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A Reconsideration of Political Crisis and Professional conspirator- Focusing on Walter Benjamin's "Convolute V: Conspiracies, Compagnonnage"

  • 인문논총
  • 2025, 68(), pp.143~167
  • Publisher : Institute for Human studies, Kyungnam University
  • Research Area : Humanities > Other Humanities
  • Received : August 25, 2025
  • Accepted : October 7, 2025
  • Published : October 31, 2025

JUNE-SOUNG HONG 1

1부산대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

In a democracy, it is important for individual citizens to become political subjects in order to resolve social crises. One of the problems identified in this regard is Historical Stage Theory. This is because excessive theorization about the developmental processes necessary for growth under specific conditions or political subjects prevents consideration of the accidental and subtle cracks in history that deviate from this model. Therefore, departing from Stage Theory is an important political-philosophical task. Many researchers in the humanities have pointed out this problem, and Walter Benjamin's Historical Philosophy has been highlighted as a major contribution to this work. However, since previous studies have focused on “the concept of history,” specific examples of this have not been sufficiently emphasized. This research aims to highlight Benjamin's Political philosophical arguments by reconstructing "Convolute V: Conspiracies, Compagnonnage" in Passagen-werk. Here, Benjamin highlights the secret societies that were active in France during the July Monarchy of the 1830s, with Marx in mind. Marx treated these professional conspirators as Lumpenproletariat and regarded them as obstacles to revolution that needed to be eliminated. However, in Benjamin's view, these are political subjects that succeeded in resisting by strategizing things that deviated from the Stage-formula assumed by Marx. This research conducts interdisciplinary research to reconstruct “Convolute V”, which has rarely been explained until now, and provides an explanation of political-philosophical thinking beyond the Stage-based model.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2024 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.