Author: Zhang Wenjie
Originally published in Studies in Historical Theory, No. 3, 1998
1. Review
The first to use the term "philosophy of history" was the French philosopher Voltaire. Voltaire published his book The Philosophy of History in 1765, written specifically for the Marquise de Châtelet, initially in a single edition. Later, this book was included as an "introduction" in the book "On Customs".
The book "Treatise on Customs" was also written specifically for Madame Chatley. For Voltaire, the "philosophy of history" seeks to understand history as a whole, the principles that govern it and the meaning it may imply.
Voltaire believed that the study of history should not be merely a accumulation of historical facts, but should be understood at a philosophical or theoretical level. This term coined by Voltaire soon gained a permanent place in the field of philosophy and history. We will talk about Voltaire later.
Historical works are records of human activities that have occurred in the past, and the work of historians cannot simply be limited to knowing or determining historical facts, but seeking out certain principles or laws of historical development and change from the historical events and historical facts that have occurred in the past, and it is also necessary to raise the ideas expressed in the activities of historical figures to a theoretical height and to sum up a theoretical point of view, which is what historians have to do.
The so-called philosophy of history in modern times generally refers to the historical philosophy of Western idealism. The Marxist science of the universal laws governing the development of human history is called the "materialist view of history", referred to as the "materialist view of history".
The "philosophy of history" is to study history from a philosophical point of view, to study the laws of historical development, to study how historians study history, what methods they use to study history, and how they view history. Times are constantly changing, and so are scientific and philosophical concepts.
The meaning of the term "philosophy of history" will continue to change with the different times and the changes in philosophy and scientific concepts. The study of the laws of historical evolution and the attempt to find a pattern, or a law, in the course of historical development, is the main task of speculative philosophy of history.
Speculative philosophers of history believe that in the course of human history there will be some kind of universal plan or predetermined plan, and some kind of all-encompassing purpose or pattern, a belief that is very deeply rooted, manifested in different forms at different times, in different places. What is the nature of historical knowledge? What is the nature of historical understanding? These questions need to be answered by analytical or critical philosophers of history.
Analytical or critical philosophers of history try to understand the nature of the historian's own research and to find the place occupied by the historical institute on the map of knowledge. The object of speculative philosophy of history is the whole historical process, which explains and expounds the path and direction traveled by the historical process; while the analytic or critical philosophy of history is not interested in the process of historical development itself, and focuses its energy mainly on the study of the process, nature and category of history in which historians are inquiring and understanding history.
It can also be said that "the speculative philosophy of history is the metaphysics of historiography, while the philosophy of history of analysis is the epistemology of history" (Mr. He Zhaowu). Judging from the general development trend in the West now, the historical philosophy of analysis or criticism seems to have the tendency to gradually replace the speculative philosophy of history. The 20th century may not have had a great speculative philosopher of history in the West except Fordynbee.
The modern philosophy of Western history began with the French Thinker Voltaire of the Age of Enlightenment and the Italian philosopher Vico, which is generally a foregone conclusion in Western academic circles. But when did the modern Western philosophy of history begin? It is generally believed to have begun in 1938. This division is due to the fact that two important works were published in the year: the French philosopher Raymond Aaron's Introduction to the Philosophy of History and Mandelbaum's The Problem of Historical Knowledge. At the time, the two books did not have a great direct impact among people in English-speaking countries, and Aaron's books were not published in English until 1961.
However, these two books are the first official works to deal with the question of historical understanding, and they introduce readers in their respective countries to a controversy about historicism in Germany in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By 1951, Walsh's Philosophy of History– An Introduction to History was published, and the term "analytic or critical philosophy of history" began to appear, and "analytic or critical philosophy of history" began to replace "speculative philosophy of history" and become a new discipline in opposition to it. This shift is inseparable from the rise and boom of Western analytic philosophy.
Since the philosophy of history of analysis officially took the stage, the focus of historical philosophers has gradually shifted from the study of historical facts and historical processes in the past to the question of the nature of historical thinking and historical knowledge, that is to say, to the question of how the subject understands the object of history.
The advent of the international philosophical journal of history, History and Theory, was founded in the early 1960s, and its emergence was undoubtedly a great thing for the study of the philosophy of history. Its inaugural publication shows that in Western academia, the discipline of historical philosophy has received due attention. Over time, people will learn more and more about its important role.
Some of the famous western philosophers of history have served on the editorial board of this magazine. Why is the founding of TheOry of History so important? Because in the West, especially in Britain, there are some people who do not recognize the existence of the philosophy of history, so the emergence of this magazine is of great significance, and many British philosophers such as Walsh have participated in the editing of this magazine.
The study of the philosophy of history is an interdisciplinary study, which involves two disciplines, history and philosophy, two different fields of knowledge, but it is not a simple combination of the two, which cannot but add certain difficulties to those who study it. To study the philosophy of history, it is necessary to have two kinds of knowledge: one is to have a rich historical knowledge; the other is to have a deep philosophical foundation.
The contemporary American historian G.G. Iggers once said: "The philosophy of history is conditioned by a double requirement: in the historical aspect, the special characteristics of history (or the question of what those characteristics are) cannot be ignored; in the philosophical aspect, the discipline of history can be considered comparable to other forms of research and knowledge." Moreover, the various philosophical schools in the contemporary West, such as Neo-Kantianism, Neo-Hegelianism, Positivism, Existentialism, Logical Positivism, Hermeneutics, Semiotics, Structuralism, etc., have all had varying degrees of influence on the study of Western historical philosophy.
Of course, it should be noted that the most taboo thing about the study of the philosophy of history is to add a certain philosophical school to the philosophy of history, and it is not correct to think that there is a philosophical school of philosophy in the West.
We can also borrow some of Berner's views, he once said in his talk about the philosophy of science, the natural sciences are reluctant to study the philosophy of science, and the people who are engaged in philosophy do not despise to study, resulting in very few people studying the philosophy of science (of course, in the last two or three decades the study of the philosophy of science has flourished, but it was a situation at that time). The study of the philosophy of history has a similar situation to the philosophy of science.
Ii. The Historical Philosophy of Christianity
Ancient Greek civilization had brilliant achievements. It produced great historians like Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybias, and Plutarch; it also produced great philosophers like Plato and Aristotle. Strictly speaking, however, the Greeks did not create a true philosophy of history.
The first person to consciously create the philosophy of history is the early Christian priest St. Augustine, whose City of God was the first such work. From the Middle Ages to the early modern period, the theological view of history has dominated. The history of mankind is seen as a drama of providence.
St. Augustine was born in Tagist, North Africa, to a pagan father and a devout Christian mother. Augustine received an orthodox classical education in his hometown. In 391 AD he was promoted to bishop of the African city of Hippo. His major works include: "The City of God", "Confessions", "On the Trinity" and so on.
The German philosopher Jaspers said: "Augustine's work is like a mine, with gems and gold veins buried deep in piles of rocks." Later philosophers of history have a responsibility, and it is necessary to develop and utilize these "gems" and "gold."
The City of God was inspired by the Visigothic conquest of Rome. The triumphs of these nomads and their atrocities, especially the "humiliation of Christian women by barbaric soldiers," deeply stimulated the hearts of St. Augustine, the capital of the civilized world, and made Augustine meditate on secular civilization.
He seeks to save humanity with a supernatural destiny. The result of this contemplation was the first work on the philosophy of history, The City of God. "City of God" took more than a decade of Augustine's efforts. In the book, he laments the demise of the Roman Empire and the fact that all "earthly cities" have a day of demise. He believes that since the birth of mankind, there have been two cities: one is the "City of God" and the other is the "City of Earth". The history of mankind is the triumph of the City of God over the Earthly City.
The City of God is a typical exposition of the medieval Christian view, according to St. Augustine, where history is a drama of atonement for the sins of the world. History is the eternal struggle between earthly and Elysium, the City of God. The earthly world is the world of the devil, the society of evil, the world of sinful human beings, which is corrupted by earthly pleasures and material benefits, and is therefore destined to be punished permanently.
The kingdom of heaven is different, where there is a society of redeeming and eternally happy saints and other righteous people. For Augustine, the history of mankind as a whole can be explained by a single conception. This is where all our philosophies of history come from.
Augustine's arguments for answering all historical questions come not from the study of empirical facts, but from the apocalypse. These ideas of Augustine reflected the state of social thought as a whole during the collapse of the Roman Empire, and it had a profound impact on the later philosophy of religion and laid the theoretical foundation for scholastic philosophy.
In fact, the emergence of a kind of thought is not isolated, it is closely related to the society at that time. The demise of the Roman Empire stimulated St. Augustine, and just as Toynbee's historical research was also due to World War II. So the philosophy of history does not come out of thin air.
More than a thousand years after Augustine, another philosopher of history appeared in France, Bauchetère. Bauschère was a historian of the early modern period in France who published his Treatise on General History in 1681. The City of God and the General History are arguably the two most important works in the Christian philosophy of history.
Of course, the impact and importance of Bauscheat's writings cannot be compared with Augustine's, but his writings represent the end of the Christian philosophy of history. Boschère considered religious myths as historical facts, conflating them as true historical facts. He always looked for God's plan in human action. What Boucher argues in his Treatise on General History is:
Human history is designed by a higher intelligence, and the rise and fall of nations is determined by divine will. Boschère's philosophy of history still represents the theological stage. After Bauchey, as history moved from the Middle Ages to the modern era, the Christian philosophy of history began to decline and showed a trend of no successor. Thus there has not been a systematic Christian philosophy of history.
For Christian thinkers, history itself is a one-time occurrence, it has a beginning: Genesis; it has a midpoint: the birth of Christ; it moves forward to an end—the Final Judgment. Because time is so limited, all nations must complete their destiny between Adam's creation and the Final Judgment. From this, time acquires a vector; it is irreversible.
