Critique of Historical Reason

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 We can anticipate our result here, since we have a thumbnail sketch of our argument: the eonic effect shows the resolution of Kant’s Challenge. As we study world history with our ‘eonic periodization’, we suddenly, almost unexpectedly realize we are resolving ‘Kant’s Challenge ’. Our job is to demonstrate a non-random pattern in history. A regular movement in the play of human freedom is almost instantly demonstrable from the eonic effect, and the result shows a cousin resemblance to Kant’s Third Antinomy .

Kant’s essay, as a ‘minor’ work, is actually one of the most influential of modern history, for it enters on cat’s paws into the whole struggle of modern philosophy of history and ideology. It seems to foretell the next two critiques, and is a deceptive work in the sense of giving consideration to what Kant calls ‘asocial sociability’, but is really pursuing a different issue, in the process asking a question. Many have answers to questions of history, Kant, with a curious brilliance, had the presence of mind to but ask, and leave some answer to the future, for he must have sensed that he was given inadequate data. The essay arises just after the first critique, and yet seems to foretell the next two.

The unsuspected significance of this work shows us something very elegant about our understanding of history, if we can manage the dangers of historical directionality, and its teleological implications, which we can successfully evade with our ‘discrete-continuous’ model. Kant created a critical system, yet was so curiously wry as to propose not a Critique of Historical Reason, the curious lot of his successor Dilthey (Karl Popper’s The Poverty of Historicism being one attempt at this book), but an Idea for a Universal History. We shall have to hope the first book, still unwritten, appears in the attempt at the second.[i]

Resolution of Kant’s Challenge Our treatment of Kant’s Challenge  will emerge over the course of the text, but at the same time let us note that we have already resolved the question, in essence, almost without trying. We can say that the eonic pattern satisfies, to a fuzzy first approximation of the Universal Historian, a different but related question to that which Kant posed, as we see broadest scope that the solution is within the range of the cycl ical driver of an evolutionary emergentism. Note Kant’s wording. It is very similar to our distinction of historical determination  and free action.

Our powerful model does this at a glance: we notice our three turning points show precisely the movement in the play of freedom as our levels eonic determination and free action alternate in degrees of freedom, and in relation to our two universal histories. The evidence is direct. We will say ‘resolved’ instead of ‘solved’, since we can see that the problem avalanches from randomness to directionality, hence teleology. That still does not fully solve the problem. The ‘mechanism’ is clearly beyond observation, the pattern seems to extend backwards into the Neolithic, and we see that while directionality is indicated, predictive teleology is foreclosed by our historical immersion.

Our discrete-continuous sequence model  follows this ‘regular movement’ precisely in almost eerie fashion, with the (relative transform) evolution of the state, religion, science, philosophy, all major categories of civilization, in the cowcatcher mainline of the eonic sequence. Problem solved: world history shows directionality, purposive evolution, incremental progress toward ‘civil constitutions’, perfect or imperfect, and the unfolding of ‘nature’s secret plan’ (in quotation marks). It is highly unlikely there could be any other solution to this Challenge from Kant. This is a strong, because limited, result, one that uses only large-scale blocks of history, simple periodization, and metaphysical austerity, generic history by the book. No ‘theory’ is invoked or required for the result, which is therefore a form of direct ‘pointing to’. It is probably the case that the dynamic of this system relates to the category of the ‘noumenon’ and is forever beyond observation, which will provoke a review of various Hegelian issues, Hegel being one of the first to respond to Kant’s essay. Kant’s Challenge, however, only asks for a regular movement in the play of freedom. Hegel’s philosophy of history, his metaphysical system apart, doesn’t see the eonic effect, and kludges an argument by design to get his result.

We should note in passing that, of all the action scripts  emerging from TP3, the Kantian discourse on moral freedom is one of the most significant. Beyond the question of demonstrating eonic effects we might well pause to consider this classic ‘action script’ emergence in Kant’s various critiques. Note that our passepartout distinction of consciousness and self-consciousness, the basis of our search for an eonic sutra, is easily adapted to this discourse on will, whose suggestion beyond theory is to claim as real the will to moral action and the freedom required. We can easily see that our self-consciousness, inchoate and fuzzy, is yet able to organize itself around this new evolutionary emergent. Of course, Kant’s distinction of theoretical and practical reason is itself theoretical, a challenge to Newtonian thinking, and his theoretical discussion may be difficult in practice, and open to later objections, but the gist of what he is up to is crystal clear, and should inform our tendency to be caught up in the mechanized consciousness of scientific theory applied to behavior, and its rote negation of practical reason.

