O pressuposto estético-linguístico do conhecimento: a crítica epistemológica de Walter Benjamin no Caderno N das passagens

Abstract

This thesis investigates Walter Benjamin's critique of knowledge, focusing on the “N Convolute – Theory of Knowledge, Theory of Progress” from “Das Passagen-Werk”. It proceeds from the hypothesis that the Benjaminian epistemology is grounded in a dual and inseparable aesthetic-linguistic premise, according to which historical knowledge emerges from the correlation between sensory apprehension (aesthetics) and interpretative understanding (language). The investigation is developed along three main axes: 1) the expansion of the concept of aesthetics beyond the philosophy of art, situating it as a cognitive dimension of sensory experience in the modern metropolis; 2) the formulation of a Benjaminian philosophy of language that articulates semantics, pragmatics, and materialist hermeneutics; and 3) the immanent analysis of “Convolute N” where this dual foundation is consolidated as the basis of the historical materialist method. In its conclusion, the study critically situates Benjamin’s contribution within the 20th-century epistemological landscape, establishing a brief critical dialogue with three paradigms – the paradigm of consciousness, logical positivism, and orthodox materialism – re-evaluated through the aesthetic-linguistic prism, culminating in the formulation of the “philological historical materialism” as a theoretical synthesis that integrates historicity, language, and sensibility. It concludes that the epistemological turn operated by Benjamin – by decentralizing the transcendental subject and rooting knowledge in sensible-linguistic material objectivity – offers an original paradigm for understanding both the 19th-century modernity and the cognitive impasses of the contemporary world.