Towards a Threshold Materialism. Walter Benjamin Between Myth and Reason

We propose to think the dialectic between myth and reason as the most comprehensive philosophical framework of Benjamin. s thought. This dialectic mobilizes an effort in two simultaneous and complementary directions: on the one hand, towards an expansion of the forms of consciousness and perception (with the motives of myth, dream, intoxitacion, surrealism); on the other, in the sense of a channeling of that enhanced consciousness in rational forms of expression (in figures as montage, awakening, Traumdeutung). Thus, the relationship between myth and reason is not understood as dichotomous but as a bipolarity in which both terms are affected. This passage structure distinguishes Benjamin. s attitude with regard to aesthetics, politics and philosophy, and also allows us to understand Benjamin. s claim to approximate historical materialism and interpretation of dreams.