ABSTRACT
The fourth chapter examines Benjamin’s notion of truth as a crucial corrective to readings of Benjamin as nihilistic, relativistic or overly despairing. Philosophy is not merely guided by the imperative to have an endless succession of experiences, but also by the demand to articulate the process in a manner that is true. He argues that the truth is not a property of propositions or acts of knowing, but a property of a ‘circumstance,’ that is, a relational property of a thing to other things within the context of history. There is a fragile, momentary way in which a thing embodies a memory of the past as well as a relation to a radically different future. In a moral and political context, Benjamin provides an original contribution to the problem of truth vs. lying through his notion of ‘objective mendacity.’ Ultimately, Benjamin’s notion of objective mendacity provides the key to understanding the critical significance of his claim that truth is without intention, since it shows the need to uncover truth from sedimented layers of mendacity.