Iii. A precedent for the secularization of the philosophy of history
--Vico and Voltaire
Gucci once said of medieval historiography:
"The medieval air was permeated with a strong theological smell, and the influence of Augustine, almost like a material force in a thousand years, pressed against the minds of Europeans, preventing them from paying attention to secular history and its problems. Since everything is attributed to Divine Will, the search for natural causation is also seen as completely unnecessary, if not an act of trespassing. In this way, history becomes a sermon, not a science, a validation of Christ, rather than an attempt to objectively trace and explain the course of civilization. ”
The Renaissance was a movement of intellectual secularization, in which the joyful psychology of pride in man's intellect and human beauty replaced the melancholy asceticism of the medieval ideal, and the study of man's achievements in the world replaced the contemplation of man's spiritual qualities and the posthumous situation, and this new spirit was also reflected in the field of historical studies, and humanist historiography quickly spread throughout Europe. So the secularization of the philosophy of history began after the Enlightenment.
The philosophy of history in the 18th century entered its modern period. Thanks to the progress of natural science, the concept of the laws of nature gradually prevailed in people's thinking. People paid attention to the natural sciences, and philosophy began to take as its subject the relationship between the human mind and the natural world around it. The focus of modern philosophy is "man", "self", and man is the subject of philosophy. This trend influenced the development of the philosophy of history.
Philosophers look at history from the "human" side, not from the "God" side. Modern historians no longer regard "God" as the center of history, but take human beings as the object of historical research. For the thinkers of the Enlightenment, the age of religious and metaphysical speculation about the fate of human affairs is over, and now a new explanation is to be presented on the basis of facts, freeing people from ignorance, vacillation and primitive superstition.
The question of who first established the philosophy of modern history is said differently in the West. Some think it's the French thinker Voltaire, while others think it's the Italian philosopher Vico. In fact, Voltaire and Vico, two people, each made their own contribution to laying the foundation of modern historical philosophy.
Vico has made a prominent contribution to transforming history into a "new science" and awakening people's sense of history. He strives to seek the laws of historical development outside of God's will. The Enlightenment of the 18th century believed that the awakening of reason could enable people to understand history and grasp the future. In 1725 Vico published his magnum opus, The Principles of a New Science of the Nature of Nations, from which some new principles of natural law of nations were derived, or New Science for short. In 1986, the People's Literature Publishing House published a Chinese translation of Mr. Zhu Guangqian.
This book can be said to be the beginning of the secularization of the philosophy of history, which deals with the principles of a new science common to all peoples. Vico strives to systematically transform history into a "new science" and to awaken people's sense of history. Vico was the first to theoretically distinguish between antiquity, medieval, and modern times. Unlike Christian thinkers, what he was really concerned with was the study of the natural laws of history, and arguably the study of the natural processes of man himself, which had nothing to do with supernatural intervention.
Vico's great discovery is that the history of the world was created by man, and therefore its principles can be found in the changes in the human mind itself. He said in New Science:
"The world of civil society (i.e., civil society or civil society— the usher) is indeed created by human beings, so its principles must be found in the various changes in our own human minds. Anyone who ponders on this point cannot but be surprised that in the past philosophers devoted themselves to the study of the natural world, which, since it was created by God, is known only to God; in the past philosophers neglected the study of the world of nations or the world of civil affairs, and since this world of civil affairs was created by mankind, mankind should hope to know it. ”
Vico divides history into three periods: first, the age of God; second, the age of heroes; and third, the age of man or the age of civilization. Although Vico is Catholic, in Vico's role in history is only indirectly through the humanity he created, and no longer intervenes directly. However, such a pioneering work of modern historical philosophy was not familiar to people for a long time.
Voltaire was a famous thinker and historian of the Age of Enlightenment. His major historical works include: The Biography of Charles XII (1731), The Age of Louis XIV (1756), and The Treatise on Customs. Voltaire was the first to use the term "philosophy of history." In 1765 he published his book under the title Philosophy of History. He wrote about the history of civilization rather than the history of kings. This caused a revolution in writing history and interpreting history. He sought the spirit of the nation, its habits, its customs, and so on.
Voltaire studied the main objects of law, art and fashion. Only historical facts that can play a major role can be written into it. It was in this spirit that he wrote his Age of Louis XIV. When he wrote this work, he did not write a biography of the monument to louis XIV, but mainly to describe the era in which louis XIV lived.
Voltaire said:
"Whenever possible, I oblige myself to write a history of customs, science, law, habits, and superstitions. What I saw was almost everywhere just the history of the king; what I wanted to write was the history of the servants. ”
Voltaire wrote the history of the world, not the history of a certain region or a certain people. In particular, he objected to the so-called history of the world using the small people of Jews as the object of its description and the basis for its arguments. He despised the so-called works of world history that left three-quarters of the world behind him.
In his view, historians should make choices consciously and for a certain purpose. The whole interpretation of history should be subordinated to a directed value, an ideal means. Voltaire explained that the oriented values and ideals on which all human beings depend are those of the Enlightenment philosophy: the perfection of human beings in the fields of art and science of reason, freedom, tolerance, peace, and the mind.
