Ontological and historical responsibility The condition of possibility
Vasil Penchev Bulgarian Academy of Sciences: Institute for the Study of Societies of Knowledge vasildinev@gmail.com The Historical responsibility: from the myths of the past to the strategies of future September 22-23, 2016 (22 Sep, 12:20 14:00) Yekaterinburg, Russia (Lenin av. 51,Ural Federal University, Room 314)
Reality as chosen The main thesis is: Ontological and historical responsibility refers to the choice of reality Thus one should suppose many realities, each of which its own and unique histories, and correspondingly as many histories as realities However, history as science recognise only a single history and a single reality, which can be well-defined only to the past, but not to future and even not to the present
Many worlds, many histories, many realities It presupposes the concept of many realities or many worlds, one of which is chosen by the conscious or unconscious choice of human beings However, the science of history does not discuss any choices as far as any choice would imply an alternative reality together with its alternative and different history, to which objective cognition seems to be impossible The only thinkable way out of the contradictory between historical responsibility and historical objectivity implies redefinition and thus the perestroika of historical science and knowledge
The reality as a result of decision Thus, reality, in which people turn out to be, is their responsibility as far as it is a result of decision Their decisions or at least some of them, properly historical choices, presuppose ontological responsibility One can speak of both historical and ontological responsibility as counterparts, each of which implies the other Historical responsibility is properly temporal aspect of ontological responsibility or in other words, ontological decision (figuratively speaking, God s decision) as a series of people s historical choices
Realism versus historical responsibility If on the contrary, reality, e.g. in the framework of realism, is granted as constant and given in advance, the problem of ontological and historical responsibility cannot arise in principle Indeed realism needs a single reality to serve as the criterion of truth as far as many realities would imply many truths and alleged relativism or even nihilism So, the problem of historical responsibility implies a new kind of ontology, that of many realities, many histories and human choice between them, to be able to be questioned
Reality, history and objectivity If the case is other, reality is one single and necessary That case of a single reality can be considered as a particular and degenerate case of the generalized ontology of many realities and many histories It can be described also as the identity of history and ontology where the single reality and history implies necessity such as experimental sciences mean as to nature Then history (as physics, for example) abstracts its objectivity from the certain external necessity due to the single reality and history
History in conditional mood In the same framework, that of the single reality, history does not cognise the conditional mood for it studies only the past as single as reality That dogma seems to be justifiable as to the past, but absolutely inapplicable to future and even to the past If one accepts it as an axiom (as the mainstream of all historical sciences) the cognition of future and even that of the present turns out to be forbidden in principle The application of history needs it to be applicable to the present at least, though
History, reality, and historical reality The past in singular seems to be the only possible subject of that kind of realistic history being a positive science However, the amount of facts referring to the past is so great that any historical investigation is forced to limit itself only to a very, very small part of all facts therefore choosing anyway that tiny part of facts as relevant to the investigation at issue Thus, even the classical historical research implies an implicit choice and interpretation of historical reality That choice and interpretation is meant speaking that history is written by the victors rather than by vanquished
The forbidden history of future Therefore and particularly, the reference or cognition of historical science to future is forbidden in principle However, future though being too uncertain for the contemporary scientific and historical objectivity is an inherent aspect, part and modus of any historical process Even more, many other sciences, for example those studying nature, are much more related to future for they are able to make absolutely exact forecasts successful for practice On the contrary, history meaning changes in the course of time as its subject does not possess any reliable methods for foreseeing future events
Objectivity for historical sciences The mainstream in historical sciences prefers the objectivity of historical descriptions of the past excluding any forms of counterfactual, alternative, many-pathways as non- and even antiscientific speculations in the domain of sci-fi at the best Indeed, there are no reliable methods or criteria for estimation or comparison for any alternative histories or realities: all of them are considered as equally possible or equally impossible results of imagination One needs certain new objectivity for historical sciences, able to mean, describe, and eventually forecast precisely future historical events and processes even they do no take place in our reality and history
The other histories Counterfactual or alternative history are rather marginal according to the absence of reliable methods and criteria for distinguishing the different pathways of history and ways of choice for those of them, which are true in a generalized sense applicable to alternative histories The philosophical and methodological problem about that truth both conserving free will (and free choice) featuring all historical process and objectivity is not yet resolved and even clearly articulated Those difficulties hint that a fundamental and therefore philosophical change is needed for incorporating future and free will in historical sciences
