What role do metaphors play in philosophical language? Are they impediments to clear thinking that should be eradicated in the interests of terminological exactness? Or can they be used by philosophers to indicate the attitudes that regulate an epoch?

1. Artificial Intelligence is an ambiguous umbrella term. Until today there is no uniform definition of AI and the term carries several meanings. As exemplary, I will give two definitions of AI tha...

(2012). Blumenberg's ‘huge field’: Metaphorology and Intellectual History. Intellectual History Review: Vol. 22, No. 2, pp. 289-292. doi: 10.1080/17496977.2012.694177.

This study is concerned with Giordano Bruno’s ars memoriae and the relation between his works on mnemonics and philosophy in the first phase of his reflection (1582–1585). The hermeneutic hypothesis that will be explored is that it is Giordano Bruno’s De umbris idearum that first reveals his new elaboration of the notion of order, which will then be further unfolded in the philosophical works published in London, especially in the notions of nature, language, and praxis developed therein. The research statement (...) is explored into more detail on a methodological level, through a discussion of Hans Blumenberg’s interpretation of Giordano Bruno, and on an analytical level, through a metaphorological interpretation of the inward writing and the shadow metaphors in the De umbris idearum. (shrink)

ExcerptThe world has to wait. Martin Heidegger1 Thus we philosophize for the time being. Hans Blumenberg2“The war is over, we should go back to philosophy” was the sentiment expressed by Maurice Merleau-Ponty in one of the first issues of his and Jean-Paul Sartre's new journal Les Temps modernes in Paris, May 1945. Having escaped from a work camp, Hans Blumenberg could hardly have taken any notice of this thought, but he was certainly and decisively in agreement with Merleau-Ponty.3 Since then (...) we have become accustomed to Adorno's verdict that after Auschwitz, poetry is no longer…. (shrink)

This article seeks to examine Ricœur's reflection on metaphor through an intertextual reading. This reading relates The Rule of Metaphor (1975) with lines of thought developed in a series of lectures held at the Centre de recherches phénoménologiques in Paris, from 1973–1974, on the theme From Language to Image, and an essay which appeared in 1978, “The Metaphorical Process as Cognition, Imagination and Feeling”. This work starts with an analysis of Ricœur's interpretation of the Aristotelian theory of metaphor, a theory (...) which the French philosopher principally develops in The Rule of Metaphor. In the other two papers, Ricœur develops his metaphorology through a dialogue with Kant and he reformulates in linguistic terms the doctrine of productive imagination and transcendental schematism, which become the ontological sphere on which metaphorical and narrative activity are founded. Through the long journey of language, Ricœur's hermeneutics builds a bridge between Aristotle and Kant. This article examines this link to understand and explain further, also at the epistemological level, the relationship between metaphor and narrative. (shrink)

This study is concerned with Giordano Bruno's ars memoriae and the relation between his works on mnemonics and philosophy in the first phase of his reflection (1582-1585). The hermeneutic hypothesis that will be explored is that it is Giordano Bruno's De umbris idearum that first reveals his new elaboration of the notion of order, which will then be further unfolded in the philosophical works published in London, especially in the notions of nature, language, and praxis developed therein. The research statement (...) is explored into more detail on a methodological level, through a discussion of Hans Blumenberg's interpretation of Giordano Bruno, and on an analytical level, through a metaphorological interpretation of the inward writing and the shadow metaphors in the De umbris idearum. (shrink)

ExcerptA series of recent works have explored Hans Blumenberg's metaphorology in its relation to anthropology and the hermeneutics of the lifeworld.1 In what follows, I would like to foreground another aspect of his work by describing the metaphorology and the earlier works on the history of philosophy as works of discourse analysis. From such a perspective, linguistic forms appear less as the expression of anthropological and lifeworld circumstances than as the continuation and transformation of intra-discursive, historical-systematic decisions. I (...) suggest that the functional-anthropological and the discourse-analytical readings of Blumenberg supplement one another insofar as they each give weight to different…. (shrink)

