Page 160 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 160
from walter benjamin to the end of cinema
Identity with a Difference
It would probably be an almost impossible task today to classify all mean-
ings and uses of the notions of identity, especially considering all the con-
troversies and contributions of the many broad debates within the con-
text of post-modernity. Likewise, within the more practical realm of social
events, different perceptions of identity, and the uncontrollable interplay of
all symbolic signifiers that have come with them, indicate sometimes grave
conflicts, especially with regard to an ethnic identity. However, let us be re-
minded that identity as a concept has its relevance in philosophy. We can,
without any hesitation, assert that throughout the whole history of philoso-
phy – not excluding most of the “non-western” reflections which could be, in
fact, compared to the Western philosophy – the notion of identity in many
different articulations and different discursive contexts has played differ-
ent roles: sometimes it was more a role of a central concept and sometimes
it was just a “technicality”. But the question of identity, which contained in
itself the anticipation and difficulties of a vast number of formulations of
the concept, has been seriously posed, of course, after the formulation of
the Descartes’ idea of subjectivity in its relation to knowledge. Later after
the French revolution, Fichte building upon the complex system of Kant‘s
philosophy, contributed his emphasis on the meaning of identity, which
filled the concept with those signifiers that opened the way to a new de-
velopment of concepts, most notably, the notions of culture and freedom
in relation to identity (Fichte, 1977). Hegel‘s criticism of Fichte, especial-
ly in his early work concerning the difference between Fichte and Schell-
ing, served as a way of appropriating Fichte’s dialectics of Subject in what
had been about to become Hegel’s philosophical system. But simultaneous-
ly Hegel’s critique in a paradigmatic sense cleared up a look on Fichte’s po-
sitioning of the concept of identity in his construction of the Subject as the
I (das Ich): “The foundation of Fichte’s system is the intellectual scrutiny of
oneself, pure self-consciousness I = I, I am; the absolute is subject-object
and the I is the identity of Subject and object” (Hegel, 1970: p. 52). In view
of Hegel’s harsh criticism, Fichte actually failed on all accounts. In a very
brief summation of Hegel’s criticism of Fichte we can acknowledge that
Hegel found that Fichte’s system “was not the system” because identity was
only “formal”. On the bases of his observation of the Fichte’s idea of iden-
tity as it is posited simultaneously with the difference (since the “formula”
A=A introduces the difference in what should be inherently undifferenti-
ated) and it is therefore opened towards the “weak infinity”, Hegel denies
158
Identity with a Difference
It would probably be an almost impossible task today to classify all mean-
ings and uses of the notions of identity, especially considering all the con-
troversies and contributions of the many broad debates within the con-
text of post-modernity. Likewise, within the more practical realm of social
events, different perceptions of identity, and the uncontrollable interplay of
all symbolic signifiers that have come with them, indicate sometimes grave
conflicts, especially with regard to an ethnic identity. However, let us be re-
minded that identity as a concept has its relevance in philosophy. We can,
without any hesitation, assert that throughout the whole history of philoso-
phy – not excluding most of the “non-western” reflections which could be, in
fact, compared to the Western philosophy – the notion of identity in many
different articulations and different discursive contexts has played differ-
ent roles: sometimes it was more a role of a central concept and sometimes
it was just a “technicality”. But the question of identity, which contained in
itself the anticipation and difficulties of a vast number of formulations of
the concept, has been seriously posed, of course, after the formulation of
the Descartes’ idea of subjectivity in its relation to knowledge. Later after
the French revolution, Fichte building upon the complex system of Kant‘s
philosophy, contributed his emphasis on the meaning of identity, which
filled the concept with those signifiers that opened the way to a new de-
velopment of concepts, most notably, the notions of culture and freedom
in relation to identity (Fichte, 1977). Hegel‘s criticism of Fichte, especial-
ly in his early work concerning the difference between Fichte and Schell-
ing, served as a way of appropriating Fichte’s dialectics of Subject in what
had been about to become Hegel’s philosophical system. But simultaneous-
ly Hegel’s critique in a paradigmatic sense cleared up a look on Fichte’s po-
sitioning of the concept of identity in his construction of the Subject as the
I (das Ich): “The foundation of Fichte’s system is the intellectual scrutiny of
oneself, pure self-consciousness I = I, I am; the absolute is subject-object
and the I is the identity of Subject and object” (Hegel, 1970: p. 52). In view
of Hegel’s harsh criticism, Fichte actually failed on all accounts. In a very
brief summation of Hegel’s criticism of Fichte we can acknowledge that
Hegel found that Fichte’s system “was not the system” because identity was
only “formal”. On the bases of his observation of the Fichte’s idea of iden-
tity as it is posited simultaneously with the difference (since the “formula”
A=A introduces the difference in what should be inherently undifferenti-
ated) and it is therefore opened towards the “weak infinity”, Hegel denies
158
