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Papers and Chapters by Alexander Stern

Research paper thumbnail of "Guilt and Mourning: Adorno's Critique of and Debt to Benjamin"

A Companion to Adorno, 2020

Research paper thumbnail of “The familiar face of a word”: Wittgenstein and Benjamin on the experience of meaning

In what is now called Philosophy of Psychology—A Fragment (formerly Part II of the Philosophical ... more In what is now called Philosophy of Psychology—A Fragment (formerly Part II of the Philosophical Investigations), Wittgenstein writes that the importance of the concept of aspect‐seeing “lies in the connection between the concepts of seeing an aspect and of experiencing the meaning of a word.” Wittgenstein claims that just as we can imagine someone who does not experience shifts between two aspects in the same image—for example, the duck–rabbit—we can imagine people who use language but do not experience the meaning of a word. In this paper, I explicate the importance of this “meaning‐blindness” and its relation to aspect‐seeing. I then argue—drawing on a similar thought experiment in Walter Benjamin's early philosophy of language—that meaning‐blindness is actually a fatal impediment for language use. The upshot of my analysis is that the aesthetic experience of meaning, regularly marginalized in the philosophy of language, must be understood as fundamental to language and language use.

Research paper thumbnail of "The Mother of Reason and Revelation": Benjamin on the Metaphysics of Language

Critical Horizons, 2017

This paper is a reconstruction of Walter Benjamin's philosophy of language, especially as it is e... more This paper is a reconstruction of Walter Benjamin's philosophy of language, especially as it is expressed in 1916's “On Language as Such and the Language of Man”. I read Benjamin's theory as a contribution to what Charles Taylor has called the “expressivist” tradition that includes eighteenth century thinkers like J.G. Herder and J.G. Hamann. Hamann's work and his interpretation of the theological concept of condescension are of particular importance. Although Benjamin's views are often regarded as impenetrable or mystical, they are relevant to and, in part, motivated by concerns of more mainstream twentieth century philosophy of language, in particular Russell's paradox. His “metaphysics of language” understands reference or designation, central to analytic theories of meaning, as derived from a more fundamental, aesthetic meaning.

Research paper thumbnail of Aboutness and Aura: Toward a Benjaminian Critique of Danto

In elucidating the distinction between art and “real things” A.C. Danto requires that an artwork ... more In elucidating the distinction between art and “real things” A.C. Danto requires that an artwork be about something or satisfy the criterion of “aboutness”. His theory assumes that art exists at a distance from the world, and, like language, says something about it. Although the assumption seems innocent enough, it contradicts Benjamin’s understanding of reproducible art in his “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility”. The mass reproducibility of film and photography, according to Benjamin, challenges the aesthetic predominance of “aura”, which is defined as “the unique apparition of a distance, however near [the work] may be”. Benjamin’s understanding of aura raises the possibility that the “distance” Danto regards as part of art’s fundamental character is in fact non-essential. This paper explores the relationship between aboutness and aura, and the resources in Benjamin’s understanding of film and photography for a critique of Danto’s theory.

Books by Alexander Stern

Research paper thumbnail of The Fall of Language: Benjamin and Wittgenstein on Meaning

Harvard University Press, 2019

Known largely for his essays on culture, aesthetics, and literature, Walter Benjamin also wrote o... more Known largely for his essays on culture, aesthetics, and literature, Walter Benjamin also wrote on the philosophy of language. This early work is famously obscure and considered hopelessly mystical by some. But for Alexander Stern, it contains important insights and anticipates—in some respects surpasses—the later thought of a central figure in the philosophy of language, Ludwig Wittgenstein.

As described in The Fall of Language, Benjamin argues that “language as such” is not a means for communicating an extra-linguistic reality but an all-encompassing medium of expression in which everything shares. Borrowing from Johann Georg Hamann’s understanding of God’s creation as communication to humankind, Benjamin writes that all things express meanings, and that human language does not impose meaning on the objective world but translates meanings already extant in it. He describes the transformations that language as such undergoes while making its way into human language as the “fall of language.” This is a fall from “names”—language that responds mimetically to reality—to signs that designate reality arbitrarily.

While Benjamin’s approach initially seems alien to Wittgenstein’s, both reject a designative understanding of language; both are preoccupied with Russell’s paradox; and both try to treat what Wittgenstein calls “the bewitchment of our understanding by means of language.” Putting Wittgenstein’s work in dialogue with Benjamin’s sheds light on its historical provenance and on the turn in Wittgenstein’s thought. Although the two philosophies diverge in crucial ways, in their comparison Stern finds paths for understanding what language is and what it does.

