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Metaphors for Mankind: The Development of Hans Blumenberg's Anthropological

Metaphorology
Author(s): David Adams
Source: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 52, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1991), pp. 152-166
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2709587
Accessed: 13-06-2018 11:56 UTC

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Metaphors for Mankind:
The Development of
Hans Blumenberg's
Anthropological Metaphorology

David Adams

Alle diese Gleichnisse wollen eigentlich nur sagen, dass das


Unfassbare unfassbar ist, und das haben wir gewusst.
-Franz Kafka

Hans Blumenberg appears to be more prolific now, forty-five years in


career, than ever before. This means that an assessment of his "metaphor
could prove premature, but he has given us little reason to expect any fund
changes in his position. In the past he has remained quite consistent a
developed and extended his ideas. In any case we need not speculate a
future course; we can begin to measure the distance he has come without c
ing where he will end up. To indicate his point of departure and provide a
for his accomplishment, I shall begin with a brief discussion of the confr
between Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger in 1929 in Davos, Switz
The Davos debate, which survives in the form of "minutes" taken by stud
gives succinct expression to the two philosophers' striking differences on a
of interrelated issues. It allows us to see the challenge that "metaphysics"
ger) had presented to "philosophical anthropology" (Cassirer) before Blum
took up the cause of the latter.

Cassirer and Heidegger in Davos

On most questions, Cassirer and Heidegger face in opposite directio


adopts the forward-looking stance of the Enlightenment, interpreting the
of civilization as an advance from mythos to logos; the other is a deeply Ro
thinker, always reaching back towards the origin of language, of civilizat

1 For a comprehensive bibliography of Blumenberg's work, including English


tions, see Peter Behrenberg and David Adams, "Bibliographie Hans Blumenb
70. Geburtstag," Zeitschrift fur philosophische Forschung, XLIV (1990).

152

Copyright 1991 by JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS, IN

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Hans Blumenberg's Anthropological Metaphorology 153

of history. At one point in the debate Heidegger accurately summed up th


essential difference in their orientations: "With Cassirer the terminus a quo
completely problematical. My position is the opposite: the terminus a quo is the
central problematic that I develop. The question is: is the terminus ad quem
clear for me?"2 The one focusing on the products of civilization has troubl
accounting for their origin, Heidegger charges, but he seems to realize that the
argument is easily reversed: perhaps one striving to uncover the origin has troubl
dealing with the products?3
The debate over the termini of civilization is closely tied to the question of
totalization. Both philosophers try to explain man's connection to phenomen
beyond his experience: what ties him to transcendental, infinite, or absolu
truths? What gives a mortal creature intuitions of eternity? Cassirer argues tha
mankind's way to infinity is "through the medium of form," form that is create
by man himself. Infinity, he explains, is "the totality, the fulfillment of finitud
itself. But precisely this fulfillment of finitude constitutes infinity. Goethe: 'If y
want to stride into the infinite, just walk to all sides of the finite.' "4 For Heidegge
on the other hand, "man, as a finite being, has a certain infinitude in the ontolog
cal. Man is never infinite and absolute in creating the existent [Seienden] itself,
rather he is infinite in the sense of understanding Being [des Verstehens de
Seins]." The temporality of Dasein and the fact that "an inner transcendence lies
in the essence of time" make possible this understanding of Being prior to a
culture or philosophy of culture. This "transcendence of Dasein" consists of "the
inner possibility of this finite being to relate to the totality of the existent."5 In spit
of and because of the different vocabularies employed by the two philosophers, th
radical difference between their views of the absolute is apparent: for Heidegge
it is found at the terminus a quo, prior to civilization and internal to Dasein
Cassirer associates it with the terminus ad quem, the culmination of civilization
and the externalizations of Dasein.
The final exchange in the debate demonstrated that Cassirer was prepared to
accept the irreconcilable differences while Heidegger pushed for a decisive vic-
tory. "I do not want to try to make Heidegger abandon his position," Cassirer
explained, warning against thinking that rational argument can "coerce" someone
to start out from a new position. His perception of a multitude of world-views
and symbolic forms-of "Being, which proceeds from manifold functional deter-
minations and meanings"-made him more inclined to accept dissenting opin-

