Koncepcja idei językowych we wczesnej filozofii Waltera Benjamina

This article deals with the conception of lingual ideas found in Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels by Walter Benjamin. My interpretation of the conception is based on the belief that the early philosophy of Benjamin could be fully understood only in the light of the conception of mimesis developed in his later works. In the philosophical introduction to the work Benjamin describes the essence of language, adducing to cabbalistic explanation of the logos of Eden. The deep layer of language hides the primal structure, which implicitly determines all the lingual constructs of the so-called “superficial layer of language”. “Idea” originates on the junction of the two layers joining universal as well as historic aspect of language. As a monad it refers to a specific, historic form of language, and as a symbol it refers to the hidden ground of speech. The interpretation presented in this article is an attempt to withdraw the speculative character from Benjamin’s conception. The paradisical language is interpreted as a metaphor of the mimetic faculty, and “idea” as a lingual construct, which is a result of the conflict of two functions of language – the representational and expressive function.