The History of Dogma and the Story of Modernity: The Modern Age as "Second Overcoming of Gnosticism"

This paper explores how Blumenberg narrates the history of modernity as a second overcoming of Gnosticism. This detour through late antiquity illuminates the full meaning of his idea of modernity. Blumenberg develops important methodological insights about historical change, the threshold between epochs, etc. that appear in The Legitimacy of the Modern Age. We see the central role of the interpretation of Gnosticism but also of New Testament eschatology. Both are conceived as historical catalysts that provoke modernity's emergence but remain alien to its result. Thus the references to Gnosticism and surrounding contemporary discourses are essential for Blumenbeg's account of modernity.