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Intensive Innity: WalterBenjamins Reception of Leibniz

and its Sources

Paula L. Schwebel

References to Leibnizs monad appear at crucial points in Walter

Benjamins writings, from his early metaphysical work to his latematerialist theses on history.1 In each case, Benjamin appeals to themonad as the unique and total expression of his main philosophicalpoint. He writes to Florens Christian Rang in 1923 that Leibnizs monadin its totality[. . .] seems to me to embrace the summaof a theory ofideas.2 Almost two decades later, in the theses On the Concept ofHistory, he emphasizes that [t]he historical materialist approachesa historical object onlywhere it confronts him as a monad.3 Thepersistence and gravity of these references make it important to look

deeper into the meaning and sources of the monad in Benjaminswork. The topic warrants especially careful interpretation becauseBenjamins monad confronts us as a cipher. Benjamin invokes it,

with little argumentation, as the privileged expression for numerous

MLN127 (2012): 589610 2012 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

1The themes discussed in this article are developed at greater length in my doctoraldissertation, Walter Benjamins Monadology (2011). I have beneted greatly from thecomments of Rebecca Comay, Andrew Cutrofello, Bob Gibbs, Willi Goetschel, EduardIricinschi, Vivian Liska, and Liliane Weissberg.

2

Walter Benjamin, Letter to Florens Christian Rang, December 9, 1923, in TheCorrespondence of Walter Benjamin, eds. Gershom Scholem and Theodor Adorno; trans.Manfred R. Jacobsen (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994) 22425.

3Walter Benjamin, On the Concept of History in Selected Writings, eds. Marcus PaulBullock, Michael William Jennings, Howard Eiland, and Gary Smith; 4 vols. (Cambridge,Mass: Belknap Press, 2003) IV: 396 (hereafter cited parenthetically in the text as SW).

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philosophical ideas: it is at once the summaof a theory of ideas, thesalvation of induction,4 and the object of materialist historiography.

If it seems paradoxical that Benjamin invokes rationalist metaphysicsin order to redeem the phenomena, or that Leibnizthe thinkerof pre-established harmonyis called upon as an ally in rupturingthe continuum of universal history, this perplexity is scarcely abated

when Benjamins interpretation is traced back to its supposed sourcein Leibniz. Indeed, Benjamin seems to have read little of Leibnizs

work. He refers to Leibniz as the philosopher of the Monadology, andhe appeals to the Discourse on Metaphysics in the Epistemo-CriticalPrologue of his Origin of German Tragic Drama(OT4748).This sug-gests at least basic familiarity with two major texts of Leibniz. In theVerzeichnis der gelesenen Schriften, however, not a single text by Leibnizis cited.5 A search through the reconstruction of Benjamins library,recently published by Antiquariat Herbert Blank, also yields no results.6Leibniz may have been in the atmosphere of German philosophydepartments during Benjamins student years, but there is no recordthat he ever attended a course on Leibniz, or even on early modernphilosophy.7

4Benjamin describes the representation of phenomena in the monad as their salva-tion; see Walter Benjamin, Origin of German Tragic Drama, trans. John Osborne; introduc-tion by George Steiner (Verso, London, 1998) 33 (hereafter cited parenthetically in thetext as OT). For Adorno, this was one of Benjamins most noteworthy accomplishments.He writes to Benjamin in December 1934: In your book on Baroque Drama you suc-ceeded in salvaging induction. Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin, The CompleteCorrespondence 19281940, trans. Henri Lonitz (New York: Polity Press, USA, 1999) 62.

5Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, eds. Rolf Tiedemann, Hermann Schweppen-

huser, with Theodor W. Adorno and Gershom Scholem; 7 vols. (Frankfurt am Main:Suhrkamp, 1991) VII: 43776 (hereafter cited parenthetically in the text as GS). I amnot suggesting that Benjamins own index of the texts that he read should be seen ascomprehensive, or that the absence of Leibniz from this list is denitive proof thatBenjamin had no acquaintance with Leibnizs work. The index is nonetheless a usefulresource, since it includes various twentieth-century interpretations of Leibniz, whichinuenced Benjamins reading, according to my argument.

6Walter Benjamin and Detlev Schttker, In Walter Benjamins Bibliothek. Gelesene, zitierte,rezensierte Bcher und Zeitschriften in der Edition, in der sie Benjamin kannte und nutzte. Do-kumentation einer verlorenen Bibliothek Teil I(Stuttgart: Antiquariat Herbert Blank, 2006).

7At the University of Bern, where Benjamin wrote his doctoral dissertation, he tookgraduate seminars in philosophy and psychology with Anna Tumarkin, Paul Hberlin,

Harry Maync, and Richard Herbertz. The complete list of Benjamins graduate coursescan be found in Walter Benjamin, Werke und Nachla: Kritische Gesamtausgabe. 3. DerBegriff der Kunstkritik in der deutschen Romantik, ed. Uwe Steiner (Frankfurt am Main:Suhrkamp, 2008) 298314.

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The puzzle of Benjamins Leibniz could simply stop here, with theanswer that this is just another indication of his magpies relation-

ship to the history of philosophy. This is exactly what George Steinersays, for instance, in his introduction to the English translation of theUrsprung des deutschen Trauerspiels:

Benjamin was not, in any technical sense, a philosopher. Like other lyricthinkers, he chose from philosophy those metaphors, dramas of argumentand intimations of systematic totalitywhether Platonic, Leibnizian orCroceanwhich best served, or rather which most suggestively digniedand complicated his own purpose.8

This understanding of Benjamins monad as a metaphor and of Ben-jamin himself as a lyric thinker tells more about the critical failureto respond to the difculties of his thought than about Benjamins

work itself. Benjamin does not assume the anaemic position thatmeaning must be immediately and universally intelligible. But he doesnot thereby withdraw from philosophy into the merely aesthetic orhybrid domain of the lyric thinker. Indeed, Benjamins monadologydemands philosophical interpretation. But in order to understand itsplace in his work, we cannot simply compare Leibnizs philosophical

arguments with Benjamins texts. Such interpretive idealism wouldignore both the distortions of his reading, as well as the historicalmediations through which he encountered Leibniz.

As I show in this essay, Benjamin was engaged with two extremesof Leibniz reception in early twentieth-century Germany. On the onehand, he was immersed in the mathematical-theological orientation ofHermann Cohen, who interpreted Leibnizs innitesimal calculus asthe generationof objective knowledge from intensive functions. Onthe other hand, Benjamin read a single secondary source on Leibnizby Heinz Heimsoeth. Heimsoeth saw Leibniz as the heir to a medi-eval German tradition of Christian mysticism, and he interpreted themonad as the microcosm of the innite spirit within nite individu-als. An investigation into these sources reveals a face of Leibniz thatis inaccessible via a neutral reading of his texts. The questions thatemerge from the synthesis of these extremes will provide our pointof entry into the meaning of Benjamins monad.

The rst section of my argument will be devoted to the divergent

interpretations of Leibniz that Benjamin discovered in Cohen andHeimsoeth. Even though Cohen and Heimsoeth offer radically differ-

8George Steiner, Introduction to OT 724, esp. 2223.

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ent portrayals of Leibniz, they both read Leibniz as having innovatedthe reconciliation of the innite and the nite within the monad. As

I will argue in section two, Benjamins interpretation of Leibniz alsofocuses on Leibnizs notion of an immanent innity. But Benjamin doesnot read this as the microcosm of the Absolute within nite creation(Heimsoeth), or as the innite task by which reason constructs itsobjects (Cohen). Rather, Benjamin interprets Leibnizs abbreviationof innity within nite beings as a symptom of secularization, wherebyan unfullled yearning for transcendence is forcibly redirected towardcontingent nature. Innity persists within this world in what could bedescribed as an invertedmetaphysics: although reason is denied accessto the transcendence of the heavens, in its pursuit of a fundamentalgrounding for contingent experience, thinking is drawn into an abyssof innite analysis.

1 Benjamins Sources: Hermann Cohen and Heinz Heimsoeth

In the Origin of German Tragic Drama, Benjamin interprets the BaroqueTrauerspielin the historical context of the Thirty Years War and the

Schism of the Church. His reading brings out the intense melan-choly that resulted from the Reformation and the Lutheran denialof good works. According to Benjamin, longing for redemption

was not muted so much as redirected toward the saeculum.9 TakingLeibniz as the chief representative of Baroque metaphysics, Benjamininterprets the Leibnizian monad as corresponding to the intensi-cation of melancholy yearning in things, rather than as little souls ormicrocosms of the divine in nature. In Benjamins reading, Leibnizsinnitesimal calculus is cast as the expression, in mathematical terms,

of the redirection of innite successioninto the restricted spaceof thenatural world. In this view, contingent being becomes the object ofinnite analysis. But what should have its ultimate solution in theidea of God is denied a theological fulllment. Without its anchorin theology, theoretical knowledge is pursued into the abyssal depthsofspiritlessnature.

Benjamins singular reading of Leibniz was mediated by two anti-thetical sources. Throughout his university education, Benjamin was

9Benjamin describes the displacement of religious longing onto the immanent worldof nature as the keystone of Baroque expression: religious aspirations did not losetheir importance: it was just that this century denied them a religious fulllment,demanding of them, or imposing upon them, a secular solution instead (OT 79).

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deeply engaged with Cohens work. Together with Gershom Scholem,he studied Cohens seminal text, Kants Theorie der Erfahrung.10 Their

letters record a mutual project to investigate the mathematical theoryof messianism, which reected Cohens core idea of the generationof reality from an innitesimal method.11 On the other hand, theVerzeichnis der gelesenen Schriftenindicates that Benjamin consulted onlyone secondary source on Leibnizan essay by Heimsoeth publishedin Kantstudienin 1917Leibniz Weltanschauung als Ursprung seinerGedankenwelt.12 The position of these sources in relation to eachother is quite revealing, and not only in the realm of ideas: Heimso-eth, who was a graduate student of Cohens at Marburg, became amember of the Nazi Party in 1933.13 From his position as the dean atthe University of Cologne (awarded that same year), he developed aseries of metaphysical interpretations of German philosophy, whichhelped to destroy the inuence and reputation of the Marburg schoolof neo-Kantianism.14At issue here are not only two divergent interpre-

10In his memoir, Walter Benjamin: Die Geschichte einer Freundschaft, Scholem describeshow he spent many hours with Benjamin discussing and analyzing Kants Theorie der

Erfahrungduring their time together in Switzerland (19181919). Scholem relates howdisappointed they were by Cohens interpretation of Kant, and how they eventuallygave up their study ([Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1975] 769). While Benjamincomplains about Cohens one-sidedly logical, and un-dialectical approach to philosophyin The Origin of the German Tragic Drama (46, 177), he frequently returns to Cohensideas as a way of dening and differentiating his own thought. The denitive studyon Benjamins engagement with Cohen is Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky, Der frhe WalterBenjamin und Hermann Cohen: jdische Werte, kritische Philosophie, vergngliche Erfahrung(Berlin: Vorwerk 8, 2000).

11Between 1916 and 1918, Benjamins correspondence with Scholem focused on therelationship between mathematics and language, and the relationship of mathematicsand language to Zion. See Benjamins Correspondence8182.

12Heinz Heimsoeth, Leibniz Weltanschauung als Ursprung seiner Gedankenwelt:Zum 200. Todestage des Denkers am 14. November 1916, Kantstudien(1917): 36595.For the reference to Heimsoeth, see the list of works read by Benjamin in Benjamin,GS VII: 443.

13Helmut Holzheys article includes a brief sketch of Heimsoeths period as a Mar-burger, as well as his eventual turning away from Cohens school; see Helmut Holzhey,Die Leibniz-Rezeption im Neukantianismus der Marburger Schule, Studia Leibnitiana,Stuttgart; suppl. XXVI (1986): 289300. See also Ingeborg Heidemann, Metaphysikge-schichte und Kantinterpretation im Werk Heinz Heimsoeths, Kantstudien 67 (1976):291312, and H. J. de Vleeschauwer, Luvre de Monsieur Heinz Heimsoeth de 1911 1924, Kantstudien67 (1976): 31332.

14

Heimsoeths growing impatience with Cohens critical idealism is evident in hiscorrespondence with Nicolai Hartmann; see Nicolai Hartmann and Heinz Heimso-eth, Nicolai Hartmann und Heinz Heimsoeth im Briefwechsel, eds. Frida Hartmann andRenate Heimsoeth (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag, 1978). After the publication of Heimsoethsarticle on Leibniz (the same one which Benjamin read), he shares with Hartmannhis incredulity and disappointment at the lack of response from the Marburg school,

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tations of Leibniz, but also two ways of understanding the nationalspirit of German philosophy, and Leibnizs place within the canon.

