Critique and Crisis is the title of the dissertation by the historian Reinhart Koselleck (1923–2006) from 1954 at the University of Heidelberg. In the 1959 book edition, it was initially subtitled A contribution to the pathogenesis of the bourgeois world, and later A study on the pathogenesis of the bourgeois world. In this work, Koselleck subjected the Enlightenment and its philosophy of history to a critical appraisal influenced by the authoritarian idea of the state of his early mentor Carl Schmitt. With this, he intended to expose the (seemingly) humanistic-universal theorems of the Enlightenment as "hypocritical" fighting concepts. In misjudging the peace function of the absolutist state in the religious wars of the 17th and 18th centuries, they had undermined its foundations. The elites of the bourgeoisie, who had risen under the protection of absolutism, had triggered a state crisis with their enlightening criticism, which ultimately led to the French Revolution. The widespread attention that the book received can be seen from the multiple reprints (first edition 1959; paperback edition 1973, 11th edition 2010) and the numerous translations.
Origin Koselleck had studied history, (state studies), sociology and philosophy in Heidelberg from 1947 and had been working on a historical dissertation for some time. To be able to accept a lecturer position at Bristol University, he realized in January 1953 that he had to complete his doctorate by October 1953. He submitted the thesis without annotations, which the faculty accepted (only later were the annotations typed up by a friend subsequently submitted). His doctoral supervisor was Johannes Kühn, a friend of his father's and also godfather to Reinhart Koselleck, who is occasionally referred to in the literature as his maternal uncle.Mario Wimmer: Über die Wirkung geschichtswissenschaftlicher Texte. In: Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Geschichte (SZG). 62. Jahrgang (2012), Nr. 2, p. 217–238, here: p. 228.
While writing his dissertation, Koselleck was in written contact with Carl Schmitt.Gennaro Imbriano: „Krise“ und „Pathogenese“ in Reinhart Kosellecks Diagnose über die moderne Welt. In: Ernst Müller (Hrsg.): Forum Interdisziplinäre Begriffsgeschichte. E-Journal. 2. Jahrgang (2013), Nr. 1, S. 33–48, hier: S. 40 Fußnote 19. Retrieved June 29, 2015. He came into personal contact with Schmitt during his visits to the informal Schmittian circle of friends of Heidelberg students around Nicolaus Sombart, who knew Schmitt from his youth in Berlin,Nicolaus Sombart: Spaziergänge mit Carl Schmitt. In: Merkur. Deutsche Zeitschrift für europäisches Denken. 38th year (1984), pp. 191-201. as well as Hanno Kesting and others.Jan-Friedrich Missfelder: Die Gegenkraft und ihre Geschichte: Carl Schmitt, Reinhart Koselleck und der Bürgerkrieg. In: Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte 58th year (2006), issue 4, pp. 310-336, here: p. 312.
More recent scholarship has criticized the fact that many details of these relationships are often presented inaccurately, speculatively, one-sidedly, misleadingly, or demonstrably incorrectly. However, further information can be expected from the forthcoming publication of the correspondence between Schmitt and Koselleck. At least one personal visit by Koselleck to Plettenberg in the Sauerland, Schmitt's last residence, has been recorded.Niklas Olsen: Carl Schmitt, Reinhart Konselleck and the Foundations of History and Politics. In: History of European Ideas. 37th year (2011), issue 2, pp. 197-208, here: S. 200. In the foreword to the first edition and continuously since the third edition, Koselleck thanked Schmitt, who "helped him ask questions and seek answers in conversations".Reinhart Koselleck: Kritik und Krise. Eine Studie zur Pathogenese der bürgerlichen Welt. Taschenbuch-Ausgabe Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1973, p. XII.
Topic The subject of the book is the portrayal of a historical epoch in the 18th century that Koselleck sees as connected in terms of intellectual history: absolutism, the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. The birth of modern civil society from the womb of European absolutism is traced in three chapters. The introduction outlines the topic with two sentences: "Absolutism causes the genesis of the Enlightenment; the Enlightenment causes the genesis of the French Revolution".Reinhart Koselleck: Kritik und Krise. Eine Studie zur Pathogenese der bürgerlichen Welt. Taschenbuch-Ausgabe Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1973, p. 5.
According to Jürgen Habermas, this Enlightenment, conceived "from a dialectic of politics and morality",Jürgen Habermas: Zur Kritik an der Geschichtsphilosophie. In: ders.: Kultur und Kritik. 2nd edition, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1977, pp. 355-364, here: S. 355. unfolds the premise that the absolutist state performs a pacifying function for "the space devastated by the religious civil wars".Reinhart Koselleck: Kritik und Krise. Eine Studie zur Pathogenese der bürgerlichen Welt. Taschenbuch-Ausgabe Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1973, p. 8. As a morally neutral institution, it granted its subjects freedom of conscience in the private sphere, as long as this was not directed against the sovereignty of the state. The absolutist state thus created the conditions for the rise of the bourgeoisie.
