Focusing on Walter Benjamin's early philosophy, this study reveals how his initial ideas inform his later works. It delves into his exploration of truth, methodology, and the interplay between body and mind, while also addressing the limitations of human knowledge. This analysis offers valuable insights into Benjamin's intellectual evolution and the foundational concepts that shaped his philosophical outlook.
This book develops a philosophy of aesthetic experience through two socially significant philosophical movements: early German Romanticism and early critical theory. In examining the relationship between these two closely intertwined movements, we see that aesthetic experience is not merely a passive response to art—it is the capacity to cultivate true personal autonomy, and to critique the social and political context of our lives. Art is political for these thinkers, not only when it paints a picture of society, but even more when it makes us aware of our deeply ingrained forms of experience in a transformative way. Ultimately, the book argues that we have to think of art as a form of truth that is not reducible to communicative rationality or scientific knowledge, and from which philosophy and politics can learn valuable lessons.
In this erudite study, Ross considers the role of the concept of mechanism in the social and political philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel and his immediate predecessors in German political thought.