Looking at history : an analysis of the contemporary debate with particular reference to the question of objectivity

Abstract

The term 'philosophy of history' is, by its very nature, ambiguous. Firstly, 'philosophy of history' refers to the conceptualisation of the historical process itself; the development of the history of the world or societal relations over the years. One of the early examples of this kind of philosophy is St. Augustine's view of history as a linear development moving towards, and eventually culminating in, the esohatological finality of salvation. Teleological theories of history were, later on in Western thought, upheld in the works of Vico, Hegel, Comte and Marx, who see history as developing in a dialectical manner in the unfolding of historical events, always moving closer to an ultimate end. More recent versions of this view have tended towards 'endism'; the notion so profusely promulgated in Francis Fukayama's triumphalist account of the end of history 'as we know it' following the defeat of Communism at the hands of liberal capitalism, which was so passionately criticised by the likes of Jacques Derrida. Another conception of history is the more 'oriental', cyclical idea of recurrence, which has Nietzsche as its main advocate in Western philosophy. According to this view, the movement of history occurs in circles, and upon the completion of each circle existence is changed and purified. Both the teleological and the cyclical notions of history take the form of general schemas which explain the movement of history. This is what can be generally considered to be the first facet of the term 'philosophy of history'.