3.4.1 Fisher’s Lament

If we enquire into ‘what runs history’, into the possibility of any pattern, structure or law, we are left to examine the rush of statistics and wonder if it is sufficient to account for the chronicles of kings and commoners, the flowering of civilizations, and the evolution of religious forms. We are entering the forbidden zone, large-scale historical patterns, and have to deal with a considerable dialectic. We can see that Popper’s critique of historicism is really a special case of the issue raised by Kant’s Challenge, which cleverly asks for a critique of historical reason even as it projects an Idea of Reason onto history, i.e. reinvents the genre of philosophic history. It is this subtle twist that allows us to deconstruct flat history. Thus, the historian H. A. L. Fisher, in one of the most quoted statements of modern historiography insists that there is no meaningful structure to be found in the random ness of historical process:

Men wiser and more learned than I have discerned in history a plot, a rhythm, a predetermined pattern. These harmonies are concealed from me. I can see only one emergency following upon another as wave follows upon wave, only one great fact with respect to which, since it is unique, there can be no generalizations; only one safe rule for the historian: that he should recognize in the development of human destinies the play of the contingent and the unforeseen.[ii]

Increased perspective in the rising tide of historical data forces us to consider that the eonic pattern reveals the counter-evidence to Fisher’s Lament . This is a negative version of Kant’s Challenge. The philosopher Karl Popper challenged Toynbee to answer Fisher’s objection. Even as Fisher wrote, the discovery of Sumer, better insight into the classical period, and a ‘post-transitional’ perspective on the rise of the modern was revealing the eonic snapshot emerging in fixer. We find an answer to the issue of historical regularity, answers, but what was the question? Confusion over the nature of historiography makes interpretation as ‘historical law’ uncertain at best, although our pattern essentially replaces the search with a complex evolutionary ‘trend’, unique yet recurrent. In fact we see the answer, without quite knowing what we are seeing.[iii]

Fisher’s lament, with a tragic flourish, was perhaps a pessimistic or proto-postmodern ist reaction to the horrors of the First World War, and the shock this created in the hopes of so many in automatic progress . His evocative statement was made in the wake of nineteenth century ideas of unlimited progress, and earlier ideas of universal history and is an indirect expression of the view that there is no discoverable historical pattern or direction. Beside it lie the many attempts to challenge the great philosophies of history that arose in the Enlightenment passing into the phase of German Idealism, then followed by efforts to approach its study scientifically, or the reaction to philosophies of history in the various forms of historicism , beginning with Herder. The current postmodern critique, the ‘incredulity’ toward metanarratives , joins the list of the skeptics.

Fisher’s lament bundles together four, or more, quite separate concepts, that of rhythm, plot, pattern, and predetermination that do not necessarily stand or fall together. That historical patterned emergence can also be a series of chaotic ‘emergencies’, such as the French Revolution, is still another crisscross of meaning. A rhythm need have no plot, and a dramatic improvisation might show little or no predetermination, and yet operate under the constraint of a conditioned future.

The hold of Fisher’s lament on many quotation-mongers and historical handwringers, as the magic sword to slay the dragon of macrohistory, is also a testimony to the difficulties of the project of Universal History , and its cousin, the attempt to find laws of history. Although the trend of current historical thinking, in the afterglow of the ‘positive challenges’ of positivism, is against the perception of meaningful historical structure, the plain fact is that the rise of the philosophy of history is a foundational moment for historical understanding. The philosophy of history shows strong development in modern times, and its flowering demands a reckoning of what we mean by modernism. Darwin to the contrary, we see a definite ‘play in the movement of the philosophies of freedom’ themselves. At a bare minimum the emergentism of the philosophy of history is part of our evidence of a non-random pattern. Kant’s Challenge indeed!

