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A Pluralistic View of History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

Extract

History presents us with a unity which is also a plurality. Both materialism and idealism subordinate the plurality to the unity, interpreting the particular either in terms of racial and social laws, or in terms of a unitary Idea or Spirit; and both, when developed to their logical conclusion, lead to a denial of significance to individual personality. According to the opposite point of view ‘objective spirit’ and economic ‘laws’ are equally abstractions of an individual’s mind, whose existence as a separately willing and experiencing self is prior and irresolvable. The problem is then to account for the unity of history in terms of individuals who are historically related but essentially (or existentially) separate.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1933

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References

page 321 note 1 Theory and History of Historiography, trans, by Ainslie, Douglas, p. 54.Google Scholar

page 322 note 1 Cf. Selected Essays. Introduction by H. Temperly.

page 323 note 1 Op, cit., p. 156 et seq.

page 325 note 1 Selected Essays, p. 69.