ABSTRACT
In the conclusion, I consider what lies at the limits of Benjamin’s first philosophy: his work as a critic. His dissertation on the concept of critique in German Romanticism establishes a commitment to understanding the critical process as one of engagement, reflection and observation, rather than evaluation according to any fixed value or purpose. I argue this method amounts to an experiential challenge to the general tendency of modern consciousness to commodify the object being evaluated, and I point to ways in which this openness is reflected in Benjamin’s later critical writing. In the years after his dissertation, he grows more reflective on his own critical method, calling the act of critique a kind of ‘mortification’ of the object: a perception and articulation of the ephemerality of what is experienced. At the same period, he develops a contrast between philosophy and critique that helps to define their boundaries as well as relationship: while philosophy seeks truth, art criticism looks at truths. This insight allows Benjamin to approach his critical writings with a combination of deep theoretical commitments, won from his philosophy, as well as an openness to what is new, developing and, in some cases, irrevocably failed and lost in the object of experience. As a social critic, Benjamin develops an original critique of capitalism as a religion that rests on a profound sense of guilt, a critique that helps to give a material explanation for his notion of the loss of experience in modern life: he understands capitalism as an economic structure that rests on a mythology that makes it seem natural and inevitable that every activity strive to repay its debt.
