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The Quest for a Phenomenological Anthropology
César González Cantón
This book includes a number of the major themes which Hans Blumenberg frequently deals with in his other works. Blumenberg struggled throughout his whole life with the possibility of developing a phenomenological anthropology as a result of his analysis of human existence, and Beschreibung des Menschen is once again a proof of this overarching concern (p. 204). In point of fact, the title Blumenberg would himself have liked for the book - finally substituted by Beschreibung des Menschen - was "Phänomenologische Anthropologie."1 The problem Blumenberg wants to address in his book's first part is whether (or not) Husserl's and Heidegger's phenomenological theories can be found useful for this enterprise.2 For him the obvious answer is "no." Blumenberg demonstrates that human beings are actually absent from these phenomenological approaches, instead they present a caricature of human beings sketched in terms of a transcendental version of reason. The problem of the theoretical visibility of human beings, and with it the possibility of a phenomenological anthropology, thus becomes the core of Blumenberg's reflections in the second part.
The Ontological Raise of Anthropology
Blumenberg's challenge to phenomenological vision is justified by the particular way in which Blumenberg understands anthropology. All throughout the book contingency is stressed when approaching human beings. Man belongs to the world of things that emerge and subsequently disappear.
Since every living being must follow this destiny, this should not be a primary concern. However, human consciousness poses a dialectical conflict inside human beings, which makes them different from the other animals (see p. 634). Man is, on the one hand, aware of his finite being (p. 603). On the other hand, his reason strives to comprehend the entirety of the world (p. 147). In the latter case, the individual should transcend time's given limits in order to fulfill his reason's objective. Human existence is then fundamentally flawed: it cannot achieve the satisfaction of its desires through reason (Vernunft), because the individual is born and dies.
This flaw makes man out of harmony with the world and eventually with the Being. Why should such a being exist, whose conscience can neither conceive its (own) beginning nor its (own) end? Anthropology addresses this contradiction by assuming that...