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Rotenstreich Time and Meaning in History 1987
Rotenstreich Time and Meaning in History 1987
Editor
VOLUME 101
NATHAN ROTENSTREICH
TIME
AND MEANING
IN HISTORY
DORDRECHT/BOSTON/LANCASTER/TOKYO
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Introductory Note ix
NOTES 207
vii
viii EDITORIAL PREFACE
through three levels of expository analysis: first, he sets forth what are,
in his judgment, the principal alternative philosophical theories of
historical understanding, and with these he quietly and dialectically leads
the reader to his own theory; second, Rotenstreich elaborates his own
theory of history as process, shows its power in clarification and often
in explanation of quite specific conceptual and (what may be surprising)
empirical issues; and third, we see Rotenstreich's critical as well as
enlightening analyses of controversies of our own times. There is little
point to go further here other than to point to the systematic integrity of
the work, the central role of his joining of 'reflectiveness' with
'relatedness', and the contrast they have with the various temporal series
of ahistorical processes of nature. A reader may see this in Rotenstreich' s
statement: " .. the precondition of the possibility of history consists in
man's reflective relatedness to the collective creations of mankind ... ".
IX
CHAPTER 1
II
III
IV
v
We come now to consider the third representative approach to time and
to history, that of Heidegger. We begin with one of Heidegger's main
statements or assumptions, that time should be regarded as the horizon
of every understanding and interpretation of Being. 7 This could imply
that the starting point and foundation of Heidegger's approach to
history is time, rather than a supra-historical presupposition of Spirit or
an intra-historical permanent factor promoting history, like production.
Heidegger, referring to what he calls historicity (Geschichtlichkeit) ,
states that Being is historical. 8 This is a fundamental ontological asser-
tion, since it points to the primary relation between Being and time.
Heidegger goes further and points to the correlation between tempor-
ality (Zeit!ichkeit) and historicity; within the horizon of temporality, the
emphasis is laid on finitude or death. Finitude (Endlichkeit) is the
implicit reason for the historicity of Being, since what Heidegger calls
Dasein exists as a finite mode of Being.
Here we encounter the relation between finitude and death, since
finitude means that Being is on the verge of death. 9 The term finitude
denotes the objective fact that the duration of man's existence is limited;
THE STATUS OF HISTORY 13
but it also signifies that death is the explication of the ultimate possibility
of man's existence. Yet the relation between finitude and death is more
than an objective structure of human existence. The consciousness of
finitude is continuously present in man's existence; man is characterized
by the constant anticipation of his end. Considering the status Heideg-
ger allots to death, we may characterize his system as a kind of "nega-
tive eschatology", at least in terms of individual human existence, since
death is a possibility of the existence of the individual. In this context
Heidegger coins the expression Jemeinigkeit, which emphasizes the
immediate and internal relationship between the personal mode of
existence and its doom.
This emphasis on time and its inherent relationship to death, though it
points to the primary position of time within the human horizon, may
mislead us when we speak of history. We find in Heidegger a predomi-
nance of the dimension of the future, the future within the personal
boundaries, or what he calls self-extension, which runs between birth
and death. The very fact that we are speaking here of the futAre as a
dimension is already a sort of abstraction, because future is present in
death and is not dealt with generally and universally. Thus future is the
becoming in which existence achieves its proper potential, where death
is conceived as the most concrete mode of Being. Though Heidegger
speaks about possibility in connection with the future, he does not
present the future as a dimension in which the active possibilities of
man's existence emerge from potentiality into actuality. "Possibility" is
not a latent potentiality to become manifest, but an immanent reality,
which he sometimes calls das schicksalhafte Geschick des Daseins, thus
combining the fate in which we are involved with the continuous
anticipation of it, imbued with anxiety. The true content of Being may
be said to lie in its end, doom or death, rather than in man's active
engagement, which may call into being something hitherto not existing.
The present is only the locus of the decisiveness or determination
(Entschlossenheit)lO going towards the future.
We have to be rather meticuluous in understanding the concept of
historicity, which Heidegger presents as central to his system. In the first
place, historicity is related to personal existence, and not to the public
realm of human actions and creations. If historicity is related to death,
and death is essentially one's own (jemeinig) , it cannot be related to that
non-personal realm which is history. Even when Heidegger speaks
about world-historical processes, he speaks about the relation to the
14 CHAPTER 1
VI
VII
one can survey the full sweep of the historical process. Both faces of
history - as the so-far completed process from pa,st to present and as the
ongoing process from present to future - presuppose relatedness as the
condition of their possibility. To put it another way, both reflective
directedness towards recorded history as well as creative directedness
towards the ongoing process of historical occurrence, presuppose man's
relatedness to the open structure of time. As the object of intentional-
ity, time becomes the theoretical and actual condition of history. Thus
man's double standpoint in history, both the denizen and the detached
observer of its domain, represents one realization of the relatedness.
The twofold condition of history consists in man's reflective directedness
towards the past and creative - but also reflective - directedness towards
the future.
VIII
II
III
it), but a cognitive necessity; it results from the very horizon of knowl-
edge or encounter with data the explanation of which is not inherent in
prior givenness.
We can now consider whether there is sufficient reason for assuming
the concept of subject as a condition of the cognitive sphere of history.
Since the concept of subject has several connotations, we must examine
whether there is any sense in which the concept can be regarded as a
necessary assumption of historical research. Let us therefore look into
some of the different meanings of the concept of subject.
IV
whose beginning is a point in the past and whose given traces are a point
in the present. In this sense we can say that non-enduring events are not
historical events. But this is not the sense in which "endurance" is
employed in the natural sciences. There the assumption of an enduring
subject implies that, under certain conditions, certain measurements
lead to identical numerical results. 6 In the historical sphere, however,
there is no justification for assuming endurance as a quantitative iden-
tity. We are not looking for a sum of events that are given side by side,
but for a process of events that are given in succession. When we say
that a historical event endures, we do not mean to imply that it remains
permanent under all conditions, but rather that it is related to the
datum, i.e., that it is integrated into the structure of which it is a
constituent element.
In the structure called the history of politics, for example, the deter-
mination of events to be considered is controlled by our principle of
selection, i.e., the state or political activity. A particular event, such as
the Napoleonic wars, is not determinate and identical under all condi-
tions. It is rather determined within the structure we have defined by
reference to the concept of the state. Determination of events by
reference to qualitative components precludes the possibility of deter-
mining their isolated identity independent of the structure. Not even a
biological subject such as Napoleon (as distinguished from a collective
subject, e.g., the Age of Enlightenment) can be conceived of as endur-
ing or self-identical without deviating from the starting-point of histori-
cal research. On the historical stage, Napoleon appears within a context
of events and occurrences, each of which contributes a real content to
the empty series in time in which we assign it a position. Even were we
to ignore the arguments against assuming the subject qua substratum,
we would still not be entitled to assume that the subject qua substratum
is enduring or self-identical in every occurrence. Every qualitative event
adds some content to the subject or substratum with which it is con-
nected. In the historical sphere, the Napoleon who was the substratum
of actions during the Russian campaign is not the same Napoleon who
was the substratum of actions during the period of the Directorate.
Every event is added to its subject and, in relation to subsequent event,
constitutes a part of that subject. Hence not even the assumption of a
substratum that underlies events warrants the assumption of a self-
identical or self-contained subject that endures in all events. In the
historical sphere the subject qua substratum must be distinguished from
THE SUBJECT AND PROCESS 35
the starting point of history lies not in the world of historical facts or
traces (archeological remains, cities, socio-political movements) but in
the inner world of the historian. The starting point of historical research
is not the qualitative occurrences in the historian's inner world, i.e., not
his specific experiences, thoughts, and desires, but the occurrence in the
historian's inner world, i.e., his activity as given in his consciousness of
being active. Given a starting point in an introspectively known occur-
rence, how does one arrive at the world of facts. To answer this we must
assume both the factual datum and the mere occurrence known from
inner experience. This raises the further problem of whether one can
assume an occurrence as a means of explaining the factual datum on the
basis of the mode of occurrence, which we know from inner experience.
If we can, then every historical occurrence must be conceived of as the
effect of subjects, i.e., as a consequence of his decisions, intentions, etc.
One cannot conceive of occurrences in this manner without contract-
ing the historical sphere, that is, without removing from its compass
those facts or events which cannot be conceived of as the effects of
subjects unless the "Cunning of Reason" is assigned a far-reaching
metaphysical meaning. Yet certain natural phenomena, such as the
Lisbon earthquake or the Russian winter, are integrated into and leave
their traces upon the historical process. If the historical process absorbs
natural occurrences - i.e., events that are initially asserted by the
instruments of natural science - then the focus of historical research lies
not in the existential character of the event but in its place in the
historical context. Even the historical efficacy of ideas is the efficacy of
meaningful facts, not of living subjects. A historical occurrence is an
ultimate fact whose existence cannot be derived from the mode of
occurrence that we experience introspectively.
This being the case, there is no justification for linking causality or
conformity to law in history with the question of the existence of
historical subjects. Because historical occurrences are a process sus-
tained by the relations among events, it seems unjustifiable to assert
(a) that historical causality is the causality of subjects, and (b) that
history accordingly includes an irrational element which transcends its
law-abiding structureY The relation that sustains the historical process
obtains not between occurrences and their subject, but among the events
themselves or among the facts encompassed by occurrences. Only by
analyzing the relation among the events can we handle the question of
its conformity to law and its amenability to causal explanation. The
44 CHAPTER 2
VI
that imposes upon the event an element it does not contain ab initio.
The background is not a factor separate from the datum, but a factor we
determine by observing our own experiences. Just as our experiences
and actions are expressions of a living subject, so the given events are
expressions of a background whose latent riches are not exhausted in
the manifest event. The humanities (Geisteswissenschaften) take their
departure from, and sustain a perpetual relationship with, life. 14 Hence
phenomena can and should be understood in isolation, and not in
relation to the chain of events. The core of every spiritual phenomenon
is found within the phenomenon itself, according to Dilthey.15 Only if
this conception of the phenomenon is valid can Dilthey's theory as a
whole bear the brunt of criticism.
Is a phenomenon known by being isolated from the structure and
related to the background by which it is nurtured, or is it known by
being integrated into the context and related to the chain of events of
which it is a link? For here, it seems, lies the decisive difference between
"Understanding" and knowledge in the strict sense of the term. Not
only knowledge, but even the assumption that the known exists, presup-
pose a determination of relations as the condition of their possibility.
But "Understanding" has no alternative to knowing the event by
defining its root. Now, to "understand" an event as an expression of
"life" is to know it, not as a fact, but as a manifestation of a primary
factor. The trouble is that we lack a criterion for determining where to
end our quest for the primordial background. If it is permissible to go
beyond the event and its place in the relational structure in pursuit of an
underlying background, then it is permissible to go beyond the back-
ground in quest of a more rudimentary layer; and there is no criterion to
stop us. We know this argument from the discussions about the position
of the concept of substance in other spheres of knowledge as well.
By contrast, historical research proper is kept within bounds by a
methodological criterion, and does not probe the problem of the nur-
turing root. The nature of the background against which the mode of
occurrence called history emerges is immaterial to historical research.
Every metaphysic (be it a metaphysic of nature, wherein historical
occurrence figures as a function of nature or a mode of "life," or a
metaphysic of Spirit, wherein historical occurrence figures as a hand-
maid of Spirit) can have recourse to historical research. This is because
historical research is an immanent mode of enquiry concerned with the
relations among events, and not with their existential or ultimate root.
THE SUBJECT AND PROCESS 47
VII
pretation one would have to assume that in itself, i.e., as a pure meaning
not embodied in a datum, the ethical principle is an empty abstraction, a
mere meaning that lacks the concreteness of a moral command. If this is
granted, there is room for H. Cohen's assertion that the moral principle
requires an empirical sphere for its realization. Fulfilling this require-
ment, the existence of the historical sphere may be regarded as a moral
postulate; not, however, in the sense of a postulate needed for the
determination of the moral meaning, but in the sense of a postulate
needed for the realization of that meaning.
Because of the extra-historical status of the concept of subject, not
even the foregoing conception of history warrants the conclusions that
the transcendental sphere of history is ethical theory, and that the
relation between ethical theory and history is analogous to the relation
between logic and the natural sciences. The concept of subject is a
necessary assumption of ethical theory. Moreover, unlike historical
research, ethical analysis is not confined to an examination of the
relation among diverse actions, nor does it accomplish its task simply by
exposing the causal connection between one act and another. Its task is
to seek out the subject responsible for those acts. The question it must
answer is not, "what are the relations within a given structure of
actions?" but "What is the source of that structure?" Without a subject,
the very moral perspective would be meaningless. In this respect, there
is a fundamental difference between the ethical and historical perspec-
tives. The purpose of historical research is to determine the relations
among various events; the purpose of ethical analysis is to determine the
relation of occurrences or deeds to their active subject, qua agent, so
that action emerges as the consequence of intentionality and decision.
Hence ethical theory is entitled to ask about the subject of intentionality
and his responsibility for its consequences.
The moral interpretation of history, according to which the historical
process is characterized by intentionality towards a moral goal, transfers
the concept of subject from the sphere of ethics to the sphere of history.
But a study of the historical datum does not entitle us to go beyond the
limits of the historical sphere in order to establish such a relation between
history and ethics, let alone to present ethical theory as the transcenden-
tal assumption of historical research. From the perspective of ethics we
can only demand that historical existence acknowledges its limits, by not
representing itself as the realization of a subject or of subjects, and by
50 CHAPTER 2
recognizing that the status of the subject lies beyond its reach. The
topics of historical progress and the individual in history will bring this
consideration into relief.
B. History and the science of human reality. Let us see now whether the
function of history is to be sought in a science of human existence, as has
been suggested. In order to present history as a science of existence,
Rickert had recourse to the qualitative-individual aspect of the datum of
historical research. The individual figures that serve as the starting point
of historical research are living subjects. 17 Yet the existence of the living
subject, which we know through inner experience, is not accessible to
historical research, and accordingly does not constitute a datum for it.
To introduce the living subject into our consideration requires limitation
of the historical perspective on the one hand, and enlargement of the
perspective, by not identifying the human scope with the historical
orbit, on the other. Because it has no access to the pre-conceptual
experience that constitutes the world of the living subject, historical
research is not a science of existence in the sense of a science that has
immediate access to the mode of existence known through inner experi-
ence. As the source of action, the subject represents a factor beyond the
reach of science. Regarded from the viewpoint of their distance from
existence, all the sciences, induding history, are equal.
