Keywords: Philosophy of History, Theories of Historiography and Methodology of History, Intellectual history, Modern Jewish Thought

Introduction and goals

The research project focuses on one of the central – if not the most central – problems in the German speaking philosophical, religious and intellectual circles from the 19th century onwards: the problem of historical consciousness, that is of the meaning of historical change and historical research[1]. The project will focus on three major figures that dealt extensively with the topic, G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831), the major proponent of the philosophical strand of the so-called German Idealism and two of the most prominent German-Jewish intellectuals, before and after WWII respectively: Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929) and Karl Löwith (1897-1973).

            In concrete, the goal of the project is a threefold one. First, to reconstruct two major accounts of philosophy of word history, Hegel’s and Rosenzweig’s. Second, to delineate the most extensive and subtle critique of these two approaches and of the concept of a philosophy of world history in general, articulated by Löwith. Third, to provide an overall depiction and evaluation of the rise and fall of the discipline of philosophy of world history as an ultimate meta-historical narrative by connecting the aforementioned thinkers to the events of the French Revolution, of the first and of the second world war respectively. In other words, the project wants to reconstruct the decline of a philosophy of history as a discipline and detect the leading thread between Hegel’s rationalistic approach and belief that history as science is possible, through Rosenzweig’s ultimate effort to provide such a meaning in history, not anymore by a philosophical-scientific approach, but through a religious narrative, to Löwith’s devastating critique and radical rejection of the project and of its political side effects, that himself and his family experienced and witnessed in the most tragic way[2].

            The ultimate upshot of the project consists in the clarification of the reasons, why historical change and the alleged need for its “taming” through a speculative, meta-historical explanation was of such relevance for thinkers such as Hegel and Rosenzweig and in the evaluation of the “post-historical”[3] critical approach Löwith’s. Asides from that, the project will address the specific question regarding the radical shift from Rosenzweig’s to Löwith’s reaction to Hegel’s authoritative philosophy of world history in the context of German-Jewish reactions to the German mythologization(s) of history: In the context of the teleological structure of his philosophy of world history Hegel ascribed exceptional importance to specific peoples in history (Greeks, Romans, Germanic peoples etc.), which at specific times functioned as agents of  historical change [4]. Rosenzweig’s reaction to this narrative was the re-claiming of the concept of “chosen people” for the Jewish people and the reversal of Hegel’s philosophical account into a religious one[5]. Still, his counter-account remained in the framework of “historical thinking”, since all differences notwithstanding, he perceived the problem of history and of its meaning as radically as Hegel did. Yet, only some decades later the reaction of another German-Jewish intellectual, Löwith, will not consist in another alteration of the Hegelian scheme, but in the rejection of all mythologization of history and its alleged ultimate goal[6] and in the alternative suggestion for a meaningful life, free of historical myths and grand historical narratives[7]. 

            The project is innovative in the following aspects. First, while there has been a series of studies on Hegel and Rosenzweig or on Hegel and Löwith, no study has been delivered up to today on the systematic comparison of these three philosophers in general and on their controversy on the problem of world history and of historical consciousness in particular. Second, the project will take into account not only Löwith’s texts magisterial texts on Hegel and on world history[8], but also his texts on Rosenzweig. The latter remain up to today strikingly unacknowledged and poorly discussed, even if Löwith admittedly admired Rosenzweig greatly and studied him systematically and in great length[9]. Thus, the figure of Löwith will function for the first time as the reflecting glass through which, both Hegel and Rosenzweig are simultaneously reflected, evaluated and contextualized.

            Thirdly, the project will not only reconstruct Löwith’s critique of “world historical reason”, in its rationalistic and religious forms, but it will also provide an account of the post-historical alternative suggested by Löwith himself. This alternative which consists in the sceptical withdrawal from all anthropocentric and anthropomorphic approaches towards history and, thus, towards, reality, leads in a stoic re-evaluation of human existence not as the privileged center but as a part of cosmos[10]. The project will, thus, seek to change the status of Löwith in the German(-Jewish) intellectual canon, from a scholar and critic of metaphysics, to self-standing thinker with an original contribution to the field. This will occur through a reading of his books on  Friedrich Nietzsche[11] and most importantly on Jacob Burckhardt[12] as manifestos for his own, positive philosophical position. Furthermore the project will also take for first time into account newest sources, which have just been just published such as Löwith’s correspondence with Martin Heidegger[13] and his account of pre- or post-historical culture of Japan.[14]

