The Fate of « Goethe » in the Human Sciences

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Goethe became an increasingly popular research « object » for theorists of the human sciences such as Wilhelm Dilthey, Georg Simmel, György Lukács and Ernst Cassirer. While these authors often thought themselves to be analysing the life and works of an actual historical individual, one possible outcome of their efforts was to transform Goethe into « Goethe » ; namely, into a philosophical or ideological screen onto which one’s theoretical preoccupations could be projected. Only in recent decades has this distinction between Goethe and « Goethe », between the author and his ideological representation, become an object of explicit theoretical discussion, most obviously in works by Avital Ronell and Hans Blumenberg. This paper will explore the methodological problem of distinguishing between Goethe and « Goethe », and the broader significance of this problem for the human sciences.