Towards a Benjaminian Critique of Hermann Cohen’s Logical Idealism

This article aims to examine the relationship between Walter Benjamin and neo-Kantianism, particularly Herman Cohen’s logical idealism. I divide the article into two major sections: first, I examine the development of Cohen’s philosophy and its relationship to Hermann von Helmholtz and Friedrich Albert Lange’s early neo-Kantianism; second, I examine Benjamin’s critique of Cohen. I focus specifically on two of Benjamin’s early philosophical works — the fragment “On Perception” and the text “On the Program of the Coming Philosophy”. Further, I aim to show how Benjamin attempts to disentangle neo-Kantianism from Kant’s own philosophy. In doing so, Benjamin points to an alternative from within the tradition of Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy