Abstract

VELEZ LOPEZ, Germán Darío. Walter Benjamin: dispersion and education in the contemporary era. Co-herencia [online]. 2015, vol.12, n.23, pp.205-220. ISSN 1794-5887.  https://doi.org/10.17230/co-herencia.12.23.2.

In this paper I would like to lay out some considerations concerning the concept of dispersion, aimed at the understanding of a decisive dynamic of contemporary life. As a lead, I will use Benjamin's approach relating to dispersion, extrapolating certain points that allow me to shed some light on present-day education. The idea of dispersion has a story that I would sketch in broad outline in order to distinguish the value-based attitudes raised by the phenomenon, and the difficulty of assigning a positive sense. I will refer to two representatives that I believe maintain profound relative significance and define the philosophical situation of dispersion in the Western tradition: Saint Augustine and Heidegger. From this outline it is possible to grasp the central problem of the ambiguity that accompanies the attitude towards dispersion and its historical correlate, the loss of aura, which can be expressed in the opposition between a liquidationist liberalism or an elegiac conservatism.

Keywords : Dispersion; aura; education; attention; contemplation; Benjamin; Heidegger; existence.

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