C. History and the social sciences. To the extent that they deal with the
human collective or collectives as embodied in law, state, people, etc.,
social sciences are based upon history and historical research. For it is in
the historical sphere that the occurrences defined as collective phe-
nomena take place. But the objective of the social sciences is neither to
characterize their object as an historical occurrence, nor to explain it
merely in terms of its dynamics. The purpose of the social sciences is to
characterize their subject matter as a given unit, and to analyse that unit
without reference to the historical process by which it is produced and
into which it is integrated. It may therefore be said that, in the social
sciences, the dynamic viewpoint is supplemented by a static viewpoint,
which abstracts the object from its historical context.
It is from this static viewpoint that social sciences assume or may
assume the concept of subject. For the social scientist, it is not enough
to determine his object's position in the structure of history. His task is
to analyze the attributes of that object as an entity. Hence the same
THE SUBJECT AND PROCESS 51
subject in relation to the edifice erected upon it. Within this structure of
relations among diverse cognitive spheres, the concept of a subject is
given as a relational category. Its function as a foundation is not
absolute, but relative to the edifice erected upon it. Only in relation to
that cognitive edifice may the foundation be regarded as a subject. The
ultimate, absolute subject is an agent that does not reside in the house of
empirical knowledge. Within the limits of the empirical sphere there is
no absolute subject. As the foundation of an empirical edifice, the
subject is not absolute; and as absolute, the ultimate factor is not a
subject. The meaning of the absolute subject is not empirical, but
metaphysical and moral.
CHAPTER 3
II
human beings over their environment. We also refer to the process in its
full integration: the whole historical process moves in a certain direc-
tion. The secondary spheres of that process converge and create one
totality, which is imbued with an inherent advancement over the pre-
ceding periods. Progress is assessed when achievements are compared
or evaluated by a criterion applied to them as they become manifest in
the course of the process. (b) The second feature is that of the criterion
of evaluation: historical progress is a factual exhibition of that which had
or ought to be exhibited, of that which is worth exhibiting. If we take,
for instance, scientific civilization, and we can view it not only as an
instrument for the improvement of technological tools but also as a
progress in the strict sense of the term, because we view science as a
major manifestation of human rationality. We presuppose that ration-
ality, or ratio, initially only potentially, ought to be actualized, and thus
become historically present and tangible. Whereas the notion of accu-
mulation evaluates the process mainly from the point of view of the
factual relations between stages via the notion of progress, we introduce
into our historical awareness a supra-historical criterion, ratio, by which
the stages of the process are assessed and evaluated. From this point of
view the notion of historical progress epitomizes the total meaning of
history. We can be even more daring and say that historical progress,
understood as a converging advancement of all the sub currents of the
historical process, is one of the major explications of the attempt to read
history as a total meaning assigned to the process. We shall now explore
some of the detailed presuppositions of the notion of progress, and take
a critical look at them.
II
The true encounter between the process and the norm ought to be
ascribed an absolute or independent status in its capacity as the key to
the direction and meaning of the historical process. This is taken for
granted by the proponents of the idea of progress, however much they
disagree about the content of the norm.
Our task is to analyze the theoretical assumptions upon which the
idea of historical progress is based - a task which cannot be accom-
plished simply by describing the historical background or the "climate of
opinion" in which this idea found widespread acceptance. For our
PROGRESS AND DIRECTION 55
purposes it is irrelevant that this idea came into currency in the nine-
teenth century, when confidence in the march of civilization reached a
peak, and men sought theoretical justification for their feeling that they
had come a long way toward achieving the goal of human history. The
question to be answered is not under what circumstances the idea can be
or has been propagated, but upon what theoretical assumptions the idea
is based. To answer this question, we must explore the conceptual
contexts relevant to the doctrine of progress, rather than the historical
reasons for its popular appeal.
It has often been remarked that the idea of progress is related to the
doctrine of Providence. According to Bury's influential interpretation of
this relationship, faith in progress is a secular substitute for the earlier
religious belief in Providence. Because the idea of progress is incompati-
ble with the doctrine of Providence - so the argument runs - the latter
had to lose ground before the former could become the controlling idea
in the theory of history. What Bury means to imply is not that both
views of the historical process cannot be entertained by one and the
same thinker, but that, regarded from the viewpoint of their inner logic,
these views are mutually exclusive. 2
Yet this interpretation of the relationship between the idea of prog-
ress and the doctrine of Providence is valid only in part. Its validity
depends upon the adequacy or inadequacy of Bury's conception of
historical progress as a continuous advance initiated, sustained, and
regulated by the intra-historical forces of human knowledge, science,
economics, and politics. If historical advance is indeed a self-sustaining
process, nurtured exclusively by intra-historical forces and governed
exclusively by their mechanism, then the idea of historical progress
excludes the idea of Providence almost by definition. Given a different
conception of historical progress, there is no reason why it cannot be
reconciled - at least partially - with the doctrine of Providence.
One can learn this from certain interpretations of the relationship
between Providence and progress. Some trends in Jewish mysticism
conceive of redemption in terms of a gradual process of restitution
(Tikkun). As Gershom Scholem points out: "The process in which God
conceives, brings forth and develops Himself does not reach its final
conclusion in God. Certain parts of the process of restitution are
allotted to man. . . . In certain spheres of being, divine and human
existence are interwined. The intrinsic, extra-mundane process of Tikkun,
symbolically described as the birth of God's personality, corresponds to
56 CHAPTER 3
the process of mundane history .... Every act of man is related to this
final task which God has set for His creatures.,,3 Restoration or Restitu-
tion of Creation is achieved, not by a miraculous Divine act, but by a
gradual law-abiding process of purification.
Here, then, is an interpretation of the mundane process of historical
progress as intimately interrelated with Divine Providence. The interre-
lation between the two ideas is not confined to an individual thinker who
happens to entertain both at once. It is rather entailed in the conception
of the Creator who is detached from the deeds of his creatures aimed at
the realization of the design of the creator himself.
It is not only in Jewish mysticism that one finds the idea of progress
correlated with the doctrine of Providence. This correlation is also
found in the writings of Renaissance thinkers who considered the
philosophy of history in the strict sense of the term. Paracelsus, for
example, maintains that God governs his creation in such a way as to
direct it, by means of a gradual process, toward the highest good. 4
Herder regards Providence as a force operative in the historical process
(this follows from his explanation of men's failure to find God in
History). Attributing the situation of the empirical observer of history
who has lost sight of God and belief in Providence to an erroneous or
inadequate conception of divine government, Herder advocates an
approach that seeks in history the divine design found in Nature. Since
man is but a minute part of the universe as a whole, argues Herder, his
history must be correlated with the cosmic fabric in which it is interwo-
ven. Human history is a process in which God works for our salvation
through our own endeavors, abilities, and understanding. s Herder's
interpretation of the relationship between divine Providence and his-
torical progress bears a strong resemblance to another doctrine which
holds the two ideas to be complementary rather than mutually exclu-
sive. This is the doctrine of concursus - mentioned also by Kant -
according to which man and God cooperate in the creation of the
historical process.
Even this brief survey of some relevant sources suffices to invalidate
Bury's contention that, owing to the absolute autonomy of history, the
idea of progress is incompatible with the doctrine of Providence.
Another reason for questioning Bury's divorce between progress and
Providence lies in the conception of Providence that dictates it. The
implied notion that Providence entails direct divine intervention in
every historical event and act is by no means self-evident, as follows
PROGRESS AND DIRECTION 57
III
IV
Men are at the present day ... in the same condition in which those ancient philosophers
would have been found, could they have survived till the present time, adding to the
knowledge which they possessed that which their studies would have acquired by the aid
of so many centuries. Thence it is that by an especial prerogative, not only does each man
advance from day to day in the sciences but all mankind together make continual progress
in proportion as the world grows older, since the same thing happens in the succession of
men as in the different ages of individuals. So that the whole succession of men, during the
course of many ages, should be considered as a single man who subsists forever and learns
continually, whence we see with what injustice we respect antiquity in philosophers; for as
old age is that period of life most remote from infancy, who does not see that old age in
this universal man ought not to be sought in the times nearest his birth, but in those most
remote from it? Those whom we call ancient were really new in all things, and properly
constituted the infancy of mankind. And as we have joined to their knowledge the
experience of the centuries which have followed them, it is in ourselves that we should find
this antiquity that we revere in others. (Italics added.)Y
VI
Hegel himself points to the affinity between the impact of reason in the
historical process and the position of Divine Providence, as that position
has been traditionally conceived. Reason, in terms of the architecture of
the system and the impact of its guiding interference in the process,
replaces Divine Providence; and thus we come back to the start of our
exploration of the presuppositions of the notion of progress.
Yet the most important aspect of Hegel's theory is the underlying
70 CHAPTER 3
evident in the process from the very beginning of history up to the final
result? How does the subject who ponders the cunning of reason
integrate within his consciousness the various detours with the final
result? We raise these questions because we cannot assume that the
meaning of the historical processes is not mediated through the con-
sciousness of the finite and limited subjects of history. Unless we
assume this, we have to assume that reason, as un?erstood in the
context of the system and in the notion of cunning, . is a; kind of' entity
that overshadows the process, self-enclosed and essentially detached
from the process and from its own position - though the process can be
viewed as leading to reason from the vantage point of the process. We
are back here to our previous quandary: What does spirit or reason need
the process for?
There are several objections to this doctrine. For one thing, the
doctrine inadvertently admits the very fact it is designed to explain
away, namely, that human beings rarely regard themselves as organs of
the historical whole and their actions as instrumental to realizing its end.
For another, the argument used to explain this fact away amounts to an
assertion that he who acts in his own interest acts blindly, and that,
therefore, his private intention is no measure of his achievement. Only
inadequate knowledge of himself and his status in history can make a
man act, or think he acts, in his own interest. In history, a man's
independent individual status is an illusion. Only his status as organ or
instrument of the universal trend is real.
This argument is both presumptuous and problematic: presumptuous
because it assumes that the universal trend of history can be known, and
problematic because it robs individual agents- and actions of their
independent status and reduces them to mere instruments. Conscious
that the conception of their independent status as a mere error or
illusion entails the devaluation of the intrinsic value of individual agents
and acts, Collingwood rightly observes that, "Bach was not trying to
write like Beethoven and failing; Athens was not a relatively unsuccess-
ful attempt to produce Rome; Plato was himself, not a half-developed
Aristotle. "27
To formulate Collingwood's objection in terms of the present
analysis, one can say that the tendency to regard earlier acts and agents
as mere instruments for the sake of an overriding harmonious purpose is
encouraged by the assumption that continuous time is not only the me-
dium, but also the measure, of historical achievement and advancement.
72 CHAPTER 3
VII
by Duns Scotus when he said: "In the process of human generations the
message of truth has always increased." We are not questioning this
optimism by looking at historical data and pointing to the problematic
situations created by partial historical achievements, which give birth to
new problems even when they solve old ones. In the present-day climate
of opinion technology would be a case in point to show that historical
achievements carry within themselves new problems. One of the driving
forces of the technological revolution is the continuous attempt to
alleviate physical burdens and make life "easier". In a certain sense this
has been achieved; but at the same time life has become more difficult,
and the stress of the interaction between human beings and their
environment has become even stronger. We repeat: we are not raising
here empirical questions, but a categorial one, namely, whether we can
be involved in history and at the same time look at history from the
outside as ideal observers.
We have already introduced the idea that there are only partial events
and partial subjects experiencing them. We will now proceed to the
partial factors in history. Our concern will be with events and actions,
with human individuals and their position in the process.
CHAPTER 4
II
There are several reasons why history - and the philosophy of history -
are fascinated by the position of the individual and his role in history,
or, in common pariance, by the position of heroes in history. One
explanation for that fascination is that, where individuals in history are
concerned, the transfer of the common-sense presuppositions about
deeds and acts of positing seems to be warranted. Take for example
Collingwood's description of human action in history, focusing on
Caesar's invasion of Britain. According to Collingwood, every con-
scious act, including acts in history, has two sides. One is the physical
side - the passage of Caesar and his army across the English channel.
The other consists of thought - Caesar's intention or plan to conquer
Britain. An event - or an act of Caesar's - is, therefore, a combination
of a physical aspect and a mental one, or a unity of the outside and the
inside. The outside aspect includes the body of the agent as well as the
equipment at his disposal, such as the ships and his army. In the inside
aspect, Collingwood distinguished two elements, which he called causa
82 CHAPTER 4
quod and causa ut. The causa quod of an act or an event is the agent's
estimation of the situation in which he acts. That estimation, performed
by the agent, who in this sense is distinct from the act of estimation and
all other acts concomitant with it, comprises the military assessment or
the strategic evaluation of the situation - for instance, how many men he
needs in order to accomplish what he has planned. This aspect of causa
quod precedes the subsequent elements of planning as well as the actual
doing. The two aspects combine; moreover, once we presuppose that a
historical event is a combination of the inside and outside aspects, one
could make a case - though Collingwood does not - that all these
distinctions are post factum constructs. We attempt to articulate the
inside aspects by distinguishing within them either coexisting compo-
nents, like estimation of the initial strategic situation and the planning
for the men needed to bring about the effect, or consecutive elements,
namely, conceiving the plan to conquer Britain as an objective or as an
intention. Here the directedness of Caesar towards that objective leads
to the subsequent steps he takes for the sake of his causa ut. In this sense
causa ut is the overriding objective, constructed in order to narrate the
events or deeds which led to the final act. We can put it as follows: the
narration presupposes that we know introspectively how we approach
plans in our immediate situation. We then transpose that introspective
knowledge to the historical agent or hero.2
Be it as it may, this is a simple situation, since we are concerned here
with individual agents, and many of the presuppositions pertaining to
agents can be transplanted to the realm of history. There is no need to
question this transplantation, because it is obvious that not all events
with which history is concerned are related to biographical individuals.
In this context we must recall Austin's caution: "All 'actions' are, as
actions (meaning what?), equal, composing a quarrel with striking a
match, winning a war with sneezing: wars still, we assimilate them one
and all to the supposedly most obvious and easy cases, such as posting a
letter or moving fingers, just as we assimilate all 'things' to horses or
beds.,,3
We shall look now into some of the prevailing descriptions of actions,
in order to see whether they are applicable to the domain of history. We
shall thus attempt to clarify the basic issue: in what sense does history
embrace events, actions, or both?
