Abstract
Fashion in the form of a dialectical image is to be redeemed from the realm of phenomena, for it exposes truth that originally belongs to the sphere of Plato’s Forms or Ideas, which is nothing but a Platonic redemption, saving phenomena and the representation of Ideas at the same time. Fashion as a dialectical image finds its strongest vindication when it is interpreted as the representation of nowtime (Jetztzeit), catching the dialectic at a standstill, in which the mediations between the individual and the collective and between what has been and what is now are crystallized in a lightening flash. The main thrust of this argument hinges upon Walter Benjamin’s epistemology, which distances truth from knowledge, calling upon us to hark back to pre-Kantian philosophies.
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Notes
- 1.
The linguistic similarity between the words perception and true in German (the German word wahr in Wahrnehmung stands for “true”) may present us with an inkling of this.
- 2.
Refer to Susan Buck-Morss, The Origin of Negative Dialectics: Theodor W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin and the Frankfurt Institute (New York: Free Press, 1977), 77–81.
- 3.
Cf. According to F. R. Ankersmit, Adorno was influenced by Gadamer’s idea in Truth and Method. See F. R. Ankersmit, Sublime Historical Experience (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005), 20.
- 4.
Refer to Buck-Morss’s analysis of the weakness of Adorno’s position regarding the topic of subjectivity in The Origin of Negative Dialectics: Theodor W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin and the Frankfurt Institute (84) and her explanation about the concept of “aura” Benjamin uses when describing some mystic qualities in commodity goods in the same book (78).
- 5.
See Buck-Morss, The Origin of Negative Dialectics: Theodor W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin and the Frankfurt Institute, 78) and Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky, “Hanging Over the Abyss: On the Relation Between Knowledge and Experience in Hermann Cohen and Walter Benjamin” Hermann Cohen’s Critical Idealism. Eds. Munk R. Dordrecht (Netherlands: Springer, 2005, 161–192.), 182.
- 6.
Richard Kraut (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato/, August 2017) notes that almost all of Plato’s major works are, in some way, related to or resting on this distinction.
- 7.
Concerning the relation between eroticism and Plato’s Symposium, also see the introduction by Christopher Gill in Plato, The Symposium, ed. and trans. Christopher Gill (New York: Penguin, 1999), x–xv.
- 8.
For the relation between Plato’s view and Aristotle’s on the theory of knowledge, see Robert Adamson, The Development of Greek Philosophy, ed. W. R. Sorley and R. P. Hardie (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1908), 177; and Terence Irwin, Aristotle’s First Principles (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), §76, Dialectic and Justification and §77, Criticisms of Dialectic, 7–8 and 137–141. According to Irwin, for both Plato and Aristotle, dialectic is essentially related to the Socratic method of conversation, while the latter, influenced by the former, develops dialectic as a concrete method of reaching knowledge, compared to the apodictic.
- 9.
For a detailed explanation of Aristotle’s proposition of apodictic and analytic, see the chapter titled “Theory of Knowledge,” in Adamson’s The Development of Greek Philosophy, 170–198.
- 10.
Here, by science I mean the modern sense of science whose logic is deduced by demonstration and/or testable formulas and experimentations. However, it should also be pointed out that the connotation of Aristotle’s scientific knowledge resonates in the modern use of the term science as well.
See concerns regarding this issue by Robin Smith in “Aristotle’s Logic,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Feb 2017 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-logic/
The subject of the Posterior Analytics is epistêmê. This is one of several Greek words that can reasonably be translated “knowledge”, but Aristotle is concerned only with knowledge of a certain type (as will be explained below). There is a long tradition of translating epistêmê in this technical sense as science, and I shall follow that tradition here. However, readers should not be misled by the use of that word. In particular, Aristotle’s theory of science cannot be considered a counterpart to modern philosophy of science, at least not without substantial qualifications.
- 11.
See Aristotle, The Organon, or Logical Treatises, of Aristotle: With the Introduction of Porphyry, Literally Translated, with Notes, Syllogistic Examples, Analysis, and Introduction, vol. 2 (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1901b), 681.
Chap. XI.—I. The dialectic problem is a theorem, (i.e., a proposition whose truth is to be inquired into,) tending either to choice and avoidance, or to truth and knowledge, either per se, or as co-operative with something else of this kind, about which the multitude either hold an opinion in neither way, or in a way contrary to the wise, or the wise to the multitude, or each of these to themselves.
- 12.
Octavius Freire Owen in the notes writes that perhaps the word terms that appears in the last sentence quoted in the main text is close in meaning to axioms. See Aristotle, The Organon, or Logical Treatises, vol. 1, 251.
- 13.
The term epistêmê can also be translated into craft and disciplines. See Terence Irwin, “Aristotle,” in A Companion to Epistemology, vol. 4, 2nd ed., ed. J. Dancy, E. Sosa, and S. and M. Steup (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 240.
