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likewise find the thesis that the subject produces the world.
We strive, whenever possible, to order
chas and have the world make sense; and do
so all the more when we discover that order,
sense, and meaning are not objective. This
attempt to give the world sense must fail.
From the Postmodern perspective, reason
creates order by simplifying a manifold into
a homogeneity. In this way the meaning we
give the world is a product of our own reflection. This returns us to our self-experience.
The representation of that self-experience as
a stable, hypostatized, autonomous self is
shown to be the product of a circular process."^ But did we not also find in Leibniz the
idea that the subject is led by an unrecognizable, in any case unknowable power the
rational instinct? The rational instinct, which
is non-rational as an instinct, refers to reason.
Here Leibniz's trust in reason appears unbroken, but again that looks different when one
consults the metaphor of the living mirror.
The discussion of the living mirror, which
is at the same time mirror, mirror image,
relation of mirror image and world, and
lastly, of mirror image and self, can probably
be correctly designated as ambiguous, even
as antagonistic. We are dealing here with a
mirror that is simultaneously receptive, passive, and productive, actively producing. The
mirror "makes" what mirrors itself in it, but
mirrors nothing other than that which is
given outside of it. The mirror does not only
mirror "something" outside of it, rather it
also mirrors its relation to the mirrored objectbut to that end, strictly speaking, it
would require another mirror. A further discussion in German Idealism will in fact instruct us that this repetition must be called to
a halt if one does not want, or have to (Postmodernism to the letter), permit that there is
not secure foundation for our knowledge,
either in us, or outside of us.
The metaphor of the living mirror shows
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tic relations, certainly also guided Benjamin's steps when he came upon Baroque
tragic drama. Benjamin's first intuitve insight is that the Baroque period lacked the
certainty of salvation that was present to
suffering people in the Middle Ages without
thereby giving up the hope for redemption,
an insight which later research has confirmed. This insight forms the background
against which Benjamin sees tragic drama as
an interpretation of the world, that is, as the
linguistic constitution of the world. In agreement with his linguistic-philosophical reflections, Benjamin distinguishes between the
material of the theater piece and the ideas that
mark it. As concerns material, he develops an
anthropological-political typology of human
beings and conflicts in the absolutist state.
The prince is apparently the most powerful,
but in the moment in which he carries out a
decision, he shows himself as absolutely
powerless. A n unbridgeable gap opens between having the power to rule and being
able to rule. The absolutist prince, who carries cruelty against his adversaries to an extreme, knows that he himself will finally be
a victim of their cruelty. The tyrant is at the
same time the martyr, for oppression necessarily draws self-annhilation after it. And
from this it follows that the courtly nobleman
is at the same time he who has perfect manners at his disposal and the perfect schemer,
who, with the next opportunity, betrays the
prince.
Thus, in contrast to Greek tragedy, German tragic drama knows no cosmic order
that reconciles human beings with their fate.
World-reality is hopeless; beauty is transitory; values are corrupted; salvation is uncertain. In contrast to the Middle Ages, the Baroque man is denied any immediate way into
the next world (1:258-59 [8283]).'
Yet because he cannot give up hope, his
experience of both vanity and the expectation
of salvation that has become uncertain
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plunge him into despair. This contrast inspires Benjamin's conviction that a tension
reigns between the material of tragedy and
its idea. Benjamin sees this tension concretized in melancholy. Sadness and melancholy make one speechless, but it is precisely
this speechlessness that can depict the essence of language.
