Abstract

This essay aims at defining the relationship between theoretical purpose and historical research in Karl Löwith’s thought. Focusing on three symbolic moments of his reflection, the author reconstructs the trajectory followed, according to Löwith, by Western thought after Hegel’s identification of philosophy and history and suggestion of its possible overcoming. The movement outlined leads from Hegel’s absolutization to Heidegger absolute relativization of history, ending with Löwith’s own proposal of an anthropological reading of history, which draws its inspiration from Burckhardt and aims at redeeming thought from its remission to the destiny of Being or the history of the Spirit and at restoring it in itshuman dimension