Contingency and Identity. On the Anthropological Historicism of Hermann Lübbe

• Authors: Czerniak Stanisław
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The author reconstructs the concept of „anthropological historicism” of Hermann Lübbe, a contemporary German philosopher (born 1926), one of the main representatives of the so-called Joachim Ritter School. Lübbe reduces human identity to human individuality and individual awareness of the uniqueness of one’s own biography—the history of the individual, which accumulates in a series of contingent experiences and their biographical effects. This approach omits the social and axiological dimension of the identity of a human being, which is emphasized by social philosophers (Georg Herbert Mead, Thomas Luckmann). In the second part of the article, the author criticizes Lübbe’s concept from these sociological positions, referring to the relevant polemics in German literature on the subject.

Keywords

EN

Identity; individuality; contingency; historicism; biography; narrative; social role; holding accountable

• Publisher: Instytut Filozofii i Socjologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk; Fundacja Filozofia Na Rzecz Dialogu
• Journal: Dialogue and Universalism
• Year: 2025
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 127-147

Contributors

author

Czerniak Stanisław

• Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Nowy Świat 72, 00-330, Warsaw, Poland