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Progress, Secularization and Modernity: The Lowith-Blumenberg Debate Robert M. Wallace New German Critique, No. 22, Special Issue on Modemism. (Winter, 1981), pp. 63-79. Stable URL: httpflinksstor.orgsici sic =0494-083X%28 198 124542003 A22% 3C59%3APSAMTL%3E20,CO%IB2F New German Criuque is currently published by New German Critique. Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of ISTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at flip: feworwjtor org/aboutterms.htmal. ISTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in par, that unless you fave obtained pcior permission, you may not dowaload an cnt isus of @ journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content inthe ISTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial uss. Please contact the publisher cegarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at bhupsferwer,jstor.org/joumals/nge html Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transtnission. ISTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding ISTOR, please contact support @jstor.org- hup:thrwwjstor.org/ Tue Sep 5 16:17:46 2006 Progress, Secularization and Modernity: The Léwith-Blumenberg Debate yy Robert M. Wallace 1. Contemporary Attitudes toward Progress “Progress” is no longer the watchword, the unquestionably beneficial goal and process that it once was in the United States and the West. The European intelligentsia shed its illusions about progress some time ago, under the impact of the warld wars, the “Final Solution,” etc. In the United States, innocence lasted longer, but with Viernam and the environ- mental crises, the existence of widespread doubt about the capacity of the “progressive” trio of democracy, industry and science to resolve all prob- tems has become a “normal” state of affairs here too. It is no tonger only ideologically “counter-culeural” types who doubt the possibility or even the meaning of progress. Even the advocates of nuclear power, the builders of the latest Macdonald's, and the investigators of recombinant DNA, though they may still occasionally apply the word “progeess” to these projects, defend them not as being themselves beneficial but merely as generating jobs, oF ultimately as being “inevitable,” For many of us “progress” has thus become another name for the steamroller of history — a steamaroller which it now seems may only stap when it has obliterated its “drivers” as well as everything else. Indeed, we may wonder whether that wasn't the real nature of "pro- _gress” all along. The suggestion of the occasional socialits that these phe~ ‘nomena are really symptoms of the irrationality of late capitalism and can and must be overcome by the establishment of a more thorough-going democracy, of an industry organized to meet real needs, and of a science. which aims to solve people's real problems — such naively “progressive” suggestions are met with incredulity, The “socialist” countries now in exis- fence seem more intent on progress as pollution than even our late- capitalist ones, and they don't inspire confidence in the possibility of progress in democracy either. But even more basically, we doubt our own. ability (o distinguish reai needs from false, “manipulated” ones, to define really worthwhile goals and to make ‘real progress” towards them. Out experience is so dominated and suffused by the mechanisms of official and, ‘we think, false progress that when we consider the possibility of an alternative, that possibility almost inevitably presents itself not as a ditfer- a 4 Wallace entkind of progress, “real progress this time, but rather as no progress — as an escape from progress and all that it connotes. And of course there are plenty of “world-views” available to help those who would like to define a non-"progressive” mode of existence. Oriental religions, mychology, med- itation, fundamental or maybe existential Christianity, back-to-the-land anarchism, neo-Platonie, neo-Aristotelian, neo-Scholastic, or Heideaser- ian philosophy . . . everything and anything is capable of some sost of revival or appropriation, or even (perish the thought) commercialization. In the shadow of fand, often, by means of} the official, discredited but “inevitable” ongoing mechanisms of progtess, the “alternatives” proliferate, However, these more or less escapist phenomena pose a less basic threat to the salvageability of any conception of real progress than is posed by attempts to explain the idea of progress itself as a mistake or an inauthentic version of something else. There have been a number of recent attempts along these lines, including the ecologically-inspiced attempts to trace the origin of dominating or exploiting nature in Western religions. Heidegger has suggested that the modern preoccupation with technology is a phenomenon of the forgetfulness of Being which originates, peshaps. somewhere in Greek philosophy. One af the most interesting and incisive ‘of these attempts, focussing on the concept of progress itself, is not as well known in this country as the two just mentioned, probably because it originated long before the ecology movement and has not ient itself to the kind of popularization that Heidegger has received, This is the doctrine, propounded pre-eminently by Karl Lawita, that the modern idea of progtess is a transformation into worldly form of Christian eschatology. that is, of the Christian preoccupation with the future as the dimension of the “last things,” the end of the world, the Last Judgement, salvation, damnation, ete I. Karl Lowith’s Theory of Progress as Secularized Eschatology Lawith's book, Meaning in History, was published by the University of Chicago Press ia 1949 with the unfortunate subtitle, “The Theological Implications of the Philosophy of History.” The German edition, pub- lished in 1953 after Lowith’s return to Germany, carries the much more accurate subtitle, “Die theologischen Voraussetzungen der Geschichts- philosophie,” that is, the theological presuppositions of the philosophy of history. Lawith’s thesis is not about theology as such; rather. itis about the derivation of modern philosophies of history. with their almost unbroken celebration of progress, from Christianity (and, through it, from Judaism). Itis about the — mostly hidden — theological presuppositions of modern historicat consciousness, as exemplified by leading thinkers of the 18th and 19th centuries (Vottaice, Turgot, Condorcet, Comte, Proudhon, Hegel, Mars). The Léwith-Blumenberg Debate 65 Lawith finds the key to the derivation of these