Table Of ContentWalter Benjamin’s Concept of
the Image
“ Ross’s argument is original and refreshing. It is masterful in its c onceptual
program, exegetical details, and argumentative force, and its polemical
verve is gripping. By introducing the image (dialectical or otherwise) as the
pivot of her investigation, she demonstrates a greater thematic continuity
to Benjamin’s thought than is usually imagined—a continuity that force-
fully underscores the dramatic fault-lines fi ssuring the entire corpus. Par-
ticularly notable is Ross’s reading of Benjamin’s early essay on Goethe’s
Elective Affi nities—a generally admired but oddly under-commented work.
She brings out the fundamental importance of this essay to Benjamin’s entire
project, and offers the most sustained reading in English that I’m aware of.”
—Rebecca Comay, University of Toronto, Canada
In this book, Alison Ross engages in a detailed study of Walter Benjamin’s
concept of the image, exploring the signifi cant shifts in Benjamin’s approach
to the topic over the course of his career. Using Kant’s treatment of the topic
of sensuous form in his aesthetics as a comparative reference, Ross argues
that Benjamin’s thinking on the image undergoes a major shift between his
1924 essay on ‘Goethe’s Elective Affi nities,’ and his work on T he Arcades
Project from 1927 up until his death in 1940. The two periods of Benjamin’s
writing share a conception of the image as a potent sensuous force able to
provide a frame of existential meaning. In the earlier period this function
attracts Benjamin’s critical attention, whereas in the later he mobilises it for
revolutionary outcomes. The book gives a critical treatment of the shifting
assumptions in Benjamin’s writing about the image that warrant this altered
view. It draws on hermeneutic studies of meaning, scholarship in the history
of religions, and key texts from the modern history of aesthetics to track
the reversals and contradictions in the meaning functions that Benjamin
attaches to the image in the different periods of his thinking. Above all,
it shows the relevance of a critical consideration of Benjamin’s writing on
the image for scholarship in visual culture, critical theory, aesthetics, and
philosophy more broadly.
Alison Ross is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow in Philoso-
phy, Monash University, Australia. She has research interests in aesthet-
ics, the history of modern philosophy, and critical theory. She is the author
of T he Aesthetic Paths of Philosophy: Presentation in Kant, Heidegger,
Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy.
Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Philosophy
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com
6 Naturalism 13 Collingwood and the
A Critical Analysis Metaphysics of Experience
Edited by William Lane Craig A Reinterpretation
and J.P. Moreland Giuseppina D’Oro
7 Grammar in Early 14 The Logic of Liberal Rights
Twentieth-Century A Study in the Formal Analysis
Philosophy of Legal Discourse
Edited by Richard Gaskin Eric Heinze
8 Rules, Magic and 15 Real Metaphysics
Instrumental Reason Edited by Hallvard Lillehammer
A Critical Interpretation and Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra
of Peter Winch’s
Philosophy of the 16 Philosophy After
Social Sciences Postmodernism
Berel Dov Lerner Civilized Values and the
Scope of Knowledge
9 Gaston Bachelard Paul Crowther
Critic of Science and the
Imagination 17 Phenomenology and
Cristina Chimisso Imagination in
Husserl and Heidegger
10 Hilary Putnam Brian Elliott
Pragmatism and Realism
Edited by James Conant and 18 Laws in Nature
Urszula M. Zeglen Stephen Mumford
11 Karl Jaspers 19 Trust and Toleration
Politics and Metaphysics Richard H. Dees
Chris Thornhill
20 The Metaphysics of Perception
12 From Kant to Davidson Wilfrid Sellars, Perceptual
Philosophy and the Consciousness and Critical
Idea of the Transcendental Realism
Edited by Jeff Malpas Paul Coates
21 Wittgenstein, Austrian 30 Russell vs. Meinong
Economics, and the The Legacy of “On Denoting”
Logic of Action Edited by Nicholas Griffi n and
Praxeological Investigations Dale Jacquette
Roderick T. Long
31 Philosophy and the
22 Ineffability and Philosophy Vision of Language
André Kukla Paul M. Livingston
23 Metaphor and Continental 32 The Analytic Turn
Philosophy Analysis in Early
From Kant to Derrida Analytic Philosophy and
Clive Cazeaux Phenomenology
Edited by Michael Beaney
24 Wittgenstein and Levinas
Ethical and Religious 33 The Existentialism of
Thought Jean-Paul Sartre
Bob Plant Jonathan Webber
25 The Philosophy of Time 34 Heidegger and the
Time before Times Romantics
Roger McLure The Literary Invention of
Meaning
26 The Russellian Origins of Pol Vandevelde
Analytical Philosophy
Bertrand Russell and the 35 Wittgenstein and Heidegger
Unity of the Proposition Pathways and Provocations
Graham Stevens Edited by David Egan, Stephen
Reynolds, and Aaron James
27 Analytic Philosophy Without Wendland
Naturalism
Edited by Antonella Corradini, 36 The Textual Genesis of
Sergio Galvan and Wittgenstein’s Philosophical
E. Jonathan Lowe Investigations
Edited by Nuno Venturinha
28 Modernism and the
Language of Philosophy 37 The Early Wittgenstein
Anat Matar on Metaphysics,
Natural Science,
29 Wittgenstein and Other Minds Language and Value
Rethinking Subjectivity Chon Tejedor
and Intersubjectivity
with Wittgenstein, 38 Walter Benjamin’s Concept
Levinas, and Husserl of the Image
Soren Overgaard Alison Ross
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Walter Benjamin’s
Concept of the Image
Alison Ross
First published 2015
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
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© 2015 Taylor & Francis
The right of Alison Ross to be identifi ed as author of this work has been
asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
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without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ross, Alison, 1968–
Walter Benjamin’s concept of the image / by Alison Ross.
pages cm. — (Routledge studies in twentieth-century philosophy ; 38)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Benjamin, Walter, 1892–1940. 2. Image (Philosophy) I. Title.
B3209.B584R67 2014
193—dc23
2014022056
ISBN: 978-1-138-81148-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-74925-9 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
1 Feeling 20
2 Form 47
3 Similitude 73
4 History 102
5 Image 135
Conclusion 149
Index 161
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Acknowledgements
First of all, I would like to record my sincere thanks to the two anony-
mous reviewers from Routledge. Their insightful suggestions and criticisms
came at just the right time and helped me in arriving at the fi nal version of
the manuscript. Amir Ahmadi also read the manuscript in its entirety and
offered a number of valuable suggestions for improvement. At Routledge,
Margo Irvin, Katie Laurentiev and Lynne Askin-Roush were a pleasure to
work with.
An earlier version of chapter 2 was published as ‘The Problem of the
Image: Sacred and Profane Spaces in Walter Benjamin’s Early Writing,’
Critical Horizons 1 4.3 (2013) (www.maneyonline.com/cri). The version
published here substantially amends and supersedes that version. No other
material in this book has been previously published.
The research undertaken for this book had the support of the Australian
Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project: ‘Persuasive Force: the role of
aesthetic experience in moral persuasion.’ I would like to thank the ARC
for the opportunity to conduct this study. I have also been fortunate to have
a period of study leave from Monash University to complete the project.
I would like to thank the Faculty of Art’s Outside Study Program and suc-
cessive supportive faculty, school, and departmental heads and colleagues:
Pauline Nestor, Sue Kossew, Brett Hutchins, and Toby Handfi eld.
Particular acknowledgement is due to the people who read and offered
their advice on the ARC application: Andrew Benjamin, Graham Oppy,
Chris Worth, Bernadette McSherry, Lisa Trahair, and Joanne Witheridge.
Jeff Malpas deserves special thanks for talking me through the technicalities
of good grant writing. The project grant was held with Krzysztof Ziarek and
Andrew Benjamin. This book has benefi ted from the many workshops and
informal conversations held with these two colleagues. Andrew Benjamin’s
initiative in establishing the Research Unit in European Philosophy provided
a congenial home at Monash for research into aesthetics.
A number of people who have participated in workshops on topics in
contemporary aesthetics over the past few years in New York, Paris, Mel-
bourne, and Prato gave very helpful critical evaluations of early versions
of some of this material and generously shared their own research. I am
