The language as Medium in Walter Benjamin

Abstract

In the present article, we will approach the concept of Medium of the language in opposition to the one of Mittel, in the philosophy of Walter Benjamin. It will be based on the analysis of the essay On language in general and on the language of man (1916). This essay, considered by many theorists hermetic and difficult to understand, brings in its theses a conception of language different from that uttered by the so-called "linguistic turn" of the twentieth century. It is noted that Benjamin's language assumes an essentialist character, in the sense that it can not be reduced to mere communicative activity. The Berlin author's criticism is directed at those who seek to instrumentalize language: conceiving it as a "mean" (Mittel), through which something is communicated. And it is from a re-reading of the Genesis book of the Old Testament Bible that Benjamin will find the necessary foundations to hold that language is not summed up in meaning and meaning. However, language is the Medium¸ environment and mode of communication, in which expression and knowledge take place "in" language and not "through it." This latter understanding, Benjamin had called the bourgeois conception of language. From this follows the importance of understanding the Medium of language to understand Benjamin's theses about art, law, history and politics.

Keywords: Language. Medium. History. Politics.