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Perceptions of History. In Pursuit of the Absolute in Passing Time

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Mordecai Roshwald
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The way human history has been perceived through the ages - by historians, theologians, philosophers, and ordinary mortals - is itself a topic for a historical study. Our attempt will be more modest, as we shall try to analyse some prominent examples of such perception. Our approach will be illuminated by the notions of the transient and the absolute, as they are attributed, in various ways, to the historical manifestations by historiographers and historiosophers.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 47 , Issue 186 , June 1999 , pp. 44 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 1999

References

Notes

1. Herodotus, History, Book III, Chapters 39-43 & 122-125.

2. See Jacqueline De Romilly, Thucydide et L'Impérialisme Athénien, Société D'Edition ‘Les Belles Lettres,' Paris 1947, p. 90: ‘Everywhere imperialism is considered as a fact. It is against justice, and this is a regrettable situation. If, however, the moral censure is certain, it remains secondary…' (Translated by the present writer.) This judgement emphasizes the qualities of the historian rather than those of the moralist.

3. Polybius, World History, Book XXXIX, Chapter 8. Quoted from Arnold Toynbee, Greek Historical Thought, New American Library, Mentor Books, 1952, p. 202.

4. Genesis 18:18.

5. Deuteronomy 9:5.

6. Isaiah 10:15.

7. Isaiah 14:5.

8. Amos, Chapters 1 & 2.

9. Amos 3:2. The translation deviates from the King James version.

10. See, for example, Judges 3:7-10.

11. I Samuel, Chapter 16.

12. II Samuel, 12:11-12.

13. I Kings, Chapter 21.

14. II Kings 18:11-12.

15. See II Chronicles, Chapter 36, especially verses 14-20.

16. Deuteronomy 7:12-13. The King James version modified.

17. Deuteronomy 8:19-20. The King James version modified.

18. Psalm 79: 1-2 & 5. The King James version modified.

19. Micah 4:3-4.

20. Aurelius Augustinus, De Civitate Dei, Book IV, #4. The English translation by Marcus Dods, Edinburgh 1871.

21. It is such a nexus between the Prophets and Augustinus which justifies the concept of the Judeo-Christian civilization, so often referred to nowadays. Such affinity, to be sure, does not obliterate significant theolog ical differences between the two religious systems.

22. The opening paragraph of the ‘Essay on the Manners and Spirit of Nations,' quoted from The Portable Voltaire, edited by Ben Ray Redman, New York: The Viking Press, 1949, p. 547.

23. Quoted from the concluding paragraph of the above essay. The Portable Voltaire, p. 555.

24. ‘The English Parliament,' op. cit., pp. 512-521.

25. Letter to Frederick the Great of 26th August, 1736, op. cit., p. 439.

26. Abbé Charles Irénée Castel de Saint-Pierre, Projet pour rendre la paix perpetuelle en Europe, 3 vols., Utrecht 1713-1717.

27. The French phrasing is: ‘des biens inaliénables, la liberté, la vie, la fortune.' Encyclopédie, Vol. XI, p. 349, column b. Quoted from John Lough, The ‘Encyclopédie', New York: David McKay Company, 1971, p. 295.

28. John Locke, The Second Treatise of Civil Government (1690), Chapter II, par. 6.

29. Paul Henri Thiry D'Holbach, ‘Common Sense' (1772). Quoted from Les Philosophes, edited by Norman L. Torrey, New York: Capricorn Books, 1960, p. 197.

30. Antoine Nicolas de Condorcet, Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain, Fourth edition, Paris: Agasse, 1798, p. 3. Translated from the original by the present writer here and in the subsequent quotations. - An English translation available, entitled Outlines of an Historical View of the Progress of the Human Mind, Baltimore 1802.

31. Op. cit., p. 4.

32. Op. cit., pp. 3-4.

33. This is the descriptive title of the eighth epoch. See op. cit., p. 188.

34. Op. cit., pp. 246-247.

35. Op. cit., p. 145.

36. Op. cit., p. 333.

37. Op. cit., p. 336.

38. Isaiah 10:9.

39. Condorcet, op. cit., pp. 343-344.

40. Op. cit., p. 374.

41. Op. cit., pp. 375-376.

42. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philophie der Geschichte (1837), Sämtliche Werke, Stuttgart, 1928, Vol. 11, pp. 34-42. (Available in English translation under the title The Philosophy of History, New York, 1944.) References here and further are made to the German original. The quotations are trans lated by the present writer in the text, while the original is reproduced in the footnotes.

43. ‘Aber femer ist diese Vernunft immanent in dem geschichtlichen Deseyn, und vollbringt sich in demselben, und durch dasselbe.' Op. cit., p. 54. ‘Daseyn' or ‘Dasein' may be translated by ‘actuality' or ‘presence,' but ‘happening' seems to fit the context better.

44. Die Weltgeschichte ist ‘der vernunftige, notwendige Gang des Weltgeistes.' Op. cit., p. 36.

45. ‘…das Wesen des Geistes [ist] die Freiheit.' Op. cit., p. 44.

46. ‘…dass [des Geistes] Veränderungen nicht bloss … Rückgänge zu derselben Gestalt sind, sondem vielmehr Verarbeiterungen seiner selbst.' Op. cit., p. 113.

47. ‘die Entwicklung … ist im Geist ein harter unendlicher Kampf gegen sich selbst.' Op. cit., p. 90.

48. ‘Der Geist handelt wesentlich, er macht sich zu dem, was er an sich ist…' Op. cit., p. 113.

49. ‘die Geschäftsführer des Weltgeistes.' Op. cit., p. 61.

50. ‘Schlachtbank … auf welcher das Glück der Völker, die Weisheit der Staaten, und die Tugend der Individuen zum Opfer gebracht worden.' Op. cit., p. 49.

51. ‘Der Staat ist die göttliche Idee, wie sie auf Erden vorhanden ist.' Op. cit., p. 71.

52. Pieter Geyl, Debates with Historians, Groningen: J.B. Wolters and The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1955, p. 1. The subsequent discussion of Ranke uses the study of Pieter Geyl, though this does not mean that the present evaluation is identical with that of Professor Geyl.

53. Op. cit., p. 7.

54. Op. cit., p. 10.

55. Op. cit., p. 11.

56. Op. cit., pp. 9-10.

57. Quoted by Geyl from Times Literary Supplement (1950), op. cit., p. 12.

58. Cf. Eugene Kamenka, The Ethical Foundations of Marxism, New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1962, pp. 132ff.

59. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1955, p. 9.

60. For a brief analysis of the decline and collapse of capitalism, see Frederick Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1883), New York: International Publishers, 1935, Chapter III.

61. F. Engels, op. cit., p. 69.

62. F. Engels, op. cit., p. 70.