In Voltaire's view, not everything that has happened in history is worth writing about, only the kind of things that can describe people's talents and habits, those things that can serve as lessons and exhortations to love virtue, art and motherland. Thompson once said of Voltaire, who believes that Voltaire has two major contributions:
First, he was the first scholar to observe history as a whole; second, he understood history as a record of the manifestation of all human activities. This includes art, scholarship, science, customs, habits, food, technology, entertainment and all aspects of everyday life.
In Voltaire's view, understanding history should be made from the big picture, not the minutiae. Because "in this way, when we study history, we can see the ancient and the modern in a panoramic way, and we will not fall into confusion." Voltaire believed that history should not be based on miracles, nor on myths, but on historical facts. He completely repudiated those who have always written history according to myths and legends.
He said: "Most of humanity was, and will remain, absurd and stupid for a long time to come; and the most absurd are probably those who try to find some meaning in these absurd myths and to mix a little reason in religious fanaticism."
Voltaire greatly appreciated China. In his view, such absurdities can only be seen in Chinese laws, religions and customs. Therefore, only China's history has real reliability. "While other peoples have fictional allegorical myths, while Chinese have written their histories with brushes and celestial gauges in their hands, they are unpretentious and unpretentious and have no precedent elsewhere in Asia," he said. ”
Voltaire gave a high evaluation of the history of ancient China. In his view, Chinese history books "without any fiction, without any miracles, without any divinely inspired demigod figures." From the very beginning, this nation has written history reasonably. "Only Chinese religion in the world that has been able to write history free from all superstitions and barbarism.
Voltaire said: Everything on earth has changed, but only virtue has never changed. Voltaire's contribution to the philosophy of history also lies in the fact that he wrote the history of the world, not just the history of the West. This path opened by Voltaire became the norm followed by later philosophers of history, including Spengler and Toynbee. Voltaire took a decisive step in the secularization of the philosophy of history, which was a very difficult step in the Middle Ages. He insisted that infidels could play an important role in civilization.
Voltaire tried to interpret all events of history and nature as the inevitable product of universal laws. Although he sometimes resorted to God, Voltaire's God was neither the God of St. Augustine nor the God of Bauches. In Voltaire, God became a metaphysical force. This means that, beginning with Voltaire, the philosophy of history has moved from the theological stage to the metaphysical stage.
The German historian Menik once said of Voltaire: Voltaire's God is a bourgeois God who protects man. In a series of Voltaire's writings, including his popular satirical novels, he bitterly ridiculed the doctrine of providence, and he understood historical events as a combination of necessity and chance in the natural process. On the one hand, he attacked theological teleology and regarded the theocracy of the medieval church as the rule of darkness; on the other hand, he believed in the progress of history, that is, history in the struggle of light against ignorance and ignorance.
It was not until Condorcet at the end of the 18th century that God disappeared from the philosophical interpretation of history. Condorcet was an outstanding figure of the Enlightenment, and his main work was Esquisse d'un tableau des progres de l'esprit humain (Compendium of the History of the Progress of the Human Spirit). He preached a progressive view of history, which had an inspiring effect. He denied and discarded the Christian conception of God and affirmed the meaning of real life. He tried to find answers from the development of history. Condorcell believed that human progress is subordinated to a certain universal law, and that knowing this law helps to foresee.
The Influence of 19th-Century Positivist Philosophy on the Philosophy of History
Advocates of positivist philosophy were: Condosay, Turgot (1727-1781), Hume, Gibbon, Bakr, Tainer, and Comte. Positivists believe that all areas of human knowledge begin gradually from the supernatural theological stage, through the speculative metaphysics stage, and reach the empirically based "empirical" or scientific stage.
They tried to introduce the methods of the natural sciences into the field of historical study, arguing that it was possible to develop a social science that was similar in method and generality to the natural sciences, and thus to systematically expound the laws of historical development. However, they ignore the different nature of these two sciences, and although their methods can be borrowed or even quoted, they cannot be completely replaced.
At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the representative historians of the positivist school were: Ravitz, Senobos, Olal and others, who accepted the positivist philosophy and wanted to turn history into empirical science. They reduce the task of history to the correct examination and description of historical facts, mainly in the field of political history and intellectual history, and refuse to make comprehensive generalizations of historical facts.
The emergence of the positivist school was inseparable from the unprecedented success of the natural sciences in the 19th century. First Laplac's astronomy, then Darwin's theory of evolution, when science and the industrial revolution complemented each other. Philosophically, in France there was Comte who advocated positivist philosophy, and Tainer applied positivist philosophy to the study of literary and art history.
Positivist philosophy not only denies theology, but also considers speculative philosophies to be metaphysical, seeking to establish a scientism. Colinwood defines positivism as "philosophy at the service of the natural sciences, just as in the Middle Ages philosophy served theology." Collingwood argues that the positivist view of the natural sciences is very shallow.