Cohens reading of Leibniz exemplies his attempt to construct a syn-thesis of German philosophy and Jewish literary sources. On the onehand, he emphasizes that Leibniz studied Maimonides, and developedsome of his mature metaphysical concepts on the basis of this read-ing (a fact known to scholars since Foucher de Careils publicationof Leibnizs notes on Maimonides in 1861).15 On the other hand,Cohens Maimonidean reading of Leibniz does not simply afrm anethnic conception of identity by introducing Jewish sources intothe German canon. In fact, Cohen argues that Leibniz was a betterinterpreter of Maimonides than Spinoza, and he laments that if onlyKant had become familiar with Jewish thought through Leibniz, he

would not have condemned Judaism.16 Moreover, although Cohensreading of Leibniz looks forward to Kants transcendental idealism,he appeals to Maimonidess concept of the negation of privation inorder to purifythe residual mythology in Kants distinction betweenthings-in-themselves and ideasof reason.

Heimsoeth, for his part, was repelled by the identication of Ger-

man thought with rationalism. His work on the history of philoso-phy strove to refresh the streams of mysticism that once irrigatedScholastic thought.17 According to his argument, the Enlightenment

emphasizing particularly Cohen and Cassirer: Da imponiert mir eigentlich doch Cohenmehr, der, ebenso wie Cassirer, nicht ein Wort als Erwiderung oder Empfangsbesttigunggeschickt hat (December 1916, 253).

15A conservative Catholic thinker, Duke Louis-Alexandre Foucher de Careil pub-

lished a book on Leibnizs relationship to the Kabbalah, in an effort to ward off thethreat of Spinozistic atheism; see Louis-Alexandre Foucher de Careil, Leibniz, laphilosophie juive et la Cabale. Trois lectures lAcadmie des sciences morales et politiques avecles manuscrits indits de Leibniz. Leibnitii observationes ad Rabbi Mosis Maimonidis librumqui inscribitur Doctor perplexorum(Paris: A. Durand, 1861). Foucher de Careil publishedLeibnizs study notes on Maimonides in French and Latin. For an English translationand commentary, see Lenn E. Goodman, Maimonides and Leibniz, Journal of JewishStudies31/2 (1980): 21436.

16The issue turns on Spinozas understanding of substance as logical independence,rather than as activity. Cohens critique of Spinoza is that this account of substance doesnot allow for Gods freedom from necessary laws of nature. Moreover, this also rendersall worldly becoming as the mere accident of the one independent substance, i.e., God.

Cohen argues that Kants mistaken understanding of the Jewish God is based on hisreading of Spinoza. He suggests that it could have been avoided if only Kant had readLeibnizs interpretation of Maimonides. See Hermann Cohen, Religion of Reason: Out ofthe Sources of Judaism, trans. Simon Kaplan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972) 331.

17Leibniz Weltanschauung, 367.

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marks the degeneration of a once ourishing tradition of Germanspeculative metaphysics. Rather than depicting Leibniz as Germanys

late contribution to the development of scientic naturalism (afterDescartes and Spinoza), Heimsoeth places him at the highpoint ofthe German Christian mystical tradition. Heimsoeths emphasis onLeibnizs inheritance from his mystical forbears seeks to demonstratethe continuity between Christian thought and enlightened modernity,as well as to point out the Germanic origins of this tradition.18 Despiteclear contrasts between their motives and philosophical orientations,Heimsoeth and Cohen both locate the historical signicance of Leibnizin his reconciliation of the innite and the nite within the monad.

Whereas Heimsoeth reads the innite in the nite as the microcosmof the Absolute, or as the souls capacity to receive revelation,19 Coheninterprets the intensive innity within the monad in terms of aninnitesimal method, which generates objects from pure concepts ofreason.20 These antithetical readings both argue that Leibniz groundsnite objects, or extensive magnitude, in innity. In other words, inn-ity is not to be understood as an extension of nitude, but rather asits source. Likewise, nitude is not substantial and independent, but

rather is a limitation of the innite. Heimsoeth explains this structurein terms of the immediate causal relationship between an innite cre-ator and his creatures, whose souls, although nite, have the capacityto receive the idea of the innite. Cohen explains the same structurein terms of the relationship between an innite method and its niteresults, which are not mere extension, but have their reality (or theconditions of their validity) in principles of reason.

Heimsoeths approach to Leibniz as a Christian metaphysician turnson a distinction that he draws between Oriental thought (in which

he includes Greek, medieval Arab and Jewish thinkers), and what hedetermines to be a single tradition of German-Christian philosophyfrom Meister Eckhart to Hegel. The paradigmatic distinction betweenthe Oriental and the Christian, according to Heimsoeth, is that theformer establishes a rigid dualism between matter and spirit, while

18For a more developed version of his argument, see Heimsoeth, The Six Great Themes

of Western Metaphysics and the End of the Middle Ages, trans. Ramon Betanzos (Detroit:Wayne State University Press, 1994) 53.19Leibniz Weltanschauung, 385.20For a comprehensive account of Cohens Leibniz reception, see Andrea Poma, The

Critical Philosophy of Hermann Cohen, trans. John Denton (Albany: State University ofNew York Press, 1997) 3941.

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the latter unites these opposing principles in the one Being of Godand nature. According to Heimsoeth, the rst decisive stage in the

development of Christian metaphysics occurred with Duns Scotussargument for the univocityof Beingthe claim that the predicate ofexistence can be ascribed to both God and nature. This thought ofthe unity of Being was the driving force behind Eckharts claim thatGods Being is the fullness of reality, rather than an abstract unity,conceived in opposition to the multiplicity of the natural world.

Whereas an Oriental dualism persists in the denition of Beingas an abstract negation of becoming, the Christian conception ofBeing as full positivity takes up the multiplicity of becoming withinitself. The apparently contradictory attributes of the natural world aresublated and preserved in the Godhead. According to Heimsoethshistorical reconstruction, Leibnizs turn to the innitesimal has itsorigins in the quest to unify the disjointed fragments of the world inGods Being. Heimsoeth delineates a path to Leibniz leading fromNicholas of Cusas doctrine of the coincidentia oppositorum, whichasserts that all contradictory properties of things are resolvable intoa unity when analysis is extended innitely: It is only in the nite

that members exclude each other; in perfect innity everything fallstogether into one .21 One implication of the Cusans doctrine thatHeimsoeth discerns in Leibnizs metaphysics is that contingent matteris not brute and indeterminate, but must be read and interpreted: itis only by immersing ourselves in the details that we progress towardknowledge of the Absolute.

