ABSTRACT
In the almost 400 years since Boehme’s death, he has been revived, reappropriated, and rediscovered repeatedly. For someone often seen as marginal in Western thought, he has certainly reappeared regularly over the years as intellectually significant. And yet, it still seems necessary to consider the question of whether Boehme continues to matter today. In my own field of philosophy, I have sometimes encountered quizzical looks and questions from other philosophers wondering why anyone would be interested in this seemingly incidental figure. Why should a philosopher be concerned with an undisciplined “picture-thinker,” to quote Hegel? Why indeed. But my sense of philosophy has always been that it is sometimes found in unexpected places, and finding philosophy in a figure generally situated in the history of mysticism and spirituality should not, after all, be a surprise. More importantly, for philosophy at least, is this: an encounter with Boehme potentially brings philosophers back to the well-spring of philosophy, the question of what makes philosophy what it is. Philosophy turns to first things, in a variety of ways, and Boehme, too, drives us in that direction. That is not yet a guarantee of philosophical usefulness or profundity, but it is an intriguing start.