philosophies of history from Christianity in Hegel, the one modem philosopher of history who makes his relationship to Christianity a central and overt feature of his system. This emerges in Hegel's doctrine that the modern spiritual and political world (which he claimed to bring to full comprehension in his philosophy) arose through “suspension and carrying-forward” (“Auf- hebung’’) of the Christias-Reformation phase of world history.' Léwith, of course, abandons Hegel’s assumption that this process constituted a “step forward,” but he preserves Hegel's schematic outline in his own doctrine that the modern idea of progress suspends (1. for Léwith, disguises) and carries forward (in secularized form) the Christian relationship to escha- tology. The purpose of Lawith’s book, he tells us, is to show that, contrary to the consciousness of most exponents other than Heget, the “philosophy of history originates with the Hebrew and Christian faith in a fulfillment and that it ends with the secularization of [that faith’s) eschatological pattern." Léwith’s book does not undertake to present a comprehensive history ‘or analysis of the phenomenon of “progress.” Mast of the time, it stays on the level of the history of ideas (i.c., in this case, mostly of philosophy and theology), beginning with the most widely influential formulations of the optimistic “faith in progress” that was so prevalent in the 19th century and working backwards, looking always for earlier Fortns of the idea and for its ultimate soutce as an idea. The central portion of the book is a discussion of the theories of Marx, Hegel, Prouchon and Comte, the 19th-century socialists, idcalists aud positivists who all (despite their often cadical disagreements with one another) in Lowith’s view share a conviction that world history is unified and intelligible in terms of an underlying pattern of unbroken and scemingly inevitable progress towards some form of ideal ultimate human condition. Lowith ridicules this attitude, not vociferously but with the quiet effectiveness that is possible for a European whose youth, coincided with World War One, young manhood with the Weimar Repub- lic, and mature years with the “Third Reich”, World War Two, the “Final Solution”, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He secks continually the source Of this non-rational faith ina pattern that sciemtfic objectivity, as well as an honest awareness of daily human experience, should have exposed as an illusion before time and intellectual energy could be wasted on it. And he isn’t bashful about stating his conclusion, time and again, as he finishes with each author, that this peculiar édée fixe is comprehensible only as a disguised version of the Hebrew and Christian focus on certain future events, and on movement towards them, as crucial for man’s happiness, C Lawith discusses Hegel at greater length in his fest major work, Fim Hage co Nieche = The Revolution in Ninwearth Century Though (New Yook, 144; German oe ginal published in Zavih in 1941. 2, Meaning in History (Chicago, 199). p.2. 96 Wallace ‘One possible alternative explanation Lawith does not consider. This is what might be called the “materialist” or sociological type af theory, according to which the illusions of these intellectuals ate merely high- falutin’ versions of the enthusiasm that was widespread, and would pre sumably have become widespread even without their help, as a result of the evident progress in the material productivity of science, technology, industry, etc. in the 19th, 18th and even carlier centuries. Why Lowith does not consider this type of explanation I can, of course, only guess. However, two possibilities do occur to me. The first is that Léwith may believe that intellectual phenomena (the History of ideas) must be €x- plained primarily by reference to other intellectual phenomena; that socio- logical explanations contain an unacceptable “reductionism,” which taken to the extreme would deny the possibility of thought itself, and thus suffocate even itself as a (self-conscious) theory. This kind of response to the materialist “unmaskiag” of theories as mere reflections of social reality certainly has some plausibility. The second possibilty is that Lowith has in the back of his mind that the secularization of Christian ideas and attitudes is the fundamental explanation not only of the idea of progress but of the very motivation and power of “progress” itseff, as embodied in the general dynamism (economic, military, scientific, ete.) of European capitalist society since, say, the 16th century. He does offer some speculative remarks, especially atthe end of his book (pp. 202~203), that suggest this kind of account. If this is indeed what he really thinks, then to explain the idea of progress as a reflection of material developments would just lead back to Christianity again as the cause of those material developments. ‘And much of the motivation for the materialist reduction would disappear in view of such a circle. But let us return to what Léwith does give us: his history of ideas. Another recurring theme in Lawith’s thinking, along with the thesis that the modern idea of progress is the result of secularization of Hebrew and Chistian ““fururisma,” is the contrast ofthis fixation on the future with what Lowith takes to be the characteristic ancient (pre-Christian) attitude, one ‘hich sees history as a succession of rises and falls, growth and decadence ¢tc., analogous to the natucal cycles of living things and of the heavens, and cpitomized in the common Greek theory (elaborated as a historical cos- mology in the doctrine of the Stoics) of a continual “recurrence,” which is essentially unchanged throughout past, pcesent and future. It is clear that Léwith feels drawn to this ancient world-view more even than to the indifference to worldly progress which characterizes what he regards as true Christianity. While he may honor the latter, still ts historical advent and triumph were the end of antiquity and the source of at least one of our ‘most basic modern confusions. How exactly did the transformation come about by means of which Christianity gave rise to the modern idea of progress? Lowith examines several 18th century thinkers — Voltaire, Targot, Condoreet — in whose time the idea is commonly agreed to have emerged in its full modern The Lovwith-Blumtenierg Debate 67 clarity. He also studies the enigmatic and isolated work of Giambattista Vico, and the overtly Christian historico-theological writings of authors such as Bossuet, Joachim of Floris, Saint Augustine, Orosius — and the writers of the Bible itself. These discussions are. very interesting, but no clear pattern or sequence of transformation appears. Lawith daes not seem to suggest, for instance, that Christian thinking became increasingly more worldly during the Middle Ages, foreshadowing an eventual transforms- tion into the (ostensibly) ireeligious madern doctrines of progress, Not does he define a point of stress, weekness, ot potential crisis in Christian thinking which would help to explain the transformation. (Nor, again, does hhe put forward any “materialist” or sociological type of explanation, such as has been so tempting to others ia explaining the waning of the Christian Middle Ages, etc.) The secularization of eschatology is apparently such aa. elusive, or such a deep-ing process that its steges, if ichas stages, are not manifest in the documents of the history of ideas. It is, perhaps, a “theoretical construct,” necessary to explain what is observable, but not itself apparent in the data. A skeptic might wonder whether the “material- ist” explanation of the rise ofthe idea of progress is not, despite its unsatis- fying “vulgarity,” just about as persuasive as this sort of highly speculative theory. But Léwith shows no signs of uncertainty. Apparently he wasn't ooking so much for the conficmation as for an “illustration” of his theory of secularization in the writers he examines. Seeing no alternative intellectual account of the modern idea of progress — and there was none, prior to the appearance of Hans Blumenberg’s studies in the. 1960s — Léwith is simply confident that the account he has proposed must in some way be the correct one. What will be the consequences if we accept Léwith's theory? Its mast basic implication is that modern thought has a fundamentally false con- sciousness of itself. While claiming to be an expression of authentically human rationality, modern thought relating to history in fact derives ies fundamental pattern of interpretation — that of ditection toward a future goal or fulfillment — from theology, from the very dogmas that the Enlightenment and its 19th-century “historicist” heirs were concerned, if not to deny, at least to bracket off from their explanatory endeavors. And this is not just an innocent “borrowing,” as it were, of “terminology” which can readily be separated from the original context from which it is borrowed; in its original context this pattern of interpretation is so tightly intertwined with the concept of fait that the presence of the pattern in a modern context must cast fundamental doubt on that contexts character istic modern claim to elementary human rationality — once the source of the pattern is recognized. “The modern mind has not made up its mind whether it should be Christian or pagan, It sces with one eye of faith and one of reason. Hence its vision is necessarily dim in comparison with ‘either Greek or biblical thinking,” (p. 207) ‘A grim conclusion, for those of us who Would like to salvage something 68 Wallace from modern philosopty — and, for that matter, from modera society. Léwith does not try to pretty it up. From the wreck of modernity entailed bby the recognition of this false consciousness, he draws no reassuring ‘moral. Nor (at least in Mearting i History) does he suagest any “way out.” He praises the stoicat refusal-of illusions of figures like Jacob Burckhardt, and depicts the classical Greek concepts of nature, cosmos, etc. persua- sively as a mode! of a world-onsciousness untroubted by hope, illusions of progress, cic, But he does not claim to inkabit such a aature or cosmos ‘Perhaps it is an index of the exhaustion of our times that Lowith's thesis was snot systematically criticized — though, at least in Germany, it was widely known, cited and elaborated upon by theologians and philosophers — until 1962, and no book wes devoted to its refutation until 1966. Whatever the reason for the delay, that critique and refutation are now available, and fort the subject of the remainder of this paper. IIL, Blumenberg's Critique of the Secularization Theory Hans Blumenberg is a younger German philosopher who was known before his debate with Léwith as the author of “Paradigms for a Meta- Phorology,” of a book on The Copernican Tunt, and other telatively specialized studies. At the Seventh German Philosophy Congress in 1962, Blumenberg read a paper containing both a thorougit-going analysis of the notion of “secularization” and the claims made on its behalf, and a suggested alternative account of the origin of what he regarded as the legitimate modern idea of progress, and of the origin of the grandiose phitosophies of history én which ideas of progress have played such a central role, This paper was revised, expanded, and supplemented by ¢ dramatically original account of the origin of the modern age asa whole, in a book Blumenberg published in 1966 under the title Die Leguimiuds der Neuzeit — The Legitimacy of the Modern Age.* Part One of the book (ike Blumenberg’s original paper) is entitled “Secularization: Critique of a Category of Historical Illegitimacy.” In it Blumenberg asks what exactly is meant by the assertion that 2 concept or structure is “the secularization of” a Christian concept or structure. * First he points out how this kind of assertion differs from the more generat kind 3, (Feankiurt em Main, 1965). An English ransltion (by the author ofthis essay) ofthe second edition of this bok wil be publithed by MIT Press. 4, Blumenberg reminds us of many oer aleged instances ofthis process, besides the one which is suppased wo have produced the iea of progres. Bpistemology’'s cenweal problem at certtinsy i traced bac to the Caristan’s probiem of ceraity of salvation; the medern werk ethic, © Christian ssithood end asceticism: politica! sovereignty ta civme savereigny: ‘communism to parédise oF the apocalypse: the Wnty ofthe universe ta divine infinity; ete lumenberg criticizes only some of these supposed secularzetions individually The Léwith-Blumenberg Debate 69 of statement, that ours is a “secular age,” or that it is always getting more and more secular (i.e., less interested in or dominated by religion). Whether true or nat, such statements are clearly very different from (and. much less interesting than) statements to the effect that certain modern phenomena are secularized versions of Christian ones. Turning to the latter, Blumenberg suggests that Lowith’s book and the subsequent liter ature imply a model of the process of secularization which he spells out in terms of three criteria: — First, that an identifiable common “substance” underwent the transfor- mation from Christian to “seculatized” form. (So that, for example, merely analogous formation, without a continuous process of transforme- tion connecting them, won't qualify.) — Second, that the ‘‘substance” belonged properly to the earlier, Chriss tian framework. And = Third, that the transformation was a “one-sided” one performed not by Christianity (*secutarizing” itself, so to speak), but by an agent outside it My discussion here will refer mainly to the first of these three criteria, which is central to Blumenberg’s critique of Lowith in particular. (Blumen- berg's critique of “secularization theories” in general contains a good deal that cannot be summarized here.) ‘Turning then to the eriterion of the existence of a common “substance” which undergoes the supposed process of secularization, Blumenberg, points out first of all that there isan evident formal difference between the ideas associated with eschatology, and the idea of progress. The former all involve some form of dramatic transcendent incursion (coming of the Messiah, end of the world, Last Judgement) which consummates the history of the world from ouiside. Whereas the idea of progress, however spiritualized it may be in particular versions, always denotes a process at ‘work within (“immanent in”) history, proceeding from stage to stage (even to an ultimate “end”) by an internal logic, not by external intervention. Lowith had shown some consciousness of this problem at vatious points in Meaning in History, especially in the Epilogue, where he took pains to describe what eschatological and modern ideas had in common as simply an orientation to the future as che crucial “horizon” for man, and hope (of expectation) as man’s attitude in relation to that horizon.* This was clearly meant to direct attention away from the differing modes of “consum- mation” in the Christian and the secularized versions of the idea. Lowith ‘5, This model has been eriteized on various grounds, against which Blumenberg defends itn the second edition of his book (Velume One: Setularisienung und Sebsibchaupuung, subrkamp taschenbuch wissenschate No. 79, Frankfurt 1974, pp. 24-31, 37) To the best of my knowtedge na alternative analysis of the concept of secviaization, with comparable larity, bas been suggested. Lawith’s response to Blumenbers's eiiques doesnot undertake ta present an alternative analysis. 6, Meaning in History, pp. 84, 11, 196, 208 7 Wallace again emphasized this minimum common substance in his eventual reply to Blumenberg’s critique.” Blumenberg’s second line of criticism questions the continuity of the eschatological substance through the “secularization process," nat by questioning the identity of the end points of the process, but by suggesting, an entirely different derivation for the modern “result”: a different “gene- alogy of the idea of progess."" Briefly, what he asserts is that the modern idea of progress arose in the course of two main early-modern experiences: the spring forward made by astronomy in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the “quarrel of the ancients and the moderns" which raged in the late 17th, century. The astronomical progress registered by Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler was possible only on the basis of comparisons of observations over centuries, an enterprise the success of which required (a) 2 time span far exceeding that of an individual life-time, and (b) 2 theoretical effort (of data-coilection and transmission) that likewise would not even in principle be accomplished by # single individual. In this respect early-modern astronomy exhibited aot only results, but also a structure (as a human enterprise) which was entirely novel in Western experience. No one would doubt its importance as a model for modern science down to the present Blumenberg suggests that as a model of methodical progress it was relevant and was in fact influential outside “science” as well But before the idea could be generalized in that manner, the mix was enriched by the “quarrel of the ancients and the moderns.” Here the crucial result was that in the course of their debates over whether the. achievements of ancient art and literature could be equalled or surpassed in madern times, the participants gradually overeame the Renaissance idea that those achievements constituted permanently valid models of perfec- tion, in favor of a conception of the arts as expressing the creative spirit of their particular age. Unlike science, the arts did not require many indi viduals or generations for their success; but their success did inspire reflection on the dignity and creative power of maa, in all ages. And what happened in the 18th century is that both conceptions — the new scientific idea of integrating the efforts of many individuals in an overarching, “‘pro- gressive” totality, and the new aesthetic idea that if anyone is in charge and. is productive here, itis not God, and not nature, but man — were finally combined in the conception of progress in general as “man making history” in all departments (science. art, tectinology, society...) — the “idea of progress” that speaks through the writings of Voltaire, the Eneyclopedists, Kant et al. What Blumenberg describes, then, is the gradual emergence of an idea 7. In Philacaphische Rundschaw, 1S (1968) esp 198 8, The astronomical part af this "genealogy caced dtl in what 30 fae Bluens bere's only seein English: "Ona Genesiogy of he Idea af Progress,” Social Research, Sping 7, The Lowith-Blumenberg Debate 71 ‘of “progress in generat” from partial experiences in the specific areas, where early modern human endeavor had some of its most pregnant ‘experiences. Only at the end of two centuries does an “idea of progress” ‘emerge which is comparable in its generality to that of eschatology. But it is still crucially different from eschatology in its form — its “immanent” rather than “transcendent” consummation — as Blumenberg poicted out initially. And its “genealogy,” at least on the surface, has nothing to do with eschatology, and everything to do with what Blumenberg (in Part Two of ftis book) calls “human seli-assertion,” the fundamental irreligious effort of modern (post-Christian) man to make the most of what is available to him in this life and this world.? ‘And this assertedly Tegitimate (un-secularized, authentic) concept of progress is different from eschatology in a further, crucial respect, despite the level of generality it fas now reached: unlike the ambitious “ philoso- phies of history” (Condoreet, Proudhon, Comte, Hegel, etal.) which come later and which are the focus of LOwith’s analysis, progress here is not yet and not essentially conceived of as an account of the inherent “meaning ot history" as a whole. Itis only as successful as human beings choose to make it and succeed in making it — there is no way it can be found in all the phenomena of recorded ar unrecorded history, and it certainly does not “justify” or “explain the meaning of” the misery of the greater part of that history. It is still only @ partial account of an aspect of human experience — though of a ctucial aspect, in effect, for many of us. IV. Lowith's Response But allowing that such a relatively modest authentic idea of progress may have existed, and played a modest role, in the 18th century ~~ allow- ing that it may still exist, among the remnants of our tradition that we carcy with us and that some of us tend with loving care ~~ the reader may wonder how it was that this idea was so rapidly (if not immediately) transformed into the much more ambitious schemas of people like Condor- cet, Saint-Simon, Proudhon, Comte, Hegel and (as he is often interpreted) Mars, in all of which the reader is led to see the whole of human history as directed towards a higher state through a process of seemingly inevitable and predictable progress. Isn't it this kind of thinking shat most sharply distinguishes the modern world-view from those of the ancients and of 9. Blumenberg docs not deny that mosesn "seitassetion™ often makes use of religious language. He argues that it dacs to either ta disguise 5 non-religious iatenions ot, 28 a chosen “sijle." e@ dramatize its daring and extemigm, so that this “secularization of Fanguage” des not eatey with ca seculartzatan ofthe elgious content. See Die Lega der Neuzet (hereatwer: Legti), pp. $2~T Sakularsienang und Selosthehoupiurg (here after: Sekulariserang), pp. 9133. 72 Wallace primitive societies? Given the radical difference between ancient and modern world-views (which Blumenberg does not deny), and the presence ‘of Christianity as the primary experience intervening between them, it may seem — it certainly seems to Léwith — to be an arbitrary and willful blinciness to refuse to interpret the modern idea of progress as a transposi- tion — a secularization — of the Christian attitude to the future. “Who could deny,” Lowith writes in his review of Blumenberg’s book, “that the inheritance of a powerful tradition (and what tradition, as compared to the political authorities, has been more potent and stable through two millenia (of Western history than institutionalized Christianity?) is a co-determining, factor even of all relatively new beginnings? That the idea of progress should have only regional significance and a partial derivation, namely from the realm of the scientific discoveries and the literary-aesthetic controversies of the 17th century, and not touch the question of the meaning and the course of history as such and as a whole, is as improbable as the assertion that the rationality and autonomy of man in the modern ‘age is an absolutely original and free-standing one.""° Now Blumenberg fas not made his last assertion, since the whole of Part Two of his book is devoted to showing the historical context and provocation for the modern claims to autonomous rationality (part of the complex of “human selfassertion"). So there can be no question of Blumenberg’s ignoring pre-modern history, including Christianity. But if modernity did not spring into being spontaneously, from “outside” history. asit were, then surely the idea of progress must be traceable to pre-modern ideas? And what alternative to the secularization theory would Blumen- berg propose for this purpose? and why? Blumenberg has in fact answered these questions — though perhaps not always at sufficient length and in sufficient detail to make all of his answers easy to grasp, (Part One of his book was rewritten and consider- able expanded in the second edition, for this reason. ) Blumenberg is aware that what he has reconstructed as the “legitimate” modem concept of progress will not meet the requirements of the “ambitious” philosophies of history with which Léwith is (and the rest of us, in our disappointment or cynicism, tend to be) preoccupied. He has a whole theory designed both to account for this difference, and to show what he regards asthe true role of Christianity in generating these “ambitious” modera philosophies of hi tory. And he has a complete account of the role of Christianity in the genesis of his “legitimate” idea of progress as well (the account of the origin of “human self-assertion,” mentioned above). I will sketch these explanations in that order: first, that of the “ambitious” philosophies of history, then that of human self-assertion and the idea of progress. 10 Phulpsophvsche Rundichay, 1S (1968), p19 The Lowith-Blumenberg Debate 73 ¥. Blumenberg's Explanation of the Over-Ambitious “Philosophies of History” First, then, what are we to make of Condorcet, Saint Simon, Proudhon, Comte, Hegel, et al.? Blumenberg writes that “The idea of progress as a conception of the meaning and shape af human history as a whole did not hecome possible as a result of the transformation of theological eschatology and its deprivation of its “original” intention, . . . rather (the original, modest idea of progress] had to be extended from its original regionally circumscribed and objectively limited area of validity and exaggerated, into the role of a ‘philosophy of history,’ if modern thought was to be able to respond to a question which had remained, as it were, unmastered and ‘unsatisfied since theology had made it virulent." This was the question of. the meaning of the totality of history —a question that the idea of progress, and the Enlightenment in general, could not rationally answer, bbut which was felt, because of the powerful influence of Christianity (the Christianity that had presented Creation and Eschatology as the funda- mental poles for the interpretation of the whote of history) on people's fundamental expectations, to be a question that any world-view was somehow obliged to answer. “The formulation of the idea of progress,” Blumenberg gocs on, “and its taking the place of the religious interpreta- tion of history, are thus two distinet events. . . Belief in progress had its ‘empirical basis in the extensian af the reality accessible to and manageable by theory, and in the effectiveness of the scientific method employed for this purpose. When this, which was experienced and demonstrably stable, was translated into a faith encompassing the future, then the self-con- sciousness of reason as the productive principle of history was made to satisfy a need which ia itself was not rational . . 2 But this process of over-extension or exaggeration was not a necessary ‘or an inevitable one. It was natural, undoubtedly, because we have an ingrained habit of trying to answer every seemingly important question we are confronted with, but it was not inevitable, “We are going (o have ta rid ourselves," Blumenberg writes, “of the idea that there is a fixed canon of reat Questions," which have always oriented human inguiry and always will. “Questions do not always precede their answets”;"? some questions ‘only arise and become subjects of concern when the answer is believed to be in hand. This holds for questions like those of the origin of evil, the ‘origin of the world, and the like — questions that the Grecks, for instance, did not ask (atleast, did not expect literal answers to) because they had nat heard of the (Gnostic) evil creator, or of original sin, or of a God who created matter from nothing, And it also holds for the question of the 11, Legian, 9. 38. Cp, Sthelarisinng, 9. 6, 12, Legumia, p. 36. Cp, Sedularsirare, 9p. 61 13, Leginmia, p42 and p. 43; Sakulariteruag, p78 A Wallace meaning and pattern of history as whiole — one reason the Greeks did not ask themselves this question was because they had no nation of the creation of of the end of the world (except perhaps as phases in a cyclical process of world-destruction and regeneration). And just as these ques- tions have not always been with us, neither must we always cezard them as bbinding for our inteliecutal endeavor. This is not to say that we can simply dismiss them with a derogatory epithet like “metaphysical.” That would be. the positivist procedure, which limits intellectual endeavor arbitrarily in advance by reference to a particular model of knowledge (that of the physical sciences, usually) which it postulates, without historical reflection, as simply definitive for knowledge in general. But neither should we refuse to consider the genesis of a question (of a classic “problem”) as having some relevance to its status and claims on our concern, or regard our ‘ongoing failure to deal with it satisfactorily (the kind of failure of which consciousness is $0 widespread in contemporary philosophy) as a phenome- non of mere inexplicable weakness, rather than as something deserving and demanding historical interpretation in its own right, Certainly in a case where a type of intellectual endeavor has heen ail but abandoned, as is the ‘case with the philosophy of history (in the “ambitious” sense of something, mare than just reftection on the methodology of historical science), itis high time we consider why exactly it arose, what was the origin and status, ‘of the question with whieh ic was trying to deal, whether that question is or should be a live question for us, and for that matter whether it should have, been a live question for the 16th and i9th centuries, or shouldn't rather have been neutratized (amputated, in effect, from the canon of questions having a claim on modern thougitt) by means of critical inquiry into the conditions of its origin and of its authentic significance Of course Léwith in his way is making a similar statement about the distortion of our thinking by inappropriate questions (inappropriate con- cepis oF attitudes, he wauld say); but his diagnosis finds the entire modern orientation and conceptual apparatus (at least in relation to history) inappropriate, rather chan discriminating between the authentically modern problems (such as how to assert our needs ancl concerns effectively in the world) and concepts (such as the concept of progress), and the inauthentic, and disastraus problems (such as the “meaning” of history as a whole) the admission of which leads to the over-extension and failure of those concepts, So Blumenberg’s explanation for the predominance, among modern philosophies of history, of over-ambitious theories of progress as the pattern 14 Ia the course of his hook, Blumertberg cites several other instances of this kiod of process, in which a quesuon pur in place by Caristiaity is uncriially accepted by modeen ‘thought ag a eternal one which “must be dealt wi, and whieh then Is -dealt wet” 93 ‘manner zh is dissstous forthe consistency of modernity. (See the passages cited in moze 2, below.) The Lowith-Blumenberg Debaie 75 of history as 2 whole, is that modern thought in general was unable to neutralize critically questions (like that of the meaning and pattern of history as a whole) that it inherited from Christianity, as easly as it had discredited the Christian answers. (And in fact Blumenberg points out that Christianity itself ad an exactly similar problem in relation to the ancfent world, and with similar results.) Hence the overexertion, and the conse- quent suspicions of false consciousness (8 la “secularization’), that arise in this fietd. VI. Blumenberg's Account of the Origin of the Modern So that is how, for Blumenherg, the “philosophy of history" is trace- able, in terms of acertain kind of continuity but not through secularization, to Christianity."* But the idea of progress itself, the assertedly legitimate idea of progress before it has been pressed into service as an answer to 4 question which modern thought should not have tried to answer — does Blurmenberg think that sis idea sprang, into being from aothing, that fs origin was not “‘co-determined” by the great Christian tradition”? No he does not. But again his account of the manner af that “ca- determination,” which is found in Part Two of his book, has nothing to do with secularization, or with the continuity of any underiying substance or wadition. As | have mentioned, Blumenberg interprets the concept of “progress” as that ofthe implementation of “human seif-assertion,” which in tum he sees as the fundamental characteristic of ~ and the legitimate core of — the modern age in all its manifestations.'