Note: Popper and historicism We find the rejection of the entire domain of macrohistory in Popper , who amplifies Fisher’s Lament, in his attack on ‘historicist’ beliefs in The Poverty of Historicism , where he criticizes grand clichés of historic Destiny and the ‘dramatic’ view of history, the idea that history has a plot or significant structure. Unfortunately, the term ‘historicism’ has changed its meaning here. Not only Kant’s Idea, but Herder’s other Idea, arises in a genuine dialectic at the eonic synchronous moment of German philosophy. The different historicism of Herder, the complex world of nineteenth century German cultural philosophy, the phantom Book never written, The Critique of Historical Reason of Dilthey, as the emphasis on the unique, and Popper’s critique of his definition of historicism, as the historical generalization of physical law, show the complex legacy of this perspective, as the term seems to shift into its opposite. The eonic effect beautifully synchronizes the contrary meanings of the term ‘historicism’, for we can see therein a way in which the ‘lawful’ and ‘determinate’ can be taken in a sense that does not contradict the unique, the particular, or the potential individuality of the historical agent.[iv]

Our position with respect to this viewpoint that scorched the pot for all macrohistorical thinking in its Cold War vein, is that we cannot easily compute historical forces in action, but cannot conclude thereby the fallacy of the genre. In a play on the idea of the ‘covering law model’ (law as differential equation and initial conditions), we see the points of historical initializing, if not their law of dynamism in each of the fretting points of our eonic dynamism. If we cannot find historical laws, we can nonetheless discover a (not very rigorous) ‘deduction’ of the probable existence of some form of ‘Big History’. Turning toward world history to find what we suspect, we discover it in short order.[v]

In general, critics of ideas of Universal History (never the least critical of the idea of Universal Evolution extended over several billion years) expose the requirements for an historical law: such a ‘law’, that can be no law, as determination, or patterning, must not only have its forcefulness, but take into account or interact with what its agent or actor does or ‘will do’, and allow the transformation of optionality, that is a factor of human ‘will’. In other words, without fail, as in Popper’s critique, the idea of freedom is brought to causality, Kant’s Antinomy.

 We have one of the few solutions to the paradox, or at any rate the ‘solution’ we see in the eonic effect , in a cyclical driver, operating at different degrees of freedom, which is essentially our distinction of ‘eonic determination’ and ‘free action’. What our pattern suggests is that there can be an alternation between directionality and randomness or free action, a simple solution to the contradiction, if we can find evidence for this, and we can. The relative transformation of cultural streams operating on self-consciousness can take one’s breath away. Nature has a hidden mystery.

We see that Kant’s Challenge is ambiguous, for as we proceed toward a critical stance on issues of historicist metaphysics, the Critique of Historical Reason, we find this taking the form of a seemingly renewed quest, with an Idea for a Universal History.

Note: Two historicisms The generation of our divide produced a massive spectrum of emergent clusters, and our usage of the term historicism reflects only one part of the overall picture. Herder in the same period as Kant produced a classic essay on universal history, at the start of a tradition of historicist discourse stretching into the nineteenth century. Only lack of space prevents further pursuit of this spectrum. Herder’s viewpoint also has difficulties, and some ambiguous descendants, in the retrograde emergence of nationalism. One of the issues here is of the particular in relation to the universal, and the danger of universal laws and dynamics in the multiple contexts of diversity. But in fact our eonic model, while it seems to court this danger, is well adapted to dealing with this issue. For we see first that our eonic mainline is a balance of both processes, moving through the particular on the way to the universal. The transition time-slice of the Greek Archaic in our mainline is a perfect double of the particularity of the Greeks fulfilling a universal task. Beyond that we have the relationships of ‘reachability’ in our two universal histories, in a method that could, in principle, realize Kant and Herder both.

3.4.2 A Science of History? The Third Antinomy

One reason we have picked Kant’s essay on history is that it allows us to study Kant historically using periodization, and picks a climactic moment in our own pattern. Kant’s system is quite difficult, but his essay expresses the crux of the philosophy of history, and the problems of almost all methodologies. Kant performs a kind of duet with Newton, and makes sense especially to a modeler, as the progression from mechanical to ethical, then esthetic/teleological modes arises from dealing with our data.

What is the relation of our method to Kant’s actual system? There is a direct one in his so-called Third Antinomy .

“Causality according to laws of nature is not the only kind of causality from which the phenomenon of the world can be derived. It is necessary, in order to explain them, to assume a causality through freedom.” Its antithesis is: “There is no freedom: everything in the world takes place solely in accordance with laws of nature.”

We confront the enigma of the thesis, that freedom generation and physical causality somehow are both the case. The dilemma is immediate from the periodization of our model, remembering that this is only an empirical discovery, not a deduction.

Kant’s Third Antinomy is reflected in our pattern, but on such a large scale, and such a different mode, that we must proceed with caution. From the way we set up our model (for another purpose) we can see how the stream of history seems interrupted by a second different ‘causal initialization’ that has no continuous lead up or antecedents.