            In sum, the project is a continuation of my previous research on Hegel and Rosenzweig and an expansion of it towards the problem of historical consciousness, philosophical historiography, the work of Karl Löwith and the field(s) of history and intellectual history broadly understood. Its main concern consists in the two following questions: Should the problem of history be understood as a central problem from human existence and if not, how would a post-historical approach look like? The second question, refers to the striking rapidity of the shift of the nature of the “German-Jewish” response to Hegel’s philosophy of world history: from the most elaborated, systematic and emphatic re-“mythologization” of the Jewish people in the context of philosophy of history (Rosenzweig)[15] to the radical rejection of all historical myth (Löwith).

Part 1. The Spirit of History, the Spirit in History: Hegel

In concrete the project is divided in four parts. The first part will deliver Hegel’s account of world history, with a specific stress on his account, conception and function of “world-historical peoples” along with his reading of the French Revolution in the context of Christianity and more specifically of the Reformation and of his conception of rationality. Asides from Hegel’s account of how a philosophy of world history is possible and why it is necessary, the research will focus on the reasons why, according to Hegel, history and historical existence is a major problem that has to be solved or overcome only by a philosophical meta-historical narrative, his philosophy of “absolute Spirit”, that provides its ultimate goal and meaning.

Part 2. Revelation in History, Revelation and History: Rosenzweig

The second part of the project is dedicated to the philosophy of world history of Franz Rosenzweig. It will investigate the way that Rosenzweig inherits from Hegel the problem of historical consciousness and transforms it, both in terms of methodological approach and of content. While Hegel operates as the heir of philosophical rationalism also in the way he treats history, Rosenzweig’s approach and solution of the same problems draws substantially from the religious Judeo-Christian tradition[16]. As he writes in one of his last letters:

Every act becomes guilty as soon as it enters history […]; that’s why God must save man not through history, but actually as “God of religion.” Hegel considers history as divine, as a theodicy, while action is for him naturally profane […]. For us, religion is the only authentic theodicy. The fight against history in the sense of the 19th century is for us identical to the fight for religion in the sense of the 20th century.[17]

The project will elaborate on the way that Rosenzweig shifts from a strictly developmental and immanently processual approach to world history, motivated by an ultimate goal that lies in its very end, to the scheme of an unprecedented event of divine revelation in the middle of history, which introduces both, a radical break with the past and a meta-historical expectation for the future[18]. It will also be shown how in Rosenzweig’s account this meta-historical expectation is already realized by the Jewish people, which instantiates the meta-historical goal of world history already within history. In Stéphane Mosès words:

The history outside history, this temporality without evolution, this sociality without wars and without revolutions, define for Rosenzweig the ideal space, which is that of the Jewish people.[19]

In addition to this, it will be shown why this approach should be understood as a re-appropriation of the theme of chosen people back to its original Jewish narrative and as direct reaction to Hegel[20]. It will provide an elaboration on the meaning of the shift from philosophy to religion as main source for the articulation of a teleological account of world history, while it will also discuss, why for Rosenzweig “history”, emphatically understood, constitutes as well the most radical problem that calls for a solution, that is, this time, for a theology of world history. In a word, the second part will give a specific account of the Rosenzweig’s alternative philosophy of world history, which despite the striking differences, shares the same fundamental assumptions on historicism as a major and central problem. As Paul Mendes-Flohr puts it:

[…] Rosenzweig’s conception of a necessary dialectic between metahistory and history emerged from a protracted struggle – which considerably preceded his affirmation of Judaism – with the question of meaning in history and the dilemma of philosophical relativism.[21]