* And human self assertion he considers to be fundamentally intelligible omy as a response to 15. Unlike Lwith, Blumenberg does rot ince Mar within the modern complex ofthe “philosophy of history" for which the to theerss otter their dtering explanations, Lowith himself remarked that cates to Hegel, Mars “maintains the orginal ein oa tas ceadent faith over agains the exiting word” (Meaning n ory, 51). (Sothis isthe rue significance of Mars “materials ") Blamenberg comments that “Ifthe Gaal sate peor claimed by the Communist Manifeo translated impatience and cisaisfacton with ative [progres into a commons to defiriiveseion, this nexus st Teast excludes the passbiicy sat both concepts of history, the finite and the infinite, coulé Be seculactzed.” (epi, p 5? compate Satulavisirung, p. 101) Apd he goes 09 suggest that the Lagu slaity bbewen the Manifeuo's appeal and that of the messianic and gospel tastion indicates 3 similar urgency. a “eonstant fonction for consciousness," but not an identity of concent (Legit p. 58; Sakulareierung, p. 12.4 Blumenbere would presumably agree with feurent erties that the fath of some "Marsists” in an inewtable meckansem™ of progress through the final revolution isthe esule of a misunderstanding at Mares model of coca Iislory fa misunderstanding which repeats the syndrome of the genesis of the ambitions philosophies of history" 16. Its probably worth warning agaiest the temptation to mnerpret ths “selhassertin ettusively or even primarily by reference to techaciogy, hough the snifcance ofthe Ler ‘iscertanly co he fauna in its elation tothe fermen On the relationship se Legit. 9 189. p. 1% Sabuloreserang. p 225, 9.256 Far Blumenbergs delintion af season see Legiimitat p. 94; Sakularsiang, p. 159. 76 — Wallace the self-destructive working-out of the implications of the Christianity formulated in the era of the “Fathers” (Saint Augustine et al.), 2 working- ‘out which he sees manifested in the doctrines of late-medieval nominalism and which he summarizes under the rubric of “divine absolutism.” The great accomplishment of the “Fathers” had been fo overcome the Gnostic interpretation of Christ's message as one of world-denial (implicitly, of world-demonization) by integrating the ancient positively-valued cosmas into Christian doctrine and explaining the evil in the world as (not its nature but) the punishment of man’s original sin. But the price of this accomplishment was the introduction of the (entirely novel) concept of absolutely arbitrary “freedom of the will,” as both the source of original sin and tite “explanation” of God's implication of all mankind in that sin and of his impenetrable acts of grace in redeeming some (but not all) from it. This will ia the form of “divine omnipatence,”" was the central theme of medieval theology, and one which increasingly undercut both the Aristo- telianizing efforts of high scholasticism and every attempt to re-emphasize the “human” relevance and meaning of Christ and the gospel. ‘This situation is displayed dramatically in Ockham’s doctrine that there is no reason for the creation of this (rather than any other possitle) world, just as there is no teason for the workings of grace, beyond the fact that God wills it (quia voluit). Both salvation and the creation had thus heen deprived of all accessible meaning and reliability. The attitude prescribed to man in this situation is not faith (which requires grace), and not love (ditto, presumably), but simply blind submission. Human self-assertion, as an alternative to this desperate way of being in the world, had to interest itself not in fulfillment but in power, and in a world not of order but of pure ‘causal contingency — because these were all that were left to man at this point"? Obviously this conclusion is not drawn simultancously by everyone in Europe, so that one could date the “event” of the inauguration of the modern age. For some of us pertaps it has still not occurred. But for the intepretation of the documents of the “history of ideas” itis an extremely powerfal hypothesis, as the extensive detail in Blumenberg's Parts Two, ‘Three and Four stiows. And for those of us for whom Christianity is not entirely defunct, it isa fascinating analysis of what's fundamentally at stake ‘and gcing on in both our Christian and our post-Christian consciousnesses. Concerning the idea of progress and its relationship to Christianity. itis hoped that this lightning summary shows how that idea (as part of human 17. Ta the Christian of course this eppeses 26 pride, fundamentally 35 sf deifiation Luthee says man can by his nature want God to he Gd, tut rather wants to be Gad Iumselt. We preter tasty that we seek fa do what would make seme and have a chance af success “even w there were na Gad.” or perhaps to reinterpret Gad the “mast perfect bein” who guarantees he goodness and relabity the woe (asin Desearts, Leib, ad zighicenth-centary Deism). See Lesion pp. U3 i6. Sakatarisirang. pp. 2 The Lowith-Blumenberg Debae 77 seltassertion) can be “co-determined” (indeed, in a way, wholly deter- mined) in the most intimate fashion by Christianity, without being a meta morphosis of Christian conceptual material. It is a matter of responding to ‘provocation, or taking up a challenge, rather than of taking over any idea already present in the tradition whose crisis constitutes the challenge. In addition, hopefully, this summary suggests how one can reasonably speak of “legitimacy,” in contrast to the illegitimacy implied by seculari2a- tion theories, in interpreting the origin of these madern ideas. “Legitimacy” need not imply only innocence of theft, of living on stolen capital; i¢ can also refer to the consciausness of drawing a justified conclusion, of taking @ step which is appropriate in the circumstances. But to see why seif-asser- tion is a justified step to take under the circumstances, one has to take Christianity, and especially its internal development and problems, mare seriously — and more historically — than is dane by those who hypostatize. it as simply “faith” over against (Greek) “reason.” VIL. “Transforming Appropriation” versus “Self-Assertion” Unfortunately, Léwith in 1968 has not assimilated these ideas. He concludes his review of Blumenberg’s book with some thoughts on the historical process which make this all too clear: “. . . actually there can be no talk of legitimacy of illegitimacy, as applied to historical epochs, since in the history of concepts, ideas and thoughts the {jutistic concept of legit macyi extends itself as far as the power to appropriate and transform the contents of a tradition. The results, at any given time, of such a trans forming appropriation cannot be positively or negatively reckoned up according t0 a standard of genuine ownership. [Blumenberg] fails to recog- nize that in history, whether political or any other history. the never completed results are always something different from what was intended and expected by the founders of a new epoch. The births that take place in historical life are all ‘ilegitimate’.""