Citation

Symons S. Tijdschrift voor Filosofie 2014; 76(2): 261-275.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014)

DOI

10.2143/TVF.76.2.3030630

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Based on Benjamin's detailed description of the experience of looking at a photograph, this essay retraces his intuition that something seemingly insignifi cant (unscheinbar) can aquire an unsuspected layer of meaning in the eye of the beholder. In a passage that focuses on a portrait of photographer Karl Dauthendey's wife, Benjamin describes how he, despite evidence to the contrary, already anticipated the wife's suicide in what otherwise appears to be a very peaceful image. In Benjamin's mind, the nonsensical connection that is set up between two very diff erent associations makes for an experience that can be called redemptive since it injects a feeling of possibility into the very experience of facticity.

Language: nl