Striking Dialectical Sparks from the Stones of our Cities

Abstract

In his methodology as well as his political thought Benjamin remains faithful to the principle to proceed “always radically, never consistently”. Therefore, the greatest challenge for a contemporary city researcher inspired by Benjamin is to operationalise his materialist methodology. Benjamin’s anthropological materialism cannot be reached within the fixed limits of any discipline, but rather places itself “on the crossroads of magic and positivism” (Adorno); the dialectical image is not a tool of his methodology but its culminating point where positivism turns to magic. To reach this point, Benjamin conducts perceptive and analytical experiments that can be treated as dialectical études, exercises in seeing. The paper examines some of these techniques, exploring their philosophical context and testing them on a contemporary example: the Ernst-Thälmann-Monument in Berlin.