employment according to their use in the text. Evidently, language is not reserved for human beings, and it is not only music and sculpture that have their own language: the fox has a language and the lamp as well. 23
What does it mean for the lamp to have a language? What is the nature of this inherent quality that communicates the lamp? It is surely not language as we know it: one of words and signs that amount to a system of communication as transmission of information. Why call it
language, then? Any attempt to understand the idea of the language–lamp by way of analogy is
20In a letter to Gershom Scholem from November 11, 1916, Benjamin writes, “From the title, ‘On
Language as Such and on the Language of Man’, you will note a certain systematic intent, which, however, also makes completely clear for me the fragmentary nature of its ideas” (Benjamin, The
Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 1910–1940, 82).
21 Benjamin, One-Way Street, and Other Writings, 107. 22 Benjamin, One-Way Street, and Other Writings, 107. 23 Benjamin, 110.
annulled at the outset, as Benjamin comments, “[t]his use of the word ‘language’ is in no way metaphorical”. Our efforts will thus be directed at getting a better grasp of the concepts of 24
language as such and language of man and their interrelation. As one might suspect, there will be no clear-cut definitions. By inquiring into these two inseparably intertwined notions, we hope to cast some light from within.
Mental being, linguistic being and the paradox
A mental being (geistiges Wesen) communicates itself in, and not through, language. The 25 mental being of a thing, Benjamin further claims, is not the same as its language: a distinction whose ambiguity is evident in the Greek word logos, denoting both a sign or a word expressing a thought and the thought itself. This distinction is of great significance: it is precisely its 26 rejection – that is, the identification of mental being with language – that poses “the great abyss into which all linguistic theory threatens to fall”. Confusingly enough, we are promised, 27 “this paradox has a place, as a solution, at the center of linguistic theory, but remains a
paradox, and insoluble, if placed at the beginning”. A few pages later, the same paradox 28 reappears, this time indeed in the form of assertion. Later on, we will look in greater detail into the process by which the paradox turns into a legitimate postulation. For now, let us sketch briefly the steps taken towards that point.
Benjamin defines a linguistic being (sprachliches Wesen) as that which is communicable in a mental being (geistiges Wesen), and the language of a thing (e.g. the language–lamp) is the same as its linguistic being. By applying the rule of thing–languages to man, he then makes 29 the following argument: “the linguistic being of man is his language . . . However, the language of man speaks in words . . . [that is,] by naming all other things . . . It is therefore the linguistic being of man to name things”. 30
This is where, for the first time in the essay, we meet the second kind of language disclosed in the title: language of man. Benjamin’s words mask this emergence as a natural development of the theory, as a special case of language as such. This is, however, not the case. For
otherwise, if language of man would have been actually man–language, then in the same vein
24 Benjamin, 107. 25 Benjamin, 108.
26 Klein, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 903. 27 Benjamin, One-Way Street, and Other Writings, 108.
28 Benjamin, 108. 29 Benjamin, 109. 30 Benjamin, 110.
as every other thing–language, it should have been precisely man’s inherent tendency to communicate mental contents. And just as the language of justice “has nothing directly to do with those in which German or English legal judgements are couched”, and just as the 31
language of the fox is clearly not about its growls and howls, there is no reason to suppose that such an inherent tendency in man would operate exclusively in words.
The hypothesis, “the language of man speaks in words”, self-evident as it may sound, does not stem from the theory developed so far but from an external, possibly the primary, source of the essay – the biblical story of creation as depicted in the first three chapters of Genesis. This passage, along with introducing the language of man, serves as the ‘glue’ that binds language
as such and linguistic being with language of man, which is identified with naming. It is only later, after the paradox is posed as a postulate, that Benjamin explicitly discloses the major role the Genesis story plays in the theory (though a reference is made earlier). Nevertheless, it is language as it appears in Genesis and interpreted by Benjamin, I will argue, that allows the magic that turns the abyss into a springboard. And within this transformation, the concepts of
name and naming will play a fundamental role.
Creation as revelation
Attempting to decipher this rather enigmatic essay, we begin by placing it in context. In his book Walter Benjamin: The Story of a Friendship, Gershom Scholem – the preeminent modern scholar of Kabbalah and a close friend of Benjamin – relates that the 1916 essay was 32 first written by Benjamin as a letter responding to some of his questions regarding language and mathematics. This letter, however, was never sent. Instead, Benjamin decided to rewrite 33 the letter in the form of an essay. In a letter sent to Scholem on November 11, 1916, Benjamin promises to send the essay, which he has yet to complete. He writes, “it was impossible for me to go into mathematics and language . . . Otherwise, however, I do attempt to come to terms with the nature of language in this essay and – to the extent I understand it – in its immanent relationship to Judaism and in reference to the first chapters of Genesis”. 34
The two thinkers and close friends, through frequent encounters and correspondences, undoubtedly influenced and inspired one another. This is true in particular regarding their
31 Benjamin, 107.
32 “The Kabbalah, literally 'tradition,' that is, the tradition of things divine, is the sum of Jewish mysticism”
(Scholem, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, 1).