2 "Davoser Disputation zwischen Ernst Cassirer und Martin Heidegger," appendix to


Martin Heidegger, Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik, 4th ed. (Frankfurt am Main,
1973), 260.
3 Heidegger provided an answer to the question about the terminus ad quem four years
after the Davos encounter, in his infamous Rector's speech: "the beginning ... lies not
behind us as what is long past, rather it stands ahead of us.... It stands there as the
distant command to us to gather in its greatness again" (Die Selbstbehauptung der
deutschen Universitat [Frankfurt am Main, 1983], 12-13). Cassirer analyzes National
Socialism in terms of its distance from the terminus ad quem in The Myth of the State
(New Haven, 1946).
4 "Davoser Disputation," 258.
5 Ibid., 252, 254, 256-57.

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154 David Adams

ions.6Heidegger, d
fold modes of Bein
adjusting to the d
"The one thing" h
readiness to turn
meaning of Being.7
was that Heidegger
neo-Kantianism.
Although signs of renewed interest in the Davos debate and neo-Kantianism
suggest that Cassirer is now getting a second hearing, Blumenberg has already
completed the task of redeeming philosophical anthropology, in part by immuniz-
ing it against Heidegger's attacks. In 1974 Blumenberg received the Kuno Fischer
Prize and delivered an acceptance speech that reveals the depth of his affection
for the work of Cassirer, the prize's first recipient. He refers in the speech to
Cassirer's Substance and Function (1910) as a "work that, in my opinion, is still
not exhausted and is unjustly largely forgotten."8 This is the work where Cassirer
develops the concept of "function," arguing that the function of symbolic forms
is as important as their substance and that relations among things are as important
as the things in themselves. The concept of function has proven particularly
fruitful in Blumenberg's hands. In fact it may be his single most important
inheritance; it is an integral part of all his work, forming the basis of his diverse
achievements.
Cassirer claims that only a "will to logic" fuels the functioning of symbolic
forms.9 Blumenberg has given the concept of function more power by lifting it out
of this neo-Kantian context. He has turned Cassirer's philosophical anthropology
around so that, like Heidegger's metaphysics, it is facing back in the direction of
the terminus a quo; and this has enabled him to develop an understanding of the
temporality of Dasein that rivals Heidegger's. The parallel to Heidegger should
not be exaggerated, however. For Blumenberg the terminus a quo is inaccessible
and repulsive; the meaning of Being is found in the process of removing ourselves
from it. " 'History' means that the reasons ruling at the origin do not determine
the process of becoming and what finally comes to be," he argues, trying to
unmoor us from the terminus a quo. "Meaning is no constant in history."'0 He

6 Ibid., 264, 266. "Symbolic forms" is Cassirer's general term for all forms of culture,
all modes of consciousness. In borrowing it in this essay, I often fail to distinguish among
the wide variety of forms of expression and representation because I am focusing here on
what they have in common: their function. Metaphor, myth, rhetoric, and symbol; concept,
reason, and science; symbolic forms, civilization, systems of knowledge, and "answers":
all these perform the function of satisfying curiosity, meeting needs, responding to "ques-
tions," "occupying positions."
7Ibid., 267-68.
8 Blumenberg, "Ernst Cassirers gedenkend bei Entgegennahme des Kuno-Fischer-
Preises der Universitat Heidelberg 1974," Wirklichkeiten in denen wir leben (Stuttgart,
1981), 164.
9 Cassirer, Substance and Function, and Einstein's Theory of Relativity, tr. William
Curtis Swabey and Marie Collins Swabey (Chicago, 1923), 319.
o1 Blumenberg, "Weltbilder und Weltmodelle," Nachrichten der Giessener Hochschul-
gesellschaft, 30 (1961), 70. Delivered at the University of Giessen, this speech can be read
as an indirect commentary on Heidegger's Rector's speech.

