Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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Historism on Unity - Dictionary of Arguments
Gadamer I 212 Unity/History/Historicism/Gadamer: If the reality of history is conceived as a game of forces, this thought is obviously not enough to make its unity necessary. Even what Herder and Humboldt were led by - the ideal of the richness of phenomena of the human, does not as such establish true unity. It must be something that, in the continuity of events, turns out to be a guiding goal. In fact, the place occupied in the historical-philosophical eschatologies of religious origin and in their secularized variations is here at first empty(1). No pre-opinion about the meaning of history is to be formed before the exploration of it. Nevertheless, the self-evident precondition of its exploration is that it forms a unity. Thus Droysen can explicitly recognize the idea of the unity of world history itself - even if it is not a substantive idea of Providence's plan - as a regulative idea. Meanwhile there is a further precondition included in this postulate, which determines its content. The idea of the unity of world history includes the uninterrupted continuity of the development of world history. This idea of continuity is also initially formal in nature and does not imply any concrete content. It too is like an a priori of research, inviting us to delve deeper and deeper into the intertwining of the world-historical context. In this respect it is only to be judged as a methodological naivety of Ranke when he speaks of the "admirable continuity" of historical development(2). What he really means by this is not at all this structure of continuity itself, but rather the content-related things that are formed in this continuous development. >Unity/Ranke, >Continuity/Ranke. Gadamer I 214 HistoricismVsHegel: (...) the historical school was not able to accept Hegel's justification of the unity of world history by the concept of the spirit. That in the completed self-consciousness of the historical present the path of the spirit to itself is completed, which constitutes the meaning of history - that is an eschatological self-interpretation, which basically abolishes history in the speculative concept. Instead, the historical school saw itself forced into a theological understanding of itself. If it did not want to suspend its own nature of thinking of itself as progressive research, it had to relate its own finite and limited knowledge to a divine spirit, to whom things are known in their perfection. Ranke/Gadamer: It is the old ideal of infinite understanding, which is still applied here even to the knowledge of history. Thus Ranke writes: "The God - if I may dare to make this remark - I think to myself in such a way that, since no time lies ahead of him, he overlooks the entire historical humanity in its entirety and finds it equally worthy everywhere"(3). Gadamer: Here the idea of the infinite mind (intellectus infinitus), for whom everything is at once (omnia simul) transformed into the archetype of historical justice. The historian who knows all epochs and all historical phenomena equally before God comes close to him. Thus the consciousness of the historian represents the perfection of human self-consciousness. The more he succeeds in recognizing the own indestructible value of every phenomenon, and that is to say: to think historically, the more godlike he thinks(4). For this very reason Ranke has compared the office of a historian with that of a priest. "Directness to God" is for the Lutheran Ranke the actual content of the Christian message. 1. Cf. K. Löwith, Weltgeschichte und Heilsgeschehen (Stuttgart 1953), and my article „Geschichtsphilosophie“ in RGG3. 2. Ranke, Weltgeschichte IX, 2 Xlll. 3. Ranke, Weltgeschichte IX, 2, p. 5, p. 7. 4. »Denn das ist gleichsam ein Teil des göttlichen Wissens« (Ranke, ed. Rothacker p. 43, similar to p. 52)._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Historism Gadamer I Hans-Georg Gadamer Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik 7. durchgesehene Auflage Tübingen 1960/2010 Gadamer II H. G. Gadamer The Relevance of the Beautiful, London 1986 German Edition: Die Aktualität des Schönen: Kunst als Spiel, Symbol und Fest Stuttgart 1977 |
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Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2024-04-28