Responsibility and choice One the contrary, responsibility needs choice and alternatives in definition Indeed, the problem of choice and historical responsibility might be anyway investigated even in the too restricted framework of the contemporary positive historical science in the special modus of past perfect tense and future tense in the past Certain actions being in past perfect tense to their historical intentions and results can be compared with those real historical events being in future tense in the past to the made choices However then, historical responsibility is a subject of judgement or estimation of the past eventually punishing without direct influence to the present historical choices and prognoses
The problem of historical responsibility versus science of history Thus, the problem of historical responsibility cannot be asked as to the present and future within the standard approach of history One should wait for decades and even centuries to be estimated or judged a certain historical choice remaining those people really made the choice irresponsible for their choice for remoteness and prescription For example, the Nuremberg trials are an exception confirming the above statement just for their exceptionality and limitedness
History of time vs history of the past One needs that science of history which refers to the present and future not less that to the past therefore unifying them in an invariant approach If that scientific kind of history existed, the problem of historical responsibility would be able to be resolved in its wholeness rather than partly as until now The essence of the necessary history of time consists in the invention of how future and the past being clearly distinguished by the arrow of time to be anyway described uniformly by means of corresponding conception and notions
History and quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics resolves similar problems It is forced to study the genesis of reality among a spectrum of possible realities, one of which turns out to be chosen after measurement It might can serve as a methodological paradigm for history Quantum mechanics describes uniformly the past and future being immediately forced to resolve its main problem: the unification of discrete (quantum) motion and smooth motion in classical mechanics That solution implies furthermore the solution of the described above main problem of historical science: how to be described uniformly future (being only possible and probable) and the past (being properly actual)
Part 2
One can guess at least a few directions of historical time for its end is nonsense: to space, to children, to higher mammals extensively or to super-humans intensively
Part 3
Still one additional thesis: The establishment of universal history requires to be understood what time is Time is the transformation of the future into past by the choices in the present History should be grounded on that understanding of historical time, which would include the present and future rather than only the past
History in tradition and universal history History refers to the past in tradition, i.e. to a limited and finite part of time, which is past Thus history refers immediately both to time and more exactly to the past What is past can be even neglected speaking of the history of anything as some genus Universal history can be understood as that genus
The well-distinguished entities of the past In the past, there are a variety of well-distinguished entities such as states, peoples, civilizations and anything else Each of them can possesses a proper history often inconsistent or partly consistent to all the rest So, the past seems to be irrelevant as the medium of universality for it is particular as to any item therefore suggesting that its history is particular and different from that of anything else
A set of histories instead a single one So the cherished universal history turns out to be a set of histories That set of histories can be defined both by some common property and by the description of all unique histories one by one History in tradition describes a set of unique histories of states or nations slightly linked to each other One interpretation of universal history is it to understood as the set of all those descriptions
The universal laws of history as the common property of all histories One can research that set for universal or general laws instead of some collection of descriptions hardly linked to each other Those laws can be in turn understood as the property featuring all members of the family implicitly meant as participants in universal history Consequently, universal history can be understood as some theoretical research of history finding a few fundamental laws or principles
Logic of history and Reason in history Thus history can be represented more or less as some logic of history or even as Reason in history after Hegel Indeed all histories referring only to the past can be seen as a collection of well-orderings and thus as some general logic of historical processes Hegel introduced the term of Reason in history to designate that logical and rational form of universal history suggesting action of some Reason in history
The common future of all historical entities In fact, all entities such as states, nations, civilizations and all the rest is unified by their common present and future and distinguished by unique and single past All this does not allow of other universal viewpoint than the logical one as above if history refers only to the past The viewpoint to time as an unlimitedly extendable past supports the understanding of universal history or even of history as logic