33 Scholem, Walter Benjamin, 43.
mystical theories of language. In his early years, Scholem considered focusing his efforts on 35 formulating a linguistic theory of Kabbalah, a plan he withdrew in the face of the great difficulties it posed in a field that was then hardly explored. His major work on the subject, 36 written much later, is the 1970 essay The Name of God and the Linguistic Theory of the
Kabbalah, which arguably shows “some striking affinities with Benjamin’s own view of language”. Although the direction and possible sources of influence are a matter of 37 discussion, it is clear that Benjamin’s and Scholem’s philosophies of language are closely entangled. Accordingly, we will make generous use of Scholem’s writings in trying to shed some light on Benjamin’s essay.
Upon setting the paradox as a postulate, Benjamin intimates, “the equation of mental and linguistic being is of great metaphysical moment to linguistic theory because it leads to . . . the concept of revelation”. He then turns to the Bible – as a source of revelation, in particular to 38 the first chapters recounting the story of the creation – framing his aim as “the discovery of what emerges of itself from the biblical text with regard to the nature of language”. Trying to 39 track the origins of Benjamin’s essay, Eric Jacobson, in his book Metaphysics of the Profane:
The Political Theology of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, draws our attention to an idea that first appears in an ancient collection of rabbinical commentaries on Genesis known as Bereshit Rabbah: 40
The Torah [i.e. the Scripture] is saying, ‘I was the artisan's tool of God’. In the way of
the world, a king of flesh and blood who builds a castle does not do so from his own knowledge, but rather from the knowledge of an architect, and the architect does not build it from his own knowledge, but rather he has scrolls and books in order to know how to make rooms and doorways. So too God gazed into the Torah and created the world. 41
This piece of commentary, developed in various ways in later centuries, offers mystical
garments, arguably very fitting, to Benjamin’s use of Genesis. The existence of Torah – a term whose meanings range from the Pentateuch, through Scripture in general and unto “the concentrated power of God Himself”42– is primordial and thus, in part, independent of the
existence of the world. Yet, the existence of the Torah becomes manifest only in creation. To
35 Idel, Old Worlds, New Mirrors, 168–70.
36 Jacobson, Metaphysics of the Profane, 125–26. 37 Idel, Old Worlds, New Mirrors, 170.
38 Benjamin, One-Way Street, and Other Writings, 113. 39 Benjamin, 114.
40 Jacobson, Metaphysics of the Profane, 85. 41 Bereshit Rabbah 1:1.
put it in Scholem’s words, this idea reflects an “analogy between creation and revelation” – a prominent Kabbalistic theme that seems to underlie Benjamin’s linguistic theory as well. It is 43 from within the tension of creation and revelation that language emerges and attains its full capacity.
What does it mean for creation to be comparable to revelation? Creation is an act of bringing something into existence, whereas revelation is giving expression to something that was previously hidden. The analogy between the two has therefore a significant implication: existence is comparable to expression. It is a move towards the identification of ontology and epistemology, and the realm of this identification is language. Following this line, the thing created is initially dormant or hidden; in this state it is not yet entirely existent. Revelation, fulfilling its potential by expressing what used to be only hinted at, is therefore an act of creation; that is, of bringing into full existence. Inversely, the correspondence of expression and being renders it possible, in principle at least, to draw the essence of a thing from its own expression. As Jacobson suggests:
Expression therefore is language in its full and complete being . . . in order to
understand the substance of a thing, one can search for the expression unique to it, as each substance of the intellect is bound to its own expression, from which it can not be severed. 44
Yet, the essay does not imply a complete identity of ontology and epistemology; existence and expression, let alone communicability, are not one and the same. In fact, Benjamin is taking pains in portraying the intricate relationship of the two when he distinguishes between mental
being and linguistic being. The distinction is further complicated when Benjamin divides communicability to potential – that which is communicable in principle, and the
communicating – that which is actually manifest. Here we witness an idea that reappears in Benjamin’s later essays, specifically concerning works of art: an inherent potentiality as an independent quality of a thing. Communication is not only directed towards a receiver, it belongs to the essence of the object. Nonetheless, the receiver is of indispensable importance. Benjamin asks, “To whom does the lamp communicate itself? The mountain? The fox? But here the answer is: to man”. The proof of this claim seems to offer a key for untangling the 45 paradox: “if the lamp and the mountain and the fox did not communicate themselves to man,
43 Scholem, 36.
44 Jacobson, Metaphysics of the Profane, 91.
how should he be able to name them? And he names them; he communicates himself by naming them”. 46
The twofold act of creation
So how should we understand the role of man as name-giver in the enactment of language? The biblical story of creation and the intuitive interpretation of Benjamin points at an interesting relationship between man and the rest of creation. The first chapter of Genesis describes the creation of the whole world – light and darkness, earth and oceans, animals and plants – as prior to that of man. Man is not simply the last to be created, his role is essential to all that precedes him: he serves as a seal of the whole creation. “Man is the knower in the same language in which God is creator”, Benjamin intimates, “in man God set language, which had 47 served Him as medium of creation, free”. This is an interesting inversion: language is not a 48 vehicle for man, but man is the vehicle of language on its journey to freedom. Man is the locus of the redemption of language. What does it mean for man to be thus endowed with language? How will language be set free, or redeemed, within man?
