Thinking with Walter Benjamin on language and Scriptural Reasoning

ABSTRACT

Nicholas Adams argues that one should not force the articulation of moral common ground as this might lead to a distortion or collapse of what is being articulated. Instead, one should strive for an articulation as practised in Scriptural Reasoning, where the common ground remains implicit and interwoven with contextual understandings. These arguments concern the question of what language can do. Following Walter Benjamin, I would like to link the question of what language can or cannot do more closely to an analysis of what language is. Referring to a certain potential of language, I will argue with Benjamin that linguistic creations can serve the value of Scriptural Reasoning to engage in a fruitful conversation about moral matters. In this context, I will consider the question of whether only sacred texts are suitable for Scriptural Reasoning.

KEYWORDS:

• Scriptural Reasoning
• interreligious dialogue
• Walter Benjamin
• true language
• memoire involontaire

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Benjamin, “On Language as Such”, 68.

2. Benjamin, “On Language as Such”, 68.

3. Benjamin, “Translator”, 77.

4. Benjamin, “On Language as Such”, 68.

5. Benjamin, “On Language as Such”, 72.

6. On the parallel to the Kabballah see Bowie, “The Linguistic Turn”, https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199569250.003.0002.

7. Benjamin, “The Image of Proust”, 211.

8. Benjamin, “Baudelaire”, 158.

9. Benjamin, “Baudelaire”, 158.

10. Benjamin, “Storyteller”, 92.

11. On the importance of figurative language for articulating the noncommunicable, see Benjamin, “On Language as Such”, 74.

12. Benjamin, “Translator”, 82.

13. Benjamin, “Storyteller”, 102.

14. Benjamin, “Baudelaire”, 159.

15. Benjamin, “Franz Kafka”, 131.

16. Benjamin, “Storyteller”, 108.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sophia Höff

Sophia Höff studied Protestant Theology and Latin at the Humboldt University in Berlin and Literary Writing at the Literature Institute in Hildesheim (Germany). She is writing a doctoral dissertation on the meaning of family, which builds on a dialogue between theology, philosophy and literature.