PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY AS A CRITIQUE OF VIOLENCE

HISTORY, THEOLOGY, AND POLITICS IN WALTER BENJAMIN'S EARLY WRITINGS

VINSENT NOLLET

History and Theory 64, no. 2 (2025)

Walter Benjamin's “Critique of Violence” became a classical work on revolutionary politics mainly due to influential political-theological expositions of its arguments. The main challenge with the political-theological understanding of the essay, however, is that Benjamin seemingly argued against any reconciliation of politics and theology. For this reason, this article develops a historical-philosophical rather than a political-theological interpretation of Benjamin's “Critique of Violence.” It demonstrates how Benjamin's essay on violence can be best understood if it is read as a text containing a speculative philosophy of history. In the essay, Benjamin indeed presented the role of violence in history as a historical “law of oscillation” between lawmaking and law-preserving violence. The problem of violence transcends the framework of the political, which can witness only “administered” violence, not violence as such, and hence cannot escape the dialectical movement of this “law.” While Benjamin's philosophy of history is usually located in the final period of his philosophical activity and comprises a messianic-Marxist complex, Benjamin's “Critique of Violence” suggests the existence of a more substantial philosophy of history in Benjamin's early writings than is usually assumed. The period between 1919 and 1922 especially shows a concentration of anarchistic and nihilistic texts devoted to developing this philosophy of history.

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