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Hans Blumenberg's Anthropological Metaphorology 155

refuses to consider the process of history either as decay or as progress towar


goal; he refuses, for example, to interpret the modem age as either an advance
or decline in relation to preceding ages, and he thereby overcomes t
Enlightenment-romanticism antithesis. Both Cassirer and Heidegger want
approach toward one of the termini; Blumenberg concentrates on removal awa
from them.
The core of Blumenberg's achievement has been a theory of metaphor describ
ing the process by which man gives a total, tangible form to his experien
Absolutes, according to this theory, are always mediated, if not created,
metaphor. He studies these metaphors from within an expanded Begriffs
schichte,1 a method that brings out both their historicity and the pragm
effects of their use. These features of Blumenberg's work have remained constan
What has changed is his understanding of the role of metaphor in his o
thought. In his earliest major work, "Paradigms for a Metaphorology" (196
he attempted to exclude the question of absolutes by avoiding the use of absolu
metaphors. He quickly became aware, however, that the question of the termin
a quo, asked with such insistence by Heidegger, could not so easily be ignor
In subsequent work Blumenberg has increasingly embraced the use of metapho
to satisfy the irrepressible desire for absolute knowledge. He seems to ha
realized that metaphor not only produces the illusion of presence when ta
literally but also can have the opposite effect, reminding us of the absence of
object when it is used with self-awareness. In other words, by mediating betw
Dasein and the whole of reality, metaphor not only establishes a relation
it also preserves distance, blocking direct contact between mankind and t
absolute.
The next section of the present essay focuses on difficulties in "Paradigms for
a Metaphorology," where, in trying to retreat from absolutes by limiting the use
of metaphor, Blumenberg in fact ends up using metaphors unknowingly to name
the termini a quo and ad quem, to outline, in other words, the whole of human
experience. The third and fourth sections show how he has slipped out of this
bind in subsequent work by developing anthropological metaphors that name a
distant or absent terminus a quo; section three focuses on his elaboration of an
anthropological terminus a quo and section four on his growing awareness of the
rhetorical nature of this elaboration. The essay's fifth and final section considers
the possibility that, having confronted the question of absolutes from the perspec-
tive of philosophical anthropology, he may now be exploring more sophisticated
means of forgetting this question.

The Paradigm Metaphor

"What is the world?" "What part does mankind have in the totality of
truth?"'2 These are examples from "Paradigms for a Metaphorology" of questions

1 Begriffsgeschichte is perhaps best translated as "history of concepts": in Germany


this discipline has been defined more narrowly than the analogous "history of ideas" in
America, which explains why Blumenberg has had to argue for expanding it to include
metaphor. Cf. Melvin Richter, "Begriffsgeschichte and the History of Ideas," JHI, 48
(1987), 247-63.
12 "Paradigmen zu einer Metaphorologie," Archiv fir Begriffsgeschichte, 6 (1960), 20,
13.

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156 David Adams

that Blumenberg tri


absolutes. He tries to
takes the form of
reality, which can
access to the totality
the essay announce
... springs into a void
by theory; here it
Metaphysics often p
pearance of metaph
Yet Blumenberg's es
the illusion of abso
paradoxically, in a b
edge: "absolute meta
able questions whose
eliminated because w
existence [Daseinsgru
anthropology will gr
the moment he ad
provides the kind of
our "questions," as a
that lies behind all civilization.
This conflict between intention and execution in "Paradigms for a Meta-
phorology" is reflected in Blumenberg's understanding of the relationship be-
tween reason and rhetoric. In the introduction he rejects Descartes's anticipation,
in Discourse on Method, of a final state of philosophy in which everything would
be defined with clear, precise, unchanging concepts. The un-Cartesian view of
history is inherent in the concept of the absolute metaphor-we have seen that
such metaphors provide a type of knowledge that resists translation into univocal
terminology. In fact, they make up "the substructure of thought, ... the under-
ground, the nutrient of systematic crystallizations." This is a "catalytic sphere,
from which indeed the world of concepts continually enriches itself, but without
thereby transforming or consuming this supporting material."'6 Yet he uses the
concept of absolute metaphor to delimit and limit this type of knowledge, revealing
an interest and optimism in the ability of reason to intrude further into the realm
of rhetoric. He asserts the impropriety of using metaphors to give structure to
his project: "as practitioners of metaphorology, we have already robbed ourselves
of the possibility of finding 'answers' in metaphors to those unanswerable ques-
tions."'7 The essay is made up of histories of absolute metaphors that have been