Hans Blumenberg is celebrated for demonstrating that metaphors have had a more foundational influence than concepts on European intellectual history. Many acknowledge that his insights might have achieved even greater impact if he had articulated a more explicit theory of metaphor. In 1960 Blumenberg discusses the historical formation of metaphors that have given rise to meaningful discourses on metaphysical abstractions, like God, existence, or Being, but he does not develop a general model of metaphoric language, and his work rarely engages (...) with other contemporary theories of metaphor. During Blumenberg’s lifetime, French and German postwar philosophers rarely cited one another. Yet French hermeneutics, and the work of philosopher Paul Ricoeur in particular, may have strongly influenced Blumenberg’s research group, Poetik und Hermeneutik. This paper is an attempt to recuperate intellectual affinities between Blumenberg and Ricoeur, in order to demonstrate that Ricoeur’s claims about metaphor provide the theoretical background for a fuller appreciation of Blumenberg’s metaphor analyses. (shrink)

Ante la tarea diaria de mantener a flote una vida con sentido, ciertas comprensiones de la existencia como totalidad pueden ser más funcionales que otras. Todo depende de la metafórica de fondo que sostiene a esas comprensiones y de su rendimiento hermenéutico, esto es, de su capacidad para proveer sentido, ya sea como respuesta a las preguntas por la razón de ser de todo, ya sea como visiones que nos retan a actuar de una u otra forma. El propósito del (...) artículo es examinar el rendimiento hermenéutico de algunos tipos de comprensión de la existencia como totalidad que recurren a la metafórica de la navegación. Para ello se contrasta el examen que hace H. Blumenberg de la metáfora del “naufragio con espectador” como paradigma de la existencia, con una “metafórica de la navegación constante”, que le quita poder al recurso hermenéutico de las situaciones límite y el final de la existencia, para así aprender a valorar las tareas prosaicas que suelen hacer significativa la vida de los seres humanos. (shrink)

Philosophical anthropology emerges, partly at least, by dissatisfied and critical followers of Husserl’s phenomenology, such as Max Scheler and the young Martin Heidegger. They were dissatisfied with what they saw as a disregard of the concrete human being as an essential part of phenomenological analysis. They tried instead to claim that philosophy must search for, and anchor, its foundations exclusively in the human being, not as an abstract entity, but as an existential, concrete, physical being. In this specific philosophical, as (...) well as historical, context this paper suggests to locate Hans Blumenberg’s philosophical project by reconstructing his unique version of philosophical anthropology. The main aim of the paper is to describe and understand the way Blumenberg combines his theory of metaphors together with his anthropological considerations regarding the origin and emergence of human culture into his own version of philosophical anthropology. A version that can be seen as joining the original attempt of philosophical anthropology to overcome the deficiency in Husserl’s phenomenological project. (shrink)

This paper examines the Hans Blumeberg’s philosophical program: the metaphorology. My intention is to show the importance of Blumenberg’s ideas into the current debate on the relations between philosophy and metaphor.

This paper examines the Hans Blumeberg’s philosophical program: the metaphorology. My intention is to show the importance of Blumenberg’s ideas into the current debate on the relations between philosophy and metaphor.

Both the metaphorology of Hans Blumenberg and negative dialectics of Theodor W. Adorno recognized the value of the “nonconceptual” as an antidote to the tyranny of rational concepts imposed on a reality that was too diverse, contingent, and qualitatively unique to be subsumed under them. But whereas Blumenberg focused on metaphor and myth as rhetorical alternatives to concepts designed to deal with the incomprehensibility of “absolute reality,” Adorno understood nonconceptuality in terms of the material and corporeal limits to cultural (...) constructivism of any kind. He held out hope for a balance between the power of constitutive subjectivity and the resistance of the material world to its sway. (shrink)

How can metaphors account for the formation of mathematical concepts, for changes in mathematical practices, or for the handling of mathematical problems? Following Hans Blumenberg’s thought, this paper aims to unfold a possible answer to these questions by viewing the metaphorical frameworks accompanying these changes as essential for an understanding of how changes in mathematical practices have been accounted for. I will focus especially on cases in which these changes were caused by encounters with a mathematical object which did not (...) yet have a well-defined concept, but also show that such indeterminacy remains with the mathematical concept even after it is considered ‘well-defined’. As the paper will show, this ‘forefield’ [Vorfeld] of the concept is addressed by Blumenberg’s account of metaphorology on the one hand, and accompanied by his later account of nonconceptuality [Unbegrifflichkeit] on the other hand. While Blumenberg himself did not develop a full-fledged philosophy of mathematics or of mathematical practices, I aim to show that one can nevertheless extract from his writings a unique position concerning the role metaphors play in mathematics. To this end, Blumenberg’s account of nautical and oceanic metaphors and Alexandre Grothendieck’s philosophy of mathematical practice provide fruitful starting points. (shrink)

