Un pensiero pieno di misura. Aporie e attualità del naturalismo filosofico di Karl Löwith

Karl Löwith’s mature theoretical thought has often been described in terms of a philosophy or nature or even a cosmology. It is therefore quite evident that it might serve as a powerful tool – although indirectly, as a speculative background – in the areas of environmental ethics and ecology. The paper aims to explicit this potential usefulness by way of showing and critically discussing the essential features of Löwith’s naturalism (nature, history and man). More specifically, it is the anthropological element that happens to effectively articulate the historical and social world with natural reality, because of the duality of its own character. Although many of Löwith’s specific remarks are outdated and do not receive adequate philosophical argumentation, this antinomic structure still proves to be especially insightful for the tuning of an appropriate ecological mindset.