13 Ibid., 20. For further definitions of the term see also page 9 (where "absolute" refers
to metaphor's resistance to translation into concepts, and not specifically to the issue of
totalization), page 108, and the following passage, from page 123: the absolute metaphor
gives "an orienting hold for the question, not answerable through theoretical investigation,
about the position of man in the universe of the existent."
14 Ibid., 142.
5 Ibid., 19.
16 Ibid., 10-11.
17 Ibid., 19.

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Hans Blumenberg's Anthropological Metaphorology 157

carefully chosen to serve as "paradigms." The resulting "typology of histories


metaphors"'8 is intended to circumscribe the realm of metaphor, clearly distin
guishing it from other modes of consciousness: the rational, the mythic,
symbolic. The very title of the work-"for" or "toward [zu] a metaphorolog
implies a Cartesian trajectory towards greater rationality in human activit
trajectory towards a science (logos) of metaphor.
Despite Blumenberg's assertion that practitioners of metaphorology may no
find answers in metaphors, one metaphor, "paradigm," appears in this es
frequently without being an object of study. It is this linguistic metaphor tha
allows him to map out the full range of mankind's relation to the absolut
gives structure and unity to the other metaphors in the essay. Its success
performing this task is the very quality that makes it absolute. The completen
of the typology is a sure sign that the typology is not complete-one metaphor
has necessarily escaped to provide the ground on which the typology is c
structed.19 The purpose of the paradigms is to lead to the rule of reason, and
this reason is dependent on rhetoric-the paradigm metaphor-for its powe
"Paradigms for a Metaphorology" is a title dramatizing the manner in wh
rhetoric always reasserts itself most forcefully at the very moment when rea
tries to increase its autonomy.
Blumenberg's implicit devaluation of metaphor in relation to concept derive
from the view of history in which reason displaces myth, and this arises from
inattention to what the two realms share: the terminus a quo. (Later, in Work
Myth, we find Blumenberg applying the same criticism to Cassirer.) Altho
Blumenberg already defines metaphor in terms of its function in this early wor
his understanding of that function will grow more profound once he articulat
more fully the terminus a quo, or Daseinsgrund.
The contradictions in "Paradigms for a Metaphorology" indicate the dif
culty, if not the impossibility, of its ambitious project: it is not easy to le
unsatisfied the desire for certain kinds of knowledge. Blumenberg later ackno
edged that when metaphors lose their effectiveness, "they leave behind them
corresponding questions, to which then new answers become due when
because it is not possible to destroy the question itself critically."20 A philosop
of symbolic forms may have no intrinsic need to articulate the terminus a qu
but the "accomplishment and establishment of the reoccupation," in which one

18 Ibid., 84.
19 Cf. Jacques Derrida's comments on the "impossibility" of a "metaphorology of
philosophy": "If one wished to conceive and to class all the metaphorical possibilities of
philosophy, one metaphor, at least, always would remain excluded, outside the system"
("White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy," Margins of Philosophy, tr.
Alan Bass [Chicago, 1982], 219-20 and passim). On the metaphor "paradigm," see Anselm
Haverkamp, "Paradigma Metapher, Metapher Paradigma-Zur Metakinetic hermeneu-
tischer Horizonte (Blumenberg/Derrida, Kuhn/Foucault, Black/White)," Epochen-
schwelle und Epochenbewusstsein, Poetik und Hermeneutik 12, ed. Reinhart Herzog and
Reinhart Koselleck (Munich, 1987), 547-60, and also the discussion of "Observations on
Metaphors," below.
20 The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, tr. Robert M. Wallace (Cambridge, Mass., 1983),
66 (translation revised based on 1966 edition). The English translation is based on the
three-volume revised edition (1974, 1973, 1976), but all of the passages I cite in this essay,
unless otherwise noted, were already present in the first edition (1966).

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158 David Adams

answer, philosoph
philosophy that lea
its predecessors and
degger scored point
quo. Addressing th
philosophical positi
ally tries to avoid c
them with the "co

An Anthropol

The next twenty y


ingly aware and del
a quo. In "Paradig
terminus a quo in a
in the Daseinsgrund
he suggests that th
history. The book d
thesis, which sugge
of disguised and ill
from the Middle A
between the two ep
possible for totally
cific positions in th
This model appear
Cassirer that argues
in principle by a ch
hypotheses "never
another absolutely
answer to the ques
applies the model o
to explain the sour
Modem metaphors,
may appear similar

In our history this


has been decisively
in the direction of
work of the state
expected, "positions
in the interest of t
tions about the tota
purpose of his exi
which it introduced

21 "An Anthropolog
Robert M. Wallace, A
Bohman, and Thoma
22 Legitimacy of the
23 Substance and Fu

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Hans Blumenberg's Anthropological Metaphorology 159

to honor which was bound to be difficult or even impossible for any knowledge
that did not appeal, as it did, to transcendent sources.24

This passage makes it clear that the questions Christian theology placed in o
Daseinsgrund are the same ones answered by absolute metaphors. By focusin
here on forms of curiosity added relatively recently to our framework of knowl-
edge, Blumenberg's philosophical anthropology provides a partial account of the
terminus a quo and still avoids absolutes and the temptation for totalization.
Yet implicit in this analysis is the belief that mankind always possesses ques-
tions or needs of some kind which are the terminus a quo of civilization. Th
implication is explicated in "An Anthropological Approach to the Contemporary
Significance of Rhetoric" (1971). To date, Blumenberg's major work has ad
dressed other topics-the genesis of the modem age, metaphor, myth-and th
anthropological elements have remained in the background. "An Anthropologi-
cal Approach to Rhetoric" is the only work devoted to the topic of concern
us here. In it he introduces a name for the animal with the expanding an
shrinking "budget" of curiosity: the "creature of deficiency" (Mdngelwesen). Th
concept is borrowed from Arnold Gehlen and a tradition in the philosophy
language stretching back to Johann Gottfried Herder, but in the context
Blumenberg's own development it must be viewed as a descendent of the concep
of the Daseinsgrund in the "Paradigms" essay. Blumenberg sees rhetoric as t
tool of a creature who must compensate for a deficiency of meaning. Unli
animals, man lacks sufficient instincts to determine his behavior in all situation
and rhetoric helps him survive these crises.

Man's deficiency in specific dispositions for reactive behavior vis-a-vis reality-


that is, his poverty of instincts-is the starting point for the central anthropolog
cal question as to how this creature is able to exist in spite of his lack of fixed
biological dispositions. The answer can be reduced to the formula: by not dealing
with this reality directly. The human relation to reality is indirect, circumstanti
delayed, selective, and above all "metaphorical."25

Here the metaphorologist is not so quick to "rob" himself of the possibility


finding answers in metaphors. The risk of doing so is further suggested by his
comments on "identity" near the end of the essay:

anthropological approaches to rhetoric converge on a central descriptive stat


ment: Man has no immediate, no purely "internal" relation to himself. H
self-understanding has the structure of "self-exterality." Kant was the first to
deny that inner experience has any precedence over outer experience; we a
appearance to ourselves, the secondary synthesis of a primary multiplicity, not
the reverse.... Man comprehends himself only by way of what he is not. It
not only his situation that is potentially metaphorical; his constitution itse
already is.26

This passage echoes an insight of Cassirer's, expressed in the formula representa


tion precedes presentation: we do not know things in isolation; rather we know

24 Legitimacy of the Modern Age, 64-65.


25 "Anthropological Approach," 439.
26 Ibid., 456.

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160 David Adams

primarily relations
concept of the Mdn
back to the termi
suggests, as a crea
himself or the wo
with symbolic form
With the developm
Mingelwesen, Blum
terminus a quo. Wo
cal anthropology. S
the phenomenon th
and metaphor. The
came close to not h
more important, be
means by which m
of what is other th
piecemeal to the o
possesses for him.
The "absolutism of
a terminus a quo t
... we are speaking
lacking in the "Par
late and a poor inv
the overcoming of
function."31 Like m
in terms of its fun
into history-and de
for all civilization,
shared by all symb
The task performe
an "absolutism of
subject."33 The con

27 Cf. Substance and


28 Cf. Hans Blumen
Im Hinblick auf ein
1988, Fernausgabe, 43
he paid his party tax
importance of symb
Blumenberg discloses
war as an "unregiste
to the fact that he w
29 Work on Myth,
30Ibid., 21.
31 Ibid., 48.
32 Cf. Legitimacy of the Modern Age: "the concept of 'reoccupation' designates, by
implication, the minimum of identity that it must be possible to discover, or at least to
presuppose and to search for, in even the most agitated movement of history" (p. 466).
This passage first appeared in the revised edition.
33 Work on Myth, 8-9.

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Hans Blumenberg's Anthropological Metaphorology 161

ity" and imagination, helplessness and control, question and answer, indetermi-
nacy and plenitude of meaning-is what we call "history." To preserve th
process Blumenberg concerns himself with removal away from rather than ap-
proach toward these extremes: to stay between them one must avoid arriving a
either one.

Metaphorical Anthropology

The development of an anthropological terminus a quo for metaphorology h


coincided with a growing recognition of the metaphorical nature of philosophi
anthropology. Blumenberg's early attempt to avoid answers about things never
experienced or seen has given way to imaginative speculation reaching far beyo
experience and sight. In Work on Myth, for example, he increases the rhetoric
force of the "absolutism of reality" concept by filling it with narrative conten

Whatever may have been the appearance of the prehuman creature that w
induced, by an enforced or an accidental change in the environment it inhabite
to avail itself of the sensory advantage of raising itself upright into a bipe
posture and to stabilize the advantage in spite of all its internal disadvantages i
the functioning of organs-that creature had, in any case, left the protection o
a more hidden form of life, and an adapted one, in order to expose itself to th
risks of the widened horizon of its perception, which were also those of
perceivability.... [This move] was a situational leap, which made the unoccup
distant horizon into the ongoing expectation of hitherto unknown things. Wha
came about through the combination of leaving the shrinking rain forest for
savanna and settling in caves was a combination of the meeting of new require
ments for performance in obtaining food outside the living places and the
advantage of undisturbed reproduction and rearing of the next generation, wit
its prolonged need for learning, now in the protection of housing that was eas
to close off from the outside.34

"Is grander speculation imaginable?"-this is the understandable response to this


passage from a critic who observes that "Blumenberg, despite his perempto
dismissal of the quest for origin, does not himself forsake the quest."35 B
Blumenberg's quest is not so much for origin per se as for an account of origin
that satisfies our need for such stories. Work on Myth calls attention to its ow
rhetorical foundation in speaking of the absolutism of reality as a "limit conce
pointing back toward the "archaic" or the "past's past" (Vorvergangenheit, plu-

34 Ibid., 4.
35 Robert A. Segal, "Blumenberg as Theorist of Myth," Annals of Scholarship, 5
(1987), 93. See also Robert Wallace, "Translator's Introduction," Work on Myth, xvi-xix.
Blumenberg may avoid describing the origin of the contents of individual myths, but he
certainly does not avoid giving "content" or "substance" to his idea of the origin of the
function of myth as a whole. The emphasis on function does not free one from the need
to deal with "contents," but makes one more conscious of how one does so, i.e., of one's
own dependence on myth.

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162 David Adams

perfect); in other
Substance and Func
proposes the use of
reality without re
knowledge, a limit
relations among th
extrapolation in th
appreciates the imp
such limit concepts
The self-consciousn
olation transform
a Metaphorology" i
realizes that "'carry
to be performed, bu
pology answers que
phors are necessar
embraces both nece
awareness of the fu
of his work, creatin
more important t
assertion.
"Observations on M
developing this se
discusses "paradigm
reference here to h
role.) The title "Obs
which contrasts w
The title also indica
observer of metaph
One object of study
of the shipwreck w
Blumenberg's inter
sion so far in Shipw
where he traces its
Daseinsmetapher ra
claim in "An Anth
tion m is potentially
own fate and Blum
history as its vario

36 Work on Myth, 3,
cal basis: the talk of
is "only a heuristic p
in quotation marks
no such
references t
subversively.
37 Substance and Function, 228-29.
38 Work on Myth, 7.
39 "Beobachtungen an Metaphern," Archiv fur Begriffsgeschichte, 15 (1971), 161-214.

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Hans Blumenberg's Anthropological Metaphorology 163

and its wreck. The story arrives at Jacob Burckhardt's reflection that "we woul
like to know the waves in which we are floating, but we are these waves them-
selves."40 The final lines of Blumenberg's account ask a question that the bo
in a small way has already answered: "obviously the ocean contains other materi
than that already used in building. From where can it come, in order to giv
courage to those beginning anew? Perhaps out of earlier shipwrecks?"41 Blumen
erg has given the metaphor new life by making himself-and the reader-th
spectators of this metaphor's shipwreck. Inside and outside, subject and obje
are confused: this is a "paradigm" for a "metaphorology" practiced with a
consciousness and acceptance of the fact that metaphors not only are the objects
of analysis but also give form to the subject performing this analysis. By settin
himself adrift on the sea of metaphor, Blumenberg avoids the illusion of being
anchored to the absolute.
In the past decade Blumenberg's rate of publication of such histories of
metaphor has increased. Throughout these works there is the double movement
found in Shipwreck with Spectator: towards distance and immediacy in relation
to the metaphors. On the one hand each history of an absolute metaphor seems
to be complete, total-a rounded off object set off from the historian. On the
other hand each work emphasizes the extent to which the observer and the act
of observation are themselves metaphorical and constituted by the very metaphors
being studied. The ambiguity of the position of the author and reader of these
works and the preoccupation with the concept of the observer-whether as
Betrachter, Beobachter, Zuschauer, Anschauer, or LeserA2-indicate the self-
consciousness of Blumenberg's attempts to describe and to create his relation to
the past. How "new" is his anthropological metaphorology? Might he be strad-
dling the threshold to the next epoch, partly "inside" and partly "outside"
modem metaphors? How much can and should one attempt to influence such an
epochal transition by altering the answers and perhaps even the questions?

Forgetting a Question Intentionally?

Blumenberg shares-and heightens-Cassirer's ecumenicalism. For Blu-


menberg every manifestation of culture is fundamentally valuable in helping to
distance the terminus a quo, at which human life is threatened. This does not mean
that all "answers" are equally valid at all times: each must display convincing
supporting evidence and satisfy our prior internal expectations for knowledge.
But presumably two or more contradictory interpretations can function equally
well. The concepts "absolutism of reality" and "Mingelwesen" accommodate this
fact by granting every epoch and mode of expression-even those that explicitly
contradict these concepts-a fundamental legitimacy as part of the ongoing

40 Quoted in Schiffbruch mit Zuschauer: Paradigma einer Daseinsmetapher (Frankfurt


am Main, 1979), 66.
41 Schiffbruch mit Zuschauer, 74.
42 See Die Lesbarkeit der Welt (Frankfurt am Main, 1981), Das Lachen der Thrakerin
(Frankfurt am Main, 1987), Matthauspassion (Frankfurt am Main, 1988), Hi6hlenausgange
(Frankfurt am Main, 1989), and his extensive work on cosmological metaphor, the most
important example of which is The Genesis of the Copernican World, tr. Robert M. Wallace
(Cambridge, Mass., 1987).