Moreover, “epistêmê” may refer either (a) to a body of truths known, or (b) to the state of someone who knows them: hence in sense (a) mathematics or astronomy counts as an epistêmê (so that “Science” is the proper translation), and in sense (b) someone who knows such a science counts as having epistêmê (so that “knowledge” is the proper translation). The primary example of an epistêmê (in sense (a)) is a demonstrative science, but it is not the only example. Aristotle does not confine his use of term “epistêmê” to demonstrative science: craft and disciplines that lack a rigorous demonstrative structure are also cases of epistêmê.
- 14.
As stated in W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, Volume 6: Aristotle, An Encounter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 171. For consistency, the word apodeictic is replaced by the word apodictic.
- 15.
Also refer to the following explanation about epistêmê by Richard Parry:
While epistêmê is generally rendered as knowledge, in this context, where it is used in its precise sense, it is sometimes translated as scientific knowledge. However, one must not confuse this usage with our contemporary understanding of science, which includes experimentation. Conducting experiments to confirm hypotheses is a much later development. Rather, translating epistêmê as scientific knowledge is a way of emphasizing its certainty…. More precisely, scientific knowledge comprises demonstration, starting from first principles; the latter must also be known, although they are not known by demonstration (1139b15-30). The full account of epistêmê in the strict sense is found in Posterior Analytics, where Aristotle says that we think we know something without qualification (epistasthai…haplôs) when we think we know (gignôskein) the cause by which the thing is, that it is the cause of the thing, and that this cannot be otherwise (71b10-15). As though to emphasize the necessity of what is known, he most frequently uses geometry as an example of epistêmê. (Richard Parry, “Episteme and Techne,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [June 2014 Edition], ed. Edward N. Zalta, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/episteme-techne/)
- 16.
See the following explanation on the primary principle in Aristotle, The Organon, or Logical Treatises, vol. 2. 664.
All knowledge rests upon antecedent conviction, and as the general principle which is the basis of all demonstrative reasoning is better known in itself and in its nature, so the particulars from which induction proceeds, are better known to us. This antecedent knowledge is the major proposition of syllogism, the conclusion being the application of the general to the particular, whence the syllogism is the form of all proper science, nor, though strongly attacked by Ramus, has the latter critic ever subsisted a better inferential method.
- 17.
Aristotle says, “I call ‘first principles’ in each genus those facts which cannot be proved.” See Aristotle. Posterior Analytics and Topica, vol. 2, trans. H Tredennick and E Forster (Cambridge: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1938), 69.
- 18.
Refer to Terence Irwin. Aristotle’s First Principle (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 173.
- 19.
Euclid. The First and Second Books of Euclid Explained to Beginners, with a preface by C. P. Mason (London: Pardon and Son, 1872), 7.
Euclid remarks:
The reasonings of geometry are based upon certain primary truths with respect to magnitudes and lines, which are self-evident, and do not admit of being demonstrated by the application of truths of a simpler kind. These primary propositions are called axioms.
- 20.
Also refer to Aristotle’s own explanation in The Organon Or Logical Treatises Of Aristotle, vol. 1, 319.
Besides, the principles of demonstration are definitions, of which it has been shown before, there will not be demonstrations, since either principles will be demonstrable, and principles of principles, and this would proceed to infinity, or the first (principles) will be indemonstrable definitions.
Euclid (The Thirteen Books of Euclid’s Elements, vol. 1, 120–121) states:
Aristotle uses as an alternative term for axioms “common (things),” or “common opinions,” as in the following passages. “That, when equals are taken from equals, the remainders are equal is (a) common (principle) in the case of all quantities, … according to Aristotle and the geometers, axioms and common notion are the same thing.
- 21.
Refer to Aristotle (Posterior Analytics and Topica, vol. 2, 61):
There are three factors in a demonstration: (1) The conclusion which is required to be proved, i.e., the application of an essential attribute to some genus; (2) the axioms, on which the proof is based; (3) the underlying genus, whose modifications or essential attributes are disclosed by the demonstration.
Also see Aristotle (The Organon: Or Logical Treatises of Aristotle: With the Introduction of Porphyry, vol. 1, 266–267):
CHAP. X.—Of the Definition and Division of Principles.
I call those principles in each genus, the existence of which it is impossible to demonstrate. What then the first things, and such as result from these signify, is assumed, but as to principles, we must assume that they are, but demonstrate the rest, as what unity is, or what the straight and a triangle are; it is necessary however to assume that unity and magnitude exist, but to demonstrate the other things.
- 22.
Benjamin’s view is similar to Hegel’s objective idealism.
In fact, the true situation is that the things of which we have immediate knowledge are mere appearances, not only for us, but also in-themselves, and that the proper determination of these things, which are in this sense “finite,” consists in having the ground of their being not within themselves but in the universal divine Idea. This interpretation must also be called idealism, but, as distinct from the subjective idealism of the Critical Philosophy, it is absolute idealism. (G. W. F. Hegel, The Encyclopaedia Logic: Part 1 of the Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences with the Zusätze, Trans. Geraets T, Suchting W, and Harris H. [Indianapolis, Cambridge: Hackett Publishers, 1991], 88–89).