We need to be careful here since we are dealing with history. We have retreated from the use of the term ‘causality’, and, further, the term ‘causality of freedom’ might involve us in the famous ‘double affection’ problem that arose in the classic post-Kantian debate. But, despite the many disputes on such issues, the general point is clear as crystal, in terms of our model, a remarkable concordance. Our finite transition intervals stage a ‘relative transform of freedom’ in some sense, the discontinuity aping an ‘uncaused cause’. The general resemblance of overall formalism is striking, and we see the glint of the noumenal through the fog of our fuzzy periodization. Our model was not designed to deal with these issues, but produces an out of focus version of the classic Third Antinomy. But this is an historical dataset, and not a psychological issue of representations.

Kant must have sensed that a new perspective was needed for history, and wrote his essay after his first Critique. In any case, we find this ‘antinomy’ in history itself. We cannot directly apply this antinomy to the discrete freedom sequence, but we are left to wonder. We see nature’s resolution of the question. Here’s our version of the thesis: Generalized causal determination (GSD) according to the laws of nature is not the only causality, it is also necessary to assume a GSD through the eonic emergence of (historically phenomenal) freedom, visible in discrete transitions. This is not an explanation, but the match is perfect, as the term ‘causality’ undergoes meltdown to show nature’s solution to the antinomy. Problems remain. Are we speaking of transcendence or immanence? In fact our model strongly suggests the latter, but its level of abstraction sets it prior to such a dualism. We could not determine such a question with the data we have. But we could hardly endorse any thought of ‘transcendence’ in such an obvious evolutionary schematic. 

Thus, our prime objective, to demonstrate a non-random pattern, once complete, resolves Kant’s Challenge. But, with the status of scratchpad extensions, we suspect more, a suspicious resemblance to transcendental idealism. Although it is beyond the scope of our argument, which is empirical and can’t produce a deduction, the result has a cousin look to the noumenal /phenomenal distinction. We need to be wary of such statements, which will outstrip the simplicity of our prime objective. Later philosophy has done everything it can to abolish this distinction, but we see that it reappears at a stroke of the pen using our periodization. With a slight catch, however. We cannot say that our eonic mainline has any connection to the noumenal, or can we? We can see that this invokes a classic debate, the so-called double affection problem. We escape from this because we have started with ‘standard Newtonian causal language’, discovered it was nonsense, and then replaced this with a generalized causal matrix and a freedom emergentism (Here freedom is strictly the phenomenal traces of some purported noumenal aspect, not ‘transcendental freedom’). Our result is simply a phenomenological matrix of historical data, and suffers no contradiction. We see, however, that we are deprived of a solution as law in closed form.

Thus, our model is not designed to demonstrate this distinction of noumenon and phenomenon (it was not an historical construct), but the concordance is exact, and the discrete freedom sequence shows how there is a connection. The specter of transcendental idealism is a very undesirable result for both scientists and religionists (why?), but it is actually a very realistic and elegant approach that has a formal rightness to it. In any case, we can simply speak of a two-domain model that fits the emergence of freedom into a ‘generalized causal nexus’, thus crossing the tripwire of Kant’s Third Antinomy. All we can do is voice our suspicion here, keeping in mind that we are dealing with history, and that the Kantian formulation refers to the individual and his representations only. We would have to reconstruct a new version of Kant’s system for history, not a simple thing to do.

But the basic issue is extremely simple. Look at our eonic pattern. Where does freedom come from?

 This noumenal aspect, or look-alike, arises because we see our general freedom emergentism enclosed in a finite region bounded by our discrete-continuous periodization, a strange gift of the data, a stroke of empirical mystery That is a provocative hint indeed and a clue to what is obvious from the data, that we are seeing the appearance behind which something else remains hidden. It is remarkable indeed that nature should mimic this transcendental aspect.

It is important to remember that this is history, and what we see is not the noumenal/phenomenal distinction as such, but a mysterious cousin, in an artifice of periodization that (quite unwittingly) produces two kinds of history, a phenomenal region, and another kind of region, still quite in the region of the phenomenal, but with a connection of some kind with the ‘noumenal’. Since all history, everywhere and always is the same, we cannot divide history into two kinds based on such an idea, although the history of this mistake is considerable, ‘ages of revelation’. But all these have missed the point. Don’t make that mistake with the eonic effect. It is a problem that resembles what happens with Kant’s moral theory, which we won’t pursue.

