Philosophies of History

Philosophy is current in everyday life. It has the meaning illustrated by Tolstoy’s remark that ‘everyone must have a philosophy of life’ that is some general presuppositions, which they should always be ready to scrutinize. Philosophies about history are seeking to clarify its operational presuppositions because a coherent thought can emerge only out of some presupposition or constellation of presuppositions as R.G. Collingwood puts it.

The concept of Philosophies of History emerged with the French rationalist philosopher Voltaire. It assumed prominence when philosophers lay their seeds in the fields of history. Historians before the 19^th century were generally indifferent to the idea of ‘Philosophy of History’. The German historian Leopold Von Ranke believed that ‘divine providence would take care of the meaning of the history if the historian took care of the facts’. The Swiss historian, Burckhardt observed that ‘we are not initiated into the purposes of the eternal wisdom’. G.M. Trevelyan wrote that ‘there was no philosophy in history. Philosophy must be brought to history; it can not be extracted from it’. On the whole, the 19^th century as E.H. Carr wrote in ‘What is History’, was ‘the age of innocence and historians walked in the garden of Eden, without a scarp of philosophy to cover them, naked and unashamed before the God of history’.

The philosophy of history is a philosophical view of human destiny. As Allan Nevins wrote in ‘The Gateway to History’, ‘a philosophy of history springs from a writer's whole view of human destiny and thus embodies his philosophy of life; an interpretation of historical material is merely a writer's explanation of the significance of a series of events, an epoch or a movement. The one usually bears a close relation to the thought of the age; the other is usually more personal in origin’.

All major philosophies of history, except two (the Greeco-Roman and the Medieval Church Historiography), have sprung up in the past three centuries, a fact that speaks volumes of the close cooperation between rationalism and modern history. Ancient Greek and Roman writers knew but only one philosophy – the philosophy of fate. The ancient Indians too believed in a similar philosophy – the philosophy of Karma.

I.    The Cyclical View – the first widespread interpretation in western culture was the dominant philosophy from Herodotus to the time of Christ. All human events occur in cycles. Names, dates, and persons may change, but philosophically what happened before will happen again. This applies to nation-states and to epochs and gave birth to the adage that ‘history repeats itself’. This theory was the first known philosophy and ruled out the possibility of development and change.

II.  The Providential Theory – existed in the Old Testament era widely accepted during the church-oriented middle ages. History was the guidance of divine will. Divine will be directing the destinies of mankind according to the cosmic order. Events, actions, and happenings were explained in terms of an intervening divine providence. The man had no control over his environment. Christian historians, following the lead given by Eusebius of Caesarea (260-340) and St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) coupled the Hebrew idea that divinity directed the historical process, with the Greek notion, that man could arrive at an understanding of this process through the use of his intellect. This philosophy of history held sway for more than thirteen centuries. It was championed by St. Augustine in his famous book ‘The City of God’. According to him, history is a constant conflict between the City of God and City of Man. He contrasted the secular state (evil and transitory) with the kingdom of God (serene and eternal). He notes that these two cities are inextricably interwoven and it is this interaction that actively produces history. The City of Man and the City of God will not be separated until ‘the last judgment’. The task of historical study is ‘to trace the steps by which one is slowly replaced by or transformed into the other’. These views constituted the Christian historical approach and held sway over the Middle Ages and shaped the course of Christian historical thought.

III. Another philosophy that gives great importance to individuals as decisive players in history is the ‘Great Man Theory’ of Thomas Carlyle (1881). According to the proponents of this theory, all major developments of human history are accounted for by the ‘Great Man’ who exerts almost superhuman control over the fate of their generations. Thomas Carlyle says that ‘history is nothing but the biography of great men’, and that it is a record of human accomplishment, particularly of great souls. Human progress is regarded as being primarily due to the work of geniuses who appear in the world from time to time. In the words of Carl G. Gustavson, ‘they have been able to master the circumstances of their times and re-mould them according to their own ideas’. What history requires according to Carlyle is geniuses and not masses.

After Renaissance, in the age of enlightenment, rationalists like Voltaire (1694-1778) loosened the grip of the old supernaturals and religious beliefs over history. Influenced by humanism, they demonstrated that men really made their own world. They as Allan Nevins pointed out firmly believed that the historians, casting aside the murky lanterns of the religious chronicles should reconstruct the past under the brilliant light of reason. The new scientific attitude towards history was strikingly exhibited by Voltaire. His brilliant expositions helped to open the way for other rationalistic philosophies. To Voltaire, the philosophy of history stood for critical and independent thinking in which the historian exercised his mind.

IV. The progress view of history which is the outcome of the renaissance and a new set of values it generated stated that the human race was continuously progressing. This theory of history formulated by Gottfried Leibnitz (1726) held that the human race was continually getting better and better, it became more civilized with the passage of each new generation.

