Silo, Introduction to Historiological Discussions

Historiological Discussions
Introduction to Historiological Discussions

My objective in this work is to clarify the prerequisites for a foundation of historiology. It is clear that knowledge of the dates of historical events will not in itself, even when supported by the latest research techniques, be sufficient to establish a claim that such knowledge is scientific. That is, historiology will not become a science through the mere fact of wanting to—no matter how ingenious the contributions made to it or how great the quantity of information accumulated. Rather, it will become a science by overcoming the difficulties it encounters in justifying its initial premises.
The present writing does not present an ideal or desired model of historical construction; instead, it addresses the possibility of coherently constructing the historical. Of course, our understanding of the term “history” in this essay differs greatly from the classical use. Let us remember that in his Historia Animalium Aristotle described history as an activity of searching for information. Over time, this activity became a simple narrative of successive events. And so, history (or historiography) wound up being a knowledge of chronologically ordered “facts.” In this way it remains dependent on the availability of what are at times scarce and at other times abundant source materials. However, what is most disconcerting in all of this is that the fragments obtained through such research are presented as historical reality itself, all based on the assumption that the historian has not established an order, has not prioritized information, and has not structured the narrative based on the selection and expurgation of source material. Thus we have reached a situation where it is believed that the task of historiology is not interpretive.
Defenders of this attitude today acknowledge certain technical and methodological difficulties. Nonetheless, they continue to insist that their work is valid because their intention is dedicated to a respect for historical truth (in the sense of not falsifying the facts), and they are vigilant to avoid any a priori metaphysical distortions.
From the above it can be seen that historiography has become a sort of covert moralism, justified as scientifically rigorous, that begins by considering historical phenomena as seen from “outside,” obscuring the fact of the historian’s “look” and therefore the distortions it introduces.
This will not be our approach. Our interest is an interpretation or philosophy of history that goes beyond the orderly narrative or simple “chronicle” (as Benedetto Croce ironically calls it). Moreover, it is not a matter of concern if such a philosophy is based on a sociology, a theology, or even a psychology, provided it is at least minimally conscious of the intellectual construction that accompanies the doing of historiography.
In conclusion, let me note that we will often use the term “historiology” rather than “historiography” or “history.” This is because the latter two terms have been used with such varied implications by so many authors that today there is considerable confusion surrounding their meanings. We will use “historiology” in the sense in which Ortega y Gasset1 coined it, and the word “history” (lowercase) to refer to historical fact and not the science in question.
Chapter 1: The Past as Viewed from the Present
1.1 The Distortion of Mediated History
First, it would be worthwhile to clear up some problems that hinder the clarification of the fundamental problems of historiology. While these errors are numerous, considering even a few of them will help eliminate a certain mode of approaching these themes that leads directly to an obscuring of concrete history, not because of a lack of data but rather because of the specific interference of the historian in dealing with the data in question.
Even in the writings of the “Father of History” an interest can clearly be seen in emphasizing the differences between his people and the barbarians.2 And in Titus Livius the narrative is transformed in order to contrast the virtues of the old Republic with the period of the Empire in which the author lives.3 This purposeful method of presenting facts and customs is foreign neither to historians of the East or the West. They have, from the very beginnings of written narrative, constructed a particular history out of the landscape of their epoch. Affected as they were by their times, many manipulated the facts not with any malice, but on the contrary, considering that their task was to bring out the “historical truth” that had been suppressed or hidden by the powerful.4
There are many ways in which one’s own present landscape can be introduced into the description of the past. Sometimes history is told, or an attempt is made to influence it, through the use of legend or the pretext of a literary work. One of the clearest such cases can be found in Virgil’s Aeneid.5
Religious literature, in turn, often shows the distortions of interpolation, expurgation, and translation. When these errors have been intentionally committed, we are dealing with cases where the alteration of past situations may be explained by the “zeal” inspired by the historian’s own landscape. Even when errors have simply slipped in for other reasons, we are still left at the mercy of facts that can only be clarified by applying the techniques of historiology.6
There also exists manipulation of the source texts on which the historical commentary relies, carried out with the intention of supporting a certain thesis. Systematic misrepresentation of this type has become important, for example, in the contemporary production of daily news.7
In addition, there are the not insignificant defects of oversimplification and stereotyping. These tendencies have the advantage of minimizing the work involved in trying to give a global and definitive interpretation of the facts, valuing or discrediting them in accordance with the more or less accepted model. The problem with such procedures is that they allow the construction of “histories” in which second-hand information or hearsay is substituted for facts.
There are, then, numerous forms of distortion. But surely the least evident (and most decisive) is that located not in the historian’s pen but in the heads of those who read the historian and accept or reject that description in accordance with how it fits their particular beliefs and interests—or the beliefs and interests of a group, a people, or an entire culture—in a certain historical moment. This type of personal or collective “censorship” is not open for discussion since it is taken as reality itself, and it is only when events finally clash with what is believed to be “reality” that the prejudices held until that moment are finally swept away.
Of course, when we speak of “beliefs” we are referring to the sorts of pre-predicative formulations of which Husserl spoke, and that appear as much in daily life as in science. Therefore, it is of little importance whether a belief has mythical or scientific roots, since in any case it involves prepredicates that have been formed previous to any rational judgment.8 Historians and archaeologists of different times have experienced the serious difficulties presented by those situations in which data have been all but discarded because they had been considered irrelevant—and later it was precisely these same data, earlier abandoned or discredited by “good sense,” that occasioned a fundamental turning point in historiology.9
There are four defects in the treatment of historical fact, which we could summarize so that, to the extent possible, we can move beyond them and set aside those works that are in the grip of such approaches. The first involves the deliberate introduction of the period in which the historian lives into the narrative, as occurs in myth, religion, and literature. Another situation involves the manipulation of sources. A third, oversimplification and stereotyping, and lastly there is the kind of “censorship” produced by the prepredicates of the age. Nevertheless, if someone were to make explicit these errors or demonstrate how difficult they are to avoid, their contribution might be taken seriously inasmuch as their presentation has been made with reflection and the development can be followed rationally. Fortunately, this is often the case, and it is precisely what allows us to have a productive discussion.10
1.2 The Distortion of Immediate History
Any autobiography, any narrative about one’s own life (which would seem to consist of those facts that are the most indubitable, immediate, and well known to oneself) still suffers undeniable distortions and distance from the events that took place. Setting aside the question of bad faith—as if this were possible—let us assume that the narrative in question is being produced for oneself and not an external audience. We could use the example of a personal diary to illustrate this point. Upon rereading this type of record, authors can verify: (1) that even “facts” written down almost as they occurred nonetheless received a particular emphasis regarding certain “knots” that were significant at that time but have become less relevant in the present. Indeed, these authors may now think that they should have instead taken greater note of other aspects, and that were they to rewrite this diary they would do so in a very different way; (2) that their descriptions involved a reworking of what took place, as if they had structured things from a temporal perspective different from the present one; (3) that the values they applied at that moment are very different from those they hold at present; (4) that, encouraged by the pretext of writing the narrative, varied and at times compulsive psychological phenomena have strongly colored the descriptions to the point that today’s readers blush at what they once wrote (the candor, the forced cleverness, the exaggerated self-flattery, the undeserved self-criticisms, and so on). Continuing in this way, a fifth, a sixth, and a seventh consideration could be offered with respect to the distortion of personal historical fact. Consider, then: What may not happen when it comes to describing historical events that have been interpreted by others and that we have not lived through ourselves? So it is that historical reflection is carried out from the perspective of the historical moment in which that reflection takes place—and from this perspective it turns to modifying these events.
The line of thinking developed above may seem to exhibit a certain skepticism with respect to the faithfulness of historical description. However, it is not this point that we should focus on. From the beginning of this essay we have admitted the presence of the intellectual construction that operates in the task of the historian, putting things in this way in order to emphasize that the historian’s temporality and perspective are unavoidable themes in historiological consideration. For how is it that such distance is produced between the fact and its telling? How is it that the telling varies with the passage of time? How is it that events unfold outside of the consciousness? And what degree of relationship is there between lived-temporality and the temporality of the world about which we offer our opinions and upon which we sustain our points of view? These are just some of the questions that must be answered if we wish to provide historiology with a foundation, consecrating it as a science, or even simply to establish the possibility that historiology as such could exist. It could be argued that historiology (or historiography) already exists. Certainly this is true, but in the present state of affairs historiology has more the characteristics of a field of knowledge than of a science.
Chapter 2: The Past Seen as Without 
Temporal Foundation
2.1 Conceptions of History
In the last few centuries a number of writers have begun to search for a rationale or system of laws that would explain the development of historical events, but they did so without any attempt to explain the nature of events themselves. For these authors, it is no longer simply a matter of recounting events, but rather of establishing a rhythm or form that can be applied to them. They have discussed at length the problem of the historical subject, in which, once isolated, they have claimed to find the motor of events. But whether claiming the human being, nature, or God as the subject, no one has yet explained to us what historical change or movement is. This question has often been ignored, taking for granted that, as with space, time, too, cannot be seen in itself but only in relation to a certain substantiality. And without further ado, these writers have focused on the substantiality in question. All of this has resulted in a kind of child’s jigsaw puzzle in which the pieces that do not fit are forced into place. In the numerous systems in which some rudiments of historiology appear, all the effort seems to be focused on justifying the dateability, the accepted calendar time, of facts, analyzing how they occurred, why they occurred, or how things must have occurred—without considering what this “occurring” is, how it is possible in general that something occurs. This form of proceeding in historiological matters we could call “history without temporality.”
Let us look at some cases that illustrate these characteristics. Doubtless, Vico11 contributed a new point of view regarding the treatment of history, and he is seen in some measure as the initiator of what later came to be known as “historiography.” Nevertheless, this tells us nothing about what foundation he may have given to that science. Indeed, while he points out the difference between “consciousness of existence” and “science of existence,” and in his reaction against Descartes raises the banner of historical knowledge, he does not thereby explain historical facts as such. Certainly, his greatest contributions lie in attempting to establish: (1) a general idea regarding the form of historical development; (2) a set of axioms; and (3) a method (“metaphysical” and philological).12
Our new Science must therefore be a demonstration, so to speak, of the historical fact of providence, for it must be a history of the forms of the order which, without human discernment or intent, and often against the designs of men, providence has given to this great city of the human race. For though this world has been created in time and particular, the orders established therein by providence are universal and eternal.13
With this, Vico proposes that “this Science must therefore be a rational civil theology of divine providence”14 and not a science of historical facts as such.
Vico, influenced by Plato and Augustine (in his conception of a history that participates in the eternal), anticipates numerous themes of romanticism.15 Setting aside the idea of “clear and distinct” thought as the organizational principle, he attempted to penetrate the apparent chaos of history. His cyclical interpretation of the ebb and flow of history—based on a law of development in three ages: divine (in which the senses predominate); heroic (fantasy); and human (reason)—had a powerful influence on the formation of the philosophy of history.
Sufficient emphasis has not been given to the nexus joining Vico with Herder,16 but if we recognize in Vico the birth of the philosophy of history17 and not simply the historical compilation typical of the Enlightenment, we must concede to Herder either the anticipation of or direct influence on the emergence of this discipline. Herder asks, Why is it, if everything in the world has its philosophy and its science, that what touches us most directly—the history of humanity—should not also have its own philosophy and science? Even if the three laws of development that Herder establishes are not identical to those enunciated by Vico, the idea that human evolution (starting from the human race and its natural environment) traverses different stages until it arrives at a society based on reason and justice recalls the voice of that Neapolitan thinker.
In Comte18 the philosophy of history attains a social dimension and an explanation of the human fact. His law of the three stages (theological, metaphysical, and positive) echoes Vico’s notion. Comte is not particularly concerned with clarifying the nature of those “stages,” but once proposed they seem particularly useful for understanding the march of humanity and its direction—that is, the meaning of history: “On peut assurer aujourd’hui que la doctrine que aura suffisamment expliqué l’ansemble du passé obtiendra inévitablement, par suite de cette seule épreuve, la présidence mentale de l’avenir.”19 It is clear that history will serve as a tool for action within the schema of the practical destiny of knowledge, with the “voir pour prévoir.”
2.2 History as Form
In Spengler,20 as in Comte, we find an undisguised practical interest in historical prediction, in the first place because such prediction seems possible to him. As he himself wrote:
In this book is attempted for the first time the venture of predetermining history, of following the still untraveled stages in the destiny of a Culture, and specifically of the only Culture of our time and on our planet which is actually in the phase of fulfillment—the west-European-American. We are trying, I repeat, trying to track that culture into those stages of its development that have not yet taken place.21
Regarding his practical interests, he would have the new generations dedicate themselves to activities such as engineering, architecture, and medicine, abandoning all philosophy or abstract thought, which has already entered its “stage of decline.” We see that his interests go still further when he indicates a type of politics (in both the specific and general sense) that must correspond to the present and immediate future of the culture in which he is writing.22
For Comte, history could still be comprehended on a human scale. His law of the three stages applied as much to humanity as to individuals in their development. For Spengler, history has already become dehumanized as a universal biographical protoform, which has to do only with biological man (as well as animals and plants) insofar as birth, youth, maturity, and death happen to them.