In terms of their linguistic form, German
tragedies are allegories, that is, concrete depictions of abstract concepts. For Benjamin,
allegory articulates the parallel tensions between eternity and transience, idea and intuition: one of the strongest motives in allegory
is the insight into the transitory nature of
things and the concern to eternally save them
(cf 1:397 [223-24]). This antagonism between insight and concern determines less
the material than the idea of tragedy. It makes
us sad, and this sadness is revealed as the
"mother of allegories and their content"
[1:403]. But according to the antique tradition, which was renewed in the Renaissance,
the relationship to that which is creative and
saving is secured precisely in mourning and
in melancholy. The creative, genial perspective of the world finds its appropriate form in
the allegory. Thus, on the one hand, allegory
has the power to save the transitorythat, so
says Benjamin, is what the Baroque discovers^but, on the other hand, salvation can
only take place if organic life is destroyed
beforehand [1:669-70]. The allegorical, melancholic perspective must smash the world.
"That which lies here in ruins, the highly
significant fragment, the remnant, is, in fact,
the finest material of baroque creation."
(1:354 [178])
If it wants to save things, the allegory must
"hold the remains tight" [cf 1:666]. It offers,
by destroying things in trying to save them,
"the picture of rigid unrest" [1:227]. Baroque
is thus shown as the "fashion of antithetical
feelings about life" (Hbscher), but is no less
itself an ontological constitution: the anti-
itself, that is, its immediate spiritual essence. communicability per se" [II 14546]. The
One can, according to Benjamin, name this self-reflexive character of this relationship,
magic. Benjamin first elaborates the explica- which Benjamin does not bother with in his
tion of the magic of language against the later works, makes it clear that we are conbackground of the Romantic philosophy of cerned with a metaphysical discussion that
language and the story of revelation. What emphasizes the clarification of the condition
communicates in language is not only the of our speaking. The concept of revelation is
thing, but man as well. Yet in contrast to decisive for this, as Benjamin articulates in
things, man communicates in words. Man conjunction with Hamann (who says: "lancommunicates his spiritual essence in nam- guage, the mother of reason and revelation,
ing all other things [II: 143]. In so doing, man their A and O") and the Romantics [11:146].
communicates his linguistic essence. But He does not concede that there are things that
"things" like the "mountain" and the "fox" are unpronounced or unpronouncable. The
also communicate. To whom do they com- more spiritual this unpronounced thing, the
municate? To man: they communicate be- more linguistic it will be, for, after all, its
cause man names them. This naming should validity in terms of its spiritual essence is
not be confused with an ordered activity that completely known not in the word but in the
is undertaken to estabUsh.ontic access by name. Clearly, Benjamin justifies this coninstrumental means. We are concerned with ception of language as magic, as immediate
the communication of a spiritual essence in knowledge of existing things in the name,
from the Biblenot, however, by underlanguage.
With whom, Benjamin then asks, does standing it as the codex of a determined
man communicate? The answer cannot be religion, but rather as a document of the
given in the framework of communication or conviction that language is "the last . . .
of an information theory, in other words, with inexplicable and mystic reality" [11:147].
the help of a sender-information-receiver
Actually, every attempt to constructively
schema. Rather, according to Benjamin, the thematize human reality and the knowledge
sole "authority" who can become the "ad- of human reality leads, into a form of self-redressee" outside of the ontic order for com- flexivity thf cannot be gis^sp^ analytically
munication of the spiritual, linguistic essence and can, therefore, be rightly called magical
of man is God. That may be surprising, but a or mythical. It is, however, important to keep
closer discussion of the nature of language in mind that this magic^ets its elucidating
shows that its "innermost essence" is not the power not from determined content, but
word, but rather the name. The language of rather only from the determination of its
the name is the most original language and form. This formal determination is indiffercannot be adulterated, for it is in the name, ent to its materialindifferent just as the
rather than in words, that true knowledge of original act of creation (and the creative act
men and things is established. Adam's nam- of the artist whoimperfectlycopies it) is
ing of things completes God's creation: "in indifferent with respect to its material. Bennames, the essential law of language ap- jamin gives a significant example of this
pears" [11:145]. This essential law of lan- indifference when he, explicating the deterguage means that the essence of language mination of form in reference to the allegorimust not be seen in the communicability of cal form of tragic drama, remarks that in the
the contents of information, but rather can extreme case the matter of tragic drama can
only be grasped as a "communication of be happy without damaging the character of
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highest degree heterogenous. Lyotard distinguishes between differing genres of discourse like the philosophical, the scientific,
and the juridical, and different phrase regimens like questioning, commanding, describing, and so forth. Of course Lyotard
thinks that we must always react in some way
to that which another says and does, but that
does not determine whether we do so in the
way initiated by our partner. For example, we
can react to a command with irony or also
with a discourse about hierarchies. In other
words, language itself does not contain a
metadiscourse that governs in a comprehensive way all other discourses; rather language itself is heterogenous through and
through. For Lyotard, this has the consequence that all comprehensive ideas, like
human rights, education, and emancipation,
cannot be legitimized philosophically. This
does not mean, however, as is occasionally
implied of him, that such ideas would be
worthless or should not be practiced. Lyotard
only cautions against their being held as universally valid and rationally justifiable,
which would lead to the suppression of alternative ideas and ways of legitimation that
cannot be so justified.
