Ontological and historical responsibility

The condition of possibility

Vasil Penchev

Bulgarian Academy of Sciences: Institute for the Study of Societies of Knowledgevasildinev@gmail.com

“The Historical responsibility: from the myths of the past to the strategies of future”September 22-23, 2016 (22 Sep, 12:20 – 14:00)Yekaterinburg, Russia (Lenin av. 51,Ural Federal University, Room 314)

Reality as chosen

• The main thesis is:Ontological and historical responsibility refers to the choice

of reality• Thus one should suppose many realities, each of which its

own and unique histories, and correspondingly as many histories as realitiesHowever, history as science recognise only a single history

and a single reality, which can be well-defined only to the past, but not to future and even not to the present

Many worlds, many histories, many realities …

• It presupposes the concept of many realities or many worlds, one of which is chosen by the conscious or unconscious choice of human beingsHowever, the science of history does not discuss any choices

as far as any choice would imply an alternative reality together with its alternative and different history, to which

objective cognition seems to be impossibleThe only thinkable way out of the contradictory between

historical responsibility and historical objectivity implies redefinition and thus the “perestroika” of historical science and knowledge

The reality as a result of decision

• Thus, reality, in which people turn out to be, is their responsibility as far as it is a result of decisionTheir decisions or at least some of them, properly “historical

choices”, presuppose ontological responsibility• One can speak of both historical and ontological

responsibility as counterparts, each of which implies the other

Historical responsibility is properly temporal aspect of ontological responsibility or in other words, ontological

decision (figuratively speaking, God’s decision) as a series of people’s historical choices

Realism versus historical responsibility

• If on the contrary, reality, e.g. in the framework of “realism”, is granted as constant and given in advance, the problem of ontological and historical responsibility cannot arise in principleIndeed realism needs a single reality to serve as the criterion

of truth as far as many realities would imply many truths and alleged relativism or even nihilism

• So, the problem of historical responsibility implies a new kind of ontology, that of many realities, many histories and human choice between them, to be able to be questioned

Reality, history and objectivity

• If the case is other, reality is one single and necessaryThat case of a single reality can be considered as a particular

and degenerate case of the generalized ontology of many realities and many histories

• It can be described also as the identity of history and ontology where the single reality and history implies necessity such as experimental sciences mean as to nature

Then history (as physics, for example) abstracts its objectivity from the certain external necessity due to the

single reality and history

History in “conditional mood”

• In the same framework, that of the single reality, history “does not cognise the conditional mood” for it studies only the past as single as reality

That dogma seems to be justifiable as to the past, but absolutely inapplicable to future and even to the past

• If one accepts it as an axiom (as the mainstream of all historical sciences) the cognition of future and even that of the present turns out to be forbidden in principle

The application of history needs it to be applicable to the present at least, though

History, reality, and historical reality

• The past in singular seems to be the only possible subject of that kind of realistic history being a positive scienceHowever, the amount of facts referring to the past is so great that any historical investigation is forced to limit itself only to a

very, very small part of all facts therefore choosing anywaythat tiny part of facts as relevant to the investigation at issue

• Thus, even the classical historical research implies an implicit choice and interpretation of historical realityThat choice and interpretation is meant speaking that history

is written by the victors rather than by vanquished

The forbidden “history of future”• Therefore and particularly, the reference or cognition of

historical science to future is forbidden in principleHowever, future though being too uncertain for the contemporary scientific and historical objectivity is an

inherent aspect, part and modus of any historical process• Even more, many other sciences, for example those studying

nature, are much more related to future for they are able to make absolutely exact forecasts successful for practiceOn the contrary, history meaning changes in the course of

time as its subject does not possess any reliable methods for foreseeing future events

Objectivity for historical sciences• The mainstream in historical sciences prefers the objectivity of

historical descriptions of the past excluding any forms of counterfactual, alternative, many-pathways as non- and even antiscientific speculations in the domain of sci-fi at the bestIndeed, there are no reliable methods or criteria for estimation or

comparison for any alternative histories or realities: all of them are considered as equally possible or equally impossible results of

imagination• One needs certain new objectivity for historical sciences, able to

mean, describe, and eventually forecast precisely future historical events and processes even they do no take place in our reality and history

The other histories• Counterfactual or alternative history are rather marginal

according to the absence of reliable methods and criteria for distinguishing the different pathways of history and ways of choice for those of them, which are true in a generalized sense applicable to alternative historiesThe philosophical and methodological problem about that

truth both conserving free will (and free choice) featuring all historical process and objectivity is not yet resolved and

even clearly articulated• Those difficulties hint that a fundamental and therefore

philosophical change is needed for incorporating future and free will in historical sciences

