The Sense of History and the Historical World and Life View-I
This and the subsequent chapter look at ‘historicism’. Historicism is the absolutization of one of the modal aspects. Elsewhere Dooyeweerd wrote:
Historicism is the fatal illness of our ‘dynamic’ times. There is no cure for this decadent view of reality s long as the scriptural creation motive does not regain its complete claim of our life and thought. Historicism robs us of our belief in abiding standards; it undermines our faith in the eternal truths of God’s Word. Historicim claims that everything is relative and historically determined, including one’s belief in lasting value. (Roots p. 61)
In this chapter Dooyeweerd traces the development of historicism from Vico to Spengler and Dilthey.
Summary
introduction pp. 61-63
One of the symptoms of the crisis at the end of the nineteenth century was the rise of historicism: a historistic world and life view. History becomes the place from which we view all things; everything is reduced to history. Destiny and inescapable fate rule.
Oswald Spengler’s influential The Decline of the West declared the end of history, and made way for existentialism. Tonybee’s work on world history also shows the influence of Spengler – though it is not so pessimistic.
Oswald Spengler (1880-1936)
Arnold Toynbee (1989-1975)
British historian
the origins of historicism pp 63-66
The rise of historicism can be traced back to Vico, but it wasn’t until the time of the Restoration that it gained ground.
Giambattista Vico (1668-1744)
Professor of Rhetoric at the University of Naples and author of The New Science.
Aquinas and the medieval church held to a nature-grace religious motive. Nature can be known by rational thought, but subordinated by a supra-natural grace. This means that philosophy is subjected to ecclesiastical control. It unwittingly paved the way for humanist philosophy initiated by Descartes, where nothing apart from human reason was acknowledged.
Descartes and Hobbes: the science-ideal pp 66-70
Descartes and Hobbes had a mathematical view of the world; the world was a mechanism. This view left no room for autonomous human freedom. This showed up the conflict and tension within the nature-freedom basic motive.
Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
Famous for his ‘cogito ergo sum’, ‘I think, therefore I am’. Author of Meditations on First Philsophy
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
Puritan author of Leviathan (1651). He was a vehement opponent of Descartes.
There was a constant shift in the emphasis either on freedom (the personality-ideal) or on nature (the science-ideal). The emphasis on the science ideal led to God being viewed as the great geometer. Human society was even constructed in this pattern. The state was given absolute sovereignty, consequently it absorbed all human freedom.
Gottfied Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716)
In his Discourse on Metaphysics V he describes God as an excellent geometer and as a good architect.
freedom-motive reaction pp 70-72
The eighteenth century had seen a fundamental criticism of Cartesian philosophy. Locke developed the doctrine of human rights and the liberal state idea. Rouseau once more emphasised freedom. Kant was influenced by Rousseau. Kant placed human freedom in the supra-sensory kingdom of ethics. This meant it could not be proved or refuted.
John Locke (1632-1704)
Influential British philosopher and author of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
Author of The Social Contract (1762)
God was no longer a mathematician but the ‘deified image of the autonomous free human personality in its ethical aspect’.
Nature and freedom were sharply separated. This separation corresponded to the separation of science and faith. However, the science-ideal was not completely overthrown.
restoration period pp 72-78
Post-Kantian idealistic philosophy (eg Hegel and Schelling) rejected the Kantian view of the legalistic ideal human personality, the ethical rule of behaviour can only come from the ‘concrete individuality of the human personality’. This irrationalistic view absolutizes the human subjectivity which was bound to the community. Individuals do not exist, community or nation is everything.
The national mind creates its culture in an organic process of historical development.
Schelling identified nature and the free spirit as two forms of appearance of the absolute. The organic form of nature developed into ever higher forms. History knows no general laws, however it is guided by this organic development which is an expression of the absolute spirit.
Friedrich Julius Stahl (1802-1861)
Lutheran Jew he founded the antirevolutionary party in Germany and was an influence on Groen van Prinsterer.
This Historical School rejected the science-ideal approach; they developed a historistic image of reality.
Many Christians joined the Historical School thinking it gave them an ally against the philosophy of the French revolution without realising it was rooted in a pagan basic motive. The concept of the development of history could be in accordance with the concept of providence.
Stahl accepted the conclusion that the hidden law of history was a rule for human behaviour.
The historicst world-picture eventually undermined human belief: human belief was the historical product of a particular mind of culture. The radical form of Spengler was held in check by a belief in the progress of humankind. The breakdown of the belief in western civilisation led to the rise of a radical form of historicism.
radical historicism pp 78 – 82
Comte’s positivism subjected Christian and Humanistic belief to the historicist view. Comte’s Positivism restored the scientific mode of thought while retaining the new historicist approach.
Marxism gave Hegel’s idealism view a materialistic slant. Both Marx and Comte had a positive view of the gaol of history.
The more radical form of historicism did not have any positive belief.
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775-1854)
Schelling, Fichte and Hegel were the three main architects of German idealism.
Augustus Comte (1798-1857)
French founder of Positivism
Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-1883)
William Dilthey (1883-1911)
German philosopher
Key terms
historicism The absolutization of the historical modal aspect.
Volkstgeist the spirit of the people
Schicksal
Review questions
1. What is historicism?
2. Why is historicism so pessimistic?
3. How did Spengler’s work pave the way for existentialism?
4. Why is Toynbee’s work not as pessimistic as Spengler’s?
5. How do Comte’s three states illustrate the historicist view?
6. What made many Christian thinkers join the Historical school?
7. Is Marxism a Christian heresy?
8. How did idealism contribute to the development of historicism?
Study questions
1. At the end of the Cold War Francis Fukuyama wrote an article ‘The end of history?’ National Interest (1989) and a book The End of history and the Last Man in what ways is his work an expression of historicism?
2. Why should historicism prove to be so pessimistic?
3. What were the factors that gave rise to historicism?
Taking it further
Dooyeweerd ‘History, historicism, and norms’ Roots of Western Culture ch 3.
