Il metodo e la storia

Abstract

The present volume aims to examine the relationship between some models of articulation of the system of art theory and the methodological reflection on the history of aesthetics in 20th-cen- tury Germany. Starting from Erwin Panofsky, this volume analyz- es various aspects of the debate of the 1920s and 1930s (the de- velopment of neo-Kantian methodology, historical phenomenolo- gy, and the beginning of the “history of ideas”), up to the great crisis caused by the rise of Nazism. The author discusses Panofsky’s theoretical essays from 1915 to 1932 and his renowned book Idea; Baeumler’s works on aesthetic historiography and his revision of Panofsky’s historiographic mo- del; Rothacker’s contributions to the methodology and system of the humanities; Benjamin’s participation in the debate on the Vienna circle; young Edgar Wind’s theoretical development from neo-Kantism to his more complex understanding of Warburg’s work, as well as his interest in the tradition of rhetoric and in the relationship between science, history, and the humanities. After World War II, the increasing problematization of early 20th-century methodological frameworks and the pressure to connect with history resulted in a renewed interest in topological research, which was intended as a specific methodology of histor- ical research and as a profound revision of the hermeneutic mod- els of the human sciences. The last section of the volume analyzes these developments of topology, focusing on Viehweg, Poggeler and Paul Celan.