The crisia of experience in Walter Benjamin: an analysis of concepts of "experience" (Erfahrung) and "isolated experience" (Erlebnis) in "On Some Motifs in Baudelaire"

• Grant number: 23/00070-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: April 01, 2023
• End date: March 31, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Taisa Helena Pascale Palhares
• Grantee: Enzo Luz da Silva
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project consists of an investigation into the concepts of "experience" (Erfahrung) and "isolated experience" (Erlebnis) in Walter Benjamin's text "On Some Motifs in Baudelaire". From an exegetical analysis of this philosopher's essay, then, the focus will be particularly on the social and historical conditions and transformations that explain the prevalence of isolated experience over experience in modern society, as well as the different individual and social consequences resulting from such antagonistic phenomena.In this sense, under the aegis of such concepts, we will discuss how memory is structured and how time is revealed in modernity, given that, as evidenced in other philosopher's works (for example, the "Theses on the Philosophy of History" and "The Storyteller"), memory and time are fundamental aspects to think about history and social relations. Through such a debate, the aim is therefore to highlight the different aspects that engender and result from the crisis of experience and the omnipresence of isolated experience in modernity, as pointed out by Benjamin.