This paper aims to analyze the metaphorological project of Hans Blumenberg in relation to the philosophical developments of conceptual history in the mid-twentieth century. It is argued that Blumenberg, based on the study of metaphor, seeks to endow philosophy with a historical substrate that gives rise to the concept, forgotten by the inheritance of the cartesian philosophy. In this way, metaphors, but also myths and anecdotes, fulfill a pragmatic guiding function of thought and expe- rience, becoming indispensable for human life.

The political significance of metaphors has so far only rarely been made the subject of practical philosophy or, more specifically, of political philosophy. Although there are investigations of individual metaphors as political symbols and of the metaphorical dimension of particular aspects of politics, the politicity of metaphors as such and the political value and relevance of metaphorical language have not been much discussed. This special issue seeks to contribute to this understudied field by bringing together different approaches to a political (...) metaphorology, focusing on the function, effect, and criticism of metaphors. This introduction sets the scene. We will begin by examining in what sense metaphors are political and why it is important to develop a concept of politics that is aware of its metaphoricity. Second, and using the plethora of nautical metaphors as an example, we will show the extent to which even practical philosophy is permeated by metaphors. Finally, we will outline three different perspectives on the politicity of metaphors. A synopsis of the articles that follow rounds things off. (shrink)

How to Do Things with Metaphors: Reflections on the Role of Metaphors and Metaphor Theory for the History of Science Using the Example of Shock Metaphors in Medicine.In recent decades, metaphors have attracted a great deal of interest within the history, philosophy, and sociology of science. The article takes the growing interest in epistemic metaphors as the starting point of a discussion of two conflicting motives prevalent in theories of metaphor and metaphoricity: On the one hand, metaphors are associated with (...) the indeterminacy of scientific discovery and the emergence of new epistemic objects; and on the other hand, metaphors are said to provide a filter of possible meanings and vantage‐points. It is argued that an approach, which aims to do justice to both tendencies, cannot exclusively rely on linguistic models but must expand its scope of inquiry to include the practical trajectories of a metaphor’s usage as well as the problematizations to which they respond, since both engender metaphorical meaning, albeit at the cost of semantic precision. The exemplary case discussed in the article, the psychologization of nervous shock in nineteenth century medical discourse, demonstrates that the incremental process of shock’s shifting semantics would be inadequately characterized as a metaphorical transfer. Instead, it is shown how the actualization of earlier meanings, in particular of shock as a state of altered consciousness, in novel professional and cultural contexts acted as a catalyst for the psychologization of shock and related nascent concepts such as psychic trauma. As a possible, and methodologically fruitful way of overcoming the one‐sidedness of linguistic notions of metaphor, a combination of Jürgen Link’s concept of inter‐discourse with a philosophical metaphorology (Blumenberg) is discussed in the final section of the paper. (shrink)

