For Benjamin, completed criticism dissolves individual works into a dazzled idea

Evidence

Reducing the false, mistaken totality' of the work to the status of an unfinished piece, absolutization could rescue it, in its incomparability and uniqueness, as a fragment of the true world’. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 354 (#expands, via linked claim)

One step towards the carrying out of this programme was Benjamin’s dissertation for his doctorate in Berne in 1919, The Concept of Art Criticism in German Romanticism. The subject of this studythe concept of art criticismwas presented as the model of a higher form of experience, one which was capable of sober reflection. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 345 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Benjamin’s criticism redeemed flawed works by treating them as fragments of truth — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 354; Adorno criticized Benjamin for dissolving the subject into objective processes. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 268; Benjamin’s 1919 dissertation made art criticism a model of higher experience — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 345 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Benjamin’s criticism redeemed flawed works by treating them as fragments of truth #expands (0.82) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 354
• Benjamin’s 1919 dissertation made art criticism a model of higher experience #expands (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 345
• A critic’s flawed work can still catalyze clarifying one’s own thinking. #expands (0.75)
• Adorno criticized Benjamin for dissolving the subject into objective processes. #complicates (0.74) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 268