Hölderlin und die höhere Aufklärung: zur Frage nach der europäischen Neuzeit

Hölderlin and The Höhere Aufklärung: on The Issue of European Modernity· In this essay, I intend to examine Hölderlin’s höhere Aufklärung project and propose an interpretation of it from a philosophy of religion perspective. Specifically, my aim is twofold: first to argue that Hölderlin’s project arises from a critical confrontation with the program of the Kantian Enlightenment, and second to demonstrate the reason why, according to Hölderlin’s project, the issue of the Religionssachen is what requires a step beyond Kant’s Enlightenment. By highlighting the relationship between Enlightenment and religion, that in my examination turns out to be an original feature of Hölderlin’s project, it is possible to bring out a particularly significant genealogical line of European modernity and to outline the concept of secularization in a provocative way. In the context of the discourse on the genesis of European modernity, Hölderlin’s project of the höhere Aufklärung mobilizes resources for thinking to a relationship between secularization and religion that is neither an emancipation from nor a naturalization of the Religionssachen.