In showing the signicance of the univocity of Being for Christianmetaphysics, Heimsoeth establishes the difference between the Ori-ental God as an abstract Being, or mere negativity, and the Christian

living Godas the fullest and most concrete reality, which unfolds orexpresses itself in the multiplicity of creaturely life. His argumentalso reveals two distinct conceptions of the innite, which he sche-matizes as an opposition between the Greek prioritization of body,and the Christian conception of the innite as ontologically priorto the niteas in factcreatingthe nite.22 The Greek prioritizationof the nite over the innite reects the idea of form as a limitingprinciple, which gives shape to indenite matter. Consequently, theGreeks shunned the innite as an endless regress in which form

21Six Great Themes57.22Leibniz Weltanschauung 37879.

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disintegrates. The Christian idea of the innite, by contrast, is oneof simultaneous presence or perfection. The privative conception of

innity as formless and indeterminate prevailed throughout Scho-lasticism until Scotuss discovery of the souls capacity to receive theinnite, which established an entirely new conception of the innitewithinthe nite: God can descend to us only if our nature has thecapacity to receive him.23 For Heimsoeth, Leibnizs monad completesthe development of the Christian concept of innity, since it fullydissolves the opposition between nite body and innite spirit witha new denition of substance as the actualization of the innite inthe individual soul, or monad.24 Heimsoeth sees Leibniz as a turn-ing point in Christian thought since his monad combines two ideasthat show it to be decisively different from the Greek. The rst is the

valuation of the concrete individualover the abstract universal, andthe second is the understanding of the individual itself as the locusfor receiving the innite, or as a microcosm of the Absolute.25 Themonad is not a particle of matter (an atom), nor is it a universal form(like the Platonic eidos); each monad is unique, and reects the whole

world within itself from the standpoint of its individuality. Accord-

ing to Heimsoeths argument, the combination of these two ideasshows Leibnizs concept of substance to be denitively rooted in theJudeo-Christian understanding of creation. It is only in the contextof an immediate causal connection between creator and creaturethat individual monads can be both isolated from the outer world(windowless according to Leibnizs expression), and also mirrorsof God, reecting his innite activity within themselves.26 The soulis a microcosm of God and the world because all of its perceptionsare the immediateresult of Gods continuous fulguration, rather than

mere impressions of external objects.27

It is worth dwelling on the concept of creation and the idea of life

that emerges as a result of Heimsoeths interpretation. According toHeimsoeth, the Judeo-Christian narrative of creation vivies the lifeless,indeterminate matter of antiquity. It is the concept of creation, arguesHeimsoeth, which allows Leibniz to overcome dualism and to explain

23Six Great Themes94.24

Six Great Themes95.25Leibniz Weltanshauung 381, 385.26Leibniz Weltanschauung 384.27Heimsoeths argument is based on an interpretation of Leibnizs Discourse on

Metaphysics, 28 (Leibniz: Philosophical Essays, trans. Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber,Hackett: Indianapolis, 1989) 59.

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how monads can mirror Gods innite creative power. As creatures,monads are implanted with their own principle of life, which retains

its simple unity, while exceeding any nite shape. In contrast to themechanistic account of nature, which describes the world in terms ofparts in motion, Leibniz sees nature as full of living creatures. Monadsare not dead (extensive) parts of a machine, but they are sources ofactivityin themselves. As such, they are both simple (they cannot besubdivided, as extensive magnitude can) and innitely complex, sincethey are incessantly unfolding and transforming themselves.

Cohens reading of Leibniz is the antithesis of Heimsoeths. ForCohen, the meaning of the innite within the nite is in no way themicrocosm of the Absolute within the individual, nor is monadic inten-sity interpreted in terms oflivingforce. Rather, Cohen accounts forthe innite within the nite in terms of the rational construction ofobjectivity, which generates nite results from an innite method. Inthe second edition ofKants Theorie der Erfahrung(the text which Benja-min studied with Scholem in 1918), Cohen added a section describingthe signicant contribution of Leibniz to the development of criticalidealism. Whereas Descartes identies substance with extension, Cohen

suggests that Leibnizs discovery of intensive magnitudes enables himto overcome Cartesian dualism, and to ground all substance in theconstitutive activity of thought. If extension is only the appearanceof inertia that results from an innitesimal degree of activity, thenany given quantity can be generated, in a mathematically determin-able continuum, from pure intensive functions of thought. Cohensinnitesimal method thus idealizessubstance in two ways: in the rstplace, the constitutive component of reality is intensive magnitude,rather than material atoms. The innitesimal has no extension, but

it cannot be reduced to nothing, since there is a continuum betweenany given magnitude and zero. In the second place, Cohen arguesthat Leibniz (without knowing it himself) established the priority oflawover substance: it is only according to the groundingprincipleofcontinuity that reality can be generated from an innitesimal degreeof sensation: Thus the transcendental center of gravity was shifted infavour of the principle.28 Cohen points to Leibniz and Maimonidesas the two sources for this advance in reasoning, which he sees as

28Hermann Cohen, Kants Theorie der Erfahrung (Berlin, F. Dmmler, 18711, 18852;Berlin, Bruno Cassirer, 19183; reprinted in Werke, vol. 1, IIII, hg. vom Hermann-Cohen-Archiv am Philosophischen Seminar Zrich, Hildesheim, G. Olms, 1987) 547, as citedin Poma, Critical Philosophy of Hermann Cohen43.

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culminating in Kants grounding of phenomenal reality in the tran-scendental unity of apperception. Leibniz opened the path for critical

idealism by distinguishing substance from absolute independence (i.e.,Spinoza) and extension (i.e., Descartess res extensa). By establishingsubstance as activity, he took the rst step towards Kants idea of theactive contribution of reason in constituting reality.29 But if Leibnizaccomplished the distinction between substance as independence andsubstance as activity, Maimonides had already originated a version ofthe transcendental argument with his distinction between negativeattributes and the privation of negation.30 Maimonidess distinctionbetween negation and privation points to a kind of reality other thanthe positivity of existencenamely, the reality of original principles.

