On 10 Jul 2002 at 23:20, joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:
I am flattered to have several of my works included in the "best of virus"
archives, and at the same time conceited enough to wonder why the
following essay was not included there.
A Short Philosophy of History
By Joe E, Dees
I. An Improved Theory of the Past
There are many existing philosophies of history, and each has its own
elements of truth, insofar as they authentically explicate an
understanding of past events and the reasons for them. However, either
by not following through with their premises to deduceable conclusions
or by actual error in such an attempt, all of them are in some respects
incomplete. This, of course, is a reason for their multiplicity and
diversity. The theory to be expounded here is to the greater degree a
decanting of the elements of each which, from our present perspective,
can be said to possess some validity. To a lesser degree, it draws from
the synthesis of these elements further conclusions as to both a
structure which may be consistently applied to history, and both
empirical observations and logical deductions which lend support to its
perceptual soundness and conceptual validity.
Before we proceed any further, a disclaimer must be made. In no
manner do we intend this theory to be construed as either final or
complete. The evolution of historical conceptions is a staircase of
successively more broad and profound conjectures which shall
only end with the end of humanity when this unfortunate yet eventually
inevitable event occurs. This theory only proposes to be another step;
another synthesis of preceding views which itself is destined to be
subsumed by a more inclusive view. In addition, any theory, by the very
definition of the term, is necessarily restricted to the realm of probability;
any theory asserted absolutely is irretrievably mired in self-contradiction.
This is true of any theory; however it is doubly true of any historical
theory; it is impossible to either fully recapture the significance of the
past as it appeared as a present, or to a priori apprehend and interpret
as yet nonexistent future events. Even dealing solely with a hypothetical
"present", it is practically impossible to empirically verify all logical
consequences of any given theory, including a theory of history.
With these necessary limitations firmly in mind, we shall attempt our
synthesis...
What, however, is a philosophy of history, or to put it more succinctly,
what are we here attempting to do? Any philosophy is a theory; a theory
seeks to discern patterns and regularities within its object (or subject) of
perusal. History itself is a succession of more or less purposeful actions
or events occurring within the experiential realm of a perpetually
changing cast of human agents of change. For example: the view that
God moves history with an "invisible Hand" is empirically unfounded;
otherwise, the hand would have to be visible to the theorizer, and this is
self-contradictory. However, no one can reasonably deny that the idea of
God in the minds of human agents has had a profound effect upon the
evolutionary direction of events. Thus a philosophy of history seeks to
discern regularities within this perceived temporal succession, as a
philosophy of personhood seeks such regularities within the individual, a
philosophy of the perceived world seekssuch regularities within the
universe, etc. In addition, a philosophy seeks logically coherent reasons
for such patterns as may be discerned, and a philosophy of history is no
exception.
II. The Synthesis
Spengler is correct (as were his predecessors) concerning the
multicyclical nature of cultural rise and fall; he was incorrect in
his assertion that nothing passes on from fallen cultures to succeeding
ones, and Toynbee corrects this error. Neither of them noted, however,
the combination of successively greater pinnacles of achievement and
successively shorter spans of duration to be found within temporally
successive cultures. Cultures do fall, but not to the point that nothing is
left (that possibility is uniquely ours); however, neither do they advance
unimpeded. The actual progression is somewhere in between. Toynbee
did not realize the true force of Spengler's (and Sorokin's) raison d'etre
for the falls. For both of them, the denigration of the unifying cultural
belief in the face of the counterexample of knowledge fragments the
culture. This contention, synthesized with Toynbee's position that each
succeeding culture begins with both more breadth of knowledge and
more depth of same than its predecessors, suggests that within each
succeeding culture the advance of knowledge to a position contradicting
belief is accomplished in a shorter time span. Therefore, although
greater syntheses are produced by succeeding cultures, they also suffer
successively shorter life spans. We called these (at first) dolphin
oscillations; we now tend to call them pre-adolescent culture traumas.