- 23.
The more intensely the respective thinkers strove to outline the image of reality, the more were they bound to develop a conceptual order which, for the later interpreter, would be seen as serving that original depiction of the world of ideas which was really intended. (Ibid.)
Also refer to the following comment by Benjamin:
All essences exist in complete and immaculate independence, not only from phenomena, but, especially, from each other…. Every idea is a sun and is related to other ideas just as suns are related to each other. The harmonious relationship between essences is what constitutes truth. (Ibid., 37)
- 24.
See note 10 and note 13.
- 25.
This thought is replete throughout Hegel’s philosophy. See, for example, Hegel, The Encyclopaedia Logic: Part 1 of the Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences with the Zusätze (1991), p. 92 and p. 130.
- 26.
The text provided here is from Irwin’s Aristotle’s First Principles , Chapter 7, § 76, p. 138.
- 27.
Refer to the following remark by Irwin.
Plato does explicitly what he does implicitly in the earlier dialogues, using the Socratic method to argue for positive philosophical positions; he regards dialectic as the primary method of philosophical inquiry. Aristotle as well as Plato, dialectic remains closely connected with the Socratic conversation…. But Aristotle retains Plato’s belief that dialectic is also a method for reaching positive conclusions; this is why he claims that it has a road towards first principles. (Top. 101b3–4)
- 28.
Terence Irwin also thinks that this is among the weaknesses of Aristotle. See Irwin, Aristotle’s First Principles, 10; see also Irwin’s explanation about Aristotelian scientific knowledge in the same book (131).
- 29.
Aristotle writes that first principles are grasped by nous (Posterior Analytics II 19, 100b5–17); here nous is translated into intuition. Aristotle, Posterior Analytics and Topica, 261.
- 30.
See Irwin’s discussion on this topic in §73–75 in Aristotle’s First Principles .
- 31.
Here the word nous in square brackets is my addition.
- 32.
For example, see Benjamin’s approach in expounding the concept of origin (Ursprung) in The Origin of German Tragic Drama (Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels):
Origin [Ursprung], although an entirely historical category, has, nevertheless, nothing to do with genesis [Entstehung]. The term origin is not intended to describe the process by which the existent came into being, but rather to describe that which emerges from the process of becoming and disappearance. Origin is an eddy in the stream of becoming, and in its current it swallows the material involved in the process of genesis. That which is original is never revealed in the naked and manifest existence of the factual; its rhythm is apparent only to a dual insight. On the one hand it needs to be recognized as a process of restoration and reestablishment, but, on the other hand, and precisely because of this, as something imperfect and incomplete. (Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama, 45)
- 33.
Cf. According to Michael Inwood, it is Hegel’s view that “an image can be presented before intelligence in the absence of a corresponding intuition.” See Michael Inwood’s commentary on the note §454 in A Commentary on Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 486.
- 34.
.…. Every present day is determined by the images that are synchronic with it: each “now” is the now of a particular recognizability. In it, truth is charged to the bursting point with time. (This point of explosion, and nothing else, is the death of the intentio , which thus coincides with the birth of authentic historical time, the time of truth.)…. [N3,1]
- 35.
See, e.g., Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 867.
On the dialectical image . In its lies time. Already with Hegel, time enters into dialectic. But the Hegelian dialectic knows time solely as the properly historical, if not psychological, time of thinking. The time differential <Zeitdifferential > in which alone the dialectical image is real is still unknown to him. Attempt to show this with regard to fashion. Real time enters the dialectical image not in natural magnitude—let alone psychologically—but in its smallest gestalt. All in all, the temporal momentum < das Zeitmoment > in the dialectical image can be determined only through confrontation with another concept. This concept is the “now of recognizability” < Jestzt der Erkennbarkeit > < Q°,21>
- 36.
Take note of Benjamin’s remark as to the characteristics of his notion of dialectical image .
…. And this dialectical penetration and actualization of former contexts puts the truth of all present action to the test. Or rather, it serves to ignite the explosive materials that are latent in what has been (the authentic figure of which is fashion). To approach, in this way, “what has been” means to treat it not historiographically, as heretofore, but politically, in political categories. fashion [K2,3] (Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 392).
- 37.
With a “dialectical leap” from the present to the past, a revolution took place in history as well as in fashion history, according to Benjamin:
“The French Revolution viewed itself as Rome reincarnate. It cited ancient Rome exactly the way fashion cites a bygone mode of dress. Fashion has a nose for the topical, no matter where it stirs in the thickets of long ago; it is the tiger’s leap into the past. Such a leap, however, takes place in an arena where the ruling class gives the commands. The same leap in the open air of history is the dialectical leap Marx understood as revolution.” (“On the Concept of History,” 2003, 395).
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Kang, E.J. (2019). In Search of Unintentional Truth. In: A Dialectical Journey through Fashion and Philosophy. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0814-1_4
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