dennis jOHannßen

lafayette College

Disquieting Analogies:
Benjamin and Heidegger on
Medieval Speculative Grammar

in the summer of 1913, Walter Benjamin and Martin Heidegger both studied at
the University of freiburg, attending the same lecture courses and seminars offered
by the neo-Kantian philosopher Heinrich rickert (eiland and jennings 33–34).
the thought that they encountered each other in these courses is biographically
intriguing, especially since they had very different interests at the time. Benjamin
was a sophomore on the way to becoming an important voice in Gustav Wyneken’s
school reform branch of the German youth movement, while Heidegger was
completing his dissertation on the logics of judgment under rickert’s supervision.
in his courses, rickert introduced a new philosophy of value, which relied on the
distinction between a value-neutral “bloßes leben” and a “vollendetes leben” to
be achieved in separate value spheres such as logics, ethics, and religion. rickert’s
system was a key influence on both Benjamin and Heidegger even as it led them
to pursue radically different philosophical routes. Bracketing the question of bio-
graphical influence, fenves argues that whether or not they met in freiburg, Hei-
degger and Benjamin became philosophically “entangled” through their shared
engagement with rickert’s philosophy of value (“entanglement” 3).
One of the central areas in which this philosophical entanglement unfolded is
that of language. during World War One and into the mid-1920s, both Hei-
degger and Benjamin explored medieval theories of language to challenge neo-
Kantianism and phenomenology as the predominant philosophical paradigms of
their time. their attempts culminated in Heidegger’s sein und Zeit (1927) and
Benjamin’s ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels (1928), both of which presented
new, uniquely non-instrumental views of language (seel 68–70). While they shared
similar impulses during their time in freiburg, taking issue with psychologism and
the principle of intentionality, their views began to differ significantly over the
years. Benjamin developed a non-hierarchical and anti-anthropocentric theory of
language that allowed beings to appear on their own terms, whereas Heidegger,
despite his non-instrumental view, held on to a singular historical call to be heard
and heeded within language.
in this article, i examine a particularly formative moment for Benjamin’s phi-
losophy of language, namely, his engagement with Heidegger’s postdoctoral thesis

The German Quarterly 95.1 (Winter 2022) 1

©2022, american association of teachers of German
2 ThE GERMAN QuARTERly Winter 2022
on the “speculative grammar” of the scholastic philosophers duns scotus and
thomas of erfurt.1 Heidegger submitted the thesis in 1915 and published it in
1916 with a new conclusion under the philologically imprecise title Die Kategorien-
und Bedeutungslehre des Duns scotus ( jung 6–7). following a recommendation by
Gershom scholem, Benjamin read Heidegger’s book between july 1920 and janu-
ary 1921 (Briefe 2: 108, 127). He studied it so carefully that he excerpted a reference
to one of Heidegger’s earliest publications from the book’s last footnote, including
it in a bibliography for his own postdoctoral thesis (fenves, “entanglement” 12–
13). the encounter with Heidegger’s book profoundly shaped Benjamin’s critical
project, prompting him to distinguish his non-instrumental view of language fur-
ther from Heidegger’s phenomenological and ontological approach.
during the months in which Benjamin read Heidegger’s book, he recorded a
reflection titled “Wenn nach der theorie des duns scotus” (GS 6: 22–23). this
fragment, i would like to suggest, includes both a direct response to Heidegger’s
thesis and a radicalization of Benjamin’s evolving theory of language.2 it was
Heidegger’s book that prompted Benjamin to abandon his initial plan to write
his own habilitation thesis on scholastic analogies, a key topic of Heidegger’s
book, engaging instead with the allegorical form of Baroque mourning plays. at
the same time, Benjamin’s critical response to Heidegger’s thesis, contained in
this fragment, sheds new light on the formation of Heidegger’s understanding
of language in sein und Zeit and beyond.