We state that the anthropomorphization of a cultural identity is both
useful and veridical, because cultures are collections of people sharing
common ground perspectives. We then explore the parallels between
the infancy of a culture and the infancy of a composite human, a la
Piaget. Piaget states that the infant is egocentric and mentally matures
in the direction of socialized thought. The infant early on believes in a
magical and animistic lived world of relatively small dimensions which is
directed towards the fulfillment of childish needs and desires. This is not
a conception; the child actually perceives the world in this way. All things
seen together are connected by syncretistic logic “ this is known as
assimilation. The world is juxtaposed by means of this assimilation,
which follows the rule of "intellectual realism"; the world "is" as the child
believes because it "must be", and this world-view colors the child's
perceptions to agree. The sun and moon follow the child around, the
road rises to meet him/her, the birds sing because the child is present to
hear, the scent of the flowers is tailored to please, and all of this is
managed by a noncognitive, magical and mystical animism whose only
reason for being is to please the child. As the child matures, this magic
fades. When the child must interact with others, the necessity for
developing both concepts by which to communicate and consistent logic
with which to persuade progressively manifests. The child is no longer
the absolute; his/her position must be justified to the other. De-centering
occurs. The sun and moon follow others also, therefore they follow no
one; the road stays put, the birds sing and the flowers bloom for
everyone to see and hear and smell. In short, experience is present at
hand to be taken up by all and is no longer directed exclusively towards
the now maturing person. The living presence fades from perception as
the child's world-view is socialized. It must therefore (for the child) be
culturally preserved.
In the same manner, a culture is primordially egocentric and believes
that the universe is somehow magically ordered for its benefit. Such
beliefs are, to some degree, necessary for the perpetuation of the
culture, but many are not sufficient. This is why many cultures die a-
borning for lack of the belief's production of the Camusian byproducts of
human dignity, industry and community. These cultures which survive
their birth, however, eventually come into contact with "other" cultures.
Whether they subsume, are subsumed by, or coexist with the other(s),
intercultural socialization begins. This process results in the realization
that the belief system is not a given, but must be justified in relation to
alternative beliefs which perform the same perpetuating functions for
their cultures. (In the same manner, "laws" of quantum mechanics
mutually justify each other without any one of them occupying a central
or fundamental position.) Also, such belief systems and their empirically
testable consequences must agree with the ever-expanding
perceptions of the world. This imperative is akin to both Kant's dictum
that concepts must be grounded in percepts, and Merleau-Ponty's view
of reality as inter-subjective. Together, these two necessities provoke the
evolution of the bridge between individual and societal perceptions. The
foregoing also explains both T. S. Eliot's observation that culture and
religion are symbiotic and Toynbee's contention that advancing cultures
are accompanied by successively more complex belief systems, this last
to accommodate successively more inclusive and detailed perceptions.
However, the belief system ultimately fails, because of both its
absolutist dogmatism and the inherent inability of animistic-mystical
belief systems to keep pace with demythologizing explanations proferred
by the dialectic of scientific progress and technical advances. In other
words, the expansion of scientific knowledge and technical efficacy
within a culture proceed according to an involution-evolution multicycle
model of periodicity 2. Models to account for reality first expand to cover
the range of our perceptions; they then concentrate upon details.
However, the greater mastery of the material world that efficacious
models allows permits the technological augmentation of perceptions
and actions, which, when applied to scientific experimentation, leads to
the arising of perceptions that cannot be accounted for within the
axiomatic systems used to construct the models. A paradigmatic
advance is then made which, while accounting for the stubborn
perceptions, expands our experimental range beyond its original range,
allowing new stobborn perceptions to arise, while the previous models
are subsumed as special cases, and the process repeats.
According to Stephen Pepper, animistic world hypotheses fail due to
inadequate precision (common-sense fails). They tend to
anthropomorphize magical presence into authoritarian spirit, which is
crystallized into infallible, but, alas, all-too-fallible, authority. This
authority breaks down under successively more central, supportable and
precise criticism. Also, mystical world hypotheses fail due to a lack of
scope. Their view originates with the acceptance of a "central fact". The
entire universe is interpreted, whether it fits or not, as absorbed within
this "fact". Where this absorption is implausible, the offending
contradictory observations are denounced as unreal. The adherents of
such "facts" are emotional and reductionistic. They believe themselves
to be the vessels through which the "true fact" must be promulgated
according to a dogma of certainty.
Both "certainty" and "infallibility" are illusions produced by inadequate
world-views. What opposes them is useful truth. The pragmatists argue
that the a priori of truth is utility and the existentialists argue that the a
priori of utility is truth. The precedence chosen depends upon the
referential frame of the chooser, and we tend to view truth and utility as
co-primordial, symbiotic and mutually grounding. However, when useful
truth unmasks by counterexample of the world hypotheses' conclusions
the fallibility and uncertainty of their premises, these premises inevitably
crumble. Our beliefs have, for better or worse, chosen us long enough; it
is now time to reasonably choose our beliefs to avoid such contradiction.
Culture has never matured (except for the perceptual side in the Orient)
before in world history; we can end all hope of its maturation in the future
or ourselves be the first culture which successfully matures.
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