In any case, please note, the eonic model was constructed without any of this and trying to graft Kant onto the eonic matrix will produce unpredictable results. Proceed at your own risk. We have resolved Kant’s Challenge, are done for the day, walking away with our wages, veritably shifty-eyed if anyone starts babbling about the ‘historical Thing-in-Itself’ (although the idea is not an invalid one). Once debate on the ‘thing-in-itself’ begins, there is no end to it, and no understanding. Try to stand back and look at our pattern until the gestalt becomes suddenly obvious, without such language.

Finally, notice the resemblance of all Kant’s antinomies to each other and to the three great outcomes of the Axial Age, a religion of soul, a religion of divinity, and the birth of the idea of Freedom ! We have an ace up our sleeve. Our eonic effect is some strange mechanical play on this ‘Dialectic’ of Kant.

Thus, a close look shows that divinity, soul, and free will, all revolve around some core Idea, e.g. ‘will’ (‘will of god’, ‘latent will as soul’, and ‘uncaused free will’). Note further that the eonic effect shows three civilizations specializing in each of these antinomies.

One of the strangest facts of our pattern is the appearance of Kant himself with his antinomies at the ‘slingshot maximum’, the divide, of the third ‘discontinuity’, or transition.

Nature and freedom In the wake of Kant, indeed, even by the time of his final critique the ambiguity of freedom in his system leads to a reformulation in terms of the unity of nature and freedom. This ambiguity is already present in Kant’s essay. We are already there, and we can see the slight mismatch of our model with the Kantian dualism for this reason. One problem with Kant’s formulation is the bedrock of Newtonian causality. But we are already finding values in the mix, along with directionality, and purposive evolution. The two situations don’t quite fit. We are doing history in the large and all incidents of freedom would already have violated causal explanation. And the language of causality, our starting point in phrases such as ‘What caused the Axial Age?’ rapidly retreated to ‘generalized causal nexus’ as a placeholder. The dynamism of freedom and necessity are so to speak already conjoined.

Kant’s moral theory Our powerful model instantly reproduces the dilemma that arises in Kant’s moral theory where the status of ‘freedom’ is ambiguous. Kant’s second critique is charged with inconsistency against his first. This confusion is inevitable since we cannot have knowledge of the sources of our action, yet seem to see them in the phenomenal realm at every stage. Kant just seems to bite the bullet and contradict himself, very puzzling.[vi]

It is possible to simply retreat to the first Critique and draw up the moat. Thus our model might make a study of Kant’s moral theory of interest, although the issue of freedom in Kant’s first Critique is enough for this discussion. The issues are rarely understood, because the presentations are very complicated (the author is not an expert in the literature here). But looking at the eonic model the meaning of this discourse might stand out suddenly. It is possible to see the meaning of Kant’s system at a glance, as one interconnected perception, a triadic interplay of causal, ethical, esthetic questions. But we can’t do grafting here, and our formulation best echoes the onset of Kant’s treatment of freedom in his first Critique. After that his thinking seems to shift. Ambiguous entities, ‘reason’, seem to cross the boundary of the noumenal and appear seemingly in the phenomenal. We should beware of the confusion that can arise from grafting bits and pieces of his moral theory onto historical theory. Applying ‘will’ to history is short route to woeful ambiguities and exploitations. We can at least see how the major monotheisms were originally constructed, then turned into ideologies.

Kantian dualism Kant’s distinction of phenomenon and noumenon is one of the greatest insights in the history of philosophy, but starting with Hegel, and again with such figures as Dewey and the pragmatists, this dualism  is attacked or said to be transcended, as in the speculative ideas of Fichte or the dialectical logic of Hegel’s system. Figures like Marx, and Dewey, are really plying a kind of ‘naturalized Hegelianism’, in the preference for crypto-Spinozistic immanence as against transcendence. This inverted Hegelianism greatly confuses many, because a metaphysical element enters in disguise. It is Kant who is closer to science, if not standard naturalism. He responds directly to Newton, on Newton’s terms. Hegel is already in the romantic era, and is really a ‘non-dual mystic’, a stance that, whatever its merits, doesn’t do away with Kantian basics, save as a metaphysical gesture.

Understanding this ‘dualism’ of Kant can prove difficult, and much of the criticism fails to grasp intuitively what is at stake. But you reckon with this dualism constantly. Once lost in the quagmire of the ‘thing-in-itself’ debate, the subject ceases to make sense.

