本雅明·学习·中国——朝向一种普遍的“万物一元论”

Benjamin,Studying,China:Toward a Universal“Universism”

本雅明在学生时代对中国思想和文学的兴趣散漫而强烈,他阅读并探讨了一系列文本:从《老子》开始,直至辜鸿铭的著作。本雅明年轻时研究中国的高潮出现于他对荷兰汉学家高延《万物一元论》的批判性接受,这部著作为他后来的“相似性学说”提供了核心观念。1934年,本雅明在有关卡夫卡的文章中,勾勒了改进“万物一元论”的方案,“先于万物”的观念冲击了所谓的“万物”,使之获得了历史的密度。如此说来,他同时期有关技术的可再生产性便是针对这个改进后的“万物一元论”。

The essay begins by showing that Benjamin had a diffuse yet intense interest in Chinese thought and literature during his student years,when he read and discussed a range of Chinese texts,from Loazi’s to Gu Hongming’s.The culmination of his youthful studies of China occurs with his critical reception of Jan de Groot’s Universism,which provides him with the nucleus of his later“Doctrine of the Similar.”The essay concludes with an analysis of Benjamin’s 1934 essay on Kafka,where he sketches the outlines of a revised“universism”that gains historical density insofar as the“universe”is assaulted by a“pre-universe.”The essay concludes with the suggestions that Benjamin’s work on technical reproducibility is directed to this revised“universism.”