“La ‘modernidad’ a través de la imagen de la comida y la digestión”. Ésta es la tarea y el programa de la genealogía fisiológica y psicológica identificada con claridad por Nietzsche en un fragmento del otoño de 1888 y firmemente perseguida en toda su obra. El diagnóstico es implacable y es posible por un uso extendido de la metáfora gastronómica, aplicada a todos los campos de la experiencia y el lenguaje por una escritura temeraria de la historia. Como Valéry y (...) Péguy también lo ilustran, la experiencia de los hombres contemporáneos es pobre y enferma y se caracteriza por una duplicidad radical y una contradicción sin síntesis. No sólo las cosas, como además lo muestra en sus análisis sobre las mercancías como nuevos jeroglíficos que marcan el espacio saturado de la metrópolis, sino también el hombre es doble, así como su corporizada y profundamente fisiológica economía. Su estómago hambriento tiene dos caras, porque todo lo toma pero no nutre en absoluto; vocifera acerca de entusiasmos varios y heterogéneos, no sobre un verdadero alimento para ser absorbido y transformado. En resumen, vive por un instante sin pasado ni futuro. El opuesto de esta lógica de la enfermedad y la insensibilidad en busca de muchas sensaciones y shocks sensacionales, y el reverso de este olvido por rapidez excesiva, es un ser anti- o incluso premoderno en extremo. En los tiempos modernos, el entrenamiento de un criticismo genuino acerca de los prejuicios y el supuesto auto-conocimiento implican una regresión y una alteración de las propias identidades históricas, las creencias y los valores. Finalmente, como Benjamin y Warburg lo revelaron, el criticismo es como tornarse otra vez animal y la interpretación es como recuperar la lentitud y la melancolía de un eterno masticar, al igual que un perro o una vaca. (shrink)

Ausgehend von einem Dialog zwischen Adorno und Blumenberg entwickelt die Studie ein eigenständiges Verfahren der philosophischen Sprachkritik. Durch die Konfrontation erarbeitet sie ein Sprachverständnis, das in der Auseinandersetzung mit der wissenschaftlichen Begriffs- und der gesellschaftlichen Sprachpraxis gründet. Einerseits wird die von der Sprachphilosophie bis heute oft abgewertete Rhetorik rehabilitiert. Das 'Unbegriffliche' erweist sich als unabdingbar für das Denken und Sprechen besonders für den Ausdruck des 'Nichtidentischen'. Andererseits wird die unbewusste Orientierungsfunktion von Metaphern problematisiert. Im Rückgriff auf Adornos Gesellschaftstheorie rekonfiguriert der (...) Autor Blumenbergs Metaphorologie als ein ideologiekritisches Verfahren, das an der Sprache abliest, was das Denken und Handeln anleitet. Die Arbeit wurde mit dem "Tiburtius-Preis der Berliner Hochschulen Anerkennungspreis für hervorragende Dissertationen" ausgezeichnet. Based on a dialogue between Adorno and Blumenberg, this book develops a highly original method of philosophical language criticism. By way of this contrasting juxtaposition, it elaborates an understanding of language that is grounded in the dispute between scientific conceptual and social linguistic practice. On the one hand, rhetoric, which has often been (and even today sometimes is) devalued by the philosophy of language, is being rehabilitated. The "non-conceptual" proves to be indispensable for thinking and speaking especially for the expression of the "non-identical". On the other hand, the unconscious workings of metaphors in orientation is expounded. Drawing on Adorno's social theory, the study reconfigures Blumenberg's metaphorology as an ideology-critical procedure that takes its cue from language in order to ascertain what guides thought and action. (shrink)

Hans Blumenberg has, in the quarter-century since his death, become recognized as one of the most important philosophers of the postwar period. The Readability of the World represents Blumenberg's first full-length demonstration of the metaphorological method he had pioneered twenty years earlier in Paradigms for a Metaphorology. Whereas Blumenberg had confined himself in Paradigms to sketching this future research field, in Readability he applies his method to a single case study: the idea that the world presents itself to human (...) beings as a book. The metaphor of the book of nature has been central to Western interpretations of reality. Beginning with ancient Greek cosmology and ending with the genetic code, Blumenberg traces the changes undergone by this metaphor in order to access the different expectations of reality that it articulates, reflects, and projects. (shrink)

This collection of essays, by Reding, in the emergent field of Sino-Hellenic studies, explores the neglected inchoative strains of rational thought in ancient China and compares them to similar themes in ancient Greek thought, right at the beginnings of philosophy in both cultures. Reding develops and defends the bold hypothesis that Greek and Chinese rational thinking are one and the same phenomenon. Rather than stressing the extreme differences between these two cultures - as most other writings on these subjects - (...) Reding looks for the parameters that have to be restored to see the similarities. Reding maintains that philosophy is like an unknown continent discovered simultaneously in both China and Greece, but from different starting-points. The book comprises seven essays moving thematically from conceptual analysis, logic and categories to epistemology and ontology, with an incursion in the field of comparative metaphorology. One of the book's main concerns is a systematic examination of the problem of linguistic relativism through many detailed examples. (shrink)

