Università Roma Tre

Teleology without final end. Walter Benjamin's Reflections on the Critique of Knowledge, Ethics and Politics and the relation with Kant.

The course will handle Benjamin's attempt to delineate the task of the "true philosopher" and the "true politician", starting from his critique of Kant' philosophy of knowledge and history, between 1916 and 1940.
We will read the essays "On Language in general and on the Language of Men" (1916), "On the Program of the Coming Philosophy" (1917/18), the "Theological-Political Fragment (1920-21 ca), the "Episthemological Preface" to "Origin of the German Tragic Drama" (1925), "On the Concept of History" (1940), and other texts and fragments on knowledge and language, ethics, histoty and politics. We will read three of Kant's writing on history, politics and right: "Toward Perpetual Peace", "Idea of a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan point of View", "Aswer to the Question: What is Enlightment"".

For a choice of texts in english please contact Tamara Tagliacozzo (tamara.tagliacozzo@uniroma3.it)

"Sulla lingua in generale e sulla lingua dell'uomo", in Walter Benjamin, Opere complete, a cura di E. Ganni, vol. I, 2008, pp. 281-295.
"Sul programma della filosofia futura", ivi, pp. 329-341.
"Premessa gnoseologica" a "Il dramma barocco tedesco", a cura di Flavio Cuniberto, Einaudi, Torino 1999, pp. 3-31
Walter Benjamin, La politica e altri scritti. Frammenti III, cura di Dario Gentili, Mimesis 2016.
Walter Benjamin, Sul concetto di storia, a cura di Gianfranco Bonola e Michele Ranchetti, Einaudi, Torino 1997 (VII-XIX, 5-13; 17-103)
Immanuel Kant, "Scritti di storia, politica e diritto", a cura di Filippo Gonnelli, Laterza, Roma-Bari 1995 (pp. VII-XXXV; 29-44; 45-52; 163-207) .
Tamara Tagliacozzo, Esperienza e compito infinito nella filosofia del primo Benjamin, Quodlibet, Macerata 2013 (pp. 253-456).

Optional Texts:

Massimiliano Tomba, “La vera politica.” Kant e Benjamin: la possibilità della giustizia, Macerata, Quodlibet, 2006.