The Spenglerian vision of “civilization” as the final stage of a culture did not stop Toynbee23 from taking civilization as the unit of research. In fact, in the introduction to his Study of History Toynbee discusses the problem of the minimum historical unit, discarding “national history” as isolated and unreal because history in fact corresponds to multiple entities that embrace a more extended region. What is important to him above all is the comparative study of civilizations, a concept that we often find replaced by that of “society.” Of greatest interest (for our purposes) is Toynbee’s interpretation of the historical process. No longer is the subject of history a biological being marked by destiny, but rather an entity that, between the open and the closed, is guided by impulses or circumspection in facing obstacles.
We must also take note of Toynbee’s explanation of social movement as involving challenge and response. He does not, however, use the term “impulse” in a strictly Bergsonian sense, nor is his use of the idea of challenge-response a simple transplanting of stimulus-response or Pavlovian reflex. Finally, what is of most interest to us is his understanding that the great religions transcend the disintegration of civilizations, and that they are what allows us to have the intuition of a “plan” and a “purpose” in history. In any event, the accommodation of his model to a particular historical form kept him from an understanding of temporality.
Chapter 3: History and Temporality
3.1 Temporality and Process
Hegel has taught us (in the third book, second section of The Science of Logic24) to distinguish among mechanical, chemical, and vital processes: “The result of the mechanical process does not already exist before that process; its end is not in its beginning, as in the case of the teleological end. The product is a determinateness in the object as an externally posited one.” Its process is, moreover, externality that does not affect its sameness and that is not explained by its sameness. Further on he will tell us: “Chemism is itself the first negation of indifferent objectivity and the externality of its determinateness; it is, therefore, still infected with the immediate self-subsistence of the object and with externality. Consequently it is not yet for itself that totality of self-determination that proceeds from it and in which rather it is sublated.” Finality appears in the vital process in the measure that the living individuals, in the face of the presupposed objective world, are put into tension with regard to their original presuppositions and positioned as the subject, in-itself and for-itself…
It was some time after the death of Hegel before that outline of vitality became the central theme of a new point of view, the “life-philosophy” of Wilhelm Dilthey. He understood “life” not only as psychic life but as a unity found in that permanent change of state in which consciousness, constituted in relation to the external world, is a moment of subjective identity of this structure in process. Time is the form of correlation between subjective identity and the world. The passage of time appears as an experience and has a teleological character: It is a process with direction. Dilthey has a clear intuition but does not claim to construct a scientific edifice. For him, in the end, all truth is reduced to objectivity, and, as Zubiri points out, applying this to any truth means that everything, even the principle of contradiction, will be a simple fact. In this way, though he is reluctant to seek a foundation of a scientific nature, Dilthey’s brilliant intuitions in the philosophy of life will have a powerful influence on the new current of thought.
Dilthey explains history from “within,” from where it is given, within life, but he does not stop to describe with precision the nature of becoming. It is here that we encounter phenomenology, which, after successive and exhaustive approaches, promises to confront the fundamental problems of historiology. Surely, the difficulty phenomenology faces in justifying the existence of another “I,” different from one’s own, and in general in showing the existence of a world different from the “world” obtained after the epoché, extends to the problem of historicity inasmuch as it is external to lived experience. It is often said that phenomenological solipsism turns subjectivity into a monad “without doors or windows,” to use the phrase so dear to Leibniz. But is this really the case? If so, the possibility of basing historiology on indubitable principles, like those obtained by philosophy treated as a rigorous science, would be seriously compromised.
It is clear that historiology cannot simply take its guiding principles from the natural sciences or mathematics and incorporate them without further ado as part of its own legacy. Here we are speaking of justifying historiology as a science, and hence there is a need to assist its emergence without appealing to the simple “evidence” of the existence of the historical event, in order to then derive from it a science of history. No one can fail to notice the difference between simply being occupied with a field of facts and transforming that field into a science. As Husserl comments in discussion with Dilthey, it is not a question of doubting the truth of a fact, but of knowing whether one can be justified in raising it to a universality of principle.
The major problem surrounding historiology is that as long as the nature of time and historicity are not understood, the concept of process appears artificially grafted onto its explanations, rather than the explanations deriving from the concept. That is why we must insist that a rigorous approach be taken with this problem. But time and again philosophy has had to abandon its attempts to develop such an explanation—for example, in the case of its endeavor to be a positive science, as in Comte; a science of logic, as in Hegel; a critique of language, as in Wittgenstein; or a science of propositional calculus, as in Russell. Therefore, when phenomenology does in fact appear to fulfill the requirements of a rigorous science, we are led to ask whether there is in it the possibility of giving a foundation to historiology. Before this can happen, however, we must deal with a few difficulties.
Centering on our theme, we ask: Is Husserl’s inadequate response regarding historicity due simply to the incomplete development of this particular point, or is it that phenomenology itself is incapable of becoming a science of intersubjectivity, of worldliness—that is, of the temporal facts external to subjectivity?25
In Cartesian Meditations Husserl says:
If perchance it could be shown that everything constituted as part of my peculiar ownness, including then the reduced “world,” belonged to the concrete essence of the constituting subject as an inseparable internal determination, then, in the Ego’s self-explication, his peculiarly own world would be found as “inside” and, on the other hand, when running through that world straightforwardly, the Ego would find himself as a member among its “externalities” and would distinguish between himself and “the external world.”Tr.1
This invalidates in great measure what he established in Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and a Phenomenological Philosophy, inasmuch as the constitution of the “I” as “I and the surrounding world” belongs to the field of the natural attitude.
What we find is a great distance between the thesis of 1913 (Ideas) and that of 1929 (Fifth Cartesian Meditation). The latter is what brings us closer to the concept of “opening,” of being-open-to-the-world as what is essential to the I. Here we find the connecting thread that will allow other thinkers to find being-there, without involving an isolated phenomenological “I” that could not constitute itself except in its existence or, as Dilthey would say, “in its life.”
Here let us make a short digression, before again returning to Husserl.
When Abenhazan26 explains that human activity is carried out in order to “distract oneself,” he shows that “placing oneself before” is at the root of doing. If a historiology “seen from outside” were constructed on the basis of that thought, surely it would try to explain historical facts through distinct modes of doing with reference to this type of distraction. If, on the other hand, an attempt were made to organize that historiology “seen from within,” it would try to find a reason for the historical human fact, starting from the “placing oneself before.” This would result, then, in two very different types of exposition, search, and verification.
The second approach would bring us closer to an explication of the essential characteristics of historical facts, insofar as they are produced by the human being, whereas the former would leave us with a mechanistic and psychologistic explanation of history, without an understanding of how that simple “distraction” can engender processes and be itself a process. This is the form of understanding things that, in diverse philosophies of history, has held sway until today. But this approach has not taken those philosophies much beyond what Hegel conveyed to us in his study of mechanical and chemical processes.
It is clear that up until the time of Hegel such positions were acceptable. However, to continue with them after his explanations denotes, at the very least, a kind of intellectual shortsightedness for which it would be difficult to compensate simply through historical erudition. Abenhazan points to doing as a distancing of oneself from what we could call “placing oneself before,” or the Heideggerian “being-already-in (the world) as being-together-with.” Insofar as its existence, all human structure is projection, and in this projection the existent play with their destiny.
If we put things in this way we would have to offer an explanation of temporality, because it is the comprehension of temporality that would allow us to understand the pro-ject, the “placing oneself before.” This sort of exegesis is not incidental but unavoidable. There is no way to understand how temporality occurs in events, that is, how they gain temporality in a conception of history, other than by including the intrinsic temporality of those who produce these events. Thus, it is useful to agree: Either history is an occurring that reduces the human being to an epiphenomenon, in which case we can speak only of natural history (unjustified because among other things it omits human construction), or it is human history (among other things capable of explaining construction of all sorts).
For my part, I hold to this second position.
Let us review, then, what of significance has been said regarding the theme of temporality.
Hegel has illustrated for us the dialectic of movement but not that of temporality. He defines temporality as the “abstraction of consuming,” locating it along with “place” and “movement” following the tradition of Aristotle (particularly his Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, the chapter “Philosophy of Nature”).
Hegel tells us that the being of time is the now. And inasmuch as the now is a “no longer” or “not yet,” it is, consequently, like a non-being. If we take the “now” from temporality, clearly it becomes an “abstraction of consuming.” But the problem persists, inasmuch as “consuming” itself takes place in time. Moreover, we cannot understand how, as he later explains, from the linear placing of infinite nows it is possible to obtain a temporal sequence.
Negativity, which relates itself as point to space, and which develops in space its determinations as line and surface, is, however, just as much for itself in the sphere of Being-outside-of-itself, and so are its determinations therein, though while it is positing as in the sphere of Being-outside-of-itself, it appears indifferent as regards the things that are tranquilly side by side. As thus posited for itself, it is time. (cited by Heidegger in Being and Time, Section 82, H 429)Tr.2
Heidegger tells us that both the naive as well as the Hegelian conceptions of time, sharing as they do the same perception, occur through the leveling and covering that hides the historicity of the being-there, for whom the passing of time is not, at bottom, a simple horizontal alignment of “nows.” This involves, in reality, the phenomenon of turning the look away from “the end of being-in-the-world” by means of an infinite time that for all intents and purposes could not be, and as a consequence could not affect the end of the being-there.27 In this fashion, temporality has until now been inaccessible, hidden by the common conception of time that characterized it as an irreversible “one after another.”
Why cannot time be reversed? Especially if one looks exclusively at the stream of “nows,” it is incomprehensible in itself why this sequence should not present itself in the reverse direction. The impossibility of this reversal has its basis in the way public time originates in temporality, the temporalizing of which is primarily futural and “goes” to its end ecstatically in such a way that it “is” already towards its end.Tr.3
So it is only starting from the temporality of the “being-there” that one can comprehend how mundane time is inherent to temporality. And the temporality of the being-there is a structure in which past and future times coexist (but not side by side as aggregates), and the latter exist as projects or, more radically, as “protensions” necessary to intentionality (as Husserl taught). In reality, the primacy of the future explains the being-already-in-the-world as the ontological root of being-there. This is, of course, of enormous consequence, and affects our historiological investigation. Heidegger himself says:
The proposition “Dasein is historical,” is confirmed as a fundamental existential ontological assertion. This assertion is far removed from the mere ontical establishment of the fact that Dasein occurs in a “world-history.” But the historicality of Dasein is the basis for a possible kind of historiological understanding which in turn carries with it the possibility of getting a special grasp of the development of historiology as a science.Tr.4
With this, we find ourselves at the level of the pre-requisites that must necessarily be unveiled in order to justify the emergence of the science of history.
Basically, we have returned from Heidegger28 to Husserl, not with respect to the discussion of whether or not philosophy can be a science but instead with regard to whether an existential analysis based on phenomenology is capable of giving a foundation to the science of historiology. In any case, the charges of solipsism already raised against phenomenology by Heidegger turn out to be inconsistent, and thus the temporal structurality of the being-there confirms, from another perspective, the immense value of Husserl’s theory.
3.2 Horizon and Temporal Landscape
It is not necessary to discuss here how the configuration of every situation is effected through the representation of both past events and more or less possible future events, which, when compared with present phenomena, allow one to structure what has been called the “present situation.” This inevitable process of representation in the face of events makes us understand that these facts can never have the structure that is attributed to them. This is why, when we speak of “landscape,” we are referring to situations that always imply facts that are weighted by the “look” of the observer.
So then, if students of history fix their temporal horizon in the past, they do not thereby reach a historical setting in itself; rather, they still configure it in accordance with their own particular landscape because, insofar as representation is concerned, their present study of the past is articulated in the same way as any other study of situation. This leads us to reflect on those lamentable attempts in which historians endeavor to “introduce” themselves into a selected historical setting with the objective of reliving these past events, never realizing that in the end they are introducing their own present landscape. In light of these considerations, we should note that an important aspect of historiology must be the study of the historian’s landscape, because it is through the transformation of the landscapes of historians that we are able to catch a glimpse of historical change. In this sense, those weighty writers wind up telling us more about the times in which they are writing than about the historical horizon they have chosen for their study.
The objection could be raised that the study of the landscapes of historians is also carried out from a landscape. This is indeed so, but it is this type of metalandscape that allows comparisons to be established among elements made homogeneous insofar as they pertain to the same category.
Of course, a cursory examination of the previous proposition could result in it being assimilated into almost any type of historiological vision. If a supposed historiologist held that the “will to power” was the engine of history, he might infer (following what has been said) that historians of different epochs are the representatives of the development of such a will; if he held the idea that “social class” is what produces historical movement, he might place historians as representatives of a certain class, and so on. In turn, such historiologists would see themselves as conscious champions of the aforementioned “will” or “class,” which would allow them to place their own imprint on the category “landscape.” They could attempt to study, for example, the landscape of this will to power in different historians. Nevertheless, the attempt would be only a procedure based on an expression and not on a meaning, because achieving clarity in the concept of landscape requires a comprehension of temporality that does not derive from the theory of will. For that matter, it is surprising how many historiologists have appropriated explanations of temporality foreign to their interpretive scheme, without feeling the need to clarify (from their theory) how it is that representation of the world in general and the historical world in particular is configured.