To take a slightly different example, consider the discourse of the Freudian ‘unconscious’ (without confusing the two subject matters). Would we attempt to do away with this ‘dualism’, as concepts, of the conscious and the unconscious? Hardly, although we might not agree with Freud’s formulation. This is a reminder that much criticism of Kantian dualism is the result of a series of agendas.

We might try to transcend it, but to do so presumes the original dualism, as a psychological given. The point, in the same way, is that the quite different Kantian dualism (in fact, the ultimate original of Freud’s derivative version from Schopenhauer) points to the actual reality of our experience, where the ambiguity of phenomenal self and the ‘deep noumenal’ behind our representations is our evolutionary circumstance. Critics of Kant’s dualism usually have an agenda, and have been confused by Hegel. Nothing in Hegel’s philosophy of history resolves the inherent ambiguity of what we see, for example, in the eonic effect. Different versions of this distinction enter into all the classic sutras, more along the lines of our ‘consciousness and self-consciousness’. In these sutras the ‘ego’ is constantly said to be problematical. Often the ‘ego’ is confused with some ‘rascal ego’, in the moral judgment of ‘egoic behavior’. But the ‘ego’ of the saint is no different, in the original understanding. It is very similar to what Kant is saying. We have no connection with our noumenal ‘deep self’, and the ‘ego’ is a phenomenal construct.

Our eonic model produces a version of the noumenon at the drop of the hat, and does so by heading in a different direction. No deduction of this, however, is given. It is not our prime objective to elucidate this question, but one should think again at some of the standard critiques of Kant. None of the classic issues, such as the ‘synthetic/analytic’ judgments, or the transcendental deduction, are addressed in our approach. We simply enter this terrain via the real Kantian starting point, his Dialectic, the antinomies of reason that confront us. And we should be wary of discussions using the idea of the ‘historical thing-in-itself’. Kantian terms are the object of immense debates, and yet the issues should stand out very simply in our historical model, granting that an empirical approach is quite up in the air. However, our approach is something different, in an important sense, we are dealing with history. There we discover the way in which our representations reflect and correspond to the object, history itself, for we discover indirectly the noumenal aspect of the evolving world system, which is a system of nature, yet one embedded, we presume as immanence, in a greater totality veiled to our perceptions and conceptual representations. In a word, don’t be intimidated by Hegelian abstractions. Hegel, not Kant, suffers the burden of proof. Transcending the dualism of self and object remains its own classic gesture. But we see that nature and history operates very well with ‘dualistic creatures’. 

Philosophy of history: periodization Even as we move to create a model for the eonic effect, we discover the philosophy of history itself to be an emergent discourse of that system. Are we inside that system using its productions, or outside studying the philosophy of history as evidence of that system? Note, thus, that the philosophy of history is part of the discrete freedom sequence, hence data for our model. This kind of paradox completely explodes standard theories. But we can proceed nonetheless with our ‘action script’ approach, to both observe and use the output of the transformation we are trying to analyze. But this kind of contradiction makes any teleological statements about the future dangerous. So we stick to our model, whose effect is always in our past, switching off in our present.

Thus, our job is not so much to solve the issues of philosophy of history as much as to first study it via eonic periodization. You will swiftly downshift into a limited subset of the whole here, as our eonic sequence seizes high ground against the past, by creating a mysterious philosophical barrier, where ‘free action’ must grapple with ideologies of freedom. This will become clear once we see the overall pattern. Our discrete freedom sequence  asks us to find data connecting ideas of freedom to our eonic sequence. We find a spectacular correlation of philosophic history with our third turning point. This self-referential character is a striking feature of our eonic data. This generates once again the problem of embedded theory. We will create a bridge between our model and the philosophy of history using Kant’s Third Antinomy, even as we associate this with what we will call the modern ‘divide’. We are forced to conclude that the philosophy of history shows eonic determination. We have a problem then, any final theory (or if theory jettisoned as intractable, then philosophy of history) must resolve the issues of that philosophical discourse on the idea of freedom, something clearly quite difficult to do!