In their view, the natural sciences consist of two things: first, the determination of facts; and second, the law of composition. "The processes of history are, for positivists, in nature the same as those of nature, and this is why the methods of the natural sciences can be applied to the interpretation of history." Tenner proposed the determinism of the natural environment, and he measured the products of all minds by the three criteria of race, environment, and time.
The British historian Bakr also believes that human society is regular, and in his view, historical research must rely on the methods of natural science, and human beings are subject to the law of causality.
What positivists seek is the law that governs historical change. Comte proposed a three-stage (theological, metaphysical, scientific, or empirical) historical theory of the development of the human spirit. He deliberately made historical research imitate the natural sciences. And try to align history with the natural sciences. They look at history with the eyes of pure natural science, and they think of history as a science.
Establish the facts first, and then draw conclusions from them. They respect historical facts. The French historian Villar argues that positivism, and later a new positivism of subjectivism, argues that this new positivism is more popular among philosophers than among historians. They admit that it is the duty of historians to study what has already happened without asking why they happened, and to constantly explain the infinite changes in personnel, thus proving that there is never a necessity at the mercy of personnel. Positivism is in fact the imposition of natural sciences into the field of historical research without analysis.
Walsh once said of positivism, saying that the "purpose of positivism is to sift out real knowledge from pure superstition and speculation, and to provide a means of placing topics previously considered as metaphysical areas of speculation on a sound scientific basis." This philosophy had a great influence on the historiography of the 19th century, and its main architect was the French writer Auguste Comte. Walsh argues that Comte wants to "cram facts into a rigid framework" and that "it is constructed to suit Comte's own prejudices." ”
The influence of positivism on the historiography of the 19th century was very great, and it greatly promoted the examination of historical records and the accumulation of historical materials. "The first important influence of science on the interpretation of history in the 19th century can be said to have made historians deeply aware of the importance of studying the roots of things." Positivists seek to liberate social phenomena from the theological and metaphysical bondage and to introduce laws in physics, chemistry, and biology into social studies.
Therefore, the significance of positivism to the study of history cannot be underestimated. Not only at that time, but also today there have been many people who believe in it, like the new school of american historiography now, which still emphasizes that the task of historiography is to comprehensively apply the achievements of modern science and technology, and the American historian Robinson is one of the main representatives. Robinson argues that historians do not necessarily grasp the principles of other neighboring sciences, and do not necessarily become anthropologists or psychologists, but they must make use of the doctrines that other scientists have provided to historiography, because this will enable historians to come up with new insights and correct erroneous views.
Not only that, but the result of this will lead to more valuable results in historiography. All the results of modern science will naturally penetrate into history, but we must also consciously apply the results of natural science to history. This should not be a problem, otherwise history cannot keep pace with the development of modern science. But we should also see that history is not a natural science after all, nor can it be based on natural science. Therefore, we must see both the contribution of positivism in the 19th century to the study of history, and the negative impact it has brought to history that cannot be underestimated.
Karl called the 19th century a "satisfying era for historians, filled with confidence and optimism," an "age of innocence in which historians walk in the Garden of Eden, without philosophy to cover their bodies, naked and unstretched in front of the eyes of history, the God."
V. The Historical Philosophy of German Idealism
If the academic garden of the 18th century was the only place for physics, then it can be said that history began to occupy a place in the 19th century. And the most prominent flower of historical philosophy and thought is Germany. Philosophers such as Kant, Hedel, Hegel, and ranked schools in the field of history, etc., came and went, and they came out of the limelight at that time.
Rank's famous quote is to "tell the truth as it is." He advertises the so-called "speaking with the facts". This is a typical "objectivist" historical research method, but in fact, this cannot be done. Because of this, the Rank school lacks theoretical summaries and generalizations of history.
German idealism, unlike historical cyclism and positivism, strictly distinguishes the field of history in cultural science from the natural sciences. Philosophers such as Kant and Hegel saw history as a process by which man and social institutions constantly conform to the idea of reason.
Emmanuel Kant was the founder of classical German philosophy. In Kant's view, human behavior, like any other natural event, is determined by universal laws of nature. Historiography describes this process of expression. Kant saw history as a process of development and evolution, and when we examine the whole of the role of human freedom of will, we can see that they have a regular process. Kant saw history as a process of development and evolution, but he also valued causality in historical events.
Strictly speaking, Kant did not specialize in the study of the philosophy of history. He wrote only one paper, Entitled "The General Historical Conception from the Point of View of the World Citizen," published in the Berlin Monthly, Vol. 4, 1784. His views were opposed by his student, Herdel, who wrote The Conception of the Philosophy of Human History.
To this end, Kant wrote a book review, "A > on the Philosophy of Human History in the < of Hedel" (published in the General Journal of Jena Literature) and "Speculation on the Origins of Human History" (in The Berlin Monthly, Vol. 7, 1788) as a reply to Helder. But Kant's influence on the philosophy of history cannot be underestimated. His treatise on the philosophy of history, "The General Conception of History from the Perspective of the Citizens of the World," theoretically exemplified his own and entire enlightenment views of history, thus raising the 18th-century view of history to a new philosophical height.
