Abstract

The goal of this work is to popularize the philosophy of the German philosopher Hans Blumenberg (1920–1999) in Czech context. Even though he is gradually becoming one of the most discussed authors in the Anglo-Saxon world, Blumenberg is still largely ignored here. This work focuses on a key theme from Blumenberg’s theory of metaphorology and analyzes the history and development of human defensive reactions against alleged expressions of cosmic powers and their impact on human lives: heavenly signs, unnatural signs at birth or death of important figures, religious miracles, etc. In order to defend themselves against absolute forces of the universe, people have developed magic (homo magus occurred in human history) as a tool of prevention from cosmic interference, created new myths and escaped into their mythical shelters by means of further metaphors. In the final part, the work deals with the phenomenology of the metaphor of „stream“, used by E. Husserl.