Volume 60, Issue 2, Spring 2016
Peter Fenves
Pages 537-543
Benjamin, Einstein, Nietzsche
Some Remarks on the Conclusion to The Republic of the Living
The brief paper discusses the final sections of Miguel Vatter’s with particular attention to its use of popular science. Taking its point of departure from Vatter’s contention that Benjamin’s image of two counteracting forces in the so-called “Theological-Political Fragment” refers to Einstein’s inclusion of a cosmological constant in the equations of general relativity, the paper shows that this suggestion, while intriguing, is improbable. By contrasting Benjamin’s and Nietzsche’s use of popular science with Vatter’s, the paper concludes by asking whether the proposed concept of eternal life is as compatible with “the most rigorous materialism” as Vatter contends.