In this article, the main focus will be to analyze the notion of mediation in an attempt to apply it to one of the major topics of our time: the increasing impact of AI technologies in social life. Mediation being essentially a relational concept, I will start by linking it to the relational thinking developed in sociological theory and postphenomenology. My own contribution will be to take a substantialist position and to define what I consider to be the ecstatic dimension (...) of relationality, re-interpreted via the notion of “being-toward.” I will also draw on Sartre's socio-materialist understanding of mediation, focusing in particular on his general conceptualization of the “practico-inert field.” A metaphorological approach will be presented in the final part of the study to illustrate the relations between humans and AI technologies. Three metaphors will be used to explore the meaning of algorithmic mediations: “vampire objects,” “bewitched quantities,” and “frozen voices.” These metaphors will be interpreted in light of empirical phenomena: (a) algorithmically generated “synthetic data,” (b) “high-frequency trading,” and (c) AI recruitment chatbots in hiring. (shrink)

Shipwreck with Spectator traces the evolution of the complex of metaphors related to the sea, to shipwreck, and to the role of the spectator in human culture from ancient Greece to modern times. This elegant essay exemplifies Blumenberg's ideas about the ability of the historical study of metaphor to illuminate essential aspects of being human. Originally published in the same year as his monumental Work on Myth, Shipwreck with Spectator traces the evolution of the complex of metaphors related to the (...) sea, to shipwreck, and to the role of the spectator in human culture from ancient Greece to modern times. The sea is one of humanity's oldest metaphors for life, and a sea journey, Blumenberg observes, has often stood for our journey through life. We all know the role that shipwrecks can play in this journey, and at some level we have all played witness to others' wrecks, standing in safety and knowing that there is nothing we can do to help, yet fixed comfortably or uncomfortably in our ambiguous role as spectator. Through Blumenberg's seemingly inexhaustible knowledge of letters, from ancient texts through nineteenth-century reminiscences and modern speeches, we see layer upon layer revealed in the meaning humans have given to these metaphors; and in this way we begin to understand what metaphors can do that more straightforward modes of expression cannot. This edition of Shipwreck with Spectator also includes "Prospect for a Theory of Nonconceptuality," an essay that recounts the evolution of Blumenberg's ideas about metaphorology in the years following his early manifesto "Paradigms for a Metaphorology.". (shrink)

: The semantic fields and root metaphors of "fate" in Classical Greece and pre-Buddhist China are surveyed here. The Chinese material focuses on the Warring States, the Han, and the reinvention of the earlier lexicon in contemporary Chinese terms for such concepts as risk, randomness, and (statistical) chance. The Greek study focuses on Homer, Parmenides, the problem of fate and necessity, Platonic daimons, and the "On Fate" topos in Hellenistic Greece. The study ends with a brief comparative metaphorology of (...) metaphors for the action of fate including command, division or allotment, and wheel or cycles of change. (shrink)

ExcerptI. Blumenberg's Theses According to the introduction to a recent German volume of essays: “The reception of the Metaphorology, perhaps Blumenberg's most systematic theoretical work, has only just begun.”1 The Metaphorology appeared in English in 2010, translated by Robert Savage, and what goes for the German metaphorology-reception applies to a lesser degree to the rest of Blumenberg's work.2 His three big texts—The Legitimacy of the Modern Age (1985), The Genesis of the Copernican World (1987), and Work on (...) Myth (1988)—were published in rapid succession by MIT Press, but they seem to have been quickly eclipsed by the…. (shrink)

