Dialectic of Fragments:

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  • 断片化された世界へのまなざしと弁証法
  • ベンヤミンの「救済」, アドルノの「批判」
  • Benjamin's Redemption and Adorno's Negation

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<p>Walter Benjamin used the term “dialectic” to describe his theoretical stance, arguing about “dialectics at a standstill” in The Arcades Project. Theodor W. Adorno, however, often criticized Benjamin for his lack of dialectical sense. As such, there is a crucial distinction between both thinkers' notion of the concept.” This paper considers Benjamin's concept of dialectic in comparison with that of Adorno.<br>In his doctoral dissertation, The Origin of German Tragic Drama, Benjamin discusses the dialectical potential of the literary device “allegory.” He states that, in contrast to static and systematic “symbols,” fluidity and ambiguity are the characteristics of allegory. It is these characteristics of allegory that enable us to grasp antinomies or contradictions. According to Benjamin, these allegorical fragments constitute a tragic drama as an unarranged whole, and that a dialectical narrative requires allegorical thinking.<br>The subject of allegory continues to exist in The Arcades Project, Benjamin's later unfinished work. Like allegory, “commodity” has the characteristics of fluidity and ambiguity, but a capitalist society, which consists of commodities, is static and systematic, namely “identical.” Benjamin reinterprets commodity as allegory and introduces unarranged elements into a modern “identical” society in order to criticize it. Diving deeply into the dreams of commodities, Benjamin seeks complex images in modern society.<br>Multiple elements are condensed into a single image, which is illustrated through Benjamin's “dialectics at a standstill,” describing multiplicity and the simultaneous nature of image. On the other hand, Adorno's “negative dialectics” emphasize the dynamic and causal aspects of the concept. Within this paper, two directions for the development of dialectic are explored.</p>

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