The Legitimacy of the Modern Age: The Lowith-Blumenberg Debate in Light of Recent Scholarship

In 1966 Hans Blumenberg published Die Legitimitat der Neuzeit, which launched the Lowith-Blumenberg debate over the nature of secularization and the legitimacy of the modern age. ' The widespread discussion the book generated prompted Blumenberg to prepare a revised and expanded three-volume edition between 1973 and 1976. A decade later, with the debate still going strong, Robert M. Wallace made the second edition available to English readers in an excellent one-volume translation. 2 While Lowith ' s and Blumenberg ' s books have been the catalysts for the debate, they are not its principal subject. The real topic is modernity, and the controversy centers around the shaping influence of secularization on modernity. Unfortunately, the formulation of the debate around the question of " legitimacy" or " illegitimacy " has led to as much polemical haranguing as it has to scholarly insight into the character of modernity. Fundamental theoretical and methodological issues have, nevertheless, been brought to light by the debate, and they deserve careful consideration from scholars concerned with the nature of modernity and the influence of secularization. The purpose of this essay is to explore some of these issues by: 1) explaining the background to the legitimacy controversy, 2) developing the mainlines of Blumenberg ' s theoretical and historical criticism of conventional interpretations of the modern age, and 3) assessing his counter-thesis in light of recent scholarship in Renaissance intellectual history and the history of science.