Paradigms for a Metaphorology of the Cosmos
Hans Blumenberg and the Contemporary Metaphors of the Universe

Area 11 – Scienze storiche, filosofiche, pedagogiche e psicologiche

Throughout his life Hans Blumenberg [1920-1996] maintained a uninterrupted interest in astronomy. First as a historian of modern science and member of the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur zu Mainz, then as an amateur astronomer and finally as a theorist of world-time and “astronoetiker”. Blumenberg was an exceptional witness of the Space Race and the subsequent landing on the Moon. From 1955 Blumenberg undertook research into Copernican astronomy and published many papers during the 50’s and 60’s, later collected in Die kopernikanische Wende [1965]. Blumenberg also prepared preliminary studies on Galileo Galilei’s Sidereus Nuncius [1965] and Cusa’s De coniecturis. All this work culminated in Blumenberg’s Die Genesis der kopernikanischen Welt [1975], Lebenszeit und Weltzeit [1986], and in the posthumous Die Vollzähligkeit der Sterne [1997]. This essay deals with Blumenberg’s metaphorology of cosmos and history of astronomy, including a review of current metaphors in contemporary astronomy and physical cosmology.

SINTESI