Responsibility and choice• One the contrary, responsibility needs choice and alternatives in

definitionIndeed, the problem of choice and historical responsibility might be anyway investigated even in the too restricted framework of the

contemporary positive historical science in the special modus of “past perfect tense” and “future tense in the past”

• Certain actions being in past perfect tense to their historical intentions and results can be compared with those real historical events being in future tense in the past to the made choices However then, historical responsibility is a subject of judgement

or estimation of the past eventually punishing without direct influence to the present historical choices and prognoses

The problem of historical responsibility versus science of history

• Thus, the problem of historical responsibility cannot be asked as to the present and future within the standard approach of history

One should wait for decades and even centuries to be estimated or judged a certain historical choice remaining

those people really made the choice irresponsible for their choice for remoteness and prescription

• For example, the Nuremberg trials are an exception confirming the above statement just for their exceptionality and limitedness

History of time vs history of the past

• One needs that science of history which refers to the present and future not less that to the past therefore unifying them in an invariant approachIf that scientific kind of history existed, the problem of historical

responsibility would be able to be resolved in its wholeness rather than partly as until now

• The essence of the necessary history of time consists in the invention of how future and the past being clearly distinguished by the “arrow of time” to be anyway described uniformly by means of corresponding conception and notions

History … and quantum mechanicsQuantum mechanics resolves similar problems

• It is forced to study the genesis of reality among a spectrum of possible realities, one of which turns out to be chosen after measurement

It might can serve as a methodological paradigm for history• Quantum mechanics describes uniformly the past and future being

immediately forced to resolve its main problem: the unification of discrete (quantum) motion and smooth motion in classical mechanicsThat solution implies furthermore the solution of the described

above main problem of historical science: how to be described uniformly future (being only possible and probable) and the past

(being properly actual)

Part 2

One can guess at least a few directions of historical time for its “end” is nonsense: to space, to children, to higher mammals extensively or to

“super-humans” intensively

Part 3

Still one additional thesis:

• The establishment of universal history requires to be understood what time isTime is the transformation of the future into past by

the choices in the present• History should be grounded on that understanding of

historical time, which would include the present and future rather than only the past

History in tradition and universal history

• History refers to the past in tradition, i.e. to a limited and finite part of time, which is pastThus history refers immediately both to time and more

exactly to the past• What is past can be even neglected speaking of the history of

anything as some genusUniversal history can be understood as that genus

The well-distinguished entities of the past

• In the past, there are a variety of well-distinguished entities such as states, peoples, civilizations and anything elseEach of them can possesses a proper history often inconsistent

or partly consistent to all the rest• So, the past seems to be irrelevant as the medium of universality

for it is particular as to any item therefore suggesting that its history is particular and different from that of anything else

A set of histories instead a single one

• So the cherished universal history turns out to be a set of historiesThat set of histories can be defined both by some common property and by the description of all unique histories one by

one• History in tradition describes a set of unique histories of states

or nations slightly linked to each otherOne interpretation of universal history is it to understood as the

set of all those descriptions

The universal laws of history asthe common property of all histories

• One can research that set for universal or general laws instead of some collection of descriptions hardly linked to each otherThose laws can be in turn understood as the property featuring all members of the family implicitly meant as

participants in universal history• Consequently, universal history can be understood as some

theoretical research of history finding a few fundamental laws or principles

Logic of history and Reason in history

• Thus history can be represented more or lessas some logic of history or even as Reason in history after HegelIndeed all histories referring only to the past can be seen as a

collection of well-orderings and thus as some general logic of historical processes

• Hegel introduced the term of Reason in history to designate that logical and rational form of universal history suggesting action of some Reason in history

The common future of all historical entities• In fact, all entities such as states, nations,

civilizations and all the rest is unified by their common present and future and distinguished by unique and single past

All this does not allow of other universal viewpoint than the logical one as above if

history refers only to the past• The viewpoint to time as an unlimitedly

extendable past supports the understanding of universal history or even of history as logic

