THE CONCEPT OF THE HUMAN IN THE WORKS OF CARL SCHMITT Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde der Philosophischen Fakultät der Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Bonn vorgelegt von NICHOLAS T. HIROMURA aus Tokio, Japan Bonn 2020 Veröffentlicht mit der Genehmigung der Philosophischen Fakultät der Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn Zusammensetzung der Prüfungskommission: PD Dr. Christian Rode (Vorsitzende) Prof. Dr. Michael Schulz (Betreuer und Gutachter) Prof. Dr. Rainer Schäfer (Gutachter) Prof. Dr. Andreas Pangritz (weiteres prüfungsberechtigtes Mitglied) Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 16.08.2017 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: ENTRANCE TO THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL PROBLEMATIC .........................................1 INTR.1. OBJECT OF STUDY AND THESIS ............................................................................................................... 1 INTR. 2. CARL SCHMITT THE IRRATIONAL MISANTHROPE - ? : A REVIEW OF LITERATURE .................................... 9 INTR. 3. THESES, SCOPE AND STRUCTURE ......................................................................................................... 21 INTR. 4. PRELIMINARY PHILOSOPHICAL ORIENTATIONS..................................................................................... 29 CHAPTER 1. THE HUMAN AND THE RATIONAL..........................................................................................36 1.1. THE “SPECIFIC RATIONALITY” OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ......................................................................... 37 1.1.1. Amidst the dualisms ........................................................................................................................... 37 1.1.2. Protestant and economic thought ...................................................................................................... 40 Excursis on the term “thought” (Denken)................................................................................................... 46 1.1.3. Repräsentation................................................................................................................................... 48 1.1.4. Human rationality.............................................................................................................................. 57 1.1.5. To a conception of the human ............................................................................................................ 61 1.2. THOUGHTS OF THE HUMAN ........................................................................................................................ 65 1.2.1. Anthropology and the juristic ............................................................................................................ 65 1.2.1.1 Juristic thought and human rationality..........................................................................................................69 Excursis: jurisprudence and romanness....................................................................................................................74 1.2.2. Concrete order thought: the problem of occasional rationality......................................................... 76 1.2.2.1. Concrete order thought as a theory of social normativity ............................................................................76 1.2.2.3. Concrete order thought and the sphere of human activity............................................................................89 CHAPTER 2. BETWEEN DOGMA AND AGONY .............................................................................................97 2.1. THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL CONFESSION .......................................................................................................99 2.2. BETWEEN DOGMA AND AGONY ................................................................................................................ 107 2.3. POLITICAL THOUGHT.................................................................................................................................117 2.4. SELBSTBEWUSSTSEIN AND THE HUMAN...................................................................................................... 122 2.4.1. Donoso Cortés' “selbstbewußte Größe” ......................................................................................... 123 2.4.2. The autonomy of “a spiritual descendent of Grand Inquisistors”................................................... 125 2.4.2.1. Secularity...................................................................................................................................................129 2.4.2.2. Pretentions.................................................................................................................................................131 2.5. EPIC AND TRAGEDY OF THE POLITICAL .................................................................................................... 133 CHAPTER 3. HISTORY AND THE HUMAN....................................................................................................140 3.1. THE TRAGICITY OF THE HUMAN AS INHABITANT OF THE MODERN ........................................................... 143 3.1.1. The transition from 16th to 17th century ........................................................................................... 143 3.1.2. The tragic death of the human ......................................................................................................... 150 3.1.2.1 Hobbes........................................................................................................................................................150 3.1.2.2. Schmitt's historical reading of Hamlet.......................................................................................................158 3.1.2.3. Rudolf II. ...................................................................................................................................................162 3.1.3. The tragedy of jurisprudence as inhabitant of the modern.............................................................. 164 3.2. CARL SCHMITT’S KATECHONAL PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY....................................................................... 172 3.2.1. Origins and early exegesis of the katechon ..................................................................................... 173 3.2.2. Schmitt's concept of the katechon .................................................................................................... 177 3.2.2.1. The anti-nihilist function of the katechon ..................................................................................................177 3.2.2.2. “Being at rest” – “ruhendes Sein”..............................................................................................................180 3.2.3. From the structure to the function of the katechon: the creation of historical space....................... 182 3.2.3.1. “Mere being” and the problem of substantive indifference........................................................................182 3.2.3.2. The function of the katechon or: the guarantor of the political ..................................................................185 3.2.4. Characteristics of Schmitt’s philosophy of history........................................................................... 192 3.2.4.1 Creaturings of a human history...................................................................................................................192 3.2.4.1.1. Dignitas and bonitas: the human and the animal ...............................................................................193 3.2.4.1.2. Creatureliness and political eXistence................................................................................................196 3.2.4.1.3. Schmitt’s conception of the creaturely...............................................................................................200 3.2.4.2 The spatiality of history ..............................................................................................................................204 3.3. CLOSING REMARKS: HISTORY AND THE INCARNATION ............................................................................. 209 CHAPTER 4. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS............................................................................................214 CONCLUDING EXCURSIS ON: THE CONCEPT OF THE HUMAN AS A POINT OF CULTURAL CONFLICT.....................218 SOURCES CITED...............................................................................................................................................221 Introduction: Entrance to the Anthropological Problematic Intr.1. Object of Study and Thesis The following study is an analysis of the philosophical-anthropological foundations underlying the jurist Carl Schmitt’s thought. More specifically, it will argue that Schmitt’s thought eXhibits a constant interaction with and orientation towards what this study will call his concept of the human. Against the general tendency of scholarship to read Schmitt’s anthropology as mere pessimism, this study wants to suggest that Schmitt’s concept of the human designates an ambivalent middle position, characterized by a particularly “human”, rationality. By focusing on this middle position this study will, firstly, attempt to counteract the idea that Schmitt’s anthropology can be reduced to the pessimism of his “anthropological confession” and, secondly, do so by revealing the way in which this position of the human underlies