If action is to be subsumed under the generic term "practice," and
practice, to use John Rawls'description, is a form of activity specified by
INTERACTION, ACTIONS AND EVENTS 83
a system of rules while the system defines offices, rules, moves, penal-
ties, defences, etc. - then it is questionable whether practice in this
sense can be applied to the historical realm and to historical action. Are
historical actions, like the emergence of Protestantism or start of the
French and the Bolshevik revolutions, specified by a system of rules?
Post factum somebody may try to decipher the system of rules that gives
structure to an activity like the renaissance of a religion or a revolution.
But it is questionable whether rules specify the individuals and groups
involved in the activity. To some extent we can even say that it is part of
the situation to overrule the rules - e.g., not to cling to the ecclesiastic
hierarchy, let alone to the existing social order. Somehow that descrip-
tion of practice is too much guided by the model or paradigm of a
certain type of activity, like games: games are governed by rules that an
individual must learn before he can be a participant in the specific game;
he must observe them lest he be excluded from the activity of the game.
When Rawls says that the rules are publicly known and understood as
definitive, we again encounter a paradox:4 since history is a public
realm, the actions and activities taking place within that realm are public
by definition, at least with respect to their outcome (for there might be
secret or individual actions leading to historical outcomes). But we may
still wonder whether the position of an action within the public sphere is
identical with the character of the action as guided by public rules, or by
rules publicly known.
The extent to which the current descriptions of actions and activities
cling naively to the individual model can be seen from additional
features usually attributed to actions. The first is that of responsibility:
actions, as related to agents, raise the question of'the responsibilities of
the agents. Let us take a rather difficult and invidious example - the
guilt of the German people during the Nazi period. A simple transposi-
tion of the notion of the individual in his personal sphere does not apply
to the historical sphere, unless we refer again specifically to individuals,
like Hitler or Eichmann. Responsibility implying the attributability of
an action as well as accountability takes a different shape when it applies
to groups of people, since vis-a-vis groups we cannot point to an explicit
will or implied in the action and thus serving as the groundwork for
responsibility. Attitudes of consent, even of passive consent, contribute
to the total historical situation, though we cannot presuppose or point to
will as initiating an action. In the attitude of consent we can discern an
adherence to an action initiated by a person or a group of persons; here,
84 CHAPTER 4
III
IV
physical sense; it comprises the facts or events that people ride in buses.
Buses are meant to overcome distances in the geographical sense; as
instruments for overcoming geographical distances they eventually be-
come instruments for overcoming social distances. Here, too, the infra-
structure is of a social or intersubjective character. That character
cannot be limited to the value-aspect or to the goal-component. It is a
kind of a Gestalt; historical changes, events, or actions are essentially
extractions of certain components of the infrastructure that make them
into foci of action. In this sense a focus of action becomes an event
because of its involvement in the infrastructure, on the one hand, and its
impact on the course of subsequent events or actions, on the other. The
grounding of the focus of action in the infrastructure reinforces the
position that there is no new beginning in history. It also reinforces the
fact that the impact of events transcends the intention, because by its
very essence, the event is involved in the course of reality or in the
course of time. An event and a cluster of events cannot therefore fully
control either reality or time. If we use the two terms, intention and
motive, in the sense suggested by G.E.M. Anscombe - "A man's
intention is what he aims at or chooses; his motive is what determines
the aim or choice"ll - we realize that reality sweeps the agent along in
both aspects: sometimes his motives become irrelevant by virtue of the
step towards transpersonalization that is characteristic of historical
actions or events; sometimes his intentions become obsolete. A historical
event or the outcome of an action becomes interwoven with other events
or with the broad reality over which he has not and cannot have control.
Hence even when we add Max Weber's notion of social action to our
analysis we still must doubt whether that notion does justice to the
complexity of the historical realm. Weber describes a social action as
one related to the behavior of others. As such it includes both action
proper - a deed - as well as the failure to act and passive acquiescence.
Since the emphasis is on the relation to the others, social action may be
oriented to the past as well as to the present or to the expected future
behavior of others. 12 One could assume that historical action is a social
action in the first place since it involves interaction and is related to, or
implied in, what goes on between various peoples. Historical action is
90 CHAPTER 4
oriented toward the behavior of others, since it lies within a sphere that
is public or common; different peoples are placed in that sphere before
the action proper begins. Yet Weber's description of social action is, as
said, limited, and does not do justice to the complexities of history and
historical action. Let us take an example quoted by Weber himself,
namely, that religious behavior is not social if it is merely a matter of
contemplation or of solitary prayer. But what sort of prayer is the
solitary individual uttering? Is it one that he received from tradition,
e.g., in the form of a prayer-book? To be sure, he uses it within the
confines of his own individual existence. He may 'use the same prayer
employed by another individual or by a church-goer who prays with
others and interacts with them. If social action connotes a present or
momentary interaction with others, the behavior of the solitary worship-
per is not social. But if sociality or social action connotes an involvement
in a sphere that provides a common ground for individuals, even when
here and now they are alone the shape of the situation is different.
Interestingly, when Weber refers to the orientation towards the past, he
cites the example of an individual motivated by revenge for a past
attack. His example points to the immediate impact a past situation may
have on the emotions of the individual involved. But when we speak of
the realm of history, there is no personal involvement in the "existen-
tial" impact of the past act, which on one's present response; there is
more of an anonymous involvement of many individuals in a past as well
as a sort of deliberate or non-deliberate selection of events from the
past, remembered or re-instituted by those living in the present. The
social character of the past serves as a reservoir, as a background, a
score for individual selections, as principles for actions or norms, etc.
The social action, as described by Weber, is based on a model of linear
or horizontal relationships between co-present individuals. The position
of the historical realm and the interaction between the dimensions of
time and the human beings involved in those dimensions is, however, of
a different character. There is no interaction, since the individuals are
not co-present; the past is reconstructed and brought to the present,
while the future is anticipated. Individuals extend the network of their
relationships in the directions prescribed by dimensions of time, which
are in turn interpreted by them as containing contents of different
meaning or impact.
If we take Weber's description as a model of social action, we are
bound to arrive at a paradoxical conclusion: the interaction between
INTERACTION, ACTIONS AND EVENTS 91
human beings within the historical realm is not a social action proper.
To avoid this paradoxical conclusion, we have to extend the meaning of
social action to include interaction between human beings, whether the
context of that interaction. - both in terms of time and in terms of
meaning - is in the present or transcends it. This is rather significant as
an attempt to describe the nature of action in history, as well as the
interrelation between actions and events. Actions occurring in the
present, if they are of a historical character, occur against the back-
ground of given circumstances, which, historically speaking, are events
or results of actions initiated in the past. A historical actor or agent is
aware - whether his actual or topical awareness is focused or not - that
he acts in certain circumstances. Did he not conceive of the circum-
stances as historical, that is to say, as results of actions, he would not
initiate action of his own. He would take the world or reality as closed,
preventing any intervention in the course of reality. But the conscious or
unconscious presupposition of any action, including historical action, is
that reality is not closed. A historical agent, whether an individual or a
group' of individuals, presupposes history, that is to say, the constant
shift from action to results or events, or the perennial possibility of
initiating actions that will result in events.
VI
The locus of action is here and now. The historical agent assumes that
his action will result in an event and become a historical event proper to
be discerned by a future observer. There is a constant shift from actions
to events; what is a historical action can be gauged by the historical
events or by those actions that become events. The interpretation of an
action as an event follows the principle of wirklich ist was wirksam ist,
or, put differently, we return from the results to the actions that initiated
them.
If this shift from action to events is characteristic of the historical
sphere, then we may reiterate the previous comment: underlying the
historical realm and the historical action occurring in it is the continuous
awareness that we are in the midst of time, and that reality does not
begin with ourselves.13 A historical action, accompanied by that aware-
ness, may bring about an anti-egocentric grasp of historical actions and
agents. History is an anti-egocentric realm par excellence. The shift from
92 CHAPTER 4
action to events, and the evolution of events into the background for
action, that continuous shift characteristic of history, may lead us to a
further conclusion related to the distinction between history as res gestae
and history as the narration of rerum gestarum. History as res gestae is a
forward-looking action occurring against the background of given
events, that is to say, of results of actions that occurred previously.
History, as a narration of rerum gestarum, is an attempt to look at
events as results of actions, or to find the causal or hermeneutic relation-
ship between events that are the point of departure of our interpretation
or observation and actions that resulted in the events. Historical action
proper as an occurrence or as an activity presupposes events, while
historical narration presupposes actions. Historical occurrences are
characterized by actions in which historical agents are involved against
the background of events. Historical events presuppose actions; they
are historical since these actions occurred in the past, and are not and
cannot be experienced by the observer in the present. The present is the
locus of action; events do not occur in the present, but they can be
traced from the present. The distinction lies therefore in the parallel
distinction between the locus and the point of departure, though the two
perspectives are correlated. History is perpetually recreated; the shift
from actions to events, and the reconstruction of actions from events,
epitomize the character of the historical realm. It follows that history
presupposes itself: the public realm, for instance, institutions or lan-
guages, is not created by a summing-up of individual deeds or voices.
The public realm, reshaped as it is, is presupposed in the first place, and
so are changes occurring within the public realm, though they may bring
about significant or even radical innovations. Whatever applies to the
circularity of the public realm applies also to the circularity of history
and to historical action. Historical action presupposes the historical
realm. That presupposition can be pointed to by employing the concept
of events. Hence we may say that actions presuppose events and events
can lead to action; both components or correlates are embraced by the
common sphere of history, on the one hand, while they keep recreating
that common sphere, on the other. This circularity is present in the
interlaced connection between situations and individuals, though indivi-
duals - as we shall see presently - break through the circularity never-
theless.
From the preceding analysis we may draw additional conclusions as to
the nature of history. History is a sphere, not a particular content: what
is or is not historical cannot be decided from the point of view of the
INTERACTION, ACTIONS AND EVENTS 93
substance of an action or an event, but only from the point of view of the
place, position, or impact of the action or event. History, in the spheric
and not substantive sense, is a process of incorporation or integration of
substantive actions and events into its own motion or continuity. History
presupposes substantive contents like scientific events, political acts, or
technology. The substantive contents become historical events within
the limited spheres delineated by the contents, for example, events in
the history of science or politics or technology. They may become events
within the broader scope of history, maintaining their substantive
meaning by having an impact beyond the boundaries delineated by that
meaning. The Theory of Relativity - to mention one example - became
an event not only in the history of science but in history at large because
of the impact it had on the atomic bomb, and through the atomic bomb
on the course of world history. Since there is no primary substantive
aspect to history, what becomes historical is a post factum assertion.
The second conclusion is this: since historical meanings are meanings
that gain impact, historical events are essentially radiating occrrrences,
similar to the sense used by William Stern in his theory of values,
namely, "strahlende Werte". To put it differently, they are events
insofar as they have effects. But once we introduce into the scope of our
analysis the metaphor of radiation, we may say, in light of present-day
experience (and without being overly sarcastic), that historical events
might be radiating in the neutral sense or might be radiating in the sense
attributed to nuclear energy. The impact might be neutral, benign, or
malignant. The emphasis placed on the aftermath of events, which in
turn is related to the lack of substantive meaning of history, opens the
door to the evaluation of historical events. The primary evaluation is the
assessment of the fact that events equal impact. That assessment in turn
can lead to subsequent assessments and evaluations as to the nature of
the impact - whether it was beneficial or harmful to subsequent genera-
tions, or what sort of substantive meaning the event contained from the
aspect of the particular sphere to which it belongs, as distinguished from
the aspect of the historical process. Here, too, the distinction between
meanings and impacts related to the analysis of action in history leads us
to reconsider the interplay between action and events, on the one hand,
and to have reservations about the value-free interpretations, on the
other.
The subsequent analysis will bring into prominence certain aspects of
that interplay, both in terms of human agents as well as in terms of the
position of evaluation in historical awareness and interpretation.
CHAPTER 5
II
Since we started from the biological layer, the first question we face is
whether it makes sense to transpose the notion of determination, as
found in the biological sphere, to the sphere of history. There is a
tendency, sometimes called reductionist, to suppose that a model of
determination can be applied to another sphere than that in which it was
originally formulated; hence the model of biological determination
could be transferred to the area of history.
But this is not so. Unlike the biological sphere, the historical sphere is
characterized by the basic fact that occurrences take place via the
responses of individuals; through their responses individuals activate
their awareness. They are not determined in the same sense that the
genetic code determines the organism. If they are determined at all,
their determination is not opaque, but presupposes the prism of aware-
ness. In this sense the historical process cannot be viewed as linear,
progressing from causes to effects, but rather as circular, moving from
the cause, i.e., the process and its context, to the human individual or
individuals who occupy their positions, and respond from that position
to the process. The responding individual is open to the process; the
process lacks determining impact unless it is mediated through aware-
ness. This feature of the historical process precludes the possibility of
seeing it as a simple continuation of the evolutionary process.
Hence we must suggest a softer version of determination, once the
unequivocal prescriptive character of determination is precluded. That
version has two main aspects. The first aspect can be put negatively,
namely, that the individual does not initiate the processes - if he
initiates them, at all - de novo. His acts and actions are continuations,
since they are responses and take place in situations. The individual
does not invent the situations in which he acts; they are given, and that
givenness renders them historical. Moreover, the background of time is
presupposed. The individual, even when he gives direction to the
process in time, does not create time at large, which can be viewed as a
reservoir of directions. Individuals interact, and their actions are inter-
actions. In this sense - and we come now to the second aspect of the
softer version of determination - the historical nexus, as described
previously, prescribes to a certain extent the interventions of individu-
als, including historical individuals. It makes a difference whether the
individual acts in a city, a state, or a global society; whether he conducts
CONTEXTS AND INDIVIDUALS 97
a war where his weapons are stones or boats, or of the kind that may
bring about what is nowadays called "overkill." These differences of
situation shape the actions of individuals and change them both quanti-
tatively and qualitatively, since the horizon of individual awareness is to
a very large extent delineated by the situations and infrastructure of the
process. To be sure, additional factors can enter the total nexus deter-
mining the actions of individuals - not only surrounding facts, but also
those guiding one's reflections, such as awareness of the consequences
of actions, norms of behavior, etc. Hence, when we move now to an
exploration of the relation between individuals and processes, we are
not oblivious of the intricacies of the histori~al process and the uncer-
tainty about the line of demarcation between actions and events.
III
IV
Let us then turn to the opposite pole, the Marxist position as formulated
in Plekhanov's essay on "The Role of the Individual in History."
