Contributions to the Problem of the Originality of the Medieval-Scholastic Ontology

Edited by Benjamin Dahlke and Matthias Laarmann
Suhrkamp | Insel

Contributions to the Problem of the Originality of the Medieval-Scholastic Ontology / Beiträge zum Problem der Ursprünglichkeit der mittelalterlich-scholastischen Ontologie
Edited by Benjamin Dahlke and Matthias Laarmann
Hans Blumenberg: 100th birthday on July 13, 2020

»Indeed, no other expression of the human mind appears to be so burdened by tradition as philosophy.«

In 1947, Hans Blumenberg from Bargteheide in Holstein submits his doctoral thesis entitled »Contributions to the Problem of the Originality of the Medieval-Scholastic Ontology« and written under the most difficult personal circumstances to the Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel.


In it, Blumenberg presents an examination of the thought of the Christian Middle Ages, with constant reference to the philosophy of Husserl and to Heidegger’s »fundamental ontology« in particular,...

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In 1947, Hans Blumenberg from Bargteheide in Holstein submits his doctoral thesis entitled »Contributions to the Problem of the Originality of the Medieval-Scholastic Ontology« and written under the most difficult personal circumstances to the Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel.


In it, Blumenberg presents an examination of the thought of the Christian Middle Ages, with constant reference to the philosophy of Husserl and to Heidegger’s »fundamental ontology« in particular, during which the question of the reason for being had undergone a both critical as well as productive intensification.

The doctoral thesis is deemed »excellent« by examiners Ludwig Landgrebe and Rudolf Schneider, but all efforts of finding a publishing house for the work fail. Blumenberg’s brilliant first work remains unprinted for more than 70 years. Now it is published for the first time in a reader-oriented edition that includes translations of the numerous classical quotations as well as an »index of reference works«, that closes the gap of the bibliography missing in the original and that even supplements it with editions available today. In their afterword, the editors illuminate the context of the work’s creation, which opens up surprising perspectives onto Blumenberg’s biography and the development of his thought.

»Already with this early text the reader immerses himself in Blumenberg's unique world and language. Whoever engages with this world will encounter a fascinating view of the Medieval Period – not a closed cathedral but an open house with several entrances.« Dominik Perler, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

»Blumenberg‘s first thesis is finally available in a beautiful and useful edition that every reader interested in Blumenberg is going to appreciate and every Blumenberg aficionado is going to add into their library as a matter of course.« Till Kinzel, Informationsmittel

»Already with this early text the reader immerses himself in Blumenberg's unique world and language. Whoever engages with this world will encounter a fascinating view of the Medieval Period – not a closed cathedral but an open house with several entrances.« Dominik Perler, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

»Blumenberg‘s first thesis is finally available in a beautiful and useful edition that every reader interested in Blumenberg is going to appreciate and every Blumenberg...

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2020, 232 pages
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Hans Blumenberg (1920-1996) was professor of Philosophy at the University of Münster.

Hans Blumenberg (1920-1996) was professor of Philosophy at the University of Münster.


OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Correspondence 1965–1994
Year of Publication: 2023
Hans Blumenberg, Reinhart KoselleckYear of Publication: 2023

For more than three decades, Hans Blumenberg and Reinhart Koselleck maintained a correspondence that was characterized by mutual affection but also by distance. It shows two academic protagonists discuss the founding of universities and interdisciplinarity in times of university reform – and two sensitive scholars trying to communicate central aspects of their research: conceptual...

The Ontological Distance
Year of Publication: 2022
Hans BlumenbergYear of Publication: 2022

In January 1948, shortly after completing his doctorate, Hans Blumenberg begins working on his habilitation thesis. It quickly grows into a monumental project that wants nothing less than to measure the philosophical horizon of modernity against the background of its crisis. Although The Ontological Distance does not live up to this claim completely, the study’s combination of...

A Possible Self-Understanding
Year of Publication: 2022
Hans BlumenbergYear of Publication: 2022
In the last years of his life, Hans Blumenberg compiled a selection of glosses for publication that were intended to provide information about his »possible self-understanding«. The collection, which was eventually separated into two volumes, explored Blumenberg’s »life themes«: the power of concepts and metaphors, reading and being read to, the role of the audience,...
Correspondence 1954–1978 and Further Material
Year of Publication: 2022
Hans Blumenberg, Hans JonasYear of Publication: 2022

When asked which contemporary philosopher he considered the most important, Hans Jonas answered more than once: Hans Blumenberg. Conversely, there were only few colleagues Blumenberg respected more than Jonas. Their correspondence, which spans almost 25 years, is a testament to their mutual esteem, but also to occasional tensions, and offers insights into the biographical and historical...

Reality and Realism
Year of Publication: 2020
Hans BlumenbergYear of Publication: 2020

What do we mean when speaking about reality? What does realism of thoughts mean? How do humans come in contact with reality and become conscious of it? These fundamental questions occupied Hans Blumenberg all through his life, and they remained important undercurrents in many of his books. He never published a monograph about these topics, but he had been planning to do so, as documents in his...

The Naked Truth
Year of Publication: 2019
Hans BlumenbergYear of Publication: 2019

From the early modern period and increasingly so since from the Enlightenment onwards, divine privilege of possessing unconditional truth has been challenged and made more democratic. The...

