Religious crisis and the critique of modernity: Jacob Burckhardt's reflections about history

Abstract

This article aims at an interpretation of Jacob Burckhardt's intellectual legacy vis-à-vis the recent historiographical debates that deal with the relationship between history and the crisis of German-speaking Protestant theology throughout the nineteenth century. In order to do so, I claim that Burckhardt's theory of history — with its aesthetic emphasis on the formation and contemplation ideals — can, to a large extent, be read as the most complete of his responses to the religious crisis which arose after the contact between protestant theology and scientific history during the nineteenth century.