Alle origini della catastrofe tedesca. La nazione in ritardo e Da Hegel a Nietzsche a confronto

The article aims to systematically compare the two works of Helmuth Plessner and Karl Löwith: Die verspätete Nation (1934/59) and Von Hegel zu Nietzsche (1941/50). This comparison sheds light on the deepest philosophical presuppositions of the two books. The essay traces how both the authors identify the process of secularization – seen as transposition of authentically theological contents and religious expectations into the secular sphere of History – to the very intellectual origin of the German catastrophe of ‘33. Plessner and Löwith reconstruct the process of secularization through German culture and German philosophy – from Hegel to Heidegger – and analize it from different perspectives. However, the usage of the same genealogical scheme implies a common anthropological critique to the European Modernity and its counterfinalities, still worthy of meditation. [Publisher's text]