Sulla critica del concetto di secolarizzazione e il metodo della "Umbesetzung". Hans Blumenberg e lo storicismo

The initial aim of the essay is to reconstruct Hans Blumenberg’s perspective on the concept of «secularization». The author made a radical critique of this concept, which he defined as a «category of historical injustice» denying the epochal dignity of the modern age and its autonomy. Against the use of this concept, Blumenberg sees the genesis of the modern age as the process of self-affirmation of modern rationality in response to the crisis of medieval theological doctrines. After this reconstruction, the essay analyzes Blumenberg’s conception of historical development, and in particular the position of the author on Historicism. The thesis this essay defends is that Blumenberg’s position on Historicism is ambiguous: if, on the one hand, it seems to reject any historicist hypothesis in the broad sense, Blumenberg elaborates, on the other hand, a theory of historical development and epochal successions.