关键词: 本雅明, 守护神, 生存伦理, 行动, 品性

Abstract: Benjamin's ethics and political philosophy are often labeled as “nihilism”, but around the 1920s, Benjamin conceived the ethics of “happiness” in worldly existence in his drama studies. This article attempts to show that the daimon in ancient Greek thought has two opposite aspects in Benjamin's context: the fearsome dämonisch fate or the genius of liberty. German poetics has been deeply trapped in the entanglement of those two, and Goethe himself and his works are emblematic of this entanglement. For Benjamin, the order of priority of character and action in drama distinguishes those two: “Dämon” exists in classical tragedies and Christian fate dramas where action takes priority, in which life falls into the misfortune of retribution; “Genius” exists in the French classical comedy and Spanish baroque comedia where character takes priority, in which life returns to the fortune of spiritual life by contemplation. The differences between French comedy and Spanish comedia may partly explain why Benjamin abandoned the study of drama.

Key words: Walter Benjamin, daimon, living ethics, action, character