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164 David Adams

process of self-pres
of matching this ec
cal anthropology le
Blumenberg often
his concepts, argu
individual should b
speaks of "the elem
human," or claims t
people have ever th
to the "questions":
culture: that of the
attempts to overcom
cannot answer"-an
ing.45 Every time a
what it means to b
Thus an ecumenical
Yet the advice Cass
we lack the time t
equal life to all past
them. Self-preserv
clined person (or cu
enthusiasm, but wh
attention remains p
of history. This "p
the modem age, tra
tried to embrace th
self-conception: try
totally Other, he in
act of comparing
modem age is amb
conception of man,
simply does not ha
Christianity, and t
answers; ecumenic
question about the
So how does Blum
backing away from
sciousness of the a
that the need they

43 Blumenberg's ec
For another view of
Brindisi': Vergil in an
1986), 225-39.
44 "Ernst Cassirers gedenkend," 170 and passim; Lesbarkeit der Welt, 409.
45 "Pensiveness," tr. David Adams, Caliban, 6 (1989), 54; see also "Being-A MacGuf-
fin: How to Preserve the Desire to Think," tr. David Adams, Salmagundi (forthcoming
1991).
46 "Anthropological Approach," 456.

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Hans Blumenberg's Anthropological Metaphorology 165

with more circuitously. The greater rhetorical freedom Blumenberg is allowing


himself in the discussion of absolutes is an indication of his growing distan
from the question of absolutes. The question about the subject of history ha
grown less insistent when one can recognize that "the singular form of 'history
is itself an absolute metaphor."47 How dependent is Blumenberg's metaphorology
on this metaphor-do his various histories of individual metaphors collectivel
make up one unified history? Leaving this question in the background has allow
the individual histories to thrive. They do not delimit or limit the realm o
metaphor, but they do seem to be accomplishing one of the aims of the "Para-
digms" essay with slightly different means: the need for absolutes is becoming
less memorable, more distant, more "metaphorical."
Can one deliberately encourage this process? Talk of intentionally forgetting
something is, admittedly, a self-defeating activity. Kant must have experienced
this futility when, upset by the memory of his former servant, he wrote a note t
remind himself that "the name Lampe must now be completely forgotten." The
humor of this anecdote reminds us that techniques for forgetting are not as simp
as those for remembering, but it reminds us also that our talk of "forgetting"
itself metaphorical: in contrast to Kant's desire to let go of a piece of conscious-
ness, "forgetting a question" involves letting go of a need at the root of conscious
ness. For these reasons it is not easy to determine to what extent Blumenberg's
conscious intentions have contributed to his growing distance from the question
of absolutes. But he does seem to have found a method for dealing with th
question less and less directly. Robert Wallace has summarized the process
discussing Legitimacy of the Modern Age: "by questioning the nature of our ow
questioning, we alter the dynamic of our curiosity not by fiat, by proscribing
questions, but by extending it to and satisfying it on another level."48 The mos
concise example I have found of this process appears on the first page of Th
Legibility of the World, where Blumenberg offers sequels to the great questions
put forward by Kant. Kant's question, "What can we know?" is echoed by
Blumenberg's "What was it that we wanted to know?" And Kant's "What ma
we hope?" is replaced by Blumenberg's "What was it that we might have hoped
for?"49 The surrogate questions push their predecessors into the backgroun
undermining our expectations and our need for knowledge.
As the problem of absolutes begins to recede into the background, Blumenberg
is branching out into other areas. In the past decade he has begun to experiment
with new genres: short prose pieces such as newspaper essays, "imaginary anec-
dotes" which take off from obscure historical facts, and "glosses" on fables
which he often provides more adaptation than commentary.50 The turn to this
more overtly literary work seems appropriate for a philosopher becoming more
conscious of the metaphorical structure of his own thought. But these literary
productions remain enigmatic; they confuse the boundaries between the imagi-

47 "Beobachtungen an Metaphern," 168.


48 Robert M. Wallace, "Translator's Introduction," Legitimacy of the Modern Ag
xxviii.
49 Lesbarkeit der Welt, 9.
5o These literary pieces have been appearing regularly in Frankfurter Allgemeine Ze
tung, Neue Zurcher Zeitung, and Akzente; Die Sorge geht iber den Fluss (Frankfurt am
Main, 1987) is a collection of such pieces.

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166 David Adams

nary and the histor


insignificant, and t
stood as another st
the site of that ign
Blumenberg, in oth
us from whatever i
learn ignorance, to

Queens College an
of New York.

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