Time at all instead of only the past Furthermore history can be seen as underlain by another understanding of time It allows of generalizing the history from only the past to all time including the present and future Then universal history can be naturally defined as the history referring to the present and future not less than to the past Its core is the present, only in which any choice can take place The past is the result of those choices: One can say that the present is the cause of the past
What is time? History as the ontology of time requires to be understood what time is In turn time should be understand as a way relevant to history In fact history happens only now, in the present, but it is always described as a past Then time should be understand as a collision of two quite different media, future and past That collision is the present, which manages to agree both different media to each other
What time is Time is the transformation of the future into past by the choices in the present In fact, the future is absolute unorderable and unforecastable both in principle and in general On the contrary, the past is absolute ordered, more exactly well-ordered as well as absolute and even trivially forecastable as being unchangeable and known The one, which is able to agree them to each other is the choices of the present
Historical time History should be grounded on that understanding of historical time, which would include the present and future rather than only the past Indeed historical time should be understood as way of making history rather that historiographic time ascribing simply a certain date to any historical event Consequently, historical time is agrees and thus generalizes future and the past in the present Thus it essence is choice, i.e. the choices in the present
Historical time vs. physical time One can distinguish historical time from physical time in the base of their relation to each other and to the time itself Historical time agrees future and the past by the mediation of the choices made in the present Instead of that, the past is what grounds physical time Physical time extrapolates the modus of the past time as all time including furthermore the present and future
Opposed features of the two times Historical time unlike physical time is not continuous, homogenous, even, or uniform Even more, it does not include all choices, but a very, very small part of them, only crucial historical choice However the criterion for a choice to be defined as a crucial historical one needs some clarification It should support the unity of future and the past linking them in continuous way
The points of historical choice Historical time consists of the separate points of crucial historical choice Consequently that crucial historical choice should represents the wholeness of the historical process embodied in a single point In fact the alternatives of the choice claiming to be both crucial and historical do not link the wholeness of the historical process in one and the same degree One of them, maybe different from the chosen one can support the continuity of times
The wholeness of historical process and historical choice Any single choice of those concentrates the wholeness of the historical process in order to be able to be chosen just that historical pathway, which conserves that wholeness Nevertheless, this does not limit the made choice: It can be historically wrong tearing the times and thus breaking this thread of history whether early or late
Paul Tillich s Kairos and Chronos Paul Tillich has coined the term of Kairos for that ontological and historical time being opposed to chronos associated with physical time Kairos is also the wholeness of theological time: Thus Kairos means initially a fundamental choice, which is able to ground both the wholeness of being and any crucial historical choice of peoples On the contrary, chronos means the automatic continuity of time independent of human choices and thus implied immediately on that single and fundamental choice of Kairos
Between two choices... The discrete points of crucial choice are connected to each other by longer or shorter periods of continuous historical motion The historical and physical time can be identified as coinciding in those periods: Then both continuity and wholeness of the times are supported in an almost or rather automatic way not including crucial historical choices History is identifiable as historiography, but this is not ontology
Longue durée The discreteness of historical time generates waves of long runs (Charles Pierce) or longue durées (Fernand Braudel and the Analles school) The period of each of them is different, but much longer than the duration of human life That longue durée should be categorically distinguished from the long periods between two historical choices The longue durée originates from the discontinuity of historical choice The long periods between two historical choices mean only their absence
Conclusions about Part 3: History as the ontology of time: History as the ontology of the past time turns out to be a set of histories In fact, all entities such as states, nations, civilizations and all the rest is unified by their common present and future and distinguished by unique and single past The Hegel logical viewpoint to history: All this does not allow of other universal viewpoint than the logical one as in Hegel
History of choice versus history of fact: History can be underlain by that understanding of time, which allows of generalizing the history from only the past to all time including the present and future Then history as the ontology of time can be naturally defined as the history referring to the present and future not less than to the past That kind of history can be defined both as history of choice as the ontology of time Conclusions about part 3:
References: Braudel, F (1969) Histoire et sciences socials. La longue durée (1), in: Braudel, F. Ecrits sur l histoire. Paris: Flamarion, 41 82. Hegel, G. W. F. (1837) Vorlesungen u ber die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte. Hamburg: F. Meiner, 1968. Tillich, P. (1948) Kairos, in Hauptwerke, Bd. 4, Berlin New York: De Gruyter, 1987, 327-341.
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