Redemption is a major theme in Benjamin’s writings and the prism through which Richard Wolin – in his book Walter Benjamin: An Aesthetic of Redemption – perceives the entire scope of Benjamin’s philosophy. Wolin relates redemption in Benjamin to the idea of ‘origin is the goal’. The concept of redemption as applied to languages appears in its full-fledged form 49 in Benjamin’s 1921 essay The Task of the Translator. But the underpinnings of this view can be already seen here: language is destined to be set free by naming, and with the decline of name–language into the human word in the Fall, language is being denied its liberation. The nature of the redemption of language is that of a return to origin: the word aspires to be redeemed in name, which is the cognitive correspondent of its original creative role. Wolin writes:
Origin is still the goal, but not as a fixed image of the past that must be recaptured in toto, but rather as the fulfillment of a potentiality which lies dormant in origin, the
46 Benjamin, 110. 47 Benjamin, 116. 48 Benjamin, 115.
49A quote of Karl Kraus, which appears in Benjamin’s Theses on the Philosophy of History.
Wolin argues that Benjamin’s ‘origin is the goal’ draws, to a great extent, from Kabbalistic notions (Wolin, Walter Benjamin, an Aesthetic of Redemption, 37).
attainment of which simultaneously represents a quantum leap beyond the original point of departure. 50
This passage from Wolin, based on Kabbalistic notions, unsurprisingly resonates with Scholem’s “analogy between creation and revelation” mentioned earlier and the distinction 51 between the expressionless, incomplete existence of a thing and its expression that
corresponds to its full existence. To explore the applications of this distinction, let us delve deeper into the theory.
In the essay, Benjamin defines language as a capacity. His statement, “that which in a mental entity [geistiges Wesen] is communicable is its language”, is directly derived from two previous statements: “What is communicable in a mental entity [geistigen Wesen] is its linguistic entity [sprachliches Wesen]” and “the linguistic being [sprachliches Wesen] of all things is their language”. On the other hand, “Language communicates the linguistic being of 52 things” and hence “all language communicates itself”. So language is both expression and 53 capacity, it is communicating and communicable, and as the former it communicates itself as the latter. Naming, as the unique faculty of man, has a uniting power in this respect:
So in name culminate both the intensive totality of language, as the absolutely communicable mental entity, and the extensive totality of language, as the universally communicating (naming) entity. 54
What is the role of naming? In the biblical story, the first act of the word is creative; this is the word of God: “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light”. The word brings the 55 thing into existence. But the role of the word in creation is not complete, it has yet to name the thing created: “And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night”. What is the 56 role of naming? What is the purpose of this twofold act of creation?
I would like to suggest a correspondence between this twofold act and the two levels of existence: expressive and inexpressive. The creative word, in this view, brings the thing into lower existence, one that does not know a name and hence lacks expression; it is only by naming that the thing comes into complete being in expression. This idea will be developed in the following chapters.
50 Wolin, 39.
51 Scholem, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, 36. 52 Benjamin, One-Way Street, and Other Writings, 109. 53 Benjamin, 109.
54 Benjamin, 112. 55 Genesis 1:3. 56 Genesis 1:5.
The Fall and the decline of knowledge
We now touch upon the last theme of this chapter, which has its place within the theory of knowledge. In Genesis 2 – the second version of the story – God brings the beasts and fowls 57 to man “to see what he would call them”. And man names them; but how does he name 58 them? According to what rule or knowledge? In the hands of God, the word encloses a creative power; but with the creation of man, the word is released from its creativity and as such, it finds refuge in man. Still, the word is not deprived of any potential; divine creativity is transformed into divine knowledge. Man is thus gifted with knowledge in the form of language, that is, knowledge of names.
This idea finds a vivid expression in the words of Hamann, as quoted by Benjamin:
Everything that man heard in the beginning, saw with his eyes, and felt with his hands was the living word; for God was the word. With this word in his mouth and in his heart, the origin of language was as natural, as close and as easy as a child’s game. 59
Language was thus everywhere; the word was God Himself. According to Benjamin, the essence of the Fall was the loss of this state of blissful immediacy, the absorption in divine, perfect knowledge: “That is really the Fall of language–mind”. The idea of the Fall as a loss of 60 knowledge seems to go against the plain meaning of the Biblical text, where we read:
And unto Adam he [i.e. God] said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy
wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake . . . And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil . . . Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. 61 Benjamin explains thus:
Its [i.e. the Tree of Knowledge’s] apples were supposed to impart knowledge of good
and evil. But on the seventh day, God had already cognized with the words of
57In On Language Benjamin dedicates some passages to the muteness and melancholy of nature, a
topic with which we will not engage here. For a discussion on melancholy in Benjamin, see Ferber,
Philosophy and Melancholy.
58 Genesis 2:19.
59 Benjamin, One-Way Street, and Other Writings, 118. 60 Benjamin, 119.
creation. And God saw that it was good. The knowledge to which the snake seduces, that of good and evil, is nameless. It is vain in the deepest sense, and this very knowledge is itself the only evil known to the paradisiac state. 62
The knowledge of the Tree is vain precisely because it does not impart any knowledge of names, which is the only true knowledge. In Paradise, man names things according to the way they communicate themselves to him, but the “translation of the language of things into that of man is . . . translation of an imperfect language into a more perfect one, and cannot but add something to it, namely knowledge. The objectivity of this translation is, however, guaranteed by God”, who gifted man with the divine word. Thus, through the empty knowledge of good 63 and evil, which fails to do justice to language, “the Fall marks the birth of the human word”, 64 imperfect and nameless.