Heidegger’s Scotus-Erfurt Book

Heidegger began his academic work as a student of catholic theology. after he
changed his field of study from theology to philosophy, he wrote a series of articles
on the concepts of truth, reality, and recent developments in logic. Heidegger’s
studies of neo-Kantianism in freiburg culminated in his dissertation, Die lehre
vom urteil im Psychologismus (1913), after which rickert, who was one of his ad-
visers, suggested a habilitation thesis on medieval ontology and linguistics (fenves,
“entanglement” 12; sheehan 107–15).
the title of Heidegger’s thesis, Die Kategorien- und Bedeutungslehre des Duns
scotus, implies a question of contested authorship, since it suggests that the central
text of the study, “tractatus de modis significandi seu Grammatica speculativa”
(Treatise on the Modes of signifying, or speculative Grammar), was written by the
scholastic philosopher duns scotus. in 1922, six years after Heidegger’s thesis
was published, the theologian and historian Martin Grabmann demonstrated
that the treatise was not written by scotus, but by his contemporary thomas von
erfurt (“de thoma erfordiensi” 273–77; Thomas von Erfurt 11–20). as Grab-
mann’s reconstructions show, the authorship was already contested when Hei-
degger wrote his thesis, primarily because of the text’s incongruous placement in
scotus’s collected works. Heidegger does not mention this debate, as if his and
rickert’s authority were sufficient to settle the question of authorship. at the
 JOhANNßEN: Benjamin and heidegger 3
same time, Heidegger’s title is not entirely misleading, since he discusses scotus’s
ontological writings in the first part of the book.
duns scotus, who lived from about 1266 to 1308, was a philosopher and theo-
logian of the High Middle ages, best known for his doctrine of the “univocity
of being” and his approach to the problem of individuation. With the notion
“univocity of being,” scotus argued that being is what can be predicated of every
creature or entity, hence making everything from God’s perfect being down to
inanimate nature gradually commensurable. complementing this ontological
principle, scotus’s concept of “haecceity,” or “thisness,” describes the properties
that individualize and distinguish entities, locating them on the gradual scale of
being (King 18–21; noone 118–21).
thomas von erfurt, scotus’s contemporary, worked and taught around 1300.
today, he is best known for his work “tractatus de modis significandi seu Gram-
matica speculativa,” a treatise that was in circulation by 1310 and that was later
falsely attributed to duns scotus. in this work, erfurt lays out the principles of
the linguistic theory associated with the Modists, known as “speculative gram-
mar.” the Modists were a group of scholars concerned with the problem of sig-
nification—the question of how words and sentences can have any meaning at
all as opposed to being nonsensical. “Queen where seems or,” for example, would
be considered nonsense, while “the triangle is round” was seen as meaningful,
but contradictory.
erfurt’s “speculative grammar” seeks to understand language’s relationship to
reality as mediated by the intellect, a question arising from aristotle’s tripartite
model according to which words designate concepts and concepts represent things.
in his treatise, erfurt analyzes how linguistic structures, or “modes of meaning”
(modi significandi), point to certain aspects of entities called “modes of being” (modi
essendi), which are represented by mental structures called “modes of understanding”
(modi intelligendi) (Godfrey 24–26). according to erfurt, words are not static sound
formations that designate things as unities. rather, relations among words designate
relations among concepts, which represent relations among things. for example,
the word “red,” if it is used as a noun in a sentence, does not signify redness as
such, but something that is red; or, if it qualifies another word as an adjective, it
signifies the property of being red.
rickert seems to have encouraged Heidegger to write on medieval linguistics
partially because of a link between speculative grammar and the project of estab-
lishing logic as a foundational science for mathematics and physics (derrida 48;
riedel 72–74, 98–100). rickert and the later edmund Husserl shared the project
of countering psychologism with “pure logic.” Psychologism argues that the truth
of judgments such as 2 + 2 = 4 depends on specifically human forms of perception
and thought, while pure logic claims that these statements are true regardless of
the empirical predispositions of the judging mind. in ways that recall “de modis
significandi,” what Husserl calls “a priori grammar” or the “grammar of pure logic”
is not concerned with argumentation, evidence, or verification, but with the most
4 ThE GERMAN QuARTERly Winter 2022
fundamental rules of forming any kind of meaningful language system. What the
Modists call “modes of meaning” corresponds to what Husserl refers to as “das
Grammatische” as opposed to the empirical grammars of particular languages
(edie; Hanna). in line with Husserl’s project, Heidegger’s scotus-Erfurt book docu-
ments his exploration of language’s ability to ground pure logic.
Heidegger presents the late scholastic philosophy of scotus and erfurt in light
of the neo-Kantianism and phenomenology of rickert, emil lask, and Husserl.
He emphasizes that his interpretation does not invalidate the originality and au-
tonomy of modern logics, since he proposes a systematic elucidation of a timeless
problem shared by both medieval and modern philosophy (GA 1: 203–05, 410n8).
the book has two parts; the first reconstructs duns scotus’s doctrine of categories
(Kategorienlehre) as a necessary precondition for the second section’s presentation
of the doctrine of meaning (Bedeutungslehre). Underlying both parts is the Modists’
tripartite distinction between being, intellect, and signification.
Part one consists of three chapters dedicated to the doctrine of categories. this
doctrine delimits the regions of reality that can be the objects of systematic scien-
tific knowledge. the first chapter discusses the category of the unum as unity
(Einheit) and number (Eins), which establishes the realms of mathematics, natural
sciences, and metaphysics. the second chapter focuses on the verum as the funda-
mental category of logic and psychology. in this chapter, Heidegger rearticulates
the theory of judgment that he developed in his dissertation, Die lehre vom urteil
im Psychologismus (1913), noting that it had “die Unphilosophie des Psychologismus
gründlichst überwunden” (GA 1: 205).
Heidegger presents scotus as supporting the same anti-psychologistic logic
that he developed in his dissertation. according to this “rein logische lehre vom
Urteil” (GA 1: 165), meaning neither exists independently of the mind, as a naive
realism would have it, nor does it emerge solely in the empirical act of judgment,
as psychologism claims. instead, what Heidegger calls “Urteilssinn” can be grasped
and constituted by the intellect according to universally valid categories. “deut-
licher kann kaum noch gesagt werden,” Heidegger writes “daß hier der von der
erkenntnistätigkeit, dem Urteilen, abgelöste Gehalt, der urteilssinn gemeint ist
in seiner funktion der darstellung, der erkenntnismäßigen Konstituierung der
realen Objekte” (278). Heidegger claims that what he calls “Urteilssinn” is prefi-
gured in the psychology of the scholastics. the “Urteilssinn” is the content of the
activity of cognition that is given to the mind in a preformed manner. its function
is the constitution or presentation of objects to the intellect in a way that allows
them to be cognized.
Because of this anti-psychologistic orientation, Heidegger argues, scholastic
psychology can enhance modern psychology:

