Tuning into Harmut Rosa’s systematic romanticism

Abstract

The article reconstructs the intellectual itinerary of the German social theorist Hartmut Rosa. It follows the development of his oeuvre, from his doctoral thesis on Charles Taylor and his book on social acceleration to his more recent work on resonance and responsivity. It shows that throughout the four phases of his career, the social philosophy of Charles Taylor has had a decisive influence on his philosophical anthropology, theory of society and moral sociology. It calls for a new rapprochement between the different generations of critical theory to think through societal pathologies without giving up on the promises of modernity.