Intorno al senso della storia. Affinità e divergenze tra Karl Löwith e Reinhart Koselleck

This essay aims to show the affinities and divergences between Karl Löwith’s and Reinhart Koselleck’s conceptions of history. It first outlines the Löwithian legacy in Koselleck’s thought, with reference to the theory of secularization and the critique of the philosophy of history. It then lays out their respective conceptions of the genesis and nature of the modern world, and its relationship to antiquity and Christianity. Finally, it shows the divergences separating Löwith and Koselleck regarding their conceptions of the meaning of history. The thesis of the essay is that their differences derive from the fact that while Löwith proposes overcoming the philosophy of history through a recovery of the circular conception of Greek and proto-Christian thought, Koselleck identifies an alternative to historicism and the philosophy of history in the modern tradition of rationalistic thought.