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Bastard Reasoning: a "Preposterous" History of Walter Benjamin's Ideas

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Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 12-7-2018 3:00 PM Bastard Reasoning: A "Preposterous" History of Walter Benjamin's Ideas Vladimir Cristache The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Mooney, Kevin The University of Western Ontario Co-Supervisor Calcagno, Antonio The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in Theory and Criticism A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Doctor of Philosophy © Vladimir Cristache 2018 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Continental Philosophy Commons, Language Interpretation and Translation Commons, Other German Language and Literature Commons, Philosophy of Language Commons, and the Reading and Language Commons Recommended Citation Cristache, Vladimir, "Bastard Reasoning: A "Preposterous" History of Walter Benjamin's Ideas" (2018). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 5923. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/5923 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract This dissertation presents the theory of ideas developed by Walter Benjamin in the “Epistemo-Critical Prologue” of his Trauerspiel book and thereby seeks to fill an existing gap in English-language Benjamin literature. On the one hand, it performs its task by closely reading this thinker’s early, epistemo-linguistic writings up to and including the “Prologue”: most prominently, “On Language as Such,” “The Program of the Coming Philosophy,” “The Concept of Criticism,” and the theoretically inclined sections of “Goethe’s Elective Affinities.” On the other, it does so by positioning Benjamin’s theory of language within existentialist philosophy and by applying his theory of ideas to post-war literary theory. It thus furnishes both a pre-history and a post-history of Benjamin’s theory of ideas. In the course of justifying its approach to Benjamin, the dissertation develops a methodology of “existential writing” and “second reading” whose emphasis falls on the ethical, political, epistemological, and metaphysical dimensions proper to the acts of writing and reading- while-writing. Making use of the Platonic concepts of “bastard reasoning” and “khôra” alongside Kant’s transcendental ideas of Soul, Cosmos, and God, the dissertation reaches its end in defining Benjamin’s “idea” as a “non-synthesis” between concept and phenomenon, one accessible only to a linguistic operation of “virtual translation” which is itself a “non- synthesis” between the methods of induction and deduction. Finally, the dissertation argues that art, philosophy, and critique can function as forms of “virtual translation” or “bastard reasoning” only insofar as they have a transcendental, ultimative, and revelatory character. Keywords Walter Benjamin, Theory of Ideas, Philosophy of Language, Translation, Critique, Reading, Writing, Existentialism, Roland Barthes. i Written 2016-2018 Vancouver To my parents Sunt pueri pueri, pueri puerilia tractant On the other hand, take a man who thinks that a written discourse on any subject can only be a great amusement, that no discourse worth serious attention has ever been written in verse or prose, and that those that are recited in public without questioning and explanation, in the manner of the rhapsodes, are given only in order to produce conviction. He believes that at their very best these can only serve as reminders to those who already know. And he also thinks that only what is said for the sake of understanding and learning, what is truly written in the soul concerning what is just, noble, and good can be clear, perfect, and worth serious attention: Such discourses should be called his own legitimate children, first the discourse he may have discovered already within himself and then its sons and brothers who may have grown naturally in other souls insofar as these are worthy; to the rest, he turns his back. Such a man, Phaedrus, would be just what you and I both would pray to become. —Plato, Phaedrus When you are philosophizing you have to descend into primeval chaos and feel at home there. —Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value The act of authentic knowledge always ends in paradox and mystery. Only those who have the presumption of the known can imagine that, within the realm of authenticity, and thus of the spiritual, to know means to elucidate. For, to elucidate is the same as to destroy. —Matei Călinescu, The Life & Opinions of Zacharias Lichter ii Acknowledgments I would first of all like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Selection Board of the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, and UWO’s Centre for the Study of Theory of Criticism—without their funding, I would not have been able to complete this project (nor start it). As my dissertation was sketched, written, and edited over the course of more than three years (early 2015 to late 2018), my thanks go to everyone who somehow contributed to my life, and especially to the life of my ideas, during that period of time. The words I’ve written are naught but your shadows, projected on a page. Most of all, I’m grateful to my initial supervisor, Dr. Călin-Andrei Mihăilescu, whose brilliance and whose commitment to the purest forms of thought were, for me and for this project, not just a guiding light but the very salt of the earth. I can’t but offer my warmest thanks to Dr. Kevin Mooney, who, at a moment of great crisis, heroically stepped in and saved the project. Your intellectual and moral decency is deserving of the highest envy. I must also give great credit to he who was there at both the beginning and the end, Dr. Antonio Calcagno, for his kindness, diligence, and unwavering generosity. The three of you were no less than my magi. To my friends, companions (intellectual or intimate), and those whose appearances in my reclusive life were always enlightening even if occasional, know that I am forever in your debt: Elizabeth MacArthur, Anda Pleniceanu, Britta Bacchus, Sahand Farivar, Hannah Tollefson, Julia Schuurman, Andrew Brown, Robin Selk, and Ilinca Mihăilescu. I’d like to give special mention and thanks to four people in this category: My fellow traveler, Jeremy Arnott—you whose faith in my capacities has always been unyielding, you who’ve been the greatest host to me and to my philosophical ideas. I wrote this dissertation for your eyes first and foremost. My bestest friend, Byron Taylor-Conboy—you who have saved me from myself more times than I can count, you who even at my worst have stood beside me and supported me, you who have forgiven me my every indiscretion. Your friendship has been a divine gift. iii My dearest confidant, Jen Huang—you whose honesty and bon sens have kept me grounded over the course of this entire process, you whose cynicism has, in mirroring my own, always managed to transform my pain to joy. I owe to you my every laugh. And my kindred comrade, Patrick Desjardins—you whose knowledge always humbles and challenges me into bettering my own, you who always make me feel less lonely in my politico-national alienation and my intellectual neuroticism. With this, as with everything, I eagerly await your critique. Finally, and most importantly, I’d like to give gratitude to my parents, Gabriela and Dorin Cristache, and my grandparents, Alexandrina and Alexandru Stoian, without whose unconditional love and devotion I would cease to exist. iv Table of Contents ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... I ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................................ III TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................................... V (AN) INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 1 0.1 SUBJECT MATTER AND SCOPE .......................................................................................................... 2 0.2 SCHOLARLY CONTEXT ..................................................................................................................... 7 0.3 DISSERTATION OUTLINE ................................................................................................................13 0.3.1 What is an Existential Writing? ........................................................................................14 0.3.2 Logological Deductions ....................................................................................................24 0.3.3 Metaphrastic Inductions ..................................................................................................28 0.3.4 Dictionary of Pre-Words ...................................................................................................31 0.3.5 Breviary of Ideas ..............................................................................................................36 0.3.6 On Second Reading ..........................................................................................................38 CHAPTER 1 ................................................................................................................................
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