III. The Self
If we want to bring together the above
considerations with the following discussion
of the self, then we must stress that reflection
and speaking have revealed an analogous
structure insofar as they can be understood
in reference to something which itself cannot
be understood linguistically or in terms of
reflection. Thus in Leibniz, the instinct for
reason designates that which is in accordance
with reasonas instinctwithout being itself reasonable. In Lyotard, the different
ways in which we are able to know refer to
something which cannot be depicted, or the
sublime, which cannot be "caught up with"
and which, of course, does not serve our
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when he lays the basis for what Frank understands as the solution of the problem: selfconsciousness should not be understood in
terms of non-identity between thinker and
thought, but rather as "being-familiar-withoneself' (Frank, 1986, pp. 62-63). With such
familiarity a pre-reflexive, conscious selfexperience is addressed that depicts an
"unanalyzable ground" of that self-experience. I wish to further this approach, adding
to it that this "being-familiar-with-oneself'
needs to include a pre-linguistic, but conscious experience of "being-familiar-withothers."
Only this combination sufficiently explains how, according to Schelling, (and with
this phrase I quote the title of another book
by Manfred Frank), an "infinite lack of being" can be ascertained in consciousness,
while we also understand others and can act
communally (at least in regard to their activities). This lack legitimizes speaking about
the crisis of the subject.
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Adomo, Th. W. "Der misbrauchter Barock." Ohne Leitbild.
Frankfurt/M: 1967 (quoted according to: Th. W. Adomo,
Gesammtliche Schriften, volume 10/1, ed. R. Tiedemann.
Frankfurt am Main: 1977).
Diskurs
der
Moderne.
Welttheater:
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Verso, 1988.
der
Allergorie.
Reinbek bei
Hamburg: 1986.
Postmod-
Postmod-
Horkheimer, M. and Th. W. Adomo. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Trans. John Gumming. New York: Continuum, 1987.
ernism. Papers presented at a workshop on Postmodernism, 21-23 September 1984, Unviersity of Utrecht.
Essays on
Postmodern
Vernunft.
1977.
Der unendliche Mangel an Sein. Frankfurt am Main:
1975.
Die Vnhintergebarkeit
Main: 1986.
"Verstndigungsprozesse." Sozwiss. -Lit. - Rundschau
13 Jg.H.,
und Funktionen
Stuttgart.
iale Welt.
view, 1980.
Haug, W., ed. Formen
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19xx.
ENDNOTES
1. See, among others: Habermas, Die Neue
lichkeit and Der Philosophische
Unbersicht-
Sozialwissenschaft-Liter-
arische-Rundschau.
2. Mirror and "Trompe l'oeir'-effects played an important role
Structuralism?
PHILOSOPHY TODAY
suspicion."
Aesthetic.
I cite this translation, but will also include the original page
Le Pli.
brackets.Trans.