카이로스적 시간의 갱신: 벤야민과 카푸토의 약한 카이로스

초록

This study reconstructs kairos, traditionally understood as a decisive moment of divine intervention, from the perspective of weakness by comparing Walter Benjamin’s now-time (Jetztzeit) with John D. Caputo’s thought of the event and the to-come. For Benjamin, now-time interrupts homogeneous and empty historical continuity and allows the claims of the oppressed past to reach the present. The weak messianic power entrusted to the present generation neither fully restores the past nor guarantees redemption; rather, it enables the present to seize endangered images of the past and respond to their claims. This study interprets such remembrance (Eingedenken) as commemoration. For Caputo, the event does not present itself as an existent entity but insists and comes within names and institutions, calling for responses of forgiveness, hospitality, and justice. Yet the weak force of the event neither causally produces its effects nor compels a response. Accordingly, this study defines weak kairos as a non-sovereign temporality in which the unfulfilled claims of the past and the arrival of an as-yet-undetermined event interrupt the self-enclosure of the present without guaranteeing the outcome or fulfillment of that interruption.

키워드