We note that the clarification carried out above is a condition for the subsequent development of ideas and not simply one more step that we can happily do without. This is one of the prerequisites for historiological discourse and cannot be discarded simply by labeling it as “psychological” or “phenomenological” (that is to say, Byzantine). Placing ourselves in opposition to those prepredicates from which designations such as the aforementioned derive, we maintain, with even greater audacity, that the category “landscape” is applicable not only to historiology but also to any vision of the world, since it allows us to emphasize the look of the one who observes the world. It is, then, a concept necessary for science in general.29
Even if the look of the observer—in this case the historiologist—is modified when confronting a new object, the landscape of this historiologist contributes to directing this look. If we counter this with the idea of a look that is free, oriented without assumptions with respect to a historical event that abruptly occurs (like the look attracted by reflex to a sudden stimulus in daily life), we must consider that placing oneself in front of the emerging phenomenon is already part of configuring a landscape. To maintain that in order to do science the observer must be passive contributes little to knowledge unless it is an understanding that this position is the translation of a conception of the subject as the simple reflection of external stimuli. In turn, such obedience to “objective conditions” shows the devotion to nature professed by a type of anthropology in which the human being is simply a moment of nature and therefore itself a natural being.
Certainly, in other times questions were asked and answers were given regarding the nature of the human being, without realizing that what defines the human being is, precisely, its historicity, and therefore its activity of transforming the world and transforming itself.30
On the other hand, we must recognize that just as one can make incursions from one landscape into scenes presented by different temporal horizons (as typically occurs with historians who study an event), it is also true that within the same temporal horizon, within the same historical moment, the points of view of those who are contemporaneous and therefore coexist may coincide, although they do so from landscapes of formation that are different, owing to non-homogenous temporal accretions. This discovery dispels the naive view that has prevailed until only recently and highlights the enormous distance in perspective that exists between the different generations. These generations, though they occupy the same historical stage, do so from diverse situational and experiential levels.
Various authors (Dromel, Lorenz, Petersen, Wechssler, Pinder, Drerup, Mannheim, and so on) have addressed the theme of the generations, but it is Ortega y Gasset who must be recognized for having established in his theory of generations the key to understanding the intrinsic movement of the historical process.31 If we are to find an explanation for the way that events unfold, we will have to make an effort similar to that of Aristotle, who in his time tried to explain movement through the concepts of potency and act. Now as then, arguments based on sensory perception prove insufficient to explain movement, and so today it is not sufficient to explain historical becoming by means of factors to which the human being responds merely passively, or as the transmission mechanism of an agent that remains external.
3.3 Human History
We have seen that the human being’s open constitution refers to the world, not simply in an ontic but in an ontological sense. We have, moreover, considered that in this open constitution the future predominates as pro-ject and as finality. This constitution, projected and open, inevitably structures the moment in which it finds itself into a landscape as present situation. This takes place through the “intercrossing” of temporal retentions and protensions that are in no way arranged as linear “nows” but as actualizations of different times.
To this we should add: In every situation, the reference is always one’s body. In the body, one’s subjective moment is related to objectivity, and it is through the body that “interiority” or “exteriority” can be understood, according to the direction given to one’s intention, to one’s “look.” Facing this body is all-that-is-not-itself, recognized as that which is not immediately dependent on one’s own intentionality but susceptible to being acted upon through the intermediation of one’s own body. Thus, the world in general and other human bodies within reach of one’s body (of which one registers the action) set the conditions in which the human constitution configures its situation. These conditionings determine the situation and present themselves as possibilities for the future (in future relationship with one’s own body). In this way, the present situation can be understood as modifiable in the future.
The world is experienced as external to the body, but the body is also seen as part of the world since it acts in the world and receives the action of the world. In this way, corporality is also a temporal configuration, a living history launched toward action, toward future possibility. The body becomes prosthesis of the intention, responding to placing-oneself-before-the-intention in both temporal and spatial senses—temporally, in the measure that the body can actualize in the future the possibility of intention, and spatially, insofar as representation and image of intention.32
The destiny of the body is the world, and insofar as it is part of the world its destiny is to transform itself. In this unfolding, objects are amplifications of corporal possibilities and the bodies of others appear as multiplications of those possibilities, insofar as they are governed by intentions recognized as similar to those that govern one’s own body.
What is it about the human constitution that necessitates this transformation of the world and itself? It is the situation of temporo-spatial finitude and deficiency in which it finds itself. This situation is registered, according to the distinct conditioning factors, as pain (physical) and suffering (mental). Thus, the surpassing of pain is not simply an animal response but a temporal configuration in which the future predominates. Hence, it is a fundamental vital impulse, even when life does not find itself in a desperate situation at any given moment. Suffering in the face of danger, re-presented as future possibilities, and present actualities in which pain is present in other human beings both trigger not only a natural, immediate, reflex response but also a deferred response, along with construction to avoid pain. The surpassing of pain appears, then, as a basic project that guides action. And it is that intention which has made possible communication among diverse bodies and intentions in what we call the “social constitution.”
Social constitution is as historical as human life, it configures human life. Its transformation is continuous, but in a different way than that of nature. In the latter, changes do not take place due to intentions. Nature appears as both a “resource” for surpassing pain and suffering and a “danger” to the human constitution, and this is why the destiny of nature itself is to be humanized, intentionalized. And the body, inasmuch as it is natural, inasmuch as it is danger and limitation, shares the same end: to be intentionally transformed, not only in position but in motor resources; not only in exteriority but in interiority; not only in confrontation but in adaptation.
In the measure that the human horizon expands, the natural world, as nature, recedes. Social production continues and expands—but this continuity does not occur through the presence of social objects alone, objects that, while carriers of human intentions, have not (until now) been able to continue extending themselves. This continuity is given by human generations, which are not placed “one beside the other” but instead interact with and transform each other. These generations are what allows continuity and development—they are dynamic structures, social time in movement, without which society would fall back into a natural state, losing its condition as society.
It happens, moreover, that in every historical moment, generations of different temporal levels, with different retentions and protensions, coexist—and therefore configure different landscapes of situation. The bodies and behavior of children and the elderly reveal, for the active generations, the presence of what they have come from and toward what they are moving; in turn, for the extremes of that triple relationship, they reveal the other extreme of temporal position. But this never remains fixed, because while the active generations become older and the elderly die, children are transformed and begin to occupy active positions. Meanwhile, new births continuously reconstitute society.
When, through abstraction, this incessant flow is “stopped,” we can speak of a “historical moment” in which all the members who share the same social stage may be considered contemporaries, living in the same time (insofar as dateability is concerned). But they are also coetaneous in a nonhomogeneous way with respect to their internal temporality (memory, project, and landscape of situation). In reality, the generational dialectic is established among the most contiguous “strata,” which try to occupy the central activity (the social present) in accordance with their interests and beliefs. The ideas that the generations in dialectic express take shape and are founded upon the basic prepredicates of each generation’s own formation, which includes an internal register of a possible future.
Clearly, it is possible to understand the larger processes (the “molecular dynamics,” so to speak, of historical life) beginning from the smallest element, the minimum “atom” of the historical moment. Of course, this would require the development of a complete theory of history, an undertaking that certainly lies beyond the scope of this brief essay.
