About the critique of the myth in the capitalist society

• Grant number: 13/16760-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: March 01, 2014
• End date: August 31, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Marcos Severino Nobre
• Grantee: Fernando Augusto Bee Magalhães
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 14/16085-8 - Walter Benjamin's diagnostic and critique of culture, BE.EP.MS

Abstract

The task of this project is to show that Benjamin's critique towards modernity must be understood as a critique of the phantasmagoria, because this is the mythical form of modernity. More specifically, our hypothesis is that Benjamin understands the critique of the phantasmagoria as a construction of a collective mass experience promoted by the technical reproducibility. Firstly, to fulfill this task and prove our hypothesis, we will analyze how the transformations of the technical reproduction emerging in modernity modify traditional experience. Then, we will investigate how the concept of phantasmagoria corresponds to the mythical appearance of modernity. And finally, thinking the critique as a practice capable of separate the retrograde or the negative elements from those which possess positivities for the social life, we will look for the critical potentials presents in the new modes of technical reproductions. (AU)