The purpose of Plekhanov's essay is to prove (a) that society is the
historical cause par excellence, and (b) that this status of society is not
incompatible with the ability of individuals to playa significant role in
history. Plekhanov's argument is based on the assumption that the
nature and influence of the individual's- actions are determined by the
social forces operating at his time. In other words, Plekhanov identifies
"society" with the totality of circumstances in which the individual
undertakes his action: "The effect of personal peculiarities ... is unde-
niable; but no less undeniable is the fact that it could occur only in
the given social conditions."4
To demonstrate his contention, Plekhanov cites several historical
figures whose actions were dictated by social circumstances that they
themselves did not create. Thus, for example, the Marquise de Pompa-
dour" ... was strong not by her own strength, but by the power of the
king who was subject to her will. Can we say that the character of Louis
XV was exactly what it was inevitably bound to be, in view of the
general course of development of social relations in France? No, given
the same course of development a king might have appeared in his place
with a different attitude towards women." He concludes that" ... it is
CONTEXTS AND INDIVIDUALS 103
the relation of social forces which, in the last analysis, explains the fact
that Louis XV's character and the caprices of his favorite, could have
such a deplorable influence on the fate of France."5
Having adduced this example, Plekhanov proceeds to argue that
although individuals can sometimes wield considerable influence upon
the fate of society, "the possibility of exercising this influence, and its
extent, are determined by the form or organization of society, by the
relation of forces within it." Expanding on this point, Prekhanov goes
on to say that although "the extent of personal influence may also be
determined by the talents of the individual . . . the individual can
display his talents only when he occupies the position in society neces-
sary for this. Why was the fate of France in the hands of a man who
totally lacked the ability and desire to serve society? Because such was
the form of organization of that society. It is the form of organization
that in any given period determines the role ... that may fall to the lot
of ... individuals."6
Here Plekhanov has advanced a step further in his argument. After
claiming that the extent of an individual's influence is determined by
social conditions, he now adds that an individual cannot influence the
course of social development unless his position in the existing social
system enables him to do so. In support of his contention that the course
of historical events is determined not by "personal qualities of individu-
als" but by "the state of productive forces," Plekhanov argues that
individuals are historical causes "only in the sense, perhaps, that ...
(they) possess more or less talent for making technical improvements,
discoveries, and inventions."7 By defining effective personal action as an
instrument to improve a given social setting, Ple}chanov evidently in-
tends to restrict the influence of individual agents. Not content with this
restriction, he goes so far as to reduce the fact that a particular historical
individual played a particular historical role to a caprice of fortune.
According to him, even "the 18th Brumaire and its influence on the
internal life of France . . . (as well as) on the general course and
outcome of events, would probably have been the same as they were
under Napoleon" had Napoleon "been killed like Jourdan."s What the
situation in France required was "a good sword" to restore order. Had
Napoleon been killed, "the place. . . (he) succeeded in occupying
would, probably, not have remained vacant.,,9 It so happened that
Napoleon lived to play the role of the good sword. Hence, argues
Plekhanov, Napoleon "prevented all the other generals from playing
104 CHAPTER 5
this role, and some of them might have performed it in the same way, or
almost the same way, as he did."to Plekhanov thus implies not only that
the individual agent is detennined by the given social circumstances, but
also that a particular individual agent, whose action was historically
effective, could have been replaced by another individual agent equally
capable of carrying out the action demanded by the social circum-
stances. One could say that Plekhanov conceives of the individual agent
as a mere variable, whose function could have been fulfilled by another
individual without altering the general direction of the historical pro-
cess. It follows that the individual agent is determined by the given
circumstances in which he acts, and that the individual himself, as
individual, occupies a contingent status. For it is only by chance that this
particular individual, rather than another, happened to actualize the
historical trend.
In considering historical developments not only in terms of what
actually occurred but also in terms of what might have occurred,
Plekhanov oversteps the bounds of historical analysis. Instead of con-
fining himself to an analysis of the causes that produced a certain
historical situation, Plekhanov analyzes the status of the individual
actualizer, in order to demonstrate the contingency of that status in
relation to the necessity of the given social circumstances:
If, owing to certain mechanical or physiological causes unconnected with the general
course of the social-political and intellectual development of Italy, Raphael, Michel-
angelo, and Leonardo da Vinci had died in their infancy, Italian art would have been less
perfect, but the general trend of its development in the period of the Renaissance would
have remained the same. Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelangelo did not create
this trend; they were merely its best representatives. l l
would find difficult to reconcile with his own thesis. We refer to the
supplementary note to paragraph 318, which reads as follows:
Public opinion contains all kinds of falsity and truth, but it takes a great man to find the
truth in it. The great man of the age is the one who can put into words the will of his age,
tell his age what its will is, and accomplish it. What he does is the heart and the essence of
his age, he actualizes his age. The man who lacks sense enough to despise public opinion
expressed in gossip will never do anything great. IS
Only at first glance does this passage seems to provide support for
Plekhanov's conception of the great man as the actualizer of his age. For
the opening sentence of the passage alludes to one function of the great
man for which Plekhanov fails to account. If "Public opinion contains all
kinds of falsity and truth," then the social circumstances in which the
great man acts are not unambiguous; the great man must discern their
true essence before he can actualize his age. According to Hegel, then,
the great man is not only the actualizer of his age, but also its interpre-
ter. At this point Hegel's view actually contradicts Plekhanov's position.
In the first place, the interpretative aspect of the individual's relation to
his age makes it impossible to reduce this relation to one of causal
determination, since the relation of interpreter to the interpreted is not
one of effect to cause. In the second place, the conception of the
individual as interpreter is incompatible with the conception of the
individual as a quantum, since no two individuals interpret their age in
exactly the same. 16 It is no wonder, then, that Plekhanov ignores the
interpretative aspect of the individual's role in history.
Yet the existence of the interpretative element follows from Plekha-
nov's own premises: one cannot posit social trends awaiting actualiza-
tion without confronting the question of interpretation. Insofar as he
evades this question, Plekhanov is no follower of Hegel. To follow in
Hegel's footsteps is to admit that the individual agent confronts circum-
stances pregnant with many different possibilities, of which only some
are true, and that the individual agent is likely to select sometimes an
untrue or inessential possibility. That Hegel would probably deny the
greatness of an individual who fails to distinguish between truth and
falsity is immaterial to the issue at hand. The point is that Hegel would
admit the fundamental possibility of a mistaken choice.
If a mistaken choice is possible, then it is possible for an individual to
be an agent without being the instrument of a true or essential trend.
Given this possibility, one cannot conceive of an individual agent as a
CONTEXTS AND INDIVIDUALS 107
VI
VII
why a full realization of any given historical situation and the spectrum
of its potentialities is impossible. Creative action, being designed to
realize one specific aim suggested by the historical situation or one
specific possibility harbored by it, is always limited. Any historical
situation harbors at least two possibilities of action - altering the given
state of affairs and sustaining it as is, though even sustaining it is a
realization of potentialities and not mere inertia. We may apply here the
maxim that every determination is a negation: giving momentum to one
course of action negates other courses.
The existence of at least two possibilities is a sufficient reason for
rejecting the attempt to present the relation of cause to effect as the
model for the relation of historical situation to the individual agents who
respond to it. Historical change, or the emergence of a new historical
situation, would be impossible if individual agents did not relate them-
selves to a given situation in order to interpret its meaning and realize one
of its possibilities. That individuals cannot create a historical situation ex
nihilo is certain; it is equally certain that one historical situation can
give birth to another only if the possibilities with which it is pregnant are
interpreted, mediated, and realized by individual agents. In this sense
individuals are contractors of historical situations, and in two senses: as
agents, and as limiting the range of the possibilities to one possibility
and becoming engaged in its materialization.
VIII
It is not only the "great individual" who occupies the status of interpre-
ter and actualizer of history. Every individual occupies this status,
because only individuals are endowed with consciousness, which gives
them the ability to discern the character of a given state of affairs, to
adopt a course of action in keeping with that discernment, and, conse-
quently, to alter the configuration of the given state of affairs. Paradoxi-
cally, the source of the individual's power to change historical reality lies
in his ability to actualize only one possibility latent in a historical
situation that by its nature harbors several possibilities. The individual's
strength, in other words, lies in his weakness, i.e., in his inability to
actualize all the possibilities inherent in the situation to which he relates
himself. Because he is not omnipotent, man is not impotent in relation
to historical evolution. "Great individuals" amplify the basic position of
116 CHAPTER 5
only in terms of the fact that he introduced a change but also in terms of
the value of that change. From a thematic viewpoint, a man's stature
may be measured in terms of whether the change with which he is
credited did or did not satisfy certain human expectations, did or did not
proceed from the pursuit of principles such as truth, goodness, etc.
Once the formal standard of evaluation is allowed, thematic standards
of evaluation must also be allowed. Exposure to evaluation by thematic
standards is the price the great individual must pay for his place in
history.
The dependence of historical institutions and situations upon indivi-
duals, who alone can interpret and actualize their meaning, becomes
clearer when we recall the distinction between history, as the province
of depersonalized collective creations, and philosophy, literature, or
art, as the province of personal expressions. Like the collective crea-
tions that constitute the public domain of history, the creations crystal-
lized in the philosophical, literary, and artistic domains are the fruit of
the individual's interpretative response to the world and to his dxperi-
ence thereof. But unlike collective creations, literary, philosophical,
and artistic works are not created for the sake of constituting a deper-
sonalized public domain. Hence, properly speaking, there is no collec-·
tive domain of literature, philosophy, or art. The manifold personal
worlds that make up the world of literature do not add up to a single,
depersonalized, collective domain. The same is true of the manifold
worlds of philosophy. Literary or philosophical creations can contribute
to shaping the public domain of history, for example by promoting the
adoption of legal and political measures, by inspiring social movements,
etc. But the influence of these creations upon the public domain does·
not exhaust their essence as manifestation of their creators' interpreta-
tion of the world. In a work of literature or philosophy, no matter how
great its public influence, there always remains a unique dimension by
virtue of which it resists complete absorption by the collective domain.
This resistance to complete integration in the public domain is a major
reason why literary and philosophical creations are less dependent upon
our interpretation than the collective or institutional creations that
constitute the public domain. As a partially private world, a personal
c{eation carries its own actualizing interpretation. Bearing the inefface-
able stamp of its creator, the personal creation is itself an interpretative
actualization of experience, which our interpretation can illuminate but
not alter, let alone uproot.
118 CHAPTER 5
Let us recapitulate the course of our argument and the method we are
following. Our point of departure was the historical process and the
historical context. In both we discerned the position of individuals as
mediators and agents. We discerned the implication of individuals in the
process by pointing to their double position - involvement in the
processes and reflection on the meanings of the processes and of the
situations. With no warrant to assume the presence and the necessity for
a total subject of the process, we started with individuals implicated in
processes. Thus starting from the analysis of history we arrived at the
position of individuals. That position is not an outcome of the historical
process - and conversely, individuals are involved in history and playa
role in it by virtue of their very presence in it. The involvement of
individuals in history is grounded in the primary position of individuals,
and not in the independent or self-sufficient locus of history. History can
explicate features of individual existence, but it can neither create them
nor erase individuals. We now proceed to explore the problem of
situations and decisions in history.
II
III
IV
v
The dimensions of the problem of freedom are not macrocosmic but
microcosmic. Reflective relatedness and the capacity of adopting a
standpoint are attributes of finite man, not of the universe at large. The
universe is not known to possess these powers. Only'by extrapolation
from human reality might it be argued, in Spinozian terms, that under-
standing, intentionality, or reflective relatedness is an attribute of the
cosmos. But Spinoza would probably be disconcerted by an attempt to
interpret his ontological philosophy as an extrapolation from the human
domain.
Verbal communication, the continuity of the generations, the social
and institutional forms of human interrelations, the diverse ways in
which men interpret their encounter with the empirical world - all these
bear witness to man's reflective relatedness to reality. In other words,
the relatedness of understanding is not a hypothesis projected into the
empirical world, but a primary datum that we encounter in the world.
As inherent in man's status, reflective understanding is a component of
the empirical human world. Reflective relatedness is the precondition of
historical consciousness, and by the same token a manifestation of
human freedom as an attitude grounded in man.
VI
very freedom of reflective relatedness that its would-be cog has for-
feited. Furthermore, whereas being a "cog" in the cosmic machine is to
surrender to necessity, being a "cog" in the political machine is to
surrender to coercion.
The political consequence of man's moral duty to sustain his subject-
status is that no duty imposed by the state is binding upon man's attitude
towards that duty. As endowed with understanding, man is invested
with the authority to direct himself and to adept a standpoint towards
the political domain and its affairs. The standpoint he is authorized to
adopt can acknowledge the existence of non-political domains (such as
the domains of philosophical, scientific, and artistic activity) and regard
the political domain as a merely partial sphere of human reality.
Man's reflective relatedness to the world is manifested in activities
whose nature and structure are not determined by the structure of the
political interrelations between man and man. Thus, for example, in his
cognitive activity, the individual relates himself reflectively to the uni-
verse at large in an attempt to decipher its meaning. This mode of
reflective relatedness is independent of the individual's place in the
network of political relations. In this case, to sustain one's freedom
vis-a-vis one's circumstances is to sustain one's freedom from total
determination by one's political circumstances. Freedom from political
determination is accordingly the condition of freedom for the sake of
non-political activities, as well as the condition of freedom for the sake
of political activity or of adopting a political standpoint. It should be
emphasized that the factual foundation of freedom in the status of
empirical man does not imply an arbitrary feature in the nature of
freedom. On the contrary, freedom, as an attribute of the human
essence, i.e., of human understanding, is a well-founded fact. The
human essence, as we have seen, is not determined by causal laws. In
other words, the laws that control psychological and social phenomena
cannot be applied to the human essence, which is not a mere phenome-
non but rather the precondition of all human phenomena.
By human essence we mean here the universal essence of Man, and
not the particular essence of an individual man. The existence of a
human essence affords a standard by which one can judge the actions
and evaluate the intentions of individual men. Because he participates
in the human essence, man can always be judged in terms of whether he
shapes his concrete existence in the image of that essence, i.e., in terms
of whether he exercises his power of understanding by relating himself
130 CHAPTER 6
VII
II
some extent, why people do what they do. He knows what can be
expected, and what can and should be the outcome of a situation.
Human sciences, the humanities, history and social sciences are closer
to the level of experience, in this sense, than are the natural sciences.
The reason for this proximity is not only biographical, nor is it a part of a
kind of "underdeveloped" stage of the human sciences, as some might
be inclined to argue. To be sure, modern natural science depends upon
hypotheses, abstractions, and models. But it can do t~at because there is
no involvement between the subject-matter of their research and the
methods applied to that subject-matter. Though the knowing subject is
part of the nature studied by him, or he himself is genetically deter-
mined by the genes that are his subject-matter, nevertheless he has the
cognitive perspective of a subject addressing himself to an object. The
hypotheses and methods are both the chasm and the bridge between
himself and his subject-matter. The cognitive attitude has sufficient
perspective to deal with data despite the impact of the data on the
subject since the subject himself is involved in the realm of the data.
Thus the methodical character of knowledge provides for a methodical
distance between subject and object, even if the distance is not real in
terms of the causal chain, time sequence, etc. This intersection between
determination and distance has its impact on certain reflective attitudes;
an illustration of the case in point is the inherent skepticism towards
introspection insofar as introspection is viewed as a reflective attitude.
By its very nature, introspection cannot be depersonalized or methodi-
cally rendered. The subject engaged in introspection is by the same
token his own object, and thus determination and distance appear
rather difficult or even possibly out of the reach of the subject.
Human sciences are in an "in between" situation - between the model
and methods of the natural sciences and the complications of introspec-
tion mentioned before. History, sociology, and political science are not
introspective disciplines. On the contrary, the subject-matter of these
branches of research is public; even when a historian is concerned with
individuals, he is not concerned with himself. His exploration of the
individual is guided by the position of the individual in the public realm
in shaping the course of events through actions or ideas that did or do
have their impact on the course of events. Yet the reference to the
public is always within the human boundaries. Even those who advocate
any kind of determinism, and are concerned with formulating "cover-
ing" explanatory historical laws, do not take advantage of genetic laws,
EVALUATIONS AND VALUES 139
though they operate in the human, and thus in the historical, realm as
well. Historical determinism is an attempt to put forward a structure of
history in the immanent sense of the term. A demarcation line is implied
between what is called history or society on the one hand, and nature or
cosmos on the other. The same pertains to sociology and political
science. Even when the social sciences apply themselves to phenomena
that are explained by biochemistry, such as malnutrition, they do not
explore the biochemical mechanism caused by malnutrition or the
chemical factors bringing about malnutrition. They presuppose the
biochemical aspects and are concerned with illness and its impact, with
anxieties, stress, or social dissent and aspirations caused by factors
whose ratio essendi lies in the biological sphere, but whose results
appear in the social configuration.
The confinement to human boundaries characteristic of history and
the social sciences in general precludes the possibility of a total detach-
ment of the exploring subject from his object. Thus there is the possibil-
ity of what is called "learning from history," but might also be called
"teaching by history." A historian sometimes presents an analysis of a
situation in the past and the agents involved in it, and he has a better
knowledge of the operating forces than did the agents themselves. If a
historian of the English parliamentary system carries out a Statistical
Study of the correlation between the social milieu of M.P.s in the
eighteenth century and their parliamentary behavior, he assumes that
some motivation, related to the effect of one's upbringing and interests
on one's behavior, operated in the eighteenth century. Whether the
agents knew about this correlation might be relevant, or may in itself be
a socio-historical fact that calls for explanation; indeed, different kinds
of explanations can be provided for that unawareness and even self-
deception if one takes a stronger, ideologically tinged view.
Yet the historical sphere does provide for a certain replacement of the
distance between the subject and the object, through the temporal
distance between the subject-matter of historical investigation and the
historian. The historian knows, at least, that he can apply the guiding
principle, mentioned before, wirklich ist was wirksam war. The tracing
of the wirksam, the active or influential consequences or results of
events, or, the other way round, the tracing of causes whose effects are
established, becomes the major concern of historical investigation,
giving it a methodical character despite the fact that both the subject-
matter and the subject are within the common human sphere. The
140 CHAPTER 7
III
Weber said that he was only formulating a trivial truth and everyday
experience by stating that every object that is an object of history is
necessarily related to a value. 1 Weber took "value" in its most elemen-
tary sense: that which human beings hold as "important" or "precious."
To hold something as precious is obviously to ascribe a certain aspect of
meaning to things or events. Thus values belong to the realm of the
significant; for Weber to be meaningful is to be significant, to be related
to one's strivings, aspirations, or expectations. This leads to a further,
more refined, statement. Human beings endow reality with meaning
and significance (Sinn und Bedeutung). This meeting between reality
and meaning is what goes by the name of "culture". Thus a concept of
culture is a valuf!-concept. The empirical reality for us is "culture";
insofar as it is placed in relation to ideas or values, it comprises only
those components of reality which through that relation become signifi-
cant for us. 2
When Weber speaks in this context of significance for us, it is not
clear who are the "we" for whom reality becomes significant. Prooably
he assumes "we" are what he calls Kulturmenschen, endowed with the
capacity and will to render reality significant or meaningful. The sociolo-
gist or the investigator is, by definition, a Kulturmensch. His is a
Kultur-acitivity or enterprise. He is part of the human condition charac-
terized by attitudes, stands, values, etc. Moreover, the Kulturmensch is
characterized not only by wills and aspirations, but also by passions
related to these stands: "nothing is valuable for man as man that he
cannot view with passion (Leidenschaft)."3
The investigator is involved passionately in the situation; and passions
contradict the cognitive distance and the separation between the subject
and its object. This would eventually lead to the conclusion that to avoid
taking a stand because of cognitive considerations runs counter to the
definition of man. The investigator has to suppress not only predilec-
tions and biases, but also the very human condition that he is investigat-
ing. Clearly this is not the case in the natural sciences. The galaxies do
not behave passionately, and Leidenschaft is not a characteristic feature
of electrons. Thus the Kulturmensch does not have to suppress his
strivings while investigating Nature. The only value he pursues a parte
subjecti is the value of truth, while his object is indifferent to that value.
This is not the case with the value-charged human situation. Human
beings, endowing reality with meaning and significance, endow it with
meanings outside the meaning and value of truth. The social sciences
obviously adhere to the value of truth; but human beings engaged in
142 CHAPTER 7
social sciences have vested interests outside the interest in the value of
truth. Weber thought that he could escape or overcome by means of
method this inherent dilemma by assuming that the subject adheres only
to the value of truth while his objects follow values in their diversity.
The dilemma becomes even more acute since the concept of value,
made explicit by Weber, has a particular connotation that must be seen
in its systematic consequences. Values are the precious objects of
aspiration. They are related to human beings who endow reality with
meaning. There is an implicit interaction between man and values.
Segments of reality are values because we value them as such, and we
value them because we are Kulturmenschen who cannot help but look at
reality through the prism of values. Weber seems to be close to looking
at values as that which is desired. To be desired is to be significant,
irrespective of the justification for the desirability and significance. He
seems to assume that the valuing human being is a Kulturmensch, and
because he is a Kulturmensch needs a kind of a thematic pole for his
valuations.
Actually he should have spoken about valuable things and not about
values. Unlike valuable things, values are principles of valuations and
not things or merely goals. They are norms, measures, standards. To be
sure, Weber does speak about ultimate measures (letzte Masstiibe)4
which become manifest in the concrete value-judgement. Since he tries
to establish the intrinsic contact between the definition of man in
general and values, he cannot say that man as man relates to the
ultimate measures. He can only say. that man as man refers to desired
things and goals, or that he gives things the position of goals and thus
renders them significant or meaningful. He seems to indicate that one of
the qualifications introduced by the social sciences vis-a-vis their parti-
cular subject-matter is the tendency to bring to light the ultimate
measures implied in the attitudes and stands taken by human beings at
large. Indeed he says: "to bring to consciousness the ultimate measures
which manifest themselves in the concrete value-judgement."s
Yet one cannot assume that human beings endowing reality with
meaning do so unconsciously. There is a distinction, which Weber
possibly does not make, between consciousness as the sum-total of acts
of awareness and consciousness as the sum-total of attitudes. But even
when we take an attitude without knowing the reasons for our attitude,
taking the attitude is a vis-a-vis position; alertness and distinctions are
implied in every attitude. When Weber speaks in this context about
EVALUATIONS AND VALUES 143
IV
Weber seems to have assumed that there are universal orders of abstract
values like religion, art, and the state, but that there are· no universal
material values - what might be described as substantive values. Univer-
sal and thus constant are (a) the relation between man and values in the
sense explored before, and (b) the structuring of these relations in
certain recurring spheres like religion, art, and the state. Within these
spheres there are different values because there are different evalua-
tions. In a telling example Weber refers to Buddhist ethics, where any
activity related to a goal is rejected, precisely because it is related to a
goal, and as such will lead us to forgo redemption. At this point, he says,
one can hardly assume that any of us shares this view. But at the same
time it is impossible to contradict such an ethical system in the sense we
reject a false calculation or a mistake in a medical diagnosis. 6
Let us take a closer look at the example. Weber seems to assume that
an activity related to a goal (Zweckhandlung) runs counter to redemp-
tion. But this is not so. Redemption is a goal and has to be taken as such;
an attitude toward a goal is implied in the expectation of redemption.
Secondly, there is an activity in Buddhist ethics in the very severe
discipline advocated and practiced. To be sure, that activity is not one of
success, but one of inner discipline and extinction of passions. Thus tine
cannot say that we encounter here plainly different sets of values; at
most there are different interpretations of sets of values. The example
may be viewed as an example of relativism, within a non-relativistic
situation of value-orientations and goal-orientation. But the goal in
Weber's example lacks the dimension of externality. Hence one may
144 CHAPTER 7
sound to one shaped by the mood of the social sciences - that in Kant
the realm of values is more rational than the realm of knowledge,
insofar as the realm of knowledge is related only to reason and not to a
synthesis between reason and data. Thus transplanting the distinction
between "is" and "ought" to the distinction between knowing values
and viewing them as expressions of feelings, interests, or attitudes about
which ultimately we cannot argue (e.g., the distinction between Bud-
dhism and an ethical system based on goals), resembles Kant's distinc-
tion only verbally; it merely takes advantage of the dichotomy of "is"
versus "ought", but gives that dichotomy a different meaning from that
formulated in Kant's system.
This means that knowledge of values can at most be engaged in the
immanent value-presuppositions underlying human behavior as studied
empirically by the social sciences. Hence knowledge as such cannot pass
judgement on these values; it can only take them as they are. Weber's
statement that it is the task of social sciences to bring the ultimate
measures to awareness or consciousness can refer only to ultimate
measures insofar as they are conceived by those involved in pursuing a
certain set of values. These values are ultimate for the agent, but not for
imperatives or reason or an "ought" having its own logic. When we
deal, for instance, with Protestant ethics, and point to the relation
between election and pre-determination on the one hand, and economic
success on the other, we are elucidating the ultimate measures from the
point of view of Protestant ethics, and not from the position of achieve-
ment in human life or the relation of a social status to an intrinsic moral
position. Gunnar Myrdal follows this line when he says that we are
engaged in raising to full awareness the evaluations that actually deter-
mine our theoretical as well as our practical research, in order to
scrutinize them from the point of view of relevance, significance, and
feasibility in the society under study; or, generally speaking, we are
engaged in bringing the valuations out into the open. 9
v
Here we encounter some crucial issues related to values versus reality,
including historical reality. The philosophical presupposition of the distinc-
tion as presented in the social sciences, unlike the distinction as presented
in Kant, is that, empirically speaking, we know the demarcation line
146 CHAPTER 7
between what belongs to the realm of "is" and what belongs to the
realm of values. Is this really so? Consider again Weber's example of the
incommensurability of goal-based and Buddhist ethics. Is it really only a
question of values, or of what one is obliged to do? There are many
significant factual points involved. The major "factual issue" is the
existence or reality of personality. In the present context personality
is understood as an individual endowed with self-consciousness, refer-
ring his self-consciousness to himself, reflecting up~:m himself and his
position in the world, relating himself to other human beings and to the
world at large from the position of his self-consciousness. Buddhism
does not take the view that personality reflecting upon itself is to be
preserved. The reflection of the personality is not an indication of the
real and indelible existence of the personality. We may say that the
personality exists "for us," but not "in itself." As against this Aristote-
lian, Kantian, Biblical, and Christian ethics are all based upon the
supposition that personality does exist, and that the realization of values
or of the good does not erase the personality. Opinions differ as to what
the personality has to do in order to behave morally: to be engaged in
theoria, to be an autonomous law-giver, to perform deeds, to obey
commandments, or to find salvation in faith. Indeed, these are different
interpretations of the "ought" binding the "is" of the personality. But
the ethical imperative of the "ought" does not create its own support,
that is to say the "is" of the personality. The difference between
Buddhism and these ethical systems is related to different readings of
the descriptive position of man in the world. It is not related only to
different value-systems, if values are taken in the limited sense of the
term.
The combination of the factual and valuational is to be found not only
on the level of the "abstract" concept of personality; it appears on a
more "concrete" level of phenomena closely studied by anthropology
and the social sciences in general. A telling case in point is the phenome-
non of incest prohibitions. Claude Levi-Strauss, for instance, takes the
irreducible character of the basic unit of kinship as a direct result of the
universal presence of the incest taboo. He even says that the incest
prohibition is the basis of human society: in a sense it "is" the society. 10
One may wonder whether this particular explanation is empirically
warranted and methodologically substantiated. But one things is clear:
the incest prohibition contains what may be called a factual identifica-
tion, that is, the identification of parents and siblings and a move toward
EVALUATIONS AND VALUES 147
but they do imply that what they study shouldn't be blamed. Not to be
blamed is not praiseworthy, but it certainly does not represent condem-
nation, and as such a mitigated value-attitude is involved.
Suppose that we refer in our explanation to a motivating factor or
attitude that is not neutral, but praiseworthy. If the social sciences
explain the achievements, for example, of armed forces, by pointing to
the intelligence qua flexibility of every individual soldier or to the
independence of each rank within the hierarchical structure; by assum-
ing that the ultimate test for achievement lies in self-reliance and lack of
dependence on th'e central command, then in these cases the social
sciences are addressing themselves to what commonly goes by the name
of intelligence. They assume that intelligence is valuable not only
because it is related to homo sapiens by definition, but also because it
"works"; it brings about success and achievements that can be measured
and have a historical impact. These are cases where action is motivated
by taking advantage of positive-value factors like intelligence, leading to
the far-reaching conclusion that what is worthy intrinsically might also
be fruitful operationally. To be sure, we do not imply that the explana-
tion put forward by social scientists always works in this direction: the
previous examples of aspirations and self-interest point to the fact that
the explanation by "intelligence" is, to say the least, not the only
possible explanation. The implication is that there are cases where the
social sciences explain actions not by subjective values based on stands,
but by what they assume to be objective values, either positively or at
least as an ultimate motivating factor whose value lies in facticity, and
thus delineates the ultimate borderline of the human situation.
