Abstract

In his 1927 essay “Die Photographie,” Siegfried Kracauer attributes to photography the ability to intervene in the dialectic, as old as history itself, between nature and thought. Paradoxically, precisely because photography can only reproduce meaningless fragments of the visible world in its attempt to offer a total, gapless coverage of reality, its failure can render the process of signification visible. This wager might suggest a course out of the perpetual relapse into myth that has attended human thought since it first began to free itself from nature. Yet what image of nature allows Kracauer to make such a claim for photography in the first place? To answer this question, this article turns to Kracauer’s often-overlooked citation of Bachofen, in order to identify an uneasy co-presence in Kracauer’s essay of two entwined historical narratives concerning the relationship between freedom and necessity: one is a universalizing, civilizational narrative about humankind’s development from mythic ensnarement in blind nature towards rationality; the other is more specific to capitalism as a particular social arrangement. Thinking about the coincidence of these two narratives can reveal the generative tensions within Kracauer’s essay, tensions that themselves index an important moment in the development of Critical Theory in the 1920s.

摘要

齐格弗里德·克拉考尔 (Siegfried Kracauer) 在 1927 年的文章《摄影》中，将摄影的能力归因于介入自然与思想之间的辩证法，这种辩证法与历史本身一样古老。矛盾的是，正是因为摄影在试图提供对现实的全面、无间隙的覆盖时只能再现可见世界的无意义片段，所以它的失败可能会使意义过程变得可见。这一赌注可能表明，人类思想自从开始摆脱自然以来就一直陷入神话的永久回归中。然而，什么样的自然形象让克拉考尔首先对摄影提出了这样的要求呢？为了回答这个问题，本文转向克拉考尔经常被忽视的巴霍芬引用，为了确定克拉考尔的文章中关于自由与必然之间关系的两种相互交织的历史叙述的不安共存：一种是关于人类从盲目自然的神话陷阱走向理性的普遍化的文明叙述；另一种是关于人类从盲目自然的神话陷阱向理性发展的普遍性的文明叙述；另一个则更具体地将资本主义作为一种特定的社会安排。思考这两种叙述的巧合可以揭示克拉考尔文章中的生成张力，这种张力本身标志着 20 年代批判理论发展的一个重要时刻。关于人类从盲目自然的神话陷阱走向理性的文明叙事；另一个则更具体地将资本主义作为一种特定的社会安排。思考这两种叙述的巧合可以揭示克拉考尔文章中的生成张力，这种张力本身标志着 20 年代批判理论发展的一个重要时刻。关于人类从盲目自然的神话陷阱走向理性的文明叙事；另一个则更具体地将资本主义作为一种特定的社会安排。思考这两种叙述的巧合可以揭示克拉考尔文章中的生成张力，这种张力本身标志着 20 年代批判理论发展的一个重要时刻。