The ‘As If’ Dealing with the eonic model, one might find oneself spontaneously rediscovering a principle of ‘as if ’, which enters into the formulation of the Kantian system. This principle misunderstood can actually lead to wrong results, and no principle of this kind was consciously used in the Kantian sense in the discovery of the eonic pattern. But the reader might note we used our own idea here, ‘as if’ a ‘force’, of some kind. So we tend to make use of an idea of the ‘as if’ in the sense of some ‘as if a complex system that can explain eonic data’. The idea of ‘mechanization’ is suffering breakdown even as we do this, and the ‘as if’ enters in some form, quite vague, ‘as if directional’. But we have actual data suggesting historical directionality, and should not fritter away our hypothesis about frequency based on the lesser status of the ‘as if’. No ‘as if’ thinking that tries to introduce conceptual divinities is going to work, since it tacitly assumes an omnipotent agent that overrides the long uphill road toward discovery and explanation. These questions remain open, but, again, the author never consciously used the Kantian ‘as if’ tactic in constructing the eonic model.

Theories of revolution We might experiment with this issue of Kant’s Third Antinomy by exploring interior events inside the pattern, as with the question, What caused the French Revolution? Cf. Section 5.3.1. As we tighten our butterfly net we catch these finer grained interior events, still large-scale where individual and the history of freedom connect in a baffling mix. Look at TP3, and the strong correlation of the discrete freedom sequence with revolution. There are endless perspectives here, as scratchpad material. Are revolutions caused by ‘laws of history’? If so, how could they produce freedom? If revolutions are individual acts of freedom, why do they show historical correlation with the eonic sequence? The coup de grace here is the directionality of freedom, i.e. the emergentism of, say, democracy inside the discrete series. Is that a causal or a teleological question? In any case, note how theories of revolution in general, and of the French Revolution in particular, seem to go back and forth like the tides on a beach, revolving around the basic antinomy. Kant we should note had a very complex stance toward revolution, and we see that the antinomy of teleological judgment is closely visible in the sequence proceeding toward Marx. Another way to see this is to consider Kant’s categorical imperative in relation to a system of capitalist economics under the charge of using some men as a means and not as an end. The system starts to gyrate out of control. Kant, of course, was a classical liberal, and his ambivalence over ‘asocial sociability’ seems to put him in the company of the classical economists.

Modern politics in a nutshell Looking at the previous example, consider Kant’s essay in terms of its relation to the actual nature of modernity, with its teleological ideologies in action, just after the divide. These questions impinge tragically on the ideological conflicts in the wake of Kant, for reasons his essay makes clear. Kant is not asking us for the ‘end of history’, only progression toward, in some sense. A teleological antinomy results and is evident in our recent world history. Because of this the question of historical directionality is resolved looking backwards, using periodization, whose implications are not therefore predictive. We see that our ‘discrete-continuous’ model shows discrete interruption, and switches off in our present. This is the trick that rescues our analysis from the historicist bedlam, to say nothing of teleological contradiction. We can use ‘reflective judgment’ to see directionality in the past.

Constitutive vs. regulative judgments The reader might pursue the issue of constitutive and regulative judgments and note the way our model automatically enforces something resembling this distinction in relation to teleological questions.[vii]

It is essential to keep in mind the difference between directionality detected by an ‘eonic observer ’ immersed in history and the teleology suspected but unknown to such an observer, whose ‘eonic productions’ are output of the system. Look at the teleological history of the Old Testament, and the correlation of this to the eonic system. The system of transitions we will devise come to a stop in our recent past. Kant intuitively sensed the ‘eonic’ factor, i.e. the discrete transition of the Enlightenment, or the French Revolution. And he also thought that this was not the same as the ‘end of history’. The inexorable returning of ‘antinomy of teleological judgment’ just as a quite nice liberal system gets underway is gruesomely reflected in the generation after Kant in the era up to Marx as an unfolding eonic emergentism derails and tears itself to pieces on the issue of class struggle. Kant’s thinking is self-referentially historical in a way he did not suspect.