He proposed: "The history of mankind as a whole can be regarded as the fulfillment of a hidden plan of nature". Human history thus has the duality of both purposefulness (moving toward a goal) and regularity (unfolding according to a certain plan). As human beings move from the state of nature to the state of social politics, human nature gradually attains its perfect realization. This realization is history.
Kant was convinced that the perfection of human nature would eventually be fully realized in history, but this realization could not be in every individual, but only in the human collective, that is, in the whole course of history. And the manifestation of evil or selfishness in human nature in each person just happens to achieve the beauty of all mankind.
Kant saw history as a process of development of rational ideas that later influenced Fichte and Hegel. Cassiler hailed it as the fourth critique in addition to his three major critiques (Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practicality, and Critique of Judgment), the Critique of Historical Reason.
Hedel was a former student of Kant, and his book Ideen zur Philosophie der Menschengeschichte (The Philosophy of Human History) inherits the progressive ideas of the Enlightenment, who regarded history as progressive, but he rejected the view of history as a linear development. Hedel sought to combine nationality with the conviction that human reason was progressing.
Hedel proposed that every nation develops according to its own internal principle of development, so the characteristics of various histories and cultures should be examined from different epoch backgrounds and different national spirits, and history should be regarded as the product of the interaction between external (environment) and internal factors (spirit, especially different national spirits), which are the contributions of Hedel beyond his predecessors.
Heddell was also the first to use the term "philosophy of history" in the modern sense. Hedel acknowledges that there are differences between different races. He once spoke about Chinese civilization. He believes that the reason why China's civilization has become China's civilization is not because of China's geography and climate, but because of the characteristics of Chinese. If different races are placed in the same environment, they will also develop the resources of that environment in different ways, thus creating different civilizations. Therefore, the facts that play a decisive role in history are not the characteristics of ordinary people, but the characteristics of this person or that kind of person.
According to Casiler, Hedel was "the pioneer of a new view of historical truth." His writings can "resurrect" the history of the past and "bring to life" the moral, religious, and cultural life of the people of the past. Goethe greatly admired Hedel. In Goethe's view, Heddell could not only "dig gold" out of the garbage, but he could also regenerate the garbage itself into a living crop. ”
For Hegel, history is "one theosophical." He believes that the history of the world is full of scenes and events. But it is only a process of "spiritual" development and realization. And it is this process that confirms "God." "World history is, in general, the development of the 'spirit' in time, just as 'nature' is the development of 'ideas' in space." "'Philosophy' is concerned with only the brilliance of 'ideas' in the mirror of 'world history.'" Cassiler once said that "in Hegel's view, God not only has history, he is history". Hooke even claimed that in Hegel's view, history was "the autobiography of God."
Hegel's philosophy of history represents the metaphysical stage rather than the theological stage, for in Hegel God is an abstract, absolute or logical idea, a metaphysical force, not a supernatural actor.
According to Hegel, the absolute spirit reaches the highest degree of self-consciousness in philosophy, not in religion. For him, the only philosophy is the "proper" representation of the idea of absolutes. Hegel differed from the previous Enlightenment thinkers in their contempt for history, for whom history itself was not only reasonable, but it was also the development of reason itself (spirit or the spirit of the world).
Hegel divided history into three types:
The first is primitive history. Much of this history is the personal experience or personal witness of historians, who have evolved "external phenomena" into "inner ideas." Such is the case with the history written by the ancient Greek historians Herodotus and Thucydides. This kind of history is narrow in scope and is characterized by "no introspection";
The second is the history of introspection. Here the historian must use abstract ideas, use ideas to summarize everything;
The third is the history of philosophy. Hegel argues that the difference between philosophy and history is that history records events that have taken place in the present and in the past, and that "the efforts of the philosophical cause seem to be the exact opposite of those of historians."
The "philosophy of history" is nothing more than an "intellectual examination of history." And "the only 'thought' with which philosophy observes history is the simple concept of reason; 'reason' is the master of the world, and world history is therefore a rational process", and "reason" dominates the world and thus governs world history.
In Hegel's view, the "substance" of matter is gravity or gravitational attraction; the entity or "essence" of the face "spirit" is "freedom." "'Freedom' is the only truth of 'spirit,' a conclusion of speculative philosophy." Thus "the history of the world can be said to be the 'spirit' which continues to make the manifestation of its own 'spirit' lurking in itself", "the history of the world is nothing more than the progress of the consciousness of 'freedom'; this progress which we must recognize in its necessity." ”
Here, Hegel sees world history as the embodiment of a process of spiritual or conceptual development. The development of the "spirit" in time is "world history." What constitutes the longitude and latitude of world history are "ideas" and "human enthusiasm". Because in Hegel's view, without "passion", all great undertakings will not succeed.
