‘Nichts zu sagen. Nur zu zeigen’

En torno al método de ‘mostración’ del pensamiento benjaminiano a partir del fragmento ‘N 1 a 8’ del Libro de los pasa

Abstract

Although the definitive form of Arcades Project is something we will never be able to know, in the so-called “Convolute N” Benjamin devoted several methodological notes to speculate on the design of the book. In this paper we focus specifically on note N 1 a 8, where Benjamin confronts two ways of understanding the historian’s work: the one in which the historian “says”, as proper of the “Historicism”; and the one in which he “shows”, as proper of the “Materialist Historic.” We argue that this confrontation has crucial importance regarding the “Critical Dispositive” of The Arcades Project. It is by means of this Dispositive, that the materials of the book (the “refused” and the “wasted”) may be able to ‘speak for themselves’. The clarification of this procedure requires an analysis of the early concepts of “Presentation” and linguistic “Objectivity”, shedding light onto the problem of “Method” in Benjamin’s Thought.