This article analyzes the compound of the categories of secularization and reoccupation in its variations from Hans Blumenberg's philosophy to Carl Schmitt's political theory and, ultimately, to Reinhart Koselleck's conceptual history. By revisiting the debate between Blumenberg and Schmitt on secularization and political theology with regard to the political-theoretical aspects of secularization and the methodological aspects of reoccupation, I will provide conceptual tools that illuminate the partly tension-ridden elements at play in Koselleck's theorizing of modernity, history, and concepts. For Schmitt, (...) secularization is inherently related to the question of political conflict, and, correspondingly, he attempts to discredit Blumenberg's criticism of secularization as an indirectly aggressive, and thereby hypocritical, attempt to escape the political. To this end, I argue, Schmitt appropriates Blumenberg's concept of “reoccupation” and uses it alternately in the three distinct senses of “absorption,”“reappropriation,” and “revaluation.” Schmitt's famous thesis of political concepts as secularized theological concepts contains an unmistakable methodological element and a research program. The analysis therefore shows the relevance of the Blumenberg/Schmitt debate for the mostly tacit dialogue between Blumenberg and Koselleck. I scrutinize Koselleck's understanding of secularization from his early Schmittian and Löwithian theory of modernity to his later essays on temporalization of history and concepts. Despite Blumenberg's criticism, Koselleck holds onto the category of secularization throughout, but gradually relativizes it into a research hypothesis among others. Simultaneously, Koselleck formalizes, alongside other elements, the Schmittian account of reoccupation into his method of conceptual analysis and uses the term in the same three senses—thus making “reoccupation” conceptually compatible with “secularization,” despite the former notion's initial critical function in Blumenberg's theory. The examination highlights a Schmittian residue that accounts for Koselleck's reserved attitude toward Blumenberg's metaphorology, regardless of a significant methodological overlap. (shrink)

This text aims to establish a connection between the analysis of metaphor from a phenomenological-anthropological perspective in Blumenberg's thought and some theoretical and methodological aspects that are constitutive for the theory of unconceptuality. Without claiming that this construction can reveal a hidden coherence in the author's multifaceted thinking, I propose to defend the idea that Blumenberg himself built bridges and that by establishing connections between some aspects of his extensive work, a horizon for the development of a “political metaphorology” (...) can emerge. I believe that analyzing the concepts of Lifeworld and absolutism of reality on the one hand, and the relationship between myth and metaphor on the other, allows us to point to a fundamental dimension of the relationship that we humans establish with the Other, whether human or non-human. I will attempt to show that metaphors can also function as mechanisms of invisibilization when they serve political purposes that seek to absolutize otherness. In short, this text aims to establish a political metaphorology in the phenomenological-anthropological dimension of Blumenberg's thought. (shrink)

This essay by the influential post-war German cultural theorist Hans Blumenberg was published originally in German in 1976 in a collection of studies on Simmel’s aesthetics. Renowned as the author of The Legitimacy of the Modern Age (1966), Work on Myth (1979), Paradigms for a Metaphorology (1960) and other major writings, the essay showcases Blumenberg’s unique approach to metaphorical figuration in the languages of philosophy and philosophers. Here Blumenberg considers how money stands as Simmel’s ‘proto-metaphor’ for Life in the (...) latter’s nascent Lebensphilosophie. The very phenomenon that might seem most opposed to Life and to ‘higher’ ‘spiritual’ values is also the phenomenon that most dynamically unlocks life’s plenitude of creative forms – even as it threatens constantly to destroy this plenitude through effects of reification and objectification. As Blumenberg reads Simmel, Life itself turns out to be pure circulation, sociation, and interactivity, an endless cycle of extensions and intensifications of value emerging through processes of social exchange. The essay forms a striking counterpart to the many seminal readings of Simmel in the German critical theory tradition from Benjamin, Kracauer, Adorno and Horkheimer to Habermas. (shrink)

Roman Jakobson is best known for his reflections on the polarity of metaphor and metonymy. What is often overlooked is that Jakobson developed his theses in the context of his work on language acquisition and language loss. In contrast to the common medical categorisation of receptive and expressive aphasia, Jakobson proposes a linguistic division into similarity and contiguity disorders. While the similarity disorder results in a loss of metaphor, the contiguity disorder impairs metonymy. Jakobson subsequently expands his considerations to include (...) all semiotic processes: from dreams to magic rituals to social practices. Since political processes, too, are about processes of articulation, this article pursues two goals: On the one hand, it asks to what extent Jakobson’s distinction between similarity and contiguity disorders can be made productive for the analysis of political conflicts – such as Lyotard’s differend or Rancière’s disagreement. On the other hand, and following Jakobson’s diagnosis that the study of language itself exhibits a contiguity disorder, the article puts forward the thesis that such a disorder is inherent in all scientific discourse – and consequently also in political theory and metaphorology. (shrink)

