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Benjamin, Walter - Illuminations - Data stores
Identifier
014858
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Walter Benjamin – Illuminations - The Task of the Translator
Even in times of narrowly prejudiced thought there was an inkling that life was not limited to organic corporeality. But it cannot be a matter of extending its dominion under the feeble sceptre of the soul ....or conversely, of basing its definition on the even less conclusive factors of animality, such as sensation, which characterise life only occasionally.
The concept of life is given its due only if everything that has a history of its own, and is not merely the setting for history, is credited with life.
In the final analysis, the range of life must be determined by history rather than by nature, least of all by such tenuous factors as sensation and soul.
The philosopher's task consists in comprehending all of natural life through the more encompassing life of history.
And indeed, is not the continued life of works of art far easier to recognise than the continual life of animal species?