* ‘The first thing that this passage makes absolutely clear is that for Léwith the process of historical transformation is seemingly conceivable ‘only as one of appropriation of a pre-existing substance — as appropriating, transforming, but in any case continuing a tradition. That new structures and ideas could come into existence in opposition to a reigning tradition that is (consciously or otherwise) perceived as bankrupt — “determined by" that tradition, as every opposition is determined by what it opposes, but not in their substance a metamorphosis of that tcadition —- seems to be inconceivable to Léwith. This great critic of historicism is so permeated by it that he cannot consider the possibility of a relatively new beginning in 1B Loe. eit (Phil, Rundsch. 15, 1968), p. 201, 78 Wallace history, except in its extreme claim (in, e.g., Descartes) t0 absolute origi- nnality and freedom from historical context and conditioning —a claim ‘which for us now is $0 absurd as to refute itself and, in Lawith’s eyes, 0 refute all in any way comparable claims on behalf of modernity. In.a way, Lowith’s position here seems familiar and innocent enough. Certainly his doubts about the apptication of notians of “legitimacy” in the interpretation of history sound tike the voice of our canscience to all of us brought up on the “scientific” distinction of fact and value. And yet who was it who in Meaning in History contrasted the modern “mixture,” the “one eye of faith and the other of reason,” with the clear choices of the Greek and the Christian world-views? Does this not suggest a special kind of “illegitimacy,” peculiar to the modern age? Or are we to understand that Christianity related to the Greek world in the same way as modernity to Christinaity: by “transforming appropriation” of the contents of the traditions available to it, and that its claims to originality and authenticity are as transparently vain as the moders ones? This is certainly not what Lawith wants to assert, On the contrary, he thinks that the advent of Christianity was the one truly great break in the continuity of the West, the entry of “not just one epoch among others, but the decisive epach, which" (unforcunately!) “separates us from che ancient world." Isn't it clear that for Lowith some epochs are legitimate, in the sense of possessing an authentic principle and consistency, of which they can claim genuine “ownership,” and some are not? ‘And isn't it reasonable, in the face of such claims on behalf of Christi anity (and on behalf of antiquity, for that matter), for modernity to seek to vindicate itself as something more coherent, authentic and appropriate in its torn than secularization theories will allow? Is it not reasonable, in that effort, for the modecn historian to distinguish (if he can) between the authentic conceptual equipment and development of the elementary madera endeavor (as in the idea of progress), and the exaggerated and failed fesuits of attempts to answer premodern questions by these modern means (as in the great “philosophies of history"), rather than tarcing it all with the same brush? Isn't that what he must do, in keeping with his profes- sion of scientific rigor? VILL. Practical Implications Lawith’s and Blumenberg's positions, incompatible on the level of theary, also have sharply different implications for social and political practice, Lowith's attitude ta contemporary social phenamena is one of systematic detachment: recognizing their reality but as far as possible 19 fond, pW The Lawith-Blamenberg Debate 79 entertaining neither hope nor fear for the future. A repeated emphasis in his writing since Meaning in History has been on the constancy of human nature: even the real possibility of nuclear warfare does not signify or call for any fundamental change in man's relation to the world and to other men, for such a change is impossible (“Man is no less man at the beginning of his history than he will be at its end"). For Lowith, Polybius's observa~ tion of a natural cycle of changes in constitutions, of turns from victory to defeat and from subjugation to domination, is still tae last word on man's political nature.” Clearly the only attitude that an individual can clear- sightedly adopt in such circumstances is one of stoical self-sufficiency and acceptance of what fate may bring, (Unless, of course, he chooses the ‘Christian turning, away from the world’s reason and towards fai in trans- cendent salvation.) Blumenberg, on the other hand, has taken pains to deny the fateful inevitability of the *“steamroller”; to defend the possibility of man making history more bearable for himself; and to defend the Enlightenment and its would-be continuers (such as Marx) from charges of fundamentally false consciousness, by reconstructing a legitimate (un-secularized) concept of possibie progress. He has also presented a diagnosis and critique of such distortions and denials of the Enlightenment tradition as we encounter not only in the “ambitious” philosophies of history. but alsa in the Enlighten- ment’s own tendency to leap t00 quickly into the disputes of optimism versus pessimism; in the modern concept of sovercignty and of a public sphere defined by the sovereign power; and in the modern tendency to expect from “evolution” and other “natural” self-regulatory processes an. eventual solution to problems that have so far baffled our efforts at practical solution.?" think the practical relevance which all of these efforts of Blumenbers’s will have, if they are successful, shiould be clear. Lowith’s thinking, for all his disdain for the claim of the passing “age” upon philosophy, may ironically at che moment be moce im tune with the privatistic and eynicat “spisit of the age,” but Blumenberg’s is clearly more relevant to any contemporary endeavor to take practical charge of events — to make some teal progress, rather than continue maialy to suffer from official “progress” and its very possibly fatal consequences. There is much tradi- tional wisdom in Léwith’s position, but traditional wisdom is no moze adequate to our situation than is blind positivism. Hence the crucial importance of getting a grasp on the processes in our history and in our own thiking that Léwith and Blumenberg, in their different way, attempt to illuminate. Wa Gesamimate Abhanatungen eur Kee der geschicncher Exizens Stutgart, 960), 16D (Citation from Jurgen Habermas, Theorie und Pravs [Nebwe sh Ber, U8, p. 353}. 21, Bluamesherg’s secounts of these later syadrorses, which | ean mention here nly in patsing, are presented in Lesitintit, p. 6, pp. 39-81, and pp. 192-200 Sokularterung p. WSU and pp. 259-26.

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