Este estudio trata de la relación de Bruno y Vico con el Barroco, ubicado el autor en una perspectiva acerca de la modernidad desde la que autores como Bruno, Leibniz o Vico son estudiados en virtud del señalamiento de un “lenguaje filosófico barroco”. Se trata de estudiar la posibilidad de vislumbrar un conjunto de respuestas a la crisis del fundamento que no sean sólo “expresivas” de ésta, sino “constructivas”.Palabras clave: Vico, Bruno, Leibniz, modernidad, Barroco, metaforología.This paper is focussed on the (...) relationship between Bruno, Vico and the Baroque. Its author assumes a perspective about modernity that studies figures such as Bruno, Leibniz or Vico under the light of a “philosophical baroque language”. The aim is to point out a possible a set of responses to the crisis of foundations, that would not only be “expressive”, but “constructive”.Keywords: Vico, Bruno, Leibniz, modernity, Baroque, metaphorology. (shrink)

Political metaphors condition social reality and mediate authority. One repeatedly used metaphor in discourses about migration and refuge is the misconception that ‘the state is a house.’ Far from only defining the modalities of inclusion and exclusion, metaphors of houses and housing evoke patriarchal political relationships between guests and hosts, homeless and homeowners, the household’s head and his subjects, and the man and his women. Houses present themselves to us in ambiguous, even contradictory ways in that they both shelter and (...) imprison. Furthermore, in spite of a general need for accommodation the state fails to provide material housing, only feigning the imagination of security. Therefore, ‘housing’ appears to be a key paradox of nationalist and chauvinist discourse. Figurative language is, however, unfinished, which is why our images of houses, charged with the theology, anthropology, politics, and language of foundations, buildings, and walls, may be challenged by critique and interpretation. Developing a critical metaphorology, committed to analyzing the framed arguments and underlying contexts of said discourses justifying patriarchy and nationalism, we describe the choice between inhabiting and abandoning ‘the house.’ Ultimately, we present counter-narratives about decaying structures of power and propose ways to take ‘housing’ issues to the streets. (shrink)

A prominent German philosopher in the post-WW II era, Hans Blumenberg (1920–1996) skilfully connected the continental tradition of philosophy with conceptual history and metaphorology. Some of his major works, such as Paradigms for a Metaphorology, The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, The Genesis of the Copernican World or Work on Myth have already been translated into English. And a worldwide rising interest in his philosophy can be registered today. Comparably less attention has been paid though by the scholarly (...) literature to Blumenberg’s way of doing history of science and its impact on current historians and philosophers of science. In order to fill this gap, this volume aims to explore the methodological instruments Blumenberg developed, and how we may use them to do history and philosophy of science. The main goal motivating our endeavour is to shed some light on a somehow neglected tradition, which found little room within the dominant analytical philosophy of science. What is at stake is some sort of non-received view in contemporary history and philosophy of science, which may be termed ‘continental history and philosophy of science.’ Standard references on this topic include the now classic book edited by Gary Gutting, Continental Philosophy of Science (2005) and, in a similar vein, Mary Domski and Michael Dickson’s Discourse on a New Method: Reinvigorating the Marriage of History and Philosophy of Science (2010). Our book will serve to map Blumenberg’s contribution to the continental history and philosophy of science. This will not only add new input to the field of history and philosophy of science, but also opens a new area in the scholarship on Blumenberg’s works. (shrink)

This chapter explores key aspects of Blumenberg’s life, career, and touches upon some important works and influences. Although it is unable to cover the entirety of Blumenberg’s extensive oeuvre, it identifies important parts of his thought that re-emerge in his theory of myth. It also serves as an introduction to factors in his life and thought that may have influenced the political themes in his later work. It pays particular attention to Blumenberg’s experiences in his early life having been designated (...) a ‘half-jew’ by the Nazi regime. This caused him difficulties from which he emerged and had an immensely successful career. It covers three key themes and concepts that are important for understanding his later works: Metaphorology, the legitimacy of modernity, and the ‘lifeworld’. (shrink)

The paper “Who Can Question Blumenberg Except for Blumenberg Himself” brings forward the question of which factors and features of the philosophy of this German thinker of the second half of the 20th century make it the case that he has moved away from academic mainstream and given philosophy back the typical characteristics of German philosophical tradition: erudition, cultivated character, adequacy, good taste in the selection of vital problems and their solutions, and, above all, critical thinking, which, on the journey (...) between the peaks of Kant and Blumenberg himself, frequently waned, disappeared in dark gorges of being and time and vanished in polished aesthetics of the hermeneutics of God’s intentions. The study focuses on Blumenberg’s concept of actio per distans, which, combined with the theory of absolute metaphor and cognitive metaphor, gives rise to his historical phenomenology and politically, economically and phenomenologically oriented anthropology. At the end, the author mentions the problem of ‘metametaphorics’, which is newly developed as a project based on a deep misunderstanding of Blumenberg's metaphorology: the paper presents several arguments proving a discrepancy between metaphorology and metametaphorics, derived primarily from Blumenberg's theory of (the constant cultural reproduction of) myth. (shrink)

Abstract:One of the models that Leibniz considered for his characteristica universalis was the Chinese script, which, after many oscillations, he ended up conceiving as a rational language. In order to explain what "rationality" means in this context, the role of symbolicity and metaphoricity in the characteristica is discussed here. Furthermore, it is argued that Leibniz' idea of a constitutive role of signs for thought led him to produce a concept of writing based not on representation but on expression, in which (...) written signs are structurally connected to the ideas they express. Taking inspiration from Rita Widmaier's metaphorological reading of Leibniz and in Kwan Tze-wan's philosophical theory of the Chinese script, it is shown how the procedures involved in the formation of sinographs shed light on the principles of the characteristica, and how, despite Leibniz' inaccurate understanding of Chinese writing as ideographic, his philosophy can still inspire contemporary research on this script. (shrink)

This article schematically reconstructs Hans Blumenberg’s theses on technology by going through his extensive published and posthumous work with a fine-toothed comb. Blumenberg’s canonical takes on the themes of metaphorology, anthropology, and phenomenology are interpreted here according to a particular hypothesis, namely, that most of the German philosopher’s upshots about these subjects coalesce into the question of technology and its transformative aspect upon reality. In order to develop such proposition, (1) I argue how the question of technology remained in (...) his thought, from its very beginning to his posthumous writings, as an enticing yet ever-changing epistemic paradigm. Likewise, (2) I ponder why such theses on technology stands out in the philosophical constellation of twentieth-century debates on this subject. Finally, (3) I address the importance on such a theme by conveying Blumenberg’s thesis on technology with his multileveled concept of reality. (4) A conclusion is also given apropos the actuality of Blumenberg’s thought among post-2020 philosophical debates. (shrink)

In this essay I explore the metaphorology of the cultivation of the mind in the early modern period, with special regard to the image of the “georgics of the mind”. To this end, I first intend to briefly go over the ancient background of the soul as a soil to till, with a focus on Cicero’s image of “cultura animi” and Philo of Alexandria’s use of “ψυχῆς γεωργική”. I then turn to Bacon, who regards the georgics of the mind (...) as a fundamental part of ethics, and analyse how the idea of “georgics of the mind” was received in the German lands in the late 17th century (Placcius, Wesenfeld, Pufendorf), up to Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten. In Baumgarten, the “georgics of the mind” constitutes the subjective precondition for the emergence of a body of arts and sciences (the encyclopaedia), which in turn is conceived as a horizontal map of fields to be cultivated within the territory of erudition. In this way, the georgics of the mind helps lay the groundwork for the modern conception of culture as a collective endeavour. (shrink)

This paper reads Blumenberg’s posthumously published study Die nackte Wahrheit as a book left unfinished because a major, if not central, chapter was still pending: a chapter on Husserl’s metaphor of a dress of ideas (“Ideenkleid”) that veils the lifeworld. Arguing that Blumenberg aimed at a phenomenological foundation for his metaphorology based on his critique and inversion of the Husserlian concept of lifeworld, the article reveals resulting tensions between Blumenberg’s late and early theoretical approaches to a theory of metaphor (...) that sought, but did not find, a solution in his own theory of lifeworld, which remained unfinished as well. (shrink)