The categories and contours of a normative social theory are prefigured by its ‘anthropological’ presuppositions. The discourse/communicative-theoretic basis of Habermasian theory was prefigured by a strong anthropological demarcation between an instrumentally structured realm of science, technology and labor versus a normatively structured realm of social interaction. An alternative anthropology, bolstered by current work in the empirical sciences, finds fundamental normative needs for orientation and ‘compensation’ also to be embedded in embodied material practices. An emerging anthropologically informed concept of skill that (...) goes beyond old manual versus intellectual dichotomies and brings forth internal criteria of autonomy and authenticity can serve as a new bridge between categories of social justice, such as Sen and Nussbaum’s basic human ‘capabilities’, and new cutting-edge work in the empirical human sciences and thereby provide Critical Theory with a renewed point of departure that is both normatively and descriptively rich, for advancing its dialectical, historical mission. (shrink)

In this paper, I situate Hans Blumenberg historically and conceptually in relation to a subtheme in the famous debate between Martin Heidegger and Ernst Cassirer at Davos, Switzerland in 1929. The subtheme concerns Heidegger’s and Cassirer’s divergent attitudes toward philosophical anthropology as it relates to the starting points and goals of philosophy. I then reconstruct Blumenberg’s anthropology, which involves reconceptualizing Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms in relation to Heidegger’s objections to the philosophical anthropology of his day (e.g., Max Scheler, Helmuth (...) Plessner, and Arnold Gehlen) as unduly anthropocentric. Blumenberg builds on anthropologist Gehlen’s assumption that human beings are biologically underdetermined and therefore world-open. With this starting point, symbolic forms, such as myth and language, make up a compensatory life-world that supports human existence. Action, or self-assertion, which is necessary given the lack of a seamless fit between human beings and the environment, is thus circumscribed and shaped by the historied, cultural constructs that constitute a life-world. Human beings can thus be characterized as a species that continually renegotiates the shape of its existence through its relation to biological limits on the one hand and cultural constants on the other. Because Blumenberg and philosophical anthropology are relatively unexplored by Anglophone philosophers, and because philosophical anthropology is central to Blumenberg’s methodology generally, this study provides an introduction to both. (shrink)

This project reconstructs the philosophical anthropology implicit in Hans Blumenberg's mature work. In Chapter 1, following a brief synopsis of philosophical anthropology's modern origins, I view Blumenberg's position through the prism of Heidegger's disavowal of philosophical anthropology and his challenge to Cassirer at Davos in 1929 over the proper interpretation of Kant and neo-Kantianism. I focus on a subtheme in this debate: the starting points and goals of philosophy as it relates to their respective conceptions of human existence. For Blumenberg, (...) unlike Heidegger, this starting point is a version of philosophical anthropology, one that requires a reconceptualization of Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms as necessary cultural supports for human existence. Blumenberg's philosophical anthropology is simultaneously the basis of his philosophy of history. ;Chapter 2 expounds the new starting point. I develop Blumenberg's account of human existence as a consequence of its limits, which can be summed up by two facts: our biological deficiencies and the indifference of reality. These facts require a compensatory life-world, which is established through metaphor and symbol, as Cassirer would have it. Action, or self-assertion, is thus circumscribed by and shaped indirectly through the symbolic constructs that constitute a culture. This is further constrained by a regulative idea of humanity. Chapter 3 examines the resulting life-world, or the sense in human existence is supported by myths and institutions, with particular attention to how these can be understood as objective and rational. Within this context, I examine what could count as reason, which necessarily works within institutional constraints and is limited by myth and history. Chapter 4 is a case study that extends the resulting theoretical model. I pose the problem of understanding the significance of our contemporary preoccupation with gender. I claim it is both a myth and a reflective category. Gender can be understood as the story of sexual difference, a story that makes possible a reflective position for questioning modern disenchantment from the perspective of sexual difference. In conclusion, I contend that this reconstruction of Blumenberg's anthropology supports a larger argument: in modernity, it is in our philosophical and ethical interest to restate anthropological needs and reevaluate the life-supporting function of institutions rather than succumb to the temptations of anti-anthropology, which forgets "man.". (shrink)

This article addresses what philosophical anthropology may contribute to the debate between critical theory and poststructuralism. It examines one prong of Amy Allen’s critique of Judith Butler’s collapse of normal dependency into subjection. Allen is correct that Butler’s assessment of agency necessary for political action in inadequate theoretically. However, I believe that some accounting of the nature of the being for whom suffering and flourishing matter is necessary. To this end, I provide an ontogenesis of intentionality as a response to (...) Butler’s notion of the corporeal vulnerability shared by all human beings. On this basis, I articulate an anthropology that renders intelligible the sources of and links between mutual recognition and agency—as well as clarifying the sense in which the historical association between complementarity and gender can still be a resource for progressive thinking. (shrink)

In order to address the question of hope in the present, it behooves us to revisit Kant’s third and fourth questions: ‘What may we hope?’ and ‘What is the human being?’ I reexamine these questions through an analysis of Thomas McCarthy’s recent book Race, Empire, and the Idea of Human Development and several works by Hans Blumenberg. I agree with McCarthy that Kant’s anthropology is incomplete and that the postmodern rejection of macronarratives was premature, but I claim that he requires (...) a more complex philosophical anthropology to guide a philosophy of history. In order to address the question about hope, I reconstruct the anthropology implied in Blumenberg’s writings. I claim that this answer to Kant’s fourth question supplies conceptual scaffolding missing from McCarthy’s book, provides resources necessary for making normative claims on behalf of all human beings, and can inform a multiversal history for grounding rational hope in the present. (shrink)