Bereft of name, the knowledge of good and evil is yet not completely denied the possibility of truth: it can be elevated through judgement – whose knowledge resides in abstraction, unlike the concrete name–knowledge, yet is “equally magical”. This route will take us deeper into 65 Benjamin’s theory of knowledge, specifically as it appears in the Epistemo-Critical Prologue to the The Origin of German Tragic Drama (Trauerspiel). As we shall see, profane knowledge still encloses a possibility of redemption through the workings of the concept. In the next chapter, we will look into the emergence of the concept and the momentum that marks the birth of language in the writings of Ernst Cassirer (Language and Myth and The Philosophy of
Symbolic Forms). His systematic theory will help in positioning Benjamin’s ideas – his theory of language (mainly the essay in discussion, On Language as Such and on the Language of
Man and The Task of the Translator) and theory of knowledge (in the Epistemo-Critical
Prologue) – by way of similarities and contrasts.
Later, we will attend to a philosophy closer to Benjamin’s, yet one that employs distinct terminologies and different trajectories: the linguistic theory underlying Jewish mystical doctrines as interpreted by Scholem. The idea of the name – with its various significations and abundant fertility – will be dwelled on in Benjamin, in Scholem (especially in The Name of
God and the Linguistic Theory of the Kabbalah and The Meaning of the Torah in Jewish
Mysticism) and along the lines of the biblical text. Throughout our inquiry, our efforts will be directed at disentangling the paradox and explicating the nature of language as such and
language of man.
62 Benjamin, One-Way Street, and Other Writings, 119. 63 Benjamin, 117–18.
64 Benjamin, 119. 65 Benjamin, 119.
Chapter 2
Theories of language and knowledge
Cassirer and the function of signs
During his years as a university student, Benjamin attended lectures by Ernst Cassirer. But the German philosopher – whose theoretical framework encompasses science, language and myth – is not mentioned anywhere in Benjamin’s writings, a fact that only allows the linking of the two thinkers by way of comparison of their theories. Still, such a comparison shall prove 66 fruitful: the theories of language and knowledge of Cassirer and Benjamin, albeit elementally different, share some basic concerns. In particular, they both take as fundamental the tension within language: its being, in Hamann’s words, at once “the mother of reason and revelation”.
From this initial conflict, each of the two thinkers proceeds in a completely different
67
direction. Benjamin, says Adorno, “mistrusted all limitations placed on the realm of possible knowledge, the pride of modern philosophy in its illusionless maturity”.68 The illusionless,
mature philosophy of Cassirer, therefore, will serve as a background against which the peculiarities of Benjamin’s theory will shine.
Starting at the beginning of linguistic theory, we pose the question of the nature of language in its simplest form: what is language? A tentative answer may be that language is a system of representations used for communication. By words – which reflect things in the world – language offers a compact replication of reality, and thus allows the conveyance of these reflected images. Yet, closer scrutiny, as Cassirer points out, finds in this theory of
representation a slippery slope to scepticism. The theory posits a given, ‘solid’ reality against which it measures language, whereby language is ever found inadequate. Language, Cassirer resolves, cannot be seen as a copy of reality lest it turn into a mere phantom. 69
This inherent problem of representation calls for a change of theory. Yet, if we retain the conception that the words of language are signs – that is, sensible objects that stand for something quite different from their sensible objectivity – then the problem encountered in
66 Eiland and Jennings, Walter Benjamin, 49.
67 Benjamin, One-Way Street, and Other Writings, 114; Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. 1,
150.
68 Adorno, Prisms, 238.
representation theory is not annihilated, but only attains a new form. This problem can be 70 framed by two distinct, if closely related, questions: the question of the function of signs and the question of their origin.
To begin with the question of function, we turn to Cassirer. Drawing from logical–scientific thought, he suggests a new way of understanding signs: not as mere passive representatives of an independent and unaffected reality, but as active participants in the design of this reality. 71 Cassirer’s focus on logic and science – in particular physics and mathematics – need not be surprising; mathematical signs are of the purest, sharpest kind, and the principle of this sharpness is dichotomy. Set theory provides a lucid example: within a given domain, the definition of a set consists in its rule of dichotomy – that is, a question ‘presented’ to every object in the domain (namely, “are you in?”) to which it answers either “yes” or “no”. The mathematical sign cuts through the domain of mathematical objects with utmost precision: leaving no blunt edges, it decisively separates everything that is from everything that is not. But in that is, the mathematical sign does not claim to penetrate objective reality; its relation with reality is one of function – in particular, when applied in science, the prediction of future events. It obtains its conceptual purity as a participant in a coherent system of signs. 72
With their new role description, the principle of signs is no longer one of similarity, but rather of functionality. Unlike ‘pure’ immediate sensations, signs lay claim to objectivity. Subjective experience, elusive and in constant motion, finds its objective expression when it comes to a standstill in the sign. The sign draws from ‘objective reality’ while at the same time arranging 73 this reality by subjecting it to the logic of its own form, and in this arrangement it creates
knowledge. Instead of being mirrors, signs are instruments of knowledge, and it is only by virtue of these instruments that reality can be perceived and described at all. If the old 74 conception of the sign took it to be a mirror image, then, for the same reason, it recognized the mind as a passive observer. By contrast, the sign for Cassirer is the expression of the human mind as it actively utilizes sensible matter. What is evident in science also holds true for other cultural forms and their corresponding symbolic functions: myth, art and language each have
70 One can, of course, reject this hypothesis and argue that words convey nothing but their sensible
objectivity. This can result in one of two views: either taking language as pure reality – an identification of the word with the object it denotes, or taking language as pure creation of consciousness – as a closed system that cannot hold any claim to objective truth (Cassirer, Language and Myth, 6–7).
