We should not be looking to history as a catalogue of political positions which we can translate into contemporary practice, as if history was just some grand revolutionary laboratory. This transforms contemporary politics into an endless discussion over the minutiae of the past, and the politics of the past into a theater of shadow puppets, reflecting only the author's contemporary political concerns. In a similar vein, Frederick Bier criticised analytical historians of philosophy for using history as a veil for contemporary debates, transforming Kant, for example, into a 'cognitivist', or Hegel into a 'neo-Kantian', 'social epistemologist'.
This puppetmasters view of history, leads to an inability to comprehend the real historical process. If Hegel is made acceptable to contemporary philosophers by robbing him of his speculative abstractions and his 'absolute Spirit', how are we to make sense of the later development of the Hegelian school? Robbing the past of it's content ultimately leads to total impotence in understanding the present.
The process of history is not a closed one moving towards a definite preconceived end point. Contemporary Left Communist organisations might like to view the history of the 'Left' as moving inexorably towards the validation of their own positions. This would be to ignore all the elements of contradiction and opposition in that history. It means reading history backwards instead of forwards.
Men and women make history, but not in circumstances of their own choosing. The emphasis here should be on the fact that it is real men, and real women, in real circumstances, who are the ones making history, and not any ideological abstractions. To reduce the history of the period from 1914 to 1927, for example, to a history of various positions on parliament, the unions, the 'united front', the 'national and colonial question', would be to write a history of ghosts.
Taking a 'position' on this or that historical event - for or against 1917, for or against Brest-Litovsk, for or against the Spanish Civil War - is all too easy. All I need to do is make the decision, this or that. Nothing consequential emerges. On the other hand, when we begin to really look at, analyse and attempt to understand and explain events, countless difficulties emerge. This is the point at which theoretical production begins, as opposed to the formation of positions.
You have a valid point about historical analysis, or the analysis of events foreign to us. Taking a position on them is slightly idle, and seeking to understand them is more interesting. However, this should be applied to most such historical events, to be consistent.
ReplyDeleteIn the course of history, men are reduced despite themselves to these ideological categories. Hence, these 'questions' might be decisive for a historical period. They cannot escape this reduction, or their insubstantial categories only have import in relation to substantial ones. This is important, as thought is fundamental to human history. Otherwise it is nothing at all.
You are correct, however, insofar as such 'positions' as you note are not primary or self-sufficient, rather if they exist are derived from more fundamental convictions.
If history runs towards a pre-figured end-point, then this should not surprise. Any historical 'tendency' culminates in some sort of overall direction. Of course, what precisely is denoted by such a 'closed' end-point might be unclear. To say that history validates a certain position and seek such validation for it is false: it must seek its validation in the present or rather on its basic principles. The present is also changing, however, and hence as Hegel might have noted such questions can be artificial if not based on overall principle. Hence, to criticise Hegel's politics one must note nonetheless the difficulties that the dialectic throws up for conventional politics. Nonetheless, history may still be determined in relation to certain views, insofar as they concern historical or important factors. This may hence be noted.
Past tendencies may have present import, although this would not cast judgement on their earlier form. Hence, to portray Hegel in present or general terms is possible. In this way, past philosophy also gives perspective on modern politics or philosophy. However, this should not be done based on reducing them to the mores of a given pseudo-theoretical community, or 'modernising' them. This is merely to impoverish them of their content, and reduce them to formalism. In any case, some of them have a concreteness and theoretical tendency that puts them above 'modernity' at large. Hence, to 'modernise' them or attempt to make them amenable to 'modernity' is to impoverish them.
In this sense, you are correct that such reductions of Hegel can be problematic. However, as philosophers have a 'modern' content, it is inevitable that this must be vulgarised and assimilated by modern institutions. This helps to 'neutralise' or 'section' them. The present position of many is akin to being locked in a lunatics' asylum, given how far they are required to remain from their actual content. They are hence sealed away, and counselled towards an acceptable form. As such, this shouldn't be seen as merely a stance to be corrected. It is in some ways below that.
