Toward messianic nature. From Cohen to Benjamin

This essay argues that Benjamin expands and transforms Cohen’s concept of experience on the basis of a supposition ? here called a "hypothesis" ? that experience is constitutively continuous. After proposing this hypothesis in his essay "On the program of the coming philosophy", Benjamin adds two supplements, which together suggest how the "doctrine" (Lehre) of the physical science can be continuous with "the doctrine that comes from religion". The essay concludes by showing how Benjamin was able to expand on his "program for the coming philosophy" only after encountering Arthur Eddington’s Nature of the Physical World, which identifies entropy as the sole source of "time’s arrow". In response to Eddington’s exposition of temporal directionality Benjamin identifies the messianic character of nature and makes it into the central concept of the so-called "Theological-political fragment", which, I argue, should be called the "Thermodynamic-political fragment".�

Keywords: Walter Benjamin, Hermann Cohen, Doctrine, Experience, Messianic Nature, Thermodynamic.

• Lógica de la violencia. Los antagonismos cardinales de Walter Benjamin Federico Rodríguez, in Enrahonar. An international journal of theoretical and practical reason /2024 pp.157
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Peter Fenves, Toward messianic nature. From Cohen to Benjamin in "PARADIGMI" 1/2017, pp 13-25, DOI: 10.3280/PARA2017-001002