The Legitimacy of the Modern Age (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought) [Paperback]

Hans Blumenberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 21, 1985 | Series: Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought

In this book, Hans Blumenberg disputes the view that the modern idea of progress represents a secularization of religious belief in some divine intervention (the coming of the Messiah, the end of the world) which consummates human history from outside. Drawing from sources ranging from Aristotle and Augustine to Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, and Kuhn - with an impressive number of stops between - he argues that progress always implies a process at work within history, a process that ultimately expresses human choices, human self-assertion, and man's responsibility for his own fate.Hans Blumenberg has been associated with Kiel University in Hamburg since 1947. The book is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A great sweeping history of the course of European thought, built on the Hegel-Heidegger scale.... " Richard Rorty , The London Review of Books

"It has been left for Blumenberg to write a major treatise on the metaphysical tradition which unites intellectual history with critical dissection of the concept of 'secularization': a concept that has served two generations of writers in their efforts to make sense of the modern world. "What Blumenberg has done, to put it briefly, is to describe the disintegration of the medieval world-view as a consequence of latent contradictions already present in the scholastic tradition: ultimately in the synthesis of early Christianity and neo-Platonism inherited by the European middle ages. However, this formulation supplies only the feeblest sort of pointer to the importance of a work whose author is no mere historian but an original thinker in his own right, equipped with the sort of synthesizing faculty which was the pride of German scholarship in its great age." The Times Literary Supplement

"Modern science buried centuries of theological controversy. Hans Blumenberg has unearthed these controversies again, rethinking the dilemmas and dead ends of Christian dogma that provided the intellectual provocations for the scientific revolution.... But Blumenberg has not merely written a scholarly, nuanced, and illuminating study of the religious background to modern science. He has also written a philosophical book, a combative response to the dim Romantic suggestion more common in Germany than America, that the modern age 'as a whole' is somehow illegitimate." Stephen Holmes , The American Political Science Review

Language Notes

Text: English, German (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 728 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (October 21, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262521059
• ISBN-13: 978-0262521055
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #160,122 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the medieval origin of the modern age, June 15, 2001

By 

Saul Boulschett "Anyway" (Dry land) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Legitimacy of the Modern Age (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought) (Paperback)

The issue concerning the legitimacy of the modern age was more pressing for the Europeans than for the Americans, largely because of the latter's historic distancing from Catholicism and the tradition of scholarship funded by the catholic church. Thus for the American reader the very notion that the modern age may be "illegitimate" somehow may ring hollow, if not outright absurd. This book defends the status of the modern age against any suggestion that somehow it may be an aberration, a condition gone awry. The modern age, in all its seeming anti-religious tendencies fueled especially by the scientific drive for the truth, is the 'legitimate' heir to the tradition of taking literally to heart,"Ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free". This book focuses on the philosophical foundations of Medieval theology and Nominalism that paved the way for secularization in the modern age. Blumenberg, with his astonishing scholarship and intellectual prowess makes it clear that, intentionally or not, much of what passed for pious and official christian theology during the middle ages actually had very little to do with "religion" per se (Christ's ethical teaching), and everything to do with Greek philosophy, especially Aristotle's, under the guise of church dogma. In serving theology, attributes of God in His omnipotence and omniscience were framed around the notion of absolutes, leading to unresolvable contradictions and paradoxes. For example, the idea that God should be omnipotent necessarily meant He ought to be capable of creating a rock so heavy that even He cound not lift it. This book is simply the most facinating and in-depth account of the strange doings of the Church Fathers in their relentless quest for the Truth. Blumenberg shows that it was ultimately the Church, in allowing astronomy as one of the topics to be studied, while forbidding others (curiosity itself was considered a sin, an 'extra-vagance', meaning, 'going outside the path'), provided the very possibility that led to secularization of the modern age. According to the author, the Church formulated its dogma primarily in response to and against Gnosticism, but failed in completely eradicating all the Gnostic elements, thus laying itself open to "infection" later on. The return of Gnosticism takes on the form of science, which makes a virtue of being clear about what it does not and cannot know, and questions the ground of any claim that arrogates omniscience. This work makes a compelling case for our age: For better or for worse, the fate of the modern age was decided a long time ago when the West became Christendom. ....

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Neglected masterpiece, August 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Legitimacy of the Modern Age (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought) (Paperback)

A masterpiece that defies summaries and labels. While MIT Press has, thankfully, translated four of Blumenberg's books, he is not "seeping" into the culture in spite of laudatory reviews by philosophers like Richard Rorty. This can't be because he's "difficult" (and he is difficult - an eloquent) - difficult writers like Derrida or Habermas have large (and largely academic) followings. Blumenberg rather resists "positions" around which flags can be planted, battle cries formulated. Amazingly empathetic, Blumenberg "thinks with" and through the Western philosophical tradition. His account of Late Medieval Nominalism as an irreparable rupture of Ancient and Christian cosmologies, presaging Descartes' "founding" of a distinctively modern epoch is worth the read - as is so much else. I can only hope Blumenberg's translator, Robert Wallace will bring us more from this author, who died in 1996.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Awful binding, December 19, 2010

By 

Sebastijan1982 - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Legitimacy of the Modern Age (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought) (Paperback)

The book itself is interesting and quite difficult. But the problem is with binding. Practically all the papers fell out. I will have to bind the book again. I can't believe they sell book with such an awful binding.