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Idea For A Universal History
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Idea For A Universal History |
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A Short History of the World We detect a distinct 'world system' with a set or remarkable properties, for which we can create a simple model. At the same time we need to connect this with an idea from the philosophy of history. There are definite limits of our ability to make causal statements about the evolution in which we are immersed. Popper's critique is really a variant of Kant's so-called Third Antinomy, and we can build our model in such a way that it deals with this. We also need a model that can deal with what is clearly about one half of the data. We suspect the eonic pattern extends to the Neolithic but our data thins rapidly. Our model with use a 'Chinese box' approach, in which we can stick intervals and their transitions onto each other, and leave out any absolute beginning. This use of 'relative beginnings' is a useful feature of this approach. We will posit a frequency hypothesis for the total data, but make sure we don't use it for anything we can't observe. Thus our model starts with the 'relative beginning called the rise of civilization'. From one point of view we see evolution, from another a 'universal history'. We will look at Kant's Challenge, so-called, to find the 'pattern of universal history', Kant's thinking provides the bridge between attempts at a science of history, and what we can call an 'evolution of freedom'.
Stream Sequence: A Frequency Hypothesis Our world history was a bit short. We can begin to expand on it with a new way to study world history. The core idea in our model is the distinction of 'system action' and 'free action', and this leads to the basic rubrics, those of sequence and transition, followed by that of parallelism, which we see in the Axial interval. Another is the acorn, or frontier, effect: our sequence never steps twice in the same place, but always in an adjacent area just at the fringes of its previous expansion. The real clue, and most mysterious, is the transition and sequence phenomenon, which we will also call the stream and sequence effect, which suddenly illuminates the process we see in the Axial Age.
Our eonic sequence intersects the streams of local cultures in a kind of time slice, producing a local advance, which then flows outward to create an oikoumene. It’s like a strobe light effect in a dance hall. The continuity of the dancers dancing is joined by a discontinuous intermittent strobe effect that illuminates the faces of the dancers. In the process we discover a new fundamental unit of analysis, beyond the idea of civilization, in a challenge to Toynbee and Spengler. We can wrap the model finally in a frequency hypothesis, in a curious play on the ideas of cyclical theories or myths, whose confusion and persistence was always a puzzle in itself.
Completing the Eonic Model We have developed some core ideas for our model. This model is simple, to start. We see three turning points, TP1, 2, 3, as massive periods of advance, what’s more, with obvious echoes and interconnections, clear evidence of three successive waves of fundamental advance, at equal intervals, and with significant mutual correlations:
That’s it. We’re done. A non-random pattern . We will call this the eonic sequence, and construct a frequency hypothesis to fix this obviously incomplete series. This model simply takes our three turning points and turns them into discrete transitions in an eonic sequence: Transition
1: birth of civilization This sequence is based on relative beginnings, and has no beginning or end. That's the advantage of this approach. We create an empirical map of 'evolution' that stands on its own.
Is the three century interval arbitrary. Not really, although it is merely a rough approximation. The modern case makes it clear. What about the in-betweens? That’s the interesting part. We are going to create two, or multiple, universal histories. The first proceeds along a mainline, the second is all the rest. We are always in the second, yet, looking backward, we can detect the action of the mainline. This is our distinction of 'system' and 'free action'. Instead of cause and effect, we above the generation of the eonic sequence and the sequential dependency of the in-between periods.
Why do these periods stand out? Because of the obvious correlation of major cultural innovations, or what we can call eonic emergents .
That’s a very short list. Each eonic emergent is an immense data set, to zoom in on, and inside each are more eonic emergents. Pick any category, and follow it. The state, philosophy, art, religion, politics, etc... We have two types of histories, what occurs in the greater field, and what occurs inside the eonic effect. Some eonic emergents only exist, so far, inside the eonic sequence, and don't survive outside, e.g. democracy. Appears twice in the pattern. Take science. It warbles on and (almost) off in this sequence. Why? Trace the history. This system is an arduous ‘black box’, but it gives us a windfall clue, the double appearances of several items.
The most spectacular example is the emergentism of democracy. Democracy starts twice. We will call this the ‘discrete freedom sequence’, and it might prove a clue to unlocking the riddle of history’s ‘black box’. It reproduces a classic Kantian paradox. In our terms, democracy shows eonic determination, its realization free action. The remarkable appearance of double emergents is very strong evidence for the type of model we will create, a discrete series inside a continuous flow, or a discrete-continuous model. It’s like a feedback system. Something suddenly switches on, and interrupts continuous flow, or restarts processes that have died out, or slumped. The idea of feedback has problems, it’s not the same situation, but the general idea is the same, a discrete interval or spike interrupts a continuous stream.
We need to see this a a series of 'relative stages', rather than absolute ones. It is like a sunlamp process, versus growth from seed in a plant. The absolute growth from seed shows stages of relative spurts of growth due to the sunlamp. We can see that we are confronted with directionality in the stepping progression of our sequence. And this raises the issue of purposive evolution. It suddenly becomes obvious that we are blind to directional processes because we see history on one level only. Transition and Divide: Rise of the Modern We noted already that any system of intermittent action will produce a rough divide period after its period of action. This divide is clearly visible in antiquity, and in spectacular fashion in the modern case. Our model, in fact, is spectacularly confirmed in the modern case, and we see the divide around the end of eighteenth century. We suddenly see why it is so packed with innovations. We are often puzzled by our relationship to the early modern, but now we see the reason why.
We have an immense matrix with many problems to consider, and many remarkable solutions, among them a clue to the structure of the Old Testament, which clearly reflects the 'transition and divide' pattern.
We can tie everything together with Kant's Challenge. To complete our model we need to make a connection with the philosophy of history, to clarify the nature of our freedom argument. Note that world philosophy is deeply braided with the eonic effect. Note the strong correlation of philosophic and scientific advance with the eonic sequence. We can set aside the current 'conflict' between philosophy and science and think in terms of 'natural philosophy' and/or science. But the attempts at a 'science of history' founder in a set of basic antinomies. Note that philosophy of history is roughly a double emergent, appearing in religious form in the Judaic transition, and then reappearing in concert with evolutionism in the Enlightenment! Thus the philosophy of history is born, or reborn at the dawn of modernity and finds its classic realization in the writings of the philosopher Immanuel Kant, in his essay Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View: Whatever concept one may hold, from a metaphysical point of view, concerning the freedom of the will, certainly its appearances, which are human actions, like every other natural event, are determined by universal laws. However obscure their causes, history, which is concerned with narrating these appearances, permits us to hope that if we attend to the play of freedom of the human will in the large, we may be able to discern a regular movement in it, and that what seems complex and chaotic in the single individual may be seen from the standpoint of the human race as a whole to be a steady and progressive though slow evolution of its original endowment. This challenge to find a pattern of universal history is perfectly matched to the resolution we are discovering in the eonic effect. We have produced the first signs of a regular movement in the play of human freedom. Note how the concepts of determination and free activity are brought into conjunction in a way that transcends and yet fulfills the demands of both freedom and determinism. The eonic effect clearly shows the resolution of Kant's Challenge.
Our model is essentially complete, and we have all the tools to examine now the actual structure of world history. We can proceed to see how it all works in practice. First we can examine the rise of the modern, then the eonic effect as a whole on a larger scale.
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