There is a circumlocution here. The social sciences teach us what
those ultimate factors are, and persuade us to see in their operation
sufficient explanations; from this point of view they are responsible for
the value-stands we take. Since they teach us these value-stands, they
cannot say that the value-stands are merely subjective Stellungnahmen.
They are, after all, an operative, persuasive consequence of the findings
of a branch of empirical science. Hence the social sciences are willy-nilly
involved in social situations. In addition, they create the situations in
which they are involved, and thus are bound to take into account the
consequences of their findings. We are aware now that even biology,
genetics and physics must face the consequences of their findings. A
fortiori the social sciences face this question, because, after all, the
consequences on human behavior of their findings and explanations of it
EVALUATIONS AND VALUES 151
are closer to these findings than is the case with the natural sciences. The
consequences of the natural sciences have to go through the prism of the
human agents, while the findings of social scientists are about agents
who, as agents, are by definition the prism in the findings.
We have previously considered the mode of explanation pursued by
the social scientists while referring to "ultimate" factors like interests or
aspiration. Once explanation is applied to factots whose position is
supposedly "ultimate," a justification is implicit; behavior "that cannot
be helped" alludes to the factors operating and occupying a special
position within the spectrum of human activity. This is an indirect
justification, and the evaluation involved is accordingly indirect, too.
There are also direct evaluations, such as alienation, so much in the
forefront of contemporary social research, and social equilibrium, the
concern of political theory.
As to the concept of alienation, one may suggest a rough distinction
between a philosophical exploration of alienation and the investigation
of empirical phenomena like apathy, disappointment, and resentment,
all allegedly related to alienation. ll In the philosophical sense, aliena-
tion is a perversion of the fundamental position of man as a person. Man
is alienated, alienation is imposed on him, when he is looked at as a
means or as a commodity, and thus'ceases to be approached as a person.
Hence there exists a dichotomy between the ontological and the moral
position of man, on the one hand, and his factual status in the overt
character of the society, on the other. Yet empirical sociological re-
search does not leave things in this sundered state. The assumption is
that a man placed, in spite of himself, in an ~lienated position expresses
his feelings about the enforced alienation in his bitterness, indications of
awareness of injustice, or doubt as to the authority of the patterns of
social behavior. The social sciences address themselves here to more
than the value of human personality inherent in the agents studied who
reject alienation. They also maintain the value of human personality
from the point of view of the social sciences as such. They take a morally
charged concept like alienation, with its presuppositions and consequ-
ences, as the topic of their empirical investigation. Feelings of injustice
and bitterness empirically encountered and studied are then taken,
explicitly or implicitly, as justified. Empirical research is not neutral
here; it is not value-free. It adheres to the value of the subject matter-
and this is not a reproof. The social sciences cannot help but adhere to
these values. The question is, why should they pretend to be value-free
152 CHAPTER 7
VII
We may sum up the gist of our argument as follows: (a) The notion of
value-free social sciences makes a certain philosophical commitment as
to the subjective or relative character of values. Trying to avoid the
pitfalls of subjectivity, this notion opposes adherence to truth against
adherence to other values. This seems to be an over-commitment to one
possible interpretation of the position of values; one may wonder
whether real service and justice is rendered to the social sciences.
(b) The notion of value-free social sciences is presented as an emulation
of what supposedly goes on in the natural sciences, where the object or the
subject-matter is value-free, while the scientific investigation adheres
EVALUATIONS AND VALUES 153
only to the value of truth. But in this case the emulation seems to be
misplaced, because of what might be called the ontological identity
between the subject and the object in the social sciences. That identity
does not pertain to the relation between the scientist as the subject of
the natural sciences and his object, even when this object lies in the
sphere of biology and the organism of the subject is also of a biological
character. The social sciences presuppose the impact of their findings,
and this impact in turn presupposes an affinity between the scientist and
his pursued object and what Chaim Perelman would call his audience.
(c) The social sciences do explicitly impose value-concepts and evalua-
tions, implying either a justification or criticism of the phenomena
e~plored.
VIII
significant not only functionally - that is to say, what will be the results
of our actions - but also intrinsically - namely, what will be the
value-aspect of the results of our actions.
In this context there are particular historical situations that make that
value-awareness sharper than it used to be. The post-Nazi period can be
seen, historically and reflectively, as one of those turning periods in
human history that do not allow us to be oblivious of the value-
component in historical action. The Nazi enterprise can be interpreted
as an attempt to remove the Reich of the Teutonic race from its
involvement in the process to the position of an eschaton, or to bestow
on the Teutonic race the status of total superiority vis-a-vis other human
beings, a total superiority that allowed it to place certain human beings,
e.g., the Jews, outside the human orbit. The fact that actions of this sort
were possible and brought about historical events imposes on historical
reflection a new configuration, inasmuch as historical reflection is bound
to attempt to analyze the causes of situations as well as to read their
historical results. We cannot avoid questioning the broader 1'-uman
meaning of the situations that are the subject-matter of the investiga-
tion. Adherence to truth as the guiding principle of reflection leads us to
read the effects not only as data but also as to their meaning from a
variety of points of view, including that of values. To be sure, we may
come to the conclusion that the agents' historical awareness, as well as
that of the retrospective onlookers or investigators, is broader than the
historical explanation. We may not understand all the events, or we may
not know the sum-total of the causes that brought them about. As
historical awareness on the level of the agents presupposes the breadth
of the historical process, so historical awareness on the level of retro-
spection presupposes historical awareness by the agents, which in turn
presupposes their involvement in the process. The evaluation of histori-
cal actions and their results is not "a refuge of ignorance," but an
explication or articulation of a certain aspect of historical actions and
events. These have to be viewed from the perspective of values, even
when we do not present a causal explanation of the actions and events.
Here again the Nazi period and post-Nazi reflection is a case in point.
Suppose that we cannot present a full explanation of the actions and
events, i.e., of the web of relations between the impersonal course of
history and the impact of the historical figures involved. Nevertheless,
the meaning of their actions or the results of the events are discernible,
and so is the value aspect. The destruction, the concentration camps,
158 CHAPTER 7
II
III
Huizinga lists the tremendous changes that were taking place in the year
1500: the Earth is being discovered; the riddle of the structure of the
universe is being solved; the church is splitting; the printing press is
operating and books proliferating in consequence; means of warfare are
becoming more destructive; the credit economy and monetary transac-
tions are spreading; classical Greek literature is being rediscovered; old
architectural forms are being scorned; art is vital and flourishing. During
the period 1789 to 1815, the following developments took place: the
central power of continental Europe succumbs to the lunacy of the
philosophers and to the fury of the mob, only to reemerge soon after
through the deeds and the good fortune of a military genius; liberty is
rung in and canonical faith discarded; Europe is being subverted and
finally patched together again; the steam engine has started puffing and
the new spinning jennies are rattling; science conquers one area after
another; the world of the spirit is being enriched by German philosophy;
life becomes more beautiful through German music; America comes of
age politically and economically, but remains a cultural infant. Summing
up, Huizinga says that in both periods the seismograph of history seems
at first glance to be showing movements as strong as those of today. But
for Huizinga this is not the case, since by his estimation in 1500 and in
1800 the foundations of society were not shaken as violently as they are
today. In retrospect, moreover, and despite the crises that characterize
them, those two periods are part of an upward development. A com-
parison of our own time with those two periods gives the impression that
the world now is undergoing more intense and more thorough changes.
Characterizing our own world in brief, Huizinga says that in our own
world, technical efficiency (Nutzejfect) rules more and more, productive
capacity increases, the potential of discovering what can be experienced
triumphs daily in new discoveries. The speed of change is entirely
RHYTHM OF TIME 165
IV
First let us look at one type of events which by definition carries in itself
turnover or speed. We refer to vogues and fashions, which are essen-
tially temporary, shifting in their manifestations, "modish." The chang-
ing appearance and response are inherent to fashion, since without the
response - popularity, popular esteem, or following a pattern - a vogue
is meaningless and pointless. An additional element has to be men-
tioned, namely, that vogue and fashion frequently refer to apparel.
Thus visibility is a component of a vogue and mediates between the
material ingredients of the vogue and the response to them.
We conclude at this point that the acceleration of historical events is
to some extent modelled after the transience of fashion. One of the
aspects of the contemporary economic process is the tendency to pro-
duce articles that being often and speedily replaced, keep the economic
process going, labor capacity employed, and consumption following the
changing fashion of products available what can be described as
"built-in-obsolescence" looked at from the other end. We could say
that vogue or fashion has become a paradigm of the economic and the
social process, and this statement would not be oblivious to the inner
dynamics of the ever-changing products presented to the public. There
is a connection between that character of the productive process and
consumption, on the one hand, and a basic consideration of the
economic process as such, on the other, namely, the drive towards full
employment, continuous incomes, and the avoidance of an imbalance of
supply and demand. Demand evokes supply and supply evokes demand;
thus, because the economic process brings about the obsolescence of its
own products, it brings its ever-changing products to the attention of
human beings, or even the supremacy of process over products.
We do not suppose that the experience as such, which may lead to a
certain interpretation of the events, precedes the events, nor do· we
suppose that the events precede the response. A certain experience
directs our awareness of the human situation, which in turn is reinforced
by the short-lived character of material events. This circular relation of
events and responses moves the overall climate of opinion or mood -
mood and mode - in the direction of apprehending the velocity of
events.
We opened this part of our analysis by pointing to one significant, but
only partial, aspect of the process, namely, the economic pattern. A
168 CHAPTER 8
VI
namely, that what would have happened later has happened sooner, is
in a sense just a nominal description of what we referred to as the
accelerated process. Since historical time - and time in general - are
irreversible, whatever happens can be related to the future by being
aware of future events within the horizon of the present. What events of
the past, or, to use a broader expression, what patterns of the past, in
their impact on the present, bring about that configuration of both the
substantive and the rhythmic elements?
This development has to do with the impact of the phenomenon of
achievement in modern civilization. We may say that achievement is
more than possession or ownership, because these may have only a legal
connotation. We can possess or own something without necessarily
being affected by it in our day-to-day behavior. We may take advantage
of a property at certain occasions, and this puts into effect the status of
ownership. We may forgo that advantage, and even pass the property
from one generation to the next, without integrating it into our everyday
existence and mode of behavior. This does not apply to the phenome-
non of achievement, which inherently connotes a certain position within
the context of one's own existence, as well as a concomitant experience
- the feeling of arrival or even satisfaction, the expectation before the
achievement and its evaluation and integration into one's own context
after it has come about. Unlike possession, which amounts to holding or
accepting achievement combines the effort with a result, and thus is ab
initio integrated into one's existence and pari passu one's experience.
Achievement relates to the actions taken by the individual or individuals
aimed at bringing results within the scope of his - or their - continuous
existence; the result is interwoven with the echo it elicits. Achievement
is both a process aimed at finishing an action and its completion.
Achievement implies success. Thus achievement comprises simulta-
neously the component of that which occurred, and the affirmation
evoked by the occurrence, which gives it meaning and hence significance
within one's personal orbit. In contemporary civilization there is no
need to ground achievement in the basic notion of human rights, in the
sense that the person demanding his rights interprets them as expected
achievements - responses to his demands by the world, the civilization,
and the society - and exerts himself in order to bring about those
responses. Striving for achievements is a particular human phenome-
non. Hence it is part of modern civilization, both by virtue of ideational
considerations in terms of rights and by virtue of the actual process of
170 CHAPTER 8
VII
the primary factor in activizing and guiding the historical process, and
thus in shaping the response to or understanding of that process, not
only in the past but also towards the future: attempts to shape the
process are therefore basically guided by the economic infrastructure.
Ideological guidance is thus itself guided by an extra-ideological infra-
structure inherent in the economic sphere. The significance of this view
lies in its central position, i.e., that since economic existence is the basic
factor in the existence of every human being, it is by the same token a
social factor. Society absorbs into its structure and processes the pre-
sence and impact of this factor, which in turn is not confined to existence
in the limited sense of the term. The economic factor is not like the
physiological, which by its essence and locus is confined to the realm of
individuals as physiological or psycho-physical entities. The economic
factor, as the basic concern of every human being because it concerns
his subsistence, is a historical factor, in terms of both the synchronic and
diachronic dimensions of society. In that position, the determinative
relationship between ideology and the basic infrastructure remains the
same as in the sensualist interpretation of the concept of ideology; that
is to say, there is a dependence of the concepts and ideas on the
infrastructure.
There are evidently many difficulties inherent in this structure, arising
from the dialectical milieu in which it was formulated. However, for our
present purposes we need not discuss these difficulties. In addition, it
must be taken into account that the economic sphere has its own
structure and cannot be reduced to one factor, as could be done with the
sensualist infrastructure. We are of course referring to the distinction
between the powers of production and its relations or conditions, a
distinction that in itself represents an essential feature of this whole
structure, namely, that the economic sphere is not one-dimensional, and
its impact must reflect the inter-relation between its component ele-
ments. Nevertheless, we must emphasize that the forms of conscious-
ness determined by the economic infrastructure are understood as
implying the appearance (Schein) of independence, as Marx put it.
Because of Marx's influence, we can say that the precarious indepen-
dence of ideology has become the feature most commonly attributed to
it. Moreover, in addition to Marx's impact on the formulation and
interpretation of the concept, the impact of the nature of the ideology as
such became significant. This is the case for instance in Karl Mann-
heim's interpretation of the concept of ideology, where the emphasis is
SETTINGS AND IDEOLOGIES 177
II
We must now briefly consider the subject of society, and especially the
relationship between it and economic factors. Society, broadly inter-
preted, connotes the modes of co-existence between human individuals.
