Towards a Threshold Materialism. Walter Benjamin Between Myth and Reason

Abstract

We propose to think the dialectic between myth and reason as the most comprehensive philosophical framework of Benjamin?s thought. This dialectic mobilizes an effort in two simultaneous and complementary directions: on the one hand, towards an expansion of the forms of consciousness and perception (with the motives of myth, dream, intoxitacion, surrealism); on the other, in the sense of a channeling of that enhanced consciousness in rational forms of expression (in figures as montage, awakening, Traumdeutung). Thus, the relationship between myth and reason is not understood as dichotomous but as a bipolarity in which both terms are affected. This passage structure distinguishes Benjamin?s attitude with regard to aesthetics, politics and philosophy, and also allows us to understand Benjamin?s claim to approximate historical materialism and interpretation of dreams.