Notes on Justice in the Thought of Walter Benjamin

Abstract

https://doi.org/10.1590/2179-8966/2025/87108

Based on the works Notes Toward a Study of the Category of Justice (1916) and Critique of Violence (1921), Benjamin offers us, in addition to a sharp critique of legal structures, an original conception of justice as a demand for the inappropriable. In an effort to present some notes on the subject, we investigate, in Section 1, Benjamin's critiques of law, with an emphasis on his more elaborate studies on the problem of mythical-legal violence. In Section 2, we delve into the analysis of the concepts present in the Notes, highlighting their points of convergence and divergence in relation to Kantian doctrine, especially regarding the notion of possession/property. The aim is to demonstrate how Benjamin constructs a radical critique of law, leaving behind traces of a justice that manifests in immanence as a state of the world.