71 Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms 1, 75. 72 Cassirer, 85.
73 Cassirer, 89. 74 Cassirer, 75.
their own conceptual structure, their own principles of formation by which they engage with reality. And each has its own concept of truth towards which it strives. 75
In this respect, truth for Cassirer is a term relative to the cultural form within which it is used. Artistic truth has a reality independent from that of scientific truth, each subjected only to its own principles of knowledge. This pluralistic notion of knowledge defies the idea of the ‘thing in itself’ against which truth should be measured. Knowledge – attained by way of 76
differentiation – implies multiplicity, wherefore it is incompatible with the idea of a metaphysical unity of being. Unwilling to renounce the possibility of knowledge, Cassirer concludes that unity of being cannot be maintained. Yet, he contends, one shall not give up the hope for unity altogether. The objects of reality are replaced by objects of knowledge – an amalgam of objective and subjective, of impression and expression – and it is only natural that the quest for unity will be adjusted accordingly. It is therefore only within the sphere of
knowledge that we may seek unity, no longer metaphysical but functional. Instead of looking backwards in search for an essence from which all originated, says Cassirer, we should gaze forwards in anticipation of a unified goal. 77
Knowledge and truth
The same problem that made Cassirer reject representation theory and look for alternatives provides the fuel for philosophy in the view of Benjamin. “It is characteristic of philosophical writing”, he says, “that it must continually confront the question of representation”. The 78 problem of representation is not an impediment philosophy must overcome before it can proceed; it is in the very confrontation of this paradox that philosophy is carried out. For the law of philosophy is not the acquisition of knowledge, but rather the representation of truth. 79
In the Epistemo-Critical Prologue to The Origin of German Tragic Drama (Trauerspiel) Benjamin counterposes the notions of knowledge and truth. As opposed to Cassirer, for whom the idea of truth is relative and context-dependent, Benjamin holds truth to be an essence, 80 thus primordial and unchanging. Knowledge, for Benjamin, is a systematic pursuit; its objects are acquired and held – possessed, to use his terminology – in the consciousness. This
75 Cassirer, 88, 91. 76 Cassirer, 111. 77 Cassirer, 77.
78 Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama, 27. 79 Benjamin, 28.
possession of its objects is the characteristic principle of knowledge. Truth, on the other 81 hand, cannot possess its object; its principle is representation of essence – that is,
self-representation. The method of knowledge, by which it grows gradually, is questioning; its rule and measure is coherence, its nature conceptual. But the nature of truth is one of essence, and as such it knows no measure and is “beyond all question”. 82
Knowledge is parsable and reducible, whereas truth is fragmentary yet indivisible. This can 83 be demonstrated by looking at two opposing uses of language: logical and poetic. The logical formula – a demonstration of knowledge – obtains its validity by virtue of its structure, by its capacity of being parsed and, thus reduced, further analyzed. The poetic verse – an expression, if imperfect, of truth – clearly differs; its potency shines forth through every single word – if not from every letter and every sound – which in turn becomes substantial only by virtue of the whole. These qualities point at another area of contrast: whereas the unity of knowledge, having coherence as its measure, can only be understood as unity of structure, the unity of truth is one of essence. For this reason, says Benjamin, truth “resists being projected, by whatever means, into the realm of knowledge”, which resonates with Cassirer’s assertion, 84 “[t]he One Being . . . eludes cognition. The more its metaphysical unity as a ‘thing in itself’ is asserted, the more it evades all possibility of knowledge”. 85
Cassirer, choosing to renounce metaphysical unity for the sake of knowledge, holds the only truth attainable to be one of conceptual thought, which is, in his view, the object of philosophy. Benjamin, on the contrary, credits the existence of genuine, primordial truth – out of
knowledge’s reach – whose representation is the aim of philosophy. The conceptual unity of phenomena is rejected by Benjamin as false unity, which can only hinder the enactment of genuine unity of truth. When directed at the acquisition of knowledge, philosophy risks 86 reducing its task to constructing a system of relations, empty and vain by its own right, which, like a spider’s web, is intended for catching truth “as if it were something which came flying in from outside”. The ‘paradise of mysticism and pure immediacy’, declared by Cassirer closed 87 for philosophy, is, for Benjamin, the realm philosophy must strive to enter. 88
But what is the process by which the unity of truth comes forth? It seems, as Cassirer argues, that every attempt of consciousness to apprehend this unity goes against its nature; for
81 Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama, 29. 82 Benjamin, 30.