3.4 The Prerequisites for Historiology
It is not for me to determine what characteristics historiology should, as a science, possess. That is the task of historiologists and epistemologists. Our concern has centered on raising the questions necessary for a fundamental understanding of historical phenomena as seen “from within.” Without this foundation, historiology could become a science of history in the formal sense, but not a science of human temporality in the profound sense.
Having understood the temporo-spatial structure of human life and its socio-generational dynamic, we are now in a position to say that without incorporating these concepts there will be no coherent historiology. Indeed, it is precisely these concepts that become the prerequisites for the future science of history.
Let us consider some final ideas. The discovery of human life as opening has broken the old barriers, accepted by earlier philosophies, that have existed between an “interiority” and an “exteriority.” Previous philosophies have also failed to give a sufficient account of how it is that the human being apprehends and acts within spatiality. Claiming that time and space are categories of knowledge tells us nothing about the temporo-spatial constitution of the world, and of the human being in particular. That is why an unbridgeable gap has, until now, divided philosophy and the physical-mathematical sciences. These sciences have given their own particular views about the extension and duration of the human being and its internal and external processes. The deficiencies of earlier philosophy have nevertheless permitted it a fruitful independence from the physical-mathematical sciences. This has, however, brought with it certain difficulties for understanding the human being and its meaning, and therefore the meaning of the world. So it is that primitive historiology has struggled in the obscurity of its fundamental concepts.
Today, understanding the structural constitution of human life and the role that temporality and spatiality play in this constitution, we are in a position to know how to act toward the future, leaving behind the “natural” being-thrown-into-the-world, leaving behind the pre history of the natural being, and intentionally generating a world history as the world is converted into the pros-thesis of human society.
Notes to Historiological Discussions
1 “This word—historiology—is used here I believe for the first time.…” And further on: “Unacceptable in current historiography and philology is the disparity between the precision employed to get or to handle data, and the imprecision—even more, the intellectual poverty—in the use of constructive ideas.
“Against this state of affairs in the realm of History, there raises up historiology. It is moved by the conviction that History, like empirical science, above all has to be construction and not a ‘gluey mass’—to use the words that Hegel hurls again and again at the historians of his time. The case that the historians could have against Hegel, by opposing [the idea] that the body of history should be constructed directly by philosophy, does not justify the tendency, even more marked in that century, of being content with a sticking together of data. With a hundredth part of what for some time has already been gathered and polished, it was enough to work out some kind of scientific conduct much more authentic and substantial than so much, in effect, that History books offer us.” Translated in Theory of History in Ortega y Gasset: The Dawn of Historical Reason, J. T. Graham (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997, Appendix, “Hegel and Historiology”). Originally published as La Filosofía de la Historia de Hegel y la Historiología, J. Ortega y Gasset, Revista de Occidente (February 1928). Reprinted in Kant, Hegel, Scheler (Madrid: Alianza, 1982, pp. 61 and 72).
2 Herodotus, 484–420 b.c.e. See e.g. Herodotus: The Histories (New York: Norton, 1992).
3 Titus Livius Livy, 59 b.c.e.–17 c.e., History of Rome (later known as The Decades).
4 For example, consider the following quotation: “I begin this work with the time when Servius Galba, with Titus Vinius for his colleague, was consul for the second time. Many authors have given accounts of the earlier period, the 820 years dating from the founding of the city, and many of them wrote of the dealings of the Roman people with eloquence and freedom. After the conflict at Actium, when for the sake of peace it became necessary that all power should be centered in one man, these great intellects vanished. And with this, history’s truths suffered in many ways.” The Histories, Tacitus. Unpublished translation from the Latin by Salvatore Puledda and Daniel Zuckerbrot.
5 Virgil lived between 70 and 19 b.c.e. The poet began his masterwork as Augustus was consolidating the empire following the battle of Actium. Thanks to his earlier works, The Bucolics and The Georgics, Virgil was already a celebrity. But starting with The Aeneid, he gained the favor of the emperor. Of course, he was not a courtier like Theocritus or a mercenary like Pindar, but nonetheless he was someone whose interests coincided with those of officialdom.
Within the epic Aeneid Virgil embeds the genealogy of Rome. There he traces the history of Rome back to the moment at the end of the Trojan War when the gods prophesy to Aeneas that his descendants will govern the world. On the shield that Vulcan forges for the hero appear the images of the history that is to come, up to the central figure of Octavian (Augustus), the emperor who will bring universal peace.
In Virgil, the meaning of history is divine, because it is the gods who direct human actions to fit their own designs (as also occurs in the Homeric source of his inspiration). However, this does not prevent Virgil from interpreting this destiny from the perspective of the earthly interests of the poet and his protector. In the fourteenth century, The Divine Comedy will appear, in which another poet will take up the story, making Virgil the guide in his incursions through mysterious territories and considerably reinforcing the authority of the Virgilian model.
6 Here is one such case. In reference to the Book of Daniel, the encyclical of Pius XII, Divino Afflante Spiritu, speaks of “the still unresolved difficulties of the text.” Though he does not enumerate them, we can point to some. For example, the book survives in three languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. The Hebrew and Aramaic portions fall within the Jewish canonical scriptures. The Catholic Church has recognized the seventh-century Greek version as part of its own apostolic scriptures. The Jews do not include Daniel among their prophets but as part of their Hagiographa. On the other hand, some Christians, inspired by the Scriptures edited by the United Biblical Societies (the 1569 version of Casiodoro de Reina), find themselves with a Daniel considerably at variance with that of the Catholics, for example the version of Eloíno Nácar Fúster and A. Colunga. This does not seem to be simply a mistake, since the version of Casiodoro de Reina was revised by Cyprian de Valera (1602), with subsequent revisions appearing in 1862, 1908, and 1960. In addition, the Catholic version contains some sections that do not appear in the Protestant version, including Deuteronomy (Gr. 3, 24–90) and the Appendix (Gr. 13–14).
The greater difficulties lie not in these matters, however, but in the text itself. Here we find, for example, that the incident in which Daniel is taken to the royal palace in Babylon is placed after the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim (605 b.c.e.). However, that event took place before the two other deportations that historically we know occurred in 598 and 587 b.c.e. As the scholar M. Revuelta Sañudo observes in a note to the Bible (23rd edition, Paulinas): “The historical references in the first six chapters are not in agreement with what history tells us. According to the text, Belshazzar is the son and immediate successor of Nebuchadnezzar and the last king in the dynasty. In reality, Nebuchadnezzar’s successor was his son Evil-Merodac (Avil-Marduk, 562–560 b.c.e.), and his fourth non-dynastic successor was Nabonidus (Nabu-na’id, 556–539), who brought to the throne his son Belshazzar. Finally, Babylon fell into the hands of Cyrus, not Darius the Mede who does not appear in the historical record.”
