After Benjamin

The Poetical Thinking of Hannah Arendt

Abstract

Hannah Arendt used the term “poetical thinking” to describe Walter Benjamin's specific manner of philosophizing. His approach, based on the expressive means of language, was strikingly different from the generally accepted metaphysical canons, but at the same time went against the innovative trends of Western thought — even those that focused on linguistic issues. This made him a marginal figure in the academic environment of the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1970s, when Benjamin's legacy was rediscovered and his original intuitions turned out to be extremely consonant with modernity, he became one of the most outstanding intellectuals of the century. In this story of Benjamin's posthumous fame, Hannah Arendt acted as a kind of medium. She not only took care of publishing his works and promoting his ideas among the American public, but also often turned to philosophical topics that interested Benjamin and developed them in her own way. To trace this reception, the article analyzes several sources: first, Arendt's essay on Benjamin, which served as a preface to the English collection of his works; second, Arendt's “The Thinking Diary”, in which the initial impulses of future theories were recorded; third, her philosophical testament, “The Life of the Mind”, in which among other things the original doctrine of metaphor is set forth. This review was conducted using Walter Benjamin's philosophical concept of language. The study allows us to assert that poetical thinking, whose ancestor was thought to be Arendt's prematurely deceased friend, is no less inherent in her own philosophy.