es muß […] zum Bewußtsein gebracht werden, daß die scholastische Psychologie gerade
bei ihrem nichteingestelltsein auf das dynamisch-fließende realpsychische in den prin-
zipiellen Problemen gegenständlich-noëmatisch orientiert bleibt, ein Umstand, der die
Blickrichtung auf die Phänomene der intentionalität weitgehend begünstigt” (GA 1: 205).
 JOhANNßEN: Benjamin and heidegger 5
Heidegger emphasizes that scholastic psychology is oriented not toward the act
of cognition (what Husserl calls “noesis”), but toward what is being cognized
(“noema”), a perspective that supports the goal of phenomenology to get to the
things themselves. (“Zu den sachen selbst” was Husserl’s motto.) Heidegger ar-
gues that speculative grammar enhances Husserl’s phenomenology by elucidating
the linguistic structures of how the “Urteilssinn” presents objects to the intellect.
in the third and last chapter of part one, melodiously titled “sprachgestalt und
sprachgehalt,” Heidegger draws on “de modis significandi” and Husserl’s logische
untersuchungen (1900–01; 1913) to formulate a doctrine of meaning that he pre-
sents in the second part of his thesis. this doctrine contains the basic elements
of a universal grammar—the objective linguistic conditions that judgments, as
intentional acts, have to satisfy if they want to fulfill their function of adequately
representing objects of cognition. in other words, Heidegger expands the scope
of his dissertation by inquiring about the grammatical form that the “Urteilssinn”
has to assume on a linguistic level.
the transition from being to language in Heidegger’s book reveals his view of
language around 1915–16. all objects are subject to the categories of the unum
and the verum, and all regions of reality are “betreffbar von unsinnlich geltenden
logischen sinngebilden,” insofar as knowledge about them is intended (GA 1:
287). according to Heidegger, these logical formations constitute the “Bedeu-
tungsbereich” (290) and are “etwas früheres” (291), the validity of which does not
depend on linguistic articulation. this interpretation shows that Heidegger’s con-
ception of language in the scotus-Erfurt book remains, for the most part, teleo-
logical and instrumental. “[W ]as soll [die sprache] leisten?” he asks, and his
answer is, “die vollendete Mitteilung des sinnes” (305; see also 279, 291–93).
rather than being an autonomous sphere, language is measured by its achieve-
ment and performance, namely, the communication of meaning that exists inde-
pendently of it.
at various moments in the book, however, Heidegger describes how the border
between intellectual constitution and empirical reality is blurred in the realm of
signification. in a key passage, he writes:

Bedenkt man, daß die empirische Wirklichkeit allererst durch die Worte der sprache, ge-
nauer durch deren Bedeutungen, umgeformt wird, indem nur bestimmte „seiten“ ihrer in
die Bedeutung eingehen, daß die Bedeutungen und ihre formen doch irgendwie durch
die reale Wirklichkeit als Material bestimmt sind, so ist leicht einzusehen, daß eine for-
menlehre der Bedeutungen […] für das verständnis der einzelnen formen auf die empi-
rische Wirklichkeit Bezug zu nehmen hat. (GA 1: 264)

the word “irgendwie” indicates the critical point of Heidegger’s presentation of

erfurt’s doctrine. the linguistic modes of meaning determine how empirical rea-
lity appears to the mind, while these modes are supposed to be derived from the
same empirical reality. this question of how language mediates between being
and intellect is the same question that interested Benjamin at the time.
6 ThE GERMAN QuARTERly Winter 2022
Benjamin’s Response
Benjamin began his studies of philology and philosophy in freiburg in the sum-
mer of 1912. One year later, he and Heidegger both attended rickert’s lecture
on “logik” and his seminar “Übungen zur Metaphysik im anschluss an die
schriften von Henri Bergson” (Werner 4; Kisiel and sheehan xlix). at the end
of 1913, Benjamin left freiburg, moved back to Berlin, then to Munich, and in
1917 to Bern, where he completed his dissertation Der Begriff der Kunstkritik in
der deutschen Romantik (1919). His advisor in Bern was richard Herbertz, who
wrote his own dissertation on the concept of the unconscious in the work of Ba-
roque philosopher G.W. leibniz. Benjamin’s dissertation blends an inventive exe-
gesis of the romantics’ concept of literary criticism with his own, radically
non-instrumental understanding of language, which he first formulated in 1916
in a letter to scholem.
in this letter, known under the title “Über sprache überhaupt und über die
sprache des Menschen,” Benjamin dismissed “die bürgerliche auffassung der
sprache,” which maintains that “das Mittel der Mitteilung ist das Wort, ihr Ge-
genstand die sache, ihr adressat ein Mensch” (GS 2: 144). While speakers may
use language to communicate their thoughts and feelings, Benjamin proposes a
much broader understanding of language as the medium that makes perception
and experience possible in the first place (Menninghaus; Menke; Hamacher “in-
tensive sprachen”). in the same letter, Benjamin presents human language as a
mere step on the cosmic scale of being, distinguished by its specific powers, tasks,
and pitfalls. He suggests that human language, in contrast to non-human languages,
is characterized by the act of naming, which entails the possibility of subjugating
other beings and entities by means of signification and classification.
in january 1920, after finishing his dissertation, Benjamin wrote to scholem that
he had begun to look for a topic for his habilitation thesis, in which he planned to
engage with the “Problemkreis Wort und Begriff (sprache und logos)” (Briefe 2:
68). a more specific topic, he added, can presumably only be found in the literature
pertaining to the “Bereich scholastischer schriften oder von schriften über die scho-
lastik” (68). in his response, scholem mentions Heidegger’s scotus-Erfurt book. after
reading it presumably between july and december 1920, Benjamin writes:

ich habe das Buch von Heidegger über duns scotus gelesen. es ist unglaublich, daß sich
mit so einer arbeit, zu deren abfassung nichts als großer fleiß und Beherrschung des
scholastischen lateins erforderlich ist und die trotz aller philosophischen aufmachung
im Grunde nur ein stück guter Übersetzerarbeit ist, jemand habilitieren kann. die nichts-
würdige Kriecherei des autors vor rickert und Husserl macht die lektüre nicht ange-
nehmer. Philosophisch ist die sprachphilosophie von duns scotus in diesem Buch
unbearbeitet geblieben und damit hinterläßt es keine kleine aufgabe. (108)

Benjamin’s tone is unusually harsh and dismissive. yet he describes the book as a
good translation, which is remarkable given Benjamin’s signature concept of trans-
lation as the very principle of nature’s appearance. the remark is noteworthy also
on a technical level, since in his previous letter on the topic Benjamin confessed that
 JOhANNßEN: Benjamin and heidegger 7
the latin of the scholastics would be “eine harte nuß” (68). regarding the content
of the book, Benjamin criticizes the extensive paraphrasing of its medieval source
texts, characterizing the work as being motivated by Heidegger’s desire for academic
advancement. Benjamin concludes by stating that, philosophically, the book had not
addressed, let alone elucidated, the relationship between language and logic.
surprisingly, less than two months later Benjamin abruptly changed his evalu-
ation of the book. in january 1921, he wrote to scholem:

[…] ich bin auch nach meinen bisherigen studien vorsichtig geworden und bedenklich,
ob es richtig ist die verfolgung der scholastischen analogien als leitfaden zu benutzen
und nicht vielleicht ein Umweg, da die schrift von Heidegger doch vielleicht das We-
sentlichste scholastischen denkens für mein Problem – übrigens in ganz undurchleuch-
teter Weise – wiedergibt, und sich auch das echte Problem im anschluß an sie schon
irgendwie andeuten läßt. (Briefe 2: 127)

Benjamin now concedes that Heidegger’s book presents the elements of scholastic
thought that are most important for his project; so important that he does not have
to engage with the scholastics anymore. Benjamin suggests that scholasticism
might in fact be a detour on the way to what he calls “das echte Problem,” without,
however, clarifying what this problem is. it might pertain to the topic of “Wort
und Begriff ” or to Benjamin’s larger question of how language can challenge psy-
chologistic anthropocentrism and the purposiveness of intentional consciousness.
a potential lead is indicated by Benjamin’s remark that he abandoned the plan
to follow scholastic analogies as a guide for his book project. analogy, understood
as a scale of commensurability that relates natural and supernatural being, is of
elevated importance in Heidegger’s scotus-Erfurt book. as i will discuss in the
following, Heidegger and Benjamin were interested in medieval analogy because
it offered them a way of destabilizing the modern subject-object dualism at the
heart of intentional consciousness.3 Benjamin’s decision to turn away from logic
and linguistics, and to intensify his work on literature and philology, fundamen-
tally reorients his critical project over the following years.
Heidegger’s and Benjamin’s interest in scholastic analogies is the point where
their evolving philosophies of language intersect. Heidegger had indicated that
the meanings of fundamental grammatical structures are somehow derived from
empirical reality, while at the same time signifying this reality. Benjamin exposes
and discusses this circular understanding in a fragment that he recorded around
the end of 1920, during or shortly after reading Heidegger’s thesis.4 the fragment
starts with the words “Wenn nach der theorie des duns scotus” (GS 6: 22), a
sentence that invites a similar question of contested authorship as the title of
Heidegger’s book. Based on the fragment alone, it is unclear which text or texts
Benjamin is referring to. He might be responding to other scholarship besides
Heidegger’s thesis. yet the terminology and conceptual question that Benjamin
discusses, along with his frequent remarks about Heidegger’s book during these
months, indicate that the fragment is to a considerable extent, if not primarily, a
response to Heidegger’s interpretation of “de modis significandi.”
8 ThE GERMAN QuARTERly Winter 2022
in the fragment, Benjamin writes:

Wenn nach der theorie des duns scotus die Hindeutungen auf gewisse modi essendi
nach Maßgabe dessen, was diese Hindeutungen bedeuten, fundiert sind, so entsteht na-
türlich die frage, […] wie man von der völligen correlation zwischen Bedeutendem und
Bedeutetem hinsichtlich dieser fundierungsfrage zu abstrahieren vermöge, so daß also
der Zirkel vermieden wird: das Bedeutende zielt hin auf das Bedeutete und beruht zu-
gleich auf ihm. (GS 6: 22)

the solution can be found, Benjamin suggests, by reflecting on what he calls “der
sprachbereich”:

soweit sprachliches sich aus dem Bedeuteten abheben und gewinnen läßt, ist dies als dessen
modus essendi und damit als das fundament des Bedeutenden zu bezeichnen. der sprach-
bereich erstreckt sich als kritisches Medium zwischen dem Bereich des Bedeutenden und
dem des Bedeuteten. so daß also gesagt werden kann: das Bedeutende zielt hin auf das Be-
deutete und gründet zugleich hinsichtlich seiner Materialbestimmtheit auf diesem, aber
nicht uneingeschränkt, sondern nur hinsichtlich des modus essendi, den die sprache be-
stimmt. (22–23)

the fragment can be read as elaborating on what Benjamin described to scholem

as the most essential element of scholastic thought that Heidegger’s book con-
tained for his own project. Benjamin begins by distinguishing “sprachliches” from
signification, expanding the realm of language beyond the grammatical, semantic,
and linguistic. the part of language that can be gleaned from what is signified is
what Benjamin, in his reflections from 1916, called “sprachliches Wesen” (GS 2:
141), and what he now identifies with the modus essendi. this identification vir-
tually collapses the realms of ontology and language. “Metaphysics,” as fenves
notes in his commentary on the fragment, “becomes as much a science of
language as of being” (Messianic Reduction 56).
importantly, for Benjamin, only parts of what pertains to language can be gleaned
from signification. language does not consist of signifier and signified, but ex-
tends, “erstreckt sich,” between them as a critical medium. in adding the qualifier
“kritisches” to his early definition of language as “im reinsten sinne das ‘Medium’
der Mitteilung” (GS 2: 142), Benjamin indicates that language itself separates sig-
nifier from signified, rather than, pace de saussure, being structured and condi-
tioned by this separation. language provides space that allows signifiers to aim
at, “zielen auf,” what is signified, but this is only one of its abilities. Benjamin’s
vocabulary of “aiming” reveals that his reflection revolves, along with a series of
related fragments from the late 1910s and early 1920s, around the problem of
intentionality, which is essentially a figure of directedness (steiner 243–44).
that the signifier simultaneously points to and is based on the signified would
only constitute a circle, Benjamin argues, if the signifier were exclusively based on
it. But only what he calls the material aspect of language is determined by the em-
pirical existence of what is signified. Words have another side that is not based on
modes of being. rather than consisting of modes of meaning, language enables
words to signify in the first place. in the fragment’s last turn of phrase, Benjamin
 JOhANNßEN: Benjamin and heidegger 9
argues that the modes of being are determined by language, which effectively in-
verts Heidegger’s presentation of speculative grammar. as a critical medium,
language is non-signifying and not based on the modes of being, and it is this me-
dium that determines what empirical reality means and how it can be signified.
according to Heidegger, the meaning of a word must somehow be founded
on the mode of being of what it signifies, but he does not say how this foundation
is to be understood. Benjamin suggests that language’s “Hindeutungen,” the
modes of meaning, are founded on the modes of being only insofar as their ma-
terial determination is concerned. there is a more embracing dimension of
language that is not determined by what it signifies—a dimension free from cau-
sal determination.5 this raises the question of a kind of determination, or “Be-
stimmung,” that is non-causal and non-empirical, transposing one of the central
problems of transcendental philosophy into the realm of language.6 How can
language determine empirical reality without being itself empirically determined?
like Heidegger, Benjamin expected to find answers to this question by follow-
ing scholastic analogies as a guide. after thinking more about Heidegger’s book
and formulating his critical response, he abandoned this plan. Heidegger’s work
presented, as Benjamin stated, the elements of scholastic thought that were most
important for his thesis project, but not sufficient to address what he described as
the genuine problem, namely, the problem of a non-instrumental relation between
language and logos. such a form of relationality would decenter the supremacy of
human language and allow for a historiography not based on the prevailing linear
and homogeneous conception of time, but on the notion of fulfillment.7
Benjamin noticed that Heidegger’s engagement with scholastic linguistics
questioned the epistemological foundations of neo-Kantianism and phenomeno-
logy in a manner closely related to his own non-instrumental theory of language–
a recognition that might have prompted his unusually impolite response. Upon
closer inspection of Heidegger’s book, Benjamin decided that it did not go far
enough. Benjamin envisioned a conception of language that is non-hierarchical
in a more radical sense, and it was Heidegger’s thesis that motivated him to arti-
culate this conception in a philological rather than ontological context.

From Scholastic Analogy to Baroque Allegory

in their works from the late 1910s and early 1920s, Benjamin and Heidegger turned
to the lifeworld of the late Middle ages and the Baroque to question the basic
principles of modern epistemology. for both of them, language was the realm in
which they looked for other, more immersive and less dualistic conceptions of
order and relationality. in the scotus-Erfurt book, Heidegger presented a concept
of language capable of providing a grammar for pure logic, but the book also con-
tained a subversive gesture that Benjamin did not fail to notice. this gesture resided
not in the expositions of scotus and erfurt, but in Heidegger’s comments on the
medieval notion of analogy that frame these expositions.
10 ThE GERMAN QuARTERly Winter 2022
“die natürliche Umwelt,” Heidegger writes in the scotus-Erfurt book, “und für
den mittelalterlichen Menschen zugleich auch die ihm ebenso beständig und ein-
dringlich bewußte übersinnliche Welt ist […] durchherrscht von der Analogie” (GA
1: 255). in a manner comparable to Michel foucault’s description of the “third
form of similitude” in The Order of Things (23–26), Heidegger examines analogy’s
“Ordnungscharakter”—its way of organizing and structuring reality. He distin-
guishes between two kinds of analogy. the first is the application of the meaning
of a word to different aspects of reality. His example is the word “principium,”
which is used analogically to designate reason (Grund) in a logical sense and cause
(ursache) in an empirical sense. the second kind of analogy that Heidegger men-
tions is the application of a word’s meaning to an object that bears a certain simi-
larity to the object that is originally signified by this meaning (GA 1: 256).
importantly, the similarity does not exist between the objects themselves, but be-
tween the meaning of the words in their function of signifying these objects. How-
ever, neither of these understandings of analogy, Heidegger continues, sufficiently
describe the categorical structure of reality examined by the scholastics.
the kind of analogy that permeates medieval reality, he contends, is attributive
(per attributionem), which means that what is related analogically stands in a “Be-
ziehung der Zusammengehörigkeit” and is neither totally different, nor entirely
the same (GA 1: 257). this understanding of analogy goes back to thomas aqui-
nas, who introduced the predicate “analogic” in response to the question of wheth-
er or not the word “being” has the same meaning when it is predicated of God or
of finite things. if the answer is yes, God’s radical otherness is undermined, which
leads to pantheism or atheism; if the answer is no, rational discourse about God
is impossible, resulting in agnosticism or negative theology (Kohlenbach 31–32).
aquinas invoked analogy to reconcile opposing theological views, arguing that
although both God and finite things exist, only God’s essence is his existence,
while finite objects and creatures have existence due to their gradual participation
in God’s perfect and undivided being (Mondin 2–3).
following a similar impulse, Heidegger interprets the notion of analogy in
light of rickert’s philosophy of value. in analogy, Heidegger writes, “alles und
jedes hat reale Wirklichkeit” (GA 1: 260). nature does not exist as God does, but
has existence through its participation in God, which is why the different domains
of natural and historical reality are not real to the same degree, but have a different
“Wertigkeit” (261).8 “Und gerade der in der analogie gründende stufencharakter
der realen Wirklichkeit,” Heidegger argues, “soll die Probleme, die sich jedem
dualismus stellen, überwinden, ohne in einen unmöglichen Monismus zurück-
zusinken” (263). Heidegger discerns in medieval linguistics a way to overcome
the foundational dualism of transcendental philosophy without conflating the
realms of being and intellect. Husserl employed related figures of gradation such
as “abschattung” in his phenomenological analyses, but the principle of inten-
tionality continued to rely on the epistemological dualism of intention and in-
tended object. in this respect, Heidegger’s engagement with the scholastics made
 JOhANNßEN: Benjamin and heidegger 11
him aware of the epistemological commitments of Husserl’s phenomenology that
he seeks to overcome in sein und Zeit.
On Benjamin’s end, Heidegger’s thesis not only strengthened his awareness of
phenomenology’s limitations, but also demoted scholastic analogies as a potential
route to challenge them. not only was this path academically well-trodden, but it
also remained in all-too familiar philosophical regions. subsequently, Benjamin de-
cided to avoid the notion of analogy, which continued to rely on a continuous scale
of resemblance, and to look for less hierarchical alternatives in the realms of litera-
ture and rhetoric. instead of engaging more deeply with medieval speculative gram-
mar, he integrated G.W. leibniz’s Monadologie to interpret the allegorical form of
Baroque mourning plays (GS 1: 227–28; Briefe 2: 393; schwebel 589–610; de roche
47–116). after Heidegger explored scholastic analogies to immanently challenge
psychologism, Benjamin pursued the path of philology to question more funda-
mentally language’s usability as a supplement of epistemology.
What are the implications of Benjamin’s shift from analogy to allegory? in
Heidegger’s interpretation of duns scotus, analogy allows for a gradual scale
from truth to falsehood. from God’s absolute being downwards, reality becomes
more and more analogical. this comes quite close to what Benjamin, in his re-
flections on language from 1916, describes as “die abstufung alles geistigen wie
sprachlichen Wesen nach existenzgraden oder nach seinsgraden, wie sie bezüg-
lich der geistigen schon die scholastik gewohnt war” (GS 2: 146). this gradual
differentiation from the mute language of things up to the highest spheres of
pure language shows the extent to which Benjamin’s early theory of language was
informed by scholastic analogies (Kohlenbach 34; roberts 8).
in “die aufgabe des Übersetzers” (1921), written shortly after his engagement
with Heidegger’s book, Benjamin’s focus shifted. “Wenn in der Übersetzung die
verwandtschaft der sprachen sich bekundet,” he writes, “so geschieht es anders
als durch die vage Ähnlichkeit von nachbildung und Original” (GS 4: 13). Ben-
jamin began to look for alternative conceptions of relationality that were not based
on the idea of a gradual, analogical continuum. already in “analogie und ver-
wandtschaft,” a fragment from 1919, he distinguished between analogy and kin-
ship, calling their confusion “eine totale Perversion” (GS 6: 44). eventually,
Benjamin found another, less hierarchical kind of relationship in the literary trope
of allegory. in his new habilitation project, which was shamefully terminated by
the University of frankfurt in 1925 (eiland and jennings 231–34), he attempted
to correct the image of allegory as a weaker sibling of the aesthetic symbol. He
interpreted allegory as the artistic procedure of intimating the meaning of a con-
cept by gathering multiple signifiers with related meaning, emphasizing its de-
centering and de-totalizing effects. compared to the continuity of analogy, allegory
engenders a less stringent, more artistic and paratactic mode of subverting the
principle of intentionality (Haverkamp and Menke 72, 75, 94–95; lindner 62).
the medieval concept of intentionality (intentio)––the idea that consciousness
is always consciousness of something––links the problem of signification to
12 ThE GERMAN QuARTERly Winter 2022
modern logics and linguistics as well as to the field of aesthetics. intentional con-
sciousness resembles the literary symbol, in which the idea appears fully and im-
mediately. analogy diffuses intentionality’s exclusive and possessive relation to
truth by means of gradation. the intended meaning is neither fully matched nor
entirely missed. allegory further disperses and ultimately interrupts the directed-
ness of noetic intention, slapping it, as Benjamin writes, in the face (“schlägt sie
[…] vors Haupt”) (GS 1: 359). rather than resembling a concept more or less
closely on a vertical scale, allegory hints at it due to an open-ended interrelation
of similarities.
the similarity between allegory and its concept does not reside in the gradual
participation of finite signifiers in absolute meaning. the elements of allegory
are related in a non-hierarchical and discontinuous manner, similar to leibniz’s
description of the innumerable perspectives from which one and the same city
can be seen (23). in allegory, Benjamin suggests, the theological integrity of ab-
solute meaning is dissolved and ultimately extinguished: “der falsche schein der
totalität geht aus” (GS 1: 352). Unlike the late Middle ages, the Baroque life-
world was, in Benjamin’s reading, devoid of theological transcendence, which led
him to trace the residues of hope in the realm of historical immanence (lindner
55–56). in Baroque allegory, Benjamin found a literary form that destabilized in-
tentionality more powerfully than scholastic analogies, and it was Heidegger’s
thesis that led him to this discovery.
Heidegger’s presentation of speculative grammar adheres to the image of
language as an instrument of logic, leaving it with the second-order task of articu-
lating structures of meaning that exist prior to and independently of their articu-
lation. concerned with the objective validity of categories, Heidegger’s early
conception cannot accommodate language’s autonomy and self-reliance (schwep-
penhäuser 30–31). due to this limitation, Heidegger’s thesis prompted Benjamin
to re-articulate in aesthetic and philological terms the more radically non-
instrumental understanding of language that he formulated in 1916, and that
Heidegger will only approximate in his writings after 1945.

Conclusions
Between 1914 and 1921, both Benjamin and Heidegger engaged with the onto-
logy and speculative grammar of duns scotus and thomas of erfurt. their si-
multaneous engagement reveals two related attempts to break out of the
paradigms of neo-Kantianism and phenomenology with the help of pre-modern
conceptions of language and relationality. in the scotus-Erfurt book, Heidegger
argues for the usability of speculative grammar to counter psychologism with
pure logic. in framing his argument, he presents scholastic analogies as a way to
fundamentally question the relationship between language, knowledge, and being.
in 1916, Benjamin also referenced scholastic analogies while formulating a
radically non-instrumental and anti-anthropocentric view of language. after
 JOhANNßEN: Benjamin and heidegger 13
completing his dissertation on the German romantics, he considered writing a
habilitation project on the relation between language and logic, which led him
to read Heidegger’s scotus-Erfurt book. after initially denying its achievements,
he soon changed not only his estimation of the book, but also the direction of
his own critical project. this vital turning point is documented in the fragment
“Wenn nach der theorie des duns scotus,” which entails a direct response to
Heidegger’s interpretation of thomas of erfurt’s “de modis significandi.”
in the fragment, Benjamin points out a circle that appears in the Modists’
theory of language from the point of view of modern epistemology, namely, that
the signifier is at once based on and points to what is signified. He proposes a
solution, relying on his understanding of language as a “critical medium.” How-
ever, this solution reveals to Benjamin a broader misconception of language’s non-
signifying dimensions. after realizing the limitations of challenging intentionality
based on scholastic speculative grammar, Benjamin acknowledged Heidegger’s
contribution and changed the topic of his own habilitation project to focus not
on scholastic analogies, but on the allegorical form of Baroque mourning plays.
in the resulting work, ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels, Benjamin proposed
a rehabilitation of allegory as a non-hierarchical mode of meaning. the book is
an intervention in Baroque literary scholarship and the philosophy of language
as well as a response to the artistic tendencies of his time, as Benjamin’s comments
on the links between allegory and expressionism demonstrate (GS 1: 234–36).
Unlike the artistic symbol, which allows theological immediacy to survive within
modern aesthetics, allegory marks the gaps between being and signification, mir-
roring the ruptures between culture and politics during the Weimar republic. in
their radical worldliness, Baroque mourning plays stage language’s immanence
of meaning and unstable referentiality. analogy approaches being gradually and
continuously; allegory assembles inconclusive webs of signifiers to perform the
unavailability of being for intentional consciousness (ferber, Philosophy and
Melancholy 86–87).
the similarities between Benjamin’s and Heidegger’s views of language as a
sphere of immanent correspondence tie them together as “[z]wei gegen alle” (seel
68). However, the shape and extent of their non-instrumental conceptions differ
significantly. in Heidegger’s scotus-Erfurt book, language articulates pre-existing
logical structures. in sein und Zeit, published eleven years later, the idea that
dasein’s understanding of being is based on “stimmung” entails a less instrumen-
tal view. However, dasein’s interpretation of empirical reality remains a privileged
path to the understanding of being. not unlike Benjamin’s Trauerspielbuch, sein
und Zeit seeks to undercut modern epistemology, but instead of theorizing poli-
tical art, Heidegger offers a route to a more authentic form of existence, which
ultimately entails a goal-oriented understanding of language and interpretation.
in his essays from the late 1940s and 1950s, Heidegger sought to reduce
language’s instrumental and authoritative character further by severing dasein’s
hermeneutic ties (thomä 137; riedel 167, 170–71). although he emphasizes
14 ThE GERMAN QuARTERly Winter 2022
that being comes to the fore, not through intentional acts of interpretation, but by
listen-ing to its immanent history in human language, this listening nevertheless
continues to serve the purpose of finding a more authentic relation to being,
unimpaired by the alienating effects of modern science and technology (seel 77).
throughout Benjamin’s works, in contrast, language is not primarily a means
of communication and signification, but a medium that allows beings to appear
and share their experience in their own ways. this sharing is not a making available
of information or directives, but a form of “Mitteilung,” or sharing-with, that can-
not be asked for or otherwise solicited. the task of human languages with respect
to non-human beings and environments is to prepare the circumstances for per-
ceptions and memories to be shared, heard, and translated.9 Only as a kind of lin-
guistic maieutic, a philological practice of allowing being to appear in its own way,
can language constitute “eine in dem Grade gewaltlose sphäre menschlicher Über-
einkunft […], daß sie der Gewalt vollständig unzugänglich ist” (GS 2: 192). sig-
nification, and the grammar that facilitates it, is but one aspect of human language,
though a powerful one that carries a considerable amount of responsibility.
language as such does not communicate anything, but rather allows beings to share
and present their histories, from the speechless mourning of natural environments
to the sounding and naming languages of animal and human communities.

Notes

1
scholarly interest in the intersections of Heidegger’s and Benjamin’s lives and works
has focused on the larger comparison of their thought and biographies (van reijen; Knoche);
their writings on time and history (caygill; fynsk; Hamacher “jetzt”; lienkamp); art and
technology (comay); their interpretations of Hölderlin (lemke); and the links between
language, thought, and the architectural metaphors in their writings (richter 59–100;
ronell). More recently, the philosophical contexts of their projects have received closer at-
tention (Benjamin/vardoulakis; sahraoui). Benjamin’s letters (Briefe 1: 344; 2: 76, 108, 127;
3: 503, 522; 4: 19; 5: 110; 6: 138) and Passagen-Werk materials (GS 5: 577–78, 590, 676) con-
tain various comments on Heidegger and his works. Heidegger mentioned Benjamin in a
letter to Hannah arendt from august 1967 (155–56), written after he attended a lecture
she gave in freiburg with the title “Walter Benjamin.” although the invocation is brief,
Heidegger’s letter may indicate a deeper familiarity with Benjamin’s writings than his
published work suggests. Please note that references to Benjamin’s Gesammelte schriften are
abbreviated GS; references to Heidegger’s Gesamtausgabe are abbreviated GA. i would like
to thank the reviewers of this article for their helpful comments and suggestions.
2
Hamacher suggests that “[e]ine ausführliche darstellung von Benjamins zwischen
faszination und abscheu oszillierendem verhältnis zu Heidegger, das bei seiner Beschäfti-
gung mit dessen Habilitationsschrift über die Kategorien- und Bedeutungslehre des duns
scotus zu beginnen hätte, könnte tiefer in die Probleme beider Werke hineinführen, als
die Bewunderer des einen und die verächter des andern wahrhaben wollen” (“jetzt” 168n5).
While Hamacher does not detail the chronology of Benjamin’s engagement with Heid-
egger’s works, he underlines the importance of Heidegger’s thesis for a thorough under-
standing of their philosophical projects.
 JOhANNßEN: Benjamin and heidegger 15
3
By the mid-1920s, Heidegger’s concept of “sorge” in sein und Zeit (GA 2: 254–61)
and Benjamin’s notion of truth as “intentionsloses sein” in ursprung des deutschen Trauer-
spiels (GS 1: 216) represent their challenges to Husserl’s idea of intentionality. see ferber,
“stimmung: Heidegger and Benjamin” 70, 78.
4
Hermann schweppenhäuser, Benjamin’s editor and interpreter, who dated this frag-
ment together with rolf tiedemann, completed his dissertation, studien über die heideg-
gersche sprachtheorie (1988), in the winter of 1955–56 under the supervision of theodor
W. adorno.
5
Benjamin’s response echoes novalis’s “Monolog”: “Gerade das eigenthümliche der
sprache, daß sie sich blos um sich selbst bekümmert, weiß keiner” (672). decades later,
Heidegger also refers to novalis’s “Monolog” at the beginning of his essay “der Weg zur
sprache” (1959), one of his most explicit engagements with the question of language (GA
12: 229).
6
the search for alternatives to causal determination in the realm of language raises
larger questions regarding Benjamin’s and Heidegger’s interpretations of transcendental
philosophy and neo-Kantianism, especially their reception of Kant’s distinctions between
natural causation and free will and aesthetic and teleological judgment. the importance
of these questions for Benjamin is clear in his letter to Martin Buber from 17 july 1916:
“es ist eine weit verbreitete […] Meinung daß das schrifttum die sittliche Welt und das
Handeln der Menschen beeinflußen können [sic] […]. es ist das charakteristische dieser
ansicht daß sie eine Beziehung der sprache zur tat in der nicht die erste Mittel der zwei-
ten wäre überhaupt garnicht in Betracht zieht” (Briefe 1: 326).
7
Hamacher emphasizes the importance of fulfillment and fulfilled time for both Ben-
jamin and Heidegger, referring to Kierkegaard and st. Paul as common inspirations (“jetzt”
168n5). see also Heidbrink 1224–28 and demmerling 363.
8
nietzsche articulated the potential of analogy as an aesthetic challenge to modern
epistemology: “ja, was zwingt uns überhaupt zur annahme, dass es einen wesenhaften
Gegensatz von ‚wahr‘ und ‚falsch‘ giebt? Genügt es nicht, stufen der scheinbarkeit anzu-
nehmen und gleichsam hellere und dunklere schatten und Gesammttöne des scheins, –
verschiedene valeurs, um die sprache der Maler zu reden?” (54).
9
in Benjamin’s theses “Über den Begriff der Geschichte” (1940), the task of the historical
materialist is to rescue revolutionary potentials from the debris of history, guided by a
“schwache messianische Kraft,” which suggests a political purposiveness that is not easily
reconciled with his early critique of linguistic instrumentality (GS 1: 694). due to its de-
centering of human history and its non-hierarchical concept of time, however, Benjamin’s
late historiography continues to be informed by a kind of non-instrumental purposiveness.

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