In this book, Hans Blumenberg disputes the view that the modern idea of progress represents a secularization of religious belief in some divine intervention (the coming of the Messiah, the end of the world) which consummates human history from outside. Drawing from sources ranging from Aristotle and Augustine to Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, and Kuhn - with an impressive number of stops between - he argues that progress always implies a process at work within history, a process that ultimately expresses human choices, human self-assertion, and man's responsibility for his own fate.Hans Blumenberg has been associated with Kiel University in Hamburg since 1947. The book is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought.

席勒认为人性中存在这两种基本要素，即人格和状态。人格是保持不变的自我同一的理性形式，而状态却是人在时间中经历的变动不居的感性内容，由此就产生了两种相反的要求：前者要使多变的现象世界具有统一的形式，后者要使空洞的形式具有实在的内容，这就是所谓的理性冲动和感性冲动。为使人性实现完满与自由，他提出了第三种冲动--游戏冲动。游戏冲动的对象就是"活的形象""活的形象"就是美。