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 other hand, the philosopher of religion Jacob Taubes, who was without peer in his ability to bring intellectuals from all different disciplines into conversation with one another. The correspondence begins in 1961, when Taubes took a position as chair of the newly founded Jewish Studies Institute at the Free University in Berlin, and ends twenty years later, again with a letter from Taubes, in which he informs Blumenberg that he has discovered the latter’s The Readability of the World at the Frankfurt Book Fair. In the interim the two men debate all manner of subjects: above all Blumenberg’s work, of which Taubes was a congenial reader, but also the state of higher education and the famous research group »Poetics and Hermeneutics«. And of course they discuss Carl Schmitt and Gershom Scholem, not to mention the Suhrkamp Verlag, particularly its new »Theory« series, of which Blumenberg and Taubes were co-editors.
The 56 extant letters have now been published for the first time along with related documents and critical commentary. They take us right into the heart of the academic debates of the 1960s and 70s and constitute an important piece of West German intellectual history from the perspective of two of its most important intellectuals.
Edited by Herbert Kopp-Oberstebrink and Martin Treml with the assistance of Anja Schipke and Stephan Steiner. With an afterword by Herbert Kopp-Oberstebrink
»Delving into this correspondence, the reader will discover not only a great deal of substance but also significant stylistic brilliance […] A note on the presentation: it is exemplary, with explanatory notes, additional sources and precise commentary on the letters.« Martin Meyer, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
»Intellectual history, condensed into a Bildungsroman about West Germany« Mara Delius, Die Welt
»[...] rarely have two minds battled so artfully as in the case of these two highly idiosyncratic professors. This is a clash of two fascinating worlds, and the sparks do fly occasionally, until gradually the distance between them proves unbridgeable after all.« Alexander Camman, Die Zeit
»[...] There are correspondences, which, through their pulsating vulnerability, are able to pull in readers of later generations, giving them hope that they can feel the mood of a bygone age, of a particular milieu, of an entire discourse. This is the case with the Correspondence between Hans Blumenberg and Jacob Taubes.« Oliver Müller, Süddeutsche Zeitung
»Their correspondence attests to the brilliance of a lost debate culture […] [It] brings us very close to those distant academic sixties, when there was always something new to discover.« Stephan Schlak, Die Literarische Welt
»Thus, at the end of this correspondence-thriller we are left with a body but no murder. Along the way it describes an extremely personal debate between two ultimately irreconcilable positions.« Cord Riechelmann, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung
»Rarely has one been pulled into the lively academic atmosphere of those years on the eve of the student revolts, as one is by this correspondence.« Stephan Schlak, Deutschlandradio Kultur
Jacob Taubes (1923 – 1987) was professor of Jewish Studies and Hermeneutics at the Free University of Berlin and a permanent visiting lecturer at the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme in Paris.
Jacob Taubes (1923 – 1987) was professor of Jewish Studies and Hermeneutics at the Free University of Berlin and a permanent visiting...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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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...
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...
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...
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»For distinguished philosopher Hans Blumenberg, lions were a life-long obsession. Lions [...] collects thirty-two of Blumenberg’s philosophical vignettes to reveal that the...
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