The Existential Overcoming of Phenomenology in Hans Blumenberg’s Philosophy of Life and Myth

Abstract

The paper presents selected aspects of philosophy of Hans Blumenberg, contemporary meta-philosopher, hermeneutist and phenomenologist of modern age. A point of departure for the presentation is demonstrating the philosopher’s polemic attitude towards Husserl’s phenomenological tradition. A basis for this critical attitude is the existential defence of the life-world as well as individual importance that are disregarded in eidetic analyses of phenomenology. Blumenberg continues and develops in a creative manner the Existenz philosophy, which has its sources in Schellingian positive philosophy. Another essential motive of the criticism of phenomenology is his revision of such notions like evidence and truth, which according to Blumenberg are boundary ideas of philosophy, unavailable for man on account of human contingent and finite existence. The reasonable formula of cognition and action are then principles of the practical reason: rhetoric and techne. Their legitimacy, provisional but operative, is verified by the history. The history verifies value of its institutions according to the rule of pragmatism. One of the forms of historical and pragmatic reason is myth. The logos of myth reveals its operative power in overcoming the absolutism of reality, which is an archaic experience, but stable in culture. The paper presents Blumenberg’s understanding of the absolutism of reality as well as the essence and functions of the mythical process and its power to neutralize existential anxiety.