For Hegel, the philosophy of history "is not a philosophical reflection on history, but the elevation of history itself into a higher power and its transformation into philosophy distinct from mere experience, that is, history is affirmed not only as such facts, but also by grasping why those facts occur as such." This philosophical history will be a universal history of mankind (here Hegel is following Hedel) and will show the progress of civilization from primitive times to the present day. ”
Hegel insisted that nature and history are different things, so he refused to study history through nature. He is right to distinguish between the non-historical processes of nature and the historical processes of human life; but it is wrong to emphasize this distinction by denying the doctrine of evolution. In his evaluation of Hegel, Collingwood said that in Hegel's view, the task of historians is not only to know what people have done, but to understand what they have thought.
The philosophy of history, from Hedel to Hegel, has been conducted in a non-empirical or counter-empirical direction. In Hegel, the "spirit of the world" is the only factor that dominates all history. Man becomes an instrument of history, and man's own role and meaning become something that he cannot understand.
History is the self-realization of the spirit, the expansion of freedom or the embodiment of freedom in the history of different epochs. The influence of This basic view of Hegel on the philosophy of history in later generations was enormous. These ideas were absorbed by Ranke, Kizot, and Croce, but were also opposed by Sainte-Beuve (1804-1869) and Burckhadt (1818-1897), as well as by twentieth-century analysts such as K. Popper (1902-).
The epitome of speculative historical philosophy in the twentieth and twentieth centuries
—Spengler and Toynbee
In the West in the 19th century, historical optimism prevailed. But by the beginning of the twentieth century, especially the harsh realities of the First World War, the optimism of many Westerners was dashed. Spengler's Book The Decline of the West, published shortly after the war, is a reflection of this pessimism.
In the preface to the first edition of his book The Decline of the West, Spengler bluntly declared that "the vision and theme of this book is the 'philosophy of history'", and he also called his philosophy of history "the historiography of cultural forms". For his main thrust in writing this book is to "describe, in contrast to the decline of the classical era, the history of a world that we ourselves are now entering into, which has lasted for centuries." ”
This book "contains ideas that are deeply rooted in the nature of history. Spengler wants to make a new exploration of the "history and philosophy of destiny." He himself considered two people to have the deepest influence on the formation of his doctrine: one was Goethe and the other was Nietzsche. He said that he found his method of morphology in Goethe's theory, that is, That Goethe contemplated natural phenomena in the form of the whole of nature; and Nietzsche gave him the "power to doubt."]
He offers a different set of perspectives. In his view, the traditional method, the method of dividing world history into antiquity, medieval and modern times, is the product of European pride and myopia. Instead, he used comparative studies between cultures and civilizations. He believed that history contained many civilizations from ancient times to the present, each of which had to go through a cyclical process of origin, growth, decline and demise.
In The Fall of the West, he challenged positivists and German idealists, both of whom believed that European civilization represented the culmination of human history, while Spengler believed that Western civilization was only one of many of the same civilizations, and that this civilization was on the verge of decline. At a time when people were feeling left and right about the fate of the world after the First World War, Spengler's views undoubtedly caused a small shock in the Western world. Is There any decline in Western civilization, and is there any hope? Become the center of people's attention. In a dim tone, Spengler predicted the decline of so-called Western culture.
Toynbee is the most famous exponent of the philosophy of history of contemporary Western speculation. Toynbee's philosophy of history is a return to the theological stage. In Toynbee's view, God is not only a historical fact, but also the highest historical fact, and religion is the only subject that deserves the attention of historians. Transforming history into theology is indeed the key to understanding the whole of Toynbee's philosophy of history. Toynbee wrote in the "Prologue" to Civilization Tested:
"There are different civilizations that meet each other, and because of their conflict, another society is born in this world—higher religions. However, this is not the purpose of the historian's inquiry, for no higher religion can be understood merely on the conditions of this world. The secular history of the higher religions is an aspect of life in heaven, and this world is a province of heaven. Thus history transitions to theology. ”
Some Chinese translations translate the last sentence of this passage as "Thus historiography transitions to 'science'", which is obviously wrong and full of meaning.
In the middle of this century, Toynbee's twelve-volume tome, Historical Studies, was published. From the publication of volumes 1-3 in 1934 to the publication of volume 12 in 1961, it took a total of 27 years. Volume 11 is a collection of atlases and geographical names, and volume 12, subtitled "Reconsideration", is a reply to its critics and a re-cleansing of his own thoughts. In his essay "My View of History", Toynbee stated his main argument as follows:
(i) The basic unit of historical research that is no less insignificant and understandable is "civilization", or "society", rather than what ordinary people call "nation" or "state";
Human history is philosophically "parallel" and "contemporaneous." Toynbee painted a general pattern of human history as follows:
1. The six-thousand-year history of human civilization can be divided into 21 civilizations, or 26 civilizations. The reason for the 26 civilizations is that it includes 5 civilizations that have stagnated. The five stagnant civilizations were: Polynesian, Eskimo, Nomadic, Spartan, and Ottoman. The remaining 21 civilizations, according to the first volume of The Study of History, are: Western society, Orthodox society, Iranian society, Arab society (these two societies are now merged into one Islamic society), Indian society, Far Eastern society, Greek society, Syrian society, ancient Indian society, ancient Chinese society, Minoan society, Sumaed society (or Sumerian society), Hertzian society, Babylonian society, Egyptian society, Andean society, Mexican society, Yugadan society, Mayan society... Orthodox society can also be divided into Byzantine Orthodox society and Russian Orthodox society; Far Eastern society can be divided into Chinese society and Korean Japanese society.