These historical defects should not be understood as alterations made in bad faith but as one more cumulative element in the distortion of the text. Meanwhile, the prophetic vision of Daniel gives a narrative of the succession of kingdoms in the form of allegories about the horns of a ram, which are none other than the kings: Alexander the Great; Seleucus I Nicator; Antiochus I Soter; Antiochus II Kallinikos; Seleucus III Ceraunus; Antiochus III the Great; Seleucus IV Philopater; Heliodorus; and Demetrius I Soter. Interpreting these allegories in a not very rigorous fashion, one could think that the prophetic spirit of Daniel is foretelling events that lay several centuries ahead. But if the explanation is read carefully, one sees expressions that correspond to usage more than three centuries later. Thus, he says: “The two horns of the lamb that you have seen are the kings of Medea and Persia; the ‘he-goat’ is the king of Greece, and the large horn between his eyes is the first king, and when it breaks, the other horns appear in its place—four kings will rise in the nation, though they will not be as strong as the first.” Clearly this refers to the struggle between the Persian Empire and Macedonia (334–331 b.c.e.) and the fragmentation of Alexander’s young empire at the time of his death. Daniel appears to be prophesying events that will take place 250 years later, while in reality these are interpolations likely added under the influence of the Maccabees in the first century b.c.e., or perhaps even later under Christian influence. In 11, 1–5 we read: “Three more kings will appear in Persia, and the fourth will far surpass all the others in wealth; and when he has extended his power through his wealth, he will rouse the whole world against the kingdom of Greece. Then there will appear a warrior king. He will rule a vast kingdom and will do what he chooses. But as soon as he is established, his kingdom will be shattered and split up, north, south, east and west. It will not pass to his descendants, nor will any of his successors have an empire like his; his kingdom will be torn up by the roots and given to others as well as to them” (The New English Bible, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970). Indeed, Alexander’s empire was divided at his death (323 b.c.e.) among his generals (not his descendants) into four kingdoms: Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and Macedonia. In Maccabees these historical facts are given without artifice, but Maccabees was written in Hebrew, probably between 100 and 60 b.c.e.
Finally, the differences in meaning among the diverse translations are remarkable, as can be seen in comparing the Jewish and Catholic versions. With respect to Daniel 12, 4, the first says: “Many will appear and wisdom will increase” (from the Hebrew text edited by M. H. Leteris, translated to Spanish by A. Usqe, Buenos Aires: Editorial Estrellas, 1945), whereas the Catholic version presents it as follows: “Many shall be lost and iniquity shall increase.” The historical distortion in Daniel ends up lending great prophetic authority to that book, and because of that John of Patmos uses that same system of allegorization in The Revelation of St. John (particularly 17, 1–16), with the result that the old model is reinforced and the latter book gains in prestige.
7 The systematic manipulation of the news media has been addressed not only by historiographers and scholars in this field but also by authors of fiction, among them George Orwell, who in his book 1984 gave one of the more complete descriptions.
8 My point of view, according to which historical fact is apprehended not as it is but as we wish to understand it, finds its justification in this, and not in a Kantian perspective that would deny the possibility of knowledge of the thing-itself, nor in a skeptical relativism with respect to the object of historical knowledge. In the same sense I have said: “Of course, the historical process will continue to be understood as the development of a form that is, when all is said and done, nothing but the mental form of those who view things in that particular way. And it does not matter what sort of dogma is appealed to, the background that dictates one’s adherence to that position will always be that-which-one-wants-to-see.” Humanize the Earth, “The Human Landscape,” Silo: Collected Works, Volume I (San Diego: Latitude Press, 2003, Chapter VII, paragraph 2).
9 Remembering Schliemann, for example, and his (for many at the time) disconcerting discoveries.
10 Many historians working in other fields have reasoned in this way; for example, Worringer in Abstraction und Einfühlung, where he deals with the question of style in art. Because such a study must necessarily appeal to a conception of historical fact, this author psychologizes the history of art (and psychologizes the historical interpretations of artistic phenomena), making an awkward but conscientious declaration of his own point of view. “This is the end result of a deeply ingrained error regarding the essence of art in general. This error has its expression in the belief, sanctioned through many centuries, that the history of art is the history of artistic capacity, and that its self-evident and constant goal is the artistic reproduction of natural models. Consequently, artistic progress was seen in the increasing veracity and naturalness of the representation. The question of artistic will was never raised because that will seemed to be fixed and indisputable. Capacity alone was the problem in question, never the will. It was believed, then, really, that humanity needed thousands of years to learn to draw with exactness, that is, with natural truth; it was truly believed, that in each moment artistic production was determined by the increase or decrease of this capacity. Passing unnoticed in all of this—even though so close and so necessary for the researcher who wants to understand many situations in the history of art—was the knowledge that this capacity is only a secondary aspect that receives its determination and its norms from the will, the superior and uniquely determining factor. Nevertheless, current research in the sphere of art can no longer, as we have said, make do without this knowledge. For such research the following maxim is axiomatic: We have been able to do everything that we have wanted, and what we haven’t done is because it is not within the direction of artistic will. The will, which used to be indisputable, now becomes itself the focus of research, and capacity is now excluded as the criteria of value.” Translated from La Esencia del Estilo Gótico, G. Worringer (Buenos Aires: Revista de Occidente Argentina, 1948, pp. 18, 19).
11 Giovanni Battista Vico, 1668–1744.
12 This is the subject matter of the first, second, and fourth parts of Vico’s Principi di scienza nuova d’intorno alla natura delle nazioni, per li quali si ritrovano altri principi del diritto naturale delle genti.
13 The New Science, Giovanni Battista Vico, third edition, 1744, transl. T. Goddard Bergin and M. Haraold Fisch (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1948, p. 91, par. 342).
14 The New Science, Vico.
15 La filosofia di G. B. Vico e l’età barocca, Lorenzo Giusso (Rome: Editrice Perella, 1943).
16 Johann Gottfried von Herder, 1744–1803.
17 In reality, this is a “bio-cultural” conception of history, but not in itself less philosophical than any other. As for the designation, Voltaire is among the first to have spoken of the “philosophy of history.”
18 Auguste Comte, 1798–1857.
19 Discours sur l’esprit positif, A. Comte (Paris: Librairie Schleicher Freres, 1909, par. 73). Note that this is not present in par. 73 of the French edition of the International Positivist Society.
20 Oswald Spengler, 1880–1936.
21 The Decline of the West, Vol. 1, “Form and Actuality,” Oswald Spengler (New York: A. Knopf. 1932, p. 3, Introduction).
22 The Hour of Decision, Part One: Germany and World-Historical Evolution, Oswald Spengler (New York: Knopf, 1934).
23 Arnold Toynbee, 1899–1975.
24 Hegel’s Science of Logic, G.W.F. Hegel, transl. A. V. Miller (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, Humanities Paperback Library, 1991).
