Walter Benjamin and Romantic Critique

Walter Benjamin’s 1919 dissertation, “The Concept of Criticism in German Romanticism,” opened the field of romantic philosophy in innovative ways. After discussing some of the hermeneutic problems with Benjamin’s analysis of early German Romanticism, I discuss the valuable insights he brought to us, insights that continue to be relevant for an understanding of romantic critique and the central role of art in the romantic view of philosophy. I argue that for both Benjamin and the early German Romantics, philosophy becomes a hermeneutical tool to understand the historical world, a world of change and movement in which art takes on a central role. Gone from their shared view of philosophy is the closed, static system offering certitude and final words: both Benjamin and the early German Romantics are comfortable with a messy, uncertain aggregate and its unsettling modifications.