Society may and does mold co-existence, but it always presupposes it
both factually as well as conceptually. The notion of society in this sense
is a broad one; any distinction - as, for instance, between community
and society - is not relevant in identifying the position of society as a
mode of co-existence. If we take society in this broad sense, we may
interpret it as connoting the family, the relation between parents and
their progeny; the structures of relations based on occupation; or a
people in the historical or linguistic sense of the term, and the manifes-
tations of co-existence in statehood and its various attributes. We may
ask: if the structure of the society is the determining factor of an
ideology, to what societal context are we referring? Thus, for instance,
is ideology conditioned by the broad dimensions of human co-existence,
or by the limited ones? This question emerges when we refer to the
determination of ideology by economic existence because - to return to
the family - the modern family can be understood as a consumer entity,
while society as a whole is both a productive entity and also a sum-total
of consumers. Moreover, when we refer to the distinction between
forces and relations of production we refer to a context that clearly goes
beyond co-existence within a family. Hence an attempt to identify
society as having a determining impact on ideology presupposes a
conceptual interpretation of society. This observation leads us to con-
sider whether society can be understood as an existence without presup-
posing its uninterrupted self-identification. Such an identification is not
possible without the continuous intervention of individuals and their
178 CHAPTER 9
III
It is in this context that we may suggest some doubts about the notion of
determination, affecting what we may call again the positional as well as
the thematic aspects of ideology.
The first point, concerning the positional aspect, is obvious. Even
when we admit an interpretation of ideology in terms of determination
by circumstances, it still remains an interpretation of reality or exis-
tence. The interpretative aspect comprises several components. Ideol-
ogy is not a "photocopy" of any reality, since it contains by definition a
kind of contractive selection of the aspects of reality that are interpreted
in the ideological context. Suppose that we devise an ideology based on
the motivation of Jmman behavior and acts, and in this context we
emphasise the religious or economic motivation. In order to present a
position related to motivation we must perform some cognitive steps; in
the first place we must identify that stratum of the motivation which is
the nucleus of the ideology at stake. Such an identification calls for an
understanding or awareness of the theme of the stratum, namely -
coming back to our examples - what is a religious motivation or what is
an economic motivation, and why do we shift - whether we articulate
this or not - from emphasizing the religious motivation to emphasizing
the economic one. If we limit ourselves to a certain type of religion, one
that negates the reality of the terrestiallevel of human existence, or one
that admits the relative independence of that existence by limiting our
relation to transcendence to the notion of creation - .the variety of
different religious views is bound to lead us beyond the religious posi-
tion integrated into a certain ideology. When we identify a motivation as
religious we are recognizing a dimension that is not identical with a
particular religious interpretation, and at the same time placing this
SETTINGS AND IDEOLOGIES 179
IV
v
We can now take a further step in discerning the non-ideological aspects
contained in an ideology. The first is justification. An ideology, though
presenting itself as determined by circumstances, is intended to be valid,
or at least partially so, in terms of the circumstances first identified and
then recognized as having a determining position. The ideology of
historical materialism is a clear case in point. It attempted to identify the
rhythm of economic existence and to predict the outcome of the eco-
nomic process. Prediction by definition refers to future circumstances,
which are meant to be not only circumstances in the objective sense of
the term but also to possess the ability to verify the ideology that refers
to them. Justification is a broader concept than the particular ideology
in question, since justification applies also to the identification of events
or data in nature. Perhaps in this sphere the concept of justification is
formulated and transferred from the primary context to other contexts.
It is obvious that, even in a theoretical reference to data, when we deal
with justification or verification we must distinguish between different
data - those that can be taken as relevant for the verification, and those
that can be set aside. If this is so in the theoretical sphere, then it is a
fortiori so in the ideological attitude: To justify or verify the attitude
presented by an ideology we must justify both the outcome and also our
choice of these particular data rather than others. Suppose that the
capitalist system includes affluent periods; to justify the ideology implies
SETTINGS AND IDEOLOGIES 181
VI
VII
VII
VIII
nature but were at the same time confined to the sphere of social and
political existence. Or perhaps it should be assumed that the larger the
scope of fulfilment the greater will be the satisfaction, even though
expansion of the sphere may reduce its intensity.
Furthermore, if we take Kant's notion of legislation as our point of
departure, we cannot ignore a major aspect of his system, the primacy
of practical reason. The legislation of reason, important in understand-
ing nature, is still more prominent in ethics, which by definition does not
refer to nature. If this is so, then the ethical sphere, which contains the
norms of human behavior, is closer to human sovereignty, in the
non-empirical sense of that term, than science is. What are the conse-
quences of this shift for Kant's system? Can we retain the view that this
system is a projection of aspirations in the direction of human sover-
eignty on the socia-political level? If this were so, the projection would
be so grandiose as to lose its alleged raison d'etre, since it is fulfilled in
the sphere of practical reason.
We may now ask the question already suggested: how do we arrive at
the difference between knowledge and ethics? Is this distinction also
grounded in material conditions? Or is the thematic difference between
what I know and what I ought to do perhaps an extrapolation of the
difference between various approaches to reality and, by the same
token, between various interpretations or interpretations of interpreta-
tions.
An additional issue is related to the difference between major philo-
sophical systems. How is it that Hegel did not present knowledge and
norms of human behavior in terms of legislation, but in terms of
exposition of what is latent in the data? Rationality in Hegel is not the
imposition of forms on data, or on urges, but the identity between data
and reason, an identity that is explicated rationally (in terms of Ver-
nun!t) within the context of various modes of behavior, reality, pro-
cesses, etc. Why doesn't Hegel interpret the French Revolution as a
philosopher of human sovereignty, instead of as a philosopher of the
identity between human beings and the world. Hegel was interested in
the French Revolution,S and the distance in time between him and Kant
is not so great that his system should be viewed as determined by a new
era in human history and by the factors and causes shaping it. These are
questions of a structural and empirical character, intended to demon-
strate that presenting various modes of human interpretative creativity
as ideologies is a sort of replacement of Hegel's notion of "the spirit of
190 CHAPTER 9
IX
only the primary aspect of economic existence but also the monopolistic
impact of that interpretation of it the identification of the primary with
that which occupies a monopolistic status is an identification of an
interpretative character, underlying the ideology and built into it.
Once we assume that instrumental position of ideologies, we must ask
whether the instrument will necessarily remain within its primary con-
text as a device built for the sake of the driving force initially inherent in
the structure. Here we touch on the interpretation of ideologies not as
formulations of guiding principles to bring about a solution, but as a sort
of pseudo-fulfilment, without reaching the extremist view of them as
extra-worldly projections. Empirically speaking, socio-historical reality,
though primarily related to subsistence, is characterized by the existence
of different ideologies. Nationalistic ideologies, religious ideologies, and
others, are all part of the spectrum of human existence, even when, in
terms of a motivational interpretation, we attribute primacy to one of
them. Hence when a variety of ideologies is present, the causal relation
between ideologies and the elementary level of human existence does
not prescribe adherence to one particular ideology because of its sug-
gested relation or affinity to the primary level.
The experience of modern or post-modern history illustrates this
complex network of relations between ideologies. When peoples of the
Third World preferred national independence over their involvement in
a network of imperialist modes of domination they were often dismiss-
ing the economic benefits of belonging to an imperialist structure. It can
be said that such a preference does not negate the primary position of
the economic infrastructure: it is merely a temporary preference, meant
to enable the creation of a new economic infrastructure that will lead to
a new mode of interaction between the economic level and the encom-
passing structure. Such a temporary regrouping of motivations and goals
is possible because the primary aspect of subsistence is not as unambi-
guous as it may appear. What is subsistence of the organism: is it
satisfaction of its elementary needs such as food and drink? Does it also
include shelter? How are these needs ramified or refined? Where do we
draw the line between the urge for subsistence in the primary sense of
the term and the dynamic and developing aspects that rder to refined
needs leading to refined satisfaction? Precisely at this point we become
aware of the difference between organic satisfaction and the socio-
cultural aspects of the materials and products invented and imported for
the sake of satisfaction. If we remain within the primary sphere we are
SETTINGS AND IDEOLOGIES 193
x
Before we take a further step in analyzing the pole of principles and the
pole of situations, an additional observation may be relevant. Empiri-
cally speaking, that is to say looking at the historical process, we
encounter different ideologies, some of which originate in the same
substructure of human attitudes. An example is the clash between the
medieval ideology of the state and the ecclesiastic ideology, and the
extent to which the distinction between the terrestial and divine aspects
of human reality led to modes of dependence or of superiority of one or
other aspect. Even if one granted, for the sake of argument, that both
ideologies were motivated by a common cause - economics - the duality
SETTINGS AND IDEOLOGIES 195
XI
a status quo of laisser faire and laisser passer, or it may lead towards a
social structure that accepts the responsibility to solve human poverty.
The same reasoning applies to ideologies in the sphere of international
relations, whether the interest present in the structure of the societies is
identical with the constant elements that must be preserved, or whether
the orientational aspects are of prevailing significance; the clash be-
tween the West and the USSR would thus be an ideological clash par
excellence.
XII
in the norm; but it could not serve to direct the guiding principle were it
not identified by human awareness, whether that of an individual or
individuals, or that of the masses, for whom individual exposition acts to
focus the contents of the situation. The awareness that serves a situation
also serves the application of norms to it. Hence we come back to the
conclusion that awareness, which is not a historical event, serves the two
poles of an ideological structure. To put it differently, the historical and
normative aspects appear as interrelated in the structure of ideologies.
Awareness is the instrument, and not the ideology as such. But aware-
ness is not an invented instrument; the very presentness of human
beings in the world makes it present vis-a.-vis the world. We conclude
finally that ideologies presuppose an analysis belonging to a domain that
can be called philosophical anthropology, and are not based solely on
historical identification.
XIII
XIV
At this point another aspect comes to the fore in our attempt to identify
various correlations between historical reality and reflective attitudes in
view of the thematic aspects of ideology. Ideologies first address them-
selves to given historical situations by identifying them. At this point it
does not matter whether identification results in discerning quasi-
constant features of historical reality or whether it consciously satisfies
202 CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 1
1 G.W.F. Hegel, Phiinomenologie des Geistes, ed. by G. Lasson (Leipzig: Meiner 1921),
p.520.
2 See the Vorlesungen uber die Geschichte der Philosophie, in Glockner's edition of
Hegel's, Siimtliche Werke (Stuttgart: Fromman 1928), Vol. XIX;3, pp. 19, 103, 104.
Clearly we approach here the basic antinomy or ambiguity in Hegel with reference to the
relation between time and essence. See the present author's From Substance to Subject,
Studies in Hegel (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff 1974).
3 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Die Deutsche Ideologie, in V. Adoratsky's Historisch-
Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Berlin: 1932), Vol. 115, p. 10.
4 Ibid., p. 17
5 See 'Uber Denken und Sprechen,' in Leitzmann's edition of Wilhelm von Humboldt's
Werke (Berlin, 1908), Vol. VIII2, p. 581. See the present author's: Humboldt's Prole-
gomena to Philosophy of Language, Cultural Hermeneutics, Vol. II, 1974, pp.
6 Compare the present author's book, On the Human Subject, Studies in the Phenomenol-
ogy of Ethics and Politics, (Springfield, III: Charles C. Thomas 1965), pp. 30-51.
7 M. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, (Halle a.d.S., Max Niemeyer 1927), p. 17. Reference is
made to this book only, and not to subsequent statements by Heidegger in what is
considered his second period of philosophizing. In that period historicity acquires a cosmic
meaning. On the topic of history consult: Karl Lowith, M. Heidegger and F. Rosenzweig.
'A Postscript to Being and Time', incl. in: Nature, History and Existentialism, and Other
Essays in the Philosophy of History, Edited with a Critical Introduction by Arnold Levison
(Evanston: Northwestern University Press 1966) pp. 51-78.
B Sein und Zeit., p. 386.
9 Ibid., pp. 327ff.
10 Ibid., pp. 346ff.
11 Ibid., pp. 387ff.
12 Ibid., pp. 392ff.
13 On the position of time see the present author's Between Past and Present, An Essay on
History (New Haven: Yale University Press 1958). Consult also Paul Weiss, History:
Written and Lived (Carbondale, III.: Southern lIIinois University Press 1962), pp. 141ff.,
197ff., 217ff. On various problems dealt with in contemporary philosophy of history see
the present author's: Philosophy, History and Politics - Studies in Contemporary English
Philosophy of History (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff 1976). Some of the systematic
aspects are explored in: Reflection and Action (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff 1985).
CHAPTER 2
1 Cf. Eduard Meyer, 'Zur Theorie und Methodik er Geschichte', in Kleine Schriften,
207
208 NOTES
3 Ibid., p. 5.
4 Samuel Alexander: The Historicity of Things, incl. in: Philosophy and History, edited
by R. Klibansky and H.J. Paton, (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1936), p. 15.
5 Consult the present author's: From Substance to Subject, Studies in Hegel, (The Hague:
Nijhoff Publishers 1974). We shall come back to the notion of the "cunning of Reason" in
our subsequent analysis of the concept of progress.
6 M. Schlick, 'Naturphilosophie,' in Die Philosophie in ihren Einzelgebieten, edited by
M. Dessoir, (Berlin: 1m Verlag Ulstein 1925), p. 422.
7 Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, A 182, translated by N. Kemp Smith,
CHAPTER 3
1 See: 'Race and History', by Claude Levi-Strauss, included in: Race and Science, (New
York: Columbia University Press 1969), pp. 246-247.
2 J.B. Bury, The Idea of Progress, (New York: MacMillan 1932), pp. 21-22; in his
footsteps, sec e.g., c.L. Becker, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philoso-
phers, (New Haven: Yale University Press 1952), p. 130; cf. also J. Baillie, The Belief in
Progress, (London: Oxford University Press 1951).
3 Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, (New York: Schocken, 1961),
pp. 273--274.
NOTES 209
4 R. Eucken, Beitriige zur Einfiihrung in die Geschichte der Philosophie, (Leipzig, Diirr
1906), p. 36.
5 'Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit', in Herder's Werke, ed. Heinrich
Diintzer, (Berlin: G. Hempel n.d.), XI/3, pp. 199-200.
6 On the other hand, the suggestion that there is a simple and continuous connection
between Christian belief in the moral progress of humanity and the idea of progress is
exaggerated, notwithstanding the view put forward by Alois Dempf in Die Krisis des
Fortschrittsglaubens, (Wien: Herder 1947), p. 5.
7 O. Cullmann, Christ and Time: the Primitive Christian Conception of Time and History,
12 See R. Flint, History of the Philosophy of History, (Edinburgh and London: William
Blackwood and Son 1893), pp. 214-215.
13 M.l.A.N. Condorcet, Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progres de ['esprit humain,
(Paris: Bibliotheque Nationale 1876), I, pp. 19-20.
14 In his analysis 'Of the Typic of Pure Practical ludgment.' See Lewis White Beck's
translation of the Critique of Practical Reason, (New York: Liberal Arts Press 1956),
pp. 70ff.
