Hans Blumenberg

This introduction outlines the main objectives of this book. It offers a brief description of Hans Blumenberg’s work and considers why it may not have been as widely received by Anglophone audiences. It goes on to discuss the key themes of Blumenberg’s theory of myth that will be important throughout the latter stages of the book. Translation of a complicated author like Blumenberg is a challenge and raises profound analytical and normative issues. I consider these towards the end, and outline how I approach the issue of translation in these works. Finally, I explain how the book will be structured and the content of the chapters.

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’.

This chapter outlines some key thinkers on myth who would prove influential in subsequent debates on the subject, spanning works from Vico to Cassirer. It pays particular attention to Cassirer and his conception of myth in politics under the Nazi regime. This book considers the key themes that would later be traced up to the works of Cassirer, and the conception of myth he brings through his ‘Philosophy of Symbolic Forms’. A combination of Cassirer’s important ‘Davos Debate’ with Heidegger, and the former’s later posthumous publication ‘The Myth of the State’, came to influence much of Blumenberg’s classic ‘Work on Myth.’ Drawing from the insights of the previous chapters, this chapter outlines how Blumenberg develops a theory of myth that remains essential today.

With the theoretical background for our analysis of Blumenberg established, this chapter seeks to review the political themes of his understanding of myth. Publications from research done into the Blumenberg Nachlass has indicated that Blumenberg himself was engaged closely with political issues. It analyses important works such as Moses the Egyptian, and considers how or whether myth can be legitimate in politics. To this end, it identifies three political and normative consequences. The first is that myth simplifies reality, and this is useful for answering existential needs but can also be problematic when discussing complex political issues. Secondly, that myth provides comfort from the variegated processes of the world. I explore how Blumenberg’s theory implies a processual reality, and that myth offers a way of comforting us within these processes. Finally, I consider a potentially darker aspect of myth as understood by Blumenberg: the possibility of violence and extremism. The exceptional politics that is implicated in Moses the Egyptian in particular could, depending on perspective, justify exceptional action.

This conclusion summarises the main arguments made in the book and offers further reflections. It begins by discussing routes for people to understand Blumenberg’s work in English, and my own influences from Chiara Bottici and Angus Nicholls. It reflects on the personal life and intellectual contributions that Blumenberg has made. Ove It elaborates on why Blumenberg is such a crucial thinker for us, and why political science and its subfields should consider him carefully. It expresses hope that this book can act as a stepping stone for scholars of politics and related to disciplines to reading and engaging with his work more directly.