Part 3 After History: The sceptical Stoicism of Karl Löwith

The third part will discuss Löwith’s magisterial Meaning in History, where he delivers his archaeology and evaluation of historical thinking, along with his texts on Hegel and Rosenzweig. The project will explore the question, whether Löwith’s critical account of philosophy of world history applies undifferentiated to Hegel and to Rosenzweig or if Löwith discerns between the critique of the „rationalistic“ and the „Judeo(-Christian)“ mythologizing of history and, thus, if he delivers a differentiated critical account. As mentioned earlier, this part of the project will explore Löwith’s alternative suggestion regarding the problem of history and will examine his texts on Jacob Burckhardt, Nietzsche, his letters with Martin Heidegger, his encounter with the post-historical culture of Japan and reconstruct the details and the philosophical and historiographical implications of his approach: The re-introduction of a sceptical/stoic stance, according to which, human self-understanding is not conditioned by a rationalistic meta-historical redemptive narrative of Judeo-Christian origins. This de-anthropomorphized approach[22] towards reality, as the project aims ultimately to show, is also of great importance for the re-evaluation of the ends and methods of historiography. Historical processes cannot be framed anymore as developmental steps towards an ultimate end and historical research, asides from unifying and re-arranging its material can only function as a therapeutic process against any speculative and/or theological inclinations[23]. 

Part 4.  Conclusion and contemporary perspectives

The fourth and concluding part of the research will deliver a direct comparison between Hegel’s and Rosenzweig’ s accounts of the reasons, why history should be understood as a radical problem. This comparison will be articulated in the light of Löwith’s critique, that unveils the “problem” of historical consciousness as a pseudo-problem, based on unjustified anthropocentric premises [24]. The project will elaborate on the transformation of the problems of human existence that shifts from an anthropocentric to a cosmocentric world view and on the way that the urge for understanding history “properly” and acting accordingly switchs to what Michel Foucault later described as “care of the self”. Furthermore, the reverse question will also be addressed, if namely Löwith’s “withdrawal from history” bears the opposite political dangers[25].

            Finally, the project will also examine and investigate the transformation and continuation of the three aforementioned endeavours in three contemporary approaches: Terry Pinkard’s Neo-Hegelian approach on world history in his newest Does History Make Sense?[26], and, for the case of Rosenzweig, Emil Fackenheim΄s To Mend the World: Foundations of Future Jewish Thought and The Jewish Return into History: Reflections in the Age of Auschwitz and a New Jerusalem[27]. For a continuation of Löwith’s post-historical, stoic approach towards history and human life the project will draw parallels between his work and Michel Foucault’s The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France 1981–1982[28].

[1] For the standard account on the topic, which goes beyond the German-speaking intellectual landscape see Hayden Whyte’s extensive Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-century Europe Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press 1973.

[2] See Karl Löwith, Mein Leben in Deutschland vor und nach 1933: Ein Bericht, Stuttgart: Metzler 2007, and Kay Ehling, “Biografische Notizen zu Karl Löwith”, in: Merkur 71 (815), 2017, pp. 75-81.

[3] Under “meta-historical”, I understand approaches which qualify the phenomenon of historical change as central and try to solve it by postulating an ultimate historical goal that necessitates this change. Under “post-historical”, I understand approaches that do not qualify historical change as a problem, and thus, are not looking for a solution for it, that is for a meaning “in history”.

[4] See Peter C. Hodgson’s excellent Shapes of Freedom. Hegel’s Philosophy of World History in Theological Perspective, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2012.

[5] For the broader intellectual context and background of this reaction see Shulamit Volkov, “Die Erfindung einer Tradition. Zur Entstehung des modernen Judentums in Deutschland”, in: Historische Zeitschrift, vol. 253 (3) (Dec., 1991), pp. 603-628

[6] See Karl Löwith, Von Hegel zu Nietzsche Der revolutionäre Bruch im Denken des 19. Jahrhunderts, Hamburg: Meiner 2015 [21950].

[7] See Karl Löwith, Gesammelte Abhandlungen. Zur Kritik der geschichtlichen Existenz, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1960.

[8] Karl Löwith, Meaning in History. The Theological Implications of the Philosophy of History, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 1949.

[9] See Karl Löwith, “M. Heidegger und F. Rosenzweig. Ein Nachtrag zu “Sein und Zeit” ”, in: Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, Bd. 12, H. 2 (Apr. – Jun. 1958), pp. 161-187 and “M. Heidegger and F. Rosenzweig on Eternity and Temporality”, in: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 3 (1) (Sept. 1942), pp. 53-77.

