Before: Theme 2

Dialectic of Enlightenment

• What is "Enlightenment"?

"Enlightenment, understood in the widest sense as the advance of thought, has always aimed at liberating human beings from fear and installing them as masters".

Enlightenment is gaining new knowledge, distantiation from the myths of old. This means that the people wanted to gain knowledge about the world, instead of just taking all sorts of preaching, often religious, as fact. By actually understanding the world, this empowered the people, making them the Enlightnened ones - the ones with objective "true knowledge" - no longer controllable by myths.

• What is "Dialectic"?

Dialectic is a method of argument that is used to search for truth by using reason instead of arguments backed with ethos, pathos and logos as would be used during a debate where each side tries to "win" over the other. Dialectic, in contrast to regular debate, has the participants working together to reach one truth.

• What is "Nominalism" and why is it an important concept in the text?

 Nominalism rejects both "universals" and abstract objects. By universals, what is meant are properties, characteristics and entities that objects have in common, while an abstract object is an object that exists beyond space and time. A universal could be the word "computer". The electrical device that is in front of me right now is described as a computer, however not all computers are the same - thus making the descriptive word computer meaningless according to nominalism. 

The importance of nominalism in the text is about how dangerous it can be to use abstractions and universals that are outdated and that with enlightenment new universals have to be formed.

• What is the meaning and function of "myth" in Adorno and Horkheimer's argument?

Myth is "knowledge" that we can not objectively prove. This is the sort of knowledge that gave birth to the Enlightenment, as people set out to find true knowledge rather than believing everything that was said, the so called "myths" previously consideres as knowledge. 

"Myth is all forms of knowledge that existed before enlightenment"

The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproductivity

• In the beginning of the essay, Benjamin talks about the relation between "superstructure" and "substructure" in the capitalist order of production. What do the concepts "superstructure" and "substructure" mean in this context and what is the point of analyzing cultural production from a Marxist perspective?

The marxist perspective describes society as a substructure and a superstructure. The substructure is everything related to production, everything that makes the world go forward, although unrelated to culture. Culture is where the superstructure comes in. The superstructure is everything that is not directly connected to production, for example religion and politics. Superstructure is describing production culture. Naturally, the superstructure can in many ways affect the substructure, how things work and how relations within production work. 

By analyzing cultural production, we may get a hint of how things may evolve in the future. For example, we know that a change in subculture usually takes a longer time to propagate in superculture compared to a change in superculture. The fact that a change in subculture actually initiates changes in superculture as well is a very important aspect.

• Does culture have revolutionary potentials (according to Benjamin)? If so, describe these potentials. Does Benjamin's perspective differ from the perspective of Adorno & Horkheimer in this regard?

Yes, Benjamin argues that culture does have revolutionary potentials. For example, he brings up an example of a film that may promote revolutionary criticism of traditional concepts of art. This contrasts Adorno & Horkheimer's perspective which which instead means that technology has revolutionary potential.

• Benjamin discusses how people perceive the world through the senses and argues that this perception can be both naturally and historically determined. What does this mean? Give some examples of historically determined perception (from Benjamin's essay and/or other contexts).

Benjamin means that perception can be both naturally and historically determined. This means that the same object could be perceived in different ways depending on the perceiver's historical background. The same object could by that definition mean many different things if it was perceived in the 1800's or the 2000's. Natural perception is more objective. It means that the object is what we see and hear without regard to our culture or previous impressions.

• What does Benjamin mean by the term "aura"? Are there different kinds of aura in natural objects compared to art objects?

 "If, while resting on a summer afternoon, you follow with your eyes a mountain range on the horizon or a branch which casts its shadow over you, you experience the aura of those mountains, of that branch"

The quote above is an example of the aura of a natural object, a unique phenomenom that lets you feel the presence of an object, in a way. Regarding the aura of art objects, Benjamin describes it as its uniqueness, originality and authenticity.