2. Every civilization goes through five stages: origin, growth, decline, disintegration, and demise.
3. The reasons for the origin and growth of civilization are: challenges and battles, successful responses to challenges; creative individuals or minorities are creative, while the uncreative majority is simply "imitating" the minority.
4. The reason for the decline of civilization is that the minority has lost its creativity, and is therefore no longer a creative minority, but degenerates into a ruling minority, and the majority no longer imitates, and thus produces "centrifugal detachment"; in this case, the minority cannot continue to rule, and the means of repression are adopted, the majority rise up to resist, and the period of civilization's decline has come.
5. The decline of civilization was marked by the birth of a "unified state" against which the proletarians founded the Church.
Toynbee was met with mixed praise in Western intellectual circles. Praisers argue that Toynbee opened up a new path in the study of the philosophy of history, and that his "discoveries" were comparable to Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton. Some people even think that the only theory that really discovers the laws of historical development is Toynbee's theory. However, there are also those who strongly oppose Toynbee's doctrine as a worthless pseudo-scholarship.
In any case, there is no doubt that Toynbee is an important historian of our time. In Toynbee's view, the study of history not only increases people's wisdom, but also historical thought is an absolutely indispensable factor in maintaining human life. Historical knowledge, he said, "is a chart that tells us where there are reefs." If we have the guts to use it, knowledge can become strength and salvation. This is a refutation of the "theory of the uselessness of history."
Many Western and Chinese scholars have compared Spengler to Toynbee and called them "historical cycleists." This does not seem to be very accurate. Because although Spengler and Toynbee have something in common, they also have fundamental differences. Spengler was a fatalist, a representative of pessimism, while Toynbee was different, a man above fate, who believed that fate could be changed, so he was an optimist.
Toynbee once compared history to a shuttle on a loom, and he thought that the shuttle, in its back-and-forth movement, could produce a variety of beautiful patterns; he likened history to a rotating wheel, and every time the wheel turned, it took a step forward. Thus it seems arbitrary to simply think of Toynbee as a "historical cyclist."
When Talking about the decline of civilization, Toynbee once lamented: Does every civilization have to perish? Spengler believed that every civilization would decline, but Toynbee didn't think so. Toynbee had a view that the establishment of a "unified state" was the beginning of the decline of civilization. He believes that since the birth of the unified state of Qin and Han in China, civilization has begun to decline. In fact, this is not in line with China's real history. He was in the service of his philosophy of history. Because he believes that the only civilization that has not declined is the civilization of the West, because the West has not yet formed a unified state, so it has not begun to decline (this view cannot be established). In his view, the flame of hope is still burning, and as long as people's subjective initiative is brought into play, it can change the fate of history. He once regarded the "theory of the cycle of history" as a fool's dream, saying that this is pure nonsense.
Some scholars in China once commented on Toynbee: "Toynbee, the British comparative historian, has made extensive comparative studies of various civilization systems in the world. He came to the view that the historical process is cyclical, and that once one civilized society has prospered, it will begin to decline; another civilized society will rise up and replace it with the same mistakes. In the final analysis, the development of civilized society depends on the development of spiritual factors, of which religious thought plays a key role. This obvious idealistic view of history is self-evident. ”
If the idea of a civilization's prosperity and then its decline is cyclical, how does history develop? From a macroscopic point of view, doesn't history develop from one civilization to another? So there seems to be a deeper evaluation of Toynbee, and I don't quite agree with that. Toynbee wants to exert human subjective initiative, in fact, it means that human history is not passive, and human beings can play an active role in the development process of history. This coincides with the materialist view of history.
The above briefly discusses the speculative philosophy of history in each of the different periods. Speculative philosophies of history attempt to explore the laws, laws, or meanings behind historical facts from different perspectives and in different aspects; yet they all carry the limitations of strong metaphysical ideas and lack rigorous, scientific, and logical analysis. Because of this, they cannot build a solid scientific system.
By the beginning of the 20th century, as a result of the proliferation of new discoveries and new theories in the natural sciences, natural philosophy in the old sense had quietly given way to the so-called scientific (or analytical) philosophy, and the speculative philosophy of history had increasingly given way to the critical (or analytical) philosophy of history. This trend, or this shift in emphasis, is inextricably linked in the philosophy of science to change in the field of the philosophy of history.
Although speculative philosophy of history played a considerable role in the late 18th and early 20th centuries, by the 20th century it seems to have ceased to be able to adapt to the current developments of society, science (both natural and social), and it is naturally inevitable that it will be replaced by an analytic or critical philosophy of history.
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