Abstract

The essay tries to understand the relationship between Hans Blumenberg's «phenomenological anthropology» and his often implicit position about the main concepts of political philosophy. Though the importance of "The Legitimacy of the Modern Age" for the debate about modernity and secularization vs. legitimacy and «self-assertion», Blumenberg is normally considered other than a political thinker: historian of concepts and ideas, metaphorologist, phenomenologist of history, mythologist and recently, as said, philosopher of anthropology. Nevertheless, he often uses some classical categories of political theory (institution, delegation, absolutism, separation of powers) to describe the anthropological and homination contest, with the reverse effect of an «anthropologisation» of the political dimension, which is problematic and interesting at one time.