83 Benjamin, 33. 84 Benjamin, 29.
85 Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. 1, 76. 86 Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama, 23. 87 Benjamin, 28.
consciousness, attempting to lay hold of phenomena, acts by way of differentiation. The interrelation of knowledge and truth in Benjamin’s thought requires further explication, for which we turn to another duality put forward by him, namely that of concept and idea.
Concept and idea
In the Epistemo-Critical Prologue, Benjamin presents the notions of concept and idea, which largely correspond, respectively, to those of knowledge and truth. Concepts are artefacts, products of consciousness shaped by way of abstraction and differentiation. Concepts are the objects of knowledge, and the unity of knowledge resides in the systematic coherence of its objects. Ideas are, by way of contrast, independent and pre-existent. “The idea is a monad”, says Benjamin; thus containing an image of the whole world, the domain of ideas is truth. 89 Within Benjaminian ideas, phenomena are objectively arranged, and in this objectivity ideas claim to achieve precisely what Cassirer holds impossible. 90
According to Cassirer, the great novelty of Platonic Ideas was the recognition of the concept 91 of being as a problem, and with it the replacement of the quest for a unity of origin with a quest for a unity of ends. A unity of being is discredited when it is taken as a 92
logical–theoretical hypothesis; for Cassirer, this leads to its rejection altogether. Benjamin, although not denying the problem arising from it, does not entirely withdraw from the idea of metaphysical unity; rather, he chooses to take it as a mystical point of departure, a point to which we will later attend.
The opposition between concepts and ideas does not induce hostility; in fact, concepts play an essential role in the manifestation of ideas, and it is only in the service of ideas that concepts are “above all suspicion of destructive sophistry”. But how can concepts – whose very 93 production in the consciousness seems to go against the uncovering of unmediated essence – be vehicles for the manifestation of ideas? Ideas are essences; as such, they bear a
concreteness that stands in contrast to the abstract nature of concepts. Yet, they can only be manifested as “arrangements of concrete elements in the concept”. Concepts are instruments that cut through phenomena following abstract principles of distinctness and similarity.
89 Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama, 30, 48. 90 Benjamin, 34.
91 Although they share some important features, Benjaminian ideas are distinct from Platonic Ideas (for
one, the former are monadic in nature).
92 Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms 1, 74. 93 Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama, 33.
Divided in the concepts, phenomena are ready to be objectively arranged to form ideas, for 94 “[i]deas are to objects as constellations are to stars”. 95
Drawing on Benjamin’s analogy, I suggest an illustrative, albeit a bit simplistic, metaphor: 96 the concept is the craftsmanship of carving fine pieces out of rugged stone of phenomena; the idea is the art of laying out these pieces to create a magnificent mosaic. Art resembles truth in that it relates to the essence of phenomena without containing them in a conceptual manner as the genus includes the species. In particular, truth shares with mosaic its fragmentary yet 97 indivisible nature, and what is evident in mosaic holds for truth as well: its contemplation requires a state of “total immersion and absorption” in its most minute details. 98
Linguistic in essence, the idea, with its affinity to truth, bears the stamp of name. Benjamin points at two aspects of the word: the external, communicative side of the word – realized in the concept – and the internal, symbolic side – realized in the idea. Whereas for Cassirer the 99 symbolic resides in an instrumental relation of sign to object generated by the act of the mind,
for Benjamin it is that hidden quality by virtue of which the sign points at its essence.
100 101
According to Benjamin, it is the task of philosophy – as representation of truth – to reveal this ideational aspect of the word with its primacy over its communicative side. “Ideas are
displayed in the act of naming”, says Benjamin. Hence, the “father of philosophy” was Adam, the ultimate name-giver. The project of philosophy is the revival of ideas by reattaining the 102 primordial mode of perception. Its task is the redemption of the word, restoring, to a partial extent at least, its paradisiacal state as name.
The theme of redemption
Richard Wolin characterizes the intention underlying the entire of Benjamin’s oeuvre – and in particular his works in the period between the 1916 essay On Language and the 1925
Trauerspiel study – by the principle of ‘redemptive criticism’. This characterization 103
94 Benjamin, 33–35. 95 Benjamin, 34.
96 In the Prologue Benjamin compares the treatise, as a representative philosophical form, to a mosaic
(Benjamin, 28–29).
97 Benjamin, 34. 98 Benjamin, 29, 36. 99 Benjamin, 36.
100 Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms 1, 75, 78. 101 Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama, 36. 102 Benjamin, 37.
immediately raises two questions: what would be the meaning of redemption for Benjamin and how can criticism bring forth redemption? We will very briefly touch upon this theme, which, on its own right, deserves a much more in-depth examination.