15 M.1.A.N. Condorcet, Esquisse, II, p. 58.
16 See his 'Second Discours, Sur les progres successifs de I'esprit humain', in Oeuvres de
TUrgot, ed. E. Dair, (Paris: Guillaumain 1844), II, p. 597.
17 'Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbiirgerlicher Absicht', in Immanuel Kants
Siimmtliche Werke, ed. G. Hartenstein (Leipzig: Voss 1867), IV, p. 146.
18 Pascal, 'Preface to the Treatise on Vacuum,' p. 449.
19 M.l.A.N. Condorcet, Esquisse, loco cit.
20 Reftexionen Kants zur Anthropologie, ed. B. Erdmann, (Leipzig: Fues 1882), Reftexion
676.
21 'Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht', in Immanuel Kants Sammtliche Werke, ed.
G. Hartenstein, VII, 649.
22 De rerum originatione radicali, quoted by A.a. Lovejoy in The Great Chain of Being,
A Study of the History of an Idea, (New York: Harper & Brothers 1960) p. 257.
23 Ibid., p. 259. In the treatise Apokatastasis panton (quoted by M. Ettlinger, Leibniz als
Geschichtsphilosoph (Miinchen: K6seI1921), 31-32). Leibniz posits linear and continuous
time (as opposed to cyclical time). From the viewpoint of progress, the importance of this
assumption lies in its implication that humanity will never remain in the same state,
because it does not befit the divine harmony to touch a false chord repeatedly. If only for
natural reasons of congruence, it should be assumed that things will necessarily progress
toward the highest good, gradually and at times even by leaps.
24 Kant, 'Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbiirgerlicher Absicht,' Worke, ed.
G. Hartenstein, IV, p. 144.
210 NOTES
The topic is central to Kant's attempt to find a kind of harmony between the sphere of
ethics as that of practical reason and that of empirical behavior. The issue is analysed in
the present author's: Practice and Realization, Studies in Kant, (The Hague: Martinus
Nijhoff 1979).
25 We face here the broader issue of historical prediction and its impact, including its
paradoxical counterproductive results. This issue has been dealt with in the previously
mentioned study, Between Past and Present: An Essay on History.
26 See Hegel's Enzyklopaedie der Wissenschaften, § 209, Zusatz. We follow here: 'The
Logic of Hegel' translated from The Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences by William
Wallace, 2nd edition, revised and augmented (Oxford: Th6 University Press 1959),
p.350.
27 The Idea of History, (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1946), p. 329. On the assumptions of the
CHAPTER 4
1 See Edmund Husser!, Erfahrung und Urteil, Untersuchungen zur Genealogie der Logik,
ausgearbeitet und herausgegeben von Ludwig Landgrebe (Prague: Academia 1939), pp.
235ff.
2 R.G. Collingwood, The Idea of History, edited byT.M. Knox (Oxford: Clarendon Press
1946) pp. 213ff. See also: R.G. Collingwood, An Essay on Metaphysics (Oxford: Claren-
don Press 1940) pp. 292ff. Compare the discussion in Allan Donagan, The Later Philo-
sophy of R. G. Collingwood (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1962) pp. 192ff.
3 J.L. Austin, 'A Plea for Excuses,' included in Philosophical Papers (Oxford: Clarendon
Press 1961), p. 127.
4 John Rawls, 'Two Concepts of Rules,' The Philosophical Review LXIV (1955), 3ff. See
10Arthur C. Danto, 'Basic Action,' included in: Readings in the Theory of Action, ed. by
Norman S. Care and Charles Landesman, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press 1968),
p.95.
11 G.E.M. Anscombe: 'Intention,' included in: The Philosophy of Action, ed. by Alan R.
CHAPTER 5
1 Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes and Hero-worship, and the Heroic in History (London:
G. Routledge, n.d.), p. 1.
2 See the Vorlesungen uba die Philosophie der Geschichte, in Glockner's edition of
Hegel's Siimtliche Werke, Vol. XI (Stuttgart: Fromann 1928), p. 60.
3 Carlyle, op. cit., p. 107.
4 G. Plekhanov, 'The Role of the Individual in History,' in Theories of History, edited
with Introductions and Commentary by P. Gardiner (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press 1959),
p. 155.
5 Ibid., p. 155.
6 Ibid., p. 156.
7 Ibid., pp. 157-158.
8 Ibid., p. 159.
9 Ibid., p. 159.
10 Ibid., p. 160.
11 Ibid., p. 162.
12 The Prince and The Discourses by Niccolo Machiavelli, with an introduction by Max
Lerner (New York: Modern Library 1940), p. 382.
13 Ibid., p. 441.
14 Ibid., p. 383.
15 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, translated with notes by T.M. Knox, (Oxford: Clarendon
Press 1942), p. 295.
16 Edward Hallett Carr cites this passage from Hegel in What is History? (New York:
Knopf 1962), p. 68. Surprisingly, he skips over the important opening statement in which,
as we have seen, Hegel alludes to the choice actualized by the great man.
17 See the present author's: On the Human Subject, Studies in the Phenomenology of
Ethics and Politics, (Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas Publisher 1966), pp. 30ff., as well
as: Spirit and Man, An Essay on Being and Value, (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff 1963),
pp. 3ff.
18 William James, 'Great Men and Their Environment,' in The Will to Believe and Other
Essays in Popular Philosophy (New York: 1956), p. 219.
19 Cf. J.G. Droysen, Historik, Vo'rlesungen uber Enzyklopiidie und Methodologie der
212 NOTES
Geschichte, R. Heibner, ed. (Miinchen and Berlin: 1943), p. 25. See Sidney Hook: The
Hero in History, A Study in Limitation and Possibility (New York: The Humanities Press
1950), especially Chs. 8 and 9 . Consult also the present author's Between Past and Present,
An Essay on History, pp. 135ff., as well as Spirit and Man, An Essay on Being and Value,
pp. 3ff.
CHAPTER 6
1 See F.H. Bradley, 'The Vulgar Notions of Responsibility in Connexion with the
Theories of Free-Will and Necessity,' included in: Ethical Studies (first published in 1876)
(Oxford: Clarendon Press 1%2), pp. Iff. Consult on Bradley: Jonathan Glover, Responsi-
bility (New York: The Humanities Press 1970), p. 13fL
2 Compare: Two Aspects of the Ethical Situation,' in the author's Humanism in the
Contemporary Era (The Hague: Mouton & Co. 1963), pp. 87ff. Alfred Schutz speaks
about equivocation in the notion of responsibility - in terms of "responsible for" and
"responsible to someone." See his 'Some Equivocations of the Notion of Responsibility,'
incl. in: Determinism and Freedom in the Age of Modern Science, ed. Sidney Hook (New
York University Press, New York: 1958), pp. 206ff.
3 On the legal aspects, consult Hans Binder, Die Urteilsfiihigkeit in psychologischer,
psychiatrischer und juristischer Sicht (Ziirich: 1964), pp. 9, 10, 16, 23.
4 See J. Glover, op. cit.
5 Bernard Williams: Problems of the Self, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1973.
Also: Moral Luck, Philosophical Papers, 1973-1980, Cambridge University Press, Cam-
bridge 1981.
CHAPTER 7
ibid., p. 492.
7 Kritik der reinen Vernunft, B 575 (Kemp-Smith's transl. p. 473 (New York: St. Martin's
Press. Toronto: Macmillan, 1929.)
8 Prolegomena § 53.
9 Gunnar Myrdal, Objectivity in Social Resear~ (New York: 1969) p. 55. On Weber
consult: Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press
1957), pp. 35ff.
10 Claude Levi-Strauss, The Scope of Anthropology, tr. Sherry Ortneran and Robert A.
NOTES 213
Extremism by Michael Aiken, Louis A. Ferman and Harold L. Sheppard, (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 1968), pp. 8, 142.
12 Consult Charles Taylor, 'Neutrality in Political Science,' included in Philosophy,
Politics and Society, Third Series, A collection edited by Peter Laslett and W.G. Runci-
man, (Oxford: 1969), pp. 26ft.
13 Compare the author's 'Relevance examined,' Ethics, April 1972. On values and
evaluations consult: Alexander Pfiinder, Ethik Ethische Wertlehre und ethische Sol/ens-
lehre in kurzer Darstellung, aus dem Nachlass, herausgegeben von Peter Schwankl
(Miinchen: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1973), pp. 141ft.
CHAPTER 8
1 The theme is that of George Gurvitch's book, The Spectrum of Social Time, translated
and edited by Myrtle Korenbaum, assisted by Philip Bosserman (Dordrecht: Reidel,
1964). The present analysis does not relate the mUltiplicity of times to socrl strata or
organizations. G.H. Mead's Philosophy of the Present deals with the posItion of the
present in general, bestowing on it the central position within the dimensions of time. The
emphasis in our exposition is on the pace of the present, and not on its ontological
position. On the aspect of acceleration, other than within the experience of time, see Max
Patterson; 'Acceleration in Evolution Before Human Times', Journal of Biological
Structures 1 (1978), 201ft. The book by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann: The
Social Construction of Reality, A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (London: Allen
Lane, 1971) relates rapid social change to "the pluralistic situation" which is subversive to
traditional reality.
2 My friend Professor Werblowsky called my attention to the work of Ernst Benz;
'Akzeleration der Zeit als geschichtliches und heilsgeschichtliches Problem,' Akademie
der Wissenschaften und Literatur, Mainz, Abhandlungen der Geistes- und Sozialwissen-
schaftlichen Klasse, Jhrg. 1977, Nr. 2. Benz analyzes the aspect of acceleration mainly in
the context of eschatological expectations in the sense of "time is running short," and does
not raise questions related to categorial contexts of historical time. He refers to aspects of
revolution (pp. 48ft.). From the point of view directing the present exploration we can say
that the velocity of the present time is not necessarily related to the momentum of
revolutions, but rather to the interaction between events and the response to them. See
Stephen Kern, The Culture of Time and Space 1880--1918 (London: Weidenfeld and
Nicolson, 1983).
3 See Irving Hallowell, Temporal Orientation in Western Civilization and in a Preliterate
Society,' American Anthropologist XXXIX (1937), 647ft.
4 J. Huizinga, 'Die gegenwiirtige Kulturkrise verglichen mit friiheren,' Schriften zur
Zeitkritik, iibersetzt von Werner Kaegi (Ziirich-Bruxelles: Occident-Verlag, Pantheon-
Verlag, 1948) pp. 17ft.
5 Harold D. Lasswell, The Future of World Communication: Quality and Style of Life
(Honolulu: East-West Communication Institute), 1972, p. 3.
6 Karl Jaspers' well-known Die geistige Situation der Zeit (Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter &
214 NOTES
Co.) appeared in 1933, that is to say, prior to the changes characteristic of the contempo-
rary situation and the sense of velocity related to them. Jaspers said that what man can do
refers to the short range. He is given tasks but not any continuity of his existence. That
which has past (das Gewesene) no longer holds good, but only that which is present. (das
Gegenwartige). See ibid., p. 40.
7 Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, Zusatz zu & 138. Hegel's Philosophy of Right,
translated with Notes by T.M. Knox (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1943), p. 255.
CHAPTER 9
1 On the positions and limitations of the historical approach, consult Leo Strauss: Natural
Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 1953.
2 Hegel's presentation, the "spirit of an epoch," is brought together with "the spirit of a
people." The most explicit statement is contained in: System und Geschichte der Philoso-
phie, ed. by Johannes Hoffmeister (Leipzig: Meiner 1944) pp. 38ff., 148ff.
3 Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge,
with a preface by Louis Wirth (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1960), pp. 70-71; p. 76.
Clifford Geerth's 'Ideology as a Cultural System' is to some extent a continuation of
Mannheim's view. Cf. The Interpretation of Cultures, Selected Essays (New York: Basic
Books, 1973) pp. 193ff.
4 Probably the most instructive presentation of Marx's theory is expressed in
'Ekonomisch-Philosophische Manuscripte,' included in Karl Marx-Friedrich Engels Ge-
samtausgabe 1,3 (Berlin: Marx-Engels Verlag, 1931).
5 Joachim Ritter: Hegel und die Jranzosische Revolution Heft 63 (K61n und Opladen:
Arbeitsgemeinschaft fur Forschung des Landes Nordheim - Westfalia, 1957).
6 On the transformation of the concept of ideology consult, Helmuth Plessner, 'Abwand-
lungen des Ideologiegedankens,' in Zwischen Philosophie und Gesellschaft (Bern:
Francke Verlag, 1953) pp. 218ff.
7 Zwi Lamm in 'Ideologies in a Hierarchical Order: A Neglected Theory,' in Science and
Public Policy, February, 1984, pp. 40ff., deals with the theories of George Walford and
Harold Walsby. The hierarchical order is a typology of ideologies according to their
central themes.
8 See David McLellan, Ideology, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1986. The
book contains a Bibliography.
INDEX OF NAMES
215
216 INDEX OF NAMES
Marx, Karl2f., 97f., 132f., 175f., 207, Rawls, John 82f., 210
214 Rickert, Heinrich 50,208
Mead, G.H. 213 Ritter, Joachim 214
Meyer, Edward 207 Rome 71
Michalangelo, Buonarrotti 104, 105, Rosenzweig, Franz 207
107 Rousseau, Jean Jacques 100, 184
Morawetz, Thomas 210 Russia 40,43
Myrdall, Gunnar 145, 212
Sartre, Jean Paul 149
Napoleon 34,36,40-41,51, 103, 107 Scheler, Max 85,210
Nisbert, Robert 210 Schlick, Moritz 208
Nietsche, Friedrich 29 Scholem, Gershom 55,208
Schutz, Alfred 212
Oakeshott, Michael 86, 210 Shakespeare, William 161
Socrates 4
Paracelsus, Aurelous 56, 209 Spinoza, B. 120f., 198
Pascal, Blaise 6Of., 209 Stern, William 93
Patterson, Max 213 Strauss, Leo 212, 214
Perelman, Chaim 153
Persians 40 Taylor, Charles 213
Pfander, Alexander 213 Turgot, Anne R.J. 62,209
Philo 57
Planck, Max 32 Weber, Max 35,40, 89f., 14lf., 210,
Plato 71, 108 211,212
Plekhanov, G. 97f., 211 Weiss, Paul 207
Plessner, Helmuth 214 Werblowsky, R.Z. 213
Whitehead, Alfred North 204
Raphael, Samti 104, 107, 108 Williams, Bernard 132, 212
INDEX OF SUBJECTS
217
218 INDEX OF SUBJECTS