Time at all instead of only the past• Furthermore history can be seen as underlain by

another understanding of timeIt allows of generalizing the history from only the

past to all time including the present and future• Then universal history can be naturally defined as

the history referring to the present and future not less than to the pastIts core is the present, only in which any choice

can take place• The past is the result of those choices: One can say

that the present is the cause of the past

What is time?• History as the ontology of time requires to be

understood what time isIn turn time should be understand as a way

relevant to history• In fact history happens only now,

in the present, but it is always described as a pastThen time should be understand as a collision of

two quite different media, future and past• That collision is the present, which manages to

agree both different media to each other

What time is• Time is the transformation of the future into past

by the choices in the presentIn fact, the future is absolute unorderable and

unforecastable both in principle and in general• On the contrary, the past is absolute ordered,

more exactly well-ordered as well as absolute and even trivially forecastable as being unchangeable and known

• The one, which is able to agree them to each other is the choices of the present

Historical time• History should be grounded on that understanding

of historical time, which would include the present and future rather than only the pastIndeed historical time should be understood as way of making history rather that historiographic

time ascribing simply a certain date to any historical event

• Consequently, historical time is agrees and thus generalizes future and the past in the presentThus it essence is choice, i.e. the choices in the

present

Historical time vs. physical time

• One can distinguish historical time from physical time in the base of their relation to each other and to the time itselfHistorical time agrees future and the past by the

mediation of the choices made in the present• Instead of that, the past is what grounds physical

timePhysical time extrapolates the modus of the past time as all time including furthermore the present

and future

Opposed features of the two times • Historical time unlike physical time is not

continuous, homogenous, even, or uniformEven more, it does not include all choices, but a

very, very small part of them, only crucial historical choice

• However the criterion for a choice to be defined as a crucial historical one needs some clarificationIt should support the unity of future and the

past linking them in continuous way

The points of historical choice• Historical time consists of the separate points of

crucial historical choiceConsequently that “ crucial historical choice”

should represents the wholeness of the historical process embodied in a single point

• In fact the alternatives of the choice claiming to be both crucial and historical do not link the wholeness of the historical process in one and the same degreeOne of them, maybe different from the chosen

one can support the “continuity of times”

The wholeness of historical process and historical choice

• Any single choice of those concentrates the wholeness of the historical process in order to be able to be chosen just that historical pathway, which conserves that wholenessNevertheless, this does not limit the made

choice: • It can be historically wrong “tearing the times”

and thus breaking this thread of history whether early or late

Paul Tillich’s Kairos and Chronos

• Paul Tillich has coined the term of Kairos for that ontological and historical time being opposed to “chronos” associated with physical timeKairos is also the wholeness of theological time:

• Thus Kairos means initially a fundamental choice, which is able to ground both the wholeness of being and any crucial historical choice of peoplesOn the contrary, chronos means the “automatic

continuity” of time independent of human choices and thus implied immediately on that single and

fundamental choice of Kairos

Between two choices ...• The discrete points of crucial choice are connected

to each other by longer or shorter periods of continuous historical motionThe historical and physical time can be identified

as coinciding in those periods:• Then both continuity and wholeness of the times

are supported in an almost or rather automatic way not including crucial historical choicesHistory is identifiable as historiography, but this is

not ontology

Longue durée• The discreteness of historical time generates

“waves” of long runs (Charles Pierce) or “longue durées” (Fernand Braudel and the Analles school) The period of each of them is different, but much

longer than the duration of human life• That “longue durée” should be categorically

distinguished from the long periods between two historical choices

The “longue durée” originates from the discontinuity of historical choice

• The long periods between two historical choices mean only their absence

Conclusions about Part 3:

• History as the ontology of time: History as the ontology of the past time turns out to be a set of histories

In fact, all entities such as states, nations, civilizations and all the rest is unified by their

common present and future and distinguished by unique and single past

• The Hegel logical viewpoint to history: All this does not allow of other universal viewpoint than the logical one as in Hegel

Conclusions about part 3:

• History of choice versus history of fact: History can be underlain by that

understanding of time, which allows of generalizing the history from only the past to

all time including the present and future• Then history as the ontology of time can be

naturally defined as the history referring to the present and future not less than to the pastThat kind of history can be defined both as

history of choice as the ontology of time

References:

• Braudel, F (1969) “Histoire et sciences socials. La longue durée (1),” in: Braudel, F. Ecrits sur l’histoire. Paris: Flamarion, 41—82.

• Hegel, G. W. F. (1837) Vorlesungen uber die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte. Hamburg: F. Meiner, 1968.

• Tillich, P. (1948) “Kairos,” in Hauptwerke, Bd. 4, Berlin – New York: De Gruyter, 1987, 327-341.

Спасибо за внимание!