Wolin explains, “[t]he act of redemptive critique is therefore a work of remembrance: it is a process of preserving the truth content or idea of a work from the ever-threatening forces of social amnesia to which humanity has over the ages become inured”. In the 104 Prologue, Benjamin states the method of philosophy – whose task is the representation of truth – ought to be the recollection of “primordial form of perception”, a recollection that is comparable to Platonic anamnesis. In order to understand the nature of the primordial mode of perception, 105 let us take another look at the essay On Language, where Benjamin describes the linguistic character of the Fall. “In stepping outside the purer language of name”, he writes, “man makes language a means (that is, a knowledge inappropriate to him), and therefore also, in one part at any rate, a mere sign; and this later results in the plurality of languages”. 106
The loss of the paradisiacal state results in the dissolution of the one perfect language into a multiplicity of imperfect languages. But the plurality of languages is not in itself the root, or even a direct result, of the decline of pure language.107 “According to the Bible, this
consequence of the expulsion from paradise admittedly came about only later”, namely in 108 the story of the Tower of Babel. In the setting of the story – some generations after the Fall – we read, “the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech”. It was only during the 109 building of the tower that God confounded the speech of the builders. The Fall, therefore, did not immediately bring about the multiplicity of languages; yet it paved the way to this
multiplicity by damaging the purity of name. 110
The multiplicity of languages is a natural, perhaps inevitable, consequence of the Fall, a further stage of linguistic confusion. Nonetheless, it is in their plurality that languages
participate in the effort of returning to the primordial state of perception and reattaining pure language. This theme is developed in Benjamin’s 1921 essay The Task of the Translator. There, as the title implies, Benjamin attends to the notion of translation as a unique literary form that bears a significant role within the domain of languages. It is beyond the scope of this paper to
104 Wolin, 45.
105 Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama, 36–37. 106 Benjamin, One-Way Street, and Other Writings, 120. 107 Benjamin, Selected Writings, 273.
108 Benjamin, One-Way Street, and Other Writings, 119. 109 Genesis 11:1.
go in detail into the notion of translation; we will only sketch its principle role within the essay’s teleological portrayal of languages.
By virtue of its intermediary character, translation acts as a unifying force amidst the
multiplicity of languages, expressing their affinity, which resides not in similarity but rather in a shared teleological principle. The intention underlying all languages, their common goal, is the pure language of Paradise. Accordingly, the method of translation is, rather than 111 reproduction, the inducement of harmony. This idea may be expressed with a musical
analogue: if every language is a musical instrument, translation is the adaptation of the theme to the various instruments, whereby it never repeats the original but adds something to it – revealing a hitherto hidden face of the theme. Similar to translation, if to a lesser degree, criticism plays a part in this redemptive act of remembrance of the literary work, and hence of language itself. 112
In a letter to a friend and a fellow intellectual, Benjamin writes:
[W]here criticism is identical with interpretation and in conflict with all current
methods of looking at art, criticism becomes the representation of an idea. Its intensive infinity characterizes ideas as monads. My definition is: criticism is the mortification of the works. Not the intensification of consciousness in them (that is Romantic!), but their colonization by knowledge. 113
Here, again, we come across the view that the subjection – now of works of art – to knowledge can be used in the service of representation of ideas. Criticism acts by way of possession (“colonization”) of the work – that is, possession of its conceptual aspects that give themselves away to knowledge – whereby it takes part in the representation of ideas, in the representation of truth. Criticism, therefore, when it is a form of interpretation – that is, when it consists in uncovering the work according to its inner law rather than subjecting it to predetermined forms – can be used as an instrument in the redemption of works of art.
The redemption of language resides in the return to its original, paradisiacal state. Yet, at the same time, Benjamin hints at the unattainability of the perfect language, and it is difficult 114 not to suspect that language has never – that is, in any point in historical time – actually been in this perfect state. Redemption comes about by way of remembrance, through interruptions
111 Benjamin, Illuminations, 72–74. 112 Benjamin, 76.
113 Benjamin, Selected Writings, 389. A letter to Florens Christian Rang, dated December 9, 1923. 114 Benjamin, Illuminations, 75.
of the continuum of history by fragmentary moments of revealed truth, like a trail of glowing pebbles that mark the way to a legendary home. Correspondingly, the idea of pure language 115 refers to the biblical story of creation, out of the dimensions of space and time, out of the natural stream of history. We will look into Benjamin’s reading of the biblical narrative in Chapter 3 below. But now, let us go back to the essay in discussion – On Language as Such
and on the Language of Man – to employ the theory put forward so far in elucidating some of the terms used in the essay.
Knowledge of names and knowledge of good and evil
Let us recall the two kinds of knowledge depicted by Benjamin in the essay: knowledge of names and knowledge of good and evil. The knowledge of names, it appears, comes very close to Benjaminian truth – so close that the question arises of whether it deserves to be called
knowledge at all. In the 116 Epistemo-Critical Prologue, Benjamin characterizes knowledge as, “[k]nowledge is possession. Its very object is determined by the fact that it must be taken possession of – even if in a transcendental sense – in the consciousness”. Is it then that 117 knowledge of names as put forward in the essay, falls under the category of knowledge as Benjamin uses the term in the Prologue?
Knowledge is the apparatus of translation from one language to another; in Paradise, it was knowledge of names that allowed the imperfect language of things to be translated into the perfect language. Knowledge of names, if it is knowledge at all, is possession. Yet it is 118 not possession of names, but possession of an instrument, which – like a magic wand – transforms mute communication into name. Ideas, as we read in the Prologue, are given for reflection, and the manner by which they are given is “a primordial form of perception”. As such, ideas 119 cannot be conquered and subjected to systematic thought, yet they can be maintained.
Knowledge of names, so it seems, consists in the possession of ideas, and it can be called
knowledge only insofar as the maintenance of ideas can be called possession.
115 Wolin, Walter Benjamin, an Aesthetic of Redemption, 263.
116 Recall the words of Hamann quoted by Benjamin and cited in Chapter 1:
“Everything that man heard in the beginning, saw with his eyes, and felt with his hands was the living word; for God was the word. With this word in his mouth and in his heart, the origin of language was as natural, as close, and as easy as a child’s game”
(Benjamin, One-Way Street, and Other Writings, 118).
117 Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama, 29. 118 Benjamin, One-Way Street, and Other Writings, 117–18. 119 Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama, 36.
The Fall marks the loss of knowledge of names and the emergence of knowledge of good and evil. The perfect language of Paradise is no longer attainable, and yet every translation from 120 the mute language of things to an audible language contains some degree of perfection, and therefore contains a kernel of truth. The knowledge of good and evil, albeit vain in itself, still retains a possibility of purification in abstraction. We mentioned earlier the two aspects – 121 the internal and external, the idea and the concept – of a word. The internal side is the one reflected in knowledge of names; the external, conceptual side is that which knows good and evil. Knowledge of good and evil – denoted in the 122 Prologue simply as knowledge – is thus possession of concepts.
“Truth”, says Benjamin, “is not an intent which realizes itself in empirical reality; it is the power which determines the essence of this empirical reality”. And the only mode of being 123 that encloses that power is the name. In the post-paradisiacal world, where name no longer reigns, it is only from within the binds of conceptual systems that truth can be rendered free. Concepts, in this respect, have a mediating role: their function is the classification of
phenomena, by which they prepare phenomena for their own redemption.124 It is in fact its
power of abstraction that allows the concept to break down phenomena into concrete elements, rendering them closer to a ‘pre-stabilized’ state. Only thus can phenomena be 125 looked through the unifying glass of ideas, whereby they – through partaking in the representation of truth – are redeemed.
Cassirer and the origin of language
Going back to Cassirer, we now address the second question posed at the outset of this chapter: the origin of the sign. This question is not directed at finding a logical basis, thus justifying the use of signs or the function of representation; rather, it seeks a natural unfolding of representation as phenomena. When we enquired into the function of signs, we looked into the areas where signs are exploited to their fullest capacity: logic and science. As we shall see shortly, the two questions of function and origin frame a crossroads, from which each will take us in a different path.
120 Benjamin, One-Way Street, and Other Writings, 119.
121 Benjamin, 119; Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama, 233–34. 122 Benjamin, One-Way Street, and Other Writings, 119.
123 Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama, 36. 124 Benjamin, 33–35.
The logical–scientific mind works by way of abstraction through areas of difference and similarity: a general concept is induced from a set of particulars by taking their shared – regarded as essential – properties and leaving out the rest. This view, however, presupposes the existence of properties, whose origin cannot be explained without further attending to conceptual differentiation. The circular nature of this survey seems inevitable, and the 126 search for language origins proves to be futile. Logical–scientific thought, as the most developed form of the use of signs, may be an effective indicator of the function of signs but not of their origin. 127
Instead, Cassirer resolves to look into what is presumably the most primitive form of human thought: myth. Cassirer takes myth as a symbolic form, not a literary genre. Yet, the main features of the various literary definitions apply to myth as a symbolic form as well: obscure origins; a strong, even inseparable, connection with gods and religiosity; explanatory power of significant phenomena; and association with rituals. Mythical thinking displays a crucial 128 feature that is a polar opposite to theoretical thinking, and in particular, to its purest expression in the logical–scientific mind: instead of submitting the particular to a general principle, mythical consciousness crowns the particular king over everything else, inasmuch as anything else exists. But in this act of crowning, it also – similar to theoretical thinking – 129 elevates the particular to the realm of the universal. The symbols of science, language and 130 art, says Cassirer, are artificial signs born of a developed state of consciousness. But the intention underlying their formation is a natural process that is inherent in each and every instance of consciousness. 131
This ‘natural symbolism’ consists in “representation of consciousness as a whole”. The 132 whole, for Cassirer, is a contextual system, where every particular is understood through its reference to other particulars. This is especially evident in the perception of time: the “now” 133 – on the one hand the most immediate experience of consciousness – is at the same time “nothing but the eternally fluid boundary dividing the past from the future”, which are themselves mere abstractions. But the mythmaking mind apprehends time in a different 134
126 Cassirer, Language and Myth, 24.
127 Cassirer, 28–29. As noted above, Cassirer is not looking for an origin in the sense of a metaphysical
cause; rather, he asks to clarify “the form and character of the primordial linguistic concepts” (Cassirer, 28).
128 Morford and Lenardon, Classical Mythology, 1–3; Honko, ‘The Problem of Defining Myth’, 15. 129 Cassirer, Language and Myth, 26, 57–58.
130 Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms 1, 77–78. 131 Cassirer, 105–6.
132 Cassirer, 105. 133 Cassirer, 104–5. 134 Cassirer, 98.