In a "secularization of criticism" of church and state, the self-confidence of the bourgeoisie, in alliance with the anti-absolutist nobility, broke the boundaries set by the state. The Enlightenment's criticism of the absolutist state led to a political crisis, the bourgeois revolution. Koselleck uses a medical metaphor to describe the bourgeois world and the crisis it triggered: he sees it as a "destructive disease".Gennaro Imbriano: „Krise“ und „Pathogenese“ in Reinhart Kosellecks Diagnose über die moderne Welt. In: Ernst Müller (Ed.): Forum Interdisziplinäre Begriffsgeschichte. E-Journal. 2. Jahrgang (2013), Nr. 1, S. 33–48, hier: S. 47. Retrieved June 16, 2015.
According to the reviewer Helmut Kuhn, the axiomatic of the political "always affirmed in advance" owes much to his mentor Carl Schmitt, who is "present in every chapter of this study".Helmut Kuhn: Rezension zu Koselleck ‚Kritik und Krise‘. In: Historische Zeitschrift. 192nd year (1961), pp. 666-668, here: 668. Koselleck also adopted Schmitt's concept of civil war to grasp the structure of European history, as well as that of Schmitt's reading of HobbesCarl Schmitt: Der Leviathan in der Staatslehre des Thomas Hobbes. Sinn und Fehlschlag eines politischen Symbols. Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg 1938. understanding of the absolutist purpose of the state as the perpetual prevention of civil war.Jan-Friedrich Missfelder: Die Gegenkraft und ihre Geschichte: Carl Schmitt, Reinhart Koselleck und der Bürgerkrieg. In: Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte 58th year (2006), issue 4, pp. 310-336, here: S. 320-324.
Contents First chapter The first chapter examines the genesis and structure of the absolutist state as a prerequisite for the Enlightenment. Overcoming the religious civil wars is the of absolutism. The state becomes the neutralizer of religious antagonisms. Thomas Hobbes's doctrine of the state is based on the fact that man becomes a subject; his actions are completely subject to state law, while he remains free in his private sphere. The state offers protection against obedience. Koselleck concludes that the "moral qualification of the sovereign" consists "in his political function of establishing and maintaining order."Reinhart Koselleck: Kritik und Krise. Eine Studie zur Pathogenese der bürgerlichen Welt. Taschenbuch-Ausgabe Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1973, p. 26. It is the "cruel experiences of the confessional civil wars" from which the European order of states has developed.Reinhart Koselleck: Critique and Crisis. A study on the pathogenesis of the bourgeois world. Suhrkamp paperback edition, Frankfurt am Main 1973, p. 37.
Second chapter The second chapter deals with the emergence of the bourgeoisie as a new class of merchants, bankers, tax tenants and businessmen with a specific self-image. Taking into account the dualism of politics and morality that was constitutive of absolutism, the separation of man and subject, the bourgeois Enlightenment initially made the area of private morality the domain of their self-organization and criticism. Koselleck describes the Masonic lodges and the "Republic of Scholars" as their two most important forms of organization. The moral criticism they practiced in this private sphere first spread to the texts of the Holy Scriptures and then to the state, with the result that its authority was undermined. As its elite "negated the absolutist state and the church", the bourgeois class gained self-confidence and "increasingly regarded itself as the potential bearer of political power".Reinhart Koselleck: Kritik und Krise. Eine Studie zur Pathogenese der bürgerlichen Welt. Taschenbuch-Ausgabe Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1973, p. 102f. Koselleck traces the stages of the increasingly political criticism of the writings of biblical exegetes Richard Simon and the Enlightenment philosophers Bayle, Voltaire, Diderot and Kant.
Third chapter The third chapter describes the escalating crisis in the relationship between bourgeois society and the absolutist state as reflected in the writings of Rousseau, Raynal and Thomas Paine. Sovereign bourgeois criticism explodes the moral interior and brings about the "sovereignty of society" over the state.Reinhart Koselleck: Kritik und Krise. Eine Studie zur Pathogenese der bürgerlichen Welt. Taschenbuch-Ausgabe Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1973, p. 155. The crisis affects the state and society and, according to Rousseau, coincides with the revolution.Koselleck zitiert aus Rousseaus Emile: „Nous approchons de l'état de crise et du siècle des révolutions.“ (Wir nähern uns dem Zustand der Krise und dem Jahrhundert der Revolutionen.) Koselleck notes a blinded "rule of utopia" which, because it fails to recognize the essence of power (the prevention of civil war), takes "recourse to sheer violence"Reinhart Koselleck: Kritik und Krise. Eine Studie zur Pathogenese der bürgerlichen Welt. Taschenbuch-Ausgabe Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1973, p. 156f. and seeks its justification in philosophy of history.
Reference to the present In the preface to the 1973 paperback edition and in its introduction, there are a few references to the current world-historical situation. Koselleck suggests that the dynamic set in motion by Enlightenment critique with its utopian exuberance, which led to revolution and terror, still determines the situation after the Second World War in a different constellation.Reinhart Koselleck: Kritik und Krise. Eine Studie zur Pathogenese der bürgerlichen Welt. Taschenbuch-Ausgabe Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1973, p. IX–XI. The 18th century is described as the "anteroom of the present period", the tension of which has become increasingly intense since the French Revolution and has gripped the whole world.Reinhart Koselleck: Kritik und Krise. Eine Studie zur Pathogenese der bürgerlichen Welt. Taschenbuch-Ausgabe Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1973, p. 2.