[10] See Jürgen Habermas, “Karl Löwith”, in: Philosophisch-politische Profile, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp 31984, pp. 195-216 and Gerd Mahr, “Zu den Griechen zurück. Zum Tode von Karl Löwith”, in: Die Zeit, June 8, 1973.

[11] See Karl Löwith, “Nietzsche's Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence”, in: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 6, No. 3 (Jun., 1945), pp. 273-284, “Nietzsches antichristliche Bergpredigt”, in: Heidelb. Jahrbuch VI (1962) and Nietzsches Philosophie der ewigen Wiederkehr des Gleichen Hamburg: Meiner 1986 [1934].

[12] Karl Löwith, Jacob Burckhardt, in: Karl Löwith, Sämtliche Schriften, 9 volumes. Edited from Klaus Stichweh, Marc B. de Launay, Bernd Lutz and Henning Ritter, Stuttgart: Metzler 1981–1988, volume 7, 1984.

[13] Martin Heidegger/Karl Löwith, Briefwechsel 1919-1973, Freiburg: Karl Alber 2017.

[14] See Karl Löwith, Der japanische Geist, Berlin: Matthes & Seitz 2013.

[15] On the importance of topic of mythos in the German and German-Jewish intellectual activity in the 19th and 20th century see Joseph Mali’s admirable “The German Mythologism of the Jewish Philosophers”, in: J. Matveev and A. Noor (eds.), Die Gegenwärtigkeit deutsch-jüdischen Denkens, (FS Paul Mendes-Flohr), in: Makom, Schriftreihe des Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Forschungszentrums, volume 7, München: Fink 2011, pp. 207-237.

[16] See Franz Rosenzweig, Der Ster der Erlösung, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp 1988 [1921], part 3.

[17] Franz Rosenzweig, Briefe, ed. from Edith Rosenzweig, Berlin: Schocken 1935, p. 55.

[18] For Rosenzweig’s concept of historical revelation as a direct rejection of ideologies/philosophies of progress see Alexander Altmann, “Franz Rosenzweig on History”, in: Studies in Religious Philosophy and Mysticism, New York: Books for Libraries Press 1969, p. 285f.

[19] Stéphane Mosès , “Hegel taken at his Word” in: in: J. Matveev and A. Noor (eds.), loc. cit. p. 39.

[20] Seen from this perspective, Joseph Mali’s is right to place Rosenzweig in the context of “mythic turn” among German Jews, loc. cit., p. 226.

[21] Paul Mendes-Flohr, “Franz Rosezweig and the Crisis of Historicism”, in: The Philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig, edited by Paul Mendes-Flohr, Hanover and London: University Press of New England 1988, p. 139.

[22] See Astrid Nettling, “ “Wahnfrei auf sich selber stehen können" Erinnerung an den Philosophen Karl Löwith””,in: Deutschland Rundfunk 26.05.2013, retrieved at http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/wahnfrei-auf-sich-selber-stehen-koennen.1184.de.html?dram:article_id=247854 and “Philosophie ohne Verheißung”, in: Deutschland Rundfunk, 26.06.2014, retrieved at http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/karl-loewith-philosophie-ohne-verheissung.886.de.html?dram:article_id=290152.

[23] See Karl Löwith, “Wozu heute noch Philosophie? SPIEGEL-Gespräch mit dem Philosophen Karl Löwith”, in: Der Spiegel Nr. 43/1969, pp. 2014-2011

[24] See Karl Löwith, Wissen, Glauben und Skepsis, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1956.

[25] See Richard Wollin, Heidegger’s Children. Hannah Arendt, Karl Löwith, Hans Jonas, and Herbert Marcuse, Princeton: Princeton University Press 22015, p. 98.

[26] Terry Pinkard, Does History make Sense?Hegel on the Historical Shapes of Justice, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press 2017.

[27] Emil Fackenheim, To Mend the World: Foundations of Future Jewish Thought, New York: Schocken Books, 1994 and The Jewish Return into History: Reflections in the Age of Auschwitz and a New Jerusalem, New York: Schocken Books 1978.

[28] Michel Foucault, The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France 1981–1982. Translated by Graham Burchell, edited by Frédéric Gros. New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2005.