Research paper thumbnail of "Guilt and Mourning: Adorno's Critique of and Debt to Benjamin"

A Companion to Adorno, 2020

Research paper thumbnail of “The familiar face of a word”: Wittgenstein and Benjamin on the experience of meaning

In what is now called Philosophy of Psychology—A Fragment (formerly Part II of the Philosophical ... more In what is now called Philosophy of Psychology—A Fragment (formerly Part II of the Philosophical Investigations), Wittgenstein writes that the importance of the concept of aspect‐seeing “lies in the connection between the concepts of seeing an aspect and of experiencing the meaning of a word.” Wittgenstein claims that just as we can imagine someone who does not experience shifts between two aspects in the same image—for example, the duck–rabbit—we can imagine people who use language but do not experience the meaning of a word. In this paper, I explicate the importance of this “meaning‐blindness” and its relation to aspect‐seeing. I then argue—drawing on a similar thought experiment in Walter Benjamin's early philosophy of language—that meaning‐blindness is actually a fatal impediment for language use. The upshot of my analysis is that the aesthetic experience of meaning, regularly marginalized in the philosophy of language, must be understood as fundamental to language and language use.

Research paper thumbnail of "The Mother of Reason and Revelation": Benjamin on the Metaphysics of Language

Critical Horizons, 2017

This paper is a reconstruction of Walter Benjamin's philosophy of language, especially as it is e... more This paper is a reconstruction of Walter Benjamin's philosophy of language, especially as it is expressed in 1916's “On Language as Such and the Language of Man”. I read Benjamin's theory as a contribution to what Charles Taylor has called the “expressivist” tradition that includes eighteenth century thinkers like J.G. Herder and J.G. Hamann. Hamann's work and his interpretation of the theological concept of condescension are of particular importance. Although Benjamin's views are often regarded as impenetrable or mystical, they are relevant to and, in part, motivated by concerns of more mainstream twentieth century philosophy of language, in particular Russell's paradox. His “metaphysics of language” understands reference or designation, central to analytic theories of meaning, as derived from a more fundamental, aesthetic meaning.

Research paper thumbnail of Aboutness and Aura: Toward a Benjaminian Critique of Danto

In elucidating the distinction between art and “real things” A.C. Danto requires that an artwork ... more In elucidating the distinction between art and “real things” A.C. Danto requires that an artwork be about something or satisfy the criterion of “aboutness”. His theory assumes that art exists at a distance from the world, and, like language, says something about it. Although the assumption seems innocent enough, it contradicts Benjamin’s understanding of reproducible art in his “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility”. The mass reproducibility of film and photography, according to Benjamin, challenges the aesthetic predominance of “aura”, which is defined as “the unique apparition of a distance, however near [the work] may be”. Benjamin’s understanding of aura raises the possibility that the “distance” Danto regards as part of art’s fundamental character is in fact non-essential. This paper explores the relationship between aboutness and aura, and the resources in Benjamin’s understanding of film and photography for a critique of Danto’s theory.

Research paper thumbnail of The Fall of Language: Benjamin and Wittgenstein on Meaning

Harvard University Press, 2019

Known largely for his essays on culture, aesthetics, and literature, Walter Benjamin also wrote o... more Known largely for his essays on culture, aesthetics, and literature, Walter Benjamin also wrote on the philosophy of language. This early work is famously obscure and considered hopelessly mystical by some. But for Alexander Stern, it contains important insights and anticipates—in some respects surpasses—the later thought of a central figure in the philosophy of language, Ludwig Wittgenstein.

As described in The Fall of Language, Benjamin argues that “language as such” is not a means for communicating an extra-linguistic reality but an all-encompassing medium of expression in which everything shares. Borrowing from Johann Georg Hamann’s understanding of God’s creation as communication to humankind, Benjamin writes that all things express meanings, and that human language does not impose meaning on the objective world but translates meanings already extant in it. He describes the transformations that language as such undergoes while making its way into human language as the “fall of language.” This is a fall from “names”—language that responds mimetically to reality—to signs that designate reality arbitrarily.

While Benjamin’s approach initially seems alien to Wittgenstein’s, both reject a designative understanding of language; both are preoccupied with Russell’s paradox; and both try to treat what Wittgenstein calls “the bewitchment of our understanding by means of language.” Putting Wittgenstein’s work in dialogue with Benjamin’s sheds light on its historical provenance and on the turn in Wittgenstein’s thought. Although the two philosophies diverge in crucial ways, in their comparison Stern finds paths for understanding what language is and what it does.