5. Blumenberg, Worldmaking, and Belatedness

Abstract

The Blumenberg-Löwith “debate” over the secularization hypothesis is an evocative clash that continues to draw the attention of scholars interested in the history of ideas. On one side is Hans Blumenberg, who perceives modernity as justified on its own terms. On the other side is Karl Löwith, who does not recognize a substantive break between modernity and its epochal genetic precursors. At the heart of this debate is an impulse either to espouse or oppose the sovereignty of philosophical modernity in its relation to worldmaking. In this paper, I argue that Blumenberg’s thesis of “self-assertion” describes a re-establishing of the project of worldmaking in a sophisticated and nuanced language that is missed by Karl Löwith’s diagnosis of modern philosophy of history. Keywords: Hans Blumenberg, Karl Löwith, Modernity, Myth, Worldmaking