«Denken ist schwer». Il pensiero e l’opera di Heymann Steinthal

The figure of Heymann Steinthal is presented thematically through the analysis of his works. In Steinthal’s pages, the concept of culture undergoes a profound revision. Dissolving its meaning from its unilateral attachment to the lofty productions of the spirit and the Romantic notion of Bildung, the first germs of culture are placed in languages, myths and religions, where the spontaneous expressions of communities are condensed and man’s overriding bond with nature and other men is established. The concept of Kultur also gains a previously unthinkable extension in another sense. The horizon of ideas and surrounding objects is transformed into a living world that is not alienated, into a legacy to be appropriated and developed in order to establish ever new continuities with the past. Everything becomes, in this perspective, a trace of the hand of man, and to philosophy, the investigation of values and not of the concept, the sphere of everyday life is posed as a new question.