Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. Hardcover. English. See images for condition.

About the book >.>.> Walter Benjamin quotes the French historian Andr? Monglond: “The past has left insages of itself in literary texts images comparable to those which are impeanerd by light on a photosen sitive plate. The future alone prosesses developers active enough to scan such surfaces perfectly.” Far from being just a neutral observation about the complex interdependence of hoorary tests this notion of past texts pointing toward future texts is grounded in Benjamin’s basic notion of a zevndotionary act as the retroactive redemption of the past failed at tempts: “The past carries with it a temporal index by which it is referred to redemption. There is a secret agreement between past generations and the present one. Our coming was expected on earth. Like every genera non that preceded us we have been endowed with a weak Messianic power a power to which the past has a claim.” The question here is: how far should we go along this way? Do we bmit the logic of retroactive redemption to human history or are we ready to take the risk of applying this logic to nature itself which calls for humanity human speech to redeem it from its mute suffering? Here is Heidegger’s ambiguous formulation of this obscure point: “I often ask myself-this has for a long time been a fundamental question for me-what nature would be without man-must it not resonate through him in order to attain its own most potency?” Note that this passage is from the time inmediately after Heidegger’s lectures on The Fundamental. (SP)