Dialectic of
Enlightenment
What is
"Enlightenment"?
According to Kant "Enlightenment" means the
liberation of authority. However, Adorno and Horkheimer refer to the liberation
of fear and to overthrow myths with knowledge and as an end result, to
become the master of nature.
What is
"Dialectic"?
The word "dialectic", which can be traced back to
Plato and his dialogues involving Socrates, is nowadays used as a mean to seek
the truth. A dialectic method investigates the truth on the basis of arguments.
What is
"Nominalism" and why is it an important concept in the text?
Nominalism is described to be the prototype of bourgeois
thinking. Its furthermore a philosophical way of thinking that excludes
all abstract objects. Adorno and Horkheimer use this in a socio-historic
context of the national socialism, where Nazis used abstract concepts as
arguments.
What is the meaning
and function of "myth" in Adorno and Horkheimer's argument?
Humans tried to explain the world through myth for a very
long time; it was a way to understand things the best way they could, before
scientific reasoning replaced (or enlightenment) this way of thinking.
"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?
These concepts have been created by Karl Marx in order to
describe the society. Substructure describes everything related to
the production, i.e. the resources, the machinery and the people in
charge of the machinery. The superstructure includes everything else
but the production, meaning art, philosophy, entertainment. It's
important to analyze cultural production from this perspective, because
according to Marx, the substructure influences the superstructure and this has
an effect on our behavior as well.
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?
According to Benjamin culture does indeed have revolutionary
potentials. As he says "photography freed the hand of the most important
artistic functions which henceforth devolved only upon the eye looking into a
lens" (I, Benjamin). Now that works of art can be reproduced the
public sphere will be more aware of them.
Adorno and Horkheimer disagree on this one. As far as I
understand, they don't see culture as having revolutionary potentials, but
instead technology does.
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).
It means, that we do not only perceive our surroundings
based on our human nature, but also based on the historical context. Benjamin
gives the example of the birth of the late Roman art industry and the Vienna
Genesis which was newly interpreted by Riegl and Wieckhoff under the perception
of that specific time. Another example might be the evolution women's rights-
for a long time it seemed to be quite natural to subordinate women to men. But
in the last decades equality has been an important topic in society and culture
and therefore it is unthinkable to go back based on our achievements in women's
rights through time.
What does Benjamin
mean by the term "aura"? Are there different kinds of aura in natural
objects compared to art objects?
Benjamin refers to the term aura when he writes about the
uniqueness and permanence of art. Natural objects differ from art objects in
the sense that there's a lack of authenticity in the latter.
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