Abstract

This article periodizes the work of Hans Blumenberg on the basis of a rupture in its underlying strategies of justification and traces this rupture in Blumenberg’s theory of history, his theory of language, and his aesthetics. In all three areas, there is a shift from an immanent and historical-phenomenological to a transcendent and phenomenological-anthropological strategy of justification, which threatens to make the early and the late Blumenberg incommensurable with each other. The article argues against an overly monolithic reading of Blumenberg and an overemphasis on anthropology as a »life project.« Instead, it advocates a pluralization of interpretative approaches to Blumenberg.