V.  After Voltaire, the same phrase, ‘philosophy of history’ was used by several historians including, George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831). They, however, meant entirely different things by the same phrase. For Hegel, the whole of human history is a process through which mankind is making spiritual and moral progress. History has a plot and the philosopher’s task is to discover it. Hegel’s determinism entailed the unification of opposites – spirit and nature, universal and particular, ideal and real. The combination of these two would result in a synthesis. He stood both for idealism and realism at once. Hegel developed his ‘dialectical system’ in which logic, nature, and mind figured prominently. It begins by laying down a positive thesis that is at once negatived by an anti-thesis, then further thought produces the synthesis. To Hegel, man has consciousness which produces rational will. This rational will is at the root of human institutions and human history. To Hegel, the philosophy of history proposes a new kind of history, it is not a philosophical reflection on history, but history itself raised to a higher power and higher plane where it becomes philosophical as distinct from merely empirical. As Collingwood puts it, it is a new kind of ‘history not merely ascertained as so much fact but understood by apprehending the reasons why the facts happened as they did. This philosophical history will exhibit progress from primitive times to the civilization of today.

VI. In the 19^th century, another group of historians called the Positivists emerged. They believed in the positivist philosophy of Auguste Comte (1798-1857). Scholars like Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, and others belonged to this school. By philosophy of history, the positivist meant (a) Ascertaining facts (b) Framing laws. The historian was to ascertain facts through sensuous perception and then framing laws through generalization. Under this influence, a new kind of historiography arose called positivist historiography. ‘The historical process’ as R.G. Collingwood (1889-1943) says ‘for the positivists, was in kind identical with the natural process, and that was why the methods of natural sciences were applicable to the interpretation of history’. Social and historical phenomena were also subject to certain ascertainable laws and open to treatment as in the case of natural sciences.

VII. The Italian Benedetto Croce (1866-1952) was a protagonist of another current of history – Relativism, along with the German, Dilthey. They argued that history is present knowledge, which must and does spring from current interests. To them, history is ‘contemporary thoughts about the past’. They also held the view that there is no one truth about the past but innumerable truths as many as there are perspectives. Their belief was ‘we see different pasts at different times, and what we see depends on our present situation.

VIII. Philosophy of history has grown over the ages assuming more abstract and sophisticated forms. Karl Marx put forward a comprehensive philosophy of history based on economic determinism. Marxism was a philosophy of history impregnated with an elaborate economic theory. History has governed by laws that the human mind can recognize or determine. Objective historical necessity was at the roots of causation. Economic developments are the basis of social changes. Ideas, institutions, laws, politics and even religion and art are greatly affected by economic factors. Ideas influence history, but they are not independent agents, only intermediary links. All historical progress is a product of a conflict between the old and new, leading to higher social formations. There would always be a clash of interests among the social groups, which Marx calls ‘Class Struggle’. Class struggle is a great motivating power of history. Progress will always be the result of a victory of the new class over its oppressors. The struggle will go on until the last vestiges of the old order disappear. ‘Dictatorship of the proletariat’ would result from this repression. Karl Marx defined ‘value’ as labour crystallized. Labour power is the only power that can produce a ‘value’ greater than its own. The product of ‘surplus labour’ is ‘surplus value’. The originality of Marx lies in his efforts to synthesize the entire legacy of social knowledge since Aristotle. To Marx, history was the development of man’s efforts to master the forces of nature and hence of production. History is progress. Man’s ability to produce continually increases.

IX. Oswald Spengler (1880-1936) was a philosopher historian of Germany. Spengler compared the modern western civilizations with the ancient Greeco-Roman civilizations and endeavoured to discern the outlines of a life cycle through which he believed all civilizations must pass. Spengler substituted the historical idea of progress with the cyclical concept of natural sciences. Spengler’s reputation rests entirely on his work ‘The Decline of the West’. Spengler dismissed as an illusion, the idea of progress in history. His cyclical theory of human development and his skepticism about man’s ethical potentialities made him reject the idea of progress. Spengler compared human culture to the life cycles of human beings.

X. Arnold Toynbee’s (1889-1975) work, ‘A Study of History’ has been acclaimed as the greatest single-handed historical achievement since Gibbon’s ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’. In his monumental work, he has examined the genesis, growth and decay of all the civilizations of mankind. He studies the genesis, growth and decay of 26 related and unrelated civilizations. Geographical factors alone do not determine the birth of cultures. Two factors are indispensable, one is the dynamic leadership of a creative minority and the second is a set of circumstances that are neither too favourable nor too unfavourable, but just right in proportion. This is followed by a mechanism called ‘Challenge and Response’. The birth of a civilization is the product of the interplay of challenges and responses. Challenge poses an issue and a response offers the solution. Civilizations grow due to the progressive and cumulative inward self-direction or self-articulation of the civilization. The secret of progress was what Toynbee calls ‘Etherialization’, which means spiritual purification. Decay is caused by (a) failure of creative power in the leadership (b) withdrawal on the part of the society and (c) consequent loss of social unity. The declining phase consists of (1) a breakdown of the civilization (2) disintegration and (3) Dissolution.

XI. Herbert Spencer held that history was a movement from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, from simple tribal systems to complex urban cultures. It has been labeled the evolution model. Spencer emphasized gradual and cumulative social change (evolution as opposed to revolution). It was essentially determined from within and described in terms of structural differentiation. Durkheim and Weber largely followed this trend in spite of serious differences.