Myth and Metaphor: Key Issues in Hans Blumenberg´s Cultural Anthropology

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

This essay will focus on two interrelated aspects of Blumenberg's philosophy: myth and metaphor. Blumenberg perceives the functions of myth and metaphor in the development of culture as rational and logical solutions to the life-threatening problems posed by man's biological deficits. (Here Blumenberg agrees with Arnold Gehlen's anthropological theory of deficiency and his definition of humans as M ngelwesen - beings lacking the necessary instincts to fit into the natural environment). One of the central questions of anthropology is how man - despite this apparent lack of instincts - manages to exist. Blumenberg's answer: because he deals with reality belatedly, selectively, indirectly, and, most of all, metaphorically. Used correctly, myth and metaphor not only manage to dodge any immediate and frightening confrontation with reality, but even offer Lebenskunst (the art of living), that primary skill of dealing with and enjoying oneself. After taking a closer look at Blumenberg's definition of myth and (absolute) metaphor, the essay will show how both - even in our time - can be employed to compensate man's biological deficiencies.
Original languageEnglish
JournalPAN : Philosophy Activism Nature
Volume2010
Issue number7
Pages (from-to)88-93
Number of pages6
Publication statusPublished - 2010

Recently viewed

Activities

  1. Measuring teaching quality: What measurement model should be applied? (Discussant)
  2. Does culture matter? Analysis of the Change in Preferences for Redistribution of Immigrants in Germany over Time
  3. Being there? The social construction of (physical and virtual) copresence
  4. Containing and Accomodating Salafism in the Sahel: Insights and Lessons from Niger
  5. Object-oriented scarcity as a technology of governmentality
  6. Spectral kinetic simulation of the Planar Multipole-Resonance-Probe
  7. IV. European Workshop on Clinical Reasoning and Decision Making - 2011
  8. Durs Grünbein: Unbekümmert, anderntags, Verse
  9. Mind the Gap: Dealing with the Unknowns in Provenance Data
  10. “Bodies Without Boundaries: Shape-Shifting Experiences in Native American Poetry”
  11. International Convention of Psychological Science 2017
  12. Including Justice in Institutional Analysis - How Do Frameworks for Institutional Analysis Consider Ideas of Justice?
  13. Digital Entrepreneurship & Society – Lunch-Talk 2021
  14. Successes and failures of farm diversification processes – some evidence from two Polish regions
  15. Foucault trifft Latour
  16. User Generated Content
  17. Cranfield University
  18. Dealing with racial stereotypes in German professional and elite football. What discourse analysis can contribute
  19. Optimizing water resources in Egypt: The case for sediment deduction at the High Aswan dam reservoir
  20. The Contract Governance Conference - 2010
  21. ProMath 2017
  22. An Aesthetics of the Earth. Reframing relational Aesthetics considering critical Ecologies.
  23. Provenance Language Processing: A Human-in-the-Loop Perspective
  24. Organizational Downsizing: An Institutional Perspective
  25. The struggle for an international regime on space resources
  26. Democracy and Intergenerational Justice: Overcoming Harmful Short-termism Through New Institutions?
  27. Risk preferences under multiple risk conditions – survey evidence from semi-arid rangelands
  28. Intraorganizational Tensions Around Being Good: Explaining (De-)coupling of Purchasing and CSR in Garment Brands and Retailers
  29. Computational study of Lagrangian transport in turbulent convection