“‘Aufenthalt im Unerhörten’: Bloch’s Reading of Hebel (1926–65)”

Abstract

This article examines the influence of Hebel's Schatzkästlein on Ernst Bloch, whose engagement with Hebel's writings spanned four decades. Central ideas in Bloch's thinking, such as the transgressive nature of thought, the ontology of the 'not-yet', concrete utopia, the messianic and the metaphysical and moral significance of outcasts and the oppressed, and sympathy for them, have parallels in the narrative structure employed by Hebel in many of his stories. Hebel emerges as a figure of systematic importance for Bloch's philosophy, and the form of the Hebelian story as an irreducible medium of Bloch's philosophical thought.