Cohens insight into the generative nothings ofGrundstzegrowsout of the Maimonidean distinction between the negation of somethingpositive and the negation of privation. The negation of somethingpositive is the negation of an existent being. The negation of priva-tion, on the other hand, negates only the apparent independence ofphenomena by grounding these in transcendentalprinciples.31 Thelaws of reason that constitute appearances are nothingfor sensibility

(they have no existence), but this does not establish the lesser realityof the law. Rather, the negation of the privative being of appearanceleads reason to a higher afrmation of reality as constructed by lawsof reason. The innovation of Leibnizs innitesimal calculus lies here,according to Cohen: the innitesimal is not the innitely small mag-nitude that would result from the endless division of a body, resolvingit into a vanishing quantity. On the contrary, it is the generation ofreality from a constructive method, just as the curve of a circle can beplotted through the continuous application of a function.

Cohens interpretation of Leibniz may have its prehistory in Mai-monides, but it takes its orientation from Kants anticipations ofperception.32 Kant argues that perceptible qualities like light, colour,

29Cohen writes that, in conformity with the loftiness and maturity of thought thatLeibniz achieved with his principle of living force, Kant was able to break away from allscholasticism with regard to the concept of substance, and to make it a presuppositionfor the concepts of relation. The position that Kant gave to substance as a preconditionfor causality and reciprocity of action tore away, as it were, the absolute independenceof substance (Religion of Reason60).

30

Cohen, Religion of Reason61.31Cohen relates Maimonides distinction between the negation of positive attributesand the negation of privation to the category of the originative principle, or Ursprung,developed in the Logik der reinen Erkenntnis(cf. Religion of Reason63).

32Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. and ed. Paul Guyer and Allen W.Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) A16676/B20718.

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and sound admit of a degree of intensity, which Cohen takes to meanthat quality is not merely an impingement of matter on sensible intu-

ition, but can be constructed from pure concepts of reason. Accord-ing to Cohen, it is due to Leibnizs recognition of the principle ofcontinuity (i.e., that there are no leaps in the manifold) that realitycan be generated from an innitesimal method. Cohen suggests thatLeibniz implicitly recognized the primacy of the lawin the principleof continuity, a primacy that would rst become explicit in Kant.33 ButCohens argument goes further than Kants in idealizing the ground ofpossible experience. Whereas, according to Cohens argument, Kantundermines the autonomous purity of reason by grounding cognitionin a transcendent Ding an sich, Cohen grounds objective knowledgein original hypotheses, or norms of reason. These original, transcen-dental nothings lack the mythical implications of an all-powerful,creative Being, as well as the inert givenness of substantial things,

which would be inaccessible to critique.34 Cohens innitesimal methodthus gives new meaning to the priority of the innite over the nite:rather than pointing to the metaphysicalpriority of the innitely pow-erful God over his creature, he shows the logicalpriority of rational

principles over posited facts. The distinction between the accountof creation as emanationfrom an innitely powerful Being, and thelogical understanding of the generationof reality from intensive func-tions claries what Cohen means by the purication of the residualmythology in German thought.

Cohen registers the difference between the actual innite andthe recursive, or bad innite, by distinguishing between the inn-ity of a function and the innite regress that results from dividinga body. A function is determinate or formed without being a nite

body; this is because it generates a series of results in accordance witha principle, or law. As Cohen argues in his essay on the innitesimalmethod, the rule-governed innity of Leibnizs calculus gives us the

33Das Prinzip der Innitesimal Methode und seine Geschichte. Ein Kapitel zur Grundlegung derErkenntnisskritik(Berlin, 1883; Reprint: Werke, volume 5:1, 1984) 5558; Kants Theorieder Erfahrung540548.

34The argumentative thrust of Cohens Logik der reinen Erkenntnis(1902) is to establishthe objective validity of knowledge independently of intuition, or the relationship to

a given object (System der Philosophie. Erster Teil, Berlin, 1902, 1914. Reprint of thesecond edition: Werke, volume 6 [hereafter cited parenthetically in the text as LE]).Cohen argues that thinking, if it is to be pure, must have its origin in itself. In thisvein, he criticizes both the theological notion ofUrsprungas creation (LE 80; cf. Reli-gion of Reason5970), and the metaphysical notion of a given object that transcendsreason (LE 8183).

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tools to conceptualize creation as the generation of form from aninnite process. One implication of this reading is that outersense

(space, geometrically understood) is entirely absorbed into innersense (temporality, or sequence).35 A second implication is that theobject of knowledge is stripped of its exteriority, both in the senseof having a causal impact on sensibility, and in the sense of havingindependent being in itself. Objectivity no longer means substantialindependencefrom mind; rather, it indicates the theoretically valid resultof methodological generation. By grounding extensionin an innite

process, Cohen provides a parallel account for what Heimsoeth haddescribed in terms of life; namely (following Kant), he overcomes theidea of substance as inert and opposed to transformation, and rathergrounds appearances in the activity of reason. Unlike Heimsoeth,however, Cohens idealization of matter intends no spiritualization ofthe physical. On the contrary, the methodical construction of realityexplicitly deprives it of soul, or independent animation, and rendersreality as the dependent results of knowledge.

Cohen and Heimsoeth both credit Leibniz with overcoming thedualism of matter and spirit. As we saw, however, the reconciliation of

nite body and innite spirit can be accomplished from two directions.For Heimsoeth, nature is enchanted, or absorbed into the perfect full-ness of the living God. For Cohen, on the other hand, the objectivityof beings is generated by the activity of reason, which dissolves theopposition of things (Gegen-stnde) over against reason into a singlesource: reasons own generative production.

2 Benjamins Leibniz: Between Mysticism and Enlightened

Rationality

The question that comes to the fore when Cohen and Heimsoeth areread together concerns the contested meaning of innity at the junc-ture between a theological interpretation of the immanent innite,and the rise of a natural-scientic interpretation, whereby innity issubsumed under theprincipleof continuity, and rendered effective asa method. Mediating between these positions while diverging fromboth of them, Benjamin reads the innitesimal calculus as the math-ematical expression of the secularization of history. Benjamin explains

the secularization of history as the transformation of the meaning of

35Das Prinzip der Innitesimal Methode2021.

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creation, from a temporal stageon the way to salvation, to the immanenttotalityof what is. Along these lines, he argues that the novelty of the

innitesimal calculus resides in its transformation of innity, fromendless succession (a temporal notion) to an innity of detail within(spatial) presence.

Benjamins interpretation of Leibniz is best approached by exam-ining the relationship that he establishes between a mathematicalnotion of innity (loosely understood) and an unfullled yearningfor redemption that nds no satisfaction in the profane world. Therst appearance of this relationship is found in a 1916 fragment onTrauerspieland Tragedy, in which Benjamin describes the form ofthe mourning play as inherently non-unied; it does not achieve itsresolution within itself, but has its meaning in relation to a withdrawnor emptied transcendence. This is expressed as an innite (i.e.,unfullled) yearning, which repeats itself in the profane world. Ben-

jamin describes this repetitive mirroring in terms of a mathematicalfunction. Whereas Heimsoeths microcosm is fullled and completein itself, the form of the Trauerspiellacks such unity: the idea of itsresolution no longer dwells within the realm of drama itself. This

form is mathematically comparable to one branch of a hyperbolawhose other branch lies in innity. The law governing a higher lifeprevails in the restricted space of an earthly existence, and all playuntil death puts an end to the game, so as to repeat the same game,albeit on a grander scale, in another world (SWI: 57).

Benjamin makes the allusion to mathematics more precise in hisHabilitationthesis on The Origin of German Tragic Drama, and he con-sequently gives a different image of the unfullled innity expressedin the Trauerspiel. Rather than describing an unchecked repetition, in

which each part derives its unity from a whole that is never fully real-ized, he characterizes the form of the Trauerspielin terms ofintensiveinnity, or the absorption of succession within a spatial image. Thus,Benjamin argues that the innitesimal calculus is the mathematicalequivalent of the secularization of history at the core of the BaroqueTrauerspiel:

If history is secularized in the setting, this is an expression of the samemetaphysical tendency which simultaneously led, in the exact sciences, tothe innitesimal method. In both cases chronological movement is grasped

and analyzed in a spatial image (OT92).

Benjamins notion of the absorption of succession in spatial presence,or simultaneity, may seem to echo Heimsoeths notion of the innitewithinthe nite as the microcosm of divine perfection. But the com-

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parison is misleading for two reasons. First, Benjamin describes theattempt to transx the innite by grasping it within a spatial image,

but this cannot be done without distortion. If the innite is mirroredwithin the nite, it is a concavemirror.36 Second, the innite is notcontainedin a spatial image; it rather reveals any nite representationto be a confused perception, which closer inspection shows to beinnitely complex.

Let us consider this argument more closely: Benjamin describessecularization in terms of the foreshortening of history within a set-ting. Whereas the medieval chronicle depicts time as the via rectafrom creation to redemption, Benjamin argues that, in the Baroque,the status of creation is transformed from a transient stage on the

way to salvation, to an immanent totality (OT81). But this immanenttotality should not be understood as self-sufcient, so much as self-enclosed. According to Benjamin, who emphasizes the Lutheranismof the German Trauerspiel, the age was preoccupied by the questionof salvation, but believed that access to revelation was beyond thereach offallen humanity.37 Cut off from transcendence, the niteunderstanding could only plumb the depths of the profane world

for a dim reection of divine illumination.38

This self-enclosure isreected in the dramatic structure of the Baroque Trauerspiel, whichcontracts the entire course of events within the setting of courtly life:Inasmuch as it became absorbed in the microscopic examination of

36Benjamin uses the gure of a concave mirror to suggest distortion, but also tosuggest the self-enclosed domain that is produced when the chronological inniteis grasped within a spatial totality (OT 91).

37Benjamin notes that the great authors of the German Trauerspiel were Lutherans

(OT 138). Leibniz also described himself as a follower of the Augsburg confession,i.e. as Lutheran (in C.I. Gerhard ed., G.W. Leibniz: Die Philosophische Schriften, 7. vols.,Berlin, 187590, vol. 6 43; cf. Hartmut Rudolph, The Authority of the Bible and theAuthority of Reason in Leibnizs Ecumenical Argument, in M. Dascal, Leibniz: WhatKind of Rationalist, Tel Aviv, Springer: 2008, 440).

38According to Luther, fallen humanity could no longer understand the meaningof Gods revealed word, or scripture. After the fall, the univocal relationship betweenGods word and human languages was denitively lost. In face of the unbridgeableabyss separating human languages from the revealed word, Lutherans re-evaluatedthe Book of Nature (cf. OT 81). If one could only decipher the natural language ofcreatures, one might be able to read the ordinatio divina in the details of nature itself,and thereby bypass the mediation of scripture. Luther expresses this newly discovered

link between creaturely life and the word of God in the Tischreden: For we are nowagain beginning to have the knowledge of the creatures which we lost in Adams fall[. . . ]. We see the power of his word in the creatures (ed. Kurt Aland; Stuttgart:Klotz, 1960, vol. 1, item 1160; cf. Hans Aarsleff, Language, Man and Knowledge inthe Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Program in the History and Philosophy ofScience, Princeton University, 1964: 2324).

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details, it progressed no further than the painstaking analysis of thecalculations of political intrigue (OT88). Succession is supplanted byintensication; plot is absorbed in the microscopic analysis of details.

In the gure of the self-enclosed world of creation, Benjamin offersan interpretation of the windowless monad that differs markedlyfrom Heimsoeths microcosm. For Heimsoeth, the innite within thenite stems from the souls immediate capacity to receive revelation,that is, from its transcendent, God-like qualities. By contrast, Benjaminemphasizes that the monad relates to transcendence only indirectly,by translating exteriority into the totality of its petites perceptions.39 Inaddition to having a merely indirect (i.e., intensive) relationship toexteriority, each monad, moreover, expresses the whole equivocally,by abbreviating it within a nite point-of-view.40 The concentrationof the universe within a monad suggests a unique interpretation ofthe nite understanding, as concealinga representation of the whole

world, and even an image of God, in its confusedperceptions. Eachmonad brings with it an indistinct horizon, which belongs to it onlyvirtually, rather than explicitly.

Monadic perception is both immanentin that monads express

the world only in the intensive conguration of their perceptualstatesand transcendentin that the innity of a monads percep-tions exceedswhat the nite understanding can apperceive, or cog-nize. This immanent excess, which, for Heimsoeth, is a mark of thecreatures capacity to receive revelation, is interpreted by Benjaminin terms of the virtuality of an idea, which is neither reducible toa concept, nor accessible via intuition (OT3536). Virtuality, whichis synonymous with latency in Leibniz,41 receives a decisively negativeinterpretation in Benjamin, who emphasizes the lossof consciousness

involved in thinking transcendence. Because revelation is denied to

39For a similar argument relating Leibnizian expression to translation, see RobertMcRae, Leibniz: Perception, Apperception, and Thought (Toronto: University of TorontoPress, 1976) 22.

40Benjamin emphasizes the equivocal nature of the monadic representation of theworld: The idea is a monad. The being that enters into it, with its past and subsequenthistory, bringsconcealed in its own forman indistinct abbreviation of the rest of theworld of ideas, just as, according to Leibnizs Discourse on Metaphysics (1686), every

single monad contains, in an indistinct way, all the others (OT 4748).41In 8 of the Discourse on Metaphysics, Leibniz distinguishes between what isexplicitly contained in a notion, and what is only virtually or implicitly included inthe complete individual concept. This virtual totality corresponds to Gods under-standing, since only God is capable of beholding the complete notion of an individualall at once, or intuitively (Leibniz: Philosophical Essays41).

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the nite understanding, Benjamin describes the mode in which ideasare given to thought in terms of recollection, or Platonic anamnesis(a

move that Leibniz also makes in the Discourse on Metaphysics.)42But whereas Plato describes a process of remembering what we oncehadas objects of knowledge, Benjamin characterizes monadic fullnessas lost for consciousness. The deepening of attention to the inniteimplications of an idea is the death of intentionality: truth contentis only to be grasped through immersion in the most minute detailsof subject-matter (OT29; 36).

According to Leibniz, an adequate grasp of an idea would involvethe thoroughgoing determination of all of its predicates, including arepresentation of how these predicates are interconnected in an under-lying identity. This inherence of multiplicity in identity is groundedin the simultaneity of divine intuition, which is inaccessible for thenite understanding. As Leibniz notes: It must be the case that thesufcient or ultimate reason is outsidethe sequence of this multiplicityof contingencies, however innite it may be.43 This exteriority showsitselfwithinthe monad as a confusedtotality of detail, which can beinnitely parsed by the nite understanding without ever reaching

a sufcient reason in God. Confusionwhich, as Benjamin notes,is a technical term in the dramaturgical theories of the Baroque, aswell as term used by Leibniz to describe the indistinctcognition of aninnitely complex ideathus provides yet another representation ofthe innite within the nite.44 The monad contains innitely morethan the nite mind can grasp or comprehend, fused into an indis-tinct abbreviation.

Benjamins interpretation of the innitesimal as a gure for thesecularization of history is, likewise, opposed to Cohens innitesimal

method, or the generation of extensive magnitude from intensivemagnitude. Whereas Cohen understands presence as the result of the

42Leibniz appeals to Platos doctrine of anamnesis in the Discourse on Metaphysics,26 (Leibniz: Philosophical Essays 58). Benjamin also describes how philosophy canonly access transcendent ideas through a process of anamnesis. What is most interest-ing, from the point of view of our argument, is that Benjamin invokes thinking asrecollection precisely because philosophy is barred from revelation: Since philosophymay not presume to speak in tones of revelation, this can only be done by recalling

in memory the primordial form of perception. Platonic anamnesis is, perhaps, not farremoved from this kind of remembering (OT 37).

43Monadology 37 (Leibniz: Philosophical Essays 21718, my emphasis).44Benjamin discusses the confusion [Verwirrung] of the Baroque Trauerspiel in

OT 95. Leibniz provides a technical denition of confused knowledge [confusa]in Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas, in Leibniz: Philosophical Essays24.

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successiveapplication of a function, Benjamin argues that succession iscircumscribed, or abbreviated, withinpresence. Benjamin articulates this

concept in terms of the subordination of chronology to the unfoldingof an essence (OT47; 92). What Benjamin refers to as Baroque naturalhistory stems from an interpretation of Leibnizs understanding ofthe relationship between contingent and eternal truths. For Leibniz,history does not have a predominantly temporal meaning, but signiesa mode of cognition relating to contingent truths of fact.45 Accord-ing to Leibniz, contingent truths are ultimately truths of identity,that is, they inhere (inesse) in the nunc stans, or eternal presence ofdivine intuition.46 It is only from the limited perspective of the niteunderstanding that truths of fact appear to be contingent. An inniteanalysis would show that such truths are virtual identities. Thus, forLeibniz, history is merely phenomenal, and it must be interpreted asthe determination of an essence, or under the aspect of eternity. Notethat for Benjamin, the very phenomenality of history is the groundfor its innite analysis; it cannot be dismissed as brute contingency ormere transience, but must rather be redeemed within an essenceanidea that remains virtual for the nite understanding (OT46). The

subordination of chronological history to an essence is reected inLeibnizs monadology: monads always already contain the full scopeof their virtual history, which is identical to the thoroughgoing deter-mination of their essence, or complete individual concept.47 Leibnizaccordingly redenes the future and the past in terms of presence:insofar as it is possible to uncover the conguration and relationshipsbetween ones petites perceptions, one can also predict the future andrecall the latent past.

Despite Benjamins evident disagreement with Cohen regarding the

signicance of Leibnizs innitesimal calculus, Benjamins reading of

45Leibniz distinguishes between two types of truth: necessary and contingent truths.The main difference between these two types of truths concerns the mode of theirdemonstration. Eternal truths are immediate identities, without the need for furthergrounding. Contingent truths, although ultimately identities, require a demonstrationthat proceeds to innity. See On Freedom in Leibniz: Philosophical Essays, 948.

46The temporal signicance of Leibnizs distinction between necessary truths and con-tingent truths of fact is brought out with particular clarity in Heideggers 1928 Lectureson Leibniz, The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic(trans. Michael Heim, Bloomington:

Indiana UP, 1992) 4250. Heidegger shows that Leibnizs logical denition of substancein terms of the inherence and interconnection of predicates within an underlyingsubject rests on a metaphysical understanding of the relationship between the niteunderstanding and the ideal of Gods understanding. Divine understanding is intui-tive, which means that God knows everything simultaneously, or in eternal presence.

47See, for example, Primary Truths, in Leibniz: Philosophical Essays32.

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Leibnizs intensive innity in terms of secularization resonates withanother aspect of Cohens philosophical idealism: namely, the simul-

taneouspuricationof the idea of transcendence from any existentialattributes, and the disenchantmentof the natural world as mere knowl-edge (i.e., as dependent on the activity of a knower, rather than as beingin-itself).48 That is to say, Benjamins understanding of secularizationas the restriction of reason within a self-enclosed, immanent world,shares Cohens (Kantian) view of the nitude of theoretical reason.But whereas Cohen seizes upon the innity of practical reason, andextends it to the innite taskof constructingknowledge, Benjaminsinterpretation of Baroque metaphysics intensies the chasm betweenprofane knowledge and the perfection of divine ideas. The inniteanalysis of profane knowledge may yield an abundant wealth of phe-nomenal detail, but such knowledge is ultimately illusory; it vanishesinto the simple identity of divine understanding. Benjamins interpre-tation of the innite within the nite exudes a palpable melancholyin that it pertains to the supposed innity of a world without hope,an innity that is itself the result of humanitys nite and fallen state(OT 232, my emphasis). Cohen evades this hopelessness by appeal

to the innite task, whereby theoretical knowledge asymptoticallyapproaches the ideal of reason.According to Leibniz, an innite analysis is needed to resolve

contingent truths into truths of reason. Benjamin opposes Cohenssuggestion that this analysis has the character of an innite task.Rather, he describes the abysmalinnity that opens up between ourconfused perceptions and the simple identity of the divine understand-ing. This is the strict consequence of pursuing the innite within therestricteddomain ofprofanecreation: What tempts is the illusion. . .

of innityin the empty abyss of evil. For it is characteristic of allvirtue to have an end before it: namely its model, in God; just as allinfamy opens up an innite progression into the depths (OT231,my emphasis). Benjamins portrayal of the bottomless innity that

we fall into when we seek the sufcient reason for contingent reality

48In the Religion of Reason, Cohen sharply distinguishes between practical and theo-retical uses of reason, which enables him to secure the practical fulllment of the

idea of God as an exemplar for action, but he denies any possibility for the theoreticalfulllment of being. All natural becoming is transience from the standpoint of theunique transcendence: matter remains transitory dust. All natural poetry is shatteredon the rock of the insight that allots sublimity to the unique God exclusively (49). Inother words, the purication of God from the worldGods uniqueness, according toCohengoes hand in hand with the secularization of the world as absolutely spiritless.

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has its roots in Leibniz. This is perhaps surprising, since Leibniz insiststhat there is a sufcient reason for everything, and that even the

hairs on our head are numbered.49 Yet Leibniz also warns that hereis the occasion to recognize the altitudinem divitarum, the depth andabyss of divine wisdom, without seeking a detail that involves inniteconsiderations.50 The danger involved in seeking such a detail is thatthe analysis of our contingent representations is endless: it literallylacks an end, or telos, in God.

Benjamins interpretation of Leibniz provides the theoreticalbackdrop for his enigmatic account of the Baroque allegorys suddenreversalfrom an innite interpretation of a detailto an apotheo-sis, or beatic vision (OT23235). Benjamin describes how allegoryplunges into an abyss of interpretation, falling from emblem toemblem down into the dizziness of its bottomless depths (OT232).This vertiginous analysis is the source of its greatest insights, as itdelves into the details of the profane world, ringing its images withlayer upon layer of signicance. Each thing is presented in its ownallegorical setting, or confused court (OT188). The source of thisinnite analysis is the very opacity of contingent things, which are

invested with meaning as ciphersof divine providence, or lled withthe promise of mysterious instruction. This fall of knowledge intothe abyss of endless interpretation is arrested only in the recognitionof identity, or the absorption of phenomenal reality into the simpleunity of divine intuition:

This solves the riddle of the most fragmented, the most defunct, the mostdispersed. Allegory, of course, thereby loses everything that was most pecu-liar to it: the secret, privileged knowledge, the arbitrary rule in the realmof dead objects, the supposed innity of a world without hope. All of this

vanishes with this oneabout-turn, in which the immersion of allegory hasto clear away the nal phantasmagoria of the objective and, left entirelyto its own devices, re-discovers itself, not playfully in the earthly world ofthings, but seriously under the eyes of heaven (OT232).

In this passage, Benjamin hints at the underlying source of this identity,and thereby points beyond Leibniz to Kant and Cohen: that is to say,the phantasmagoria of the objective vanishes only when the knowingsubject re-discovers itself, or recognizes its own activityas the animat-ing force behind the appearance of life in things. But with the nalabsorption of exteriority into subjectivity, allegory loses its profound

49Discourse on Metaphysics 37 in Leibniz: Philosophical Essays68.50Discourse on Metaphysics 30 in Leibniz: Philosophical Essays61.

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knowledge, and goes away empty-handed (OT 233). The emptyhands of the allegorista result of the subjects recognition of his

own activity as grounding the substantiality of thingsmay be a steptoward a fully accomplished Enlightenment, but Benjamin registersthis step as a loss of the unique intensity with which the melancholysubject interprets an alien world.

Whereas Heimsoeth and Cohen both present Leibnizs monad ashaving entirely accomplished the absorption of external things intospirit or mind, Benjamins reading of Leibniz intensies the dualismbetween matter and spirit, emphasizing the alien, thing-like characterof knowledge. The profane illumination of allegory is only possible

when the details of the world are read as signs of a divinity that wecannot know directly, but that we can only glean from the faint tracesand fragments of spiritless nature.

Conclusion:

I have argued that Benjamins monad turns on a particular interpre-tation of the innite within the nite. The intensive innity within

the monad is in excess of any concept. But the pregnant fullness ofthe monad intends no mythic re-enchantment of nature. AgainstHeimsoeths interpretation of Leibniz, I have shown that Benjaminreads the innity within the monad in terms of the secularizationof metaphysics within an immanent, self-enclosed world. From this

vantage point, Benjamin can also be read as refuting Cohens inni-tesimal method. For Cohen, innity is stripped of any ontological ormetaphysical weight, and instead takes on the sober, epistemologicalsignicance of an innite method. But Benjamin shows that Cohen

nonetheless retains the (mythological) belief in reasonsprogresstowardthe fullled ideal. By contrast, Benjamins monad already contains allof its states simultaneously, but the immanent totality of perceptions

within the monad yields a confusedinnity of detail, the analysis ofwhich is bottomless. Benjamin does not minimize the hopelessness ofthis innity by adopting Cohens Kantian language of an innite task.The source of this innity is the non-identity between the simple per-fection of divine rationality, and the contingent character of the world.

It is no accident that Benjamin turns to metaphysics precisely at

the point where metaphysics has lost its home in theology; his mon-adology is a meditation on the status of the Absolute within secularmodernity. The metaphysical object has been successively dissolvedby the negativity of enlightened rationality. But transcendence is not

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reduced to nothing, as philosophical positivists would argue. Renderedhomeless by the loss of the medieval ordo, metaphysics acquires the

rapacious character of an innite method. This method is brought tobear on the smallest, most peripheral traces of experience, with noguarantee of their ultimate grounding in God.