Theses on the Philosophy of Survival

Abstract

Beginning with Walter Benjamin's famous essay, "Theses on the Philosophy of History," this paper unfolds a supplementary set of theses on the genealogy of a different concept (survival) and different figure (the survivor). Benjamin's distinction between the "victor" and the "angel" serves as a binary framework for an understanding of the philosophical legacy of survival in the twentieth century-as it runs through the philosophy of history and across a tradition that continually imagines the survivor as historian. The paper traces this narrative through selected readings in the writings of major figures, from Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Blanchot to Hannah Arendt and W.G. Sebald. The question throughout is whether the survivor-historian writes the history of the ruling class or the history of the defeated. The paper concludes by offering some reflections on the ramifications of this genealogy of survival for recent debates about the legacy and ongoing practices of settler colonialism.