Rights sold to:

France (Seuil), Korea (Ghil)

Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (bäng)

Phenomenological Writings 1981-1988
Year of Publication: 2018
Hans BlumenbergYear of Publication: 2018

On the 27th of April 1988, the 50th anniversary of the death of Edmund Husserl, Hans Blumenberg noted: »The century now rushing towards its end will be regarded with hindsight by philosophy-historians as the ‘century’ of Phenomenology.« This prognosis is also an indicator of his own philosophical legacy: a phenomenological anthropology as developed by Blumenberg throughout his lifelong debate...

Writings on Literature 1945-1958
Year of Publication: 2017
Hans BlumenbergYear of Publication: 2017

Long awaited and now available from the estate: Hans Blumenberg’s reviews, talks and lectures on international literature: Dostoyevsky, Sartre, Greene, Kafka, Jünger, Faulkner, Robbe-Grillet and many others.


»Although the laws of the last twelve years have made impossible any journalistic expression whatsoever in the same way as they have made impossible the...

Writings on Technology
Year of Publication: 2015
Hans BlumenbergYear of Publication: 2015

In the 1950s and 1960s, Hans Blumenberg considered combining a philosophy of technology with a philosophy of time, which is only rarely mentioned today. This may be due to the fact that he never wrote a »Philosophy of Technology« – however, a series of shorter writings in which he develops his idea on the subject poignantly were found in his literary...

The Rigorism of Truth
Year of Publication: 2015
Hans BlumenbergYear of Publication: 2015
»Moses the Egyptian« is an essay by Hans Blumenberg, in which he engages with two of the defining thinkers of the 20th Century: Sigmund Freud and Hannah Arendt. Written at the end of the...
Rights sold to:

English world rights (Cornell UP)

Prefiguration
Year of Publication: 2014
Hans BlumenbergYear of Publication: 2014
In response to a review of his important monograph, Work on Myth, on 20 July 1980 Hans Blumenberg wrote a letter to his reviewer, Götz Müller: »I always find it very difficult to respond...
Rights sold to:

France (Seuil), Croatia (Mizantrop)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Italy (Morcelliana)

Correspondence 1961–1981
Year of Publication: 2013
Hans Blumenberg, Jacob TaubesYear of Publication: 2013
A piece of intellectual history from the former West Germany


The correspondence between Hans Blumenberg and Jacob Taubes is a document of a rich though not entirely smooth relationship between two intellectuals who could not have been more different: On the one hand, Hand Blumenberg, whose works constitute one of the most impressive contributions to 20th century German philosophy; on the...
Sources, Streams, Icebergs
Year of Publication: 2012
Hans BlumenbergYear of Publication: 2012
In order to escape the overwhelming burden of reality, humans invent myths and metaphors, metaphysical and cultural systems, which offer a point of orientation even though it is all but impossible to...
Rights sold to:

Spanish world rights (Fondo de Cultura Economica), Turkey (Ketebe)

Lions
Year of Publication: 2010
Hans BlumenbergYear of Publication: 2010

»For distinguished philosopher Hans Blumenberg, lions were a life-long obsession. Lions [...] collects thirty-two of Blumenberg’s philosophical vignettes to reveal that the...

Rights sold to:

English world rights (Seagull), France (Klincksieck)

Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (bäng)

Theory of the Life-World
Year of Publication: 2010
Hans BlumenbergYear of Publication: 2010
To mark the 90th anniversary of Hans Blumenberg’s birth, Suhrkamp is bringing out a posthumous text in which the philosopher provides a radical new view of the issue of the...
Rights sold to:

Spanish world rights (Fondo de Cultura Economica)

Geistesgeschichte der Technik
Year of Publication: 2009
Hans BlumenbergYear of Publication: 2009
Hans Blumenberg’s estate includes a folder with the abbreviation »GT«, which contains several shorter publications on the intellectual history of technology. On a few pages and in...
Rights sold to:

Korea (Ghil)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Pre-Textos), Italy (Mimesis)

The Man from the Moon
Year of Publication: 2007
Hans BlumenbergYear of Publication: 2007
This volume brings together the largely unpublished essays and commentaries on Jünger from the philosopher’s estate – complete with a short editorial...
Rights sold to:

Spanish world rights (Pre-Textos), France (Editions du Felin), Italy (Mimesis)

Correspondence and other materials
Year of Publication: 2007
Hans Blumenberg, Carl SchmittYear of Publication: 2007
As Carl Schmitt’s replies have also left visible traces in Blumenberg’s work, in addition to the complete correspondence and other unpublished texts from the Blumenberg estate the...
Rights sold to:

France (du Cerf), Italy (Laterza)

Theorie der Unbegrifflichkeit
Year of Publication: 2007
Hans BlumenbergYear of Publication: 2007

Rights sold to:

Brazilian Portuguese rights (UFMG), Catalan rights (Papers Amb Accent), France (Editions de l'Eclat), Italy (duepunti Edizioni), Turkey (Ketebe)

Description of Man
Year of Publication: 2006
Hans BlumenbergYear of Publication: 2006
In Blumenberg’s new standard work, reflection takes human visibility as its starting point and thus enables a focus on the body and on consciousness. In this »description of man«,...
Rights sold to:

Spanish world rights (Fondo de Cultura Economica), France (du Cerf)


DISCOVER

News
100 years ago, on this day, Hans Blumenberg was born in Lübeck.