Schopenhauer After the Hegelian interlude, the philosopher Schopenhauer  appears attempting to restore the Kantian perspective in a brilliant and streamlined form. Note how our post-divide branches into Hegel and Christianity and Schopenhauer, a closet ‘Buddhist’. We don’t take usually take him as a philosopher of history but that he is in an inverted sense. There are so few exemplars at this high caliber of the Kantian strain that we tend to be swept up in a Hegelian tide, oblivious to the secret entranceway into Kant’s views or convinced that ‘Kantian dualism’ has been superceded. Although this formulation (also with its open sesame of the Third Antinomy) is open to the charge of being a metaphysical idealism of the will in a fashion that is distinct from Kant, it is often a starting point for many baffled by the host of distracting issues, from the analytic/synthetic question, to the transcendental deduction, standing at the gateway to Kant’s formulation in his first critique. But Schopenhauer is often the way we take Kant, like it or not, i.e. our preoccupation with ‘causality’, but not the full set of twelve categories in Kant’s metaphysical deduction. And we can easily find ourselves in a subjective ‘appearance and reality’ philosophy as a watered down version of the full set of ideas in Kant’s or Schopenhauer’s thinking. Schopenhauer’s insight into the connection with Indian philosophy is highly instructive and revealing, and his perspective on history tends to reflect that. Actually, for our purposes, we can take up Schopenhauer’s offer to peek into the Pandora’s box, take his ‘philosophy of the will’ as a dangerous adventure, and slip away, enriched with a guided tour of the Kantian basics. The next stage after opening the Pandora’s box seems to be Nietzsche and a torrent of ‘demons unleashed’. But, genius though he is, Nietzsche’s ‘will to power’ runs the risk of being Kantian pastiche, and simply does not live up to the Kantian formulation, however vexed the foundationalism that Nietzsche attacks head on.[viii]

Theories of will? We are just near a mistake, if it is that, confusing ‘will ’ with an historical dynamic, something we should avoid. Perhaps it isn’t a mistake, but we would cross the wire into metaphysics, and theologies of divine will are dime a dozen, and no explanation of anything. Study your ground carefully here. Ideas of the will suffer the same dilemma of ‘noumenon/phenomenon’ that we find elsewhere in the outer world. 

Kant’s system is braided with elements of rational theology, which secularists might find distracting, but which conceal a deep insight, and a trap. The ‘will’ and issues of faith, in Kant’s formulation, would demand careful understanding of the real meaning of this gesture, which is not the same as that of Christian faith. We need to be careful of transferring such a perspective to the domain of history where ‘faith’ will certainly backfire. The point should seem obvious. Schopenhauer adopts a highly restrained version of the will disconnected from the idea of freedom, Nietzsche bringing the issue across the boundary of the noumenal, a dubious development. Has the whole subject been fleeced? ‘Will’ in man is like an unsecured website. Proceed with caution, perhaps Buddhist style in a slightly different direction, as remarkably intuited by Schopenhauer. If the ‘true will’ manifests in your case, all very well, otherwise…

The issue for us is history. We are being empirical, and would have to show data to back up any statements. We can do window shopping here, but we are not rich kids, and can’t afford a theory of the will, and will have to do with our truncated man, and his self-consciousness, which rides before ‘will’, if that is real, as the horse before a chariot, the ambiguous moment of decision, which momentarily wakes up the consciousness. But, speaking of psychology, we need, or could aspire to, a theory of will, but nothing is cheap in life, and such a theory is tantamount to a theory of Reality, Big Bang to final Omega. It should remain, however, as a latent possibility of theory, and a challenge to adaptationist thinking. There can be no adaptation resulting in an unseen, virtual ‘will’. Our yogi in the Shiva seal is climbing one of the ancient ascent paths toward this peak. In the nonce, current thought would categorically reject Kant’s theme of Reason with its noumenal ambiguity. Theories of will have a real time history (observe the fate of Kant’s via Schopenhauer with his brilliant suggestions to Nietzsche with his quite different and alarming ‘will to power’), and not always an easy one. Obviously, they impinge on a basic contradiction. So we will travel light, monkey-see monkey-do, with embedded consciousness on the look out for a theory of will. It is beyond the scope of this study, but this would be a good time for a Kantian time-out, to examine his (moral) theory of the will, followed by the successors to that. We can simply treat all this as historical data about free action scripts  in TP3.

Kant the Magician? Kant’s moral theory is too often dismissed, but his discourse on ‘practical reason’, however open to critique, is an absolutely classic formal gesture, by definition a form of ‘magic’, like the mustering of arms in a regiment, the cop on the beat. Scientific culture has lost this side of man, known for millennia, and Schopenhauer shows the obvious connection, with a Buddhist melody as to the ‘cessation of will’. In a secularist environment this kind of thinking has lost ground, even as an immense underground of shady characters routinely violate Kant’s strictures on the categorical imperative. Let us note that the question of ‘will’ is highly contested ground, with more at stake than philosophical issues. Tread warily here, for there is an immense occult crime zone using the same or similar terminology. The Faust myth is no myth, in this regard. 

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