History, Metaphors, and Fables collects the central writings by Hans Blumenberg and covers topics such as on the philosophy of language, metaphor theory, non-conceptuality, aesthetics, politics, and literary studies. This landmark volume demonstrates Blumenberg's intellectual breadth and gives an overview of his thematic and stylistic range over four decades. Blumenberg's early philosophy of technology becomes tangible, as does his critique of linguistic perfectibility and conceptual thought, his theory of history as successive concepts of reality", his anthropology, or his studies of literature. History, Metaphors, Fables allows readers to discover a master thinker whose role in the German intellectual post-war scene can hardly be overestimated.

1. The Linguistic Realityof Philosophy (1946/1947)
2. World Pictures and World Models (1961)
3. "Secularization": Critique of a Category ofHistorical Illegitimacy (1964)
4. The Concept of Realityand the Theory of the State(1968/1969)
5. Preliminary Remarks on the Concept of Reality(1974)
6. Light as a Metaphorfor Truth: At the PreliminaryStage of Philosophical Concept Formation (1957)
7. Introduction to Paradigms for a Metaphorology(1960)
8. An Anthropological Approach to the ContemporarySignificance of Rhetoric(1971)
9. Observations Drawn from Metaphors(1971)
10. Prospect for a Theory of Nonconceptuality (1979)
11. Theory of Nonconceptuality (circa 1975, excerpt)
12. The Relationship between Nature and Technologyas a Philosophical Problem(1951)
13. "Imitation of Nature":: Towarda Prehistory ofthe Idea of the Creative Being (1957)
14. Phenomenological Aspects on Life-Worldand Technization (1963)
15. Socrates and the objet ambigu: Paul Valéry'sDiscussion of the Ontology of the AestheticObject and Its Tradition (1964)
16. The Essential Ambiguity of the AestheticObject (1966)
17. Speech Situation and Immanent Poetics (1966)
18. The Absolute Father(1952/1953)
19. The Mythos and Ethos of Americain the Workof William Faulkner (1958)
20. The Concept of Realityand the Possibility of theNovel (1964)
21. Pensiveness (1980)
22. Moments of Goethe (1982)
23. Beyond the Edge of Reality: Three Short Essays (1983)
24. Of Nonunderstanding: Glosses on Three Fables (1984)
25. Unknown Aesopica: From Newly Found Fables (1985)
26. Advancing into Eternal Silence: A Centuryafterthe Sailing of the Fram (1993)