In the 1960s, Hans Blumenberg argued against Löwith’s thesis of secularization, as well as Carl Schmitt’s claim that “all
significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts.”[^2] Blumenberg contende…[^3]: Hans Blumenberg, “Progress Exposed as Fate,” chap. 3 of part 1, in The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, trans. Robert M. Wallace (MIT Press, 1985).
[^4]: John. R. Searle, “Minds, Brains, and Programs,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3, n…
Hans Blumenberg
philosopher · 2 mentions across 1 reading
In this course
Blumenberg's mid-twentieth-century challenge to the secularization thesis—his argument that modernity represents genuine intellectual rupture rather than mere theological recycling—provides crucial conceptual ground for thinking about how contemporary systems (AI, cybernetics, computational theory) might escape deterministic narratives of decline or historical inevitability. His work on the legitimacy of the modern age allows the course to interrogate whether algorithmic and machine systems constitute truly novel epistemic formations or remain bound to older theological and metaphysical schemas.
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Avram Noam Chomsky 1Brian Cantwell Smith 1Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling 1Gilbert Simondon 1Gotthard Günther 1Gregory Bateson 1Ian Roberts 1Jeff Love 1Jeffrey Watumull 1Johannes Schmidt 1John Rogers Searle 1Robert M. Wallace 1Tiernan Ray 1Yuk Hui 1Burchard of Mount Sion 1Carl Schmitt 1Karl Löwith 1