25 In a note to the Spanish edition of Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations, M. Presas makes the following observations: “The Fifth Meditation responds to the objection of transcendental solipsism and can be considered—following the opinion of Ricoeur—as the equivalent of, and substitute for, Descartes’s ontology introduced in the Third Meditation by means of the idea of the infinite and by the recognition of being in the very presence of this idea. While Descartes relied on God in order to transcend the cogito, Husserl transcended the ego by means of the alter ego. Hence, just as Descartes had searched for the superior foundation of objectivity in divine truth, Husserl sought it in a philosophy of intersubjectivity.” Cf. Etude sur les Meditations Cartésiennes de Husserl, P. Ricoeur, Revue Philosophique de Louvain (53, 1954, p. 77).
It is with the motive of introducing the reduction that Husserl proposes the problem of intersubjectivity in this way. Five years later, in the lectures entitled Grundprobleme der Phanomenologie (given in Gottingen during the winter semester of 1910–11), Husserl extended the reduction to the reduction of intersubjectivity. On various occasions he referred to these lectures (published in volume XIII of Husserliana), above all in his Formal and Transcendental Logic. There he gives a short exposition of the investigations, which will later appear in the Cartesian Meditations; but he points out that there are many and difficult special investigations to make explicit, which he hopes to publish in the next year. However, as is well known, Husserl did not publish the investigations on specific topics referring to intersubjectivity. Meditaciones Cartesianas, E. Husserl (Madrid: Ediciones Paulinas, 1979, p. 150n).
Tr.1 Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology, E. Husserl, transl. D. Cairns (The Hague, Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1982, section 44, p. 99).
26 Abu Muhammed Ali bin Ahmad bin Said Ibn Hazm, 994–1063. From “Cuidado,” Diccionario de Filosofía, José Ferrater Mora (Madrid: Alianza, 1984).
Tr.2 Being and Time, M. Heidegger, transl. J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson (San Francisco: Harper, 1962, p. 481, H 429).
27 “The principal thesis of the ordinary way of interpreting time—namely, that time is ‘infinite’—makes manifest most impressively the way in which world-time and accordingly temporality in general have been levelled off and covered up by such an interpretation. It is held that time presents itself proximally as an uninterrupted sequence of ‘nows.’ Every ‘now,’ moreover, is already a ‘just now’ or a ‘forthwith.’ If in characterizing time we stick primarily and exclusively to such a sequence, then in principle neither beginning nor end can be found in it. Every last ‘now,’ as ‘now,’ is always already a ‘forthwith’ that is no longer; thus it is time in the sense of the ‘no longer now’—in the sense of the past. Every first ‘now’ is a ‘just-now’ that is not yet; thus it is time in the sense of the ‘not-yet-now’—in the sense of the ‘future.’ Hence time is endless ‘on both sides.’ This thesis becomes possible only on the basis of an orientation towards a free-floating ‘in-itself’ of a course of ‘nows’ which is present-at-hand—an orientation in which the full phenomenon of the ‘now’ has been covered up with regard to its dateability, its worldhood, its spannedness, and its character of having a location of the same kind as Dasein’s, so that it has dwindled to an unrecognizable fragment. If one directs one’s glance toward Being-present-at-hand and not-Being-present-at-hand, and thus ‘thinks’ the sequence on ‘nows’ through ‘to the end,’ then an end can never be found. In this way of thinking time through to the end, one must always think more time; from this one infers that time is infinite.” Being and Time. M. Heidegger (p. 481, H 429).
Tr.3 Being and Time, M. Heidegger (p. 478, Section 81, H 426).
Tr.4 Being and Time, M. Heidegger (p. 381, Section 66, H 332).
28 This in spite of Husserl’s declaration: “…I have nothing to do with Heideggerian wisdom, with that genial lack of scientificity.” Cited by Iso Kern, vol. 15 of Husserliana, XXss.
29 So indispensable is the concept of “landscape” that it appears as something obvious in the writings of contemporary physicists. Erwin Schrödinger, an eminent representative of this field, says:
What is matter? How are we to picture matter in our mind?
The first form of the question is ludicrous. (How should we say what matter is—or, if it comes to that, what electricity is—both being phenomena given to us once only?) The second form already betrays the whole change of attitude: matter is an image in our mind—mind is thus prior to matter (notwithstanding the strange empirical dependence of my mental processes on the physical data of a certain portion of matter, viz. my brain).
During the second half of the nineteenth century matter seemed to be the permanent thing to which we could cling. There was a piece of matter that had never been created (as far as the physicist knew) and could never be destroyed! You could hold on to it and feel that it would not dwindle away under your fingers.
Moreover this matter, the physicist asserted, was with regard to its demeanor, its motion, subject to rigid laws—every bit of it was. It moved according to the forces which neighboring parts of matter, according to their relative situations, exerted on it. You could foretell the behavior, it was rigidly determined in all the future by the initial conditions.
This was all quite pleasing, anyhow in physical science, insofar as external inanimate matter comes into play. When applied to the matter that constitutes our own body or the bodies of our friends, or even that of our cat or our dog, a well-known difficulty arises with regard to the apparent freedom of living beings to move their limbs at their own will. We shall enter on this question later.… At the moment I wish to try and explain the radical change in our ideas about matter that has taken place in the course of the last half-century. It came about gradually, inadvertently, without anybody aiming at such a change. We believed we moved still within the old ‘materialistic’ frame of ideas, when it turned out that we had left it.” Nature and the Greeks and Science and Humanism, E. Schrödinger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 115–116).
30 No natural being, no animal—no matter how great their capacity of work or how social their order or family may be—has produced such profound changes as the human being. Nevertheless, for a long time the evidence of this seems not to have mattered. If today, as a result in part of the technological revolution and the changes brought about in the modes of production, information, and communication, such evidence is recognized, it is clear that many still do this reluctantly, as they cast doubt on these changes by warning of the “dangers” that these advances present for life. In this fashion, the unsustainable view of the passivity of the consciousness has been translated into a consciousness guilty of transgressing against a supposed natural order.
31 How it is possible that such a conception has passed almost unnoticed by the world of historiology? This is one of the great mysteries, or better still tragedies. Its explanation can be found in the prepredicates of the epoch, which exercise such enormous influence in the cultural environment. In the period of German, French, and Anglo-Saxon ideological supremacy, the works of Ortega y Gasset were associated with a Spain that, in contrast to today, was marching against the flow of the historical process. Making matters worse was the limited and biased exegesis of his prolific output made by some of his commentators. From another angle, he paid dearly for his efforts to translate the important themes of philosophy into an accessible, almost journalistic language, something that proved unforgivable to the mandarins of academic pedantry of recent decades.
32 See “Psychology of the Image” in Contributions to Thought, Silo. Originally published as “Psicología de la Imagen” in Contribuciones al Pensamiento (Buenos Aires: Planeta, 1991).

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