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We have all asked ourselves, at least once in our lifetime, about the meaning of history. If reflection on history searches for the meaning of men's acting and suffering in time, the classic historian's question 'How did it come about?' turns into the modern historian's 'How will it end?' Thus, when the question of the meaning of history comes up in our existence, we think less about the past and more about the future, as 'our' history. And this is where philosophy of history is born.
Our 'thinking of tomorrow' is conditioned from the start by Jewish and Christian thought, as shown by Karl Löwith, who was influenced by Oscar Cullmann and his belief that history is the coming-toward man of salvation. Löwith did not consider Western history as secularized Christian eschatology, but rather as permanent apocalyptics. Today the choice between Löwith and Blumenberg is fatal for the understanding of postmodernity: it implies the possibility that secularization in Europe has only just started, without implying that history is at its end, since there is always another 'beyond' to imagine as a more definitive possibility.
About the author
Gianluigi Pasquale holds an SThD from the 'Pontificia Università Gregoriana' in Rome and a PhD in Philosophy from Venice's 'Ca' Foscari' university. After teaching for two years at the 'Pontificia Università Gregoriana' (1999-2001), he is now Professor of Fundamental Theology at the 'Lateranense' university in Rome and the 'Studium Generale Marcianum' in Venice, as well as Dogmatic Theology at the 'Laurentianum,' the Capuchin Theological Studium in Venice, which he was also President of (2001-2010). He is a scholar of Padre Pio, whose books have been published into eleven languages, and he has written a number of philosophical and theological books, including La teologia della storia della salvezza nel secolo XX (2002, Croatian translation 2011).
With Academia Verlag he has also published Aristotle and the Principle of Non-Contradiction, 2nd ed., Academia Philosophical Studies (Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, 2006); The History of Salvation: For a Word of Salvation in History, Academia Philosophical Studies (Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, 2009).