ReplyDeleteIn general, history is not merely a source of 'difficulties,' which are of course not a virtue and rather a problem. In many ways, it is simplistic. Historical periods, etc., must be unified in some way if they are to be coherent. People only needed to find a way of doing that. Further, the historical must be considered critically: a given historical period requires an apt 'history' for itself, or it cannot go on ideologically. It hence constructs also a past for itself. Meanwhile, no one cares to defend this 'past,' for it is of no concrete significance to them. However, what enters this artificial past was also determined by other concerns or takes on its own pattern, hence foreign elements can also take an established position. The categorical is somewhere people can fear to tread, though they must stay in the area. Hence, history cannot be easily analysed, nor difficulties easily be found. 'Difficulties' there may be merely a product of present re-formulation of the past. This re-formulation is necessary for the present to survive, however. While particular historical figures may be complex, 'history' as a general thing is essentially just a result of artificial coherence occurring sporadically. It is often no less simplistic than the forms which it cites as motivation. A given substantial unity - or unified historical force - must be a union around something, this involves ultimately a single factor. Otherwise things remain disparate.
Incidentally, no interest in this blog over at RM, etc.? The comments section could do with some company. In lieu of that, here's a fairly long comment.
The only post from here I linked to at RM was the one on value. The rest of them weren't as thought through and I didn't feel as much need to discuss them as merely note them for further personal reference.
DeleteIn regards to past tendencies having present import, this post was written with Frederick Beiser's (whose last name I miswrote as Bier in the original text) book 'Hegel' in mind, as well as an article he wrote in a compendium on German Idealism about anglophone scholarship on Kant and Hegel.
Beiser distinguishes between two broad possibilities in approaching the history of philosophy, or thought more generally. The first is to construct an account of the subject according to contemporary notions of conceptual rigor and standards of relevance. This will produce an account which can be seen as contributing directly to contemporary debates. But Beiser notes the potential danger that such a reading will tend to smooth over what one finds difficult in older works - what one reads in Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel etc will then only be what one reads into them.
The other possibility is a broadly historical approach, looking at the subject in the terms of the debates and concerns of their own contemporaries. Such a method presents the danger of antiquarianism, but Beiser justifies preferring it with reference to the fact that, although the former method is valid in general, in scholarship on German Idealism in particular it had tended to produce readings which often ignored parts of some writings, overemphasized others, and glossed over entire bodies of work (Kant is always seen as relevant, and Hegel has had a certain level of renewed interest, whereas Fichte, Schelling, Jacobi etc had tended to remain in obscurity). In the case of Hegel this produced 'non-metaphysical' readings which ignored all of the theological claims of Hegel's works, disparaged or avoided Naturphilosophie, and focused primarily on the Philosophy of Right and other writings on society which the historians had found palatable. Moreover the interpretations produced had interpreted as unique to Hegel elements which were in fact common to him and his contemporaries, while ignoring the specific contours of Hegel's philosophy that made it stand out in it's own period.
Beiser's point is not that antiquarianism is necessarily a virtue, but that when one is confronted with sanitised and dehistoricised readings of a subject, one must attempt a return to history in some respect to recover what has been lost. In doing so, one will not merely be antiquarian of course, since this also implies a critique of contemporary trends, and hence a contemporary relevance. His book on Hegel is, by the way, as far as I remember, one of the best secondary works in English.
Reading Hegel as a social theorist primarily, or trying to read him 'non-metaphysically' obviously throws up enormous difficulties when trying to interpret the relationship between him and Marx. I was reading a series of essays about the relationship between Marx's Capital and Hegel's Logic (you should be able to find it on libcom if you search for the subject matter), for example, and some of the authors interpreted Hegel's project in 'materialist' terms, and then tried to make the argument that Marx's project was merely an extension of Hegel. Of course, this is not how Marx saw it, and not, I think, the actual nature of the relationship. But if one fails to see Hegel as he was, then one must necessarily fail to see the relationship between him and Marx as it was. And at that point we have to bring into question the ability of the author to read Marx as such, as he was, from their perspective.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete