Ebook: Benjamin and Hegel A Constellation in Metaphysics

These lectures, given in 2014 at the „Càtedra Walter Benjamin“, examine the philosophical relations between two of the greatest modern German philosophers, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Walter Benjamin. It is shown what close connections especially Benjamin’s Epistemo-Critical Prologue has to some fundamental aspects of Hegel’s metaphysics and epistemology. By illuminating a certain compatibility of approaches between German Idealism and Early Critical Theory concerning the possibility and necessity of metaphysical ideas and theories, the lectures demonstrate why modernity cannot simply be called a „postmetaphysical“ age. Metaphysics is not only necessary for philosophy in order to treat its subject matters appropriately, but it is also essential for humans’ spiritual as well as practical freedom, particularly in the modern age.